“Well, hello to you, too Dex…” Your voice was unstable. It shook with the joy of having him back and the fear of what he had done to get there.

Dex took two long strides until he was facing you directly. He smirked in that knowing way of his, where the corner of his mouth would turn up and the scar along his cheek move right with it.

You didn’t have to do anything else before he was kissing you. His hands cupped your face, and he yanked you closer. He kissed with everything that had been left pent-up after his time away. He kissed you to make up for those jail visits where all you could do was sit in front of him and talk.

It was consuming and obsessive like he always was when his head got too loud. Your lips on his, your skin on his, were his last desperate attempt at getting his mind back. He pulled you closer and almost forgot that breathing was a thing until you gently pushed him away by the chest.

“I need some air, baby,” you clarified the second you were able to, knowing that if you didn’t, it would send him to an instant spiral.

“I’m sorry,” he replied.

He kissed you again, gentler this time. Slowly but surely, the muscle memory came back to him. He remembered that carefulness that you had taught him and that he had tried so hard to learn.

“Dex,” you said when you finally pulled away from the kiss. “I love that you’re here; I really do.”

“There’s a ‘but’ coming.” Dex’s mood deflated, and you had to once again place your hand on his chest to let him know you were there.

“Tell me so we can get this over with. What happened?”

“You’re asking as if you were accusing me of killing someone.”

With all the fondness of your heart, you gave him a deadpan look. You knew your husband very well—murderer side and all.

“I didn’t —or at least not who I was aiming for. Matthew Murdock got in the way.”

You sighed and started tracing figures with your hand over his skin. “If I turn the news on, what will I see?”

Dex sighed and dropped his head to your shoulder. His mouth pressed against the cotton of your shirt, and he shut his eyes tight. After that, he securely wrapped his arms around your waist. “I had to. I still have to,” he murmured against you.

You moved to hold the back of his head, running your fingers through the hairs at the nape of his neck. Nobody knew what truly went on inside Dex’s mind. Most of the times, he didn’t even know himself.

The one thing he was certain of is that he would kill his way to you if he had to. He wanted his mind back and he wanted his wife back.

“Alright, hun, we’ll deal with that in the morning. Are you hungry? Should we cook some dinner?”

Dex breathed in and kissed you right on the shoulder before he pulled away whilst still keeping his hands around you. “Sure.”

Dinner was quick. Dex had always been a very efficient and clean cook. He only chopped precisely the amount of vegetables needed, and he washed everything right after he used it. He asked you if you still made sure to cut vegetables and raw meat on separate boards, and you laughed when you told him yes. Some of Dex’s neat and structured little habits had stuck with you.

You sat down to eat and chatted as if you had just returned from work after a normal day. You told him about Nancy, the new co-worker who had brought cookies from her mother’s shop, and how the toilet had started leaking that same morning.

Dex didn’t tell you much in return, and you chose not to ask, not even when you noticed how he struggled to adjust to eating with a missing tooth. A heavy conversation was in order, but you would leave that for later. In the meantime, you would hide your husband in your apartment for as long as you had to.

When you got ready for bed, Dex sat back and just watched you. He was there, in his boxers and light shirt, admiring the domesticity he had so greatly missed. You brushed your teeth and placed your toothbrush next to his. You took a clean pair of pyjamas from your drawer, which was also next to his.

Everything in the house had remained the same. Never once had it crossed your mind to put away anything that belonged to him. The apartment looked exactly like the apartment of any other married couple would. You had a few framed pictures on the walls, and his headphones and CD player were still resting on his nightstand the way he had placed them the last night he had spent with you.

You laid down in bed and he followed suit. He placed his head on your upper chest, and you pulled the covers over both your frames. It was usually the other way around: he would be the one holding you, but in that moment, being held and being loved was just what he needed.

You turned the lights off, and he closed his eyes. He could feel the way his own head moved as your chest rose and fell with your breathing; he could feel the way your index finger traced a path from his hair to his ear.

And as blissful as the moment was, there was something that still bothered him. The scales were still uneven. He still needed a good deed, something to make up for Foggy’s death. He needed to prove to you that he was a good man. That price could only be paid in blood. Vanessa Fisk’s blood.

Tonight, he would allow himself to have this, though.

bullseye divider by @uzmacchiato