Work Text:
“I still hate you, you know.”
Marion had barely looked at Indy, let alone said two words since they left Nepal.
And now she sat facing the singular window in the tiny dining room of the small boat bearing them towards Morroco.
She would’ve just stayed in her cabin the entire time if it wasn’t so cramped it made her seasick. She needed air, and unfortunately with the porthole came his company.
“Well, you’re here aren’t you?” he murmured from behind her.
“Well, you burned down my home and my job so… not like I had much of a choice.”
“Yeah, wasn’t exactly mine either, sweetheart.”
Marion flipped him off over her shoulder.
After a moment she heard him sigh. “I’m still sorry you know. For everything.”
He really did sound… lost, and like perhaps he was actually sorry after all these years.
She heard a cork pop and felt him nudge a bottle against her arm.
With a death glare, she accepted it. Cheap rum he’d found somewhere in the boat’s dirty kitchen, but it would do.
It helped her seasickness, and after a few sips she felt her anger mellowing a bit as well.
“It wasn’t entirely you, I guess. I was 18. The fuck does anyone know at 18? You make stupid choices.”
“I was 24. I knew better.”
“With all due respect, which isn’t much, you were a dumbass too.”
She handed him back the bottle, and turned from the window, facing him for the first time.
“I really wouldn’t have been so mad at you except for the fact that… you left. All that big talk about taking me out of that place, making me a partner in your studies, and then you disappear. Leave me with my dad, then he has a stroke and I can’t leave him alone. Wasn’t much left for me to do but take his place there. You know what running an isolated dive bar is like for an 18-year-old girl? Not the most pleasant experience.”
She met his eyes, and to her surprise they were full of genuine regret, and hurt.
‘Good’, she thought. ‘Let him feel like I did 10 years ago.’
His hand shook a bit as he took a drink. “I can’t imagine what it was like, no.”
Marion shrugged. “I did what I had to do. I guess that life is what I would’ve had if you’d never come along in the first place, so what does it really matter? It just hurt that I thought I had a chance, and you took it away.”
“Not that it makes it any better, but I had a fellowship. I had an opportunity. I had to go.”
“And you never would’ve gotten that opportunity without my dad’s connections. You were an idiot.”
Indy chuckled with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“I was then, yeah, but that job made me not so much of an idiot. It doesn’t change that I felt like shit for what I did to you. And then when your dad found out…”
Marion snorted.“Yeah, when he found out about us, he was sorry he ever got you that damn fellowship, and he sent you to the ends of the Earth, to the worst places he could find. And I was happy when he did it.”
She took a slow draw from the bottle, hating how she still felt a twinge of nostalgia.
”For a few months, I was happy. Til I missed you. And by then, I had no way to find you.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I was miserable. I caught every disease you could catch, went without food for days at a time and wanted to quit everything, but it was all I had. If I didn’t prove your dad wrong about me, I’d never have been anything in my field.”
“Oh I know. He sure did his best to destroy your reputation after me.”
She stared out the window at the sea for a long moment. “You could’ve written.”
“Yeah, sure. There isn’t exactly a post office in the fucking Aztec jungle. I didn’t even know if you’d still be there if I could.”
Marion struck a match on the table, lighting a cigarette. “Sounds tough. Try selling your body to pay for food at 19.”
A few minutes of heavy silence followed.
The two passed the rum back and forth until Indy took the last swig, setting the empty bottle down heavily.
“I really can’t ever say anything to make this better, can I.”
Marion shook her head, grinning in resignation. “No, you can’t. We were both stupid. And we both have to live with our decisions. It’s my decision if you get my forgiveness or not.”
Indy nodded slowly. “True enough.”
Another moment of silence, until Marion broke it with a question. “Why’d you come back when you did?”
“What?”
“Why’d you come back to the bar that night? You could’ve fucked off and went along with your life again. You’re… creative. You would’ve found some other way to get what you’re after without my medallion.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Don’t play coy with me, Jones. I know you better than you’d like to think.”
A thought struck her then, and Marion wasn’t sure if it was that or the rum but she broke into uncontrollable laughter.
“God, you really did take me away from that place after all, didn’t you? Ten years too late and a little more violent than I would’ve pictured, but you got me out of fucking Nepal, Jones!”
He seemed to find the dark humor in it too, and soon they were both hysterical, leaning on each other to catch their breath.
Marion playfully punched him in the shoulder, wiping her eyes. “It wasn’t all bad I guess. You tought me some things.”
“Yeah, guess I can say I did.” Their faces were inches away now, and Marion hated that there was still a flutter low in her stomach when he glanced at her lips.
“Still do that thing with your mouth I taught you?”
She grinned in spite of herself. “Still do that thing with your fingers?”
He snaked an arm around her, pulling her close. “Care to find out?”
She took the wrist that was around her waist and squeezed it just enough to sting. “Ask me tomorrow, Jones.”
With a smirk, she flicked the brim of his hat before walking away towards her own cabin for the night.
She knew Indy probably regretted coming back into her life.
But strangely, she was starting not to.