It's the next day that Marley is met with a confrontation he didn't see coming at all.

It was after lunch and he was heading back to his room to do his homework or something, probably take a nap to be honest. Maybe study or stare at Sushi for a few hours.

Leilani had long parted off to meet up with some study group she goes to, Marley doesn't quite remember the details even though she'd talked about it for a while before finally moving on to something towards the end of lunch. Speaking of lunch, Nero and crew were staring at him quite a bit today as well. Marley wonders if he'll have to talk to Lola about it.

Anyway, when he'd entered the room, he expected it to be empty—like it usually is after lunch—so he was quite surprised when he was met with the sight of multiple people.

Now we are brought to now, as he stares at everyone around the room. Nero is leaning against a wall, Lola is standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed, Eli is sitting on Nero's bed, What's-His-Name is examining books on Nero's shelf, and Ben is on his knees by Marley's dresser, staring at Sushi very intently.

Wow, okay, are they having some sort of intervention? Did Marley do something wrong? Or maybe they're just hanging out together—good god, Marley hopes not, this place is already packed enough. There are now six people in this medium sized room.

Marley's caught off guard, hence why he stumbles back a bit when he catches sight of them. After he recovers, he decides that whatever the reason they're here, it's none of his business, so he'll just move on. He walks to his dresser to put down his books and some food he stole from the cafeteria. As he's over there, he realizes that Sushi seems to have stopped swimming entirely, staring back at Ben with the same intensity.

Okay, weird.

"So." someone says behind him, and he recognizes the voice as Eli's. Ugh. "You don't agree with most of your father's decisions, is that how you put it?"

Marley freezes, back to them. Holy mother of Christ, he knew he shouldn't have told Lola that. There's no way these people who absolutely hate his guts are going to let that little slip up slide. He's done for, toast, absolutely obliterated by his own shitty choices.

He turns around, eyes going to Lola. She's staring back at him, head held high. Her expression doesn't reveal anything, and he knows his doesn't either, but he's still feeling quite betrayed. This absolute traitor. It's throwing hm for a loop, since up until now she'd always seemed so sweet and shy, Now? Her demeanor has entirely changed. It's then that Marley wonders if she was some sort of spy.

His eyes slide to Eli, who looks pretty please with herself. Bitch.

No Marley, bad. Don't say that. Rude.

Because of the fact they clearly already know the answer, he decides his best bet is to beat around the bush. "Depends on if you can explain to me why it's any of your business."

Yeah that was not nice, he'll admit. He really didn't mean to come across that harsh. The girl growls, and a spider crawls across her face. Okay, wrong decision.

"How about," a voice says from beside Eli, and Marley realizes that that voice—deep, assertive, fiery, leaving no room for question—happens to belong to Nero himself, "we'll get it out of you one way or another, so you should probably make this easy on yourself and answer the damn question."

Marley frowns, pretty sure that's a threat. He crosses his arms over his chest. He really does not like being threatened—unfortunate, seeing as that seems to be the latest theme in his life.

Nero must not take his hostile posture as cooperative, seeing as he takes out Lola's phone, which has a thick purple bejeweled case on it, and presses his finger to the screen;

Then, he hears Lola's voice say, "Is that true? Are you going to keep up everything your father has done?" He recognizes it from the conversation they'd had yesterday.

Sure enough, it's the entirety of the second half of it, leading all the way up to;

"Honestly, no." Marley hears his own voice from the speakers, "I don't agree with most of his decisions."

Well damn, the chick recorded him. It's always the quiet ones. He can't even say that voice isn't his, it's distinct, unmistakeable, Marley Nocona's voice is coming from the phone.

"Fine," Marley sighs. He leans back against the dresser and starts to rub the bridge of his nose. "What do you want? Money? What'll keep you quiet?" He's sick of playing this game, this isn't the first person he's had to pay off. He can't escape, not even here. He should've known better than to open up even a little to Lola.

"We don't want your money," Lola quietly says after a short silence, "we have a proposition, actually. We would have came to you sooner if we'd known..."

"Dude, your fish hates your guts." Ben says from beside Marley, and when he turns to look down, Ben and Sushi are both looking at him.

"Yeah I know, Sushi's a dick." Marley responds without thinking it through. Oh goddammit, he needs to learn how to shut she fuck up.

"You named your fish Sushi?" Marley hears a voice in front of him, and he turns to find that it's the guy whose name starts with L.

"Uh, yes." Marley responds, feeling stupid, "he bit me, so... yeah."

This actually throws Ben into full blown laughter, but it's ruined when Nero shouts impatiently; "Can we just get to the point?!"

Judging by how everyone immediately shuts up, Marley decides Nero must have some kind of authority over them. Their leader or whatever, Marley doesn't know.

After nobody says anything for a while, Nero sighs in exasperation, giving Ben a look and finally making his way towards... towards Marley. Oh god.

"We took a group vote, you could be useful, are you going to join us or not?" His jaw is set and he look pretty done with this situation. He's only a foot away from Marley, looking down at him with his scary yet captivating red eyes and making it hard to talk.

"Uh-Um." Marley gulps. Nero raises an eyebrow. Oh god he can't survive this, "join you in what?"

"We're going to overthrow the government! Bring down The Man once and for all!" At Ben's words, literally everyone in the entire room gives him a look. L-Guy even says, "Seriously, Bren? He's Marley Nocona, are you really going to tell him that we're conspiring against his family?"

Of course, because Marley clearly has no common sense, his mind seems to really focus on the fact the L-Dude just said Bren, as in, Marley has been calling him by the wrong name this entire time

"Well he didn't know we were conspiring against his family until you just outed us for that, Lenny." Ben—Bren—replies, glaring at him. It's not all that scary, he has one of those naturally friendly faces.

What they'd just said catches up with Marley, and his eyes widen. Wait, what? Bring down the government? Conspire against his family? What are these people talking about? This sounds like a mess Marley does not want to be a part of and he should probably report to the authorities.

"Hang on, you're what?" Because Marley needs to clarify, and he's not looking at Nero because Nero's looking at him and he doesn't need that shit right now.

Eli sighs in exasperation and Leonardo looks off to the side, at Nero's bookshelf. Bren starts staring at Sushi again—communicating with him, which would be pretty cool if Marley wasn't occupied at the moment

Nobody says anything for a moment, until, "Originally the plan was to kill you, stop the Nocona family by taking out the heir. But because of the fact that you can't die, and you also don't seem to be on the best terms with daddy dearest, we're going to target the problem where it started."

Eli says that. Marley looks over to the dark haired girl, who is looking back at him in disapproval. Well at least the feeling is mutual.

Wait a second—they were going to kill him? Sure, Marley knows he's not the most well liked person in the world, especially around here. Sureure, there are plenty of people out there who want to see his head on a stick, but...

The people in front of him, right here, were planning his death not even a week ago? That's not... that's not...

And what's this business about... "target the problem where it started? What are you talking about—never mind, this is nuts. I'm leaving. I'm calling my mom." Marley turns to begin walking towards the door, makes it a step, and then a hand is grabbing him roughly by the shirt and slamming him back against the dresser.

"You're not going anywhere, and you're not telling anyone, not unless you want to deal with me; and I promise, you don't want to deal with me." Jesus Christ why is Nero so terrifying? Normally Marley couldn't be pushed around this easily, physically and metaphorically. He's had to stand up and be assertive his whole life, and he's taken his fair share of firearms and self defense classes.

Holy shit, though, he seems to have forgotten all of that with Nero's hand clutching his shirt and almost nose to nose with him.

Nose to nose with an attractive man that's touching him and has muscles and-

Nope. No. Absolutely not. Not thinking those things.

How is Marley supposed to respond to that, though? He's being threatened left and right and he's the prince, so what should he do? What would his father do? Well, that's no question, nobody would talk to his father like this in the first place—

Wait, no, Nero would. Nero definitely would. So scratch that, the one person who did treat his father like that would be publicly executed or exiled or something, Marley doesn't know. It's never happened.

"I'm not gonna let you people target the problem where it started, because I'm pretty sure that means harming my dad and that's my dad so you all can take your little justice organization and shove it up your asses 'cause I'm not gonna be a part of it." And that's fucking final because his parents are his parents and Marley won't let anything happen to them. No matter the cause. Nero doesn't appear to appreciate Marley speaking to him like that, either. Yikes.

"I don't think giving him a choice is working." Larceny states, now sitting on top of Nero's bookshelf. He looks like he may break it, because that shelf doesn't look like the sturdiest thing in the world.

"Okay, how about if you don't help us get out of here we're gonna release that video and make everyone question how good of a king you'd actually be." Of course Eli says that because she sucks and probably finds joy in this. Judging by that mischievous twinkle in her eye, she does. Bitch.

Goddammit Marley, don't call her that!

Marley frowns. Wow, he's actually being forced into this. "What are you guys even doing? Bringing down my family, I know, but what about before that? After that? How exactly are you planning to overthrow the government?" There's resentment in his voice that he doesn't bother to try and cover up.

He needs them to specify before he agrees to this—shit, is he actually agreeing to this?—because joining this when they don't even have the slightest idea what they're doing will be a pain. Even if he doesn't have a choice.

"We'll tell you..." Nero says, leaning away, "if you agree."

Marley frowns, not fond of being backed into a corner like this. He wants to know, to warn his parents if anything. At the same time, there's another part of him. A self destructive, curious, traitorous part of him that wants every detail. That wants to be a part of it.

God knows he doesn't want to rule. Or, at least, not the way his father wants him to. He never has, he'd be a terrible king and he'd disappoint everyone and he'd go grey by twenty just like his father. Is this the only way? The only option? Not only do they have blackmail on him, but this could get him out of 1-A. This could mean better treatment for everyone Abnormal.

Maybe, this is a good idea.

Maybe, this could work out.

Maybe, it's the best chance he has right now. The only chance.

He takes it.

"Fine." Marley sighs, "I agree."

Then, "Now tell me."