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ptahrrific) wrote2023-10-01 01:46 am
Come In From The Night - the making of
...Not actually sure when I first wrote the original scenes. Just that, based on Google Docs' version history, I copied them into their own file on October 17, 2022...wrote a few more chunks on October 18...and then put the whole thing aside until April 14, 2023.
In terms of the main Cover of Knight collection, that's shortly after I posted 34: Brush Tunnel -- which I knew at the time would be CoK's last Sam-and-Bucky chapter. So I finally knew, for sure, where they'd stand in canon at the start of the Reveal Fic.
Gonna go ahead and share the full October 18 text here. It's just over 2.2K words, and they come in distinct chunks, which makes it easy to put annotations in between.
First! The plot needed Sam, Bucky, and Jake all together at the synagogue, with Layla at a safe distance. And I had some jokes in mind for Walker.
What I didn't have was a really satisfying setup to get them all together.
You can see the handwaving in this original version of a scene from Chapter 1:
"Scarlet Scarab couldn't make it?"
"Civilian identity's got some baggage around those parts," says Dark Mode Moon Knight gruffly. "And her costume doesn't come with a mask. We decided not to risk it. Who's this guy?"
"More baggage," says Bucky.
"Hey, I am trying, here," says Walker.
Sam allows himself one (1) heavy sigh before giving into some useful information. "There's already a US government investigation into this group. They'd rather we not do a rogue mission without at least having one of their hand-picked guys on the team. And me and Buck are trying to save putting our feet down for a real emergency. Is this one?"
"Say the word, and we'll dump him," adds Bucky. "Seriously. Please."
"He's kidding," says Sam. "Mostly."
Dark Mode gives them a flat glare. Even more so than with how much his mask is always a flat glare. "Do you guys trust him?"
Sam and Bucky share a look.
"Listen, he's done bad things in his life, all right?" says Bucky. "He's working on a redemption arc. Lots of us are doing that. I trust that he'll be sincerely working on it here."
"Full disclosure," adds Sam, "we did tell him you're a vet, because we're not sure he wouldn't have gone rogue otherwise."
"I swear, I won't get in the way," says Walker, standing stiff with military bearing. "It's your op, I'm here to support it. You're making the calls -- I'm just following orders."
"He say things like that a lot?" demands Dark Mode, audibly wincing.
Bucky sighs. "You learn to tune him out."
...yeah, the setup went backward. It was a Moon Knight op that Sam and Bucky got an under-the-table invite to.
While the reveal fic was backburnered, some of the character development was "Bucky does some research into Marc's wallet name." And "Marc decides he's okay being in Bucky's contacts." And "Sam+Bucky pick up that Elias is a sensitive subject, while Marc picks up that he can trust them, at least enough not to be constantly second-guessing their ability to interact with Elias."
So now it's a Sam+Bucky op, where they notice Marc's dad is involved and predict that Marc will want, if nothing else, a heads-up.
Which works a lot better! They get to be more prepared; Walker's presence is less contrived; and they can bring extra teammates to spread out the exposition. Generally makes the whole thing feel more filled-in.
Next: Rabbi Spector's first conversation with his superheroic visitors. Most of these lines ended up in chapter 1, although a lot of them got moved to different characters:
"He's the rabbi, you moron!"
Walker does a confused double-take. "He...is? He doesn't look Jewish."
The chorus of groans around him, punctuated with an "oh, come on, man" from Sam, practically shakes the trees.
"If...you don't mind my asking," says the rabbi cautiously. "I'm grateful for the offer of help, and it is very exciting to meet so many distinguished superheroes, but...this isn't the first time we've had, you know, aggressive sorts of visitors. Why now?"
What a perfectly reasonable question that is kicking Sam directly in the ideological shins.
"We got a tip there might be something metahuman involved this time," says Bucky. "Courtesy of that guy."
His metal arm glints in the moonlight as he gestures with an open palm toward the roof of the synagogue. Dark Mode's costume almost totally blends into the dark sky, except the cape. It's a bright white (there's no light falling on it), billowing outward (there's no wind), making the shape of a crescent moon (Strange must be so mad that someone is finally beating him at his cape game).
In the final version I put Sam on A Task somewhere else, so Bucky gets all those lines, instead of the two of them having to tag-team.
Also: At this point, all I had in mind for the bad guys was "alt-right something something probably QAnon idk."
They really came together when I figured out I could center their plans on a version of Reuben Davis! He really improved this scene too, giving Elias a concrete reason to show up at the synagogue in the first place, and he's better than Elias at delivering the more accusatory lines.
I...honestly don't remember when I came up with this? Must've been thinking it over before the idea got written down, and I have no idea for how long.
The zombies came with Reuben too, so the original vague idea for the fight scenes was "alt-right something something bad guys vs. Jake directly."
Didn't have any special ideas for what to put in them, except this one slam from Jake. In the final fic he doesn't encounter the human bad guys until chapter 4, when they're already defeated and tied-up, but he drops a version of it anyway:
"I'm ex-US-military, pendejos! I've killed more brown people in an afternoon than all you pathetic cosplayers have in your whole lives! You're a bunch of insecure, cowardly posers who want all the violence with none of the risk!"
You think maybe Jake has some conflicted feelings about his time in the Marines?
The final version of the zombies-vs-Jake montage did get some good moments. I like how it came out...
But the much-more-important conflict here is Steven-vs-Jake.
Their clash over whether to help Elias at the end of chapter 2 is here, and the final version is impressively unchanged from what I originally wrote:
Jake? demands Steven. Jake, what are you waiting for? Go!
"Let him know what it's like, ay?" hisses Jake.
What are you talking about?
Under the mask, Jake's face spreads in a feral grin. "Let him know how it feels when you realize nobody is coming to help you."
Don't you dare. Don't you dare. You don't want to help him, give me the body and I will. This isn't going to make anything better!
"You sure? I'm feelin' better just thinking about it."
Oh, I'm sure it'll be really bloody satisfying in the moment! yells Steven. Bit of revenge, bit of karmic justice, it'll be downright orgasmic, won't it? For a minute. Or five. Maybe ten. But you know what happens next, Jake! We'll wake up tomorrow and you won't be any happier than you are now, and I won't be any happier than I am now, and Marc will try to put a crescent dart through our spine the next time we leave him alone! It's not worth it, Jake, do you hear me? It is Not. Fucking. Worth it!
-- and then Steven has the body, thank fuck.
Dialogue didn't change -- but the original staging I had in mind was pretty different:
For maximum drama, have Rabbi Spector cornered in the sanctuary, with Jake+Steven watching from the gallery above. They're in shadow, but Jake is painfully/gleefully aware that he could take a couple steps forward, come into Elias's field of vision, then let Elias get attacked in the full knowledge that this looming figure is just watching, silent and unhelpful.
Once Steven gets the body, he leaps down to the main floor, manages to stick the landing without falling over, and throws himself in front of Elias to fight off Vague Alt-Right Attacker #1 Details TBD.
So, listen, the mental images are cool! But I was waiting to come up with a good reason why Elias would be in the sanctuary in the first place, and kinda never did.
...at this point, you might be thinking about the classic trope of "faithful Jewish protagonist physically shields Torah scrolls from attackers."
I thought about it too. (And, whoo boy, how much that sight would've messed Jake up.)
But for all Elias's problems, I can't see "thinking of Marc as less valuable and worthy of protection than his religious texts" as one of them. If Elias was brave enough to protect the scrolls, he would've been brave enough to protect Marc in the first place.
I did have one line for Steven to yell during this fight scene, simultaneously subtweeting his last conversation with Jake and every single thing he knows about Elias:
"Because when someone is vulnerable -- and they're going to be hurt -- and you have the power to stop it -- you're supposed to bloody well protect them, aren't you?"
...and ended up cutting that, in favor of writing them a completely different interaction in chapter 3.
Quieter. More thoughtful. It has a reason for Elias to be there (AU Reuben again! He made so many things work, I'm telling you), and a natural way for them to separate, where Steven leaves to go back to the fighting and Elias promises to stay back behind a closed door.
(Also, it has more Gus, so. Clearly the better version.)
So, uh. The next thing in my text file is this incredibly underwhelming Reveal Moment.
I don't think it was originally written to go with the rest of the fic! Seems like the kind of thing I would've written to end one of the early Cover of Knight chapters -- and then thought "nah, this is way too lackluster, it needs much better buildup."
So I pasted it into my general Sam-and-Bucky idea section, i.e. here, just in case it had any good lines I could scavenge for reuse later:
"Look, let's not beat around the bush anymore, okay?" says Bucky. "Are you, like, two different guys?"
"...You know there's multiple Moon Knights."
"I'm asking if you, the Moon Knight standing in front of me right now, are actually two different guys at once. Don't know how that happens -- ghost possession, past life, one is the original human and the other is the cosmic spirit of the moon, whatever -- don't really need the details. Just. Are you?"
The man waits. And waits. And waits.
Then, in a snap, the black armor and fancy cape turns into the fancy white suit. He straightens his lapels, brushes some imaginary dust off the magically-clean fabric, and says, in the British accent, "Three, actually. We're like the Hulk, only with better dress sense. That going to be a problem?"
They're not imagining that his voice got a little shaky there, right?
"Nope," says Sam. "Not a problem with me."
"Banner's always been a cool guy in my book," adds Bucky.
"Don't go sharing this about, though, yeah?"
"Of course not."
"Not even with Walker."
"Especially not with Walker."
I do still like the "idk, is one of you the cosmic spirit of the moon?" line. (Actually cut that out of this scene, pasting it somewhere I thought I'd be using it -- that didn't pan out, so I've added it back in here.)
Not surprising the rest got completely dropped, though.
One of the reasons I wrote the Hulk in 14: Johannesburg was to explore why "we're like the Hulk, only with better dress sense" is not a great line for our guys to start using.
With that, we return to scenes that did end up in Come In From The Night. Specifically, the "Steven?" moment, a precursor to the version that appears in chapter 4:
And then Elias says:
"...Steven?"
(Well, fuck them all kinds of sideways.)
There's only one guy in this group whose first name they don't know. And he just completely froze up.
"I think you're getting your rumors mixed up, rabbi," says Bucky, when Dark Mode is obviously not gonna answer, before the silence can stretch on too long. "Steve Rogers is supposed to be on the moon, not rebranded as a moon superhero."
"Of course," says Elias, after a stuttering pause. "My mistake. Excuse me."
The main reason Steven reveals his name (along with Jake's) in chapter 1 is to set up this bit!
It has a lot more heft when the suspense for Sam+Bucky isn't just "Elias maybe knows one Moon Knight's name?", but "Elias knows a name that is definitely a Moon Knight's, although for some reason he addressed it to one of the Knights who doesn't sound anything like Steven, also that's the name of his son's boyfriend, and his son is one of the other Moon Knights, and he's probably not supposed to know any of this, what gives??"
This leads into a bit of interrogation about Steven-ness.
The earlier name reveal also let me flat-out drop this part. Team MK has enough to feel worried and vulnerable about -- I like this better as a personal detail they shared freely ahead of time, not a point of suspicion:
Sam is thinking he'll work up to it, then Bucky just goes, "Which one of you is Steven?"
"Nah, I know this trick," says Dark Mode Moon Knight. "Have a hunch, act like you know more than you do, hope I'll confirm somethin'. Not doing it."
"We've looked through Marc Spector's known associates," presses Bucky. "No Stevens in the bunch, and I know, I'd remember that name. But that's just records. Easy to alter, easy to erase. Rabbi Spector thought he recognized you -- not as Marc. So either he's suspicious about some Steven that he knows in a totally unrelated context, and it's a wild coincidence that his son is also a Moon Knight...or he's suspicious because he's put some pieces together about his son and one of his son's associates. Known to the Rabbi -- if not to anyone else, or any database -- as Steven. So. Which one of you is it?"
Related: this is also why "Sam+Bucky have looked into Marc's known associates" got worked into CoK, way back in 22: Cairo.
So that's also not a new reveal for our guys to panic about. It's something they've known for a while. Marc, in particular, has had time to get used to it, and to realize he's still comfortable trusting Bucky as a friend who knows that much.
And then we come to the "Invasive Personal Questions contest" scene.
The final version (also in chapter 4) got a better buildup, and some snappier zingers, but you can already see the general points I wanted to hit:
"Awfully personal questions you're getting into, compañero. You prepared to answer some back?"
"Sure. Question for a question. Hit me."
Dark Mode cocks his head. "You ever have sex with Steve Rogers?"
"Okay, okay, let's all just back the hell up," cuts in Sam.
Bucky, who's long past learning how to react to this question with only a clenched jaw and raised eyebrows, sighs. "He's just making a point, Sam. We get pushy and invasive, he's gonna get pushy and invasive."
"Yeah, I got that part," says Sam crisply. "And if you keep going with this, it'll turn into a thing where you're both competing to see who can ask something sensitive enough to make the other one back down, which means you'll be stabbing at each other's boundaries while stubbornly taking your own hits and hoping you can knock out the other guy before you bleed to death, and this is not a fun time, okay? This is not a contest either of you want to win! So we're all gonna step back, take a breath, and only share whatever we feel safe and comfortable sharing, none of this 'well I agreed to an Invasive Question contest so I have to follow through' BS. Got it?"
"...yeah, okay," says Bucky after a moment.
"Sure," adds Dark Mode. "If you say so."
"By the way," adds Bucky, "if you're one of those people who ever wondered why Steve gave Sam the shield...? That's why."
(Sam is not going to blush.)
Bucky's closing line here is a little out-of-nowhere. I went back and gave Jake a "why didn't Rogers give you the shield?" dig added in chapter 2 to set it up.
I didn't commit to "Sam/Bucky are actively on making-out terms" until 34: Brush Tunnel, let alone have Team MK find out about it. So at this point in the writing, Jake didn't have that available as "a known emotional vulnerability he can hit Bucky with."
(Sidenote about that: When Jake refers to "all the Captains America," he is not including John Walker. Sam and Bucky do not assume he's including John Walker. At no point does it even occur to them that Jake might be including John Walker.)
For a transition to the next scene, I originally just put this:
"Scarlet Scarab's waiting at a rendezvous point for a debrief. Gimme half an hour, wait on a goddamn rooftop or somethin', and if we decide there's anything you gotta know, we'll meet you there."
I guess the mental image for this conversation wasn't already on a rooftop? Seems like an oversight.
Glad I came up with stuff for Layla to do over the course of the fic. Chilling at a rendezvous point, waiting calmly for the guys to show up, isn't her style.
(This also came together with the Reuben Davis plot -- the original keeps Marlene busy, cold-cocking minions in graveyards, and researching how to deactivate zombies.)
But even with Team MK actively planning to come out to Sam+Bucky after this mission...yeah, no, half an hour was not enough cooldown-and-recuperating time. Not after the night they've had.
The draft ends with some pieces of what became the Important Rooftop Conversation in the final chapter 5.
At first I thought they would meet up at Gena's diner. Then I thought, no, this is going to get intense, better be the roof of Gena's diner. That whole angle got dropped in the final version, because the chapter didn't have room for serious Gena Content, and it didn't seem fair to tease her without any real follow-up.
Maybe in a future fic.
This first chunk of dialogue starts with a Face Reveal, though it's complicated because it has to double as a Name Reveal, and also for some reason I wrote Khonshu showing up and being a pain about it:
They're keeping watch on the roof of the debriefing diner when Scarlet Scarab soars up from the pavement, holding Reform Moon Knight in a princess carry.
Definitely Reform, not one of the others in the dinner-jacket version of the suit. It's written in the whole way he holds himself, in the shy little wave he gives them as the Scarab sets him on the rooftop, even before he starts talking: "Hey, chaps. Hell of a night, yeah?"
"You could say that," agrees Sam. "Did the other guy brief you on the details? Or were you doing the whole...telepathic listening-in thing?"
"Neither," says Reform, sounding tired. "Look, this is a very long story, just...just give me a minute..."
Scarab keeps a supportive hand on his shoulder while he rubs his temples through the mask.
Without warning, the soft fabric swishes back from his head and neck --
Hang on, that face is just --
"I'm Steven," says a man who looks exactly like Marc Spector. "We're -- we don't--"
The sight has Bucky's brain racing so hard that he barely notices Layla glaring daggers at a completely-empty part of the skyline.
...at least, until British Reform Steven Moon Knight whirls to face the same patch of air, jabs his finger at it, and shouts:
"No! Shut up! You are not in charge of what we tell anyone about our lives, and if you don't get the hell out of here right now, I will call Bast and Valkyrie and the Scarlet Witch and Arishem the bloody Judge and tell them you're bullying us! Is that clear? Do you think I'm kidding? Because I'm not!"
Turns out the glowing eyes aren't just magic lenses in the mask -- they blaze white in his bare face. For a moment it's more than the eyes, too: his whole body is haloed in soft white light, like moonglow scattered by fog.
"...is Khonshu on the roof with us?" asks Sam in a small voice.
It's Layla who answers, with grim satisfaction: "Well, he isn't now."
...gosh, the vague idea that our guys would eventually get Arishem the Judge on-call was optimistic, huh?
This does have some cool Steven imagery that I'd love to reuse later!
But I'm glad I wrote Khonshu in a more helpful mood at the beginning of this fic, and didn't have him interrupt at the end.
I repurposed some of his "unheard scolding of Team MK not to share their personal information so freely" energy in 15: Las Vegas. Though even that is softer -- Khonshu isn't giving orders, just being judgy, and Steven doesn't end up screaming at him, just gets snippy.
More reveals talk. Another mix of "ideas I decided to work into this universe earlier, instead of making Sam+Bucky process all of them at once" and "good lines that I basically kept":
Steven is heaving for breath, shaking with fury; he holds up one finger in a give me a minute gesture, and Bucky realizes he's seen it before. From Spector. From who he thought was Spector. "It's...not just one suit that you guys all share, is it?"
"Spot-on," says Steven weakly. "Give the man a medal. Yes -- we all have the same body. We're not possessed, we're not delusional, and this isn't some stupidly elaborate fakeout -- we each have our own individual souls, and you can call Doctor Strange to pop them out one-by-one if you need a confirmation."
"I, uh, think we can manage without that."
Bucky turns to Sam for backup, and Sam nods. "Sure, yeah. Kinda seems like all the mysterious moon stuff just stresses them out, anyway. If that's what this is? One more example of the moon being mysterious...?"
Steven shakes his (their?) head. "No, we got like this the old-fashioned way: severe, ongoing childhood trauma."
"...ah."
"Although if you've dug as deep into Marc's personal history as it sounds like you have, you can probably start guessing the outlines."
(Yes.)
"Don't ask for details, please," adds Steven tensely. "That conversation is at least four more Friendship Levels above where you and Marc are right now."
"Friendship levels?" asks Layla dryly. "I didn't get it until years after we were married."
Steven gives her a faint-but-proud smile. "Yes, love, we are making incredible mental-health progress, thank you for noticing."
In the final version, I totally redid Sam's dialogue to reflect that, you know what, he's probably heard of DID. Takes a little bit of the exposition burden off Steven's shoulders.
I keep meaning to repurpose Steven's "we got this this the old-fashioned way" line somewhere else, though. It's a good bit of Survivor Dark Humor.
You can see how this rehashes details from the "like the Hulk but with better dress sense" conversation, including the "same body" reveal. Supports the theory that I wrote that other passage for some unrelated Sam-and-Bucky chapter.
The little "(Yes.)" is sort of a placeholder. Thought I might give Bucky some more in-depth reflection on what he knows about Marc's personal history. I just never got around to writing it in here.
...I did write some of that for a different fic, and you know what, I'll slip it in here. Even though it wasn't in the October 18 draft -- it was written a couple months later, for the Cover of Knight Holiday Special:
For anything that happened when Marc was 9, his name wouldn't be in the news about it. But his parents' names might.
Bucky filters the news search results to 1997 (see, he knows how to use the internet), and searches for Elias Spector.
Nothing traumatic. Nothing with kids. An article about a Spector from Dallas winning an award, an editorial from a Christian Spector about how Ellen DeGeneres is destroying the national morals, a Rabbi Spector from Chicago but it's just his Dolly-the-Sheep-inspired thinkpiece about "if you clone a Jewish person, would the clone also be Jewish?"
He resets to 1996, and tries again. Still nothing useful. Same when he tries 1998.
He circles back to 1995, and if this keeps not working he can try the mom's name, but...
Boy, 7, dies after being pulled from flooded cave; brother's condition remains critical
Ah.
No wonder he had a bad time in the tunnels.
I mean, I like the Dolly bit.
And I browsed a series of IRL local-news articles about children caught in natural disasters, trying to strike the right tone for the fictional headline.
But overall...meh. Couldn't really finesse "the fine details of Bucky's search techniques" into something gripping:.
Back to the early Come In From The Night draft, there's one more chunk at the end. I don't think any of it ended up in this fic:
"...So," says Bucky after a moment. "There's not a microphone in the cowl, is there."
"No!" cries Steven. "I keep saying we should get one, would make keeping in touch with Layla and so on a hell of a lot easier, but no, there is no bloody microphone in the bloody--"
He cuts himself off. Or maybe someone else cuts him off?
"Bollocks," he mumbles, curling in on himself and rubbing his temples. "Wasn't supposed to say her name."
Sam tries to work out if it'll make Steven feel more or less safe to explain that, since Scarlet Scarab doesn't wear a mask at all, they ran face-recognition on her almost immediately. They've known she's Layla El-Faouly for, like, a year.
Before he figures it out, Bucky steps forward, crouches down a bit so he's on Steven's level, and says, "Look, the answer was yes, okay?"
"...what?"
"Your question. From before? The answer's yes." He shrugs. "There, now if we start going around getting Scarlet Scarab's secret identity in trouble, you can go get booked on the Daily Bugle and spread my personal business to all the worst people on the planet. I mean, I know the rumor's out there, but you're about the fifth person who's got a firsthand confirmation. ...Fifth and sixth?"
"Fifth, sixth, and seventh, actually." Steven's eyes are watery, but he keeps his voice steady with only a bit of sniffling. "Marc's the one you know best, he's Orthodox. Dark Mode is Jake. And, um, Marc is the one I had a bet with, and I'm the one who just won it."
The "is there a microphone in the cowl?" part was a running bit throughout Cover of Knight, but I resolved it in 36: Actually Cleveland, instead of leaving Sam+Bucky in suspense until now.
Sam+Bucky's "we tracked down Layla's identity" reveal is another detail that got handled way back in 22: Cairo. Another bit of vulnerability that I wanted our guys to have adjusted to, and be comfortable with, before this adventure starts.
Steven's "I just won a bet" joke got reworked into 34: Brush Tunnel, with our guys betting on whether Bucky and Sam were secretly a couple.
Bucky's "here's a vulnerability you can use against me, if I ever use yours against you" offer showed up in 22: Cairo -- though he makes it about his off-the-books Avenging from FATWS, not anything to do with the Steve Issue.
...full disclosure, I changed my mind on how I want to handle the Steve Issue in the first place!
After adding the Sam/Bucky, I didn't want to write that in a way that makes Sam feel like the Martha Jones to Steve's Rose Tyler. Especially not when they're still secondary characters -- most of their romantic development is offscreen, you as the reader are getting a general outline, I'm not lingering over it to fill in the details.
So in the end, it felt better to go with "you know what, Sam is the first Cap that Bucky's had a thing with, no matter what the rumors say."
That doesn't get confirmed one way or another in Come In From The Night...but it's one of the emotional points that will get some follow-up in the (Thanksgiving) Holiday Special. Stick around.