𝓐𝓻𝓽

Matt had stood there in front of God, Fisk, Karen, the cameras, all of New York, basically, and said it. He had torn the last piece of himself open with his own hands.

He was Daredevil.

There was no putting that back.

Fisk took the plea, and he was finally out of office. Fucking finally. The city had helped, and for better or for worse, the streets had bled because of it. Riots broke out, and sirens were everywhere. The whole city sounded like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.

And Matt knew his days of moving freely were numbered.

It would not take long for the paperwork to be in order. It would not take long for the police to get their arrest warrant.

His name would spread through every system he had spent years trying to evade. Matthew Michael Murdock, Daredevil.

Whatever he was to people; Catholic boy, blind lawyer, vigilante, hero, hypocrite, all of it? That meant nothing. He was just a criminal who had to pay for breaking the law now. 

So, fine.

But before all of that happened. He needed to tie up loose ends.

That was what he told himself as he put on a hoodie the morning after the courthouse, at 2 AM. 

He crossed rooftops and fire escapes, ribs aching, lungs burning, sweat cold beneath his hoodie.

He was gonna check on him, that’s all. Make sure Dex was not out there killing people for the love of the game. Make sure the city didn’t have one more monster loose before he was taken away.

This better be quick, because would really rather spend his time with Karen before getting locked up.

By the time Matt reached Dex’s apartment building, the riot noise had thinned, like thunder moving farther away without ever really leaving.

Outside, New York still burned in fragments. Inside the building creaked. Old pipes ticked in the walls. Someone two floors down whispered angrily behind a locked door. A television murmured emergency coverage through cheap speakers. The exhaust fans gave a faint metallic complaint above him.

Matt climbed the stairs, knowing Dex’s apartment was ahead.

And then… Matt heard sobbing.

He stopped at the door.

It wasn’t theatrical, not the kind of crying meant to pull attention from the other side of a wall.

It was smaller than that. It almost made it… worse.

It came through Dex’s door in little broken pieces, like your body had run out of strength before it had run out of panic. One shaky breath, then another, then a thin, wet sound you tried to swallow and failed. You were trying to be quiet, Matt could tell. You were trying not to make noise and still the hurt kept leaking out of you anyway.

Matt stopped dead and assessed the situation.

There was a woman crying inside Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment.

For one second, Matt thought about every horrible thing he already knew about him.

Foggy, Father Lantom, all the other bodies he left in his wake.

All of them were there in his head at once, not as memories, but as evidence. As proof against Dex. As a case already built and closed in his mind.

Dex had never been someone Matt could afford to give the benefit of the doubt, not after what he had done. Not after who he had taken. Not even after all that bullshit about one good deed, about evening out the scales, as if taking another life could balance out the lives he had destroyed.

So Matt listened.

And then Dex spoke. “Baby, breathe. Come on. I’m here.”

Matt’s stomach tightened.

Baby?

From anyone else, maybe it would have sounded the way it was meant to: a soft comfort, words meant to soothe.  

But coming from Dex, the words twisted in Matt’s ears.

Still, Matt knew it sounded… sincere. 

Soft, but not fake-soft. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not even controlling.

It sounded… exhausted and careful. It frayed apart at the edges, like he had been kneeling there for hours, saying the same few words over and over because he was terrified you would disappear somewhere he couldn’t pull you back from.

“I’m right here,” Dex murmured. “You’re okay. You’re with me.”

You made a small, broken sound.

It was this heartbreakingly helpless, breathless little noise that caught in your throat and dragged itself out anyway. It was as if your body was trying to keep crying after you had already run out of strength for it.

Your breathing was too fast; Matt could hear every jagged inhale scraping up short in your chest, every failed attempt to steady yourself. Your heartbeat fluttered, frantic and uneven, skipping over itself like it was trapped.

You were on the floor. He could tell by the way your sobs hit the wood first, the way it sounded low and folded down. You were curled into yourself, maybe. 

And Dex was too close. He was close enough that his voice barely had to rise. He was close enough that Matt could hear the shift of his body beside yours, the drag of fabric against the floor, the way he moved like he knew exactly which sounds would hurt you and which ones would not.

Everything Matt heard told him Dex was not hurting you.

The care was there. The patience was there. The way he kept his voice quiet enough not to startle. The way he didn’t grab at you, didn’t bark orders, didn’t crowd too fast. He seemed to be making himself smaller just to keep from adding to whatever was tearing through you.

Benjamin Poindexter sounded…. kind.

Matt hated that. his senses were giving him one answer and his memory was giving him another.

His senses said Dex was helping you. His memory said Dex hurt people.

His senses said Dex was gentle with you. His memory said Dex had killed Foggy.

His senses said there was love in the room. His memory said Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know how to love correctly.

His mind immediately assumed the worst.

Had he held you here? Kidnapped you? Had he convinced himself he loved you, and was he trying to convince you to love him, too? 

Your sob hitched again.

“I can’t,” you whispered, voice shredded thin. “I can’t, Dex, I can’t—”

“I know,” Dex said immediately, and Matt could hear his skin on yours, rubbing gentle circles on your arm. You weren’t pulling away. “I know. Stay with me.”

There it was, the softness again.

That was an almost desperate patience in his voice, and still, Matt couldn’t make himself trust it.

Not with Dex crouched close enough for his voice to brush your skin. Not with you breathing like the room itself was killing you. Not with the door locked and the city screaming outside and no one else coming.

Then your breath snagged hard “Dex.”

“I’m here.”

“No.” Your voice thinned, almost terrified. “Someone else is h-here.”

Matt went completely still.

Behind the door, the apartment changed.

It was just a shift in the air. Dex went quiet all of a sudden. Matt understood, somehow, that you knew he was there.

For one suspended second, no one moved.

Your breathing trembled in the silence. Then Dex’s heartbeat slowed as he turned.

That was what made Matt decide. The sudden stillness of a killer turning his attention toward the door.

Whatever comfort Matt had heard before, whatever gentleness had almost confused him, it collapsed under the weight of everything else he knew:

A woman was crying in Dex’s apartment. Dex was too close to you. Ergo, Dex was hurting you and Matt had to get you out.

So Matt stepped back once he kicked the door down, and it broke inward. The sound tore through the apartment, wood splitting against the wall.

Matt stepped, expecting you to recoil.

He expected you to scramble backward on the floor, away from Dex. He expected fear to pull you toward the farthest corner, toward the broken doorway, toward him.

Anything but what actually happened.

You moved toward Dex.

It was a clumsy, desperate little scramble, knees dragging over the floorboards, one hand slipping against the wood as you tried to push yourself up and failed. Your breath came in miserable pieces, your whole body folded around the panic like it hurt to exist inside your own skin.

“Dex,” you choked.

Dex was already moving. He closed the distance before you could reach him properly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of you having to cross even that little distance alone. His hands came out, open, and you clambered into him.

There was no other word for it.

You climbed into his arms like you were trying to get beneath his ribs. As if you pressed close enough, hid deep enough, the rest of the world might lose track of you. Your fingers caught the front of his shirt and twisted there, tight and frantic, pulling yourself higher until your face was buried against his chest.

Dex caught you with his whole body. One of his arms was wrapped around your back. The other came up over your head, shielding your face, tucking you under his chin. He bent around you so gently it was almost painful to process, all that deadly mass turned into cover, into shelter.

Matt froze.

You… were not trapped.

Your cheek was pressed to his chest, hands fisted in his shirt. Your body shook against his, but the second he held you, your heartbeat changed. It was still too fast, still terrified, still broken up with panic, but it reached for his rhythm like a drowning man reaching for shore.

Dex lowered his mouth to your temple.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, baby.”

You made a devastated sound and curled tighter.

Your knees drew up against his thigh. One of your hands slipped from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, gripping there like you were afraid Matt might pull him away from you.

“He’s loud,” you managed.

Dex’s eyes stayed on Matt, who still hadn’t said anything. “I know.”

“He’s loud, Dex, he’s so loud.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

You shook your head against him, hiding your face harder in the hollow of his throat. “Baby,” you whispered, voice barely there. “He thinks you’re hurting me.”

Dex went still. 

“I’m not,” he said.

“I know.” Your voice cracked on it. “I know. But he thinks it and I can hear it and it hurts.”

Matt’s throat tightened. What did that even mean?

He heard it then, not just the panic and sobs. He heard the trust.

Your fear was everywhere, all over the room, spilling out of you in ragged breaths, but it was not aimed at the man holding you. Dex was the only place in the apartment your body seemed to recognize as safe.

You kept trying to disappear into him.

Every time Matt shifted, even slightly, your fingers tightened. Every time the broken door creaked behind him, your breath snagged and Dex’s palm moved slowly over the back of your head, as if smoothing you back into yourself.

“Don’t listen to him,” Dex murmured against your hair. “Listen to me.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“It’s too much.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Matt took half a step forward. Dex’s head snapped up. “Don’t.”

The word was quiet to not startle you, and that was enough to stop Matt anyway.

Dex shifted on the floor, turning his body more fully between you and the doorway. You followed without thinking, clinging to him as he moved, your face still hidden against his chest. He kept you tucked there, one arm firm around your back, the other curved protectively around your head like he could keep Matt’s thoughts from touching you if he just covered enough of you.

“Poindexter,” Matt started, and it was smaller now.

Dex’s expression did not change. “Get out.”

“I thought—”

“I don’t give a shit what you thought.”

You trembled harder at the anger in his voice. Dex felt it instantly. His eyes flicked down, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to Matt.

“Not you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth briefly to your hair. 

You made another broken little noise and pushed closer, like the words had gone straight through your heart.

Dex held you tighter, not possessively in a way that trapped, but just enough to tell your body there was he was around it. 

Matt stood there in the wreckage of the door, listening to your heartbeat try to steady itself against Dex’s chest, and for one awful second he didn’t know what to do with what his senses were telling him.

Because Benjamin Poindexter was still the reason too many people Matt loved were dead. But you were curled into him like he was the last quiet place in New York.

“He’s still here,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes lifted. “I know.”

Dex’s face changed, but not by much. Matt doubted anyone else would have noticed, but he did. He heard it in Dex’s breathing, in the shift of his weight, in the sudden burst of restraint. The city outside was loud. The riots were loud. Matt was loud. His suspicion was loud. His righteousness was loud. His judgment was loud.

And somehow, you could hear all of it.

“I don’t want him here,” you said.

That was it. Whatever patience Dex had left for Matt died right there on the floor.

His hand stayed gentle on your back, but his voice didn’t. “Get the fuck out.”

For once, he did what Dex told him to do.

Matt stepped back into the hallway and got out.

The ruined door dragged crookedly against the floor when he pulled it mostly shut behind him. The lock was useless now, broken out from the frame, hanging loose in splintered wood, but Matt still closed it as much as he could.

He stood there in the hall, one hand still near the broken door, breathing quietly through the dust and old paint and the faint metallic tang inside the apartment.

He should have left. He knew that.

You had wanted him gone. Matt had seen enough, heard enough, to know he had been wrong about at least the first thing: Dex hadn’t been hurting you.

But Matt still could not make himself walk away.

Because Matt has convinced himself that love, in the hands of someone like Benjamin Poindexter, could become a locked room so easily.

Matt stayed.

Not close enough to push the door open again, but not far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.

Inside, your breathing was still ragged.

Dex was still on the floor with you.

Matt could hear the tiny, frantic movements of your hands in Dex’s shirt. The tremor in your inhale. The way you kept trying to tuck yourself into him like the world might stop finding you if there was enough of his body between you and everything else.

“He’s still out there,” you whispered.

Dex’s answer came after a second of consideration. “Is he, now?”

Your breath hitched. “He didn’t leave.”

Fuck.

Matt stood very still in the hall.

“I’ll take care of him,” Dex murmured.

Your breath snagged. “Don’t hurt him.”

There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but long enough.

Then Dex said, “I won’t kill him.”

“Dex.” You didn't sound convinced.

“I won’t kill him,” he repeated, softer this time. “Promise.”

“You’re mad.”

“I know.”

“It’s sharp,” you winced.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” Inside the apartment, Dex went quiet in a way that felt less like guilt and more like being seen too clearly. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”

“Dex.”

“I won’t hurt him,” he said, and this time there was no loophole in it. There was only surrender, because it was you asking. “Okay? I won’t.”

Your breathing shuddered as Dex shifted on the floor.

“I’m going to move you, okay?” he said. “Just to the bed. I’ve got you.”

You made a small sound, and Matt could picture it too clearly now. You curled in on yourself, face hidden, body shaking from too much of whatever it is you could sense. 

Dex crouched slowly, though he was already close. Like even now, even with you clutching at him, he was careful not to startle you.  He slid one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.

You clutched at his shirt with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“No.” His voice went firm immediately. “No, don’t say things like that.”

“I ruined your night.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.”

“I came here and I—”

“You came to me.” Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, quick and fierce. “That’s all. You came to me.”

You made a broken little noise against him.

Matt stood in the hallway, just outside the ruined door, listening to Dex lift you from the floor.

He heard the way your breath caught when your body left the ground. He heard your hands grip for a better hold. He heard Dex adjust instantly, pulling you closer.

“I’ve got you,” Dex murmured. “I’ve got you. I know.”

“You’re going to leave.”

“No.”

You sounded so small when you said, “You are.”

Dex carried you to the bed like every step had been chosen before he took it. Like he knew which floorboards made noise and which ones didn’t. Like he had learned how to move through this apartment in a way that made the least amount of noise for you.

“I’ll take care of him, okay?” Dex murmured. “I’ll make him go away.”

Your breathing hitched as you started to say something, but Dex shushed you gently.

“Yes, I know,” he said, softer. “I know you don’t like it when people see you like this. I know. It’s just gonna be me and you, okay? Just me and you.”

The mattress dipped down under your weight.

“I’ll close the door,” Dex continued. “I’ll turn the lights off. I’ll come right back.”

Your fingers caught the fabric of his shirt again. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving.” Dex let out a slow breath. “I’m right here.”

“You’re thinking about going.”

“I’m thinking about making him leave.”

“I can’t tell the difference.”

Dex went quiet.

Matt heard him sit beside you instead of standing right away. The mattress shifted again as the room settled around the two of you.

You cried a little, more exhausted now, as if the panic had torn through you and left you hollowed out behind it.

Dex’s hand moved over fabric in a slow, repetitive pass. Matt realised he was making the sheets smooth for you as he laid you down.

His hand slid up from your back to the side of your face, thumb hovering near your cheek, not quite wiping the tears away until you leaned into it first. “Look into my mind, baby.”

Matt’s head tilted from the hallway.

What?

Inside the studio, everything went still except for your breathing.

The room was not large enough for privacy. Not really. The bed sat pushed into the far corner. The broken front door was too close. Matt was too close. The whole world was too close.

But Dex bent over you like he could make distance with his body alone.

“Go on,” he murmured. “Look at me.”

You stared up at him through wet lashes, face blotched from crying, lips parted around breaths that still would not come right. Your fingers trembled against his shirt, twisted in the fabric so tightly the seams strained.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then your grip loosened by a fraction.

Your eyes fluttered.

A shaky breath left you, not calm, not even close, but relieved enough that Dex’s shoulders almost caved in with it.

“You’re coming back,” you whispered.

Dex nodded once, forehead nearly touching yours. “Yeah.”

“You’re not leaving forever.”

“No.”

The answer was immediate. No room for doubt. No space for the thought to grow teeth.

But then your expression crumpled again.

“You’re mad.”

Dex closed his eyes for half a second.

He didn’t deny it. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. Not to you. “I am.”

Your breath caught so suddenly it sounded like it hurt.

Dex’s whole face changed. The anger was still there, Matt could hear it in him, running hot under the skin. But with you looking at him like that, terrified because his fury had no color, no label, no clear direction once it got inside your head, Dex felt almost sick with it.

“I’m not mad at you,” he said, urgent in a way that made the words rough. “Never at you.”

Your mouth trembled and repeated yourself. “You know I can’t tell the difference sometimes.” It came out so pained Matt felt it in his own chest.

You said it like an apology, like you hated needing him to explain the direction of his anger because you could feel it anyway, and feeling it didn’t mean understanding it.

Dex swallowed. His hand curved more fully around your cheek now, warm and steady, thumb finally catching one tear before it slid down to your jaw.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

You looked at him for another second, searching his face like your own mind wasn't enough tonight. Like even seeing inside him had not made your body believe it yet.

Then he lowered his voice. “I have to make him leave.”

Your fingers tightened again, not as badly this time.

Dex did not pull away. He leaned in instead, pressing a short kiss to your forehead, then another to the corner of your temple, like he could nail the promise into place with his mouth.

“I’m going to turn off the lights, okay?” 

You nodded, barely, as breathing scraped in and out through your nose.

Dex shifted only when you let him. He eased you back against the pillows in the bed, not putting you down so much as arranging the room around your collapse. One hand stayed on you the whole time, a constant point of contact while the other reached for everything else.

He crossed the few steps to it and slid the window shut with painstaking care, catching the frame before it could knock. Street noise dulled at once.

Then he pulled the curtains together until the thin spill of city light vanished from the wall and your face disappeared into darkness.

As promised, he clicked the lamp off.

The studio fell dimmer, warmer, reduced to the weak strip of hallway light bleeding through the ruined front door.

The phone was next. He picked it up from the small table beside the bed and silenced it without looking, thumb moving from memory. He put it back, screen turned down.

A radio sat near the kitchenette, cheap and old, still plugged into the wall. Dex crossed to it barefoot and pulled the cord free. The plastic scraped faintly against the outlet, and even that made your breathing tremble.

Then, he opened a drawer near the bed.

Something rattled softly as he picked it up. A pill bottle, maybe? No, it could be earplugs in a little tin. 

He came back with them in his palm.

You must have watched him through the dark because your breathing changed when he got close again, sounding less lost than before.

Dex sat on the edge of the mattress.

He tucked the blanket around you, drawing it up over your shoulder, smoothing the edge down like he was sealing the world out inch by inch. His hand lingered there after, broad against the blanket, feeling the shake of you through the fabric.

The apartment had become smaller. Every sound had been answered. Every light had been put down. Every little edge of the room had been softened, covered, turned away from you by hands that knew the ritual too well.

He had done this before. Like he had learned, piece by piece, how to make the world survivable for you.

At some point, you must have reached for him again, because Dex’s voice dropped inaudibly. “Hey,” he whispered. “I know.”

The bed creaked as he leaned closer.

A kiss touched your skin. Your forehead, maybe. Then another, lower. Your temple. The damp line of your cheek.

“I’ll be right back,” Dex breathed.

You made a small sound.

He stayed another second, maybe two. Long enough for your fingers to loosen.

Then he stood.

Dex walked to the other side of the apartment without turning on a single light. He made no wasted movement, not a single sound he didn’t mean to make.

At the broken front door, he paused and looked back once.

Matt could hear the small turn of his head. The habit of making sure you were still under the blanket, still breathing, still there.

Then Dex slipped into the hall and pulled the ruined door mostly shut behind him.

It couldn’t latch. But he cracked it closed as carefully as if it still mattered, leaving only a narrow gap of darkness between the apartment and the hallway.

He was keeping the light out. He was keeping Matt out.

When Dex turned, he stood half-shadowed in the corridor, eyes red-rimmed and flat with exhaustion. His face was calm in the way loaded weapons were calm. His voice stayed quiet, almost gentle, but not for Matt.

He did it for yous

“I told you,” Dex said, “to get the fuck out.”

For a while, Matt didn’t say anything.

The hallway held them in the aftermath of what Matt had done. The door hung crooked in its frame, pulled mostly shut even though the lock was split and useless, the wood around it cracked open where Matt’s boot had forced its way through. It couldn’t protect you anymore. It could barely pretend to be a door. Still, Dex stood in front of it as if his body could replace what Matt had broken, as if he could become the lock, the wall, the whole goddamn building if he had to.

Matt could hear the anger in him as clearly as he could hear traffic below: hot, contained, and viciously focused. Dex wanted to do something with it. Matt knew that, but he kept it buried beneath his ribs because you were behind that broken door, and if he let the rage rise any higher, you would feel it.

That was what Matt could not stop noticing. Not the anger. The restraint.

Inside the apartment, you shifted under the blanket. It was only a movement of fabric, barely anything, followed by the small uneven catch of your breath as you tried to settle yourself in the dark corner Dex had made for you. Dex turned his head at once. Not fully, not enough to take his attention off Matt, but enough that Matt realised that some part of Dex had never left the room with you. Some part of him was still sitting beside the bed, counting your breaths, waiting for the slightest sign that you needed him again.

For one moment, Matt didn't feel like he was looking at Bullseye. He was looking at a man furious enough to kill and still aching to go back inside because the woman he loved was trying to remember how to breathe without him there.

Matt swallowed. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

Dex looked back at him and the answer was obvious. Matt had no right to know. No right to ask. He had no right to stand there in the hallway after frightening you and pretend the question was harmless.

“I didn’t tell you.”

His voice was flat and guarded, the words set down like a barrier. Matt’s mouth tightened. 

Behind the door, your breathing hitched again, smaller this time, like the sound of voices through wood was still enough to scrape against you. Dex heard it too. The anger in him shifted immediately, folding smaller, tightening down.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

He knew it was wrong the second it left his mouth. The words were too blunt, too harsh, too clinical. He had meant, What happened? He had meant, Is she going to be okay? He had meant, What did I just walk into, and how badly did I make it worse? But none of that came out. What came out sounded like you were a problem. 

“Nothing is wrong with her,” Dex said, and Matt could tell he was trying his hardest not to snap.

Matt didn’t move. Dex stepped closer by the smallest amount, and the entire hallway seemed to narrow with him. His face had gone hard, but not empty.

“Nothing,” Dex repeated, each syllable harsh enough to cut. “She’s perfect.”

Matt exhaled slowly through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

Dex didn’t have to snarl. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The accusation sat there between them, plain and ugly, and Matt couldn’t defend himself from it because part of it was true.

Inside, you were quiet now. Not calm, but silent in the way people became when they were trying very hard not to take up too much space with their hurt. Matt listened to the small tremor and felt the pieces beginning to arrange themselves in his head.

You had known he was outside before Dex opened the door. You had reacted to him even before he even stepped inside. You had known Dex was mad but couldn’t tell where that anger was aimed. Dex had told you to look into his mind with the ease of someone offering proof, not metaphor, not comfort dressed up as poetry, but a real thing he knew you could do.

Oh.

Matt looked back at Dex and stated the painfully obvious explanation. “She can read minds.”

Dex’s expression changed only a little, but Matt heard the rest. The brief tightening of his mouth. The instinct to protect you by lying took over, followed almost immediately by the realization that lying to Matt Murdock was pointless.

Dex looked away, and said, “Yes.” 

His voice had changed, still rough around the edges, but the explanation seemed to cost him a part of his soul. Every word about you had to be handled carefully because it belonged to you first. He kept his eyes on the door as he spoke, as if even describing your pain required him to make sure it had not worsened.

“She hears thoughts, feelings. Most days she can keep it out, or keep it separate, or read one mind at a time. She knows how to get through the day.” His teeth clenched, and he looked down for half a second before forcing himself to continue. “But when there are too many people, when emotions run too high, it stops being individual thoughts and turns into noise.”

Oh.

Oh shit, Matt thought as he realized that last night hadn’t only been bad for you. It had been a disaster built exactly out of the things that hurt you most. 

Last night, protests clashed with Fisk’s Task Force. Bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the streets, voices raised, officers behind their shields, civilians furious and terrified and righteous all at once. Fisk’s fall had moved through the city like a shockwave. Matt Murdock’s confession that he was a Daredevil had made a home on every screen, in every mouth, in every disbelieving mind.

His confession had not stayed in the courtroom. It had spilled outward, turning into rumor and revelation and riot, and you had walked straight into all of it because you thought Dex was hurt. Because you missed him.

Matt felt his stomach sink.

He thought of you moving through that crowd, not just hearing the sirens and shouting like everyone else, but taking in the thoughts beneath them. Panic layered over rage layered over grief. Thousands of minds all pushing against yours with no space between them. A whole city losing control at once, and you were caught in the middle of it, trying to find one person.

Dex’s face tightened as if he could see the same picture and hated it more because he had already lived the end of it. He hated that he had found you like that. 

Matt understood that without being told. Dex had found you shaking apart in this same apartment, or near it, or on the street outside, too overwhelmed by everyone else to find yourself. He had found you and brought you here and spent the night closing windows, killing lights, silencing phones, making the world smaller with hands that had done unspeakable things.

“She came looking for me,” Dex said.

The words were almost stripped of anger now. Dex looked at the door again, and his body softened before he could stop it. But Matt heard it in the way Dex’s breath caught around your existence on the other side of the wall.

Benjamin Poindexter loved you.

Matt didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to have to make room for it inside the shape of the man he hated. He wanted Dex to stay simple. A killer. Someone with a label simple enough to condemn without complication. But love was written through him now in ways Matt couldn’t ignore. 

Matt’s voice came quieter when he asked, “Does she need a doctor?”

Dex scoffed. “Doctors are what made her like this.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t explain. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Matt hadn’t earned that part of the story. But still, he was opening just enough of a door for Matt to picture the white rooms, fluorescent lights and people calling pain research, behind him.

Dex looked back at the broken door, and for half a second, the rage in him gave way. “She has good days and bad days,” Dex said. His mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, the grief in it was almost unbearable. “And she was having a good week.”

That mattered.

Matt couldn’t possibly understand the full weight of that sentence, but Dex did. A good week meant sleep. It meant you could eat without feeling nauseous. It meant you had mornings where you didn’t wake up already bracing against other people’s thoughts. 

You’ve had several really good weeks, actually. 

It mattered because Dex had met you on a bad day.

—

Twelve months ago… 

OXE hired him to kill you.

A freelance gig, really. 

The file was from the private medical trial branch of the corporation. It said that you were a failed participant. You were a liability. You were just a woman whose condition had become unpredictable.

They sent Dex a name, a photograph, an address, and a warning not to engage longer than necessary.

The house they had sent him to had no security. It was an old, empty place with drawn curtains and stale air and dust gathered thick in the corners.

You hated it.

Dex found you in the attic under the slanted roof, sitting in the weak orange spill of late afternoon light, one wrist was handcuffed to an exposed pipe. Your knees were drawn up close to your chest. Your hair stuck damply to your face, and your lips were bitten raw, like you had spent hours trying to keep something inside your mouth by force.

The key was across the room.

It was kicked. Dex could tell from the scrape in the dust where it had skidded away from you, just far enough that your fingers couldn’t reach it unless you pulled hard enough to tear the skin around your wrist. The cuff had already bruised a dark, ugly ring on your skin. 

You looked at him once.

A small, breathless laugh left you. It wasn’t happy, not even close. It was more like your body had mistaken despair for humor because it had run out of other ways to hold it.

“You’re…” Your voice cracked. “You’re here to kill me.”

Dex didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Your eyes moved over his face, and something strange passed through them. 

Then you laughed again, barely. “You think I’m pretty, Dex.”

The attic went still as dust drifted in the light between you.

Dex’s finger rested near the trigger.

“How do you know my name?”

You looked at him like the question itself was tired. “Mind reader,” you said. “Obviously.”

Dex stared at you for a long moment.

You didn’t look like what OXE had described.

Dangerous, yes, maybe. But not in the way they meant. You looked exhausted, cornered, and afraid of yourself than of him. Your whole body was tense against the cuff, but you weren’t trying to get free anymore.

Dex’s eyes flicked to the key, then back to you.

“Why lock yourself up here?”

For the first time, you looked ashamed. “Because it’s loud.”

Dex glanced around the empty attic.

You heard the thought before he could speak.

“Not here,” you said, swallowing, then pointing to your head with your free hand, “but here.”

Your hand then curled briefly around your own throat, not pressing, just remembering. 

“I kicked the key away,” you whispered. “So I’d have time to stop myself.”

“From what?”

You closed your eyes. Your voice came out small. “Strangling someone.”

Dex didn’t move.

You opened your eyes, wet and miserable, and looked past him because looking right at him was suddenly too hard.

“He was loud. He wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and I kept hearing it. I told him to stop to shut up, but they couldn’t, because people can’t just stop thinking, and I knew that, see, I knew that, but I—

Your breath broke as you looked down at your cuffed wrist. “So I locked myself up here. Before I kill someone again.”

Dex should have killed you. That was the job.

OXE had paid him to remove a problem, and there you were, handcuffed beneath a slanted roof, bruised and filthy and shaking because the world had made you into something you were terrified of becoming.

He should have pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the gun.

Your face fell immediately, like mercy was its own kind of threat.

“Don’t,” you whispered.

Dex paused.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” you said, voice cracking. 

Dex’s mind went quiet.

He had no idea what to do with that. No idea what to do with you.

So he did the only practical thing he could.

He walked across the room and picked up the key.

You cried then, silently at first, tears spilling over without sound as he came back and crouched in front of you. Dex moved slowly. He set the gun down beside him, close enough to reach, far enough that you could see both his hands.

“I’m going to unlock it,” he said.

You stared at him.

“You can read my mind,” he added, awkward and blunt because gentleness was not a language he spoke well yet. “So you know I’m not lying.”

Your breath shook.

You looked at him, really looked, and you squinted your eyes in the smallest, most painful disbelief.

Dex unlocked the cuff.

The metal fell away from your wrist. 

You didn’t move.

You only stared at your freed hand like it belonged to someone else. The skin beneath the cuff was swollen and angry, the bruise already darkening. Dex looked at it for too long.

Then he took off his jacket.

He draped it over your shoulders.

You were shaking so hard the leather fabric around you.

Dex did not ask if you could walk. He already knew the answer. He saw the way your legs failed when you tried to gather them beneath you, saw the way your hand went out blindly toward the pipe, toward the wall, toward anything that would keep the room from tilting.

So he picked you up slowly, one arm under your knees, one behind your back, no grip tighter than necessary.

You went rigid in his arms for half a second, then sagged, exhausted past the point of fear.

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.

Dex looked down at you.

He didn’t know how to answer out loud.

Because I know what it means to be made wrong for the world, too.

Maybe, now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to be alone anymore. 

He said none of that. But you said, “okay.”

He carried you down from the attic and took you back to his apartment because he didn’t know where else to take you. 

You sat on the edge of his tub in his jacket while he ran the water warm.

Dex kept looking away, not because he was embarrassed, but because he understood, somehow, that being looked at was another kind of noise. He handed you a towel, found some soaps and put a clean shirt on the sink. 

When you could not lift your hands without trembling, he helped.

He helped you into warm water and rinsed dust from your hair, cleaning blood from your bruised wrist. His hand was steady on your skin when you started crying again.

He didn't ask you to stop.

He only said, once, very quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

And because you could read his mind, you knew he meant it.

Benjamin Poindexter had been hired to kill you.

Instead, he took you out of the attic and bathed you.

—

Over the next couple of days, you were mostly good.

Mostly.

Because Dex learned quickly that good didn’t mean cured. It meant you slept more than you usually did. It meant you could sit by the window without pressing your palms to your ears. It meant you could make tea in his kitchen and smile at some thought he hadn’t meant to give you.

Within the first week, his apartment changed because of you. He installed wall panelling first, because the building was old and thin and the neighbors came through the walls too easily when everything felt hollow. Then, he gave you thicker curtains, then rugs. Then a new refrigerator because the old one hummed at a frequency that made you bare your teeth and say it tasted wrong.

Dex didn’t ask what that meant.

He just replaced it.

After all, your mind was already susceptible to being invaded by foreign thoughts, he didn't want you to be overstimulated by your senses, too.

That was how it started with him, really. Not with declarations. Dex loved in corrections, adjustments, and threat assessments. He noticed what hurt you, and then he removed it. He learned the signs of your bad days and built around them, one practical act at a time.

You fell in love with him so fast it should have scared you.

It didn’t, but mostly because you knew he had already fallen too.

You could hear it.

He thought he was being subtle, which was almost funny. Dex, who could control his breathing to take a shot, couldn’t hide wanting you to kiss him for more than a week.

You could hear his thoughts every time you came too close.

Not words, exactly. More like flashes of your mouth, your hands in his mind. The curve of your shoulder when you wore one of his shirts. The split-second image of him leaning in, followed by a disciplined thought-wall of don’t, don’t, don’t, because Dex could kill a man without blinking but apparently touching you first was too much.

You let him suffer with it for six days, mostly because you were giving him time to change his mind. 

He didn’t.

On the seventh, he was fixing one of the new panels in the kitchen, teeth clenched because the wood refused to sit straight. You were sitting on the counter with one of his old FBI academy shirts that had since gotten too small for his bulk now, bare legs swinging, watching him pretend he was not acutely aware of your knees on either side of his ribs when he stepped between them to reach the wall.

You had laughed from where you sat.

He looked over at you. “You think that’s funny?”

You tilted your head. “You’re thinking about shooting the wall.”

Dex stared at you, setting the screwdriver down too carefully.

“You shouldn’t go digging around in my head.”

“I didn’t dig,” you said. “You’re loud when you’re annoyed.”

That should have bothered him. It did, maybe a little.

But then you smiled at him like his mind was not a terrible place to be. Like you could look at all the terrible things in there and still find him underneath. Like understanding him did not disgust you.

Fuck, he thought, don’t do things that make me want to—

“You want to kiss me,” you interrupted his train of thoughts.

Dex went so still it was almost sweet. Then he turned his head. “You shouldn’t listen to that.”

“You know I don’t mean to.” You hooked two fingers in the front of his shirt and tugged him closer. 

His eyes dropped to your mouth, and that was answer enough.

So you kissed him.

Gently at first, just to see what he would do with it. Dex froze under your hands like his body had forgotten every instruction except stay. Then he made this small, ruined sound against your mouth and touched your waist like you were a fragile crystal he had been warned not to break.

After that, neither of you stood a chance.

Neither of you did anything halfway. Dex didn’t know how to want normally, and you didn’t know how to be wanted normally. Kissing turned into touching, touching turned to stumbling into his bed, and being in his bed turned into Dex curling into you afterward like he had found heaven and was furious nobody had warned him it would feel like this.

Sex with a mind reader should have terrified him.

But after the first time he understood what it meant with you. There was no pretending or hiding behind control. He couldn’t pretend to be calmer than he was. He couldn’t hide how badly he wanted to kiss you again, how much he liked your hands on him, how ruined he got when you said his name in that breathless sigh. You knew when he was overwhelmed and you adjusted. You knew when he needed to slow down. You knew when he was thinking too much and when he needed you to pull him out of his own head.

You kissed him through it. You talked him through it. You touched him like his wants were not shameful just because they were intense, like the inside of him was not too much for you.

And you loved him for it.

You loved the strange, violent tenderness of him. The way he checked your face before his hands moved. The way he liked when you told him what he wanted. 

“You love me,” you whispered after the second month, half asleep against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy shapes over his ribs.

Dex went still beneath you.

You smiled into his skin. “Don’t panic. I love you too.”

He didn’t say it back then because he didn’t have to.

But his arms tightened around you like the thought of you leaving had become physically unbearable. His mouth pressed to the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, almost desperate.

He loved you with every ruined, desperate, loyal part of himself. He loved you like gravity, like a fixation, like a religion he had invented alone in the dark and then accidentally found living in your body.

You smiled up at him, eyes wet.

“I know,” you whispered. “I can hear you.”

Dex’s hand came up to the back of your neck and kissed you.

You heard it in him constantly after that, and not  like a normal man thinking I love you in a normal way. 

Still, there were rules.

You didn’t care that he killed AVTF agents and assassination jobs. You had heard enough of their minds to know duty didn’t make most men good. You didn’t hate him for coming home with blood on his hands. 

If anything, Dex loved that about you. Because for once, he didn’t have to explain himself.

He didn’t have to come home and build a careful human-sounding justification for the violence. He didn’t have to say he had no choice, or they were a threat. You already knew. You reached into his mind, found his reasoning, and understood it before he even greeted you.

And you would look at him and say, “That’s fine.”

Not because you were naïve. But you knew exactly what he was.

You knew the terrible things he had done. You knew the sound of his mind when he decided someone had to die. You knew how quickly he could make peace with blood if the reason made sense to him. And somehow, you accepted it.

But proximity to killing was a different thing altogether. A hurt mind was a loud mind and a dying mind was worse. 

You explained it after an agent got too close to the apartment. 

Dex knew that he couldn’t risk a search. He knew he couldn’t risk him writing down the address. He couldn’t risk OXE finding you again.

So he killed him outside, close enough for you to feel the pain. 

By the time Dex came back in, you were on the floor beside the bed, hands pressed to your ears even though that never helped. Your face was pale, eyes unfocused, like you were still hearing dead thoughts long after the body had gone limp.

“A hurt mind tastes like TV static,” you whispered.

Dex stopped with blood drying on his sleeve.

You tried to explain because he needed to understand, and with you, Dex always listened like the answer might save your life later.

“I don’t hear words when they’re hurt. Pain turns everything white and icky. It buzzes behind my eyes.” You swallowed hard, breathing through it. “And dying is worse. A dying mind clings to anything it can. A face, a  smell, a prayer. Some room they were in when they were little. Anything to stay. It’s so loud, Dex. I can’t filter it, I can’t, I-I… can’t.”

Dex didn’t look sorry for the dead agent, that was not how he worked. But he looked… hurt. He was hurt because you were.

“I know why you did it,” you said, eyes wet. “I know he got too close. I’m not mad.”

That was worse, because he could’ve handled anger. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness. “I just can’t be near it,” you whispered. “Please.”

It had never been easy for him to change rules, but just like that, because you were hurt, he changed it. 

He promised no killing within half a mile of the apartment. He promised there would be no bodies in the building. If danger came near and you were close enough to feel it, Dex would send you away first. 

And if he had no choice, if someone had to die and had to die fast, Dex dragged the body away before the mind finished breaking.

He’d drag them down alleys, around corners, behind dumpsters, far enough that their minds could get loud somewhere it wouldn’t reach you.

For a while, that was enough.

Then one day, Dex came home and you weren’t in the apartment.

The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low the way you liked them. The kettle sat cold on the stove, even though it was time you usually had tea. Your blanket was half-folded on the chair, one sleeve of one of his shirts hanging off the armrest where you had left it that morning.

But you weren’t there.

Dex stood in the middle of the studio and listened.

He couldn’t hear bare feet shifting against the floor of the bathroom. He could hear breathing from the corner beyond the bed, where you usually were when you were overwhelmed. 

Nothing.

His body reacted before his mind did.

A bloom of panic opened behind his ribs.

“Sweetheart?”

No answer.

He checked the bathroom, the closet, the fire escape. The bed, even though he could see you weren’t  in it. Then again, because panic didn’t care about logic once it got its hands around his throat.

No.

No, no, no.

For one sick second, all he could think was OXE.

Someone had found you. Someone had gotten in while he was away. Someone had taken you from the little box he had built to keep the world out, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

Then he heard you.

You were… down the hall?

You let out a sob muffled through someone else’s door.

Dex turned toward it so fast the room seemed to tilt.

He knew that sound. He knew every version of your crying by then. The small ones you tried to hide, the sharp ones that meant you were hurt, the breathless ones that meant too many minds had gotten in and you couldn’t find your way back out.

This one was worse.

This one sounded like shock and the beginning of self-hatred.

Dex was already moving.

The neighbors’ apartment door was unlocked.

He pushed it open and found you on the floor.

You were curled up near the kitchen tiles, knees drawn tight, hands pressed over your mouth as if you were trying to hold the sobs in with your fingers. Your whole body shook.  

You were barefoot. Your hair was a mess. One side of your face was wet with tears.

Then Dex saw the bodies around you, and it belonged to the couple who lived there.

The ones who screamed through the walls so often their voices had become part of the building. The ones whose arguments rotted into your apartment at night. The ones whose thoughts were worse than their mouths, according to you. They were bitter and poisoned all the way through.

He knew pieces of them because you knew pieces of them.

You told them they had a son who didn’t live there anymore. The grandparents had taken him in because the father’s anger had become too physical and the mother’s neglect had become too easy to pretend not to see. The child’s room was now turned into storage. 

They had been horrible people.

That did not change the fact that you had killed them.

You looked up at Dex. “I’m sorry.”

Your hands fell from your mouth to your throat, fingers hovering there like you could still feel what you had done.

“They were so loud,” you whispered.

Dex stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Your eyes darted to the bodies, then back to him, wild and wet and ruined.

“I knew it would hurt,” you said, words coming faster now, tumbling out of you before you could stop them. “I knew. I knew dying minds hurt me. I knew it would be loud when they died, I knew it would get in, but they were already so loud, Dex. They were already in my head I couldn’t think.”

Your breath hitched hard.

“They were fighting again. Not just out loud outside, but inside. Inside was worse. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her, and she was thinking about what she should have done to him years ago, and then they were thinking about the boy, and neither of them even missed him right. They just—”

You choked on it.

Dex took one slow step closer. You shook your head, frantic. “No. Don’t. I’m awful right now. I’m so loud.”

“You’re not too loud for me.”

That made you sob harder. You curled forward, forehead nearly touching your knees.

“I tried to go back,” you whispered. “I tried to go back to our apartment. I tried to shut it out, but they kept going and going and going, and I couldn’t tell what was mine anymore. I couldn’t tell if I hated them or if they hated each other or if the whole hallway hated them, and then I was here.”

Your hands twisted in your lap.

“I was just here.”

Dex understood, because it was you.

Because your mind had been filled past the point of reason by two people who had made a life out of being loud, and by the time you understood what your hands were doing, they were already dying. 

“I made it quick,” you said.

Your voice was so small it barely reached him.

Dex’s teeth tightened. You looked at him like you needed him to believe that one thing, if nothing else.

“I did. I promise. I didn’t want them to hurt. I didn’t want to hear that part for long. I just needed it to stop, and they were going to hurt each other anyway, and they were horrible, Dex, but I—” Your face fell. “I killed them.”

There was no justification, no defence. 

“I killed them,” you said again, and it sounded like you were trying to make yourself understand it.

Dex crouched in front of you, and your eyes flicked to his hands.

Dex knew too much about violence to be shocked by it. But seeing you like this, seeing the toll of it hollow you out from the inside, he understood one thing: The city was killing you.

It was simply too loud, too full for your mind. 

“Look at me,” he said.

You shook your head. “I can’t.”

“Look at me.”

Your eyes lifted.

Dex reached for you then, slow enough that you could stop him.

You didn’t.

The second his hand closed gently around your wrist, you collapsed forward into him with a sound so broken it made his throat tighten. He caught you against his chest, one hand to the back of your head, the other arm locked around you while you sobbed into his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” you gasped.

Dex held you tighter.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be like this.”

“I know, baby.”

“They were so loud.”

“I know.”

And he didn’t mean it the way you meant it. He couldn’t. He would never know what it was like to have a dying mind claw through yours, to feel someone’s last panic splinter behind your eyes. But he knew enough. He knew you. He knew what this had cost you.

He looked over your shoulder at the dead neighbors, and there was no pity in him for them.

Only calculation. He was going to clean up this mess, maybe make it look like a murder-suicide, and make sure the investigation didn’t even look your way. 

You were crying so hard you could barely breathe.

Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you. “You’re okay.”

That night, after he cleaned what needed cleaning and got you back behind your own door, after he tucked you into the bed and sat with you until exhaustion finally dragged you under, Dex stayed awake beside you and stared at the ceiling.

The panelling he put there was not enough. The blackout curtains he installed were not enough.

The quiet refrigerator, the rugs, the rules about killing, the way he had tried to make one studio apartment survivable — none of it was enough if the city could still get to you through the walls.

By morning, Dex had made up his mind.

He started taking bigger jobs after that, better paying ones. 

All with one thing in mind: relocate you from the city.

—

After that, every job had one purpose.

You.

And Dex had always been better when he had a purpose.

Every payment, every account number, every envelope, every favor owed became a way out of the city, a way to buy air your mind could survive.

But money was never quite enough. Money could buy a place, maybe, but money left a paper trail. Dex needed a cleaner solution. 

He got what he wanted when the property mogul came to him.

The man owned half a skyline and wanted another man dead over a development dispute he kept calling “a complication.” He met Dex in the private lounge of a building with marble floors and windows too high above the street for anyone inside to remember people lived below them.

He offered a number first.

Two hundred thousand dollars. 

Dex did not react.

The mogul smiled like he thought he had accepted the offer.

Then Dex gave him his price. “Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and land.”

The mogul blinked. Dex leaned back in his chair.

“Upstate, and no close neighbors within half a mile radius. I want twenty acres at least. I want an existing cabin if you’ve got one. If not, build one.”

The man stared at him for a second too long, like money had made him forget people could ask for things that weren’t numbers. Dex’s expression didn’t change.

“You want him gone by Friday?” he tilted his head. “That’s my payment.”

The mogul laughed uncertainly.

Dex didn’t.

By the end of the week, the man was dead, the dispute was gone, and a plot of land upstate had quietly changed hands through three shell companies and a fake name. 

There was a cabin on it already.

It was small and slightly weathered, far enough from the nearest road that the city couldn’t reach it easily. It was enough from the nearest neighbor that even your mind would have to stretch to find another person.

Dex stood on the porch the first time he saw it and listened.

Nothing but birds and wind through the trees.

Perfect. 

Dex wanted to surprise you, which was adorable, because he had been thinking about the cabin constantly.

Not just the cabin itself, either. He had been fixing and sanding and checking the locks. He had managed to put extra shelves in the kitchen and fixed the creaky steps. He was planning to replace the bedroom window before you ever saw it because the old one rattled when the wind hit wrong and you’d hate it almost as much as he did. 

He wanted it perfect before he brought you there.

So you pretended not to know.

You let him come home with sawdust on his sleeve and plans tucked behind his eyes, let him sit beside you on the bed while thinking very loudly about the porch and curtain rods and whether the trees were far enough from the house to make you feel safe instead of watched.

“You’re in a good mood,” you said.

Dex glanced at you too quickly. “No.”

You smiled into your book. “Okay.”

Then, flatter, he realised, “You know.”

You looked up, trying so hard not to smile because he looked genuinely upset. “I know.”

Dex sighed through his nose. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did,” you said, reaching for the front of his shirt. “I’m surprised you thought you could surprise me.”

And poor Dex, murderous, meticulous, hopelessly in love Dex, let you pull him down into a kiss anyway. 

Of course, when he took you there the week after for the first time with your duffel bags in tow, you loved it.

You loved the curtains. You loved the little fire pit he built after you told him fire felt like the good kind of white noise in your head. You loved watching him chop wood with unnecessary precision. You loved sitting on the porch with a blanket around your shoulders while he checked the perimeter for the third time that day, because Dex couldn’t love normally. He loved like a security system with attachment issues.

And Dex loved that you knew.

He didn’t have to explain the strange shape of his obsession. You could reach into his mind and find the answer before he ever opened his mouth.

Why did he reinforce the back door?

Because if someone comes through it, I want three extra seconds.

Why did he move the bed away from the window?

Because glass breaks inward.

Why did he buy six bags of birdseed?

Because you smiled at the cardinals.

That one made him glare at you.

“You’re not supposed to listen all the time,” he said.

You sat on the porch railing, grinning into your mug. “You’re not supposed to think so loudly.”

“I don’t.”

You shrugged. “You do sometimes.”

Your favorite part, though, was watching him practice.

He set up a target in the clearing behind the cabin, a clean round board nailed to a tree stump far enough away that any normal person would have missed half the time.

Dex never missed.

He would stand there in the cold morning air, sleeves pushed up, knife balanced between his fingers with that beautiful focus he had. Then his hand would flick, quick as a blink, and the blade would bury itself dead center.

Again.

And Again.

You sat on a log nearby, chin in your hand, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re showing off.”

Dex did not look at you. “I’m practicing.”

“You’re showing off because you know I’m watching,” you said, “You’re thinking, She likes when I do this.”

The knife hit the target with a sharp thunk.

Dead center.

Dex turned then, eyes narrowing.

You smiled sweetly.

Poor thing. He was terrifying to everyone else. To you, he was just your murderous little cabin boyfriend who would rather die than admit to liking your sweet little praises.

“You know,” you said, “you don’t have to impress me.”

Dex pulled the knife from the target. 

That one got him.

Dex walked across the clearing toward you, knife still loose in his hand, expression flat in that way that would have scared anyone who didn’t already know his mind was doing the emotional equivalent of tripping over furniture.

“You think you’re funny,” he said.

“You love me.”

Dex stopped in front of you.

The woods were quiet around him. Birds were shifting in the trees. Firewood was stacked by the shed. Morning light caught in his hair and across the sharp line of his cheek. His mind softened before his eyes did, and you felt it bloom warm in your chest before he ever touched you.

I do, he thought. More than anything in the whole goddamn world. 

You smiled up at him. “I know.”

Dex bent downs, caught your chin carefully between his fingers, and kissed you. It was ridiculously gentle for a man called Bullseye. 

When he pulled back, your eyes were still closed.

“You’re going to do it again,” you murmured.

“The knife throwing?”

“No.” You opened your eyes and smiled. “Kiss me.”

Dex managed a smile. And because he never missed, he did.

—

Dex still went back to the city sometimes.

He had scales to level, as he put it. Important vigilante work, in his head. It was the kind of work that involved blood and ledgers and moral math only Benjamin Poindexter could make sound reasonable. You never argued with him about that part. You could read his mind. You knew his reasons. 

Still, leaving you at the cabin always hurt him.

Not because the cabin was unsafe. It was practically a fortress by then, even with enough stored food to survive whatever apocalypse Dex had apparently been personally expecting.

But he still checked everything twice.

“You’ll call if anything feels wrong,” he said.

“I’ll call.”

“If someone comes up the road—”

“I go to the back room.”

“If the radio cuts out—”

“I use the satellite phone.”

“If you hear something near the woods—”

“I don’t go investigate like a stupid horror movie girl.”

Still, he never left for more than three or four days.

Never.

By the second night, his thoughts would start turning back toward you. By the third, they got restless. He’d think about whether you remembered to eat. Whether the firewood was dry. Whether the road was clear. Whether you were wearing his sweater because you missed him or because the house was cold.

Both, usually.

When he came back, it was almost always late.

You never waited inside.

You would be on the porch before he reached the steps, blanket around your shoulders, eyes bright from missing him too much. Sometimes he didn’t even get the Bullseye mask off before you had both hands on him.

“Missed you,” you whispered, then you’d kiss the mask, right over where his mouth should be.

And his brain would go completely, embarrassingly haywire with love, relief, home, you, you, you.

You laughed softly against the fabric surface of it. “You’re loud.”

Dex’s gloved hands found your waist. “I missed you too.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, “I know.”

He would pull the mask off properly after that, just to kiss you properly. And when his mouth finally found yours, you could feel the city fall away from him.

—

This time, Dex was gone for seven days.

He didn’t tell you why, and not because he wanted to scare you. Because in Dex’s mind, silence was kinder than worry. If he told you that he had played a part in killing the mayor's wife and had been injured, and now needed to do one last assassination before signing a contract with a government agency so he could start providing better for you, you would panic before he could get back to you.

So he kept quiet.

And that was worse.

By day five, the cabin stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling empty. By day six, you were sleeping in his sweater, radio in your lap, listening for a voice that never came. That’s when you realised his lines were non-active. By day seven, every crackle of static sounded like him dying.

He had never been gone that long.

So you left.

It took you hours to walk to the nearest train station, but you managed to do it. 

The train, once you got on, was too crowded, and you suddenly were reminded why Dex had moved you away.  There were too many shoulders, too many minds packed into one metal tube, all of them thinking too loudly at once. Fear about Fisk, about Daredevil. Anger at the Task Force. A woman was praying under her breath. A boy was trying not to cry. Someone was watching the footage of the protests on their phone.

You focused.

You filtered.

You had gotten good at that, hadn’t you? Dex had helped you get good at that. One mind at a time. One thought at a time. Find the edge of yourself. Stay there. Don’t let the fear become yours just because you can hear it.

And for a while, you managed.

Even with New York getting louder the closer you came. Even with every station spilling more panic into the train. Even as you got out, as the protests moved through the city like a fever, anger and terror and hope all tangled together until nobody’s thoughts came out clean anymore.

You pressed your nails into your palm and breathed.

In.

Out.

Find Dex.

That was all you needed to do. 

Find Dex and everything would be okay.

You could be overstimulated. You could be shaking. You could have the whole city scraping against the inside of your skull and still make it to him, because you had done hard things before. You had survived OXE. You had survived bad days. You had survived yourself.

You could survive a train ride and a trip to the city.

You were managing.

Barely, but managing.

Until…

Somewhere in the city, a Task Force Agent shot a man.

You felt it.

You didn’t even see it. 

But you felt the impact, the shock, the guttural animal panic of a mind realizing too late that the body was failing. His last thoughts clawed outward, grabbing at anything. He thought about a mother, a kitchen light, the taste of coffee, please, please, please — and it slammed through you so hard you thought you were the one dying. 

Too much.

Too much, too much, too much.

By the time you reached Dex’s apartment, you could barely separate yourself from the city.

You stumbled up the stairs with his sweater twisted in your fists and let yourself in with shaking hands and a spare key he kept in the cabin. The old apartment still smelled like him. The wall panelling he had installed for you was still there. The bed you loved was still there.

So you crawled into it.

You curled up small in the old place where he used to hold you through bad nights, pressing your face into his pillow because it was the only thing close enough to a hug you could get.

And when Dex finally found you, you were shaking in the bed, sobbing like the city had followed you all the way in.

—

Present day…

For a while, neither of them said anything.

The hallway held the two of them in the weak yellow light, close enough to fight, close enough for Matt to hear Dex's slight chatter behind his teeth.

The anger was there.

It moved through Dex like a live wire, and viciously restrained. Matt could hear through his heartbeat how badly he wanted to do something with it. He could hear it in the slight shift of Dex’s weight, in the way his fingers flexed once at his side, in the careful control of his breathing.

But Dex didn’t move.

He stood in front of the broken door like his body could make up for the lock Matt had destroyed. 

Behind him, inside the apartment, you made a small sound.

Dex’s head turned at once, not enough to take his eyes off Matt. But enough for Matt to understand that half of him had never left the room.

It was awful, seeing that.

It was awful because Matt struggled to see past his sins. He didn’t want to see past his sins. 

But the man in front of him was standing outside a bedroom he clearly wanted to return to, choosing not to kill because you had asked him not to.

Matt swallowed. “Does she need help?”

Dex looked at him. His face went cold enough that Matt knew, instantly, he had said it wrong. “She has help.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “You?”

Dex stepped closer by half an inch. Not a threat, but rather a correction. “Yes.”

Matt let out a slow breath. “I—”

“No.” Dex cut him off. “You don’t get to stand there after kicking my door in, after scaring her half to death, and think you’re the reasonable one here.”

Matt’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone crying in your apartment.”

“And what?” Dex crossed his hand over his chest. “You decided she needed saving from me?”

“You’ve given me plenty of reasons to think that.”

Dex almost smiled. It was a terrible thing. It was humorless, dead before it reached his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t deny it. He didn’t reach for innocence he had no right to hold.

“I know what I am,” Dex said, voice low now. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Dex’s eyes sharpened.

Matt took one step forward, careful, measured. “You think because you think you love her, that makes this different.”

Dex’s face changed. Matt heard the hit land.

Dex didn’t hide his agitation well, because in his mind he was thinking how dare you even fucking insinuate that I think I love her. I know I love her. How dare you?

Inside, you must’ve felt the frustration flare, because shifted again, sheets whispering under your trembling body, and Dex turned his head immediately, rage folding down so fast it almost hurt to witness.

His voice dropped toward the door, not Matt. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”

You didn’t answer, but your breathing slowed.

Matt listened until it settled by a fraction.

“You hear that?” Dex asked with a sigh.

Matt said nothing.

“You hear how she breathes when I’m here?”

Matt’s throat tightened.

Dex leaned in slightly, voice still controlled. “You heard her when you came in. You heard what happened when you kicked the door down. She didn’t run from me. She ran to me.”

Fuck. He had a point.

Matt’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”

“You already did.”

The words landed flat in his chest and Matt flinched despite himself.

Dex saw it. 

“You came in here loud,” Dex said. “You brought in your thoughts, your judgment, your anger. You dragged all of it into the room with you and dumped it on her while she was already drowning.”

“I—“ Matt shook his head, turning it slightly down, “I didn’t know.”

“No,” Dex said. “You didn’t.”

The accusation wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

Behind the door, you gave another small, broken breath.

Dex’s hand twitched once at his side, like every instinct in him wanted to turn around and go back to you.

“You should go,” Dex said through gritted teeth.

Matt didn’t, at least not right away.

You were quiet now.

Not calm, Matt could hear that much. Your breathing still came unevenly from somewhere beneath the blanket, frayed at the edges, worn thin from crying. But you were quieter than before, and every time Dex shifted even slightly away from the door, your heartbeat changed.

Matt wanted to believe he was looking at Bullseye. At the man who had turned a courthouse into a warzone. At the man whose name belonged on a tip line, in a police report, on every alert system New York still had running after the riots.

Benjamin Poindexter was standing right in front of him.

Matt let him go only a couple of days ago, yes, but hasn’t he been pushing for transparency over the last twenty four hours?

He should believe in the law. Especially now. Especially after what he had said in front of the whole city. He had torn his own mask off for accountability. He had asked New York to believe there was still a line between justice and vengeance and was prepared to pay the price anyway.

So why was he standing here, letting a murderer guard a broken door?

Dex watched him think it.

His mouth barely moved.

“You want to hate me?” Dex said. “Fine. Hate me downstairs.”

Matt’s jaw clenched.

Dex stepped closer. His voice stayed low, but there was nothing soft in it now. “Just don’t do it near her.”

Matt shook his head and Dex shifted towards the door, like keeping Matt’s attention off you was as natural as breathing.

“She isn’t yours to protect,” Matt said quietly.

Dex’s eyes went flat. “No,” he said. “She’s mine to take care of.”

The words should have sounded wrong. Maybe they were wrong. But behind him, your breath hitched at the sound of his voice, and some tiny broken part of it steadied after.

A year ago, Matt would have heard that and called it delusion.

But tonight, he heard the window shut. Dex silenced the phone. Dex killed the lights and unplugged the radio. Dex tucked the blanket over you. He heard love in all the small, practiced mercies Dex had done without needing to be told.

Matt’s hands curled slowly at his sides.

He could still do it.

He could leave the building and call in an anonymous tip. That Bullseye was here, and they could go non-lethal because you were here and there was no way in hell Dex would kill near you. Matt could tell Brent this address, this floor, this door.

He could do it because it would be right.

Because Dex was dangerous.

Because the law had to mean something.

Because Foggy—

Matt’s throat tightened so sharply he almost moved.

But Matt understood, with a sick twist in his stomach, that if he took Dex away tonight, he didn’t know who would be left to tend to you. Who would know how to keep you from drowning in a city full of minds.

Because Matt had heard what one broken door did to you.

If cops came into that apartment with radios crackling, boots pounding, fear and adrenaline spiking out of every mind, you would fall apart. And if they took Dex away, then you would be well and truly fucked. 

He didn’t know what doctors would want their hands on you. He didn’t know who would look at you and see a woman before they saw a weapon.

Dex was dangerous.

But maybe that was exactly why he knew how to keep danger away from you. 

“She asked you to leave,” Dex said again, quieter this time. “So leave.”

Matt stood there a moment longer. Long enough to feel every reason not to. Long enough to know he might regret it. Long enough to know he would think about this hallway again, maybe for the rest of his life.

Then he stepped back.

Dex didn’t relax.

Matt took another step. Then another, until he reached the stairwell and stopped with one hand near the railing. His face angled slightly toward the apartment again, toward the woman he could still hear crying in the dark.

For a second, Dex thought he might come back.

Then Matt said, very quietly, “If she ever asks for help from someone else, don’t stand in her way.”

Dex’s fingers flexed.

The answer came immediately. “If she asks, I’ll listen.”

Matt could hear that he was telling the truth.  His fingers tightened once around the railing.

Still, he stayed there for one more second.

Dex waited him out, because if Matt needed to drag his reluctance down the stairs one breath at a time, fine. He could do that. Dex could stand there all night if he had to. He could become the door until morning if he had to.

Finally, Matt lowered his head and made his way down. 

Dex stayed in the hallway until Matt’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

Only when the last sound disappeared down the stairs did Dex turn back toward the apartment. The door was ruined, the lock hanging uselessly from splintered wood, the frame cracked where Matt’s boot had forced it inward.

For one second, Dex stared at it.

His anger flared, then he swallowed it down.

Not now.

Not near you.

He stepped inside and pulled the door closed as much as it would go. It dragged wrong against the floor, crooked and broken, but he eased it shut anyway. Then he picked up the kitchen chair instead of dragging it, because the first scrape of wood had made your breathing catch from the bed.

Everything had to be quiet.

He wedged the chair beneath what was left of the handle and pushed once, testing it.

The door held, only barely. It hurt him that it was imperfect, but it had to be good enough for tonight.

Then he turned back to you.

You were still crying, but not like before. Not the full panic that had torn through you until you couldn’t breathe. This was smaller, yet more exhausted. Like your body had run out of strength but your heart hadn’t figured out how to stop breaking yet.

You were curled on his bed under the blanket, face wet, shoulders shaking in little miserable tremors.

Dex  crouched beside you so carefully, like one wrong sound might split you open again.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Your mouth trembled. “I wanted to hurt him.”

Dex went still as your eyes squeezed shut, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks.

“I wanted to,” you whispered, horrified by yourself. “After he scared me, after he thought those things about you, after he came in so loud, when he was outside with you and he upset you, I wanted to hurt him, Dex. I did. I did, I—”

“Shh.” Dex’s hand came up slowly, waiting.

You leaned into it before he touched you, and only then did his palm settle against your cheek.

“Shh, baby.”

“I wanted to make him stop.” You shook your head, crying harder now, broken open by the confession.

Dex leaned closer until his forehead almost touched yours. “So did I, baby,” he whispered, rough and aching, “so did I.”

You opened your eyes.

Dex looked at you like it cost him to be that honest and he would pay it anyway if it calmed you. “But we didn’t.”

Your breath caught.

“We didn’t,” he said again, softer. “You stayed with me. I stayed with you. He left. It’s over.”

Your face fell, and Dex shifted up onto the bed then, slow enough not to startle you, and gathered you carefully against him. You folded into his chest with a broken little sound, fingers twisting weakly in his shirt.

He held you like he was trying to put your body back around your soul.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair. “I’ve got you. I know. I know, sweetheart.”

You sobbed once, small and ruined.

Dex pressed his mouth to your temple. “We’re going back to the cabin first thing tomorrow.”

Your fingers tightened. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” His hand moved over your back, slow and steady. “You can sleep the whole way if you want.”

Your breathing shook against him.

“And my new work doesn’t start for two weeks,” he said, like he was offering you the only miracle he had. “So that’s two weeks, okay? Two weeks of nothing.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

Dex’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.

“Just me and you,” he whispered. “No one else. No noise. No city. Just us.”

Your mouth trembled and he kissed your forehead.

“I’ll chop wood. You can sit on the porch. We’ll keep the fire on. You can wear my clothes and sleep all day if you want.”

Another tear slipped down your cheek before you could help it, and he caught it.

“And I won’t leave,” he said. “Not for two weeks. Not for anything.”

You stared at him through wet lashes, searching his face first. Then, his mind.

He was thinking about…

The cabin.

You sleeping in the passenger seat.

You on the porch.

You wrapped in his sweater.

You, safe.

And underneath it all, over and over, so constant it almost broke you…

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Your breath hitched.

His face softened. “There you are,” he whispered.

You made a tiny sound and tucked your face back into him. “Okay,” you breathed.

Dex’s shoulders nearly gave out with relief. “Okay?”

You nodded against his chest. “Okay.”

He closed his eyes and held you tighter for one second, just one, like he needed to feel the word inside his own body. Then he kissed your temple again. “That’s my girl.”

Your crying slowed after that.

It didn’t stop, but it gentled into little exhausted shudders against his shirt while Dex kept his hand moving over your back, the way he knew helped. He stayed until your fingers loosened. Until your breathing stopped tripping over itself. Until your mind, still bruised and raw, found the steady line of his thoughts again.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

You could focus on it now.

Not the city. Not Matt. Not the broken door.

Just Dex and his thoughts, warm and obsessive and constant, wrapped around you from the inside out.

Finally, Dex pulled back enough to look at your face.

“I’m gonna clean up,” he whispered.

Your eyes opened again, instantly afraid. He shook his head before the fear could grow.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. “That’s all.”

You swallowed.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he promised. “You should go to sleep, okay?”

You didn’t answer.

Dex kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then your lips, so gently you almost started crying again.

“Try,” he whispered, because he knew you were so, so tired. “Just try for me.”

You nodded, barely.

Dex eventually eased himself away, slowly and careful, leaving the blanket tucked around your shoulders and the chair braced beneath the broken door.

The bathroom light stayed off, and the door stayed open.

Water ran low in the sink. 

You appreciated it more than you could say. The sound filled the little apartment gently, not enough to crowd your head, not enough to become another thing pressing at the inside of your skull. Just enough to give your mind somewhere simple to latch on to.

Dex didn’t need to read minds to know that running water settled you the same way fire did. It had the same white-noise hush. It had the same clear, constant sound that didn’t want anything from you. Fire and water didn’t think. It didn’t feel. It didn’t ask to be understood.

It just moved.

And Dex knew that. He knew you.

So you laid there in the dark, still hurting, still broken in places you could not name, but now, you were present.

You took a shaky breath.

For a while, there was only the water running low in the bathroom sink and Dex moving quietly through the dark.

You could hear him in pieces.

You heard the careful pass of his hands under the faucet, the soft drag of fabric as he wiped his face. The small, practical thoughts he kept lining up for tomorrow.

Cabin first thing.

Full tank of gas.

No tunnel.

Back roads.

Blanket in the passenger seat.

Radio off unless she asks.

Two weeks.

Just me and her.

You focused on him. On the shape of his mind. On the tenderness he had no idea how to say without turning it into a plan, a route, a locked door, a fixed window. Even now, Dex was thinking about firewood and the bedroom window and whether the car heater would be too loud for you in the morning.

It made you smile.

Then… oh.

Something else reached you. Someone else.

It wasn’t Dex; this thought came from outside.

It was a thought that came from out the street, clear and heavy through the thin glass:

I hope I’m doing the right thing.

Your eyes opened. For one second, you lay very still beneath the blanket.

Dex was still in the bathroom. But outside, across the street, Matt Murdock had not gone far.

You got up slowly and turned your head toward the window.

The curtain hadn’t been pulled perfectly shut. There was a narrow gap where city light slipped through, pale and dirty against the floor. You shifted, leaning just enough to see past it.

There he was, across the street, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp, hood pulled up, face tilted toward the building like he was still listening to the apartments.

Matt Murdock stood there with one foot turned away and the rest of him refusing to follow.

He was hesitating.

His thoughts were still loud, but not loud like before.

It was no longer crashing through you with suspicion and anger and judgment. This was different. His thoughts now were coherent, almost. They came to you in pieces, clear enough to understand.

Benjamin Poindexter is still a dangerous man.

I shouldn’t leave him with her.

But she asked me to leave.

But she’s calmer when he’s near.

Your throat tightened.

Matt’s thoughts vibrated around the shape of Dex, for lack of a better word. There was still blood there, grief there, a wound so deep it had a name you didn’t touch because it hurt even from a distance.

But there was something else in his thoughts now, too.

You.

Because you could read minds, you knew he had heightened senses, and you knew you didn’t have to speak loudly to reach him. You only had to speak clearly.

So you turned your face toward the narrow gap in the curtain, toward the street where Matt Murdock stood beneath the weak glow of a lamp, and whispered into the dark, “I know what he is.”

Across the street, Matt went completely still.

You saw the subtle lift of his head, the tightening through his shoulders. His attention snapping back to your window because he could feel where you were.

He heard you. You knew he did.

You curled your fingers into the blanket.

“But he’s not that to me.”

Matt didn’t move.

You could feel his mind presently listening now. Not as Daredevil. Not as the man who had kicked down the door. Not as someone trying to decide what kind of danger you were.

“He loves me,” you whispered.

Matt’s thoughts shifted.

He does. Even a blind man could see that. 

The thought came so clearly it almost hurt.

You blinked, tears slipping sideways into your hair. “He’s good to me.”

You remembered him now, when it was Dex’s hand that unlocked the cuff, how he put his jacket over your shoulders. You thought about the cabin and the chair beneath the broken door. That man was in the bathroom, washing up with the door open because he promised he wouldn’t leave you alone.

You breathed in, shaky but steadier. “He’s a good man for me.”

Across the street, Matt’s face changed.

It was a small, tiny furrow of the brow. But then you heard the thought that followed.

I believe you.

Your breath hitched

Above all the doubt, above all the grief, above all the things Matt Murdock would never be able to forgive, that one thought came through clean.

I believe you.

Not Dex.

You.

He believed you knew what you were saying. He believed you were not trapped. He believed you understood the man beside you better than anyone else in the city possibly could.

And maybe that was the most Matt could give.

You, behind the glass, exhausted and half-broken in Dex’s bed.

Matt, across the street, carrying a truth he didn’t want and yet couldn’t put down.

Because maybe Benjamin Poindexter was not only defined by violence. Maybe there was something else buried deep under him, warped and wounded and difficult to look at, but human anyway.

A person.

Someone capable of loving. Someone, somehow, worthy of being loved.

Matt didn’t forgive him. But for the first time, he saw him differently.

Then he lowered his head and gave you a small nod.

Then Matt Murdock turned away.

This time, he truly left.

You watched until the dark took him, until his thoughts faded into the rest of New York and you could no longer separate him from the city.

But you knew.

You knew that Matt was starting to look at the man you loved differently.

— end.

Extra Note : Like the reader in this story, we all have good days and bad days. Please remember that needing help doesn’t make you weak, broken, or too much. It just makes you human. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis/support service in your area. You deserve care, patience, and support on your bad days too, lovelies! 🫶💕❤️

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He pushed the door open a little wider with his shoulder, glasses sliding down his nose, and the sight hit him like a truck.

You were on the floor.

Legs splayed, one knee twisted at a weird angle, that thin white cover-up clinging to your skin thanks to the humidity and doing exactly zero to hide the tiny bikini underneath.

His gaze flicked down, then up, then anywhere that wasn’t you, but it was useless. The way the bikini bottoms sat low on your hips. The cover-up slipping off one shoulder. The sunscreen is still shiny on your thigh. He felt heat crawl up the back of his neck, felt his glasses fog slightly at the edges because apparently his body had decided this was the moment to overheat.

“Are—are you okay?” The words came out gravelly, like he’d just swallowed a handful of sand. He hovered in the doorway, one hand still gripping the frame.

You looked up at him, lips parted in that sheepish little smile. “Yeah,” you said with a soft, embarrassed laugh, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “I just slipped on sunscreen like an absolute genius.”

Dex swallowed hard. He should leave. He should turn around right now and go back to his room and pretend he hadn’t seen any of this. But his feet were glued. And you were still sitting there, looking up at him with those eyes, cover-up slipping further down your arm, and every single fantasy he’d ever tried to bury came roaring back in high definition.

He took one careful step closer, then another, until he was crouched beside you. His hand hovered for a second before his fingers brushed your elbow. The skin there was warm, still a little slick from lotion, and the contact sent a jolt straight through him.

“Here—let me…” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. “C-can I help you up?”

You nodded, still wearing that small, knowing smile, and when you slipped your hand into his, Dex felt it in his ribs, his stomach, everywhere. He pulled you to your feet a little too quickly, until you were standing right there, inches away. The sheer fabric brushed against his hoodie. The smell of strawberries filled the space between you.

“You… you should probably lather up on the couch,” he managed, voice low and rough. “Sitting down to avoid…slipping.”

“That’s actually a really smart idea,” you said, laughing softly, that same knowing smile still in place as you let go of his hand. You stepped past him toward the hallway.

Dex inhaled sharply before he could stop himself. Your hair swung close and that strawberry scent hit him full force again. His eyes actually rolled back for half a second, lashes fluttering. God. He was pathetic. Completely, irreversibly pathetic.

He followed you down the hall at a careful distance, hands shoved deep in his hoodie pockets so you wouldn’t see them shaking, eyes locked on the floor.

“You heading to the beach today?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. He’d watched you check the weather app three separate times during dinner. He knew your plans better than his own.

You glanced back over your shoulder with a little shrug. “Nah, just the rooftop pool.”

Dex rubbed the back of his neck, pretending to look surprised. “R-right. I forgot the apartment even had a pool…”

You dropped onto the couch and gave him that sweet little “Mm-hm.”

“Well,” he said, already taking a jerky step back toward the hallway, “I’ll be in my room if you need anyth—”

“Actually…”

Your voice stopped him cold. Dex turned halfway around. You were standing by the couch, sunscreen bottle in one hand, fingers playing with the tie of your cover-up.

“Can you help me put sunscreen on?” you asked, all soft and sweet. “My back’s impossible to reach and I really don’t want to burn…”

Dex’s mouth went completely dry. Every alarm in his head went off, but his feet were already carrying him toward you anyway. 

“You… you want me to—?” His voice came out cracked and embarrassingly breathy.

You tilted your head, biting your lower lip in that soft, innocent way that wiped every rational thought clean out of his skull. “Only if you’re okay with it,” you said sweetly, eyes wide and guileless. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

Uncomfortable. Right.

He was already half-hard in his sweatpants, cock twitching at the mere idea of his hands on you. His glasses slid another inch down his nose.

“No—no, I don’t mind,” he blurted, then winced at how desperate he sounded. “I mean… yeah. Sure. Definitely.”

Your whole face lit up. “Thank you!” you chirped, bright and happy, and before he could brace himself you reached up and tugged the tie of the cover-up. It slipped right off your shoulders and you held it

Dex’s brain flatlined.

Holy shit.

New material, his mind supplied instantly, already filing every detail away for later. For when he was alone in his room tonight, door locked, hand wrapped tight around his cock, biting down on his wrist so you wouldn’t hear him falling apart through the thin wall. He was so unbelievably fucked.

You dropped the cover-up over the arm of the couch and sat down, patting the cushion beside you. “C’mere then.”

Dex nodded like a bobble head and lowered himself onto the couch on shaky legs, the cushions sinking under his weight. His hands trembled as he took the sunscreen from you and squeezed way too much into his palm. A thick white pool sat there like evidence of how badly he was failing at playing it cool.

He rubbed his palms together slowly, the wet sound loud in the quiet room, warming the lotion between his fingers. Then he scooted closer and placed his hands at the top of your back, right below the delicate knot of your bikini strings.

Fuck.

His thumbs pressed into your warm skin and he started rubbing careful circles, spreading the lotion down the smooth line of your spine. He was trying so hard to stay respectful, but his brain was already ten steps ahead—imagining taking the string with his teeth, tugging it loose, watching the strings fall away so he could finally see everything he’d been fantasizing about for months.

Dex’s breath caught. He kept his hands moving anyway, trying like hell not to let you feel how badly they were shaking.

“Mmm… your hands feel really good, Ben,” you said, low and a little breathy. You even used his first name, and it hit him like you knew exactly what it would do to him.

His whole body jolted.

“S-Sorry?” The word came out too loud and cracked right in the middle. His hands froze on your skin, palms pressed flat against your back, heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips.

You let out a soft, knowing laugh and twisted on the couch. Before his brain could catch up, you swung one leg over his lap and straddled him. Your warm thighs settled around his hips, your ass pressing right down against the front of his sweatpants where he was already half-hard and completely hopeless.

Dex’s back hit the cushions hard, body stiff as a board. Every muscle locked up tight. His lotion-slick hands flew up in the air.

“Wh-what—you—I—What are you doing?”

You settled your full weight on his thighs, hands resting lightly on his shoulders, and smiled down at him with that sweet, wicked look that wiped every coherent thought from his head.

“You want to touch them, don’t you, Benjamin?” you asked softly, tilting your head. “I know you’ve wanted me for a long time. I see the way you look at me when I walk around in my sundresses. When I bend over to grab something. You think I don’t notice?”

Dex’s mouth opened, then closed. Words failed him for a second.

“I—I didn’t—fuck, okay I did, but I swear I wasn’t trying to be creepy— Jesus Christ you’re so pretty and I’m such a fucking loser but yes please—you can sit here forever—I’ll do anything—I’ll buy you all the sunscreen in the store—I’ll—fuck—”

His hands stayed hovering uselessly in the air, trembling, eyes wide and glassy behind his glasses as he stared up at you.

You giggled, clearly loving every second of his meltdown, and traced one finger slowly down his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, then across his bottom lip. Your fingertip caught on the way his mouth shook.

“It’s okay,” you whispered. “I don’t mind. I like it when you look at me like that.”

Dex’s breathing turned ragged, chest heaving under you. Every exhale fogged his glasses a little more. His cock was fully hard now, throbbing against your ass, and he was mortified and turned on beyond belief.

You slid your fingers into his brown hair, messing it up and tugged gently until his head tipped back with a shaky gasp. Then you plucked his glasses off his face and set them neatly on the couch cushion beside you.

“You’re already so hot with these on,” you murmured, brushing his hair back from his forehead, nails scraping lightly over his scalp, “but you shouldn’t hide that handsome face all the time.” You leaned in close, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Can you still see me?”

Dex blinked hard. The world went soft and blurry without the lenses, but you were right there—warm, soft, and practically naked on his lap, tits inches from his mouth. His hands finally settled on your hips, thumbs brushing the edge of your bikini bottoms.

“Y-yeah,” he breathed, still panting. “I can still see you.”

“Good,” you said with another soft laugh, palms sliding down his chest, over his shoulders, feeling every tense line of him like you were marking what was yours. “Then you won’t mind taking off your hoodie right now, will you?”

Dex’s brain blue-screened, “Y-You want me to do what?”

You rocked your hips once, slow and deliberate, grinding right against the obvious bulge in his sweats. He choked on air.

“Take off your clothes, Ben.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

His voice cracked embarrassingly high. “This is a joke, right? You’re fucking with me—”

You didn’t bother answering with words. You just stood up, reached behind your neck, and pulled the bow. The knot came undone with one easy tug. The pink bikini top slipped down and you tossed it onto the couch.

Dex’s eyes went wide and inhaled sharply. “Oh my god…”

Your breasts were right there—bare, nipples already tight from the way he was staring. He couldn’t look away. His cock throbbed hard against his sweats. His hands fisted the couch cushions so tightly his knuckles went white.

You planted your hands on your hips, completely at ease. “Do you want to get off or not?”

That snapped him out of it. Dex yanked his hoodie up and over his head in one jerky motion, then stripped off the white t-shirt underneath. He sat there shirtless, and holy shit—he was ripped. Broad shoulders, defined chest, abs flexing with every shaky breath, that sharp V-line disappearing into his low-slung sweats.

You drank him in like you’d been waiting years for this exact reveal, eyes darkening, lips parting. A slow, hungry smile curved your mouth, like you’d always known the shy, glasses-wearing roommate was secretly built like that under the hoodies. Like you’d been imagining peeling him open just as much as he’d been imagining you.

“Fuck, Dex,” you breathed, stepping between his spread thighs. “I knew you were hiding all that.”

Dex swallowed hard, throat bobbing. A tiny, shy smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He still couldn’t believe any of this was happening to him.

“What… what do you want me to do?”

You hummed, dragging your gaze over every cut line of his torso while you decided. “Why don’t you get on your knees and make me come? Then I’ll let you play with my breasts.”

His eyes blew wide, like a kid who just got told Christmas came early. “Really? You—you actually want me to—?”

You laughed, low and fond, cocking your hip. “Are you going to ask me that every single time? Yes, really. Taste me.”

Dex’s breath stuttered out in a shaky exhale. He slid off the couch in slow motion, knees hitting the floor with a soft thud. He knelt between your thighs, looking up at you with those big hazel eyes, glasses-less and wrecked. 

“I’m just… surprised you want me to,” he mumbled, adorably earnest. “I mean… me?”

You combed your fingers through his messy hair, nails scraping his scalp, and his whole body jolted like you’d shocked him. A tinybwhimper slipped out before he could swallow it.

“Well, I really need to know what that mouth feels like,” you murmured, still petting him like he was yours.

Dex’s breath hitched hard. “O-okay… okay, fuck—thank you.”

He leaned in and caught the left tie of your bikini bottoms between his teeth (exactly the way he’d just fantasized) and tugged with a desperate little groan vibrating in his throat. The knot slipped free. He moved to the right side, teeth grazing your hip bone, pulling harder this time, eyes fluttering shut as a muffled “mmph” vibrated against your skin.

The pink bottoms fluttered to the floor.

He was inches from your bare pussy, that sweet strawberry-and-you scent flooding his lungs. He looked up at you one last time, cheeks flushed.

“Fuck… you’re so pretty,” he whispered. He looked up at you so intently, those beautiful hazel eyes blazing through the haze of his glasses-less blur.

For the second time this morning his brain is lagging—this gorgeous, confident woman gripping his hair, looking at him like he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. As if he wasn’t just some awkward, hoodie-wearing loser who’d jerked off to the image of you in his head for six straight months. It couldn’t be real, could it? He was going to wake up any second, cock in his fist, alone in his cold bed again—then he lowered his lips to your pussy and he knew it was real.

The first touch was so delicately gentle, just the soft press of his open mouth, a shaky, whimpery kiss right against your folds. A savouring hum caught in his throat the second your taste hit his tongue. The sensation tore through you like lightning, and you arched hard, knees buckling with a startled cry that made his cock twitch painfully in his sweats.

“Oh wow,” you moaned breathlessly, gripping his bare shoulder. “You’re… surprisingly really good at this.”

You tried to steady yourself on one foot as he brought your other leg up, easing it over his shoulder with trembling hands. His tongue dragged flat and worshipful from your entrance to your clit, then swirled lazy, needy circles, moaning into you the whole time that vibrated straight through your core. 

“Mmmph—fuck, you taste so good,” he mumbled against you, voice muffled and desperate. “I don’t deserve this—mmh—so sweet, I’m sorry I’m so greedy but I can’t stop—”

He closed his mouth over your swollen clit and kissed it like it was the love of his life, lips sucking and smacking wetly, moving exactly like he was French-kissing your mouth. His tongue swirled in huge, sloppy circles, groaning loud and shameless right into you as he gripped your hips with those strong hands, yanking you harder against his face so he could grind his nose against your clit.

He pulled back just enough to stare up at you with those worshipful eyes before his tongue started flicking your clit in rapid, frantic little strokes. His gaze never left yours, drinking in every gasp and twitch like your pleasure was the only validation he’d ever need. His hips jerk pathetically against nothing, completely lost in the taste of you, groaning and begging between messy licks.

“Oh my, g-god. Dex—slide your tongue in again.”

You bucked hard towards his nose, a muffled cry slipping through your bitten lips as his tongue pushed deep inside you, thick and wet and pulsing like he was trying to fuck you with it. He groaned into your pussy, the vibration rolling straight to your clit, and your fingers twisted tighter in his messy hair. The second you yanked him closer, he let out the cutest, muffled little laugh against your soaked folds then drove his tongue even deeper, curling, licking, devouring like he’d die if he couldn’t taste every drop of you.

Dex pulled back just enough to drag in a shaky breath, lips glossy and swollen, spit and your slick shining down his chin.

“Please—fuck, please keep pulling my hair like that,” he begged. His hips still rolled helplessly against nothing, the fat outline of his cock straining obscenely against his sweats, a wet spot blooming darker where he was leaking for you. “I love it when you do—”

“Yeah?” You gave his hair a sharp tug, watching the way his whole body jolted like you’d electrocuted him. A wicked smile curved your lips. “You like it when I get a little rough?”

“Yes—yes, fuck, I love it,” he groaned, eyes fluttering.

“Oh, baby,” you cooed, nails scraping possessively over his scalp again. “You’re so fucking sweet when you beg. Almost makes me want to be nice to you…” You yanked harder, and his moan cracked into a needy whimper that made his thighs shake. “…but it’s way too sexy when you fall apart like this. I also like my men strong, Benjamin. Are you strong?”

“Oh fuck—” 

He surged up from his knees without warning. Big hands grabbed your hips and spun you around with barely an effort. You barely had time to gasp before he lifted you and tossed you back onto the couch. Your back bounced against the cushions, and before you could even speak he was right there again, down on his knees between your spread legs.

His palms shoved your thighs up and back, folding you neatly in half until your knees pressed to your chest. Your pussy was completely open, glistening and dripping right in front of his face.

Dex dove back in like he’d lost his mind. His tongue dragged up to your clit, flicking and sucking with fresh, desperate hunger. Just when you started missing the stretch of him inside you, he pushed two thick fingers deep, thrusting slowly at first, then harder, curling them exactly where you needed them.

“Oh my god,” you moaned, head falling back. “You’re such a good boy—I don’t even have to tell you what to do.”

He was devouring you now. Every time he sucked your clit between his lips he made wet, filthy slurping sounds, humming deep and greedy in his throat.

“Mmmph—fuuuck,” he groaned right against your pussy, the vibration rolling straight through you. “You know this pussy owns me now, right? Owns my face. Owns my mouth.” His tongue lapped messily through your folds, slurping noisily at every drop, chin already shiny and dripping. “I could kneel here and lick you all fucking day. You’ve made such a mess out of me.”

He hummed louder, eyes squeezed shut in pure bliss, fingers pumping faster, curling hard against that spot that made your back arch clean off the couch and stars burst behind your eyelids.

Pleasure slammed through you hard enough to rip a loud cry from your throat. Dex’s tongue kept dragging those slow, filthy circles around your clit, savoring every twitch, while his fingers drove deep inside you in that steady, ruthless rhythm that had you trying to grind down on his face even though he had you folded in half.

And fuck, you thought with a dazed little smirk, it’s always the quiet ones who turn out to be absolute freaks.

“That’s it—own my face,” he whimpered desperately against your pussy, voice wrecked and needy. “Fucking own it. Come all over your good boy. Come all over your obedient little servant. That’s me. That’s all me.”

“Fuck—Dex, I’m coming,” you whispered urgently, as he rocked your hips against his face. “You’re going to make me come…”

Dex let out a groany laugh, eyes squeezing shut for a second like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Yes, give it to me,” he begged, lips trembling against your pussy. “Come in my mouth, flood my tongue, I’ll drink every fucking drop—”

His fingers drove deeper, faster, curling hard against that perfect spot while his tongue licked you quick and greedy, groaning low and filthy the whole time. He slurped and sucked like he was starving, humming desperately because you tasted so good he couldn’t get enough.

You cried out as the orgasm hit you, sharp and overwhelming. Your pussy clenched tight around his fingers, gushing all over his eager mouth and chin while he kept licking and sucking through every single pulse, moaning like he was coming right along with you.

“Oh fuck that’s it—that’s it, give me everything,” he mumbled between messy swallows, voice thick and grateful. “Fuck—thank you.”

When you finally started to come down, Dex pulled back just enough to press soft, reverent kisses to your inner thighs, lips trembling against your slick skin. He looked up and found you staring into the void, dazed and breathless, lips parted like you’d forgotten how to form words.

His hands itched. God, they fucking itched to slide up and cup those beautiful breasts but he didn’t dare move without permission. He was still your pathetic little servant, still on his knees, still terrified; this was all some cruel dream that would vanish if he got too greedy.

“Um… c-can I touch them now?” he asked, cheeks burning hot. “Please?”

That snapped you out of it. Your lips curved into a naughty little smile that made his cock twitch hard in his sweats. You sat up, cupped his chin, and tilted his flushed face up to you, thumb brushing the mess he’d made of his mouth.

“Of course you can, baby,” you said sweetly.

You pulled him up, swapped places, and pushed him back onto the couch. Then you opened his knees wide and swung a leg over to straddle his lap again. The heat of your bare pussy settled right over the massive bulge in his sweats and he whimpered, hips jerking up helplessly.

“How can I say no after you made me come like that?”

You took his shaking hands in yours and guided them slowly up your sides, over your ribs, until his palms were cupping your breasts. Dex gave them a tentative squeeze, thumbs brushing over your tight nipples.

You laughed softly, eyes sparkling. “You like them?”

He swallowed hard, throat working. “Yes,” he breathed, voice completely wrecked. “They’re… they’re perfect. Fuck, you’re perfect.”

His lips closed around one breast with a loud, wet, noisy suck. He moaned against your skin, eyes fluttering shut, tongue swirling as he pulled you deeper into his mouth.

You grinned, threading your fingers through his messy hair and holding him there while he made those shameless, hungry noises. Only then did you reach down between you and palm the thick, heavy outline of his cock through his sweats. Your eyes widened. A delighted little gasp slipped out as you felt exactly how big he was—rock-solid, fat, straining so hard the fabric was barely holding him in.

“Oh my word,” you murmured, giving him a slow, appreciative stroke that made his head fall back with a moan, your nipple still caught between his lips. “You just keep getting better and better, don’t you?”

Dex’s hips bucked hard into your hand, a pathetic little whine escaping around your breast because your touch was the first real one he’d felt in months.

You squeezed him again, loving the way his ripped abs flexed under your thighs. “No wonder you always walk like that…” Another stroke, thumb circling the wet spot at the tip until he gasped. “Poor baby’s been carrying this around the apartment every day and I never knew.”

Dex’s eyes locked on your hand, watching every lazy movement like it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. “Oh God—oh my God—fuck,” he gasped, hips twitching up into your palm without any control left. “Yeah—your hand feels so good—”

You gave him a firmer squeeze and his whole body jerked, those perfect abs clenching hard.

“Holy shit—uh—oh God. Fuck, you squeezing me like that—oh God—oh—” His head tipped all the way back, eyes half-lidded behind the blur of pleasure.

You leaned in close, lips brushing his ear. “Poor baby… already leaking all over my hand and I’ve barely touched you. Bet this feels a hell of a lot better than fucking your own fist thinking about me every night, doesn’t it?”

Dex’s whole body jolted. His eyes flew open, wide and stunned. His breath hitched while a shy, embarrassed little laugh caught in his throat as he stared at you like you’d just punched him in the chest with pure affection.

“Oh, it’s just… no one’s ever, uh, talked to me like this before,” he stammered, flashing that sheepish little smile that made your chest do something stupid. “No one’s ever said stuff like that to me. I—I’m sorry, I sound so stupid, I just—fuck, keep talking to me like that, please? God, it’s so hot I don’t know what to do with myself—”

You smiled against his ear and gave the shell a soft, wicked nibble that made his hips jerk again. “Well then,” you whispered, “has no one ever played with this fat cock the way I’m gonna?”

Dex opened his mouth to answer, but the words died the second your hand slipped under the waistband of his sweats. Your fingers wrapped around his bare, throbbing length and gave one long, slow stroke from base to tip.

“You’re so… Mm—you’re so—fuck—” His sentence crumbled. He tried to keep going, tried to tell you how no one had ever touched him like this, how he’d jerked off in the shower every single morning just so he wouldn’t walk around the apartment hard for you, but every drag of your hand wiped his brain clean. “I was gonna say—I mean—no one’s—Jesus Christ your hand is so soft—I can’t—I can’t even think when you—mmph—”

His head fell back against the couch while he kept trying anyway, lips moving, desperate to finish a single coherent thought, but every slow pump of your fist stole another piece of him. His abs clenched, thighs shaking under you, cock twitching hard in your grip as you stroked him nice and luxurious, spreading all that pre-cum until the wet sounds filled the room.

“I’ve never—no one’s ever touched me like—fuck, like that—slow—oh my god, please don’t stop, I sound so pathetic but I— I’ve dreamed about your hand—every night—and it’s so much better—I can’t—I can’t even finish a—fuck—”

You watched him with adoration in your eyes,  tilting your head and shut him up with your lips, kissing him so eagerly it stole the rest of his broken sentence right out of his mouth.

You swallowed it instantly, tongue sliding past his lips like you already owned every sound he made. He tried to kiss you back, clumsy and desperate, but you took control so completely that all he could do was whimper into your mouth while you explored him with strokes of your tongue that promised exactly what that same mouth could do somewhere much lower.

“Mm—fuck—mmph—” he tried again, the words vibrating against your lips, but you just kissed him deeper, twisting your wrist on the upstroke until his whole body jerked and another moan spilled straight into your mouth.

You pulled back just enough to reach for his glasses on the cushion beside you. With gentle fingers you slid them back onto his face.

“There,” you murmured, sweet as sugar. “I think you need to see me suck this dick in high definition.”

Dex blinked hard behind the lenses, the world snapping back into sharp, perfect focus around your wicked little smile. Before he could even try to form words, you slid off his lap, dropped to your knees between his spread thighs, and settled in. 

He watched, completely helpless and shaking, as you hooked your fingers into the waistband of his sweats and boxers and dragged them down his hips in one smooth tug. His cock sprang free, thick and heavy, and your fingers curled right around the base.

Dex’s hands flew up to cover his face, glasses knocked crooked. A muffled, delirious little laugh slipped out between his palms. “Fuck… I’m the luckiest man alive right now.”

You gave his cock a slow, appreciative stroke, then looked up at him with that firm, commanding glint in your eyes. “Look at me, Ben. Never take your eyes off me. Got it?”

Dex nodded so fast his glasses slipped down his nose again, eyes wide behind them, locked on your face like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. 

You leaned in and pressed the softest kiss to the flushed, leaking head of his cock. Then lower. And lower. Before you smacked the heavy length against your cheek with deliberate, filthy slaps.

“God, you’re so heavy,” you teased, rubbing the thick shaft along your cheek while your eyes stayed glued to his. “How the hell do you think this is supposed to fit anywhere, huh? You’re gonna have to split me open, aren’t you?”

Dex let out a long, wrecked groan, thighs trembling on either side of you. He couldn’t look away. Not when you stuck your tongue out flat, laid his cock across it, and started smacking the shaft against the warm, wet muscle in solid, teasing taps.

He was going to die. He was actually going to die right here on the couch with his glasses on and your pretty mouth teasing the absolute hell out of him, and he’d thank you for it with his last breath.

“G-go choke on it first,” he blurted in a sudden rush of bravery, then immediately looked mortified. “I-I mean… if you want to…”

Your eyebrow snapped up, a wicked little grin spreading across your face as you nodded like you were proud of him for saying that.

Dex’s heart slammed against his ribs so hard he felt dizzy.

You leaned in closer, lips brushing the leaking tip as you looked up at him through your lashes. “Is that what you fantasize about when you jerk off in your room at night?” you purred. “Me choking on this fat cock? Gagging all pretty for you while you watch?”

Dex’s mouth fell open, hips twitching helplessly toward your face. “Y-yes—fuck, yes. Every night. Every single night—”

You didn’t let him finish.

The second the words left his lips you took the head of his cock into your mouth, and Dex gasped so hard it felt like the air had been punched out of his lungs.

It was too much. Too good. Velvety and hot and so fucking lucious that his whole spine lit up like a live wire. A strangled groan left him as pleasure streaked through every nerve ending at once. His hands flew to the couch cushions, knuckles white, because if he didn’t hold on he’d probably float straight out of his body.

You sank down slowly, taking more of him, tongue pressed flat underneath as your lips stretched tight around his thickness. Dex’s glasses fogged at the edges. His abs clenched hard, thighs shaking on either side of you.

You licked your way back up to the head, suctioning hard, then swirled your tongue over it, dipping into the slit to taste the steady leak of pre-cum like you were savoring him. Dex’s head fell back for half a second before he remembered your order and forced his eyes back down to you, chest heaving.

God. How many times had he imagined you on your knees just like this; sucking him slow and deep while you looked up at him with those pretty eyes?

Every single one of those fantasies paled. They were pathetic little shadows compared to the reality of you. The intense, electrifying heat that scorched every nerve ending as you lowered yourself again, sliding your sweet, wet mouth further down his shaft until he felt the back of your throat flutter around him. His hips jerked involuntarily, a choked “f-fuck—” ripping out of him before he could stop it.

Pleasure surged through him and he arched back sharply, the feeling so intense he nearly yanked out of your mouth. But he rode those waves, blood pounding hot through his veins as his cock throbbed with incredible bliss. You sucked him hard and sensually, lips stretched tight around him and cheeks hollowing as you milked more ecstasy from him than he'd ever felt in his life.

When you came back up you let him go with a wet pop and smiled up at him, eyes sparkling like you were enjoying the hell out of wrecking him. Your smile made his cock throb and jerk, and you chased it with your tongue and laughed, taking it back in with that delicious, silky warmth.

“Just like that—” Dex moaned, voice tight with ecstasy. He slid one hand into your hair, caressing first, then gripping the back of your neck like he needed something solid to hold onto. 

“It feels so good holy shit.” he breathed as you gradually increased your pace. You wrapped both hands around the base of his cock and started stroking in time with your mouth, faster now. Dex’s head dropped back against the couch again before dragging his gaze back down. He couldn’t miss this. Not for a single second.

His hand gently cradled and guided your head, fingers weaving through your hair as the overwhelming desire to lock you in place and thrust into your mouth consumed him. 

His free hand joined the first, sinking in and tightening his hold as the raw sensuality left him dizzy and breathless. He started rocking his hips slowly, testing, mesmerized by the way your eyes fluttered as you took him deeper.

But then you smiled around his cock and sucked harder. That was all it took.

Dex drove in faster, deeper, his cock slick and shiny with your spit as he thrust up your throat. You took him beautifully—until he forced just a little too far. Your throat fluttered, then clenched like a fist as you choked, the sloppy, gagging buzz shooting down his entire cock.

He froze for a second, glasses slipping down his nose, panic and lust warring on his face. 

“S-sorry—fuck, that’s so hot, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but don’t stop—please don’t stop—” He was panting, glasses fogged, hips still rocking again and again, savoring the way your throat squeezed every time you gagged softly around him. He couldn’t help it even while apologizing. 

You just hummed around him like you owned every inch, eyes watering but never breaking that locked-in stare, taking him even deeper on the next thrust, letting him fuck your throat raw. 

He was going to come. God dammit, he was going to explode like a firework in your mouth any second now.

But nope. You pulled off with a wet, filthy pop, lips shiny and puffy, a shiny string of spit still linking you to his throbbing tip like a naughty little bridge.

“W-why’d you stop?” he blurted, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. “Did I—did I do something wrong? Fuck, I’m sorry, I got carried away, I just— I was so close.”

You shook your head, flashing that wicked little grin as you crawled straight up his body and swung a leg over, straddling his lap like you were claiming the throne. One hand cupped those full, heavy, aching balls, rolling them nice and slow while you dragged your soaked pussy along the underside of his cock, slicking him up marking your territory.

“I’m not wasting a single drop of this,” you whispered, all husky and low, thumb stroking that crazy-sensitive spot right behind his balls. “You’re spilling every bit inside me.”

Dex looked like his brain had officially powered off. “I-inside you? Holy shit—aren’t you scared you might—?”

You chuckled and ground down harder, sliding all over him like you owned the ride. “Got any condoms stashed somewhere, cutie?” you asked, all innocent and sweet while your hips kept rolling.

Dex just gaped, fish-mouthed and speechless. “....no.”

You let out a bright, delighted little laugh and climbed off his lap, “Guess we’re doing this raw then, huh?” You flopped onto your back on the couch, hair fanning out across the cushions, and hooked your knees up high, feet planted on the edge.

With zero shame, you reached down and spread yourself open for him, two fingers parting your slick, puffy folds so he could see everything. Your little hole clenched visibly under his stare, shiny and dripping from how much you’d enjoyed choking on him.

“Look at what you did to me, Benjamin,” you purred. “See how fucking wet I am? It’s because of you. My poor little pussy’s been clenching around nothing the whole time I was sucking you off, just thinking about how you’re finally gonna stuff me full.”

Dex made a strangled noise, eyes glued to the way your fingers teased your entrance, dipping just the tip of one inside before pulling back to circle your clit. You were so ready and glistening and open for him it hurt.

“Mmm, you like the view, don’t you?” you teased, tilting your hips up a little more so he could see even deeper. “Look how this little hole keeps fluttering. It’s so empty, Dex. Been waiting months for this fat cock to stretch it open. You gonna give it to me? Gonna give me all that cum you’ve been saving for me every night? Or are you just gonna sit there staring like a cute little pervert while I play with myself?”

Dex’s glasses slipped down his nose again, “No, I’m going to give you anything you want.”

You just grinned wider, “Then come here and take what’s yours, nerd.”

He scrambled between your spread thighs like a man on a mission and a panic attack at the same time, knees sinking into the couch cushions. His hands shook as he gripped the backs of your thighs, lining himself up. The fat head of his cock nudged against your slick entrance and he actually whimpered at how hot and wet you felt.

“Okay, okay. Look, I’ll just… m-maybe, maybe you should be on top, you know?” he blurted. “S-so you’re, um… yeah, so y-you can, like, control it? I don’t wanna hurt—”

You laughed softly, reaching up to tug him closer by the back of his neck. “It’s fine, Dex.”

“I don’t—I don’t wanna squish you—” he tried again, eyes wide behind his glasses, cock throbbing against your pussy like it had a mind of its own.

You laughed, low and fond. “Just go, Dex.”

“Just go,” he echoed, half-laughing, half-panicking. “Yeah, just… uh. Uh. Uh. Fuck. Oh, fuck.”

The head slipped inside you, stretching you open in one smooth glide. Dex’s eyes dropped to where your bodies met and he forgot how to breathe entirely. You threw your head back and moaned as your pussy parted for him, taking every thick inch until he was buried to the hilt, heavy balls pressed against your ass.

“Oh shit,” he groaned, voice wrecked. “I’m inside you—you feel so fucking good.”

He pulled back slowly, and your pussy clenched around him like it didn’t want to let him go. Then he drove back in until his tip met a dead end, stretching you open all over again. You grabbed his right wrist and slapped his big palm straight onto your breast. His fingers squeezed hard on instinct. At the same time you caught his left hand and pressed his thumb against your bottom lip. 

The second he felt the wet heat of your mouth close around it, Dex’s eyes flew open wide behind his glasses. You sucked on his thumb like it was his cock, matching every thrust, moaning around it shamelessly.

“Jesus Christ,” he whimpered, voice cracking. “You’re—fuck, look at you. I’m not gonna last if you keep looking at me like that, baby. I swear I’m trying but you feel too good and you’re sucking on my thumb and I—oh my god—”

You just smiled around his thumb and sucked harder, never breaking eye contact, letting him feel exactly how much you wanted every desperate, awkward, perfect inch of him.

Dex couldn’t stop staring down between your bodies. His thick cock was sliding in and out of your pussy in these dragging strokes, shiny and glistening with how wet you were. Every time he pulled back he could see the way your folds stretched around him, clinging tight, and every time he pushed back in he watched himself disappear inside you until his hips met yours. He was completely obsessed with the sight, breathing hard through his mouth like he’d never seen anything so hot in his life.

Without thinking he slid his hand down from your breast and pressed the heel of his palm firmly against your lower stomach, right above where he was buried deep. The sudden pressure made everything feel impossibly tighter. You whined loud around his thumb, the sound vibrating against his skin as your pussy fluttered hard around his cock.

“Fuck—did that feel good?” he panted, eyes still glued to the spot where you were joined, pressing down a little harder as he thrusts.

As if guided by that lust alone, he began to thrust into a deep, forceful rhythm, his rigid cock stretching you each time. You moaned hummingly with each stroke, feeling the power of his hips as they slapped against you, imagining the strong muscles of his thighs flexing and straining to drive his cock into you deeper and harder every time. He crashed against you, his short breaths matching his pace, his moans of pleasure spiking as senseless words spilled from his lips.

You pulled his thumb from your mouth with a wet pop, grabbed his wrist again, and swapped it for the two fingers he'd buried inside you earlier, sucking it until your cheeks hollow.

Dex’s rhythm faltered for half a second, then slammed back in even harder.

“Holy shit I don't think I can’t take it,” he panted, voice cracking high and desperate. “I can’t take it. Ugh, you have to come soon. You have to come soon. Oh, fuck—”

He was panting and groaning as he thrust and bucked, hips snapping forward like he was chasing something he couldn’t quite catch. His eyes brightened with this wild, pleasure-pain look you’d never seen before; glassy, almost frantic, like he was right on the razor’s edge and hanging on by a thread. His glasses were crooked, hair sticking to his forehead, mouth open on every broken moan.

“I’m so close— I’m so fucking close but I need you to come first, please, I need to feel you coming on my cock before I fill you up, I can’t— I can’t hold it— fuck, please come for me—”

He was so close. You could feel it in the way his cock swelled even thicker inside you, the way his thrusts turned sloppy and urgent. He needed your release, your surrender, and he would detonate the second you gave it to him.

You reached up, grabbed his face with both hands, and pulled him down so your foreheads touched. “You can take it—keep going,” you gasped, voice shaky but firm. “Put your mouth on my neck, baby—right now.”

He obeyed instantly like the good, desperate boy he was. A quiet, “o-okay—yeah, fuck, okay” tumbled out of him as he dipped his head. You gasped and swallowed hard, tilting your chin back to give him more room, your whole body shaking with the force of every thrust. One of your hands slid between your bodies so you could rub tight, frantic circles over your clit, chasing that last spark.

Dex’s lips found your throat first, kissing the throbbing pulse there, then his tongue dragged up the side of your neck in one long, wet stripe. When it danced along the shell of your earlobe you shivered hard, a full-body tremble that made your pussy clench around him. And when he dipped the tip of his tongue right inside your ear you sobbed.

“F-fuck, I love it when you moan like that.” he whimpered against your ear.

You grabbed a fistful of his hair and tugged, forcing his mouth back to your neck while your fingers kept rubbing faster. “Say dirty things to me, Dex,” you panted, voice husky. “Tell me how good I feel. Tell me what you’re gonna do when you come inside me. Don’t stop talking.”

“Yeah—fuck, I’m trying,” Dex panted against your skin, hips snapping forward in these desperate little thrusts. “If I talk to you, you’ll come, right? Yeah? I want that. I want you to come so fucking bad—”

You nodded hard. “Yes—fuck, yes! Just say all the nasty shit you say to yourself when you jerk off thinking about me.”

“Fuck, listen to you,” he groaned, suddenly finding his rhythm. “Sucking my cock earlier like you wanted to steal my soul, choking on it like a greedy little whore, and now you’re begging me to pump you full?” He slammed into you hard. “You want this fat load in your pussy that bad?” Another brutal thrust. “After months of prancing around in those tiny dresses, bending over right in front of me just to watch me lose my goddamn mind?” Slam. 

“God, you’re such a dirty fucking slut for your nerdy roommate’s cock, aren’t you?” He licked into your ear, hips pounding harder. “That’s it—rub that clit faster, baby. I’m gonna flood this sloppy little cunt until it’s dripping down your thighs. Come on my cock—come on, come on—”

“Oh fuck—Dex!” Your whole body seized in a convulsive orgasm, pussy clamping down around him, milking his cock as you screamed against his shoulder. 

He cried out and flooded into you, bucking and thrusting as your pussy drained him. Slick with sweat you writhed together, your voices echoing through the room, your cries and moans mingling as you milked him, drained him, sucked every drop of cum from his pulsing cock as he emptied himself into you completely.

His rhythm finally gave out and he melted into you, still shuddering deep inside while the last of his cum spilled free. Every twitch was met with your walls hugging him tight, like they were determined to wring him dry and keep him forever—the same way you’d just been completely his. Both of you panting hard, bodies flushed and shiny with sweat, you lay there pressed together, still connected, floating in that beautiful, ageless after-sex haze.

You were heaving, chest rising and falling under him. “Holy shit…”

Dex lifted up on shaky arms, glasses crooked, hair a sweaty mess, and gazed down at you like you’d personally hung the moon. His hazel eyes were soft and dazed and so full of wonder it made your chest ache. He leaned in slowly, lips parting like he was about to kiss you for real this time—

—and then the unmistakable sound of a key sliding into the front door lock echoed through the apartment.

Both of you froze.

“Shit—shitshitshit—” Dex whisper-yelled, scrambling off you so fast he nearly fell off the couch. While you both snatched up whatever clothes you could reach.

“My room—now!” You hissed, dragging Dex who is clutching his sweats and hoodie like a lifeline as you yanked behind you as fast as your shaky legs would go. Your room was closest and didn’t face the front door—thank god.

You barely made it inside, slamming the door behind you just as the living room lights flicked on. Dex pressed himself flat against the wall right behind the door, stark naked, cock still half-hard and glistening, one hand clamped over his mouth so he wouldn’t breathe too loud. 

You snatched your short silk robe off the chair and threw it on, barely tying it before—

Knock knock knock.

“Hey, what’s taking you so long?” your roommate called through the door, voice bright and clueless. “We’re all waiting for you at the pool!”

You cleared your throat, trying to sound normal and failing spectacularly. “Sorry! Couldn’t find my swimwear. I’ll be there in a sec!”

Dex’s eyes were huge behind his glasses. He looked like he was one second from passing out.

You heard her footsteps start to retreat...then stop, “Uh… your bikini top is literally on the couch out here.”

“Oh really?” you called back, somehow managing to sound breezy even though you were standing there in nothing but a barely-tied silk robe with your very naked, very well-fucked roommate hiding behind the door. “I must’ve dropped it. I’ll grab it soon! You should go ahead, I won’t be long!”

You heard your roommate laugh under her breath, something that sounded suspiciously like "okay weirdo.” before her footsteps finally padded away down the hall. The front door clicked shut behind her.

Dex let out a huge, shaky breath, shoulders sagging like the weight of the entire universe had just lifted off him.

“You… you should go,” he mumbled, voice all hoarse and uncertain as he rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re waiting for you at the pool and I— I don’t wanna get them suspicious of you or anything…”

You didn’t answer with words.

Instead, you walked straight up to him, rose onto your highest tiptoes, and pressed your body flush against his. The thin silk robe did almost nothing to separate your skin from his.

You cupped his face with both hands and kissed him once—soft and sweet, tasting the leftover desperation on his lips. Then again, a little slower. And a third time, lingering like you were promising more.

When you finally pulled back just enough to speak, your lips still brushed his.

Damian’s statement put Tim’s fears to rest; Tim’s hair was tousled, and he had a twitch in his eye from the stress that had built up in just a few minutes.

A growl sounded below them.

They both looked down. A pair of piercing eyes glared at them angrily.

“And you won’t tell him about this.”

Another growl was heard, but this time two fangs were visible.

“Oh, God,” Tim exclaimed, pulling off his mask and pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Jason is going to kill us.”

“Todd won’t find out.”

“And how can you be so sure of that? Look at her!” he said, pointing with both hands at the cat in front of them. “They turned her into a cat, and we don’t know how to reverse it!”

“Drake,” Damian exclaimed irritably. “Jason won’t be back for another two days; we have more than enough time to figure this out.” Damian’s gaze shifted to the white-furred animal with black spots. “Maybe we can bribe her with tuna.”

The cat hissed at what she considered a degrading comment about tuna.

“Tt. Calm down. We’ll call Zatanna first thing tomorrow and sort this out.”

Tim sighed wearily and nodded at Damian’s words.

“It’d be best if you stayed tonight. It’ll be easier… for everyone.”

Ever since Bruce was a child, it had been perfectly normal to see Alfred walking through the hallways of Wayne Manor, cleaning and tidying things up.

What wasn't a common sight, however, was a cat trying to reach the doorknob of one of the manor's many doors, trying to open it.

Alfred let out a sigh.

“Master Damian really needs to start exercising some self-control around animals.”

With patience and grace, he made his way toward the door, while the cat waited for the butler. Alfred turned the doorknob, and the animal wasted no time in entering the room.

“I should remind Master Jason to tidy his room,” he muttered to himself. “Or at least ask him to let me do it.”

As the butler thought aloud, his gaze never left the cat, which was slipping between Jason’s clothes on the bed.

With her tiny paws, she gathered the clothes together, and when she decided she’d had enough, she lay down on top of them, relaxing her little body as if letting out a sigh with her body language.

Alfred’s eyebrows shot up in a frown. “Interesting.”

The man couldn't help but notice the strange detail around the cat's eyes. A perfect line around each eye, strangely reminding him of Jason's girlfriend and the eyeliner she wore every time they met.

Not wanting to get involved in another vigilante problem, he decided to simply pretend he hadn’t seen anything.

He left the door ajar, just enough so that Jason’s girlfriend could come and go freely from the room.

Tim and Damian were running all over the manor, searching for the sudden—and temporary—member of the family.

“Where is she?!”

As they frantically rushed through the rooms, they disrupted all the order Alfred had worked so hard to maintain.

When they reached the second floor, they stopped abruptly upon seeing Alfred.

“Alfred, by any chance haven’t you—?”

“Don’t finish that question, Master Tim,” he said wearily. “What you’re looking for should be in Master Jason’s room.”

Without another word, the butler left, leaving the two young men alone in the long hallway. And without wasting any more time, they both headed for Jason’s room.

“Can you see her?”

They both started moving around the room, not caring if they made a mess of it. That was the last thing on their minds.

“Where the hell did she go?”

Tim picked up the pile of clothes on the bed and carelessly tossed it onto the floor so he could search through the sheets.

A loud meow of surprise and indignation echoed through the room.

Both boys turned their heads toward the source of the sound.

Two pointed black ears poked out from among the clothes, and soon a white body covered in black spots appeared.

“I’m sorry,” Tim apologized, murmuring your name.

The cat snorted indignantly.

How dare they toss you into the air like that when you were sleeping so peacefully among your boyfriend's clothes?

Oh, you would never have thought of something like that, but you were hoping someone would come over so you could bite their hand.

The sound of an engine cutting off in the driveway caught the attention of the three people in the room.

Damian and Tim were sitting on a couch, far away from where she was. Even though the cat had already bitten them when they got careless trying to lift her off the floor, they didn’t want to take any more chances.

The three of them looked expectantly toward the door, hoping to see Zatanna so they could resolve this once and for all.

But what appeared was far worse, in Damian and Tim’s words.

An excited meow echoed through the room the moment Jason appeared in the doorway. The cat’s small, furry paws slid off the armchair and pushed off, landing on Jason’s chest, its claws digging in slightly to keep from falling.

“What the hell?” the newcomer grumbled. “Come here and get this thing out of here, you little demon.”

An annoyed growl escaped her lips. How dare he call you a thing?

Jason met her gaze.

Just like with Alfred, he furrowed his brow when he noticed the eyeliner on both her eyes, highlighting the color of her eyes that had him so smitten.

Jason shifted his gaze to both boys, then back to her. He stayed that way for a few seconds, until his brain managed to connect the dots.

“Doll?”

A meow was the answer he needed to confirm that it was his girlfriend.

“What have you done?” Jason asked the two men, his annoyance evident in his eyes and the tone of his voice. Meanwhile, he cradled his girlfriend in his arms as she purred, happy to be there.

“It was an accident, Todd.”

Tim also chimed in, trying to calm things down. “Zatanna is just a few minutes away; we were waiting for her.”

“Yeah…” Damian said. “We thought it was her at the door. What are you doing here, Todd? You were supposed to arrive tomorrow.”

“My mission ended early,” he replied simply. He looked at his girlfriend, transformed into a cat, sleeping comfortably on his arm. “And when I didn’t see my girlfriend at home, I figured she’d be here… but I didn’t expect to find her like this.”

With a hint of hesitation, he stroked her behind the ears, receiving a soft, contented purr in return.

“Stop laughing, Jason!” the woman pleaded, exasperated. “It’s not funny! Your brothers fed me nothing but tuna for two days! Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?”

“But you looked so cute.”

The woman slapped his chest with her hand, trying to get her boyfriend to stop laughing.

“Maybe we should get a cat,” he said out of the blue, “that way you’ll have a friend the next time this happens.”

She grumbled in annoyance.

“That’s it! I’m going to ask Zatanna to turn you into a fish, so I can flush you down the toilet!”

You were not dressed like one of them. That was the first thing he noticed. No tactical insignia, no gang colours, no theatrics. Just dark clothes, a hood pulled low, a half-mask covering the lower part of your face, and a long knife held loosely in one hand as if violence bored you.

The second thing Damian noticed was that you were looking directly at him. Not at the gunman. Not at the fire.

At him.

“Robin,” you said, dry as dust. “You look terrible.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed behind his domino. “Who are you?”

You tilted your head. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

Two more men rushed from behind a stack of crates. You moved before Damian could.

You moved like someone who had stopped caring whether the world saw them coming.

The first man lost his gun hand. The second lost his breath when your knee cracked into his sternum. Damian lunged for his fallen sword, pain detonating white-hot through his shoulder, but by the time his fingers closed around the hilt, both attackers were on the ground.

One dead. One bleeding out.

Damian stared.

You wiped your blade against the dead man’s coat with an expression that suggested the fabric had personally offended you.

“You kill,” Damian said.

“So do they.” You glanced at him. “I’m just better at it.”

“You are not sanctioned.”

A laugh slipped from you, low and sharp. “By who? Your father? Cute.”

Damian stepped toward you. His vision blurred. The smoke, he realised too late. Too much of it. His lungs seized. His injured shoulder throbbed. His balance faltered.

You were in front of him in an instant.

“Don’t be dramatic,” you muttered, catching him before he could hit the concrete.

“I am not—”

“Currently collapsing in a burning warehouse? Yeah. Very dignified.”

Damian tried to shove you away. His arm refused to obey. You looked down at him, and for one impossible second, your sarcasm cracked.

Something ancient and tired moved behind your eyes. “Stay awake, Robin.”

“Who,” Damian forced out, “are you?”

Your grip tightened. “Nobody.”

Then you dragged him out of the fire.

By the time Batman arrived, Damian was alone. Three bodies were inside the warehouse. His sword was at his side. His shoulder had been reset.

And Damian Wayne had absolutely no memory of how he had escaped.

The report was unacceptable. Damian knew it before Bruce said anything.

He stood in the cave with one arm strapped across his chest, jaw clenched, while his father reviewed the footage on the main computer. Or, more accurately, the lack of footage.

“Your body camera cut out at 23:41,” Bruce said.

“The smoke disrupted the lens.”

“The audio went out three seconds later.”

“Interference.”

“And then?”

Damian’s mouth tightened.

And then nothing. He remembered the gun. The heat. The pressure beneath his jaw. The moment he had calculated his odds and found them unpleasant. Then he remembered waking outside beneath the rain, coughing ash onto the pavement while Batman’s cape blocked the streetlights overhead.

Between those moments lay a void.

Damian hated voids.

“I escaped,” he said.

Bruce looked at him. Damian hated that look, too. “Your shoulder had been reset.”

“I am aware.”

“Did you do that yourself?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

Damian’s fingers curled. “I do not know.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the low hum of the cave systems and the faint chittering of bats overhead.

Bruce replayed the broken footage again. Gun beneath Damian’s chin. Smoke. Static. Black.

Damian watched the blank screen with a fury that felt embarrassingly close to fear.

Someone had been there. Someone had touched him. Moved him. Saved him.

And he could not remember.

That was unacceptable.

You watched him from the roof across the street.

He returned to the warehouse the next night. You should have known he would. Robins were like mould: persistent, invasive, and very hard to kill.

This one was different, though. Older than the rumours still liked to call him. Not a boy anymore, though Gotham had a bad habit of keeping its children trapped in headlines. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Tall enough now that the cape sat differently on his shoulders. Sharper through the jaw. Still too proud for his own good.

Still alive because of you.

You hated that part. Saving people was always the beginning of trouble.

He moved through the remains of the warehouse like a ghost with a grudge, scanning scorch marks, blood patterns, boot prints. He crouched near the place where the gunman had died and touched two fingers to the concrete.

You had cleaned your blade before leaving. Burned the fibres. Taken the shell casings. Broken every camera in a four-block radius.

Still, Damian found something. A thread, maybe. A scratch. A breath you had left behind.

His head lifted. You went still.

There it was. That flicker. Not recognition. No one recognised you. Recognition required memory, and memory slipped off you like rain from glass the moment eyes turned away.

But Damian’s gaze sharpened toward your rooftop.

Instinct.  Annoying. Impressive.

Loneliness, treacherous little beast that it was, stirred inside your ribs.

“No,” you whispered to yourself.

Below, Damian stood. His hand drifted toward his sword.

You stepped back from the roof’s edge.

For one heartbeat, the moon touched your face.

Damian looked directly at you.

Your stomach dropped. You should have run. Instead, you froze like an idiot.

He fired a grappling line.

“Seriously?” you muttered.

Then you ran.

You were good at vanishing. You had to be. When you were eight years old, your teacher looked away from you during roll call and forgot you were in the classroom. At nine, your neighbour saw you fall from your bike, turned to call for help, and came back wondering why there was blood on the sidewalk.

At eleven, your parents started leaving notes on the fridge. Child. Name unknown. Lives here? And by thirteen, there were no notes. By fourteen, you stopped waiting at dinner tables. By fifteen, you learned that criminals were easier to live around than civilians. Criminals did not ask why you slept in abandoned buildings. They did not remember your face long enough to betray you. And when they hurt people, no one grieved if they disappeared.

By seventeen, you had a knife. By eighteen, you knew how to use it.

Now, you moved through Gotham like a rumour with teeth.

Someone would see you in an alley. Look away. Forget. Someone would hear your voice. Turn their head. Gone. Someone would bleed beneath your blade and die terrified, not because of death, but because in the last second of life, they understood they were being killed by someone the world itself refused to hold.

You had spent years pretending that it did not hurt.

Pretending worked, mostly.  Right up until Robin started chasing you. He chased you across three rooftops, over a skybridge, down a fire escape, and through the top floor of an unfinished apartment complex.

He was fast. You were faster. He was trained. You were desperate.

“Stop,” Damian ordered.

You laughed, breathless. “Wow. Has that ever worked for you?”

He threw a birdarang. You ducked. It sliced through your hood, pinning fabric to a wooden beam behind you. You slipped out of it and kept moving.

Damian landed hard in front of you, sword drawn. “Enough.”

You stopped because the blade was pointed at your throat. Also, because, for the first time in years, someone had chased you long enough to get tired. It made something in your chest ache.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. “You were at the warehouse.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

His grip tightened. “Do not lie to me.”

“Fine. I was near the warehouse.”

“You saved me.”

“Technically, gravity did most of the work.”

“You reset my shoulder.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You killed those men.”

“They were going to kill you.”

“That was not your decision to make.”

Your expression flattened. “I forgot. Bats love moral lectures. Very on-brand. Do you practice in mirrors, or does brooding just come naturally?”

His blade did not move. “Who are you?”

You smiled behind your mask. There it was. The question everyone asked once.

Only once.

“Look away,” you said.

Damian did not. “Answer me.”

“Look away.”

“No.”

Your laugh came out softer than you intended. “Smart.”

His eyes flicked, just once, to the shadow behind you. A tactical glance. Less than a second.

It was enough.

His face changed. Not dramatically. Damian Wayne had too much discipline for that. But his brow furrowed. His mouth tightened. The sword at your throat shifted as confusion passed through him. He blinked. Then focused on you again as if seeing you for the first time.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

There it was. The old familiar knife. You should have been used to it. You were used to it.

You were.

“Wow,” you said lightly. “Déjà vu. Embarrassing for you.”

Damian’s eyes darkened. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“You did something.”

“Story of my life.”

He looked away again, scanning the room for traps. When his eyes returned to you, the confusion reset.

His sword lifted. “Identify yourself.”

Something inside you curled up small and cold.

You stepped closer to the blade until the edge kissed the fabric over your throat. “My power,” you said, voice suddenly flat, “is that nobody remembers me.”

Damian stared. “You are a metahuman.”

“Sure.”

“What is the mechanism?”

“Do I look like a scientist?”

“You appear insufferable.”

“Aw. You remembered an opinion for three seconds. Progress.”

His eyes narrowed. You waited.

His gaze flicked down to your hands. Gone. Again. When he looked back up, his expression sharpened with renewed alarm.

You laughed before he could speak. It sounded ugly.

“Don’t worry,” you said. “This is the part where you threaten me, interrogate me, look away, forget what you were asking, and then I leave. Classic. Very popular sequence.”

Damian did not answer. Instead, without looking away from your face, he slowly reached into his utility belt.

You tensed.

He pulled out a marker. Then, with his gaze still locked on yours, he uncapped it with his teeth and wrote on the inside of his left wrist.

You watched despite yourself.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Your mouth went dry.

Damian finished writing. Then, deliberately, he looked at his wrist.

You vanished from his mind. You saw it happen. You always saw it happen. His pupils shifted. His body went rigid. His eyes scanned the words.

DO NOT LOOK AWAY. PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Slowly, slowly, he looked up.

He saw you. He did not remember you. But he believed himself.

That was new.

“Explain,” he said.

Your heart, stupid and starved, gave one fragile little kick. You crushed it immediately. “No.”

Damian’s jaw set.

You stepped backwards into shadow. “Don’t follow me.”

“I will.”

“I know.” You sighed. “That was more of a polite suggestion.”

Then you dropped through the unfinished floor before he could stop you.

By the time he reached the lower level, you were gone. But on his wrist, in his own handwriting, proof remained.

PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU EXISTS.

Damian did not sleep. This was not unusual. What was unusual was the wall.

Three nights after the warehouse, Damian’s room contained forty-seven handwritten notes, twelve printed maps, six blood-spatter diagrams, and one sketch of a figure he could not remember drawing. The figure wore a half-mask. The lines were precise, though incomplete around the face. Every time he tried to sketch the eyes from memory, the image dissolved. Not physically. The paper remained.

His mind simply refused to hold the connection. It enraged him.

So he adapted.

At the top of the wall, he wrote: SUBJECT: FORGET-ME-NOT Then, beneath it: Known effects: Memory loss triggered when direct attention breaks. Written records persist. Video uncertain, beed test. Physical evidence persists. Emotional response may persist after memory loss. Subject saves civilians but uses lethal force. Subject saved me. Subject is alone.

Damian stared at the last line for a long time. He did not remember writing it. That bothered him more than the rest.

There were other notes too.

Do not trust first instinct upon seeing Subject. You have met before. Subject uses sarcasm defensively. Irritating. Possibly deliberate. Subject appears resigned when forgotten. Do not forget: forgetting harms them.

The final note was carved harder into the paper than the others. Damian ran a thumb over the indentation. He had no memory of the conversation that caused it.

Still, anger rose in him. Not at you.

At the fact that the world could look at a person and let them disappear.

You should have left Gotham. You knew that. You had left cities for less.

A cop in Blüdhaven once remembered the shape of your hand for nearly four seconds after looking away. You were on a train by morning. A telepath in Metropolis once frowned at you and said, “That’s strange.” You were out of the state within the hour.

Survival was simple: never wait to be wanted. Wanting was a trap.

So, naturally, you stayed.

Because Damian Wayne kept leaving evidence that he was looking for you. A chalk mark on a rooftop you used often. A camera angled toward an alley with a handwritten sign taped above it IF YOU SEE THIS, I AM TRYING TO SPEAK WITH YOU. A packet tucked beneath a gargoyle containing protein bars, medical supplies, burner comms, and a note. I do not know whether you need these. Take them anyway.

You threw the protein bars away. Then retrieved them ten minutes later. You were lonely, not stupid.

The burner comm you kept for three days before turning it on.

Immediately, a message appeared. This is Robin.

You stared at it.

Another message followed. If this device is active, I assume you have it.

Another. I will not ask you to meet in person unless you agree.

Another. I do not remember you. That does not mean you are not real.

Your throat tightened.

You hated him a little for that one.

So you typed, This is extremely dramatic.

The reply came thirty seconds later. You have met my father. I assure you this is restrained.

A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It startled you. The sound felt foreign. Like opening a door in a house you thought had burned down.

You typed, Your handwriting is terrible btw.

My handwriting is exceptional.

Your R looks like a stabbed insect.

A pause. Then, Noted.

The next chalk message you found two nights later had perfect block letters.

Smug little freak.

Damian learned around the shape of you. That was the only way to describe it. He could not remember you directly, but he built scaffolding around the absence.

Notes on his gloves. Voice memos recorded while staring at you, played back after he forgot. Sketches done in real time, each labelled with date, location, and emotional impression.

Subject looked tired tonight. Subject pretended not to care about antiseptic. Lied poorly. Subject dislikes being thanked. Continue thanking them. Subject laughed at 02:13. Remember that this matters.

You found that one in his notebook when you absolutely were not snooping.

“You are snooping,” Damian said.

You snapped the notebook shut. “I am investigating.”

“You are holding my private notes.”

“You left them where anyone could read them.”

“They were in my hand.”

“Skill issue.”

Damian looked unimpressed.

You were perched on the edge of a rooftop HVAC unit, swinging one leg like you had not just been caught reading the closest thing anyone had ever made to a record of you. He stood three feet away, refusing to break eye contact.

He had learned that trick too. It made conversations tense. Intimate. Weird.

“You should not kill,” he said.

You groaned. “We were having such a nice moment.”

“We were not.”

“You were writing about my laugh.”

His ears went faintly pink. Fascinating. “I record relevant behavioural data.”

“My laugh is relevant?”

“It is an indicator of trust.”

“Wow.” You placed a hand over your heart. “Talk dirty to me, Robin.”

His blush deepened. Your smile faded before he could see how much you liked it.

Dangerous. Hope was dangerous.

Damian stepped closer. “You use humour to redirect.”

“You use analysis to avoid feelings.”

“I do not avoid feelings.”

“You dress like a bat-themed traffic warning and punch people at night.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.  “That is irrelevant.”

“That is what people say when things are relevant.”

He glared. You smiled. Then his gaze flicked, involuntarily, to the notebook in your hands.

And it happened. His expression emptied of you. Just slightly. Just enough.

He looked back up. His hand went to his sword. “Who are—”

You tossed the notebook at his chest. He caught it.

“Read page twelve,” you said.

Damian looked down.

You watched him reconstruct you from ink. Watched his own words pull him back to the edge of belief. Watched him breathe in slowly.

His eyes returned to yours. Not remembering. Choosing anyway.

“I apologise,” he said.

You flinched. It was small. He noticed.

“Don’t,” you said.

“I forgot.”

“Everyone does.”

“That does not make it acceptable.”

You laughed once, but there was no humour in it. “Careful, Wayne. You keep saying things like that, and I’ll start thinking you mean them.”

“I do.”

That was the problem.

You looked away first. The second you did, you knew he would forget the exact softness that had passed between you.

But you remembered. You always remembered.

Lucky you.

Damian’s family noticed eventually. Of course they did. A Bat could hide a stab wound for six hours, but not a new obsession. The dramatic irony was almost cute.

Tim found the wall first. He stared at the notes. Then at Damian. Then back at the notes.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Not to be rude, but this is either a case board or the beginning of a gothic romance.”

Damian snatched a sketch off the wall. “Leave.”

“Gothic romance. Got it.”

“Drake.”

“Does your mysterious murder cryptid have a name?”

Damian went still. “No.”

Tim’s expression shifted. Gentler. More dangerous. “You don’t know?”

“No one does.”

That shut him up. For almost three seconds, which for Tim Drake was basically a vow of silence. Then Tim stepped closer to the board. “You think there’s a cognitive effect?”

“I know there is.”

“On everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Even you?”

Damian’s jaw tightened. “Especially me.”

Tim read the notes in silence. Then said, “That’s horrifying.”

“Yes.”

“And lonely.”

Damian looked at the sketch in his hand. The eyes were incomplete again. “Yes,” he said.

Later, after Tim left, Damian added another note. Ask Subject what they want. Do not assume rescue equals cure.

He underlined it twice.

“What do you want?” Damian asked.

You stopped sharpening your knife. That question was worse than who are you. At least who are you had an easy answer. Nobody. Nothing. Gone already.

“What?” you said.

Damian sat across from you on the rooftop, knees bent, forearms resting loosely against them. He had taken off the domino. You hated when he did that. It made him look too human. Too young. Too beautiful in a way that was absolutely none of your business.

“What do you want?” he repeated.

“A vacation. Better coffee. The Joker dead. A nap long enough to be classified as a coma.”

“I am serious.”

“That’s tragic.”

“Forget-Me-Not.”

You froze.

He had never called you that out loud before. The name should have sounded clinical. It should have sounded like one more label pinned to the body-shaped hole you left in the world.

But Damian said it like a promise. Quiet. Careful. Yours, almost.

You looked away. The city blurred beneath you. “Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you?”

You laughed under your breath. “Doesn’t matter. You won’t remember.”

“I will write it down.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No,” Damian said. “It is not.”

The honesty almost hurt worse than comfort would have. You swallowed.

“My parents had a name for me,” you said. Damian went very still. “I don’t use it anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because they stopped.” You hated the silence that followed. You hated that he did not rush to fill it. You hated that some part of you wanted him to. “I was little,” you continued, because apparently your mouth had decided to betray the whole fortress. “When it started. At first, people just… misplaced me. Teachers skipped over me. Kids forgot games halfway through playing them. My parents thought it was stress. Then a phase. Then a curse. Then…” You smiled thinly. “Then I became a note on the fridge.”

Damian said nothing.

You picked at a loose thread on your sleeve. “One day, I came home and there were no notes. No dinner plate. No bed made up. My room was storage. My mother looked right at me, turned to call my father, and when she turned back, she screamed because there was a stranger in her house.” Your voice did not break. You were proud of that. “She forgot me faster than she could love me.”

Damian’s hands curled.

You looked at him then. Big mistake. His face held rage, but not the kind people usually aimed at you. This was not fear. Not suspicion.

This was fury on your behalf.

Hope sparked again. Tiny. Stupid. Cruel.

You crushed it badly this time. Not enough.

“That’s why you kill,” he said.

You snorted. “No. I kill because some people deserve to stop breathing.”

“Your loneliness informs your methods.”

“Careful. That almost sounded like empathy.”

“It was.”

“Gross.”

Damian’s mouth twitched. There. A near-smile. The kind of thing a person could get addicted to if they were very dumb and had no self-preservation.

You stood too quickly. “I should go.”

Damian stood too. “Stay.”

The word struck between you like a thrown blade.

You stared at him. He looked startled by himself. Then determined, because of course he did. Damian Wayne would fight God before admitting a feeling caught him off guard.

“Stay,” he repeated. “For ten minutes.”

“Why?”

“So I can remember you for ten minutes.”

Your chest hurt. “Damian.”

His name came out before you could stop it.

He inhaled sharply. You had never said it before.

Not Robin. Not Wayne.

Damian. Like he was a person. Like you were a person.

His voice softened. “Please.”

You hated hope. You hated it.  You hated how it bloomed anyway.

So you sat back down. For ten minutes, Damian Wayne looked at you and did not forget. For ten minutes, you existed in someone else’s mind.

It was not enough.

It was everything.

The breakthrough came from a mistake. Damian was injured. Not badly, he insisted, which meant badly enough that anyone sane would seek medical attention. You found him in an alley behind the Iceberg Lounge, bleeding from a cut across his ribs and trying to staple himself shut with one hand.

“You look terrible,” you said.

He looked up sharply. For half a second, his face relaxed.

Not recognition. Never recognition. But something close.

“Forget-Me-Not.”

“You remembered?”

“No.” He glanced at the writing on his wrist. “I prepared.”

Of course he did.

You crouched beside him and slapped his hand away. “I can do it.”

“I’ve seen you try to stitch with your off-hand. It was like watching a raccoon defuse a bomb.”

“Your concern is touching.”

“My concern is impatient.”

You cleaned the wound while he stared at you. The eye contact had become easier.

No. That was a lie. It had become more unbearable.

Because Damian watched like attention was devotion. Like looking could be a form of shelter. Like if he just tried hard enough, the universe would be forced to admit you were there.

“You’re going to need stitches,” you said.

“I know.”

“This will hurt.”

“I know.”

“Don’t do that macho thing.”

“I do not do a macho thing.”

“You were raised by Batman and assassins. You absolutely do a macho thing.”

His lips twitched.

You started stitching. His breath hitched once, controlled and sharp.

Without thinking, you placed your free hand over his.

A stupid comfort. A forgettable comfort.

Damian looked down at your joined hands. You felt the moment his memory dropped.

His fingers tensed. You tried to pull away.

He caught your hand.

Not hard. Just enough.

His eyes were still on your hands. He should have forgotten you. He had forgotten you.

But he did not let go.

Slowly, he looked back up. His expression was confused. Then he saw your face. Then the note on his wrist. Then your hand in his. His thumb moved once against your knuckles.

“I forgot,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“But I did not release you.”

You stared at him.

He looked down again, testing. Memory vanished from his face. His hand remained around yours. Up again.

Reconstruction. Understanding.

“Physical contact,” he said.

Your pulse stumbled. “What?”

“Physical contact may preserve some continuity. Not memory, but intent. Somatic anchoring.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“Yes,” Damian said, eyes bright now in a way that made him look younger. “And you are holding my hand.”

You dropped it immediately. He looked smug for exactly one second before wincing because smugness apparently pulled stitches.

“Don’t get excited,” you said. “It was medical.”

“Of course.”

“I would hold anyone’s hand while sewing their ribs shut.”

“Your bedside manner is abysmal.”

“You’re welcome.”

That night, Damian wrote seventeen pages about somatic anchoring. You pretended not to read them.

You read them three times.

After that, things changed. Not fixed. Never fixed. This was not a fairy tale. Gotham ate fairy tales, picked the bones clean, and sold them back as cautionary graffiti.

Damian still forgot you. Every night. Every conversation. Every time his gaze broke, even for a breath too long.

But now he built ways back. A touch to his wrist. A note in his palm. A recording in his own voice, You trust them. Do not reach for your sword. Ask whether they have eaten.

The first time that recording played, you nearly threw his comm off a roof.

“Ask whether I’ve eaten?” you demanded. “What am I, a stray cat?”

Damian looked you up and down.

You hissed, “Don’t.”

“You do frequent rooftops.”

“I will stab you.”

“You also resist care despite needing it.”

“Damian.”

“And you accepted tuna from Brown last week.”

“That was sushi, you rich gremlin.”

He looked pleased. It was awful.

You started staying longer. That was the dangerous part. Five minutes became ten. Ten became an hour. An hour became patrol routes where Damian would glance at you every few seconds, stubborn as sunrise, refusing to let you vanish if he could help it.

Sometimes he failed. A lot of times, he failed. You learned the shape of his forgetting. The slight tightening of his stance. The way his eyes flicked cold before his notes thawed him. The apology he gave every time, even when you told him to stop.

Especially then.

“I apologise.”

“Don’t.”

“I hurt you.”

“You forgot me. That’s different.”

“No,” Damian said once, quiet beneath the rain. “It is not.”

You had no joke for that. So you stood beside him in silence while Gotham glittered wet and cruel below.

Your shoulder brushed his. He did not move away.

Neither did you.

The first time he kissed you, he forgot you halfway through. It was, objectively, a disaster.

You were laughing when it happened, which made it worse.

Damian had been trying to explain a new theory involving tactile recall, mnemonic loops, and Zatanna, because apparently the Bats’ solution to metaphysical trauma was “call a magician and make three spreadsheets.”

“You made a spreadsheet about me?”

“Several.”

“That is either romantic or a federal concern.”

“You are deflecting.”

“You are flirting with data.”

“I am flirting with you.”

You stopped breathing. Damian stopped too. The city wind moved between you.

“Don’t say things you won’t remember,” you whispered.

His expression changed. Softened. “I may not remember saying them,” he said, “but I have written them in twenty-three places. I have recorded them in my own voice. I have told Drake, Cain, and Pennyworth. I have carved reminders into my routines until my life bends around the fact of you.”

Your eyes burned. “Damian.”

“I do not remember you the way I should,” he said. “But I know this: every version of myself that finds the evidence chooses you again.”

Oh. That was unfair.

That was so unfair.

You stepped back, but he caught your hand.

“Do not run.”

“I’m very good at running.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

His thumb pressed against your pulse. “I know enough.”

You laughed once, broken and small. “You’re going to look away one day and not look back.”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he agreed. “I do not. But I know I have looked back every time so far.”

There was no defence against that. None.

You kissed him first. Because you were tired of being a ghost. Because you wanted one thing before the world took it. Because hope was a cruel little weed growing through concrete, and maybe you were tired of ripping it out.

Damian made a soft sound against your mouth, startled, then certain. His hand rose to your jaw. His other hand stayed locked around yours. For one blazing second, you were held in memory and body both.

Then a siren wailed below. His eyes flicked toward the street.

You felt him forget. His mouth stilled. His hand tensed.

You pulled back before his confusion could finish forming.

Damian blinked at you, alarmed. Then looked at your joined hands. At the note written across his glove. You love them. Breathe. His face went scarlet.

You stared. He stared.

“Oh my god,” you said hoarsely. “You wrote that on your glove?”

Damian cleared his throat. “It seemed practical.”

“You are insane.”

“Likely.”

“You forgot me during our first kiss.”

His eyes widened. Then narrowed at himself, offended. “Unacceptable.”

You laughed. You laughed so hard your eyes spilled over.

Damian looked stricken.

“No,” you said quickly, wiping your face. “No, I’m not— I’m not laughing because it hurt.”

Though it did. Of course it did. Everything did. But not only. Not anymore.

“I’m laughing because you look personally betrayed by your own brain.”

“I am.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I will do better next time.” Next time. The words landed softly. Carefully. Like a coat around cold shoulders.

“You want a next time?” you asked.

Damian looked at the glove again. Then at you. He did not remember the kiss. But his mouth curved faintly. “I apparently insisted upon it in writing.”

You smiled despite yourself. “Okay, Wayne.”

His hand tightened around yours. “Okay?”

You leaned in until your forehead touched his. “Next time.”

He closed his eyes.

Panic shot through you. But his hand stayed in yours. His forehead stayed against yours. And when he opened his eyes again, the confusion came. Then the note. Then the choice.

Always the choice.

“There you are,” he said softly.

Your breath caught.

He did not remember saying it before. Maybe he never had. Maybe he would say it again.

Maybe that was enough to survive on. For now.

Zatanna could not cure you. Not fully.

You expected that. You told yourself you expected that. Still, when she stood in the cave beneath the cold blue light and said, “I’m sorry,” something in you folded inward.

Damian’s hand found yours immediately. Anchoring. Always anchoring.

Zatanna’s expression was gentle in a way you did not know what to do with. “It isn’t just magic,” she said. “There’s magic in it, yes, but also metahuman biology, trauma response, maybe even a curse that attached itself to your ability when you were young. It’s tangled.”

“Great,” you said. “Love being a group project.”

Tim, from behind three laptops, whispered, “Honestly, same.”

Damian glared at him.

Zatanna continued, “I may be able to help reduce the effect. Create anchors. People who consent to remembering you may be able to retain emotional continuity longer. Names may hold power. Touch helps. Written records help. Repetition helps.”

You swallowed. “But no cure.”

“Not today.”

Not today. It was not a yes. It was not a no.

Hope, again. That annoying little weed.

Damian looked at you. You knew he was waiting for you to break first. To scoff. To run. To turn cold before disappointment could touch you.

Instead, you looked at your hand in his. At the ink on his wrist. At the wall of notes behind him. At the sketch he had redrawn so many times the eyes were finally starting to look like yours.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you admitted. Your voice sounded too small in the cave.

Damian’s thumb moved over your knuckles. “Neither do I.”

“You hate not knowing things.”

“I do.”

“This could take years.”

“Then we will require more notebooks.”

You laughed wetly. He looked proud of himself.

Little menace.

“You’ll forget me,” you said.

His expression sobered. “Yes.”

No pretty lie. No softening the blade. Just truth.

Then he lifted your joined hands. “And I will find you again.”

You closed your eyes. For once, when someone looked away, you did not disappear completely.

Damian forgot. Then read the note. Then remembered enough. His hand stayed around yours.

When you opened your eyes, he was watching you with that familiar, stubborn, impossible focus. Like the universe had made a rule, and Damian Wayne had taken it personally.

“Hello,” he said carefully. Your heart broke. Your heart healed. Both, maybe.

“Hi,” you whispered.

His gaze dropped to the note on his wrist. Then back to you.

A small smile touched his mouth. “There you are.”

And for the first time in a very long time, you believed him.

The first thing Damian remembered was your laugh. Not your face. Not your voice. Not the exact shape of your hand in his.

Just the laugh.

It came to him three days after Zatanna’s visit, in the middle of sparring with Cass. He was blocking a strike to his ribs when the sound flickered through his mind—quiet, sharp, unwilling, like joy had snuck into your chest and gotten caught trying to escape.

Damian froze. Cass’ foot stopped half an inch from his knee. She tilted her head. Damian lowered his sword.

“I remember something,” he said.

Cass blinked once. Then smiled. Small. Knowing.

Damian hated being known by people who could read body language like scripture.

“What?” she asked.

His mouth opened. For one terrifying second, the memory slipped. Not gone. Slipping.

Damian’s hand snapped to his wrist, where his notes were written in dark ink. FORGET-ME-NOT EXISTS. DO NOT TRUST ABSENCE. THEY ARE REAL.

But he did not need them. The sound returned. A laugh on a rooftop. Rain on metal. Your voice saying, You are flirting with data.

His heart struck hard against his ribs.

“Their laugh,” he said, stunned.

Cass lowered her foot fully. Damian stared at nothing.

He remembered. Not because of a note. Not because of a recording. Not because his past self had left breadcrumbs like a man wandering through a cursed forest.

He remembered something of you.

On his own.

You did not believe him. Naturally.

“That’s adorable,” you said flatly. “Have you considered brain damage?”

Damian stood across from you on the roof of Gotham Central Library, arms crossed, jaw set in the particular way that meant he was either offended or about to confess something emotionally devastating with the energy of a murder accusation. Sometimes both.

“I am not concussed.”

“You say that a lot for someone who gets hit in the head professionally.”

“I remember your laugh.”

You looked away. It was instinct by now. A survival reflex. If someone said something kind, you made sure they forgot it before it became real.

Damian’s breath caught. You heard it. That tiny shift.

You closed your eyes. There it was. The moment. The curse. The world’s old cruel joke, winding itself up again.

When you opened your eyes, Damian was staring at you. Still. Focused. Shaken.

“I remember,” he said.

Your chest tightened. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You read a note.”

“I did not.”

“You listened to a recording.”

“No.”

“You’re guessing.”

“Your laugh is quiet at first,” Damian said, voice low, “as if you resent it for existing. Then it catches. Barely. You look away when it happens, because you do not like being seen wanting to stay.”

The city went silent. Or maybe you did. Your whole body locked around the words.

Damian took one step closer. “You called me a rich gremlin.” Your mouth parted. “And a bat-themed traffic warning.”

“That one was objectively true,” you whispered.

His mouth twitched. “And you told me my handwriting looked like a stabbed insect.”

You stared at him. The wind moved between you, cold and sharp, tugging at his cape and your sleeves. Far below, sirens wailed. Gotham kept being Gotham, rude as ever. But above it, the impossible sat between you like a candle in a ruined church.

“You remember that?” you asked.

“Yes.”

You searched his face for the lie. There wasn’t one. That was the problem with Damian. He could be arrogant, difficult, blunt, dramatic in a way he would deny until the sun died, but he did not give you comfort he could not defend.

Hope stirred. You hated it. You hated how quickly it had learned his name.

“Maybe it’s temporary,” you said.

“It may be.”

“Maybe it won’t last.”

“It may not.”

“Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow, and it’ll be gone.”

His expression softened. “Then I will begin again tomorrow.”

Your throat burned. “You don’t get tired of that?”

“Yes.”

The honesty hit harder than a pretty answer would have.

Damian stepped closer. “I get furious,” he said. “I get impatient. I get…” His jaw tightened. “Afraid.” You stared. Damian Wayne said the word like it had been dragged out of him by the throat. “But I do not get tired of you.”

Your breath caught. He looked startled by his own words, but he did not take them back. You laughed once, brittle and small. “That’s a terrible line.”

“I was not aware we were exchanging lines.”

“You’re doing a tragic rooftop romance. You should at least be good at it.”

“I will improve.”

“Don’t make that sound like a threat.”

“I make no promises.”

There it was again. The almost-smile. You wanted to touch it. You wanted to run from it. Both urges lived in you at once, twin animals baring teeth.

Instead, you pulled your knees to your chest and sat on the edge of the roof. After a moment, Damian sat beside you.

Not too close. Close enough.

You glanced at him. “Do you remember my face?”

His silence answered before he did. “No,” he said. You nodded like that didn’t hurt. “I remember impressions,” he continued. “Your eyes when you are annoyed. The angle of your head when you are about to insult me. The way your shoulders rise when someone says something kind and you do not know where to put it.”

“Wow. Drag me, why don’t you.”

“I remember the scar on your left thumb.”

Your hand curled instinctively. Damian noticed.

“You told me it was from a knife fight,” he said.

“I lied.”

“I know.” You looked at him sharply. He glanced at your hand, then quickly back to your face, as if afraid to lose you. “You cut yourself opening a can of peaches when you were twelve.”

The world fell out from under you. You had told him that on a bad night. A stupid night. A night where you had been tired and bleeding and too lonely to keep every door locked. You had told him about the abandoned apartment you stayed in that winter, about eating canned fruit with a stolen pocketknife, about slicing your thumb open and crying more because there was no one to hear you than because it hurt.

You had told him. Then he had looked away. And forgotten. You had regretted saying it for weeks.

Damian remembered.

Your hand trembled before you could stop it. He saw. Carefully, slowly, he offered his hand palm-up between you.

Not taking. Asking.

Damn him. Damn him for learning you this gently.

You stared at his hand like it was a trap. Then you placed yours in it.

His fingers closed around yours. The contact steadied something in the air. Or maybe in you.

“I remember that,” Damian said.

You swallowed hard. “How?”

“I do not know yet.”

“Of course you added ‘yet.’”

“I am consistent.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I have been called worse.”

“By me.”

“Mostly, yes.”

A laugh escaped you. Soft. Unwilling.

Damian’s eyes sharpened, not like a hunter this time, but like a boy watching the first star appear in a dark sky.

“There,” he whispered. You went still. “I will remember that one too.”

Your heart hurt so badly you almost hated him for it.

Almost.

The second thing Damian remembered was your voice.

It happened badly. The Narrows were soaked in rain, neon bleeding down dirty windows and alley walls. You had been tracking a weapons shipment tied to Black Mask’s old network. Damian had tracked it too, which meant the two of you ended up on opposite sides of the same warehouse skylight, glaring at each other through wet glass like the world’s least normal meet-cute.

“You followed me,” you said through the comm he had given you.

“I was here first.”

“I was here silently.”

“I was here competently.”

“That’s debatable.”

“You set off the pressure sensor on the south entrance.”

“That sensor was ugly and deserved it.”

Damian sighed. You grinned despite yourself. Then the floor beneath him exploded. The comm cut out. Your body moved before your fear could name itself.

You dropped through the skylight into smoke and gunfire, landing hard on a steel beam. Below, men shouted. Red emergency lights flashed. Damian was on one knee near the centre of the room, one hand braced against the concrete, blood bright against his temple.

For one horrible second, he looked younger. Not Robin. Not Batman’s heir.

Just Damian. Your Damian.

No. Not yours.

You threw three blades in quick succession. Three men dropped.

Damian looked up. His eyes found you.

Relief flickered across his face. Then a flashbang detonated. White swallowed everything. When your vision returned, Damian was standing with his sword drawn and no recognition in his eyes.

Of course. You knew this part. You could survive this part.

Then he pointed the blade at you. “Identify yourself.”

Something inside you snapped.

“Are you kidding me?” you shouted.

He froze. Not because he remembered.

Because your voice did something to him.

You saw it happen. His shoulders shifted. His grip faltered. His eyes widened, not with knowledge, but with impact. Your voice had gotten through before his mind could slam the door.

“Robin!” one of the smugglers barked from behind him.

Damian did not turn. Good. Learning.

The man raised a gun. You shot him in the shoulder.

Damian’s gaze flicked instinctively toward the sound. Lost.

His face emptied. Then his jaw clenched. He looked back at you.

“I know your voice,” he said.

You almost missed your next throw. “What?”

“I know your voice.”

“You don’t know me.”

His eyes narrowed, frustrated. “I know your voice.”

The fight surged around you. This was a terrible place for a revelation.

“Great,” you snapped. “Use that knowledge to duck.”

He ducked. A crowbar swung through the space where his skull had been. Damian moved like water after that, violent and precise. You covered his blind spots. He covered yours. Every time he looked away, his body reset—but not completely. Your voice pulled him back faster each time.

“Left.” He moved left. “Behind you.” He spun. “Duck, pretty bird.”

He ducked, then glared at you mid-fight. “You did not just call me—” He knocked a man unconscious with the hilt of his sword. “You did,” he said.

You shrugged while kicking someone in the knee. “Adrenaline. Don’t read into it.”

“I will read into it extensively.”

“Focus.”

“I am focused.”

“You are flirting while concussed.”

“I am multitasking.”

You laughed. He heard it. And this time, when he looked away, he still smiled.

Only for half a second. Only barely. But you saw it.

And after the last man dropped, Damian stood in the wreckage, rain pouring through the broken skylight, blood sliding down his jaw, and said your name. Not your real name, but the one he had given you.

“Forget-Me-Not.” You froze. His eyes widened. “I remembered.”

You stared at him. “No notes?”

“No notes.”

“No recording?”

“No.”

“No contact?”

“No.”

Your pulse roared in your ears.

Damian lifted a hand to his own mouth, stunned by himself. “I remembered the name.”

You should have made a joke. You always made a joke. Instead you crossed the space between you and grabbed him by the front of his suit. His eyes dropped to your hands.

You knew the risk. His memory flickered. You felt him begin to lose you.

“Damian,” you said.

His gaze snapped back to your face. There. He stayed.

You kissed him. It was not graceful. It was wet from rain and sharp with fear, his mouth startled beneath yours for one breath before he kissed you back with a kind of fierce, trembling focus that made your knees weak. His hands hovered for half a second, like he was afraid touching you wrong would make you vanish. Then one settled at your waist. The other came up to your jaw.

You felt him try not to look away. Felt the concentration in every line of him.

It should have been funny. It was devastating.

You pulled back just enough to breathe. His eyes were still open. Still on you.

“Did you forget?” you whispered.

His fingers tightened. “No.” Your world cracked open. Damian’s voice dropped. “I remember kissing you before.”

You stopped breathing.

His brow furrowed, like the memory was fighting him, like he was dragging it up with both hands from deep water. “Rooftop,” he said. “Siren. I looked away. You laughed at my glove.”

A sound left you. Half laugh. Half sob. “You wrote ‘you love them’ on your glove.”

His face flushed. Even now. Bleeding, soaked, standing over seven unconscious criminals and three dead ones, Damian Wayne blushed because you remembered his dramatic little love note to himself.

“I was being thorough,” he muttered.

“You were being insane.”

“I was being correct.”

You looked at him. He looked back. The rain softened the edges of him. Made him less blade, more boy. Fewer weapons, more want. Your hands were still fisted in his suit.

“You love me?” you asked. The question came out smaller than you meant it to.

Damian’s expression changed. He looked briefly, openly terrified. Then certain. “Yes,” he said.

No hesitation. No escape route. Just yes.

Your eyes stung. “You barely remember me.”

“I remember enough to know what the rest of me keeps choosing.”

“That is the most Damian Wayne answer imaginable.”

“I assume that is favourable.”

“It’s obnoxious.”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m rain-adjacent.”

“It is indoors.”

“There’s a hole in the roof.”

“Because you crashed through it.”

“Romantically.”

His mouth twitched. Then softened. “Beloved,” he said quietly.

You forgot how to be clever. Damian noticed. A dangerous amount of satisfaction entered his face.

“Oh, shut up,” you whispered.

“I said nothing.”

“You looked smug.”

“I am allowed to be pleased when I render you speechless.”

“I’m going to stab you emotionally.”

“You already have.”

And there it was. The ache beneath the banter. The years of loneliness. The curse. The forgetting. The way every soft thing between you had teeth marks in it from trying not to die.

You touched his cheek. His eyes closed for one second. Just one.

When he opened them, panic flashed. Then recognition followed. Slowly. Painfully. But there.

“I remember,” he said, wonder breaking through his voice.

Your thumb brushed his cheekbone. “Damian?”

“I remember.”

His hand covered yours. “I closed my eyes,” he said. “And I remembered.”

You stared at him.

The silence after that was not empty. It was full of every impossible thing neither of you dared to name.

Then Damian leaned forward and kissed you again. This time, he closed his eyes. This time, when he opened them, you were still there.

He became unbearable after that. Scientifically unbearable. You had never seen a man so smug about emotional progress. Damian walked around the Batcave like he had personally defeated the laws of metaphysics through discipline and cheekbones.

“I remembered their voice for fourteen minutes without visual confirmation,” he told Tim.

Tim stared at him over his coffee. “Good morning to you, too.”

“This suggests the effect is weakening.”

“It suggests you’re in love and making it everyone’s problem.”

Damian sniffed. “I am conducting research.”

“You wrote their name in the margin of a case file.”

“That was accidental.”

“You surrounded it with little flowers.”

Damian’s face went blank. Tim’s grin widened. “They were tactical flowers,” Damian said.

You, hidden in the rafters above them, nearly choked trying not to laugh.

Damian’s head snapped up.

He could not see you. Still, he smiled. Tiny. Private. Like his body knew where you were before his eyes did.

Tim followed his gaze and sighed. “You two are going to be disgusting, aren’t you?”

“I do not know what you mean,” Damian said.

“You’re already doing the secret rooftop eye-contact thing.”

“Your jealousy is unbecoming.”

“I’m not jealous. I’m sleep-deprived and surrounded by emotionally constipated vigilantes discovering romance like it’s a new martial art.”

From the rafters, you whispered, “He’s not wrong.”

Damian looked directly at your hiding place. “I heard that.”

Tim startled. “You heard them?”

Damian paused.

His expression changed. Not confusion. Astonishment. He had heard you without seeing you. And remembered who the voice belonged to.

You dropped lightly from the rafters, landing beside the computer platform.

Tim looked at you. Then away by accident. When his gaze returned, he frowned at the empty space his mind insisted on making.

“Right,” Tim muttered, immediately looking at his tablet. “Wow. That is annoying.”

“Welcome to my whole life,” you said.

Tim winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You wrote a twelve-page theory about me involving quantum attention decay. That was worse.”

Tim brightened. “You read that?”

“No.”

“You did.”

“Unfortunately.”

Damian stepped closer to you. His hand brushed yours. Not because he needed to anchor himself.

Because he wanted to. That difference nearly ruined you.

Tim looked between you and Damian. Or tried to. Mostly, his eyes kept snagging on Damian’s hand and then sliding away from the rest of you.

“So,” Tim said slowly, “he’s remembering more?”

“Yes,” Damian said.

You looked at him. “Sometimes.”

“More than sometimes.”

“Don’t get cocky.”

“I am accurately confident.”

“You remembered I hate lilies and decided that made you a wizard.”

“You said lilies smell like funeral homes and rich guilt.”

Tim pointed at you with his coffee. “That is incredibly specific.”

Damian’s eyes stayed on you. “I remembered because it mattered to them.”

The cave went quiet. Even Tim had the decency not to ruin it.

You swallowed. “Stop being sincere in public.”

“This is my home.”

“There are bats in it.”

“They are family.”

Tim whispered, “See? Disgusting.”

Damian ignored him. You tried to, but your mouth twitched. And Damian remembered that too.

Your real name came on a night without costumes. That was not planned. Most important things with Damian were either meticulously planned or happened with the emotional timing of a car crash. This was the second kind.

You were at Wayne Manor because Alfred had decided you were underfed. Alfred Pennyworth, you quickly discovered, was immune to approximately sixty per cent of your nonsense through sheer British stubbornness. He forgot you, yes. But he did not forget the place setting he had arranged. He did not forget the extra cup of tea. He did not forget the note he had written in elegant script beside the tray, Our guest takes honey, not sugar. Do not allow Master Damian to brood overmuch.

You read it three times. Then blamed allergies.

There were no allergies.

Damian found you in the library after dinner, standing near the window with a cup of tea cooling in your hands.

“You fled,” he said.

“I relocated.”

“You were overwhelmed.”

“I was avoiding your brother asking whether I’m your partner.”

Damian went still. “He asked that?”

“He tried to. He forgot halfway through and asked why you were smiling at a chair.”

Damian grimaced. You turned from the window.

The library was warm, gold-lit, lined with books that looked older than several Gotham neighborhoods. Rain tapped against the glass. Somewhere far down the hall, Dick laughed at something Jason said. It sounded painfully normal. Too normal for you. Too much like a life.

Damian approached carefully. “You may leave whenever you wish.”

“I know.”

“No one will keep you here.”

“I know.”

“You are not a prisoner of being wanted.”

You looked down at your tea. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“I can.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I might believe you.”

Damian was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Good.”

Your grip tightened around the cup. The ceramic warmed your palms. You hated how badly you wanted to stay. You hated how much of your life had been built around leaving before anyone could prove you were impossible to keep.

“Damian,” you said.

He stepped closer. “Yes?”

You looked at him then. No mask. No hood. No blood. No rooftop distance. Just Damian in a dark sweater, hair still damp from the rain, eyes fixed on you like attention was the first language he had ever learned.

“I want to tell you my name,” you said.

His face changed. Softened. Sharpened. Almost reverent. “You do not have to.”

“I know.”

“If you tell me, I may forget it.”

“I know.”

“I will write it down.”

“I know.”

“It still may hurt.”

You laughed under your breath. “It already hurts.”

Damian looked pained. You set the tea aside. Then you stepped close enough that your shoes nearly touched his.

You told him. Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just a name. A small sound. A human thing. The first thing ever taken from you.

Damian closed his eyes like receiving it hurt.

Then he opened them. Said it back. Perfectly.

Your breath shook. “No one has said that to me in years,” you whispered.

Damian’s hand rose, then stopped. “May I?”

You nodded.

He touched your cheek. Your eyes closed on instinct. His thumb moved softly against your skin.

Then he turned his head. Just slightly. A glance toward the door at a distant sound.

Your stomach dropped.

There. The curse took its bite.

Damian went still. His hand remained on your face. His eyes returned to you. For one second, there was no recognition. Then something fought through.

Not notes. Not touch alone. Something deeper.

His brow furrowed. His lips parted. Then he said your name.

Your whole body went cold. Then hot. Then weightless.

“You remember,” you breathed.

Damian stared at you as if he were afraid moving would break the world. “Yes.”

“Say it again.”

He did.

You covered your mouth. He said it again, softer. Like a vow. Like a prayer. Like he was teaching the universe how to behave.

You made a sound you could not swallow.

Damian pulled you into his arms. Not too tight. Never trapping. Just holding.

You buried your face against his shoulder and shook. He pressed his mouth to your hair.

“I remember,” he whispered.

You clutched the back of his sweater. “You remember me.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I will not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he said, voice rough. “But I know your name.”

You broke then. Not prettily. Not quietly. Years of vanishing tore out of you all at once. You cried like a child. Like the child who had waited at a dinner table no one set. Like the teenager who had learned knives because hands were never offered. Like the ghost who had survived being forgotten by pretending they did not want to be known.

Damian held you through all of it. And when he looked away once, twice, three times—

He still knew who you were when he looked back.

He asked you properly two weeks later. Because apparently, Damian Wayne could confess love in a burning warehouse but needed a formal strategy for dating.

You found the list by accident. Mostly accident. Fine. Thirty percent accident.

It was in his notebook, beneath a heading written in his sharp, perfect block letters, COURTSHIP PARAMETERS You stared. Then slowly turned the page.

Ask directly. Do not assume existing emotional intimacy equals consent to romantic partnership. Avoid phrasing as a tactical alliance. Drake says this is “weird.” Flowers? Not lilies. Possible alternatives: forget-me-nots, though they may be too obvious. Consider irony? No. Too painful? Ask. Dinner? Public spaces may increase discomfort due to memory effect. Rooftop picnic? Too much like patrol? Do not say “I have selected you.” Brown laughed for four minutes.

You had to sit down. By the time Damian entered the room, you were on his bed, laughing silently into his pillow.

He stopped in the doorway. “You are invading my privacy.”

“You wrote ‘do not say I have selected you.’” His entire face went red. You clutched the notebook to your chest. “Damian.”

“Give that back.”

“You asked Steph for dating advice?”

“I consulted multiple sources.”

“Did you ask Jason?”

His expression darkened. “Todd suggested kidnapping you from yourself.”

“That’s almost poetic.”

“He also suggested leather.”

You wheezed.

Damian lunged for the notebook.

You rolled away, laughing harder. He caught your ankle. You shrieked, half-laughing, and kicked at him without real force. He climbed onto the bed with the terrifying determination of a man fighting for his dignity and losing badly.

“Return it,” he demanded.

“You made a courtship battle plan.”

“It is not a battle plan.”

“It has numbered objectives.”

“It is a list.”

“You were going to ask me out with logistics.”

“I was going to ask you with respect.”

That stopped you. Damian froze too, one hand braced beside your shoulder, the two of you suddenly close enough that laughter became breath. His blush lingered high on his cheeks.

Your smile softened despite yourself. “You were?”

“Yes.”

You looked down at the notebook. Then back at him. “Okay. Ask me.”

“Now?”

“No, Damian. Next fiscal quarter.”

His eyes narrowed. “Your sarcasm is a defence mechanism.”

“Your face is a defence mechanism. Ask.”

He took the notebook from your loosened hand and set it aside. Then, because he was Damian, he straightened even while kneeling on his bed like this was a boardroom and not the most ridiculous romantic moment in recorded history. He looked directly at you. Softer this time.

“I love you,” he said. Your heart tripped. Still. Every time. “I remember you now more often than I forget,” he continued. “But even before that, I knew you. I knew you from the evidence you left behind. I knew you in what my hands refused to release. I knew you in the anger I felt when the world failed to keep you.” You swallowed. “I do not want you as a mission,” he said. “Or a mystery. Or a wound I am arrogant enough to believe I can close. I want you as you are. Difficult. Violent. Irritatingly funny.”

“Careful. I’m swooning.”

“You interrupt when uncomfortable.”

“I’m on brand.”

His mouth curved. “I want to be with you,” he said. “If you will have me.”

For a moment, you could not answer. Your chest felt too full. Too bright. Like hope had stopped being a weed and become a garden overnight, and you had no idea how to tend it.

“You’re sure?” you whispered.

“Yes.”

“What if it gets worse again?”

“Then we adapt.”

“What if you forget for a whole day?”

“I will come back.”

“What if you don’t?”

Pain crossed his face. No offence. Understanding. “Then you are allowed to be angry with me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only honest one.” He touched your hand. “I cannot promise perfection. I can promise effort. I can promise records, anchors, magic, research, and my own unbearable persistence.”

“You are unbearable.”

“I know.”

“You’re smug.”

“Frequently.”

“You brood.”

“Productively.”

“You’re bad at casual affection.”

“I am improving.”

“You tried to label kissing as positive tactile reinforcement.”

He closed his eyes. “I apologised for that.”

“You did.”

“I will never say it again.”

“You better not.”

His eyes opened. Your hand turned beneath his, fingers sliding between his.

“But yeah,” you whispered. “I’ll have you.”

Damian went very still. Then, quietly, “Yes?”

“Yes.”

His face changed. You had seen Damian angry. Injured. Focused. Afraid. Tender in flashes he tried to hide.

You had never seen him happy like this. It was not loud. It did not transform him into someone else. It simply loosened something around his eyes, lit something beneath his skin. A sunrise with discipline. A miracle standing at attention.

Then he leaned down and kissed you. Slowly. Carefully. Like he had all the time in the world and planned to use it well.

You smiled against his mouth.

He pulled back just enough to frown. “You are laughing.”

“I’m dating a man with courtship parameters.”

“I rescind my vulnerability.”

“No take-backs.”

He kissed you again, firmer this time. Your hand rose to the back of his neck, fingers slipping into his hair. He made a quiet sound that you immediately filed away for future bullying.

Then his eyes closed. Your body tensed automatically. He felt it.

His forehead rested against yours. Eyes still closed, he said your name. Perfectly.

You shuddered.

Again, he said it.

Then opened his eyes.

“There you are,” Damian whispered.

And this time, he remembered saying it.

The curse did not vanish. Life was not that kind. Strangers still forgot you. Cameras still blurred if no one watched the footage with intention. Tim still had to write your name on his coffee cup when you visited the cave, and Jason still got annoyed every time he forgot who had stolen his ammo.

“You,” Jason snapped once, pointing at empty air beside you, “better be the reason my smoke bombs are missing.”

You held one up.

Jason looked away. Looked back. Forgot. Then saw the smoke bomb floating in your hand.

“Oh, come on.”

You laughed for ten minutes.

Damian remembered the sound all day.

That was the difference now.

Not a cure.

A beginning.

Some days were worse. Some days, Damian forgot your face after blinking too long. Some days, your name dissolved on his tongue and came back only after he touched the bracelet Zatanna had spelt for him.

Some days you spiralled. Some days he did.

But more often, he remembered.

Your voice from another room. Your hand without looking. Your name in the morning, sleep-rough and certain. Your laugh. Your scars. Your tea. Your hatred of lilies. Your habit of sharpening knives when anxious.

The way you still stood near exits. The way you looked stunned every time he reached for you simply because he wanted to.

And every time he remembered, some old frozen piece of you thawed.

Not all at once. Not cleanly.

Healing was ugly sometimes. It limped. It snapped. It forgot the way home and had to be led back by hand.

But Damian was good at difficult paths.

And you, despite everything, were still here.

One evening, months after the warehouse, you found him on the same rooftop where he had first remembered your laugh. He was waiting with a thermos of tea, two paper containers of takeout, and a small pot of blue flowers.

You stared at it. “Are those forget-me-nots?”

Damian looked almost defensive. “Too obvious?”

“Horribly.”

“I suspected.”

“Very dramatic.”

“I was informed romance requires some drama.”

“By who?”

“Grayson.”

“That explains everything.”

Damian held out the flowers. You took them carefully.

“They’re pretty,” you admitted.

“I know.”

“Smug.”

“Accurately confident.”

You sat beside him, shoulder pressed to his.

Below, Gotham glowed like a bruise full of stars.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then Damian said your name.

Softly.

No prompt. No note. No spell.

You looked at him.

He was watching the skyline, not you.

He had said it while looking away.

Your breath vanished.

Damian turned his head. Saw your face.

Remembered why you looked like that.

His expression softened.

“I know,” he said.

Your eyes burned. “You looked away.”

“Yes.”

“And you remembered.”

“Yes.”

You laughed once, wet and disbelieving. “Show-off.”

He smiled.

Actually smiled. Small but real, and yours to remember even if the world forgot.

You leaned into him. His arm came around you.

This time, neither of you called it anchoring.

This time, it was just holding.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Damian went very still.

You felt the breath leave him.

Then his hand tightened around yours.

He said your name again. Then, “I love you.”

No curse took it. No silence swallowed it. No forgetting followed.

The words stayed. You stayed.

And when Damian looked away toward the city, then back at you, his smile returned like dawn breaking over a place that had only ever known night.

“There you are,” he said.

You smiled through the ache.

“You’re going to absolutely hate it here.” Your roommate, Violet, says, nodding towards the Welcome to Hawkins Hell sign. 

“You’re such a delight, y’know that?” You retort, taking a puff of your cigarette.

“I’m just saying! Why you agreed to spend the summer with my dad and I is beyond me. Hawkins is literally the most boring town on the entire planet.”

“‘On the entire planet’ is a stretch, Vi. I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, it so is. I mean, look at that,” she motions towards the line of storefronts. “This town is stuck in the 70’s, terminally. We have to drive 20 minutes to get decent coffee. It’s deplorable.” 

You roll your eyes and shake your head, exhaling a plume of smoke out of the window. Was spending your entire summer break in small town Indiana your idea of a perfect summer? No, not by a long shot. 

But it was by all means better than going back to your house, dealing with your dad, and that witch of a step-mom. So, summer break in Hawkins with Violet and her dad seemed like the lesser of two evils. 

Besides, Violet was your best friend. You two met eachother freshman year due to random roommate assignments, and clicked off the jump. The second she started hanging Dio and Iron Maiden posters up, you knew you’d be thick as thieves. 

Not just because of the music, either. Violet looked like she’d crawled straight out of a metal magazine and into your dorm room. Dark curly hair always messy in an intentional sort of way, tattoos peeking out from under shredded band tees and leather jackets, no matter the weather. 

And somehow, you matched her freak perfectly.

The two of you moved through campus like a matched set; all dark clothes, tattoos, cigarette smoke, chunky silver jewelry, and enough attitude to make frat boys cross the street.

People always assumed you’d known each other forever. Maybe because you looked like alternate universe versions of the same girl.

Or maybe because Violet Munson was so painfully, undeniably her father’s daughter. And here you are, the summer into your senior year, and you’re closer than ever, living together for all four years.

“Alright, here we are. Home sweet shithole,” she mutters, pulling into her driveway.

Her house was not a shithole by any standard. It was a quaint, brick bi-level house with a dark blue door and bushes lining the sides. Sure, the lawn was a little overgrown, but that’s to be expected of a single dad who works long hours as a mechanic.

The driveway’s littered with evidence of him, too. A toolbox near the garage. Empty beer bottles sitting on the porch railing. A faded Corroded Coffin bumper sticker slapped crookedly onto an old cooler.

You snort softly as you climb out of the passenger seat. “Yeah, this is devastatingly awful, Vi. I may never recover.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, popping the trunk.

The summer air is thick and humid, wrapping around your skin instantly. Cicadas scream somewhere in the trees while Violet digs through her bag before triumphantly holding up a joint between two black-painted nails.

“Oh, thank God,” you sigh dramatically.

“Priorities.”

You lean against the hood while she lights it, the flame briefly illuminating the silver hoop through her nose. She takes the first hit before passing it over to you without a word.

It was easy with Violet, always had been.

You inhale slowly, letting your shoulders finally relax for what feels like the first time in months.

“Y’know,” Violet says, exhaling smoke toward the sky, “my dad’s gonna love you.”

You bark out a laugh. “You say that now.”

“No, seriously. You’re literally his exact type.”

You nearly choke. “Vi?”

“What?” she grins. “Hot goth women with emotional issues and nicotine addictions. That’s basically his demographic.”

“Ew, Vi!”

“I’m just being honest!”

Before you can respond, the low growl of an engine cuts through the quiet, and Violet immediately glances toward the street. A black-and-white van pulls into the driveway beside you both. Older model, and loud as hell.

“Speaking of the devil,” Violet mutters.

Your eyes widen slightly. “Shit, should we put this out?”

Violet looks genuinely confused. “Why?”

The driver’s side door swings open before you can answer. And oh, okay.

You expected an older guy, maybe tired-looking. Greasy coveralls. Generic middle-aged dad energy.

Not…him.

Not Eddie stepping out of the van in a black sleeveless Metallica shirt, grease smeared along his tattooed forearms, dark curls sticking to his forehead from the heat.

Late thirties, maybe early forties, sure. Still, unfairly hot.

“Hey, hon,” he calls toward Violet before his eyes land on you. They pause, just for a second too long.

Violet smirks immediately, clocking it. “Dad, this is the roommate I’ve been telling you about. Y’know, the one with functioning brain cells?”

“Mm.” His gaze flicks over you again, amused. “Heard a lot about you.”

You open your mouth to respond, suddenly very aware of the joint between your fingers.

Eddie notices too. Without missing a beat, he steps forward, plucks it right from your hand, and takes a drag like it belongs to him.

“Gotta make sure it’s not poison,” he says casually, smoke curling from his grin.

Up close, he smells faintly like motor oil, cigarette smoke, and something woodsy underneath it all. Cologne, maybe. Or just him. Unfortunately for you, it works.

“So,” he says, handing the joint back to you this time instead of Violet, “you’re the famous roommate.”

You snort softly. “Famous feels generous.”

“Nah, trust me. I’ve heard plenty.” He points toward Violet with his chin. “This one calls me every other day bitching about classes, professors, existential crises—”

“Okay, wow.”

“—and somehow your name always comes up.”

Violet flips him off immediately. “You’re obsessed with me.”

“You’re my kid. Kinda legally obligated.”

He grins when she groans dramatically, and for a second, it clicks so clearly it’s almost stupid.

The resemblance. Not necessarily in exact features, though they definitely share the same eyes and dark curls. It’s the energy. The sarcasm. The loud personality packed into black clothes and silver jewelry.

Violet really is just a female version of him, which suddenly explains a lot.

Eddie turns his attention back toward you.

“But seriously.” He gestures vaguely around the neighborhood. “Why the hell’d you agree to spend your summer in Hawkins? If Vi didn’t already mention, sweetheart, this town sucks.”

You take another drag to buy yourself a second.

Because going home meant screaming matches and slammed doors. Because your dad somehow always found a way to make you feel seventeen again in the worst possible sense. Because your stepmother looked at you like something inconvenient she accidentally stepped in.

Instead, you shrug one shoulder casually. “Figured I’d switch it up this summer.”

“Mm.” That’s all Eddie says, just that soft little hum.

But his eyes linger on you for a second too long, like he hears the thing you’re not saying anyway.

Thankfully, Violet cuts in before the moment can settle too heavily. “Dad, tell her who’s coming over later.”

“Oh, right.” Eddie pushes off the van slightly. “Gruncle Wayne’s coming for dinner.”

You blink. “...Gruncle?”

Eddie immediately looks offended. “You never heard of a gruncle?”

“No sane person says gruncle.”

“It’s efficient!”

Violet laughs around her next hit before explaining, “Wayne’s technically my great uncle, but he’s basically my grandpa, so. Gruncle.”

“And he practically raised me,” Eddie adds, softer this time. “My uncle Wayne’s a good guy.”

There’s something fond in his expression when he says it. 

You smile slightly. “Okay, gruncle’s actually kinda cute with context.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says dramatically, pointing at you. “See? She gets it.”

“Oh my god,” Violet mutters. “You found one person willing to entertain you, and now you’re never gonna shut up.”

“Correct.”

Eddie takes the joint from your fingers again before you can protest, bumping your shoulder lightly with his own as he does it. Still enough to make your stomach do something embarrassingly stupid.

“C’mon,” Violet says eventually, nudging off the van. “Before my dad starts his old man routine and lectures us about unloading the car.”

“I heard that,” Eddie calls behind you both.

“Good.”

You laugh quietly, grabbing one of your bags from the trunk while Eddie takes the heavier suitcase before you can argue. “Oh, I can—”

“Nope.” He shuts the trunk with one hand. “Guest privilege.”

“You say that now.”

“Sweetheart, I survived raising her.” He jerks his head toward Violet. “Nothing scares me anymore.”

“Wow.” Violet dramatically places a hand over her heart. “And in front of company.”

The inside of the house feels exactly like you expected, somehow. Warm lighting. Faint smell of coffee and cigarettes lingering in the air. Records stacked beside the stereo. Band posters framed on the walls like actual art pieces.

The kind of house where people actually exist in it instead of just passing through. Which weirdly makes something in your chest ache a little.

Violet leads you down the hallway while Eddie disappears toward the kitchen, already calling out something about beer and Wayne coming over “starving as usual.”

Then Violet swings open a door dramatically. “And here,” she announces, “is your luxurious guest suite.”

You step inside and immediately laugh. The “guest room” is really just a room someone shoved a bed into and hoped for the best.

There’s a full-length mirror leaning against the wall, an old wooden chair covered in clothes, and approximately six guitars scattered around the room alongside amps and tangled cords. Cases were shoved beneath the bed, and picks littered the nightstand.

You turn slowly. “...Jesus Christ.”

“I told you,” Violet grins. “My dad has a guitar hoarding problem.”

A voice pipes up from behind you instantly. “They are lovingly curated.”

You glance back to find Eddie leaning against the doorway now, beer bottle in hand. His eyes flick toward the guitar case slung over your shoulder, then back to you.

“Wait,” he says, straightening slightly. “You play?”

Something about how immediately excited he sounds makes you smile. “A little.”

“A little,” Violet repeats mockingly. “She’s being humble. She’s good.”

“Oh shit.” Eddie points at you like this is groundbreaking information. “You didn't tell me that!”

“You literally met me twenty minutes ago.”

“And you decided to withhold that valuable piece of information.”

Violet gestures vaguely around the room. “Unfortunately, there’s no space left for your guitar because my father and I are addicts.”

“Hey,” Eddie says defensively. “Half this stuff is yours.”

“Yeah, because you fed into my addiction.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

Violet snorts while Eddie grins into his beer bottle, and again, that warmth settles over the entire house so naturally that it almost catches you off guard. Like this is just what they’re like.

Loud, sarcastic, comfortable with each other; a real family. It makes your chest feel weird in a way you don’t want to unpack right now.

“Well,” Eddie says after another second, pushing off the doorway. “Make yourself at home, sweetheart. Wayne’ll be here in an hour, and if Vi didn’t warn you already, he’s gonna interrogate you lovingly.”

“I’ll prepare myself emotionally.”

“Good plan.”

His eyes flick toward you one last time before he disappears down the hallway. And the second he’s gone, Violet whips and pulls you toward her room so fast it’s genuinely alarming.

“Oh my god.”

You narrow your eyes immediately. “Don’t.”

“You think my dad’s hot.”

“I do not—”

“You absolutely do.”

“Violet.”

“He stole the joint from you, and you let him.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” She throws herself dramatically onto her bed. “Honestly? Respect.”

You scoff, sitting beside her. “Your father is like forty.”

“Thirty-nine.”

“That does not help your case.”

“It kinda does.”

You grab one of her throw pillows and smack her with it immediately while she cackles. “You’re insane.”

“And you wanna fuck my dad.”

“Oh, my god.”

“I’m just saying—”

“It’s all fun and games until I become your stepmom or something.” The words leave your mouth entirely on instinct.

Then Violet sits bolt upright so fast it’s horrifying, and her eyes widen. Then slowly, slowly, a grin spreads across her face so evil it should honestly be studied professionally.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, this summer is about to be so interesting.”

“You’re a sick individual, y'know that?” 

About forty-five minutes later, the house smells like takeout pizza, cigarette smoke drifting in from the open kitchen window, and whatever cologne Eddie sprayed on himself after his shower.

Not that you noticed, at all. Heh. 

You’re perched on the counter beside Violet, nursing a beer while she digs through the fridge for ranch. Eddie’s leaning against the opposite counter in a fresh shirt now, curls still damp at the ends from his shower, tattoos on full display beneath pushed-up sleeves.

Which feels targeted, honestly.

Then the front door swings open. “Hellooo!” a voice calls.

“Kitchen!” Violet yells back instantly.

Heavy footsteps echo through the house before an older man appears around the corner carrying a twelve-pack under one arm.

Wayne looks exactly how you imagined he would, somehow. Weathered Carhartt jacket despite the heat, graying beard, tired kind eyes. The sort of face that looks permanently worn in from years of hard work and little sleep.

The second Violet sees him, she hops off the counter. “Gruncle!”

“There’s my girl.” Wayne smiles immediately, opening one arm for her to hug him. “Missed me already?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Brat.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head anyway before finally noticing you standing there beside Eddie.

Wayne pauses, looks between you and Violet once, then twice.

“What are you two, siamese twins?”

You burst out laughing instantly. Because honestly? Fair.

You and Violet are both standing there in shorts and oversized band tees, tattoos exposed, silver jewelry glinting beneath the kitchen lights like matching warning labels.

“Basically,” Violet says proudly.

Wayne shakes his head fondly before stepping toward you. “Wayne Munson.” He offers his hand. “Nice to finally put a face to the name. Heard about you for years now.”

You shake his hand, smiling. “That bad, huh?”

“Nah.” He jerks a thumb toward Violet. “If she keeps somebody around longer than a semester, they’re usually alright.”

“Wow,” Violet says flatly. “Love the faith in me.”

“You ate glue in second grade.”

“That was one time.”

Wayne ignores her completely, attention turning back toward you. “Where you from, sweetheart?”

“Chicago.”

“Oh, big city girl,” he nods knowingly. “What’d Hawkins ever do to deserve that?”

“She lost a bet,” Eddie says from beside you.

You snort into your beer. “I’m starting to think everyone in this town’s contractually obligated to insult Hawkins at least once an hour.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Eddie says seriously. “It’s tradition.”

The kitchen settles into easy conversation after that. Wayne telling stories about Eddie as a teenager while Violet heckles both of them relentlessly from the counter.

Eddie threatening to expose childhood stories in retaliation. Beer bottles clinking against countertops while some old metal album plays low through the speakers in the living room.

And it’s strange how quickly you settle into it. Like you’ve been in this kitchen before. Like, there’s already a place carved out for you between all their sarcasm and noise.

At one point, Wayne glances toward you while Eddie and Violet argue over music in the other room.

Then he leans slightly closer. Quietly, conspiratorially, he says, “Good luck surviving those two.”

You grin into your beer. “Think I’ll manage.”

By midnight, Violet is fully unconscious. Not dead, despite Eddie checking twice. Just absolutely obliterated by the combination of beer, pizza, and insisting she could “totally outdrink” both you and her father.

Which apparently she could not.

“She gets that from you, by the way,” you whisper as Eddie throws a blanket over her sleeping form, sprawled diagonally across the bed.

“Absolutely not.”

“She literally fell asleep holding a breadstick.”

“That’s called efficiency.”

You laugh quietly while Eddie shakes his head fondly at his daughter before shutting her bedroom door most of the way behind you both.

Wayne headed home an hour ago after dramatically claiming he was “too old for this shit.” The TV’s off. The kitchen cleaned up except for a couple of empty beer bottles sitting beside the sink.

You linger awkwardly for a second in the hallway, then reach into your pocket for your cigarettes.

“I’m gonna go outside for a minute.”

Eddie glances toward the pack in your hand and nods knowingly. “Yeah, me too.”

Of course he is.

The night air is cooler now, wrapping around your bare arms and legs as you step out onto the front porch. Crickets hum loudly in the grass while somewhere down the street, a dog barks once before going quiet again.

Small town silence, the kind you’re still not used to.

You sit on the porch steps while Eddie leans against the railing beside you, flicking his lighter open. The flame briefly catches across his rings and tattoos before he cups it toward your cigarette first.

A gentleman, unfortunately.

“You know,” he says after a second, smoke curling from his mouth, “you’re handling Hawkins suspiciously well so far.”

“I’ve only been here like six hours.”

“And yet you haven’t tried to flee.”

“Maybe I’m waiting until tomorrow.”

“Smart.”

You grin faintly, staring out toward the dark street ahead of you. For a minute, neither of you says anything. Just smoke quietly beside each other while the porch light buzzes overhead.

“So what’s the real reason you came here?”

You glance toward him automatically. “Hm?”

“The real reason.” He gestures vaguely with his cigarette. “Because no offense, sweetheart, but no twenty-one-year-old voluntarily spends their summer in Hawkins unless they’re hiding from something or recovering from something.”

You try to cover it with a laugh. “You always interrogate your daughter’s friends like this?”

“Nah.” His eyes meet yours then. “Just you.”

Your stomach does something deeply irritating. You look away first, exhaling smoke slowly. “My family’s just… a lot.”

Eddie stays quiet, not the impatient kind of silence either. The kind that waits.

You shrug one shoulder eventually. “My dad remarried a couple of years ago. She hates me, I hate her, my dad pretends none of it’s happening.”

“That sucks.”

You glance toward him again. “Yeah. It does.”

He nods once like he understands something you didn’t fully say out loud. Then, because apparently he can sense when you’re getting too vulnerable, the corner of his mouth tugs upward.

“Well.” He takes another drag. “Good news is you’re safe here.”

Your brows lift slightly. “Safe?”

“Yeah.” He gestures toward the house behind you. “Vi likes you, Wayne likes you, and I already decided you’re tolerable.”

You laugh softly. “That so?”

“Mhm.”

“You decide that before or after stealing my joint?”

“That was actually the deciding factor.”

You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. Eddie watches you for another second before speaking again.

“Plus,” he adds casually, “you’re pretty.” 

You cough once, glaring immediately while Eddie grins outright now.

“Oh my god,” you mutter. “You flirt like a divorced dad.”

“I am a divorced dad.”

“Were you ever even married?”

“Details.”

You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and Eddie’s expression shifts slightly when he hears it. Like he enjoys making you laugh a little too much already.

Which feels dangerously good. Especially when he looks at you like that beneath the dim porch light, cigarette between his fingers, curls falling into his face while the entire town sleeps around you both.

“For real, though,” he says quietly. “Thanks for being good to my kid.”

The sincerity catches you off guard enough that you blink at him.

Eddie shrugs one shoulder, eyes drifting toward the house behind you. “Vi acts tough, but she’s always had a hard time letting people in. Most people don’t really… stick around.”

“She’s my best friend,” you say simply. “I don’t know where I’d be without her.”

Eddie looks back at you then, and whatever he sees makes something warm settle into his expression.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I can tell.”

Then Eddie clears his throat slightly, the teasing glint returning to his eyes before the moment can get too heavy.

“Still think you’re trouble, though.”

You scoff immediately. “Me?”

“Mhm.” He points at you with his cigarette. “You walked into my house lookin’ like… And now my daughter’s already smoking weed and passed out drunk.”

“She was smoking weed before I got here.”

“Yeah, but now she has an audience.”

You laugh softly, shaking your head. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And yet,” Eddie says, stepping closer just enough for his shoulder to brush yours lightly again, “you’re still out here talking to me.”

Your stomach flips in the most humiliating way imaginable, especially when he smiles afterward.

You should probably move away; that feels like the smart thing to do here.

Instead, you stay exactly where you are, cigarette dangling loosely between your fingers while Eddie sits close enough now that you can feel the heat coming off him in the cool night air.

Which is maybe a problem. A huge one, actually.

Because he’s your best friend’s dad. Because you’re living in his house all summer. Because Violet would absolutely lose her mind if she knew the way her father was currently looking at you.

And worst of all, because you really, really want him to keep doing it. You exhale slowly, trying to gather at least one coherent thought.

“I dunno if we should do this,” you admit quietly.

Eddie’s brows lift slightly. “Do what?”

“You know what.”

His mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile. “Sweetheart, all I’ve done is compliment you and steal your weed.”

“You’re flirting with me.”

“Guilty.”

You groan softly, rubbing a hand over your face. “Eddie.”

The way his name sounds coming out of your mouth makes his expression shift for half a second.

Then, casually, as anything, he says: “What, you worried about becoming Vi’s stepmom?”

Your eyes widen so fast it’s honestly embarrassing. Eddie immediately breaks into a grin.

“Oh my god,” you whisper. “She told you?”

“Nope.”

“Then how do you—”

“The walls in this house are paper-thin, sweetheart.” He takes another drag from his cigarette, clearly enjoying your horror. “And you two were not exactly quiet.”

You physically cover your face with both hands. “Oh my fucking god.”

From somewhere behind your palms, you hear Eddie laugh. Entirely too pretty sounding for a man his age, honestly.

“I’m gonna die,” you mumble.

“Nah.”

“I need Violet to actually kill me with her bare hands immediately.”

“She’d probably just ask if she needed to leave the house for us.”

You lower your hands just enough to glare at him. “That is not helping.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says, still visibly amused. “Just tryin’ to make you feel better.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“A little.”

The porch light catches the silver in his rings when he reaches over and gently pulls your cigarette from your fingers before it burns too close to your skin.

The gesture is so absentmindedly caring that it almost does you in completely. Then he hands his back, and your fingers brush his.

And suddenly neither of you are smiling quite as much anymore. Eddie looks at you for a long second before speaking again, quieter this time.

“Listen,” he says. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”

You shake your head immediately. “You’re not.”

That answer comes out a little too fast. His eyes flick down to your mouth for the briefest second before back up again.

“Good,” he murmurs.

Your heart stumbles over itself. Because there’s something almost unfair about the way he looks at you right now. Like he’s trying very hard to behave himself, and failing a little.

“You’re trouble,” you whisper.

Eddie smiles slowly.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, “you walked into my house looking like that. We’re way past figuring out who the trouble is.”

The porch conversation lingers for a couple more minutes. Eddie’s looking at you like he’s already decided how the rest of the night is going to go, and you’re pretending your thighs aren’t pressed together under the thin fabric of your sleep shorts.

You don’t remember who moved first. Just that one second you’re both standing there, the next his mouth is on yours; slow at first, like he’s giving you an out, then deeper when you grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer.

He tastes like smoke and mint and something that makes your head spin. His hand slides to the back of your neck, thumb brushing your jaw, rings cool against your flushed skin.

“Inside,” he murmurs against your lips, voice rough. “Before I bend you over these steps like a fucking animal.”

You laugh breathlessly, but your pulse is hammering. He walks you backward through the quiet house, one hand on your waist, the other pushing open the door to his bedroom at the end of the hall.

The second it clicks shut behind you, the restraint snaps.

Eddie kisses you like he’s starving; tongue, teeth, hands everywhere. He peels your tank top off, groans low when he sees you’re not wearing a bra. His mouth is on your tits immediately, sucking hard enough to make you gasp, one hand kneading the other while he backs you toward his bed.

“Been thinking about this since you stepped out of that car,” he admits, voice gravelly. He pushes you down onto the mattress and drops to his knees between your spread thighs like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Look at you. Fuck.”

He doesn’t tease. He yanks your shorts and panties down in one rough tug, spreads your legs wider, and buries his face in your center like a man on a mission.

You choke on a moan.

He eats you like he’s trying to ruin you for anyone else, long, filthy licks from your entrance to your clit, sucking your clit into his mouth with obscene wet sounds, tongue fucking into you while his hands pin your hips down.

His curls tickle your thighs, nails digging into your skin, and when he groans against you, the vibration shoots straight up your spine.

“Eddie...fuck—”

He pulls back just enough to look up at you, lips shiny, eyes dark. “Taste so fucking good, sweetheart. College boys ever eat this pretty pussy like this?” 

He dives back in before you can answer, two thick fingers sliding into you, curling just right.

You swear under your breath, hips grinding against his face. He doesn’t let up. Not when your thighs start shaking. Not when you’re whimpering his name like a prayer.

He sucks your clit hard and curls his fingers again, and you come so suddenly it punches the air out of your lungs, back arching off the bed.

He keeps licking you through it, gentler now, until you’re twitching and oversensitive.

When he finally pulls back, his chin is glistening. He wipes it with the back of his hand like it’s nothing, then stands up and strips his shirt off. The sight of him, tattoos, scars, that happy trail leading down into his jeans, makes your mouth water.

He grabs something from the nightstand drawer. A sleek black vibrator. Your eyebrows shoot up.

Eddie smirks, climbing over you. “Not competition, baby. Just gonna make you feel even better.” He kisses you deep, letting you taste yourself on his tongue, while he works his jeans open. His cock is thick, flushed, and beyond what you had imagined. He strokes himself once, twice, watching your face.

“You sure?” he asks, suddenly serious for half a second.

You nod, pulling him down. “Yes. Please.”

He lines himself up, then presses the vibrator against your clit on the lowest setting, the buzz making you jolt.

He pushes in slow, inch by inch, until he’s buried to the hilt, stretching you open in the best way.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groans, forehead pressed to yours. “So fucking wet for me.”

He starts moving. Deep, rolling thrusts that make your toes curl. The vibrator stays pressed to your center the whole time, buzzing steadily while he fucks you.

Every stroke grinds it harder against you. You’re moaning loud enough that you’re glad Violet’s passed out cold down the hall.

Eddie’s experienced; there’s no other way to say it. He knows exactly how to angle his hips, when to speed up, and when to grind deep. He watches your face the entire time, drinking in every reaction.

“Nobodies fucked you like this, huh?” he rasps, voice wrecked as he snaps his hips harder. “Don’t eat you like this? Don’t make this pretty pussy cream all over their cock?”

You shake your head, nails digging into his back. “N-no, Eddie, fuck—”

He clicks the vibrator up a setting, and you nearly scream. The combination is devastating; his thick cock dragging against your walls, the relentless buzz on your clit, the way he’s looking at you like he wants to devour you whole.

He leans down, mouth against your ear. “Gonna make you come again. Want to feel you squeezing me when you do.”

You do, hard. The orgasm crashes over you so intensely that your vision whites out for a second. Eddie fucks you through it, cursing under his breath, pace turning punishing.

He pulls the vibrator away only when you’re whimpering, then flips you over onto your stomach like you weigh nothing. He pulls your hips up and sinks back into you in one smooth thrust, hand reaching around to circle your oversensitive clit with his fingers.

“Again,” he growls. “One more, sweetheart. Give it to me.”

You’re a mess. Face buried in his pillow, ass up, drooling and moaning while he rails you from behind. The wet slap of skin, his low groans, the way he keeps telling you how good you feel, how perfect you are, it all sends you spiraling again.

When you come the third time, clenching around him like a vice, Eddie finally lets go. He buries himself deep and comes with a broken groan of your name, hips stuttering, body shuddering against yours.

For a long minute, the only sounds are both of you trying to catch your breath.

Eddie pulls out carefully, then collapses beside you and pulls you into his chest. His hand strokes down your back, lazy and soothing.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to your damp forehead. “You’re gonna kill me this summer.”

You laugh weakly, still floating. “Good thing you’re experienced.”

He chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest. “Damn right.”

You wake slowly to warmth and the faint smell of cigarettes. For a second, you’re disoriented. Heavy blankets. Morning light spilling gold through half-open blinds. A tattooed arm wrapped loosely around your waist.

Then everything from last night comes rushing back at once.

Oh. Oh, fuck.

Before you can spiral too hard, lips press softly against your shoulder, then your neck.

“Mornin’, sweetheart.” Eddie’s voice is rough with sleep.

You turn your head slightly to find him propped up on one elbow beside you, curls an absolute disaster, dark tattoos disappearing beneath the sheets pooled low on his hips. It’s deeply unfair that he still looks this good at six in the morning.

“You have work,” you mumble sleepily.

“I know.” He kisses you once more, quick and lazy this time. “Tryin’ very hard to be responsible about it.”

“Mm. Don’t.”

Eddie laughs softly under his breath like he can’t help it. “Dangerous thing to say to a man already running late.”

You grin against the pillow while he leans down to kiss you properly this time. Slow enough to make your stomach flip all over again. When he pulls back, he brushes his thumb along your cheek once before sighing dramatically.

“Unfortunately,” he says, “car engines wait for no man.”

“Tragic.”

“I know. I’m devastated too.”

You watch him drag himself out of bed, immediately mourning the loss of warmth while he pulls on jeans and a black work shirt.

He catches you staring when he turns around. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You were checking me out.”

“I absolutely was not.”

“Sweetheart, I’m forty, not blind.”

“Thirty-nine,” you correct automatically.

Eddie points at you immediately. “See? You know the number now. That’s intimacy.”

Eventually, you force yourself out of bed too, tugging your pajamas back on while Eddie disappears into the kitchen. By the time you walk out there, he’s pouring coffee into two mugs.

The domesticity of it hits you like a truck.

Eddie, standing in his kitchen in work boots and rolled sleeves, making you coffee like this is normal. Like this happens all the time.

He glances over when he hears you, then visibly pauses.

“What?” you ask suspiciously.

His mouth twitches. “Nothin’.”

“Eddie.”

“You put your shirt on inside out.”

You look down immediately. Fuck.

“You could’ve told me sooner!”

“Nah.” He slides a mug toward you, smirking into his own coffee. “This is way funnier.”

You flip him off while fixing it properly, and Eddie just laughs again before checking the clock.

“Shit. Okay, I really gotta go.”

He downs the rest of his coffee, grabs his keys off the counter, then pauses beside you on his way to the door. For a second, he just looks at you.

Then he leans down and kisses you once, quick but warm enough to make your face heat immediately afterward.

“Behave while I’m gone,” he says.

“You first.”

Eddie grins. “Impossible.”

Then he’s gone.

You linger in the kitchen for a while after, nursing your coffee and trying very hard not to think too deeply about the fact that you just spent the night in your best friend’s dad’s bed. Which works for approximately twelve minutes.

An hour later, Violet finally shuffles into the kitchen looking half-dead.

“Morning,” she rasps.

“Morning.”

She grabs orange juice from the fridge before narrowing her eyes at you suspiciously over the carton. 

You immediately tense. “What?”

“…Nothin’.”

“Violet.”

She squints harder, then her eyes slowly widen. “Oh, my god.”

Your stomach drops instantly. “What?”

“You fucked my dad.”

You nearly choke on your coffee. “I did not—”

“Your shirt’s on backwards, genius.”

You look down. Again?!

“Oh my fucking god.”

Violet bursts out laughing so hard she physically has to lean against the counter.

“You’re an idiot,” she wheezes.

“I hate this house.”

“No, you don’t.”

You bury your face in your hands while Violet continues cackling like this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to her.

Finally, muffled through your fingers, you groan: “Why are you being so weirdly okay about this?”

Violet shrugs, still grinning. “Because I genuinely don’t care.”

“You should care!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s your father!”

“And you’re my best friend.” She takes a casual sip of juice. “Honestly, this is kinda ideal. Now, if you marry him, you legally can’t move out of my life.”

You stare at her in horror.

Violet points at you immediately. “Also, to be clear? I called this the second he stole your joint.”

“I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”

“…Probably not.”

“Exactly.” She grins wickedly. “Besides, this is funny as hell for me personally.”

“You are a sick individual, Violet Munson!”

“Yeah, yeah. Take a number.”

personally? i am HERE for this fic. lawd knows i love me a good older man, and an older eddie? phew.

taglist is open!

beasbugs:

Your relationship with Henry hadn’t always been smooth sailing. Not that he'd made it any easier, with all the hurdles you had to jump through in your quest to befriend him. In fact, he'd fought you every step of the way.

Henry was reticent for a boy his age, preferring to observe others in the safety of the sidelines rather than to join in on whatever commotion seemed to be the highlight of the day. He never really felt at home with his peers, neither comfortable in their company, nor willing to shed the polite veneer he wore in an attempt to fit in. 

Was it the way he'd been brought up? Because his family was new to town? Or perhaps, just the fact that he’d been a difficult child, right from the start?

No one truly knew, and no one truly understood why he’d turned out the way he did.

It was no secret that the patriarch of the Creel house was decorated, having served time in the war. Hawkins was a small town, so word got around quickly enough, which made it tricky to keep things under wraps. The news had spread like wildfire the moment they’d moved in, their names carried under whispered breaths and fleeting looks. As such, people gave him a wide berth everywhere he went, not wanting to get on his bad side, and not being brave enough to risk an altercation with someone from a military family.

There was an unexplained otherness to Henry that was both foreign and intriguing. To his credit, it had managed to turn a few heads his way, but most eventually strayed away due to his less-than-accommodating personality. Staying out of the public eye, shying away from the spotlight, and coupled with the oddities that separated him from the general populace, he was an outsider in every sense of the word. This resulted in cordial interactions at best, and outright avoidance at worst. Most people left him alone to his own devices, not wanting the same label to be slapped on them and alienating them from everyone else. 

Society was harsh, as most would come to learn in school. Even so, Henry had no qualms with it, largely preferring to keep to his own company. It didn’t matter if they’d called him a ‘weirdo’ behind his back, or even if there really was something inherently wrong with him. That was how he preferred it. The fewer people poking into his business, the better.

And then, you'd stepped into his little bubble.

“Hey! Wanna partner up?” You'd chirped, beaming with a smile so bright that he'd instinctively backed up.

There was something infectious about your cheer. Not in a bad way— just something that he wasn't quite used to, especially when it felt like the full force of the sun was being directed at him in one go.

He blinked, wondering if you'd mistaken him for someone else. After all, why would anyone want to talk to someone like him?

“Sorry?” He said, glancing at you in confusion.

Words of refusal sat at the tip of his tongue, but it was clear that you weren't about to take no for an answer. The unexplained sparkle in your eye was all the warning he'd gotten before you'd promptly taken things into your own hands.

Grabbing his hand in yours, you'd dragged him over to your table before he could so much as splutter in indignation. He’d withdrawn into his shell soon after the incident, bewildered at your openness to an otherwise complete stranger. But the damage had already been done; you’d left a lasting impression on him.

It was innocuous when it first started. Having shared a class with him, you'd had a few interactions with the guy over time. Mostly greetings in passing, or the occasional exchange while awaiting the bell to signal the start of the next period. And while he seemed to keep everyone at an arm's length, Henry seemed like a pretty decent fellow.

Just… odd. Not that he seemed particularly interested in assimilating with his new environment either.

You’d always faced him with a smile, seemingly undeterred by the looks everyone had shot your way as a result. Noticing how he’d always seemed to be by his lonesome, you doubled your efforts, seeking him out every opportunity you found, much to his chagrin.

Even loners needed a friend at times, right? 

He’d been cordial, at first, knowing that you were likely to turn around and stab him in the back just as everyone here seemed prone to doing, no thanks to the rumors surrounding his family’s troubled past— they’d escaped to Hawkins in hopes of a new start. But what he hadn’t accounted for was your sheer stubbornness, even when the initial hubbub about there being a new kid in town had long faded. 

No matter his biting words or how scathing he’d turned in an attempt to dissuade you from approaching him, you hadn't been deterred.

Henry had even taken to employing the simplest trick in the book to distance himself when that hadn’t worked by simply pretending not to hear you whenever you started hovering around him. But eventually, even avoidance grew old. You’d only gotten bolder in retaliation, as if being louder would make him concede.

“Henry! Wanna join us for lunch?” You’d called out from the opposite end of the corridor one day, standing at the head of your little group, waving at him to catch his attention in the crowd.

Inconspicuously raising his head, his eyes drifted in your direction at the sound of his name. Noticing the way your friends had started whispering in their midst with slightly furrowed brows, Henry had a feeling that they weren’t exactly as welcoming as you were, despite your open enthusiasm. Hence, he’d assumed it a trick of the wind, ducking his head and continuing on with his path, your invitation falling through, perhaps for the best.

Not to be disheartened, you tried again the next time you saw him, having caught him while shuffling between classes. 

Students crowded the corridor, either swapping their books out for the next period or on the way to their next destination. Spotting Henry by the lockers, you raised a hand in greeting as you approached, deciding to invite him to the cohort-wide hangout after school if someone hadn't already done so.

“Finally caught you! There's a gathering after classes end for the day at the—” You'd started off, only to be cut off with a wave of his hand and the squeaky creak of metal as the locker door swung open.

“Sorry, but could we do this another time? I'm running late for the next period.” He'd apologized, unloading his books from his locker before promptly turning away. Pointedly, in the opposite direction, leaving you standing awkwardly in the hallway. Your invitation had fallen flat, again.

Shaking your head, you'd simply written it off as unfortunate timing and carried on your merry way. No matter, you could always just invite him for the next one.

⊹ ━━━ ✥ ━━━ ⊹

It was clear that you’d wanted something out of him, and Henry was happy to ignore your existence for the most part. Until he couldn’t. 

Your persistence, while admirable, had started to draw attention from both him and the others. Unsavory attention, in a manner that he knew best— malice. It tinged the air, whispering at the edge of his subconscious. How he knew, however, he couldn't tell. It was a skill he had, yet hadn't quite mastered; an omnipresent sixth sense, at best.

Of course, that dismissal hadn't been enough to thwart your efforts. No, because you were back at it again a week later, like hardy weed that even the strongest weedwhacker couldn’t tempt into submission.

“Hey, Henry!” A voice called out from behind him, in the same cheery manner he'd reluctantly gotten acquainted with. 

His shoulders tensed. Yeah, he definitely recognized that voice. It was you, again.

Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Your stubbornness, it seemed, knew no bounds. 

“Perhaps it would be best if you didn’t seek me out that often, hm?” Snapping his book shut, he’d turned sharply in your direction, hoping that the bite would make you turn the other way. 

However, your eyes had only lit up at that, for he’d finally acknowledged your presence. 

“Why not?” You questioned, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He’d given you an odd look then, much to your puzzlement. Why would someone go to such lengths?

You were impulsive in a way he didn’t understand. Headstrong, when most would falter.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not the most liked around here. Poke your nose in places where it shouldn't be, and trouble will come looking.” He reiterated, hoping that you’d get the memo this time.

“Are you trouble, then?”

Henry blinked, not having expected that answer. Slowly, he replied after a moment's pause, the lone syllable falling hesitantly from his tongue. “...Yes?”

“Good, because I don't care.” You smiled, planting your feet firmly on the ground.

You weren’t budging from your spot now that you’d caught him and finally had his attention, even if he was keen on withdrawing it post-haste from the way his eyes darted almost nervously toward something behind you.

“You should.” He smiled, though not unkindly, as he pointed at the group that had gathered a ways away behind the both of you. “Not everyone is as nice as you are.”

You looked in the direction he was pointing at, noticing that there were a few people loitering about the corridor. They were watching your interaction with Henry with wary eyes, and with the slightly ominous buzz in the air, you had a feeling that they didn’t exactly have the best intentions in mind. However, they turned away, breaking eye contact the moment they'd noticed your gaze on them.

You looked back towards him then, slightly doubtful about his claim. “You don’t know that for sure.”

He tilted his head then, a wry look crossing his face. “Oh, but I do. Trust me.” Having said that, he distanced himself from you, walking away with a small shake of his head. 

He could hear their thoughts, the ridicule and disdain, plain as day…