I Write Stuff!

So, two days later, he was on your bed wearing it, and thank fuck the fabric had stretch because it was fighting for its life over his broad shoulders. The sleeves were biting into his arms. The hem had ridden up very high on his stomach, exposing more hard strips of muscle every time he moved. The letters were warped across his chest, obscene and ridiculous and so fucking perfect on him that you nearly lost your mind before you even touched him.

“Look at you,” you breathed.

Dex’s face was flushed, eyes dark and glassy, mouth already parted like he’d been waiting all day for you to ruin him. “You like it?”

You grabbed his hips and pulled him back onto your strap-on until he gasped. “I fucking love it.”

He shook under your hands.

He could kill a man with a paperclip, could make a room go dead just by stepping into it, could kill twenty people in under a minute without blinking.

But like this? With your hands on him? With you behind him, strap slick and buried inside him inch by inch while he clutched the sheets and tried not to sound desperate?

He fell apart so beautifully it made you want to be just a little mean to him.

“You wanted this, didn’t you?” you said, dragging your hand up the scar of his spine, under the stretched crop top, feeling his muscles jump beneath your palm. 

Dex made a broken sound. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I wanted it.”

You pushed in deeper, slow enough to make him feel every bit of it, and his elbows almost gave out.

“Fuck,” he choked. “Fuck, sweetheart—”

“No, baby.” You leaned over him, pressing your chest to his back, your mouth near his ear. “You don’t get to act surprised. You wanted to wear the shirt.”

He laughed once, breathless and ruined, and then the laugh snapped into a moan when you rolled your hips.

The shirt rode up again, abs clenching.

You looked down at him and nearly saw stars.

“You look so good taking it,” you whispered. “Big scary Bullseye, wearing my slutty little crop top, getting fucked like he was made for it.”

Dex groaned into the mattress.

You gripped his hip harder, setting a rhythm that made his whole body rock forward. It was slow at first, deep and grinding, just to hear the way his breathing changed. Then harder, because his hands were fisting in the sheets and his thighs were spreading wider and he kept pushing back like he couldn’t help himself.

“That’s it,” you said. “Take it. Good boy.”

His whole body shuddered.

“Oh, you like that?” You smiled, cruel and warm at the same time. 

Dex nodded fast, forehead pressed to the bed, voice wrecked. “Yeah. Yes. Please. D-don’t stop.”

You didn’t.

You fucked him harder, hips snapping forward, one hand locked on his waist, the other sliding around his front. The second your fingers wrapped around him, Dex made this awful, pretty sound like he’d been punched in the chest.

“There he is,” you murmured. “There’s my pretty boy.”

You reached around his torso to find him leaking over your hand, hot and helpless, twitching every time you drove into him. You stroked him in time with your thrusts, slow at first, then tighter when he started shaking too hard to hold himself up.

“I can’t,” he gasped.

“Yes, you can.”

“I’m gonna—”

“I know.” You kissed the scar on his back, right where the crop top had slipped off just enough to bare skin. “I know, baby. I can feel you getting close.”

Dex’s mouth opened, but nothing came out except a strangled moan.

You kept talking, because that was what destroyed him. Not just the fucking, and not just the pressure or the rhythm or your hand dragging him right to the edge. It was your voice in his ear, too, talking him through exactly what he was to you.

“You’re doing so well. Taking me so deep. Letting me use you like this. Wearing that stupid little shirt like you knew exactly what would happen.”

He sobbed your name.

Your grip tightened. “Come on, baby. You got this.”

Dex broke.

His whole body locked up beneath you, back arching, thighs shaking violently as he came hard into your hand. It punched the air out of him. He jerked through it, helpless, overstimulated sounds spilling out of his mouth while you kept your hips moving, slower now but still dragging it out.

“That’s it,” you whispered. “Mm, let me hear you.”

He did.

He couldn’t stop. Every little stroke made him twitch. Every shallow thrust made his breath hitch. He was still emptying himself when you leaned over him again and pressed your mouth to his temple.

“Look at you,” you said softly. “All fucked out in your little shirt.”

Dex made a weak, embarrassed noise and buried his face harder into the sheets.

You laughed, kissing his shoulder. “No, don’t hide from me. You practically begged me for this.”

He turned his head just enough for you to see his face, flushed and beautiful.

“I did,” he whispered.

You smoothed your sticky hand over his stomach, under the stretched-out hem of the crop top, feeling the aftershocks ripple through him.

“Good,” you said, the silicone strap still buried inside him. “Because I’m not done with you yet.”

Dex’s eyes fluttered.

And the shirt, stretched obscenely across his chest, still said it all.

His ears had gone pink. “Oh.”

Still, he was curious enough to try, and trusted you to be the one to do it to him. 

That was how he ended up like this, shaking under you, breath punching out of his chest every time your hips met his. It was too much and not enough at once. Too intimate, too filthy, too vulnerable. It was a new kind of pleasure for him; a new sensation he couldn’t grit his teeth through.

Fuck, it made him melt.

You leaned over him, one hand braced beside his head, the other sliding up his chest to feel the frantic beat of his heart.

“Still with me?” you whispered.

Bucky nodded, frantic and wrecked.

His voice barely worked. “Yeah.”

You kissed his jawline  and moved again, slow and deep, watching his mouth fall open to give way to a silent gasp.

“There,” you murmured. “That’s it. Taking it so well, baby.”

His eyes squeezed shut.

“Nuh-uh,” You kissed the corner of his mouth. “Don’t hide from me now.”

He opened them again, glassy now, and the sight went down to your core. Big, dangerous Bucky Barnes, the former Winter Soldier, your overprotective stubborn boyfriend, laid out beneath you and trembling because you had a strap-on in him and he liked it.

He liked it so much it almost startled him.

You could see it in the way his brow pinched, in the way his throat worked around words he couldn’t get out. His hips kept lifting to meet you even when his face burned with embarrassment.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you breathed.

He made a broken gasp and turned his face into your palm when you cupped his cheek.

“Don’t,” he rasped.

“Don’t what?”

His lashes fluttered. “Say stuff like that.”

You smiled and rolled your hips harder.

Bucky choked.

“Why?” you whispered. “Because it makes you needier?”

His metal hand twisted in the sheet until the fabric tore.

You kissed him before he could be embarrassed by it.

It was messy and filthy, his mouth open under yours, breath shaky against your tongue. You kept the rhythm steady while you kissed him, fucking him slow enough that he had to feel every slick drag, every deep grind. 

Then your hand slid down between you and wrapped around him.

“Oh—fuck.”

There he was. A real word at last, torn out of him like a confession.

You hummed against his mouth, stroking him in time with your hips.

His head tipped back into the pillow.

“Too much?” you asked softly.

He shook his head immediately, almost panicked.

“No. No, don’t—” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. “Don’t stop.”

You kissed his throat. And you weren’t planning on stopping till you finished the job.

You kept him pinned under your weight, kept the strap buried deep while your hand worked him, dragging every last bit of pride out of him. Bucky stopped trying to be quiet as pretty sounds started slipping out of him anyway: rough gasps, breathless little groans, your name broken into a million pieces.

He looked ruined and flushed and sweaty and shaking, mouth wet from your kisses, hair stuck to his forehead, body helplessly chasing both your hips and your hand. He held onto your waist like he needed you more than oxygen, 

“You’re okay,” you whispered. “I’ve got you.”

His eyes found yours.

“Feels…” He stopped, teeth chattering.

“I know.”

He shook his head, desperate now, trying again. “Feels so—”

You pushed in deep, and the rest of the sentence disappeared.

His body bowed under you, thighs tightening hard around your hips. You kissed him through it, swallowed the helpless noise that left him, kept moving until he shattered completely beneath you.

Bucky came apart with your name in his mouth and his hands locked on you, shaking so hard the bed creaked under both of you. You slowed your hips but didn’t pull away, working him through it until he was trembling too much to take anymore, streaks of white painting his stomach and yours. 

Only then did you stop.

You kissed his cheek, his nose, then the corner of his mouth.

“There you go,” you whispered. “I’ve got you.”

For a long moment, he couldn’t answer.

He just dragged you down against him, arms wrapping around you, face buried against your neck. His body was hot and wrecked and utterly surrendered beneath you.

You stroked his hair away from his damp forehead.

“You okay?”

Bucky nodded against your shoulder.

Then, barely audible, ruined beyond repair, Bucky whispered, “Wanna do that again.”

The rest of it mostly consisted of John standing too close to you when he corrected your stance at the range, then acting offended when you asked if he needed a minute because you clearly felt something there. Then, you’d steal the last protein bar from his gym bag because he had written his name on it like a man declaring land ownership in the eighteenth century, but you really needed a snack. Worse, he’d let you get away with it. He’d call you reckless after every mission, yet he was still the first person to check your injuries. It was you calling him dramatic, stubborn, overbuilt, emotionally laminated, and unfortunately useful, sometimes all in the same conversation.

It wasn’t long before you realised that your relationship with John was constant competition.

You beat his sprint time by two seconds, and John spent the rest of the day claiming the sensors were misaligned. He beat your shooting score by one point, and you told him congratulations on finally finding something emotionally fulfilling. You got him on his back during sparring once, knee braced near his hip with your forearm across his chest, and for one long second John Fucking Walker looked up at you with no comeback at all.

Then he said, “You cheated.”

You smiled, “Did I?”

After that, things got worse. Or better. Depending on who you asked.

The thing about John was that he had spent his whole life being measured by strength. Strength was proof of his usefulness and masculinity. Strength as the thing that made him respectable. He had been a soldier, a captain, a symbol, a weapon, a failure, and a replacement all at once. His body had been praised, tested, enhanced, and expected to hold through the toughest of pressures.

So of course, even with the girl he claimed to be the closest thing he had to a favourite mission partner, he made everything a contest.

And John Walker hated information that complicated his self-image.

Because you were strong, too.

Not cute strong. You were super-soldier strong. Like half the team, you had one version or another of the serum in your blood, and still you trained like strength was not something given to you once in a lab but something you chose every day after.

You didn’t shrink near him. You didn’t soften your stance so he could take up more room. You didn’t let him win arguments just because he was louder. You didn’t treat his masculinity like a fragile antique you had to tiptoe around.

If John wanted to be the strongest person in the room, he would have to earn it.

And if he did not earn it, you would smile sweetly and write your name above his on the whiteboard.

The New Avengers noticed the pattern almost immediately.

Bucky noticed because he had the exhausted patience of a man who had seen too many emotionally constipated super-soldiers pretend rivalry was not foreplay. Alexei noticed because he thought every argument was either combat or romance, and in your case, he wasn’t  completely wrong. Yelena noticed because John once watched you do squats in the gym and forgot what he was saying halfway through a sentence.

John denied this. 

You let him. It was funnier that way.

Because the truth was, John liked being challenged by you, he just… had no idea what to do with that.

He knew how to handle enemies. He knew how to handle orders. He knew how to handle another person insulting and underestimating him. But you were different. You challenged him and trusted him. You beat him and expected him to get back up better.

And John, who had built half his personality out of being the most trained, most capable person in the room, had absolutely no defence against it.

So he did what John Walker did best.

John kept telling himself he wanted to be better than you at everything you both do.

Only be better than you.

Nothing else, right?

Nothing that explained why his eyes found you first in every room, or why your laugh warmed his chest, or why the sight of you lifting a heavy table for game night made his whole carefully constructed idea of masculinity stumble, catch itself, and then immediately ask for a rematch.

—

Bob, Ava, and Yelena had gone out to a karaoke bar for the night, which meant the tower briefly belonged to the super soldiers.

This sounded good until you remembered the four remaining super soldiers were you, John Walker, Bucky Barnes, and Alexei Shostakov, and therefore the night’s great masculine summit began with Alexei declaring that dinner was “too stationary” and dragging everyone into the rec room for pool.

And no, you didn’t masculinize yourself to stand in a room with them. You didn’t flatten your voice, roughen your edges, pretend you were just another brother-in-arms so they could digest you more easily. They knew you could bend over a pool table with glossy lips and pretty earrings and still have the serum humming under your skin. You could smile sweetly and break Bucky’s human wrist. You could smell like vanilla and lift Alexei out of his stool if you wanted to.

That night, Alexei insisted on playing pool doubles. You hadn’t agreed to be his partner so much as been claimed by him, one giant arm thrown around your shoulders while he announced that the two of you had “natural champion chemistry.” This was immediately undermined by the fact that he scratched on his first practice shot, blamed the cue, blamed capitalism, then blamed the lighting.

John, naturally, found this hilarious.

He was partnered with Bucky, which was unfair because Bucky was annoyingly competent at anything that involved aim and looking miserable in silence. John was good too, but in a very John way. He played pool like he was clearing a hostile building during a hostage rescue. 

You loved that about him. And still, you would rather have swallowed pool chalk than admit that.

The game started lightly enough. Alexei gave speeches. Bucky made dry comments. John pretended not to watch you bend over the table to line up shots, and you pretended not to notice him pretending. It was a delicate ecosystem. It was a truce held together by sarcasm and the fact that nobody else had the balls to make you and John look each other in the eye to address the obvious tension.

And then the serum conversation happened.

It started, really, when John took the shot too hard. One dropped, but the cue ball nearly followed. He straightened before anyone could comment, already preparing his defence.

You smiled down into your drink.

“Something funny?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“No.”

“Looked like something was funny.”

“You’re just very… intense.”

“It’s still a game.”

“It’s just  pool, John.”

“A game,” he repeated.

Bucky sighed, because he had known both of you for too long. Alexei bent over the table next, squinting down the cue as though he were calculating a missile trajectory. He missed the ball he meant to hit entirely. The cue ball drifted sadly across the felt and stopped nowhere useful for anyone involved.

He stared at it.

Bucky said, “…Strong choice.”

Alexei lifted his chin. “My serum was not designed for this.”

John’s attention shifted to the topic.

You knew he always changed a little whenever serum came up. He got… tenser. Like some part of him had been waiting for permission to turn casual conversation into a performance review of everyone’s bloodstream.

Alexei leaned heavily against his cue. “Mine was made for war. For winter and glory! Not for stupid tiny table sport.”

Which was a hot take, considering he was the one who insisted on playing the stupid tiny table sport. 

Bucky took his shot without looking impressed. “Mine was made by people I’d rather not compliment.”

The ball rolled clean into the corner pocket.

John watched it drop, then shrugged. “Still worked.”

Bucky looked at him.

John caught the look and adjusted. “You know what I mean.”

You rested your hip against the edge of the table and watched him walk straight into it.

John had opinions about the serum. John had opinions about everything that could be ranked, measured, tested, or turned into a number on a board. But the serum was a sore subject. The serum was not just science to him. It was an identity. It was the invisible line between the man he had been and the weapon he was.

“My version was a modern recreation,” he said, aiming for casualness and missing by a mile. Everyone knew of the Madripoor formula running in his veins, of course. “It's cleaner than the older programs.”

There it was.

Cleaner. Modern. Stable.

He said it like medals.

You looked at him over the table. He was not bragging, exactly. John was too disciplined, and too proud to think he was being obvious at all. But he liked the structure. Bucky had Hydra damage, Alexei had Soviet experimentation. John had refinement. John had the one that sounded cleanest in a file.

John had, in his own private ranking, placed himself at the top.

He looked good doing it, which was irritating.

You took your turn before answering him.

The stripe kissed the rail and sank. John’s eyes followed it, then flicked back to you.

You chalked your cue. “Cleaner doesn’t always mean better.”

His eyes narrowed. “No?”

“No.”

Alexei made an interested sound, like he had just smelled drama brewing.

Bucky muttered, “Don’t.”

Neither of you listened.

John stepped around the table, not enough to crowd you. “You have a better metric?”

“Better than you ranking trauma labs?”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“It is a little bit what you’re doing.”

“I’m talking about stability.”

“You’re talking about superiority.”

His mouth tightened, and you could tell it was a home run.

Good.

You liked challenging John because John didn’t take them patronizingly. He took challenges seriously. John got irritated because he respected the threat. He hated that you could beat him, but he never pretended you could not.

Underneath all that male ego and flagpole posture and unbearable need to prove himself, John actually saw you.

John’s eyes dipped, just once, to your arms where your sleeves had shifted up, then back to your face.

You smiled like you had not seen it. He looked annoyed that you were merciful.

“You haven’t even said what version you have,” he said. 

“No,” you said. “I haven’t.”

The room went silent again, differently this time.

Bucky paused near the side table. Alexei stopped fiddling with the chalk. John stayed across from you, but his attention locked in on you so completely it felt almost physical.

You leaned over the table for your next shot, with just enough time to let him watch you line it up. “My serum came from Erskine.”

The cue struck. The ball rolled. The stripe dropped clean into the corner.

Nobody spoke for a second. John did not even look at the pocket.

“What?”

You straightened your posture, cue still in hand. “Last viable remnants of the original formula, used before the source degraded.”

Alexei’s eyes widened. “Original?”

“Remnants,” you pointed out.

Bucky tilted his head, but he didn’t look surprised. It was recognition, maybe. Like that detail rearranged a few things he had wondered about but never asked.

John was very still.

See, John had a hundred different versions of defensive. Loud defensive. Smiling defensive. Technical defensive. Patriotic defensive. This one was silent, which meant you had gone through the armour and hit a structural beam.

“The original Erskine formula,” he said.

You shrugged like it was no big deal. “As close as anyone got after Steve, apparently.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“You never asked.”

His jaw flexed, showing a tiny little fracture in the male ego. Still, John was too tough for humiliation, and you liked him too much to be cruel to poke. But challenge? Absolutely. You had just taken the one category where he thought he was winning and tilted the board.

He breathed out a short laugh.“So what, you think that makes yours better?”

You only shrugged like, maybe.

He stepped closer, cue in hand, eyes narrowed. “You don’t know you’re stronger than me.”

“No,” you said. “I don’t.”

That answer bothered him more than a simple yes would have.

John wanted certainty. He wanted you to brag so he could argue. He wanted you to claim the top spot so he could challenge it. 

You took another step around the table. “And neither do you.”

Bucky looked toward the ceiling like he wanted patience delivered from above.

Alexei whispered, “This is good game now.”

John ignored them both.

His attention stayed on your face, your mouth, the way your fingers rested around the cue. You saw the question there before he said anything;

Whether you could match him. Whether you could beat him. Whether he hated the idea or liked it too much.

You let the silence fester.

Then you turned back to the table, lined up the eight ball, and sank it.

Alexei erupted behind you, but the sound blurred. Bucky said something dry. Maybe about rules or about how both of you needed supervision. It didn’t matter.

John was still looking at you.

His team had lost. His invisible serum ranking had been ruined. His pride had taken a hit from a woman who smelled faintly sweet, looked entirely too pleased with herself, and had the original ghost of Erskine in her blood.

You walked around the table until you were close enough that he had to either move or hold his ground.

“You want to test it?”

John held his ground and didn’t fall for the bait. 

You tipped your head, smiling up at him. Unfortunately for him, you haven’t given up on fishing just yet. “How much do you bench?”

—

Of course the natural escalation was the gym.

There were normal people, probably, who could have a tense conversation over pool about super soldier serum and simply go to bed afterward. There were people who could hear the phrase “you don’t know I’m not stronger than you” and not take it as a personal summons from God.

You and John Walker were not those people.

Alexei had tried to follow at first, still riding the emotional high of winning pool despite contributing very little besides volume and moral support. He made it as far as the hallway before Bucky reminded him that he had an early press conference tomorrow. 

The Russian shuffled off toward his room in sweatpants and slippers, leaving you, John, and Bucky standing in the hallway.

Bucky looked at you.

Then at John.

Then down the hall toward the gym.

“No,” he said.

John frowned. “Nobody asked you anything.”

“You were going to ask me to supervise whatever this is so no one destroys equipment or each other.”

You smiled. “That sounds responsible.”

“Then ask someone responsible.”

“Bucky.”

“No.”

John’s jaw tightened. “It’s a bench press.”

“It is never just a bench press with you two.”

That was accurate, but rude.

Bucky walked backward toward the kitchen, already done with the evening. “If someone tears a tendon, don’t wake me up.”

Which left you and John alone in the hall.

The tower lights had dimmed for the night, leaving the glass walls dark, the city beyond them spread out in glittering spires. You could see both of your reflections faintly. John in a dark shirt and joggers. You beside him, still in the fitted top you had worn through dinner and pool, earrings catching the low hallway light.

You sighed and looked at him. “You coming?”

He gave you one of those flat, disbelieving looks. He looked…. interested despite himself.

“You’re really doing this.”

“You challenged me.”

He stared at you for a beat too long before turning down the hall. “Fine.”

The gym at midnight felt almost… sacred. It was empty, bright, and way too clean. There were rubber mats, steel racks, mirrored walls, the faint smell of chalk and disinfectant. The kind of room built entirely around effort and comparison: Numbers on plates, numbers on bars, numbers on boards. Everything was measurable, everything capable of becoming proof.

And John only ever wanted proof.

His name was already on the score board from earlier, and you saw it the second you walked in.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER

A new number sat beside it, written in black marker at the very top. Higher than the one you remembered from last week. Higher than the last team record Alexei famously set last week.

You stopped in front of the board and blinked. “You set a new record.”

His face stayed neutral, but his voice was smug. “Yeah.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

You turned your head toward him. He looked far too pleased with himself for a man trying to act above it all.

His mouth twitched.

There the truth was, he had seen you closing in. He had seen your numbers rise. You were going to overtake his second place spot, so he simply had to set a new one. 

He moved the goalpost and called it training.

You looked back at the board, then at him.

“That’s petty.”

“That’s improvement.”

“That’s petty improvement.”

“It’s still improvement.”

You laughed under your breath, and the laugh did something to his eyes. Something small. John didn’t soften easily. But his rough edges shifted. The pride stayed, but underneath it was that warm current you had both spent months pretending was just competitiveness.

You walked to the bench.

John followed.

Neither of you said anything for a minute. You started loading the bar to his record weight– not any more, not any less —, and he stood close enough to watch but not close enough to interfere. 

One plate. Then another. You heard steel sliding against steel, the sound loud in the empty room. You felt him watching your hands, your arms, the way your shoulders moved when you bent to pick up the next plate.

He wasn’t subtle tonight.

Maybe he was tired.

Maybe you had pushed too far under his skin for him to keep pretending.

You added another plate.

John exhaled through his nose.

You glanced back. “Problem?”

“You’re jumping too fast.”

“I warmed up before pool.”

“That was hours ago.”

“An hour and a half.”

“You ate fries.”

“Fuel.”

“You argued for twenty minutes.”

“Pre-workout.”

That shut him up.

Only for a second, but enough.

You sat on the bench and rolled your shoulders back. The vinyl was cool beneath your palms. The mirrors caught the two of you in fragments: your legs braced on either side of the bench, John behind you, tall and watchful, his eyes both irritated and focused all at once.

John could be smug, defensive, and competitive to the point of comedy. He could turn a pool game into a debate into a midnight lift-off because his masculinity had the self-preservation instincts of a wounded bull.

But when he spotted you, he was reliable.

Always.

He moved behind the bench without being asked. His hands hovered near the bar as you lay back, close enough to catch, not close enough to insult you. He watched the placement of your feet, the arch of your back, your grip, your breathing.

“You’re too close,” you said, mostly because you needed to say something.

“I’m spotting.” His mouth twitched. “You want someone else?”

No. Of course not. 

You looked up at him from the bench. From this angle, he looked even bigger, framed by the lights overhead, blond hair slightly shadowed, arms ready. He was trying to hide behind competence again. Trying to make this about safety, form, and protocol.

You knew better.

“No,” you said. “I want you.”

His face changed.

John looked away first, adjusting his stance behind you as if that could cover the fact that one word had hit him harder than the entire serum conversation.

“Then listen to me,” he said.

“You love saying that.”

He leaned down slightly, hands near the bar. “Grip tighter.”

You did.

“Shoulders set.”

“They are.”

“Feet planted.”

“John.”

“You want to lift more than me, or not?”

You looked up at him, and the air changed again.

Huh. He was actively…. Helping?

His number was at the top of the board like a dare, like a wall, like a little fortress he had built and invited you to storm.

You wanted to beat it, yes.

But more than that, you wanted to make him watch you try.

You wrapped your fingers around the bar.  “Ready.”

John’s voice was lower now. “Ready.”

He helped you unrack it.

The weight settled into your hands. Even with all the serum, it felt heavy. Thank you Val, for these stupid super-weighted plates 

For a moment, the bar hovered above you, and the entire room seemed to tunnel to the tension in your arms and the way John was standing over you.

He let go.

You lowered it slowly.

It was controlled, careful, and not rushing at all. You put your mind into the descent, the steel coming down toward your chest while John’s hands moved with it, not touching, but close enough that you could feel him standing guard

He trusted you with the weight. The intimacy was that John, of all people, didn’t take the bar from you.

He let you fight it.

You pushed.

The bar moved, but not easily.

Your arms trembled almost immediately, the load biting hard through your shoulders and chest. Your breath locked and teeth clenched. The first few inches came slow, and stubborn.

John’s hands rose a fraction beneath the bar.

“Don’t,” you forced out.

He froze, before quietly saying, “I’m not.”

You pushed again.

The bar crept higher.

John’s voice dropped, not teasing now. He was giving you the one thing he never knew how to ask for himself. “Good. That’s good. Keep driving.”

A shiver went through you that had nothing to do with the lift.

You hated him a little for it. Or maybe you loved it. Not much of a difference, honestly.

The bar stalled halfway.

Your muscles shook and sweat gathered at your temple. For one awful second, the weight sat there like a bad omen.

John’s hands came closer, still not touching.

“Breathe,” he said.

You did.

“Again.”

You did.

“That’s it.”

His voice was right above you now, intimate in the empty room, threaded through the space between effort and surrender. “You’ve got it.”

John, whose ego had been scraped raw by the idea of you matching him, whose entire self-image had spent the last few hours being challenged by your strength, your serum, your refusal to shrink, still wanted you to get the lift.

You could hear it.

He wanted you to win, even against his competitive nature, maybe.

You pushed.

The bar rose another inch.

John made a low sound under his breath, almost involuntary. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t quit on me now.”

Your eyes flicked to his.

From beneath the bar, with your arms shaking and his face upside down above you, John looked absolutely wrecked. His eyes had this helpless focus that made your stomach twist. He was watching you strain under his number, watching your strength meet his record head-on, and the conflict on his face was almost obscene: Pride, frustration, hunger, admiration, and the little panic of a man discovering that being challenged by you didn’t make him feel smaller.

It made him want you more.

The bar rose.

Slowly.

Slowly…

Then your elbows locked and you pushed it up to completion. 

For a second, neither of you moved.

Then John grabbed the bar and helped guide it back into the rack. Metal hit metal with a brutal clang that echoed through the empty room.

You lay there breathing hard, staring up at him.

John stood over you, hands still on the bar, chest rising and falling like he had done the rep himself.

You hadn’t beaten his new record, but you had matched it.

And judging by the look on his face, that might have been worse.

“You got the rep.”

You blinked up at him.

For all his defensiveness, John said it clearly. 

You got the rep.

The praise warmed you more than it should have.

You looked up at him through the sweat on your lashes. “I matched you.”

John just tilted his head, trying to hide the warmth in his ears

You sat up slowly, still catching your breath. John moved back half a step, but not far. He stayed close, one hand hovering like he wanted to steady you and was trying not to make that obvious.

You looked toward the board. His name was still at the top the number still beside it.

But now it didn’t feel like his alone.

John followed your gaze. You stood, brushing past him before he could decide whether he wanted to steady you or argue. Your body still buzzed with effort, blood hot, muscles loose and shaking in that delicious aftershock of almost failing and refusing to.

Across the gym, the whiteboard waited.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER

A little monument to himself.

You picked up the marker.

John followed immediately, close enough that you could feel him before he spoke. Then you wrote your name beside his.

BENCH PRESS — WALKER /…. Then you put your name next to his.

The marker squeaked in the silence.

You turned, and there was that proud wounded look, just enough to bleed into irritation, admiration, hunger, all tangled together until he didn’t know which one to reach for first.

You smiled as John stepped closer.

The gym was too bright, too empty, too humid after a fight neither of you had technically had. His eyes dragged from the board to you, then down your body like he was still watching the lift happen. Like he was replaying every inch of the bar rising under your hands.

“You think you belong next to my name?” he asked.

It was not really a question.

You leaned back against the board, marker still in your hand. “You gonna make me erase it?”

His nostrils flared from the challenge, the bait, because neither of you knew how to ask for anything softer without turning it into a fight first.

John reached for the marker. You pulled it out of reach, and his hand caught your wrist, careful enough not to hurt, but firm enough to remind you exactly who he was.

His eyes flicked to your mouth.

You smiled, sweeter this time.

“Mmm,” you murmured. “About time for you to shut up, Walker.”

All the restraint he had left disappeared into thin air. 

John kissed you like he was tired of losing arguments to his own mind.

Your back hit the whiteboard, the marker trapped somewhere between your fingers and his. His mouth was hot, demanding, almost angry with how long he had waited. You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, refusing to let him have the upper hand even now.

He made a low sound against your mouth when you kissed him back harder.

Good.

Let him know. Let him feel exactly what matching him meant for you.

His hand slid to your waist, gripping tight enough to pull you off the board and into him. Your fingers pushed into his hair, and his whole body went tense for half a second, like even that was a challenge he hadn’t prepared for.

Then he kissed you deeper.

Still competitive, still stubborn, still John, but underneath it was something almost devastatingly careful. He didn’t crush you or take. He pressed you there like he wanted to prove a point and forgot the point the second your mouth opened under his.

The marker slipped from your hand, and it hit the floor with a hollow plastic clatter.

Neither of you looked down.

John pulled back only far enough to breathe, lips still brushing yours, eyes dark and fixed on your face like he was trying to memorise what winning and losing looked like when both felt the same.

You smiled against him.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t,” he mumbled against your lips.

You dragged your thumb along his jaw, feeling the tension there, the heat under his skin, the barely leashed restraint. “You kissed me first.”

His mouth twitched, but his breathing was uneven.

“You provoked me.”

Mm, sure. 

His stare narrowed before he kissed you again, harder this time.

Enough to make you laugh breathlessly into his mouth, enough for him to growl like your happiness was a bar he had to raise, enough that when he finally pulled back, the whiteboard behind you was smudged at the edge of your name.

You glanced over your shoulder, your name and his a little blurred now, but still there, bleeding into each other.

You looked back at him, lips swollen from his kiss, body still humming from the lift and from him and from the satisfaction of watching John come undone without ever admitting he had lost.

“So,” you said, voice soft and smug. “Wanna improve on the record now?”

John looked at the board. Then at you.

To your surprise, he didn’t posture or argue.

His hand stayed at your waist, thumb pressing once like he was still grounding himself.

Then he leaned in, mouth brushing the corner of yours. “For once,” he said, rough and quiet, “I have nothing to prove.”

You barely had time to form a smile before he kissed it off your face.

The target symbol carved near the handle had been filled with red crayon. The words Dex had scratched into the metal: YOU’RE WELCOME, was messy and theatrical, had colourful wax rubbed over them like someone had tried to make them pop for readability.

Karen leaned closer, horrified.

There was yellow in the grooves too.

“Why,” she said, very carefully, “is Poindexter playing with fucking crayons?”

Matt didn’t answer immediately, so it meant he was either listening to something she couldn’t hear or trying very hard not to say the something that would make the situation worse.

Karen pointed at the knife even though Matt couldn’t really see. “This is crayon, right?”

“Yes.”

“Children’s crayon.”

“Yes.”

“Not tactical wax or assassin wax or whatever thing I’m about to learn exists?”

“No. It’s crayon.”

Karen put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned her weight into it.

For a while, neither of them said anything as the radio hissed and a pipe groaned in the wall.

Karen looked down at the knife again.

It should have been terrifying, and it was, but it was also so profoundly stupid that her brain kept tripping over it. Bullseye, murderer, assassin, had apparently paused before saving Matt’s life to make sure his murder stationery had arts-and-crafts aspect to it.

“Maybe he got bored,” Matt said, though he sounded unconvinced.

Karen stared at him.

He looked exhausted under the bruises. He had blood at his hairline and a split lip. 

“Bored?” She asked incredulously 

Matt shrugged. “He’s been in hiding.”

“So he took up colouring?”

Matt’s mouth twitched up into a small smile.

Karen hated that it almost made her laugh.

Then she saw the second knife Matt had brought home.

It had rolled partly under a tissue handle sticking out. It was the same size, though not engraved. But something bright was sticking out of the blade near the handle.

Karen picked it up.

Matt’s head turned when he caught the sudden jump in Karen’s heartbeat. “What?”

“There’s something on this one,” she said. 

Weird. Matt would’ve noticed. He was so overwhelmed and panicked by the whole Cherry-had-a-fucking-heart-attack situation, could anyone really blame him for missing it?

“Is that engraved, too?”

“No.”

“Adhesive?”

“Yes, but—” Karen brought it closer to the light, “Oh my God.”

Matt waited.

Karen’s mouth opened, and closed, then opened again.“It has a sticker on it.”

Matt tilted his head. “A sticker?”

“A dinosaur sticker.”

The back room went silent again.

Karen looked at the tiny glossy decal slapped crookedly onto Poindexter’s throwing knife. It showed a cartoon dinosaur with angry little eyes, short arms, a red-orange body, and horns over its brow.

Matt said, “What kind?”

Karen lowered the knife. “I’m sorry, is that the part you care about?”

“Karen.”

She sighed. “It’s a T. rex with horns.”

Matt frowned. “That’s not a T. rex.”

Karen stared at him.

He looked back in her general direction with the unbearable confidence of a blind Catholic lawyer who had no business correcting anyone about dinosaur taxonomy during a fascist municipal lockdown.

“What do you mean, it’s not a T. rex?”

“T. rex didn’t have horns.”

“Fine,” she shook her head and folded her hands in front of her chest. “It’s a mean dinosaur with little arms and horns.”

“So it’s a Carnotaurus,” Matt said.

Karen pointed the knife at Matt, forgot she was holding a knife, remembered, made a horrified noise at herself, and set it down so fast the blade clicked against the table.

“How do you know that?”

Matt paused.

For a second, the upstairs room of Josie’s faded away. For one second, it was a dorm room with Foggy Nelson sprawled across a bed, eating cereal out of a mug because all the bowls were dirty, insisting with absolute conviction that dinosaur documentaries counted as research if you were trying to impress a girl.

“Foggy tried to date a paleontology student in college,” Matt said, voice smaller than it had been. “He spent three weeks watching dinosaur documentaries in our dorm. He had flashcards.”

Karen stared at him.

Matt’s mouth twitched, though it was not quite a smile. “He made me quiz him.”

“Of course he did,” Karen said, and despite everything, despite the knife and the blood and Fisk and the fact that Foggy was not there to laugh at how completely insane this conversation had become, her eyebrows softened. 

Matt almost smiled properly that time.

Then Karen looked back down at the knife, and the gentleness vanished. Because Foggy was dead, and Matt was bruised and half-bloody, and Benjamin Poindexter had apparently left them a weapon with a tiny horned dinosaur sticker slapped crookedly near the handle.

The world was stupid and evil and somehow still finding new ways to be insulting.

“God,” Karen whispered. “This is insane.”

Matt reached for the crayon knife. His fingertips moved carefully over the carved grooves near the hilt where red wax had been pushed into the engraved Bullseye symbol. The wax was thick in some places and thin in others. The roughed blue texture had been dragged across the letters. Flakes of yellow clung to the steel like whoever had done it had pressed too hard, then switched colours halfway through with the chaotic confidence of someone having the time of their life.

Matt went still.

Karen saw it immediately. “What?”

“The wax is outside the engraving.”

Karen stared at him. “Okay? So Bullseye can’t colour, what does that matter?”

“No.” Matt’s voice dropped. “Dex can.”

The panic stopped dead in Karen’s chest for a second.

Because yes, she realised, Dex could.

Dex could hit a target he couldn’t see. Dex could turn anything into a weapon. He could put a paperclip through an exact point from across a room and look almost bored doing it. If Benjamin Poindexter decided, for reasons no sane person could ever hope to understand, to sit down and colour in the engraving on one of his knives, he would do it perfectly. He wouldn’t  smear red wax over the steel, or drag blue crayon halfway past the letters, or leave little chunks of yellow caught near the hilt.

Dex would stay inside the lines because Dex did everything inside the lines.

Karen looked down again, and the colouring was suddenly so much worse. It was not careless. It was messy in a way Dex would never let himself be messy. It was joyful and proud. Like whoever had done it had been helping. Like someone small had been given permission, and Dex had allowed it.

“No,” Karen said.

Matt didn’t answer.

“No, Matt.”

His fingers moved to the second knife. The sticker was glossy beneath his thumb. A Carnotaurus, apparently, though Karen’s brain was still categorising it as “T. rex” because she didn’t have the emotional capacity to update her dinosaur taxonomy during a crisis.

Karen backed away from the table. “No. No, no, no.”

“Karen—”

“Bullseye found a child?”

Matt flinched at the words. 

Karen’s voice rose, panic turning it into an accusation. “Bullseye found a child. Bullseye has a child near him. Bullseye let a child touch his knives. Matt, what the fuck?”

The radio hissed and the building creaked around like their surroundings wanted to excuse itself from the conversation. Karen pressed both hands into her hair and stared at the knives as if they might suddenly become normal if she glared hard enough.

They didn’t.

A child. A child with crayons. A child with dinosaur stickers. A child close enough to Benjamin Poindexter to leave little bright traces of themselves on weapons. And Dex hadn’t removed them, that was the part Karen could not get past. He had kept them. He had carried them. He had brought them to Cherry’s and used them while saving Matt, like the sticker mattered, like the wax mattered, like some tiny hand had improved the knife in a way Dex considered worth preserving.

Karen sat down, then immediately stood back up because sitting felt uncomfortable. “Have we been keeping tabs on Poindexter’s wife?”

Matt went very still.

The question hit like a plate breaking. Karen hated how quickly her mind had called you “keeping tabs” like some common criminal, hated that the panic had turned tactical.

But she didn’t take it back.

“Have we?” she asked again, a bit louder.

Matt’s teeth clenched. “Karen.”

“Don’t,” she half-scoffed. “Have we been watching her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Fisk starved her in a basement,” Matt said, and this time his voice was not angry at all. “Because she’s been through a lot.”

Karen’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Matt lowered his head slightly, like he was listening to his own words. “We can’t bring her into all of this again.”

Karen looked at the table. The knives were still there 

“But if there’s a kid,” Karen said, and hated how thin her voice sounded. “Matt, if there’s a kid—”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Bullseye found a child.”

Matt’s face tightened, but not with confusion. It was recognition. He was already somewhere ahead of her, putting together pieces to make this all make sense.

He knew Dex, though not fully. Maybe nobody knew Dex fully except you. But Matt knew one thing with a bone-deep certainty.

Dex loved you.

Matt had heard it before in the rhythm of Dex’s body, in the deadly stillness whenever your name entered a conversation, in the way Fisk had used you and Dex had gone silent and absolute. Dex was capable of terrible things. Dex had done terrible things. 

But Dex would not hurt you.

Matt knew that. He hated knowing it, but he knew it. Dex would burn down half the city before he let you bleed. He would crawl through glass before he let you be dragged back into Fisk’s hands. 

So if there was a child near his knives, if there was a child close enough to colour his symbol and sticker his blade, Matt did not believe that child was random. 

Karen saw the realization on Matt’s face.

“Oh my god,” she said. “You think it’s hers.”

Matt said nothing.

Karen let out a panicked laugh. “No. That’s insane. She doesn’t have a kid.”

Matt’s silence was worse than a disagreement.

“She doesn’t,” Karen insisted, too quickly. “When would she? With prison, and the institution, and Poindexter being—” She gestured helplessly at the knives, because there was no adequate end to that sentence. “Himself.”

“We don’t know,” Matt said.

“And if she does have a kid, it’s probably not his.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “We don’t know, Karen!”

Karen’s panic twisted. “Then we have to check.”

“Karen.”

“We have to.”

“Not like this.”

“She could be in danger.”

“I know.”

“Fisk could find her. Vanessa could find her. Task force could already be watching her.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you standing there?”

“Because you’re angry.”

Karen stopped.

The words hit harder than she expected. She wanted to snap back immediately, but the answer got caught in her throat because Matt wasn’t wrong, and that made her even angrier.

“You’re angry and scared,” Matt said, smaller now. “You have every right to be. But she can’t open the door to rage.”

Karen looked away.

She wanted to say she could handle it. She wanted to say she knew how to talk to victims, that she had done this before, that she was not a reckless amateur kicking through someone’s trauma for a lead. But she had spent the last several minutes spiralling, and Matt had heard every bit of it.

“She knows me,” Karen said, but it came out weaker now.

“Yes,” Matt said gently. “But she may not know you’re not there to use her as evidence.”

That shut her up.

Matt reached for the towel and wrapped both knives carefully. He was gentle with the crayon one, and even gentler with the dinosaur one.

“I’ll go,” he said.

Karen looked up sharply. “No.”

“I won’t go as Daredevil.”

“You’re not exactly subtle either way, Matt.”

“I can listen in first. I’ll know if someone else is watching her.”

Karen stared at him. “That’s surveillance.”

“It’s a welfare check.”

Unfortunately, it was the only option.

—

Matt Murdock stood across the street from your apartment with rain soaking into the shoulders of his coat, his folded cane gripped too tightly in one hand, his face turned toward the third-floor window where the curtains were half-drawn and the light inside was buzzing.

The first thing he noticed was the lock.

He could feel how reinforced the locks were from the vibrations of the door. They weren’t normal, or even a deadbolt that had probably come with the apartment. There was another lock beneath it, newer, heavier, installed with too much force. A chain too, reinforced brace near the bottom of the door.

Dex’s work, Matt suspected immediately, and his mouth tightened.

Then, from the bedroom, he heard your voice.

“Leo, baby, arms up.”

You said it kindly, with the tired gentleness of someone who had already said it twice and knew she would probably have to say it again. 

Leo.

Matt froze.

A little boy made a muffled sound of protest as fabric rustled over his head. His feet kicked lightly against the mattress, not in panic, not in distress, just in a dramatic way that exhausted children fought pyjamas like pyjamas were an injustice.

Leo.

Wait….

Leonard.

Benjamin Leonard Poindexter.

Matt’s stomach dropped so hard it felt like it dropped onto the concrete below.

Oh.

Oh, God.

It was his.

His child. His son. His little boy behind a reinforced door, in a bedroom full of crayons and toys, while Fisk’s people and the Task Force owned half the streets.

He was right.

He had been right. 

Still, the same questions swirled in his head: when would you even have had the time? How could that happen between prison and hospitals and Fisk and the institution and every nightmare that had followed you home? How could you, of all people, have looked at Benjamin Poindexter after everything and thought yes. Him. A child with him. A family with him. You, the sweet librarian.

You, who had once looked like the fragile woman trapped in Dex’s orbit.

You, who Matt had maybe arrogantly, imagined as the innocent one in all this. You, who Dex loved too much. The only normal thing he had in his life, proof that some human part of him still existed.

But that was his mistake.

You loved him as much as he loved you.

And it wasn’t in a reasonable way Matt had wanted to imagine for his own comfort.

You had not been dragged into his life and you had stayed. You had chosen him again and again, after the blood, after Fisk, after everything. You had let him build locks on your door. You had let his hands hold your child. 

Maybe you were not the sane one trapped beside the monster.

Maybe you were both as devoted in a way Matt suddenly didn’t know how to separate from madness.

Matt’s hand shifted around the cane.

His body angled toward the fire escape before he had fully decided to move. He could break in if he had to. He could get you out, get Leo out, deal with Poindexter after.

He could convince you that your husband was a dangerous man. 

Because Karen had been right.

Because what the hell was Dex doing?

What the hell was Benjamin Poindexter doing putting his own child’s drawings on a fucking knife?

Why would you let him?

Then Leo sniffled, and Matt’s thoughts halted.

“Mommy,” Leo said, and his voice was small in the damp night, thick with tears he was trying very hard to keep inside. “Daddy said he’d be back before bedtime.”

The words came out wounded and sleepy, not frightened. He sounded betrayed by time itself, by the unfairness of promises and clocks and fathers who were supposed to appear before the lights went out.

Your footsteps paused. “Oh, baby.”

Your voice changed so quickly it almost hurt to hear. It went lower, all the tiredness falling out of it and leaving only that immediate motherly ache. Matt heard the mattress spring dip as you sat down beside him, heard the tiny shift of Leo crawling into you before you could even finish opening your arms.

“He said before bedtime,” Leo mumbled into your shirt.

His voice was muffled now, pressed against you, wet with the first real break of crying. He was trying to sound angry, trying to make the case properly, but he was too little and too tired, and the sadness kept spilling through.

“I know, sweetheart.”

You answered him with your mouth close to his hair, the words rounded and careful, like you were trying to place each one gently enough that it would not bruise him more.

“He promised.” Leo’s breath hitched on the word. It was the kind of broken little accusation only a child could make, not because he wanted to blame Dex forever, but because he needed his father.

“I know he did.” You didn’t argue with him or rush him past it. Your hand moved over his back in slow circles, and Matt could hear the drag of your palm over cotton pyjamas.

“He forgot me,” Leo whispered.”

“No, honey,” you cooed, “Daddy didn’t forget you.”

Leo cried then. It wasn’t a tantrum. It was a tired, heartbroken little cry into your shoulders, the kind that shook his breathing more than his body. You pulled him closer, one arm around his back, the other hand cupping the back of his head.

Matt stood in the rain and hated himself for listening.

This was bedtime.This was private.

“Something must have taken longer than Daddy thought,” you murmured, and you believed it. 

“Helping?” Leo asked.

His voice lifted hopefully on that word, still clogged with tears, because helping was something he could understand. Helping meant Daddy was not gone because he wanted to be. Helping meant there was a reason.

“Yes,” you said after a quiet breath. “Helping.”

You made the word sound safe. Smaller than it was. Soft enough for a child’s bedroom.

“With his knifes?” He asked. 

Matt’s body went rigid again.

Leo didn’t say it like weapons scared him. He said it like he was asking about a toolbox. Like knives belonged to Daddy the way crayons belonged to him, important and not for touching without permission.

Your heartbeat changed, but only slightly. “Not bedtime conversation, baby.”

You said it with a little sigh at the end, half warning and half affection, as if this was not the first time Leo had tried to drag one of Dex’s more concerning habits into a domestic moment.

“But I made them lucky,” Leo said. His voice was still wet, but brighter now, tugging itself away from tears with the stubborn pride of a child remembering his contribution.

“I know you did.” You sounded like you were smiling despite yourself, your fingers still smoothing through his hair.

“The dinosaur one is very lucky.” Leo said it with deep seriousness as if the entire survival of his father depended on one sticker’s blessing.

“I know.”

Your answer was barely more than a whisper, but there was warmth in it. Familiarity. You knew exactly which knife he meant.

“He put it in his pocket.”

Leo’s voice wobbled less now, steadied by the memory. Daddy had kept it. Daddy had chosen it. Daddy had understood the importance.

“He did.”

You sounded fond, and that fondness did something awful to Matt’s chest.

“And the red one,” Leo added, a little more animated now. “He said that one was very timmy-dating.”

Your laugh broke at the cutest little mispronunciation of intimidating before you could stop it, muffled against the top of Leo’s head.

“I bet he did.” You sounded exhausted and amused and in love with both of them in a way Matt didn’t know how to process.

The knife on Josie’s table flashed in his mind. The crayon smeared outside the engraved symbol, wax caught too thick near the hilt. The messy colour pressed into steel by a child’s determined hand.

He realised now that it was not a threat. It was a gift.

Leo sniffled again, but the crying had mostly passed. “Can I draw on more of Daddy’s stuff tomorrow?”

“Only when he’s home, baby.”

“But he likes it.” Leo’s tone turned pleading  and persuasive, the heartbreak of bedtime already becoming negotiation.

“I know he does.”

You didn’t deny that. You could not, apparently. Matt heard the truth in your voice. Dex liked it. Dex liked the messy drawings, the stickers, the proof of small hands on dangerous things, as long as he was there to keep him safe.

“I’m good at it,” Leo insisted. He said it with a tiny offended sniff, like his artistic credibility had been questioned by the entire household.

“You’re very good at it.” You answered immediately.

“I stayed in the lines.” Leo sounded proud now. Sleepy, still sad, but proud.

You hummed, “Mostly.”

Your voice was teasing, so gentle that even the joke seemed tucked around him like the blanket.

Leo gasped. “Mommy!”

His voice came out scandalised, wounded all over again for a completely different reason.

“I’m sorry,” you said, and you did not sound sorry at all. “You stayed in the lines wonderfully, Leo.”

You stretched the wonderfully with just enough to make him feel admired. Matt could hear Leo accepting the correction.

“That’s better, mommy,” Leo murmured.

His voice had gone softer now. The fight was leaving him. 

The room settled around you both. Bluey chattered from the living room, not forgotten. Rain tapped against the window. Somewhere near the bed, crayons sat scattered in a plastic tub, waxy and bright. The apartment smelled like warm milk, laundry detergent, paper, fruity shampoo, and a faint metallic tang.

You shifted the blanket up over Leo’s legs.

“He’ll come see you when he gets home,” you promised.

“Even if I’m sleeping?”

“Of course, baby.” You said it like a fact. Dex had probably done enough times that Leo could safely build his little heart around it.

“How will I know?” His voice was fading, but the worry remained.

“Because he always does.” Your answer came with a stroke down his back, steady as a metronome.

Leo was quiet for a moment.

Then he whispered, “He fixes my blanket.” The words were drowsy now, half memory, half proof.

“He does.” You sounded as if you had watched it happen a hundred times.

“And he puts Mr. Diplodocus back.” Leo’s voice dragged over the dinosaur’s name with sleepy accuracy, because even half-asleep, apparently, taxonomy mattered in this house.

“Every time.” You said it with a smile in your throat.

“And he kisses my head.” The sentence was barely there, a confession more than a statement.

“Yes, baby.” Your voice thinned with tenderness.

“Even when he thinks I don’t know.” Leo sounded proud of knowing. He sounded loved because of knowing. 

“Especially then.” You whispered it.

Matt turned his face away from the window.

He shouldn’t have heard that.

It made it hard to interfere.

He had come ready to break in. To save you. To save Leo. To rip a child out of Benjamin Poindexter’s life before that child was in danger 

But this was not a child waiting for rescue.

This was a child waiting for his father.

Leo yawned, long and shaky. “Tell Daddy I waited.”

His voice was almost gone now, but stubborn. He needed the record kept.

“I will.” You answered solemnly, because it mattered to him.

“And I cried.” His voice carried a tiny bit of embarrassment.

“I’ll tell him you cried a little.” You chuckled.

“And I was mad.” A sleepy spark of indignation returned.

“I’ll tell him you were very mad.” You gave the anger its place, too.

“And brave.”

You kissed his forehead. “So brave.”

Your voice broke in the smallest way.

Leo seemed satisfied with that. His breathing slowly evened out, the last little shudder leaving him as sleep pulled him under. You stayed beside him long after he stopped answering, your hand resting on his back, your thumb moving over his pyjama shirt like you were still soothing the world’s sins out of him.

Then, when he was asleep, you whispered, “Daddy loves you so much.”

Your voice was not for Leo to answer. It was a promise left in the room for him because you knew it was true. 

Matt stood in the rain until you turned off the night-light. He listened as you crossed the apartment and checked the door. Deadbolt. Second lock. Chain. Bottom brace.

One after another.

Matt understood then that he had to leave before Dex came home.

If he stayed, he would hear too much. He had already heard too much. And if Dex came home and realised Matt knew about Leo, he might have to have a conversation he wasn’t sure he was ready for. 

So Matt left.

He walked back to Josie’s with rainwater dripping from his coat and Leo’s voice stuck behind his skull.

Daddy said he’d be back before bedtime.

Karen was waiting upstairs.

The knives were still on the table between maps and cold coffee. 

“Well?” she asked.

Matt took off his coat rainwater dripping from the hem onto the floorboards, but he barely noticed. Karen was watching him from across the room, waiting for the truth.

Not too long ago, Matt would've told her everything. 

But then Matt thought of Leo.

Dex’s son.

Dex’s little boy.

Leo, who had cried because his father missed bedtime. Leo, who knew Daddy would still come home, fix his blanket, put Mr. Diplodocus back on the pillow, and kiss his head while he slept. Leo, who had sounded so loved that Matt could not stop hearing it.

That was the part Karen would never understand.

She wasn’t there. She would not hear the bedtime voice. She would not hear the way you soothed him. She would not picture the night-light, or the crayons, or the extra locks on the door.

She would hear one thing, and one thing only; Bullseye has a child.

And maybe she would be right to panic. After all, Karen had changed. Foggy’s death had changed her. Dex had changed her. That very same grief had made part of her cruel. 

Karen would want to do something. She would want to get Leo away from Dex before Dex could hurt him, even though Matt knew Dex never would. 

Matt knew ripping Leo away from his parents would not make anyone safer.

It would put everyone in danger.

Because Matt knew what Dex would become if he thought his son had been taken from him. The city was already barely holding together. Taking you and Leo from Dex would tear straight through the last fragile thread keeping him human.

And after what Matt had heard, he couldn’t do it.

He could not help tear apart the little family you were clearly trying so hard to keep together. 

So Matt chose to bend the truth to the woman he loved. Matt was choosing the lesser disaster. 

“She’s fine,” Matt said.

Karen stared at him. “That’s it?”

“No Task Force, no one watching the building.”

“And Poindexter?”

Matt swallowed. “He wasn’t there.” Technically, not a lie.

Karen’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

Matt thought of the extra lock, the night-light, the stuffed dinosaur.

Your voice saying, Daddy loves you so much.

It seemed to be the most ordinary of days to your patched up little family. 

He made himself look at Karen.

“No,” Matt said quietly. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

—

Across the city, Dex came home through the window.

He stripped off the jacket, checked it for blood, for dirt. He washed his hands until the water ran clear. Then again. He scrubbed under his nails, changed his shirt, wiped down the knives  before setting it high on the shelf where Leo couldn’t possibly reach.

Only then did he go to his son.

Leo was asleep with Mr. Diplodocus tucked under his chin, one cheek damp from earlier tears. Dex stood in the doorway for a moment, completely still.

Then he walked across the room, fixed the blanket over Leo’s shoulder, moved the dinosaur back onto the pillow, and kissed his forehead.

“M’ home,” he whispered.

Leo sighed in his sleep, like he knew.

Dex stayed until his breathing settled, and then he went to you.

You were half-asleep when he climbed into bed behind you, His arm slid around your waist, face tucked into the back of your neck.

“Late,” you murmured.

“I know,” he kissed the side of your neck. “M’ sorry.”

“Leo cried.”

Oh. Dex went quiet for a second.

You found his hand under the blanket and squeezed it. “Only a little. He said he was mad and sad and brave.”

Dex’s mouth pressed to your shoulder and relaxed against you.

After a while, you asked, sleepily, “Bad night?”

His thumb moved once over your stomach.

“Had more run-ins with the Task Force rats than I anticipated,” he murmured. “Skewered two with Leo’s lucky knife.”

“The red one?”

He nodded.

You hummed. “The timmy-dating one.”

Dex smiled against your skin. “Yeah,” he whispered. “The timmy-dating one.”

—end. 

Extra note: Guys I wanna set myself a challenge! Send me asks about Dex and Leo or Bucky and Jamie and I HAVE to make a little story that’s 500 words or less. I simply must get practice writing proper blurbs because I have a bad habit of overexplaining everything. Please specifically request it as a blurb 🫠🫠🫠

Dex taglist: @itsdynotdaddy @diabolicallydownbad @doesanyonereadthis @meicore @pixie2k5 @bibiishin @starlitflora @pearlstiare @glorybeat @stardustworlds @castawaybarnes @supervampireflame @not-the-teen-witch @billybonesxx @ultimatewolverine @treetrees-world-of-imagiation @bitch-spaghetti-o @lostinthes4uce @cotton-eee @weallhaveadestiny @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @moonbug333 @yujyujj @mattdexx @lostfallenangelsblog @bloomsberryfairy @flimsysquid @abbotfan @leonetta2014 @ficcharsimpsblog @odairtrqsh @ugh-whytho @noonenuts @akiyhara @genya1617 @itzrachel04 @avidreader73 @quicksilver21 @lmg-stilinski24 @magnificentlymoltenpatron @natalia42069 @eaumyth @hxdxs @cemeterystardust @alligatortears87 @outpostsworld @scarlet48 @lunarbandwidth

Series specific taglist: @riverjane-d @witchacoocoo

Please send in an ask or message if you want to be added to the dex general / series specific taglist! Comments get lost sometimes!

But Bucky knew better than to argue with you. Especially when you were sprawled under the umbrella in your swimsuit, sunglasses slipping down your nose, one hand thrown over your forehead like a woman in a tragic period drama.

“Buckyyy,” you said weakly.

He looked over from where he was helping Jamie dig a sandcastle with the yellow shovel. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“I’m dying.”

Jamie gasped. “Mommy?”

“She’s not dying,” Bucky said calmly.

“I am,” you insisted with a sigh, beads of sweat rolling down your skin that Bucky was really trying not to pay attention to, not while he was building sandcastles with your son. “The sun has chosen me as tribute.”

“Mmm,” Bucky’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” you frowned, “I need your arm.”

He glanced down at the vibranium arm, then back at you.

Jamie looked between the two of you, very interested. “Daddy’s cold arm?” 

“Daddy’s cold arm,” you confirmed. Jamie knew because when he sprained his ankle last month, Bucky used his arm to “ice” the bruise. 

Bucky huffed a laugh.

Then, without making a big deal out of it, he reached up and detached the arm.

Your eyes widened behind your sunglasses. “Wait. I was joking.”

“No, you weren’t.”

You considered you answer for a second. “I was joking a little.”

“No, you weren’t,” he repeated, because apparently being the love of your life meant that he knew you better than you knew yourself.

He walked over and gently set the vibranium arm beside you on the towel, cooling function already humming faintly through the vibranium.

You immediately wrapped your arm around it.

“Oh my God,” you sighed, pressing your cheek against the cool surface. “I love you.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow and chuckled. “Me or the arm?”

“At this exact moment,” You tilted your head, “I need you to be emotionally secure enough not to ask that.”

Jamie toddled over and patted the arm with both little hands. His eyes went huge. “Cold!”

“Very cold,” you said reverently at his adorable little face, blue eyes not unlike Bucky’s own. 

Jamie turned to Bucky, delighted. “Daddy, mommy has your arm.”

“I know, buddy.”

“You only have one hand now.”

Bucky looked down at himself, then at Jamie. “Yeah. Looks like I’m gonna need help with the castle.”

Oh. Daddy needs me! He seemed to think. 

Jamie straightened like he had just been promoted to general.

You watched the exact second your six-year-old became the most important construction worker on the beach.

“I can help,” Jamie said, very solemnly.

“I was hoping you would.”

Bucky went back to the sandcastle one-handed. To be fair, he could still do most things better than most people with one hand. 

He packed sand with his right palm, dragged the shovel toward him, smoothed down walls with his fingers. But every time one of Jamie’s little structures needed steadying, every time a bucket had to be tipped or a shell had to be placed or the moat needed “more water but not too much water,” he looked to Jamie.

“Can you hold this side for me?”

Jamie rushed in. “I got it, daddy!”

“Good job,” he smiled, “Don’t let it fall.”

Jamie’s little face went slightly pink with concentration. “I won’t.”

You hugged the cold arm closer, your heart melting for an entirely different reason.

Bucky could have done it faster on his own. You knew that. He knew that. But Jamie absolutely did not know that.

To Jamie, his father needed him.

To Jamie, he was not just watching the castle happen. He was making it happen.

He held the bucket while Bucky packed wet sand inside. He pressed both hands against one crooked wall while Bucky reinforced the other side. He selected shells with the concentration of a professional jeweller. He added one piece of seaweed to the top and declared it a flag.

Bucky squinted at it. “Looks like kelp.”

Jamie gave him a look.

“I mean,” Bucky corrected himself immediately. “Strong flag, buddy.”

Jamie nodded. “It means no bad guys.”

“Good rule.”

“And no stepping on mommy.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked to you, curled shamelessly around his detached arm like a sun-drunk cat. “Definitely no stepping on your mom.”

You lifted one hand lazily. “This kingdom has great laws, baby.”

Jamie beamed.

The castle got bigger. As it got bigger, it got stranger. Then, Jamie insisted it had a garage, because Jamie insisted all castles needed garages, and Bucky, being a better father than anyone had any right to be, didn’t argue with the logic.

“For what kind of car?” Bucky asked.

Jamie frowned like the answer was obvious. “A fast one.”

“Right. Of course.”

“A blue one.”

“Blue fast car. Got it.”

“And it flies.”

Bucky paused. “A flying car?”

Jamie nodded.

So Bucky built the garage one handed. 

The left side collapsed twice, and Jamie gasped both times like there had been casualties.

“I need you,” Bucky said seriously. “This wall’s no good without you.”

Jamie dropped to his knees beside him. “I fix it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You hold it, Daddy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bucky held the wall while Jamie patted wet sand onto the side with tiny, clumsy, determined hands. Half of it stuck, and half of it slid down. But none of it mattered, because Bucky looked at your son like he had just watched him solve cold fusion.

“There,” Jamie said, sitting back on his heels. “I did it!”

Bucky smiled proudly. “You did.”

Jamie looked down at the castle, then back at him. “You needed me.”

Bucky went very still.

It was brief, but you saw that little pause he got sometimes when love hit a wound he forgot he still had.

Then he reached out and brushed sand from Jamie’s cheek with his thumb.

“Yeah,” Bucky said quietly. “I did.”

Jamie accepted that like it was simple. Because to him, it was.

His daddy needed help. He helped. Because of both their efforts, the castle stood.

The world was very easy at six years old.

By the time the tide started creeping closer, the castle had three towers, a moat, one flying-car garage, sixteen shells, a kelp flag, and Jamie’s full emotional investment.

When the first little wave reached the edge of the moat, Jamie gasped. “No!”

Bucky turned immediately. “You want me to move it?”

You lifted your head. “Bucky, you cannot move a sandcastle.”

He looked at you. You looked at him.

He looked back at the castle like he was genuinely considering whether he could get a big enough shovel to move a sandcastle.

“Don’t,” you warned.

Jamie, thankfully, solved the crisis by flinging himself into Bucky’s side.

“It’s okay,” he said, though he sounded heartbroken. “Ocean can have it.”

Bucky wrapped his one arm around him and pulled him close. “That’s generous.”

Jamie sniffed. “But not the garage.”

“No,” Bucky agreed. “That part’s between us and the ocean.”

You laughed into the vibranium arm.

Bucky glanced back at you, sun-flushed, hair messy from the wind, one arm missing and the other full of your son.

He looked perfect.

Eventually Jamie wore himself out completely. He crawled into Bucky’s lap, sandy and buzzing with sleep, mumbling something about blue flying cars against his father’s chest.

Bucky sat under the umbrella with him, broad shoulder curved protectively around Jamie’s small one.

You scooted closer, still holding the detached arm. “Do you want this back?” you asked.

Bucky looked at you, then at Jamie asleep against him, then at the arm tucked against your cheek.

“Keep it,” he said softly. 

You chuckled and kissed his cheek, “It was made for dangerous missions.”

“It’s on one.”

You smiled. “Taking care of me is a dangerous mission?”

“Keeping you comfortable is my life’s work.”

You laughed, and he only smiled wider. Jamie shifted in his sleep, one small hand fisting in Bucky’s sleeveless shirt.

Bucky looked down at him, and there it was again. That disbelief and gratitude all the same.

He had been made into a weapon once.

Now his metal arm was keeping his wife cool, his only hand was holding his sleeping son, and a crooked sandcastle with a flying-car garage was being swallowed by the sea in front of him.

Shuri’s desert-grade cooling system had probably not been built for this.

But it was hard to imagine a better use.

—