denny ☆

He isn’t sure why. He can’t exactly place it, but it’s just…there you are. Running right into him like that. Asking if he’s okay when you look like his shoulder bone might have fucking concussed you.

He reaches down, picks up your phone, and offers it to you.

“I’m fine.” He says, softer than he means to, and you open your other eye.

“Are you made of concrete or something?” You huff a laugh, accept your phone, and slide it into your pocket. He’s staring too hard. He needs to break the gaze but it feels impossible and wrong to even try.

“Not that I know of.”

A feeling like desperate need claws its way up his throat when you smile again. When you laugh at his words like you really hear them. He doesn’t know exactly what it is he needs, but it’s overwhelming to the point of near-pain.

“I’m sorry about that.” You say again, and you mean it. “If I left a bruise, don’t sue me.” You glance down, notice the badge clipped to his belt. “Or…arrest me.”

He can’t remember how to speak. How to breathe right. But he needs to act…normal. He can’t just yank you to him in the middle of the street, bury his nose in your neck and inhale your perfume. Not like he wants to.

The world is narrowed down to a pinpoint. The crowded, chaotic streets of the city are gone. The honking of taxis, the bustle of people trying to get to their destinations, the towering buildings, it’s all gone. It’s just you, and your smile, and your eyes looking up at him.

His smile twitches a little before it finally forms on his lips, lopsided and genuine. You relax at the sight of it.

“Don’t have my cuffs on me, so I guess you’re safe.” And you smile at the joke, and it’s perfect.

He’ll buy you coffee. He’ll talk to you. He’ll make you smile more.

Your phone dings, and you curse as you glance down at it. “Shit. I gotta go.” You murmur, shooting one more apologetic glance up at him. “Sorry again. Really.”

“It’s…okay.” But it’s not. You can’t leave. You can’t walk away from him he just found you he’s not done-

But you’re gone, and your sudden absence shudders his breath and makes his chest feel too tight. No. No, you need to be here. With him. He just found you. You can’t leave.

He doesn’t move for a good few seconds, frozen in place as the noise and chaos crashes back in, crippling and horrible.

The bell to the coffee shop dings. There. That’s where you are. Where you’re going. Not gone. Not too far for him to find again.

He waits sixty seconds, counts his breaths, and follows.

-

“Yikes, what happened to you?”

You’re rubbing your forehead. You’re hurt. His shoulder hurt you. The dull ache in the spot where you slammed against him feels like a connection. A tether holding you to him.

“Too embarrassing.” You grumble, but he can hear a hint of humor and familiarity in your voice. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Well now I have to know.” You smile at the blond man. Nelson. The lawyer. Dex knows about him. Are you with him, somehow? Is Nelson trying to take you away from him?

You huff a laugh, and plop down unceremoniously into the opposite chair, still rubbing your forehead. “I was trying to respond to your millionth text, and I just absolutely slammed into this smoking hot FBI guy.”

“FBI?” Nelson repeats, but you said hot. You called him hot. He’s so distracted by that that he barely hears your next words, dripping with sarcasm as you pull one foot up onto the chair and wrap your arms around your knee.

“Yeah, and then I told him all about my extra curricular activities, and my home address.”

“Your jokes aren’t as funny as you think they are, you know.”

“Neither are yours, and we’re still friends.” You accept the cup of coffee Nelson slides your way, and Dex’s heart stutters again as you smile over the rim of the mug.

“So, speaking of which…”

“I knew it. I knew it. You never just wanna hang out and get coffee.”

“We hang out and get coffee all the time.”

“The ratio is off, lately. You ask for favors more since you went into that corporate law job. Now your pro-bono work always goes through me and all my incredible skills like some dirty little secret.”

Pro-bono work. Secrets. What do you do? You’re kind. You’re good. He can feel it. Sense it like second nature. But the questions and lack of answers are making him grip his own mug a little tighter, making it difficult for him to lean back in the shadows and hide like he’s supposed to.

Nelson looks sheepish, but you give a good natured wave of your hand. A silent ‘go on’ gesture that Dex can’t help but find painfully charming.

“I have a case. This guy…” Nelson slides a file towards you, “didn’t do it. Works for a big company, going down for financial crimes that he didn’t commit. They’re trying to cover their tracks, and a little bit of proof might keep him from missing his kids’ elementary school graduation.” You raise an eyebrow, and Nelson smiles a little. “And middle school. And high school. And…college. The point is they’re gonna try to put him away for a long time, and he didn’t do it.”

You squint, and slide the file closer to yourself. “Financial crimes?”

“Just saying, a little bit of…evidence towards his innocence will really help.”

“Hm.”

“And it shouldn’t be a problem for the best hacker in New York.”

You raise an eyebrow again.

“Okay, the east coast.”

Your eyebrow climbs higher.

“America?”

You grin, and Dex twitches with the need to be closer to you. To see that grin directed at him.

“You’re gonna have to start paying me soon.”

“And if I do, it becomes illegal.”

You tilt your head back again, puff out a dramatic sigh, and curl your fingers around the file.

“I want one of your mom’s sandwiches, at two am. The one with the provolone that I like.”

Nelson grins, wide. “Done and done.”

And then, you tilt your head back towards Nelson. “Does this have anything to do with Fisk?”

Fisk. Fisk? That asshole? That annoying detail he’s about to be stuck on?

“Wilson Fisk?”

“No, the other one. The other crime boss who just got out of prison and has a bone to pick with you.”

Nelson rolls his eyes. “Still not funny.”

“Foggy.”

He hesitates, and frowns. “No. But don’t…just stay away from that, okay? We’ll figure it out. You getting involved, especially with your tendency to…piss people like that off…”

“I haven’t been caught.”

“You will be, if you keep up that little Robin Hood act you have going on. There’s only so much legal counsel I can give you. This is extra legal council. I should be charging you for this.”

“Those companies don’t notice any money missing. You know who does? Mr. Stevenson next door, who can pay off his damn bills and not have to work an extra six hours a day to afford medication for his bad leg.” Your tone is sharp. Defensive.

So you’re a criminal. A good one. Because stealing from the rich and giving to people who need it… that’s good. His own moral compass might be a little off-kilter, but he knows that much.

Then again, you could be a serial killer and he would probably still feel this way, but oh well.

Foggy frowns, like this is a conversation you’ve had many times before, and gives you a familiar little nod, like he knows arguing won’t get him too far. “Just…don’t get involved, okay? Stay away from it. This is more dangerous than you think.”

“Vague.” You grumble, but you’re sliding the file into your bag. “Sandwich with the provolone, three am.”

“You said two.”

You stand, finish your coffee, and smile. “This one’s gonna take a while.”

-

Watching you work is…fascinating.

It’s a slow process, Dex realizes quickly. You don’t click at your keyboard and bust through firewalls like in movies. You lay on your couch, bite your nails, and seem to work through problems one by one. It takes a while. It frustrates you. It makes you smile to yourself when you solve one of those problems.

You get your sandwich. You talk to Nelson for a while. Update him. Get back to work.

The sun is going to rise, soon. You’re still working. His eyes are starting to hurt from watching you through this telescope, but he can’t make himself look away.

When you move to the kitchen, you slide on the hardwood in your socks. You play music. You tap your fingers on your keyboard to the beat.

He watches every second. Every single twitch of your eye. Every frown when you can’t figure something out. Every bright little spark when you do figure it out.

Perfect. You’re perfect. And when you finally do fall asleep, computer resting on your stomach and eyes dropping closed like they’re weighed down by anvils, he wants more than anything to make his way into that dingy little apartment and carry you to your bed in the adjacent room. To slide his fingers through your hair, feel you smile, and listen to your heartbeat until he’s positive that nothing will ever be able to take you away from him.

But for now, he watches. He stays, long after you’ve fallen asleep, and he watches.

-

It takes planning. It takes hours of working himself up to it. Of watching you from afar, plotting every scenario out bit by bit and talking himself out of it a thousand times.

You consume his thoughts like a poison. He follows you to your work. Back to your apartment. Watches every interaction you have with everyone else and wishes it was him you were looking at until he stops fucking sleeping with the need to have you near him.

So, when the torture becomes too much, he follows you to a bar, and he sits in the corner, and he watches you laugh with your friends. Watches and watches and craves to be closer to the light that seems to emanate from your very being.

And he gets up at just the right time, and allows you to bump into him as you start walking back towards the group you came with.

Not a single drop of his drink spills on him - he’s still a little too organized to allow that to happen if he can help it - but he makes it look like it does. He catches your waist as you stumble with an ‘oomph’, and just like that you’re close to him. You’re touching him. He’s touching you. You’re here. With him.

“Oh, fuck. Sorry. Sorry.” You’re not drunk, barely even buzzed, but he knows you well enough now to know that you’re just a little clumsy, and this place is just loud enough for this to work.

Your eyes turn up to his, and you nearly stumble back.

Practiced smile. Fingers curling against your back a little because he just can’t help it. “We’ve gotta stop bumping into each other like this.” He’s practiced that line in the mirror, and it works. You laugh.

You laugh. At his joke. At his line that he’s practiced for this specific scenario. It worked.

“I know you.” You grin, wide, and then flinch a little, but you’re still laughing. “Have I said I’m sorry yet?”

“You did.” He has to let you go. He would rather die, but he can’t be holding you like this. You don’t know him yet. Not yet. “Never got your name, though.”

“I never got yours. Figured you hated me for dislocating your shoulder.”

“Dex.”

“Dex.” You repeat, and his blood hums in his veins at the sound. “Nice to meet you, Dex.”

“Nice to meet you…public hazard.” Lame joke. Bad joke. He just can’t string a fucking thought together when you’re near him and-

You snort. His heart bursts into flames.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Fuck. It’s too soon. Way too soon. You’re gonna say no, and leave, and he’s-

“Yeah.” You set your drink down. “Yeah, I do.”

-

“So…hobbies?” You take a bite of your pizza, heels clicking against the pavement, and he can’t stop looking at you.

“Not really.”

“Hm.” You don’t seem bothered by it. By his lack of interesting traits. He’s not lying to you. He doesn’t have to. You’re meant to be together, after all. He doesn’t have to lie about himself. Right? “Okay. Any special skills then, Special Agent?”

Actually, yeah. “I have one.”

You perk up, raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

He grins, real and genuine, and pulls a quarter out of his back pocket. “Think you’re ready for it?”

“More than.” You’re excited. Really, truly excited. It’s fucking adorable.

“Nah.” He flips the coin over his fingers, feigns pocketing it again. “Don’t think you are.”

“Aw, come on. Please?”

Butterflies swarm in his chest. A smile curls on his lips. He nods towards the darkened street before you. “Pick somethin’.”

You frown, cock your head to the side, and purse your lips when he doesn’t budge to give you any more information. “Okay….street sign. That one right there.”

“Letter.”

“What?”

“Pick a letter.”

Your brow furrows a little more, and your lips twitch in a smile. “T.”

The throws the quarter out, and the sound of metal on metal sings through the air.

There’s a dent in the T. It’s so small, so subtle, that you have to move over to the sign to inspect it.

“Holy shit.”

Do you like it? Are you impressed? He has to stop himself from grabbing your shoulder and demanding to know.

“Can you do it again?”

Yes. Yes of course he can. He’ll do anything. Anything to make you look at him with those wide eyes and that big grin.

You name five more things, he hits them all perfectly, and he doesn’t want to stop. He wants to keep impressing you. Keep hearing your startled noises of approval.

But you make it back to your apartment, and he has to force himself to let you leave. To not follow you upstairs and learn every inch of your skin until it’s locked into his memory forever.

Instead, he asks you to dinner, and you agree. You smile, and you agree.

-

He kisses you for the first time on your second date. Dinner and ice cream.

He’s walked you to your door, like he did the last time, and you’re standing there in your dress with that smile of yours and your eyes looking expectantly into his and he doesn’t know how to do this right. Sure, there have been women in the past. He’s kissed girls. Slept with them when the time was right, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and never really…felt anything. Never wanted anything like this. Fuck, he feels more excitement just looking at you than he did with every hookup he’s ever had.

He has to do it. Make it romantic. Make it perfect. He’s looked up the right way to do this. Studied romantic movies like it was some kind of assignment with life-or-death consequences.

Reach up, brush your hair behind your ear, drink in your shy smile, lean closer so his breath ghosts over your lips-

“You have ice cream on your nose.”

He freezes, fingers still cupping your jaw, and pulls back.

“What?”

You giggle, oblivious to how much his mind is spinning, and reach up to swipe it off with your thumb.

“Shit.” He mumbles, shaking his head and stepping back. “Shit. I’m sorry. I-“

You tilt your head to the side, curious and confused and beautiful as you seem to realize that he’s actually freaking out a little. Because it’s not perfect. It was supposed to be perfect because that’s the only way he gets to keep good things. Order. Focus. But he fucked it up and now you’re-

“Woah, hey. Hey.” You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it was cute. Just…try again.”

Try again. Yeah, he…he can try again. It can still be good. Still be perfect.

So he does. He leans down, and when his lips brush yours his breath comes out as a shaky exhale.

And then your mouth is on his, warm and soft and everything he’s ever wanted. Electricity shoots down his spine, through his blood, and some tether of control within him snaps. He presses closer, the hand on your cheek moving to the back of your head to keep you in place, and kisses you like he’s trying to devour you with a passion he didn’t know he possessed.

You gasp against his lips, arms coming up to wrap around his neck as you meet him with just as much enthusiasm. Just as much hunger. And this…this is perfect. This is rough and desperate and perfect. This didn’t need to go according to plan. This is so much better than the plan.

When you finally break apart, he’s out of breath and more than a little pleased to see that you are, too.

“Wow.” You whisper, and he grins as his nose ducks back down to brush against yours.

“Yeah.” He breathes, unable to think of another response. Any other word to describe this feeling. “Wow.”

-

When you see the caller id, you can’t help but smile at the screen.

“Geez, you look so weird with the cartoon heart eyes.” Foggy’s voice breaks you out of your little trance, and you snort as you answer the phone, confirming that Dex is off work and headed back to his apartment. You feel a twinge of excitement, cheesy as it is, at the idea of seeing him soon. You try not to flag down the bartender too quickly, lest the mockery get any worse.

“FBI guy?” Foggy raises an eyebrow, and you smile again.

“His name is Dex.” Foggy’s eyebrows rise even higher. You flush. “I dunno, I like him. A lot, actually.”

“He’s in the FBI. You’re a pretty notorious hacker.”

“So we don’t talk about work.” You take a sip of your drink. “Plus, he’s not gonna turn me in. I’m too good in bed.”

“But he knows?”

“Of course he knows.” You raise your eyebrows, leaning forward like you’re explaining something imperative. “One you start having sex with someone, it’s important that you confess all of your crimes to each other.”

Foggy laughs, and shakes his head. “You’re insane.” And then, curious and caring as ever, “so what’s he like, if he’s got you risking federal prison?”

Your smile returns, cheeks heating a little, and you shrug. “Cute. Nice. A little weird. Well, actually a lot weird, but…I like it.” You think about the precise way Dex loads the dishwasher. How he carefully makes the bed every morning. How he makes an odd joke every now and then, and then looks absolutely panicked until you laugh, and that panic will always melt into an expression of relief and adoration.

Sometimes his emotions are a little…intense. He can get frustrated, and sometimes he doesn’t seem like he knows how to handle it. But you help. You always do. You tell him to breathe and help him work through whatever’s bothering him, and it works. He always listens. Always tries, even if it takes a moment.

You just…work. Something about you, and something about him, and all the weirdness in between…it works.

When you get back to his place tonight, he’s holding a bouquet of flowers and looking genuinely nervous.

“I don’t get this.” He admits before you even drop your keys onto the counter, frowning down at the colorful petals. “They’re just gonna die in a couple of days.”

“Then why did you get them?”

He cocks his head to the side, but you can see a tinge of pink on his cheeks. “They did it in the movie we watched last night. You smiled.”

You smile now. Wide. “You know, you’re kinda cute, Poindexter.”

Something like vulnerability sparks in his eyes. “Do you not like the flowers?”

You snort, and move forward to slide your hands up over his shoulders, feeling the crisp fabric of his white button-down against your palms. “I like them. You did good. Really good.”

He smiles at that, like those words are the best thing he’s ever heard, and you pull him down to kiss you.

Your conversation with Foggy flashes through your mind. You forgot to tell him that one thing. That one major reason why you like Dex. Why you’re with him.

You get him. And he gets you.

You just…work.

-

The newspaper sits on the counter, Dex’s picture stamped right on the front page. FBI investigates one of their own.

You try not to talk about work with him. After all, you’re technically a criminal and he’s in law enforcement. But you knew about the investigation. It’s unjust, Dex says, and you believe him because…well, of course you do. It’s Dex. He saved lives that night, and the few coworkers of his that you’ve met since you’ve been dating have confirmed it.

And then the suspension came.

“It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit.” In what feels like only a few words, his voice morphs from a frustrated growl into something as sharp and loud as the crack of a whip. His hand moves faster than you can even register, and in a split second there’s a kitchen knife sticking out of a photo on the wall. Right in the forehead of the person you recognize as his boss.

“Shit, I keep forgetting how spooky that is.” You breathe, and Dex’s eyes whip back to yours.

“Breathe, Poindexter.” You raise your hands in surrender, and step ever-so-carefully forward, like one wrong move might frighten him off.

“Don’t.” He snaps, fingers curling on the counter, but his eyes don’t leave you. He’s breathing too heavily. Too raggedly.

You reach up, and turn his face down to yours. Gentle, but firm. “You gotta breathe. Tell me three things you can see.”

He freezes, eyes scanning your face like he’s trying to tell if you’re kidding or not, before he speaks. “Your eyes.” He finally says, voice softening a little with each word. “Your nose…your mouth.”

Okay, it’s usually supposed to be things around the room, but this works too.

“Three things you can feel?”

He blinks, eyes still fixed on you, and raises one hand to your cheek. “Your skin.” He leans closer, helplessly. His hand moves up to your hair, curling a lock of it around his finger. “Your hair…” his free hand drops to your waist, bunching in the fabric of your borrowed t-shirt. “Your shirt.”

“Your shirt, technically.”

He grunts, and buries his nose in your temple.

“Three things you can hear.”

“Your voice.” You hum in response, and he presses closer. “Your heartbeat. Your breathing.”

You nod, and reach up to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders. He holds you a little more tightly. “Your breathing is better, see?”

He nods, and pulls back to kiss you. It’s slow, hard and desperate, like he’s trying to memorize the feeling. You pull him closer, and he makes a soft noise against your lips before he lifts you up and carries you over to the counter.

“Do you feel better?” You ask against his lips, feeling his fingers push the hem of your shirt up so he can trace them over your skin.

“I’m still being framed.” He murmurs, pulling back to trail his lips over the line of your jaw. “It’s still bullshit.”

“I know.”

“You make it better.” His hands move up, higher, warming the bare skin of your back. “You make everything better.”

“Hell of a compliment.”

“I mean it.”

“Me too.”

You kiss him again, feel him press his body closer to yours until your fingers are moving up to fumble with the buttons of his dress shirt and his are sliding your t-shirt up over your head. Moving down to skate over the hem of your underwear.

“Bedroom?” You breathe, and he shakes his head, lips never leaving your body for a second as he lowers himself to his knees right there before the counter.

“Here.” He rasps, teeth scraping against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and pulls you to the edge of the counter in one sharp movement that has you locking your fingers in his cropped hair. “Please.”

“That’s my line, I think.” You’re breathless, his lips are trailing higher.

“No, it’s not.” His blue eyes are on yours, filled with something so much like worship that it halts your breath in your lungs. “It’s mine.”

-

“One more.”

The word is warm and sweet in your ear, a low hum paired with wandering hands and a soft, languid kiss to your jaw.

You snort, and you can feel him grin against your ear.

“I think one more will kill me.” You murmur, feigning misery, and his hand slides down over your hip, teasing. “Seriously, how do you have so much stamina?”

“Mm, it’s just you.” He murmurs, and trails his fingers over your stomach. “I can go all night.”

“We have gone all night.”

It’s been hours since he snapped in the kitchen, and your brain has become too mushy to even remember when the two of you migrated into his room. The problem with Dex’s…ability, is that he really never misses. He can take you apart almost embarrassingly quickly, immediately finding every spot and movement that has you seeing stars. And, with his obsessive personality, he has a tendency to try to one up himself. A lot. To see how many times he can make you fall apart until your legs are shaking and you’re spending the next day aching in all the best ways.

Which is why you’re pretty sure, even as his fingers find the apex of your thighs once more and he swallows your gasp with a smile against your lips, that he’s going to kill you. Death by too-many-orgasms has to be a thing, right?

“Dex…” you breathe, arching beneath him as your hands fly up to grasp at his muscled biceps.

“One more.” He repeats, the words a quiet rasp. “You can do it. Just give me one more. Please.”

How the fuck are you ever supposed to say no to him?

You kiss him, and he groans as he presses his body closer to yours.

One more turns into three more.

-

You can’t get a hold of Foggy. Or Karen.

Their names aren’t on the list of people who died at the Bulletin, so that’s something. Still, the chances of either of them being in the building during the attack are pretty damn high. And you don’t blame them for not answering. If they really were there, they must be fucking traumatized.

You would absolutely love it if one of them could pick up the damn phone, though.

Dex shows up around midnight, and you’ve already pulled on your jeans. Already grabbed your keys in preparation to run out the door and start banging on apartment doors. Hell, you might even go to the church Matt’s been hiding out in since he got back. Self-appointed recluse or not, you want answers. Before the news makes the information public, this time. There’s only so much information that hacking can give you, and if the cops and news outlets are currently scanning through the cameras for information of their own, it’s going to take a lot longer for you to find anything out than it will if your friends would just fucking talk to you.

“Hey, where are you going? What’s wrong?” Hands are on your shoulders, moving up to your cheeks, and you wonder if you look fucking insane with worry and confusion right now.

What the hell are you supposed to tell him? Oh yeah, Daredevil is my friend Matt. You know the one who died and kinda sorta came back? Have I mentioned him? Well apparently he’s gone fucking berserk and tried to kill Karen, but I’m absolutely fucking positive that it wasn’t him, which means that someone is out there murdering people in his old suit-

“I’ve…gotta go.” You say weakly, lamely, and start to pull back.

His hands tighten on you. Fast.

“Where? Where do you have to go?” He’s holding you surprisingly firmly, large arms locked around your body and making a frown curl your lips.

“Dex, let me go.” You can’t tell him. Of course you can’t. You have to figure this out on your own.

He doesn’t. In fact, he holds you even more tightly. “You can’t leave. You can’t leave me.”

“I’m-huh?” You turn to him, now, and blink in surprise at what you find. His eyes are dark. He looks like he’s sweating. Shit, he might be shaking. “Dex, what’s going on?”

“I need you here, okay?” He’s breathing a little strangely, hand smoothing up over your back with something like desperation. “I…you need to be here.”

You frown, and reach up to brush your fingers over his cheek. He closes his eyes, and leans into your touch.

“Okay. Hey, it’s okay.” He wasn’t able to help tonight. That’s it. He’s just been suspended. All of the order and structure he relies so heavily on is gone. You didn’t realize just how much it must be affecting him, and you feel like a shitty girlfriend for not immediately seeing just how off he is. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

He ducks down, fingers curling against your cheek and lips hovering over your own. “Tell me you need me.”

“Dex-“ you start, but his fingers slide into your hair and he backs you against the wall. It’s not aggressive, not quite, but it’s firm. Determined. Almost overwhelming in its desperation.

“Say it. Please.”

You frown, but reach up to wrap your arms around his neck. “I need you.”

He groans, and kisses you so hard your knees give out. He catches you, all-but scooping you into his arms as he traces his tongue over your lip and slides his arms around your waist.

You have to go find Foggy and Karen and Matt. You have to make sure they’re okay, and the four of you need to come up with some kind of game plan. Or, they do, and they’ll probably need your help because you just had to learn Matt’s secret. Just had to get mugged that night and recognize his voice. Just had to check security cameras and figure everything out and confront him about it.

So, with your particular skill set, and the information you have, they’ll probably need you, as outside of all this as you like to keep yourself. But Dex needs you more right now, and that matters more. You’ll get to the bottom of this mystery another time, when your boyfriend’s trembling hands aren’t pulling at your clothes and his lips aren’t trailing over your throat as he whispers your name like a prayer over and over again.

“What’s wrong?” You ask again, breathless and worried as he lifts you against the wall, as he wraps your thighs around his waist and curls his fingers against your skin hard enough that you worry it might bruise. You hope it does.

“You make it quiet.” He murmurs between kisses, tugging at your clothes until your shirt slides up over your head, discarded on the floor in a second. Messy. Disordered in a way that isn’t like him. “You make it all quiet. I need it to be quiet. Please.” His voice is shaking. Desperate.

You’re not quite sure what he means, but you nod anyway.

The moment you do, his body is pressing impossibly closer to yours. His lips are moving down your neck, kisses so rough and starved that you can feel his teeth scraping over your skin. His hands are tight on your body, hips rocking forward and making you gasp, and you can still hear the shakiness in his quickened breaths as he moves back up to kiss you so hard your head knocks lightly against the wall.

Your fingers move to the buttons of his shirt. His breaths are getting quicker. His grip is getting tighter.

“D-Dex.” You’re so breathless yourself that you can barely get his name out, but he doesn’t stop kissing you. Doesn’t slow his desperate movements until you finally reach up to pull his face away from yours.

His pupils are blown. His gaze is starved. He’s still shaking.

“Hey, stay with me.” You card your fingers through his hair, and kiss him slowly. Warmly. He doesn’t need rough and desperate right now. He needs reassurance. Grounding. Love.

He releases a shuddering breath, kisses you back, and nods as he rests his forehead against yours. “I’m here. I’m good.”

You nod, and as he carries you into the bedroom and lies you back on the mattress, you can see in his eyes that he’s telling the truth. He’s here. He’s with you.

He peels the rest of your clothing off slowly, trailing his mouth over newly exposed skin, and you do the same for him, barely able to keep your lips and hands off of him for a second.

It’s slow, and loving, and painfully intimate. He murmurs your name against your ear as he moves with you, and you drag your nails over his muscled back as you tell him how good it feels until he falls apart with a groan that almost sounds like a sob.

He holds you after, presses his lips to your forehead and trails his fingers over your body like he’s trying to memorize the feeling of you.

“Do you think I’m a good man?” His voice is low, quiet and vulnerable as he slides calloused fingers through your hair.

You look up, surprised by the question, and he holds you a little more tightly like he’s worried you’ll bolt.

“Of course.” You frown, reaching up to brush your own fingers over his cheek. He turns his face into your palm, kissing it once, and you turn his eyes back to yours. “You’re a good man, Benjamin Poindexter.”

He makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, something raw and pained and full of hope, and tucks you closer to him like you’re the most precious thing in the world. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You kiss his shoulder, and let your eyes fall closed. “You’re gonna be okay.”

And for a moment, as he breathes something like a sigh of relief into your hair, you think he believes you.

-

“I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully.”

“Oh, now the zombie hiding in the basement is making demands. It’s good to see you too, Matt. I’ve been great, how about-“

“The man in the daredevil suit is Special Agent Benjamin Poindexter.”

That shuts you up, right the fuck away. “Very funny.”

“I’m not joking. He’s working for Fisk. He’s killing for him, and framing me.”

You feel cold. “No, he’s not. He wouldn’t do that.”

Matt’s expression is intense, his words are low and pointed. Urgent. This is his stupid fucking Daredevil voice. “He would. And he is. Fisk has him convinced that doing this will keep you with him. You have the means and the skill to prove me right. I need you to do that, as soon as possible. You need to get as far away from him as you-“

“Stop.” You snap, holding up a hand you know he won’t see. He’ll feel it though, or whatever. “Stop, Matt. You have the wrong guy.”

“You know that’s not true, and we don’t have time for you to come to terms with it. You are in danger, and you need to-“

“It’s not him.” Your ears are ringing. Your voice sounds desperate. Angry, even. “He’s…he’s a little intense. He’s a little weird, sure. But he wouldn’t…he wouldn’t do that.”

Matt’s jaw tightens. He shakes his head.

“You look into it the way you know how. You know. You’ll see it.” Matt reaches to grab your shoulder, and you flinch back. He looks pained, like he’s genuinely worried and didn’t call you here after all this time to falsely accuse the man you love of mass fucking murder. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been here for you enough. For Foggy and Karen. But I’m here now. I can protect you now. And you need to stay away from him.”

You pull back, and shake your head again. “I…no. You have the wrong guy, Matt. He’s…you’re wrong. We’ll find who’s doing this, but it’s not Dex.”

“We can keep you safe. You can hide-“

“No.”

“Please. He’s unpredictable. He’s dangerous. He could kill you if he knows you know.”

“I don’t know. I know you’re…you’re wrong.” He is wrong. He has to be wrong. “I’ll find out who it is, okay? But it’s not Dex. Just…it’s not Dex.”

And yet…

No. No. It’s not possible. There’s no way.

Matt spends the next ten minutes trying to convince you, and you block all of it out. You refuse to listen. You tell him you’ll go home, and you’ll avoid Dex until you can find the proper evidence.

You lie. And as you walk out of the church into the suddenly too-bright, too-loud city, you wonder if… if he could…

Fuck. You need to get to your computer. You need to prove him wrong.

-

He killed Ray tonight.

It doesn’t bother him. That kind of thing never has. What bothered him was Nadeem talking about you.

“He’s lying. He’s using you. He’s using her.” Dex’s hands had tightened reflexively on his gun. “You think he’s gonna keep her safe? You think this is how she stays in your life? Whatever he told you, he’ll hurt her the second it’s convenient for him, and he’ll take you out too.”

“You need to stop talking about her, Ray.” Dex’s voice is low. Quiet.

“When she finds out, you think she’s gonna stay with you? You think Fisk is gonna make her stay with you? How does this plan of yours work, exactly?”

Yes. Of course. Whether Fisk needs to make it happen or not, you’ll stay with him. And it will be okay, because you love him. Sure, you’ll be upset, but he can make that better. He will make it better. All of it. Everything he does is to keep you happy. Keep you by his side. But for now, you don’t have to know anything. You can just be with him, and love him.

If you learn a little too much, learn about the darkness that lives inside of him, about the things he’s done, Fisk will do what he needs to do, what he promised, and make sure you stay. Simple as that.

And you’ll still love him, right? Right. You’re meant to be together.

The shot lands perfectly between his former friend’s eyes. And, once it’s all said and done, he goes home to you.

-

You’re on the couch when he walks through the door. You’re chewing on your nails. You’re staring at your computer screen.

So perfect. So beautiful. All his. Just like he’s all yours.

Like he has a hundred times before, he moves over to gently move the laptop out of your hands, leaning you back against the cushions with a smile that surely holds all of the affection that feels like it’s about to overwhelm him.

“What’re you doing?” He presses his lips to your nose, your cheek, your jaw.

You’re tense. Something’s bothering you. He can fix that.

“Looking something up.” You murmur, soft and hesitant. “Or…I should be. I can’t…make myself do it.”

He can see in his peripheral that your screen is blank. You’re still tense, and when he kisses you he can taste the faintest tinge of iron from where you were biting your lip.

You’re wearing his t-shirt. He moves to slide his hands under it, reveling in the softness of your skin, and presses another kiss to the shell of your ear. You relax, like you just can’t help yourself, and he smiles as he settles a little more comfortably atop you.

“Hm, you know you’re not supposed to tell me about any of your hacking stuff.” He jokes, but you don’t smile like you usually would. Don’t tease him back. “Might incriminate yourself a little too much. And you know there’s only one way I wanna see you in cuffs.”

You do smile now, though there’s something in your eyes that he can’t place. He wants to ask, but you kiss him and he forgets everything that isn’t you.

“Or, you know. Put me in cuffs.” And you hum, and smile a little more.

He peels your clothing off nice and slow, trailing his lips down to follow every movement. It’s warm, and safe, and soft and gentle in all the ways the rest of the world is not. You gasp his name, look into his eyes even as yours threaten to flutter closed, and he loves you so much it hurts. So intensely that he worries it might swallow him whole. He wants it to.

When it’s over, and he’s pressing his lips over your cheeks and nose again, heavy breaths matching your own, he tastes the saltiness of tears on your skin and pauses.

His brow furrows, and he pulls back.

You reach up, and smooth your thumb over his cheek. “You’re a good man.” You whisper, and you sound like you’re talking to yourself, but he melts anyway.

“I love you.” He breathes, and drags you closer so he can kiss you again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You murmur, and there’s never been so much of this strange emotion in your voice before. He can’t quite place it.

But you’re overwhelmed by your love for him, too. That’s all.

That’s all.

-

The worst part of it all is that you know you’re going to find it before you even bring yourself to open your computer.

And yet, it still feels like a punch to the fucking gut.

“Hello, Karen. It’s nice to see you again.”

You would recognize that voice anywhere.

It took you five minutes to get into the security cameras. Of the Bulletin. Of the church.

It took five more minutes for you to find all of the other evidence. The therapy sessions. The people he’s killed. The people he’s manipulated. Threatened. His lack of empathy. His obsessive behavior. His enjoyment of killing. Fuck, you even figure out that he was stalking you before you ever ran into him at that bar. You like to say, in your cockiest moments, that everything can be found online. Everything is documented even when people think it isn’t. You just have to look.

You didn’t look. In ten minutes, you found it all. In an hour, you’ve found too much for any excuse to ever work. For anything other than the truth to make sense.

And then, with perfect timing like the universe is making some sort of sick joke, Foggy Nelson tells you to come down to the old gym. He shows you Nadeem’s video, and you have to drag a trash can over so you can puke your guts up as the world drops from beneath your feet.

You cry silently. Curl in on yourself against the boxing ring while Foggy and Karen watch you, expressions filled with sympathy and guilt. Because they weren’t here. They didn’t check in on you. They let this get this far and it blindsided you because you were too wrapped up in stupid domestic bliss to even hang out with your friends like you should have.

Foggy’s hand comes down on your shoulder, comforting and kind. “Can you do it?”

You don’t look up from the phone screen even as you take it from his hand.

You nod.

-

“What are you-“

You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t-

Matt is gonna kill you, if Dex doesn’t do it first. And yet, you know without a shadow of a doubt that he won’t hurt you. Everyone else, maybe, but not you.

That doesn’t make him any less dangerous.

You grab his arm, and pull him outside with you, into the alley. It will be on camera. It will be obvious that you know, when Fisk sees it. But it doesn’t matter. None of that will matter soon, anyway.

His brow is furrowed, that look of frustration when he doesn’t have control of the situation tightening his features. After all, you did just show up to his work unannounced and drag him outside.

He reaches for you, and you step back.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asks, something in his face cracking a little. “Come here. Please.”

“Tell me it’s not true. Please, tell me it’s not true.”

Panic. Immediate, sharp panic. He knows. He knows you know. “Come here.”

“Dex.”

“It’s not true.” He says immediately, lies immediately, and reaches for you again. You back up again. “It’s not true. None of it’s true. Just-“

You pull out your phone, and play the video. Ray Nadeem’s confession. His eyes widen, and you already knew but the confirmation from him is fucking shattering.

“In three hours, it’s going out to every phone in the immediate area. To the cops. To the public. Everywhere. And if you kill me, it still goes out.” Your voice is tight, shaking. “You’re not gonna stop it.”

Dex tries to grab you now, not the phone, you, desperate. You jump back into the street. Into the public. Away from the dark alley and into the light of day.

“Don’t touch me. Do not fucking touch me.”

“Don’t do this.” He sounds dangerous now. You should probably be afraid of him. You’re going to fucking cry again and it hurts so bad you can’t think. You’ve never felt more stupid in your life. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me. You promised.” His hand catches your sleeve, and you rip it back.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t leave me. Baby, don’t do this. You love me. I love you. We can-“

“What is this, fucking Barney?!” You snap, horror and shock making your voice shaky and shrill. “You’ve been murdering people.”

You’re fully in the street, now. You’re still shaking. He’s still approaching.

“If you come any closer, I’ll scream.” You mean it. He looks like he’s about to risk it. Like he’s moments away from covering your mouth and dragging you back into the alley. Into the shadows with him.

You turn, and walk away.

You hear him scream from a block away. It’s loud. Primal, even. It turns heads.

You keep walking.

-

He goes to prison that night. Matt defeats Fisk. You see it all on the news, from where you’re curled on the couch with tears drying on your cheeks.

He tried to kill Fisk at his wedding. Broke into the party in Matt’s Daredevil costume. It’s on the news. It’s on film.

He says your name before he starts killing people. Tells Fisk and Vanessa that the two of you wish them a world of happiness. You watch the clip. Newspapers call. You watch the clip again. You shut out the world.

It takes some time for you to leave your couch. Even longer to leave your apartment.

But time heals all wounds, even if they have to scab over and reopen a few too many times.

You meet Matt, Foggy and Karen at Josie’s on a Tuesday. They don’t mention it. You do. You apologize, and Foggy hugs you so tightly that your ribs creak.

And you heal. Slowly, surely, you heal.

Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

-

It’s a nice, normal Friday night.

Cherry’s retirement party is fun. You’re having fun. You’re laughing with Matt and Karen, listening to the laughter and jokes around you, teasing each other about Foggy’s attempts at hitting on Keirsten, and not thinking about Dex. Because you never think about Dex.

You don’t think about the way he made breakfast in the morning. Always so careful and precise. Always plating it perfectly like the act was a science, watching you when you ate it like he was either trying to figure out just how much you liked it or just…watching you. So much of him looking at you felt like he was basking in your mere presence.

Or the way he would leave on his way to work. Always the same pattern. The same habits. Wake you up with a kiss, get dressed, make breakfast, kiss you again on the way out the door.

The way he would smile at you like you hung the moon in the sky. The way he would hold you when you watched a movie on the couch. The way…

Warm lips against your temple. Your forehead. Your cheeks.

You hum, and feel Dex smile as his arm slides more tightly around you. “Morning.”

“S’the middle of the night.” You complain weakly, turning in his arms to hide your face in the warm skin of his chest.

“Five forty-five.” He murmurs, hand already coming up to slide through your hair. “Gotta get ready for work.”

“Play hooky.” You mumble, nuzzling closer, dreading the moment his warmth leaves the bed.

“Would if I could.” He means it, and you can tell, so you keep trying.

“You’re reinstated and promoted now…” you press a kiss to his collarbone, warm and slow and as tempting as you can make it. “Their apology should come in the form of as many days off as you want. Or going into work after dawn.”

His body relaxes a little. His hold on you tightens, like he’s thinking about it.

And then he sighs, and pulls back to press his lips against your forehead.

“I can’t.” He sounds so genuinely remorseful that you just might be falling in love with him all over again. Still, you plaster an exaggerated little pout on your face as you sit up.

“Goody two shoes.” You accuse, and if you were more awake you might think his laugh sounds a little…different. But he sits up with you, and kisses your neck, and wraps his arms around you again and any doubt or confusion flutters out of your mind as you melt into-

“Hey, you okay?”

Your eyes whip up, reflected in Matt’s glasses. You swallow. Smile. “Hm?”

“Your…” he lowers his voice, leans a little closer, “your heart is racing.”

Karen is looking at you, too closely, too kindly. You smile wider.

“I’m fine.” And you are. You’re fine. You’re absolutely, totally fine.

Ten minutes later, everything goes to shit.

Foggy goes outside. Matt hears something wrong. Karen follows You stay in the bar.

A gunshot outside. The bang of a flash grenade. The screams of panicked patrons.

You’re frozen for a moment, smoke and shock filling your lungs and fogging your mind. Gunshots. Screaming. The heavy sound of footsteps and-

“Hey, baby.”

A low, familiar growl of a voice, barely raised enough to be heard over the commotion but cutting through it all like a knife and zeroing your attention on the approaching figure.

Speaking of knives, you hear one whir through the air just before your wrist is slammed back against the wall, a blade attaching your sleeve to the surface with perfect precision. You reach up in a panic to remove it, only for another knife to slam your other arm back against the same wall. Neither blade comes close enough to even nick your skin, but you’re still completely trapped against the old wooden surface, eyes wide as Benjamin Poindexter stalks over to you like he has all the time in the world.

He’s wearing a mask, but you’d recognize his eyes anywhere. You’ve never seen them so fucking crazed.

“I missed you.” His hand is on your waist, large and gloved and firm even as you try to kick him away from you. He grunts, and halts your movements with a knee pressed between yours.

And then he rips off his mask, and kisses you. Hard. Rough. Tongue forcing its way past your lips and arm locking tight around your hip as his body presses against yours like it’s drawn there by a gravitational pull. It’s been so long, and you are most certainly in shock, but you can’t help the soft noise that pulls its way from your throat at the feeling. The way your toes curl a little at the rough sound he makes in response.

He reaches up, and pulls one of the knives out of your sleeve before throwing it towards Daredevil so quickly you almost miss it. He doesn’t even look. He keeps his gaze right on you.

The knife is deflected. Of course it is, because it’s fucking Matt, but Dex looks down at you, grins, and presses his lips to your cheek before pulling his mask back down just in time to be knocked to the ground.

The battle happens all around you, too quick for you to keep track of, and it takes you a good fifteen seconds to register that you need to get the fuck out of here.

The knife attaching your sleeve to the wall is in the wood so deep that you can’t get it out. You grunt in frustration, and finally rip your sleeve to free yourself. You think, vaguely, that you liked this jacket, before the sound of glass shattering makes you flinch and stumble back towards the door.

Your ears are ringing. You can’t think. You make it out into the street just in time to fall to your knees beside the body of your friend, nearly get trampled by people screaming and running and Karen is crying and you can’t think.

And Foggy Nelson dies on the sidewalk.

And, a few horrible moments of silence later, you hear a thud behind you.

And you don’t scream. You don’t cry. You still don’t even speak. Your clothes are stained with blood, and you can still taste the mint of Dex’s toothpaste on your tongue. Foggy dies, and Dex’s body just hit the pavement behind you.

You crawl to him in a haze of screams and the ringing of a thousand bells in your ears, and you can hear Karen sobbing behind you.

You think you might throw up. Or pass out. Or die right here next to Foggy Nelson and Benjamin Poindexter.

Dead. He’s dead. Oh God, Foggy isn’t breathing and now…and now Dex…he’s-

Blue eyes shoot open, wide and pained and crazed, and a gloved hand grabs your wrist. You didn’t even realize that you were touching him, hands shaking as they move over his body like you can fix it. Like you should even want to. Your palms sting. Knees, too. You think you scraped them on the pavement when you crawled over here.

“What did you do?” You ask, numb and confused and horrified, and Dex groans and presses his injured face into the pavement like the sound of your voice is the sweetest relief. His hand tightens on your wrist, relaxes, doesn’t let you go. “Dex, what did you do?”

-

ONE YEAR LATER

There is a deep, prominent scar on his cheek. He’s even larger than you remember. His eyes are different, like he’s allowed the illusion of control and sanity to shatter.

You’re here for Foggy. You haven’t seen Matt or Karen in almost a year. You are not here for Benjamin Poindexter.

But you’re here. Maybe you shouldn’t be, but you owe it to Foggy. To the other people this man has killed.

So many people. So many deaths. So many, because of you. And now Foggy, for reasons you still can’t understand.

The sentencing comes. The gavel is banged. You can’t hide your flinch at the sound. Dex’s eyes move right over to you, and lock in.

He smiles, eyes filled with a sick sort of love, and your fingers dig into your palms until your nails bite into the skin hard enough to draw blood.

They take him away, and he doesn’t stop smiling at you.

-

“He refuses to speak unless you’re in the room.”

Your fingers curl painfully tightly against your coffee cup. Your eyes fly up to Matt’s face.

“No.”

“I need information. We need information. He’ll be cuffed the entire time. He won’t touch you.”

“I’m not worried about that. I don’t want to speak to him.”

“They moved him to gen pop.”

You try to hide the way your heart pounds at the implication. You fail. And it’s Matt, so there’s no use pretending.

“Is…did they…” Gen pop. They’ll fucking kill him in there. Good, right? Someone like that shouldn’t be walking the Earth. He killed Foggy. He killed so many people.

“They will. He won’t last a week. Which means Fisk wants him dead.” Matt’s hand rests on the table before you, and he leans closer, adamant. “We need to know why. And then he can rot in prison until-“

“I want him out of gen pop.” You hate yourself so, so much for saying it that you feel like you’re going to be sick. “I want you to get him back in protective custody.”

Matt looks like you just slapped him across the face. You don’t blame him.

But he agrees. So you go. God help you, you go.

-

“Hi, baby.” His grin is fucking manic. His eyes are starved as they rake over you like he’s filing away every inch.

You glare, and sit down across from him. He leans forward, almost jerking in your direction, like he momentarily forgot about the cuffs in his desperation to touch you. Well, he’s not going to get to. Never again.

“You killed Foggy Nelson.”

“Your hair is longer.”

“You killed Foggy.”

“Do you think about it? The way it felt when I touched you again?”

“Shut up.”

“I’ve thought about it every minute. You tasted just like I remember.” His tongue darts out, smile lopsided as he traces it over his lip, eyes raking over you again so intensely that ice trickles down your spine in a way you really wish was unpleasant. “I wonder what else tastes just like I remember.”

You slap him, the sound cracking through the room, and his head whips to the side. His smile doesn’t fall.

“Do it again.”

“Fuck you.”

“Get me out of these cuffs, baby, and I will.”

“If you think I’ll ever, ever let you touch me again, you’re more fucked in the head than I thought.”

His smile cracks. Falls a little. His eyes darken. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Why did you kill Foggy Nelson?”

“You still love me.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You’re lying.” He’s still looking at you, intensely enough that you have to fight the urge to squirm. “Say it.”

“Fuck. You.”

His head rolls back, like those two words were a confession on their own. “Fuck, I missed your voice.”

“You said you’d speak if I came here. Answer me.”

“Do you remember our three month anniversary?” He asks, unbothered, and you want to throw something at him. Cuffs or not, the asshole would probably catch it. “Chinese food on the couch. The first time I told you I loved you.” Pain twists in your chest at the memory, and Dex leans forward when he sees it, another horrible smile curling on his lips. “I took my time with you that night. I had you making these noises, do you remember? These high pitched, sweet little begging sounds.” His fingers tap absentmindedly against the arms of his metal chair, and your face bursts into flames. “Think about them every night, but you know it doesn’t compare to the real thing.”

“You’re trying to get in my head.”

“I’m already in your head. Just like you’re in mine. We’re connected, forever.”

“Did you kill Foggy to punish me?”

He frowns, eye twitching a little when you refuse to give in. “No. But you shouldn’t have left me.”

“So what? Are you gonna kill me if you get out? Are you gonna kill me now?”

He looks genuinely pissed that you would even suggest something like that, jaw clenched and fingers flexing on the metal table again. “When I get out of here, I’m not going to hurt you.” The intensity of his gaze makes your blood feel cold. “But you’re not leaving me again. Ever.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do. I already have.”

“Fuck this.” You push yourself to your feet, the metal chair scraping against the floor like a gunshot. Like the shot that killed Foggy. Fired by the man in front of you. “Fuck you.”

That gets to him. “You’re not leaving. We’re not done.”

“We’re done.” You lean over the table, eyes hard as they look into his. His hands are already struggling against the cuffs locking him to the chair. “We’re done, Dex.”

“I haven’t seen you in a year. You can’t walk out like this.”

“And you’re not gonna see me for another eleven life sentences.”

His voice is a low, violent growl. “Don’t say that.”

And, because you’re a fucking idiot, you do exactly what you told yourself you wouldn’t do.

They confiscated your phone when you came in here. They didn’t confiscate your watch.

One button. One stupid thing you set up in anticipation for this meeting. That you promised you wouldn’t use. And yet, reckless fool that you are, you knew you would.

The security camera light flickers off.

Dex notices immediately, and the hunger that burns in his eyes and curls on his lips lights something aflame in your stomach that you don’t want to think about. Not right now.

You lean both arms on either armrest of his chair. His hands jerk against the cuffs, still trying to reach for you.

You lean closer. You don’t break eye contact. His mouth moves up to chase yours, and you pull back just enough to pull a frustrated grunt from his throat.

“If you ever, come anywhere even close to the people I love again…” you whisper, leaning in so your lips are close enough to his ear that he moans and tilts his head to the side, like he’s silently begging you to rip his throat out with your teeth. “I will kill you myself. Do you understand me, baby?”

For a moment, the thrill of it all makes you forget just how stupid you were for this. Just how dangerous this man is.

And then, as if to remind you himself, you hear a pop. A sharp, pained intake of breath.

Your eyes drop down to Dex’s right hand, just in time to see him slide it out of the cuff.

The crazy motherfucker dislocated his own thumb.

You jerk back, but Dex is faster. Of course he’s fucking faster. His arm locks around your middle, yanking you down onto his lap hard enough to pull an ‘oomph’ from your chest, and his breath is hot on your neck as you squirm against him.

“Shhh, shh.” His rough voice is too soft. You turned off the cameras. You’re a fucking idiot. Something hotter and more intense than panic shoots through your veins, and your breath catches in your throat. “I’ve got you.”

“That’s the problem.” You gasp, but his hand comes up to the back of your head, fisting in your hair and pulling you back so he can look at you.

“I did it for you.” He whispers, reverent. “I bought my freedom with it. For you.”

And then he kisses you, rough and hard, and your attempts to shove him off are met with nothing but a low and hungry growl.

There’s a moment, brief but painfully there, where the feeling of sparks lighting down through your blood is too overwhelming. Where his lips moving against yours is too familiar. Where you kiss him back, and his groan is nothing short of victorious as he wraps his arm more tightly around you.

And then the door opens, and he doesn’t let go. You sink your teeth into his lip, and bite down hard enough to draw blood. He moans shamelessly, but holds you tighter.

It takes two guards to get you out of his vice-like grip. His lip is bleeding. You can taste the iron of his blood. He’s smiling. Wide.

It’s only when the guards start pulling you toward the door that his smile falls, like he hadn’t expected that. Like he hadn’t even considered that you would be leaving again.

“No. Don’t take her. Stop it.” He snaps, as two more guards force his hand back into the cuff. “Don’t take her from me again. Stop it!”

They close the door behind you, and you wipe his blood from your lip with the back of your shaking hand as his scream echoes through the prison.

-

“You didn’t do it. You didn’t help him.”

Matt turns to you, and you can feel the surprise emanating from his very being at the sound of your voice. Here. At this fancy gala to celebrate the esteemed mayor.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. Deflection. And then, concern. “Have you slept?”

No. No, you haven’t. But you’re not going to tell him that. That ever since you went to that prison your thoughts have been more consumed by him than ever. That every beat of your heart has been chanting Dex, Dex, Dex and it’s getting more and more difficult to tell yourself that it’s because you want answers.

And you have them, now. Because you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“I did it for you.”

“It’s not exactly an invitation you can refuse.” Your dress is uncomfortable. Your heels hurt your feet. You can feel eyes on you from all around the fucking room and you’re going to crawl out of your skin. “And yes. I’ve slept.” You don’t care that he knows that you’re lying.

“I-“ he’s going to come up with an excuse, an apology, but Dex is probably already dead. You’ll probably be dead soon, too. So what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of being subtle? Of trying to be careful, anymore? You weren’t careful when you looked into all of this. You didn’t cover your tracks, and you know. You know it all. And they know you know. You’ll be in the ground in a week at best.

“It was Vanessa. She was in charge of his businesses. She did it.” You don’t even lower your voice. You’re exhausted, and you’re hurting, and you’re angry, and who fucking cares anymore?

Matt grabs for your arm, already beginning to steer you away from watching eyes and listening ears. You pull back, whirl to face him. “Stop. They know I know. They know what I do. That’s why I’m here. They’re probably gonna kill me too, tonight.”

For a moment, you think Matt Murdock might actually be speechless. You just keep talking.

“It’s fine. It’s a long time coming, right?” You run a hand through your hair, and your smile is a pained and humorless thing. “Do you know how many people have been killed, just from me loving him? Because he loved me too, and they used it to manipulate him?”

And Matt is still looking worried, still bothered that people might hear you. But who fucking cares?

“But it’s fine, right? At least the ‘weapon of mass destruction’ who did it is rotting in a prison morgue now. He didn’t deserve help. I didn’t deserve to ask for it. Not for him.”

Matt’s hand is on your arm. You want to cry, but you’ve cried all night and the tears won’t come anymore. You’ve cried so many tears for him. Maybe that makes you a monster, too.

“Keep it down.” Matt says, hand tightening on your arm, but you ignore him.

“I know everything, too. Do you know how many pills he was on in that prison, when she got to him? The inside of his body was a fucking pharmacy. I saw the signature. He couldn’t even hold the pen right.”

Matt Murdock’s jaw twitches. He looks right at you, through his glasses, and you can feel his unseeing gaze on your face. “He still did it.”

He’s right. He did. But-

“You don’t know him. He…he doesn’t think like other people. They got to him. They did this.” Matt opens his mouth, and you raise a hand. “I’m not an idiot. He did it too, okay? He did it. But…” and your exhausted eyes rise to the dance floor, and it all makes sense.

Fisk took everything from you. From so many people. Foggy is dead. Dex is dead. And they’re dancing and smiling like this is the happiest day of their fucking lives. They don’t care. Sure, you don’t care. You’re numb. You’re hurting and confused enough that you don’t care what happens to you, but them… these people did all of this, and they’re happy about it.

“They did this.” You murmur, just to yourself, and start to move forward.

Matt catches you, hard. Fast. In one smooth move, he twirls you onto the dance floor, deflecting your momentum and still trying to fucking cover for you.

“You’re delirious.” He says, voice low and grip tight. “You’re acting irrationally. Don’t-“

But you’ve made it close enough. Just close enough to hear what Buck says to Fisk, quiet and serious but very much audible over the din.

“Benjamin Poindexter killed three guards and escaped prison.”

The world narrows. The floor tilts beneath your feet. Matt holds you upright, and you barely register what he’s saying over the rapid beat of your heart.

Dex. Dex. DexDexDex-

“We have to get you out of here.” Matt’s voice by your ear, his feet already beginning to move you away. You blink, too shocked and…relieved to even force your own feet to move. “He’ll be coming for you.”

Alive. Alive. DexDexDexDex-

You may not have Matt’s senses, but you swear you hear the click of the gun at the same time his head whips up to face the balcony.

“Not me.” You whisper, eyes on the dark shape above you. The dark, achingly familiar shape of a man who should be dead.

And the gunshot launches the party into chaos.

Matt. Matt just jumped in front of the fucking bullet and you’re trying to get to him but you’re being dragged away by the crowd, nearly carried off in the commotion and panic as people rush to the door. You almost fall at one point, stumbling in your heels and nearly getting trampled before you’re saved by the arm of some kind civilian, and by the time you make it back into the ballroom to where the paramedics are crowding around your friend you can’t see the shape on the balcony anymore.

You reach towards Matt, and something on your wrist catches your eye. A small etching of marker on your skin that definitely wasn’t there before.

A bullseye.

-

Hours later, you climb the stairs to your apartment, aching and tired and knowing damn well what you’re going to find.

You spent every free minute tracing the bullseye on your skin with the tip of your finger, sitting in the hospital waiting room and listening to the beat of your own heart.

Alive. Alive. Dex. Alive. Dex. Dex. Dex.

The power is still out. You’re exhausted. There’s still blood on your dress.

Matt begged you not to go home, but he would find you anyway. Anywhere.

There’s a bullseye painted on the door of your apartment. Small, but noticeable. Right above the handle.

You drop your keys on the counter. Loud. No use in trying to hide.

“You moved.”

“Yeah.” You say, voice steadier than it should be. “My boyfriend ended up being a serial killer.”

“I don’t really fall under that definition.”

You hum, casual, and move to the dingy fridge in the open kitchen. Pull out a bottle of wine.

“You look tired.”

“You’re missing a tooth.” You pop the cork with your teeth. Take a swig right from the bottle. “You gonna kill me now?”

“Stop saying that.” It’s still dark, you still can’t see much more than his silhouette, but the words sound like they’re gritted out through his teeth. “I love you.”

“I trusted you.” You grit your own words out, fingers tightening on the bottle.

“You still can.”

You take another swig, and lean against the counter. “Now that’s funny. Didn’t know they taught comedy classes in prison.”

“I thought about you every day. Every minute.” His boots thud against the hardwood, and you turn before he can reach you.

“Funny. I thought about Foggy.”

“That sounds hard. Really-“

“Shut the fuck up.” And now, you have to stall. You have to find your phone, and dial Matt’s number. Or reach one of the panic buttons you installed that will call him. With the power out, there’s a pretty good chance neither of those things will work anyway. “Get out.”

“You don’t really want me to.” It sounds like a plea, beneath the roughness of his words. “You still love me.”

You pull out your phone. It flies out of your hand in a second. Shatters against the wall. You jump back.

“Was that a fucking knife?”

“Bottle cap. I don’t wanna cut you.”

“But you’ll shoot at me.” Well, not at you, but you know mentioning it will bother him.

“I would never in a million fucking years-“

“You. Killed. Foggy.”

“And we’ll work past it, baby. We can work past it.” And there he is, turning you in his arms and walking you back until your lower back hits the counter. His breath is warm, ghosting over your lips, and you hate how your body responds to it.

“You’re delusional.”

“You want me. Say it. Please.” Too close. Too close. His hand is wrapping around the wine bottle, pulling it from your grasp and raising it to his own lips. The moonlight spilling in through the window illuminates the lines of his face, so agonizingly familiar. So beautiful.

You reach up like a woman possessed, and brush your fingers over the scar on his cheek. He groans, and leans into your touch.

In a blink, your other hand whips up, and you press the blade of a kitchen knife to his throat.

He smiles, and you wonder if he’s always been this crazy. He leans forward, letting the blade dig into his skin to brush his lips over yours again, and now you genuinely wonder if he would let you do it.

“I should kill you.”

“I’d let you.” He murmurs, a truly sick confirmation, and your hand is trembling and you hate yourself for it. “But you won’t.”

“I don’t have Daredevil’s moral code.”

“No.” His mouth closes over yours, just enough to feel his teeth scrape against your bottom lip. “You love me.”

“I don’t.” But your voice catches on the word, and your hand shakes more, and he’s bleeding and he doesn’t seem to care.

You pull the knife away, and his fingers curl around yours on the handle, guiding your hand to lower it onto the counter beside you.

“You asked Murdock to get me out of gen pop.” He hums, still so close that you can feel his heartbeat against your own. “Didn’t work, but I appreciate the thought.” The confirmation. “Helped me get back to you.”

“I didn’t want you to get back to me.”

“Liar, liar.” He murmurs, teasing and soft, and kisses you again. These kisses are nothing like the last couple of times, so rough and nearly violent with their desperation. No, these kisses are brief and soft, gentle presses of his lips against yours between words like he can’t help himself.

“I thought you were dead.” You don’t mean to say it. You don’t mean to acknowledge it. “Matt left you to die.”

“And you mourned me.” Another kiss. Slower this time. More lingering. You need to pull away from him. You need to shove him the fuck off of you. This is so wrong. So fucked up. He has killed so many people. Lied so many times. He’s fucking batshit insane. “I saw you. You were about to confront Fisk. For me.”

“I don’t know what I was gonna do.” You breathe, and your eyes are already falling closed. Your body is giving in to him like it doesn’t belong to you. Your heart is still beating heavy in your throat.

Dex. Dex. Dex. Dex.

This time, you lean up and press your lips to his. Wrap your arms around his neck. Tangle your fingers in his hair and devour him. He makes a noise that’s almost akin to a whimper against your mouth, his own hands flying up to your face to angle your head so he can kiss you fucking breathless.

You bite at his lip. Pull at his hair like you’re trying to punish him for how much you want this. How much you missed him. How fucking good this feels.

He moans, lifts you onto the counter and presses his body up against yours like he can’t get close enough. Cradles the back of your head and all but sobs into your mouth when you whimper and kiss him hard enough that his teeth click against yours.

You hear a soft, metallic noise, and feel cool metal on your thigh as Dex slices through the fabric of your bloodstained dress to allow himself more room to press his large body between your legs, the prison guard uniform digging into your burning skin and making you arch against him.

You slide your hand over his neck, thumb digging into the thin cut beneath his chin. His moan vibrates through your entire body, and you smear the blood over his throat as you angle his head to pull him closer to you.

His hand slams into the cupboard by your head like he’s trying to brace himself, the fingers of his free hand gripping your hair so tightly you see stars, blunt teeth digging into your lip like a silent and desperate plea for more.

“Say my name.” He whispers, rough, and you don’t. You fucking moan his name, a sound you’ve never heard from yourself before ripping its way from your chest and making him shake as he releases you to rip his gloves off like separation between your skin is physically burning him.

He doesn’t leave you for long, warm fingers sliding up your thigh and trailing sparks in their wake until you’re trembling against him. Until you’re gripping the back of his head and yanking him down to kiss you again. His fingers slide higher. Higher. Until they’re curling in the waistband of your underwear and every kiss comes on a swallowed and ragged breath.

You nod your consent, fingers curling even more tightly against his scalp, and he kisses you again. You hear the click of the knife, feel the flat end of the blade slide up your thigh again, and can’t find the words to complain as he slices your underwear from your body.

When his long, skilled fingers reach the apex of your thighs, and he feels just how desperate you are for him, the noise that rips from his throat sounds like the most fucked up prayer that’s ever been uttered.

“Fuck.” He pulls back, presses his nose against your temple, and when his fingers immediately find the spot that has you fucking whining you hear a breathless chuckle against your ear.

“Never miss.” He whispers, cocky and infuriating and agonizingly intimate in the dark apartment, and you’re going to fucking kill him.

Kill. Kill.

All those people. Father Lantom. Nadeem. Foggy.

Clarity rips back into you like a fucking car crash. Like a bolt of lightning. It freezes your burning blood, rises to your throat, and makes you shove him so hard his back hits the wall across from you with a dull thud.

You’re just as breathless as him, and his eyes are on fire as they look into yours. As they rake over you, slow and hungry, and he doesn’t even try to catch his breath even as he realizes why you pushed him away.

“Why?” He asks, but he knows. He knows and he’s goading you and you need to make yourself-

“I hate you.” It is the least convincing sentence you have ever uttered. You’re still breathless, still flushed with need, still spread out on your kitchen counter with his name lingering on your kiss-swollen lips.

Slowly, without looking away from you, he raises his fingers to his mouth, and your next breath catches on a whimper at the sight.

He moves forward at the sound, and your foot flies up to stop him, heel digging into his chest.

Something flashes in his eyes. Something you can’t place. You don’t know what’s in your own expression, but you see him scan it. Watch the breath shudder out of his chest as his hand rises up to trail lovingly over your calf.

And then, scarred and beautiful and illuminated by moonlight, he drops to his knees.

Benjamin Poindexter looks up at you like he’s worshipping at your fucking altar, and refuses to look away from you as his lips press against the skin below your knee.

“Stop it.” You try. You really do.

He shakes his head, and blunt nails drag down over your thigh as he moves closer. Kisses higher. Keeps his eyes locked on yours as he guides your heel over his shoulder.

“Dex.” It’s supposed to be a warning. It comes out as a plea.

And then he’s right where you need him, on his knees before you with your hands gripping at his hair and his fingers digging into your thighs to keep you in place, and it feels so good that your eyes are watering with something between pleasure and emotion so intense it’s going to drown you.

Your hand leaves his hair, flying up to scramble for purchase on the creaky old cupboard behind your head as Dex doubles his efforts like he’s desperate to pull more noises from you. He moans into you, gripping you more tightly as your heel digs into his back, and your hand leaves the cupboard to slap over your mouth as a near-wail of pleasure echoes off the walls. It doesn’t do much. Doesn’t muffle your helpless noises nearly enough, and before long Dex is sliding his large hand up your body to pull your palm away from your mouth, fingers tangling with yours as his too-skilled tongue turns your blood to lava in your veins.

You fall apart in minutes, shattering with a sharp gasp of his name as your thighs tremble and your nails dig into his scalp. He pulls back like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, resting his head against your thigh and staring up at you with a breathless smile on his lips and you want to hate him so badly it hurts.

But you pull yourself off of the counter, slide onto his lap and kiss him hard as you fumble blindly with the belt of his stupid fucking prison guard uniform, and before you know it he’s rolled you onto your back and you’re ripping his shirt open as he hikes your ruined dress up over your hips and-

“Tell me you want this.” He rasps, low against your ear, and when you nod emphatically he grabs your chin and turns your face towards his. “Tell me.”

“I want this.” It’s a sick, horrible confession, but it’s true. “I want you.”

He groans, like it’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever heard, and his first thrust hits home and your moan is loud enough to wake the neighbors.

“I love you.” He breathes against your lips, as you scramble at him like a wild fucking animal, desperate for more. “I love you.”

You won’t say it back. You can’t say it back. This is already fucked up beyond belief.

He holds you like he’s trying to touch every inch of you at once, lips trailing down your jaw until every near-whimper is vibrating against your ear. You can’t stop touching him, either. You yank at his open button-up shirt so hard you hear it rip, until he moves to help you pull it the rest of the way off of him, bracing himself against the floor beside your head and rolling his hips into yours until you’re sobbing his name on every breath.

When you break for a second time, your nails are dragging thin red marks down the skin of his back. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going, keeps relentlessly hitting that spot inside you until the pleasure builds up all over again and it is fucking unbearable.

“Dex.” You manage to gasp, mindless, head rolling back against the floor as he bites at your shoulder and speeds up his movements until you’re practically sobbing.

“One more.” He growls, low and rough and just as wrecked as you are. “Give me one more.”

The third time, he’s right there with you, pressing his nose into the hollow of your throat with a groan of your name that burrows its way into your very bloodstream. Locks itself in your soul and becomes just as much a part of you as the color of your eyes and the bones beneath your skin.

It takes a long time for you to come back to earth. Longer for Dex to pull himself away from you, just enough to roll onto his back and tug you into his side.

“I love you.” You whisper, like a shameful confession, and he shudders like the sound of it is a drug and he’s more than happy to relapse.

He pulls you closer. You rest your cheek against the sweat-damp skin of his chest. Try to even out your breathing as he cards his fingers through your hair.

You have to go. You have to get out of here. Fisk is gonna be coming for you soon.

He grunts, and you make a soft noise as he sits up and gathers you into his arms, drags himself to his feet and carries you into your bedroom.

Everything is so different, now. Dex is a killer. A monster. Your life has been flipped upside down and shaken like a damn snowglobe. You’re probably going to be assassinated soon.

And yet, as Dex helps you out of your ruined dress, skating his fingers and lips over the newly exposed skin, and reaches into your dresser drawer, it’s all so familiar that you ache.

He digs to the bottom, and his grin is triumphant as he pulls an old FBI t-shirt out. His T-shirt. The one you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away.

He slides it over your head, presses a kiss to your cheek, and smiles a little wider when you relax.

And then, when he’s cleaned you up and pulled you into the rest of your pajamas, he smooths out the sheets behind you like a ritual before he lays you down atop them, sliding his body over yours and kissing you until you melt into your cheap comforter.

You make love again. You don’t think either of you even mean to. It isn’t as desperate as the first time, not nearly as mindless and rough, but his kisses deepen and he slides his scarred hand down your back until he’s shifting you beneath him, murmuring a quiet plea against your throat as his fingers tug at the waistband of your shorts that you respond to with another emphatic nod. And then he’s sliding them off, and you’re unbuttoning his pants again, and his tongue is tracing silent sonnets over your skin until you’re writhing against him.

He doesn’t tease, but he still seems to savor every second. He nudges your knees apart with his own, and pushes into you with a groan of your name. He moves with you like the tide, builds you until the wave crests and whispers praises against your ear as it crashes through you. You kiss him, tell him how good it all feels, and he tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it.

When it’s over, and you’re lying together in the rumpled sheets and he’s breathing shakily against your forehead and holding you like you might vanish at any moment, you finally speak again.

“We’re not back together.” You mumble, and he hums like you just told him the sky is purple but he couldn’t care less. Like it’s such a ridiculous lie that he may as well indulge it for now.

You frown, but you don’t double down. There’s no point, really. You know him. You know he’s not letting you go anywhere.

“How do I fix it?” He finally asks, and your brow furrows as you sit up a little to look at him.

“What?”

“How do I make you forgive me? For Fog-“

Your hand flies up to cover his mouth as if of its own accord. The movement surprises even you.

“Don’t say his name.” You snap, pain curling in your stomach. Guilt, too. But not enough. You’re lying naked in bed with the man who killed one of your best friends, and you don’t feel guilty enough, and you hate yourself for it. “You still don’t get to say his name.”

He looks at you. Nods. You pull your hand back, and he chases your lips with his own.

He kisses you. You kiss him back. You keep trying to hate yourself for it.

“What do I do?” He asks again, and he looks so earnest that you want to die.

You don’t know what crosses your face. What expression is in your eyes, but his own melt into a look of pure desperation.

It takes you a while to speak, and even when you do, the words spill unpracticed and quiet from your lips.

“He was good.” You whisper, and grief tugs at your stomach with enough force to nearly cripple you. “Foggy was so…good.”

“You said I was good, once.” Dex murmurs, brow twitching a little in that way it does when he’s trying to understand something.

“I did.” You reach up, hesitate, and give in. Your fingers trace over the scar on his cheek. “I think…I think you can be. You can be good.”

He melts. He turns his cheek into your palm, looks at you like you are both heaven and earth and everything in between. “I’ll be anything you want. I’ll do anything for you.”

Your heart crumples, and you see it. You shouldn’t, and you’re fucked up for it, but you see it. You see how he thinks. How he is. How he’s been manipulated and hurt and how he’s hurt others and you still fucking love him.

“I want to kill Fisk.” You whisper, like it hurts, and he reaches up to curl a lock of your hair around his finger like you just admitted nothing more intense than liking sugar in your coffee. “I want them both dead. And I don’t want it…I don’t want it for the right reasons, I think.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Revenge.” You whisper. “The greater good, yeah, but revenge. They killed Foggy. They hurt you. I want them to die for it.”

“Hm.” He slides his hand up your back, palm flat and warm, and turns his nose into your cheek. “If I help you kill them…it balances the scales.”

You frown. “It-“

“A good deed, to make up for the bad. Right?” He presses a kiss to your ear, and your eyes fall closed. “It balances out. You’ll forgive me.”

“I can’t forgive you.” You can’t. You shouldn’t. You won’t.

Even if you understand how his mind works. How he was tricked and manipulated and taken advantage of. Even if you understand him.

You pull back, look into his eyes, and the look on his face breaks something inside of you. The desperate hope. The need.

“We’re probably gonna have to move tomorrow. Fisk definitely wants me dead.” You murmur, and brush your lips over his.

He smiles. “We’ll move.” We. You and him.

“If we do this, you don’t do it for me. I’m not making you do anything.”

“I do everything for you.” He says, matter-of-fact, and closes the distance enough to peck you on the lips. “But okay. Let’s kill ‘em all.”

-

“Such a sweet boy.” The old woman across the hall is absolutely enamored with Dex, or should you say ‘Tony’. Sometimes you think he’s enjoying it a little too much. Especially now, as he crouches down to slide a fried egg into her cat’s bowl. “And what are you two up to?”

“Takin’ the missus to lunch.” He answers smoothly, sliding his arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to the side of your head. You smile brightly, and endure a few more minutes of cooing and fawning before making your way down the hall. He keeps his arm around you the whole time, humming absentmindedly as you make your way out into the street.

“You have got to stop telling her we’re married.” You chastise, and he doesn’t let you go even as he flips a coin behind him into a homeless man’s cup.

“I didn’t.”

“You just called me ‘the missus’.”

He’s smiling, a little too proud of himself. “Could mean anything.”

You still insist that you’re not back together. He still allows you to, but he seems to find it more amusing than bothersome. Which, you suppose, is understandable. After all, you woke up in his arms just this morning, like you do every morning. And, like you do most nights, you spent the majority of the evening moaning his name.

But fuck, he’s like a drug to you. You tried so, so hard to hate him. To pretend like he was a monster. Maybe he is, but maybe you are too.

Because whatever Benjamin Poindexter is made of, it calls out to something intrinsic within you. He knows it, and he’s just waiting for you to admit it.

You don’t know if the spring in his step and the smile on his face is from your activities last night or anticipation of what’s about to happen, but you would say it’s safe to blame both as he holds the door of the diner open for you with an exaggerated chivalry. And, because it’s him and he’s an asshole, he makes you yelp as you walk ahead of him with a playful swat to your ass.

You glare. He smiles, and leads you to the counter.

“You two ready to order?”

The woman behind the counter looks tired. Dex smiles like he’s been practicing how to, sweet and with his eyes crinkled in the corners. Sometimes, when you look at him, scarred and huge and absolutely fucking bonkers, you wonder how much he’s changed since you bumped into him on the street all that time ago. How much you’ve changed.

“My wife and I will have a…banana milkshake, then.” He grins at you, and it is so annoyingly hard not to smile back. “Does that sound good, sweetheart?”

You snort. “Sounds perfect, darling.”

His fingers come up, catching your chin and turning your head to him so he can press a soft, smiling kiss to your lips.

“Cute. I’ll be right back with that.” The woman says blandly, disappearing behind the counter as Dex pulls back.

“Menace.” You accuse, and he pats your cheek before he pulls out his phone.

He makes the worst, least convincing phone call you’ve ever heard. So unconvincing, in fact, that you almost giggle as he says “oh shit, he’s got a gun” in the most monotone voice you’ve ever heard. His eyes don’t leave you for a second. They rarely do. Like when you’re near, he’s locked in on a target.

Then again, hasn’t it always been that way?

You did the research. You did the tracking. All you have to do now is wait.

Dex unwraps two straws, carefully places them both in the milkshake, and leans down to take a sip.

You smile at him, roll your eyes, and lean down to the other straw.

You swear, in moments like this, that his eyes could be little cartoon hearts. He doesn’t stop smiling. Doesn’t look away. And shit, if you don’t feel like baby bluebirds could be tweeting around your own head. Like you’re the only two people in the whole world. Cue the cheesy, romantic music. Cue the world vanishing around you until it’s just you and him in this diner, smiling like idiots and sharing a milkshake.

You glance down at your phone. Watch him finish the milkshake. “Forty five seconds.”

He grunts, calm and relaxed, and starts pulling on his gloves. Pulls a toothpick out of the cup beside you.

“Aren’t you gonna tell me to take cover?” You hum, and the corner of his mouth rises even higher.

“No one’s gonna touch you.” You believe him, and you like that he acknowledges that you know what you’re doing.

“Everybody get on the ground!”

You throw your hands in the air, view blocked by Dex’s large frame, and shriek like a dramatic damsel in a movie.

His shoulders shake once. A silent laugh.

“Too much?” You ask, just as they shout again and come closer.

A toothpick finds its home in the ATVF officer’s eye, and all hell breaks loose.

You climb onto your chair, just in time for Dex to push you over the counter. You land with a roll, and in a second he’s on top of you, hands over your head and body covering yours.

“That was a really great milkshake.” He mumbles almost conversationally as the bullets slow, and you reach up to pull his mask the rest of the way down for him before he climbs off of you and snatches up a handful of silverware.

You manage to get to your feet just in time to watch three officers fall with forks sticking out of their eyes. Unfortunately, it’s also just in time for another man to grab you and press the barrel of a gun to your temple.

“Stand down!” He shouts, right by your ear, and digs the barrel in harder. Deeper.

Dex turns, and tilts his head.

“Ow.” You pat the arm wrapped around your throat. “Wrong move, dude.”

He screams as a fork impales the back of his hand, and you feel two more whir past you before they find their homes in his face. Not kill shots. Not yet. When you turn, he’s moaning on the ground with cutlery sticking out of his cheek and eye.

You tuck yourself into a booth as the rest of the men go down, bullets and weapons finally coming to a stop. Heavy bootsteps land beside you, and Dex pulls his mask off as the man in front of you trembles and clings to a tiny dog in his lap.

“Dogs in restaurants are unsanitary.” He says, genuinely perplexed but not quite annoyed.

“P-Please don’t kill me.” The man whimpers. Dex smiles in that unnerving way he has, and you smile too as you grab a bottle of ketchup off of the table.

“Don’t worry.” He takes your hand, stands you up with him, and throws a final pair of forks behind him to slam home into the retreating form of the man who just held the gun to your head. “We’re the good guys.”

You draw a bullseye on the door. He kisses the side of your head as you make your way out of the diner, stepping carefully over shattered glass with the sound of sirens wailing down the street.

-

ONE YEAR EARLIER

“This is no way to live, Benjamin.”

Vanessa Fisk sits across from him. He tries to focus on her. On anything. His mind has been scrambled since he was checked into this place. The cocktail of pills they have him taking every day makes it hard to think.

But you’re still there. You. You. You.

He lies in his bed at night, stares at the ceiling and blinks like his eyes are weighed down by anvils, and if he focuses hard enough he can almost feel your head on his chest. Almost feel your soft hair against his nose. Maybe your fingers tracing over his skin, soothing and warm.

Your voice, lips barely brushing his own. “You’re a good man, Dex…”

And he’ll reach up, searching for you, wanting to pull you to him and feel your body against his. Wanting you so badly that the pain is overwhelming.

And there’s nothing there. And the room is cold.

“I miss you.” He’ll murmur to the darkness, tongue heavier than his eyelids. And he won’t hear anything back.

Now, Vanessa Fisk pushes something towards him. A picture.

Of you.

His near-useless hand paws at the table, something like desperation surging through him as he grasps for it. They won’t let him have any pictures of you here. They call you one of his ‘victims’. He hasn’t seen your face in so long.

“She misses you.” And a part of him knows Vanessa is manipulating him. Even through the drugs, and the longing, he knows it.

And yet, she pushes the picture toward him a little more, and there you are.

You. You. You.

You, at that bar he found you at. The second time you met. You’re with Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock, and Karen Page. You’re smiling, but not with your eyes. He knows what it looks like when you smile with your eyes.

You look sad. His eye twitches with the urge to fix it. The urge to touch you.

His fingers curl against the picture.

“I know what it is to love someone so much that being separated feels like…” Vanessa’s voice is gentle. Kind. Vulnerable, even. Dex can’t stop looking at the picture of you. That vulnerability in her voice is reaching him, matching with his own. “Like a hollowness in your soul.”

He makes a soft noise. It sounds desperate, even to his own ears.

His fingers curl a little more against the picture. Brushing over your cheek. Missing the feeling of your skin against his.

“They talk to her about you.”

His eyes, still slowed by the pills, move up to her face.

“They tell her that you were evil. Horrible. She is trying to convince herself that it’s true.” Vanessa leans forward, earnest. “If you want her, you cannot let that happen.”

His eyes fall helplessly back to the picture of you.

Vanessa slides a contract his way. He doesn’t look at it. His trembling fingers trace the printed line of your cheek.

“You can have her again. I only need one…favor. But you will have your freedom, and she will have hers.”

You. You. You.

Vanessa’s manicured finger taps the picture. Taps the face of Foggy Nelson. “I need you to kill him, and one of his clients.”

Dex looks up, a muddled question in his eyes. Foggy is your friend. You like Foggy. Foggy-

“They are poisoning her mind.” Vanessa repeats. “I do not want to see you lose the woman you love, Benjamin. I am offering you a mutually beneficial opportunity.”

You are so beautiful it hurts to look at you. His shaking hand holds the pen. Hesitates. He tries to form a clear and straightforward thought.

“With your freedom, you can get back to her.”

Back to you.

He signs the contract.

-

One good deed, and it’s all better. And you forgive him.

Not like you haven’t already. Even if you won’t admit it, he knows you have. He can see it on your face. Feel it in your quickened breaths at night when he’s got you laid out on the sheets, or on the couch, or against the wall…

And when you eat breakfast together, and he’s staring at you and you’re grinning right back at him, and the sounds of the chaos and the city and the world around him fade and everything is just you. You. You. You.

You’re out at the bodega down the street, grabbing more bandages and water. You’ll be back in ten minutes, tops.

You’re gonna be mad at him. He hates that.

But Matt Murdock showed up four minutes ago, and now the apartment is an absolute fucking wreck, and the lady down the hall is screaming and terrified because Dex had to use her as a human shield for a minute there, and you’re gonna come home to that wreck and worry but…

One good deed. He can do it now. Earn your forgiveness. Earn his redemption. If he doesn’t move now, he might lose his chance. And then what? What’s the point of living if it’s in a world absent of your love? Despite everything, he can’t help but fear a day when you decide that you can’t forgive him. That his sins were simply too much. Where you deprive him of the love you offer now because you just can’t seem to help it, where you stop smiling at him and letting him touch you completely.

No, he has to go now. Killing Fisk solidifies your forgiveness. Allows him to keep you. Keeps the world balanced right.

So he leaves. He leaves the apartment for the last time, and prays to whatever God might exist that you’ll forgive him.

- 

He throws the snowglobe. Plans the trajectory against Wilson Fisks’s swing. Watches the shard pierce Vanessa Fisk’s temple.

It was easy. Almost too easy.

But the bullet. That’s the problem. That landed home, and it hit all the wrong places.

He’s going to bleed out. You’re going to be upset.

But he did it. One good deed. He didn’t kill Fisk, but he killed Vanessa. At least, at the very least, he took that pain away. She ordered the hit on Foggy. Your friend. She made you hurt. She just made him the weapon. And now, she’s going to die.

-

“Mrs. Smithers, please shut up.”

She’s screaming, and crying, and you should probably be comforting her. ‘Tony’ just held a gun to her head, after all. And yet, you have bigger things to worry about.

Two minutes, and they’ll be here. Cops have been called. AVTF is on the way, guns blazing and you have seconds to find him and your heart is hammering in your chest in that familiar staccato beat.

Dex. Dex. DexDexDex.

There. The church. The fucking church, of all places.

Vanessa Fisk, mortally wounded. Daredevil and Bullseye at the boxing match. Dex Dex DexDexDex.

You smash your computer against the counter, cracking it in half, and bolt.

You take the fire escape, and begin scrambling down just as you hear them bursting into the hall.

And you pray, with every last shred of your desperate heart, that you’re not too late.

-

He’s bleeding out. He knows it. Seen it enough times to know he doesn’t have long, and Murdock isn’t gonna stick around to help him.

He misses you. He wishes you were here.

The dizziness of blood loss is a little frustrating, but Murdock is busy calling him a piece of shit. Fair. He shot his best friend, after all. If you’re still mad about that, it makes sense that he would be too.

“One last good deed.” He hums, propped up against the wall as blood leaks between his fingers, pooling onto the floor beneath him. “N’then she forgives me.”

“Asshole.” A whole conversation in the pews a minute ago, Dex’s whole speech about how he’s making it better and earning forgiveness and getting his mind back, and that’s all the guy can say. He thought lawyers were supposed to be more eloquent.

“Take care of her when I’m gone.” You. You. You. He sees Daredevil tense. He’s pissed at you, sure, but he cares about you. So Dex smiles, tired, and tilts his head back against the wall, confident in his next words. “Yeah, you will.” And if he ever touches you, Dex will return as a ghost and put a pencil through his eye. But hey, just something to worry about in the afterlife.

Murdock stutters some sort of apology. Has a whole little crisis about whether or not he can save him. He’s so stressed it’s almost funny, but he’s not gonna save Dex. He did it. He earned forgiveness. It’s time for judgement day.

The room pulses. The sounds of ATVF bootsteps echo above. His eyes close, and you’ll be okay. You forgave him. You didn’t admit it aloud, but he doesn’t need that. Never did.

Judgement day ticks ever-closer.

“Dex!”

His eyes open, and it’s too bright in the dark room. He’s too tired, but…

There you are. In the church and illuminated by low light like an angel. He smiles, bloody and exhausted and more than a little out of it. “Hey, baby.”

“Wake up. Dex, wake up.” You sound so panicked. So scared. For him. You love him. You. You. You….

“Dex! Fuck, please wake up. C’mon.” You’re pulling at him, trying to drag him across the floor and failing miserably, and he wishes you would just stay. Just admit that this is hopeless and let him hold you close. Admit that you love him, and that you need him, and let him feel your breath and smell your hair in his last few minutes on this earth.

“Fuck. Why are you so heavy?! Where’s Matt?” You’re trying to get your hands under his shoulders. It’s a little funny, but it hurts like a bitch when you jostle his bullet wound, so he grabs you and spins you down in front of him.

“In the wind.” He reaches up, fingers sliding over your cheek and smearing it with red. Fucking beautiful. They write poems about this shit. About women so lovely they steal souls and start wars. “You gotta go, too.”

“Fat fucking chance.” You press your forehead to his, unbothered by the blood, and cradle his own face in your hands. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

Oh, that’s the best thing he’s ever heard. It’s the first time you’ve said it since that night on your kitchen floor, when you were still lying beneath him and still catching your breath and still all his after so much time. Back then, you whispered it like some horrible confession. Sweet music to his ears.

“My girl.” He’s fading. He’s fading fast. You hold him more tightly, smearing his own blood on his face as he does the same to you, the matching stains like a tether. Like a claim. “North Star….”

“Dex. Dex. Stop. Wake up. Don’t leave me don't you dare leave me-“

The sound of your voice is swallowed by the tide, and he doesn’t close his eyes, refuses to look away from you, but his vision begins to blur.

And then, from deep under the water, he hears it.

The door creaking open. Your panicked voice as your head whips to the side, dislodging his bloody hand from your cheek.

“Matt?! Matt! Help him! Please-“

…

-

You’re by his bedside. You have been for hours.

Karen is not happy with you. Neither is Matt. Soledad is stitching up Dex’s wound, pulling the bullet out, and he keeps waking up.

Not only does he keep waking up, he keeps jolting awake from the pain. Keeps squeezing your hand so tightly you wonder if he’ll break bone. Keeps finding your face in the haze of sleep and agony, and grinning like a lunatic when your eyes meet.

And then he’s healed. Somewhat. For now. And you’re fighting exhaustion of your own in the chair you’ve pulled up to the cot he’s asleep in.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Karen sounds pissed. You get it. But Dex is pale and his breathing is ragged and slow and you can’t let go of his hand.

“Hey, Karen.” The casual tone of your voice is insulting. You know it. You think you’ve been spending too much time with Dex.

“Him?” Matt isn’t here. Not now. You see sweat on Dex’s brow. Look down to make sure that his bandages are still in place. Every time his breathing slows even a little, your ears ring and your vision narrows.

“Yeah.” You don’t look away from him. You’re still covered in his blood. “Cute, right?” A lame joke, like he’s some boy you just met at the bar, rather than…well, fucking Bullseye.

“We’ve been trying to find you. We thought he kidnapped you.”

Your thumb trails its way over bruised knuckles again. “Well…I mean, he kinda did.” However things ended up that night after the party, you’re pretty confident that he wasn’t going to let you leave. Not without him.

“Are you sleeping with him?” You’re getting a little tired of the twenty questions.

“I’m in love with him.” You answer simply, and hear her suck in a horrified breath.

“He killed Foggy.”

“I know.” Dex stirs, just barely, like he might be reacting to your admission even in sleep. You squeeze his hand, and when you reach up to brush your thumb over his cheek he turns his face into your palm. “And I still love him. Isn’t that fucked up?”

-

He wakes cuffed to the cot. They’re worried about what he might do. Honestly, you’re surprised they didn’t cuff you too.

He winces as his eyes open, and smiles when they land on you. His low rasp of a voice is even more gravelly, hoarse with sleep and pain.

“Hey, baby.”

He always says that in the most fucked up situations. It always makes your heart beat a little faster.

He sits up, slowly, and pulls at the cuffs on the bed.

“Do your staples hurt?” You ask, eyes falling down to the bandages. 

He grunts in acknowledgment. “C’mere.”

You do, slowly, and it’s only then that he seems to notice the gun.

“You gonna shoot me?” He asks, smile widening a little as he tilts his head to the side.

“I might.” You reach down, slip a paper clip into the cuff on his right wrist, and hear it pop free. He makes a soft noise, rolling his wrist once before sliding his hand up your back as you sink down to straddle his lap.

He leans in to kiss you. You press the barrel against his forehead and push him back. He smiles even wider.

“You disappeared.” You hum, and he pushes his forehead a little more into the gun. “You tried to get yourself killed.”

“Balancing the scales.”

“You got shot. You almost died. I watched you die.”

“You love me.” He breathes it like the memory is a fucking treasure - a shot of heroin straight to the system. His hand tightens on your back, pulling you more firmly onto his lap.

“I still hate you. For Foggy.” It’s a lie, but it should be true. He hums, and you slide the gun around to his temple.

“You love me.” He repeats, and brushes his nose against yours.

“I do.” You admit, soft, and he kisses you. Hard. Slow. His fingers slide up into your hair, curling into a fist behind your head as he completely ignores the firearm digging into his skull.

You pull back, and push it in harder.

“Listen to me, Poindexter.” You murmur, low and dark as your own hand slides up to his hair, pulling his head back and making him groan as he looks at you with a blissed-out grin on his scarred face. “Never do that shit again. You don’t get to leave me. Not now, not ever.”

Words he’s said to you before, albeit in different forms, back when you told yourself you hated him.

“Never.” He agrees, and his eyes fall closed like he would die happy if you pulled the trigger right now. He opens them after a moment, and leans up to bump his nose against yours again. “Wanna put that down?”

“I could shoot you.” You don’t know why you’re saying it. You’re smiling too.

“No bullets.” He hums, pleased. “And it’s not loaded.”

You laugh, and wonder just how crazy you’ve become. “The FBI trained you too well.”

He uses his free arm to tug you a little closer, until there’s no more space between your bodies, and you drop the unloaded gun in favor of wrapping your arms around him again.

“Not the FBI. I know you.” He kisses you again, in that slow and determined way, and slides the palm of his hand up beneath your shirt. “Uncuff me.”

You smile, and shake your head. Push him back down and chase his lips with your own.

He hums, nips playfully at your lip, and tugs on the other handcuff until it rattles.

“You’re injured.” You murmur, muffled by his kiss, and he tangles his fingers in your hair again.

“Feels better.”

“Liar.”

He grunts, and rocks his hips against yours. “This feels better. Let me touch you.”

“You are touching me.”

“Let me touch you more.”

You reach down between you, as wrong and stupid as it is, and unbuckle his belt.

He makes a very pleased noise, and moves his free hand down to unbutton your jeans.

“Uncuff me.” He growls again, demanding, as you shuffle out of your pants and move to pull his down.

“No.”

He pulls you back down to him by the back of your neck, traces his tongue over your ear. “Don’t wanna do this with one hand.”

“I could cuff your other hand.”

He grunts, and the next roll of his hips is harder. More punishing. You gasp, control slipping a little more than you want to admit, and he pulls at the hem of your blood-stained shirt.

“Off.”

You comply, and he leans back to look you over like you’re the most incredible thing he’s ever seen. You love how he looks at you like that. You love him so much it hurts.

“Your staples.” You murmur, as he drags himself back up to a sitting position, pulling you more firmly onto his lap until you can feel the very prominent evidence of his desire against you.

“Doesn’t hurt.”

It’s getting harder to breathe. Harder to focus as he moves his hand down to slide your underwear over your legs. You maneuver to help him, and his own breath catches in his throat.

“Liar, liar.” It comes out as a whisper, soft and teasing as you press a soft kiss to his lips, and his own lips curl into a smile.

“I want it to hurt.” He noses at your jaw. Down to the hollow of your throat. “Reminds me I’m alive.”

You kiss him, hard, because he is alive and he’s here with you and you suddenly need him so badly it hurts. When you finally sink down onto his lap, bodies joining and breath shaking with the feeling of becoming one, he buries a groan into your hair, hips stuttering as you begin to rock against him. Your thighs burn already at the angle, and he meets your movements with his own as he crushes you to him. It must hurt, and you want to tell him so, but when you open your mouth he groans low against your neck and finds that spot that has your toes curling and hands flying up to find purchase on his shoulders.

You slide your hands over his cheeks, pull his face back so you can kiss him breathless, and pleasure begins to build almost alarmingly fast in your core. You almost lost him. You love him. He’s kissing you like you’re the only oxygen he’s ever wanted to breathe and dragging his rough palm up over your bare back as he meets your movements with his own. The cuff rattles against the chair, but despite his restricted movement and injuries he’s still using his one arm to move you in his lap, angling your body to hit that spot in your core that has you gasping desperately against his lips.

One particularly rough thrust has him hissing in pain, and the reminder of exactly why he’s hurting like this possesses you in the strangest way as you slide your hand down to grip his throat, forcing his gaze to your own.

And there’s so much power in it. In watching this large, scarred, deadly man stare at you like he’s in awe of your existence. The sight of it alone has you falling apart, moaning his name as your body spasms against his. He clings to you, and your hand squeezes around his throat as he pushes his forehead against yours like he’s drinking in the sight of you, too.

“Mine.” You whisper, and he falls over the edge so violently you wonder if he might pass out, hand dropping down to grip your thigh tight enough to bruise.

You sit there for a while, tracing your fingers down the scar on his back as he catches his breath with his forehead pressed against your shoulder.

“I have to re-cuff you.” You murmur eventually, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. He uses his free arm to grip you tighter.

“No. Don’t move.”

“If they walk in here and see you uncuffed and inside me, they’ll probably cuff me too.” You hum, and feel him smile as his teeth dig playfully into your collarbone. You turn your head, lips brushing his ear in a conspiratorial whisper. “They think I’m crazy.”

He laughs, broad shoulders shaking as he pulls back to kiss you.

“Love you.” His fingers trace up your body, trailing slowly over your heated skin.

“Love you too, psycho.” You kiss his cheek. “No more suicide missions, or it’s both cuffs.”

Something sparks in his eyes. “Promise?”

“Both cuffs, and no touching.”

He frowns, and kisses you again like he’s trying to prove that he’s allowed to touch you now. “No more suicide missions.”

-

When Matt comes an hour or so later, you’re fully dressed and back in your chair at Dex’s bedside, one eye closed in concentration as you aim a knife at a bullseye you drew on the wall.

You throw it, and it bounces off the wooden surface and clatters to the ground.

“Flick your wrist.” Dex says, but his eyes are on you, hungry and dark. He’s tried to teach you how to aim weapons a few times before, and the lessons have more often than not been cut short by whatever seems to ignite in him like a bonfire at the sight of you holding a knife. It helps now that he’s in cuffs, but despite your activities earlier he looks damn close to trying to break out of them.

You pick up the knife, and try again. It sticks a little outside of the center, but it sticks. You turn to grin at Dex. He grins back, and the expression is downright feral.

“Uncuff me.”

“Bad boy. You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

Any response he may have, inappropriate or demanding or whatever it may be, is interrupted as the door swings open and Matt walks in. Angry. Silent.

He uncuffs Dex roughly. Sits across from him and doesn’t even acknowledge you. Rude, but fair. You can still understand why he and Karen are so pissed at you, even if you find it a little difficult to care.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I hate you for Foggy. And Father Lantom. And Agent Nadeem.” Dex’s eyes are right on you as he rolls his wrists, stretching the no-doubt stiff muscles and seemingly oblivious to how off-putting it must be that he won’t even spare a glance toward the man telling him how much he hates him. “And I even hate you for what you did to her. Whatever you did that broke her mind.”

“Woah, hey. I’m of completely sound mind.” You snap, defensive. Matt doesn’t turn around.

“Your shirt is on inside out.”

You look down, flush, and look back up in time to see Dex smirk.

“Dick.” You grumble, because he definitely knew, and he definitely didn’t tell you on purpose. You frown at Matt again. “I didn’t uncuff him.”

“Not all the way.” Dex supplies, and you glare so hard his smirk turns into a manic grin.

“Shut up.”

“Stop. Both of you stop.” Matt snaps, annoyingly serious Daredevil voice and all, and it takes a significant amount of effort to swallow your response and sit back in your chair.

He talks about forgiveness. About how he needs it for his own sake, and not for Dex’s or even yours.

But you saw Matt’s face, when you found him at the gala. When he tried to pull you out of there before you got yourself hurt in your anger and grief. And in the church, when he pulled you and Dex to safety as you begged the near-unconscious man to stay with you. To live because despite it all you couldn’t fucking lose him.

He’s angry. He’s hurting. But he cares about you. And you care about him, too. Your love for Dex doesn’t make those years of friendship just go away.

And then, the ultimate question. Aimed directly at Dex. “So, do you wanna do one good thing in a life full of shit?”

Benjamin Poindexter turns to you. You smile at him, an entire conversation passing between the two of you in the span of a second before he rolls his shoulders and turns to Matt.

“What do you need me to do?”

-

The whistle echoes through the vast expanse of the room. Three floors up. Directly and strategically across from the courthouse.

Four ATVF officers whirl, guns raised, and…

And then lowered out of pure confusion.

A woman stands in the doorway, in casual clothes, with her eyes wide and her hands raised in shocked and horrified surrender.

“I-I was just looking for the bathroom.”

Shit. A civilian. They’re gonna have to figure out what to do with her, now. There’s no way she didn’t see the fake Bullseye across the room, and if she tells anyone-

“Wait, please don’t shoot! I know what you do, right? You’re the good guys? You find vigilantes and…you know…” she curls her fingers into the shape of a pistol, aiming at the closest officer’s head, and pretends to fire in demonstration.

Exactly where the woman ‘shot’ him, a knife appears, jutting out right between a pair of wide eyes.

He goes down.

She jumps, surprised, and inspects her hand with alarm like smoke might start coming out of her fingers.

And then, she aims again, almost experimentally, at the second officer. The moment she ‘fires’, another knife flies through the air and hits home.

Just as the shock begins to wear off, spurring the startled men into action, she lowers her other hand into the same shape, and ‘shoots’ the final two men in rapid succession before they can even think to lift their guns.

And then, when all that’s left is the ‘fake Bullseye’, who is still standing there frozen and confused, she laughs.

The sound of heavy bootsteps echoes through the room.

“That was even more fun the third time.” She says, tone bright and amused as she tilts her head back towards the source of the sound.

Bullseye, the real one, appears behind her, and his low chuckle is the most frightening sound the other man has ever fucking heard.

The new Bullseye fires his gun, and screams as his hand is impaled by a knife. He goes down, crumpling to his knees and cradling the bleeding appendage, and his counterpart walks casually forward with the mysterious woman behind him.

He’s only in pain for a few seconds, just long enough to be pushed to the ground, and just long enough to see the glimpse of another knife before it finds its home in his eye.

-

“Holy shit.”

“Hm?” The click of the rifle. The subtle shift of his shoulders as he adjusts his shot. So careful and calculated, and yet you can feel him locked in on every word. Every blink. Every movement.

Even with another target in sight, he is always focused on you.

“Matt just told everyone he’s Daredevil.”

Dex hums, cocking his head to the side. “And?”

“And he’s probably gonna go to prison for it.”

Dex loads the sniper, the shell of the bullet clattering onto the floor. “Prison’s not so bad.”

“Says the guy who broke out of it.”

“For you.” He turns, and you can see his eyes crinkle in the corners even if you can’t see him smile behind the mask. “For romance.”

You hum, and pop your headphone back into your ear, eyes moving back to the monitor as you sit cross-legged atop the table beside the gun. “You’re a fucking psychooo~” you sing, under your breath, and feel him catch your chin between his gloved fingers before you have time to look back up. He tilts your chin towards him, and you feel the warmth of his lips beneath the rough fabric of his mask as he pulls you into a kiss.

He moves back to the gun with the grace of a cat, satisfied, and you do your best not to worry too much about Matt Murdock. Your friend. Daredevil, who has just outed himself to the entire world and sealed his own fate.

The shot is fired and thus your location is given up. It’s time to go.

You hesitate. You sit by the computer, and you watch the screen after it goes blank.

A gloved hand comes up, a warm chest against your back as that same familiar hand guides yours away from your lips.

“What’re you up to?”

Dex’s couch, so long ago. Your eyes locked on a screen. Warm fingers curling around your own. You must have been biting your nails again. It must be late. You barely even heard him come in.

“Tech company. Innocent employee. Spreadsheets.” You tilt your head back, sleepy, and catch his lips with your own. “Not supposed to talk about it though, remember?”

“Criminal.” He kisses you again, but he’s smiling.

“Not technically.” You kiss him back, pulling him closer, catching his hand to guide him around the couch and over to you. “You gonna tattle, Special Agent Poindexter?”

“Never.”

“Time to go.” That same voice is lower now. Raspier. Still just as achingly familiar. So much has changed, and everything is so different, and he’s still so incredibly yours.

“Matt…” the word is released on a breath, and that breath feels too heavy. Too weighed down by memories. Matt. Foggy. Karen. So many memories. So much loss.

“Can’t do anything for him now, baby.” His nose against your temple, his arm around your waist. He took his mask off, at some point. “But if they catch us up here, it’s gonna be a lot worse for him.”

You turn, still frowning, still worried, and reach up to brush your fingers over the deep scar on his cheek. He tilts his head into the touch, like he always does, and smiles.

That smile, sweet and scarred and as familiar as the palm of your own hand, will always feel more like home than any place in the world.

And that’s how it was always gonna go, wasn’t it? Since the day you ran into him in front of that coffee shop, the night he kissed you for the first time, the moment you saw the bullseye etched on the door of your apartment…

It was always him. It was always going to be him. The trajectory of your life changed before you even knew it was happening, jolting in a different direction like a ricocheted bullet, and always still pointed home.

Home, to him.

You smile back, and meet his eyes.

“Where are we going?”

-

Benjamin Poindexter rolls a coin over his knuckles, glances out the window of the airplane towards the earth thousands of feet below, and smiles.

The flight attendant speaks to the man in the seat beside yours, welcomes him into the ‘Million Milers Club’ or whatever, and he does his best not to glare at the noise. The man is beaming - annoying -  but you would tell him that it’s rude to glare if you were awake.

Speaking of which, your head is snuggled up to his shoulder, breath soft and even and both arms wrapped around his bicep like he’s some kind of teddy bear, rather than a dangerous assassin.

Then again, you’re almost just as unhinged as he is these days.

He hums, content, and turns his nose into your hair, inhaling deeply and feeling you sigh and shift a little closer.

“You two seem happy.” The too-friendly guy in the seat beside you is smiling, and Dex resists the urge to wrap his arms around you and pull you onto his lap, hiding you from the world because you’re his only his no one else-

He’s gotta reel that under control a little more. That possessiveness. But, well, you’re his. And he’s yours. Two sides of the same coin. Soulmates in every way.

And he knows that you do seem happy. You always do, because you are. You walked onto this plane together in an almost sickening display of blissful love. He lifted your bag into the overhead bin for you, pulled you into the seat after, wrapped his arms around you and basked in your laughter as he shamelessly pressed kisses to your neck and shoulder. You’d leaned back, grinned at him like you were the only two people on the plane, in the world, and slid your hand into his own.

No one suspected that you’d helped him kill people only a few hours before. That you washed the blood off of each other before you came to the airport.

He raises his eyebrows. Too-friendly Guy keeps going. “You headed to your honeymoon?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. He rests his chin on top of your head. He has a ring in his pocket, and when you land in the next country, and he gets the very first opportunity that comes his way, he already plans to drop to his knee and beg you to marry him.

But for now, he nods, and fixes the stranger with a practiced smile.

“Yeah.” He hums, feeling you shift comfortably against him, sighing contentedly against his shoulder. Perfect. His. “It’s long overdue.”

The man looks the two of you over, and seems to be about to say something else, but you shift again and Dex’s attention suddenly couldn’t be any less focused on him.

Honeymoon. Yeah, you’ll have a thousand honeymoons. A thousand lifetimes of happiness and togetherness and love so intense it’s taken lives, saved lives, shattered governments, and so much more.

“Hey,” you said, bright but not pushy. “You look like you could use one of these.”

Dex stopped. He blinked at you once, recalibrating. 

Oh?

The first thing he noticed was that he thought you were pretty. For a second, he didn’t process anything beyond that. 

Then the details followed: the faint dirt on your hands, the natural way you handled the stems, the open shop behind you breathing out the scent of fresh blooms. You had a bucket of red roses with you, probably giving it to everyone who would stop to listen. You were a florist, obviously. That was your shop, most likely. 

“Do I?” He managed to say. 

“I think so,” you admitted, tilting your head as you looked at him. “You’ve got the whole ‘I’d rather be literally anywhere else’ thing going on.”

Most people didn’t say things like that to him. Not casually. Not with that little hint of amusement in their voice, like you weren’t intimidated at all.

“I don’t celebrate this,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the chaos around you.

“Mm,” you hummed, like that was fair. Then you lifted the flower a little higher, wiggling it slightly between your fingers. “Good news, you don’t have to participate. This one’s free.”

He didn’t take it.

“Why give them away?” he asked instead, eyes narrowing just slightly. “You’re losing money.”

You smiled, wider this time, like you liked the question. “Maybe I am.” Then you continued a little more playful, “Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to talk to cute strangers without it being weird.”

You thought he was cute? 

Dex almost laughed, but then decided that would probably be perceived as mean, regardless of his intentions. “That’s your strategy?”

“Hey, it’s working,” you said easily, nudging the flower a little closer to him. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

His eyes flicked from the flower back to your face, trying to find the catch, maybe some sign you didn’t mean it, some crack in the tone, but there wasn’t one. You just looked… sincere. 

“Do you say that to everyone?” he asked.

You shrugged, shoulders lifting just slightly. 

For whatever reason, he finally took the flower.

Your fingers brushed his, and you didn’t pull away quickly like most people would. You just let it happen, then eased back to take the next flower for the next person.

“See?” you said, satisfied, like you’d won a county fair grand prize. “Now you’ve got proof today wasn’t a total waste.”

Dex looked down at the flower in his hand, then back at you. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

You laughed, and he thought it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. “Take care of it,” you said, “Or don’t. It’s yours now.”

He didn’t react. He just awkwardly stood there for a couple of seconds, spinning the rose in his hand. 

“Dex,” he said instead, gesturing to himself like offering his name made sense here, like it belonged in this conversation.

Your expression brightened just a touch at that. “Dex,” you repeated, like you were testing it. “I’m guessing you don’t usually stop for random girls handing out flowers.”

“No.”

“Mm.” You smiled, just a little smug about it now. “Guess I got lucky, then.”

He stared at you for a second too long, because it didn’t feel like luck.

It felt deliberate. Like the world was pointing at you saying this one! This one is yours!

“Yeah,” he said, more to himself than to you. “Something like that.”

“Alright, Dex,” you said, stepping back slightly to let someone pass between you. “Try not to look so miserable, yeah? You’ve got a flower now. That’s a personality upgrade.”

He huffed a small smile.

And when he walked away this time, he didn’t throw the flower out. He held onto it, tighter than he needed to.

See, he’d been empty for a long time. Nothing ever held his attention for more than a passing second anymore. Everything just got reduced to patterns, targets, and white noise. So when his focus caught on you and didn’t immediately let go, it felt wrong, like his world slipped off-pattern.

Behind him, you were already smiling at someone else, giving someone another rose. But that didn’t make it feel less personal. 

It just made him want your attention back.

—

A week later, Dex stepped into your shop like he’d already memorized it, as if he’d been there a hundred times instead of zero. The bell chimed softly overhead, and you glanced up from trimming stems, fingers faintly dusted with green.

“Hi! What can I do for you today?” you asked, like he was any other customer.

For a second, he just looked at you.

“You don’t recognize me?” he said, and it came out more earnest than he intended. He sounded… disappointed.

You blinked, then leaned forward slightly, studying him. There was a moment where he could see your mind working, trying to place him, and then your eyes widened, recognition clicking into place.

“Oh! Dex, right?” you said, a small smile tugging at your mouth. “From Valentine’s Day.”

The panic that had clawed in his chest eased immediately.

You glanced down then, noticing what he was holding in his calloused hands: A small glass vase. Inside it, the rose.

The rose you gave him. 

“How’s it doing?” you asked, going around the counter and stepping closer.

“I put it in water,” he said, watching you instead of the flower. “I did all I could.”

You leaned in slightly, examining it, your fingers hovering just short of touching the petals. “Mm,” you hummed, but you didn’t sound surprised. “It’s wilting.”

“It is,” he agreed, though his tone suggested that wasn’t the point.

You looked up at him then, a little apologetic. “Roses don’t last forever.”

He knew that. You knew he knew that, you weren’t stupid. But he wasn’t the first customer who was upset that a flower had the audacity to die. Living art has a way of turning sentimental to people, beyond logic or reason.

Dex’s grip on the vase tightened just slightly, his thumb brushing absently against the glass. “Can I keep it alive?” he asked.

The question wasn’t naive. Instead it was focused, as if he was asking, what else can we do? Are we exhausting all our options? 

“I mean… not really,” you admitted, “It’s just its time.”

He held your eyes, unwavering.

“I want it to last,” he said, and there was an absolution in the way he said it: stubborn, but not childish. He said it like it mattered more than it should because it was from you.

You, who he’d followed home for the past seven days without a second thought. You, who stopped at the corner supermarket to get your favourite blend of tea, who took the subway just to get coffee just because you liked how it was roasted better. You, who kept a herb garden on your kitchen windowsill meticulous and alive, and hung a suncatcher in your bedroom window so the light would break into colors across your room in the morning. You, who slept with the windows open because you like waking up to natural light. You, who slept in the cutest silk slips that barely leave anything to Dex’s imagination. And you, who had a rooftop garden hidden above your apartment, where you spent hours tending to things that grew because you cared. 

Oh, the garden.

Dex liked it most of all, because he found a high enough perch on a neighboring building to watch you without interruption, to stay still for hours at a time while you knelt among the plants and didn’t once look up, never once realizing your being followed, that your life was being studied by a very, very dangerous man. 

Your eyes flicked between him and the rose again, and then you let out a sigh, shifting closer to the counter. “Okay,” you said, thoughtful now. “I’ve got an idea.”

You reached for the vase and slid the wilting rose free. You handled it carefully, even in its fading state.

Then you turned, plucking a fresh rose from a nearby bundle, and held it out toward him with an encouraging smile. “You can take a new one,” you offered. “If you change the water every other day, it’ll stick around for longer.”

Dex didn’t even glance at it. His attention stayed on the original, now resting lightly in your hand.

“I don’t want a different one,” he said, smaller now, but no less firm.

You hesitated. “You… don’t?”

“I want that one.”

Your brows lifted slightly, a flicker of surprise breaking through. “The dying one?”

“…Yeah.”

There was a certain vulnerability in his eyes that made you pause. Was he… attached?

You looked down at the rose again, then back at him. The lines in your face lowered like you were starting to understand, at least a little.

“Okay,” you murmured, thinking it through. Then, when you got an idea, you said, a bit brighter, “I could press it for you.”

Dex’s eyes shifted back to you.

“It’ll at least preserve it,” you added, gesturing lightly with the stem. “Flatten it, dry it properly. I know it’s exactly the same, but…” you smiled faintly, “it’ll last.”

He didn’t interrupt.

“You could come back to pick it up at a later date,” you continued. “I was already planning to press some gerberas anyway, so it’s not a big deal to add one more.”

Dex was silent for a moment, weighing not the practicality, but also its implication. Then he nodded once.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, okay.”

You smiled and turned to set the rose aside carefully.

Dex stayed exactly where he was, watching you move, already certain he’d be back long before the wait was over.

—

Twelve days later, Dex stood across the street from your shop for eight full minutes before going in.

He wasn’t pacing, not even fidgeting. He was just standing there, coffee in hand, watching the door like it might open on its own and solve the problem for him.

He had already timed how long you usually stayed behind the counter in the morning, how often you stepped out to rearrange the display, the pattern of customers drifting in and out, and when you disappeared into the back room for exactly three minutes and twenty seconds at a time.

Still, he stood there a second too long, staring through the glass at the familiar arrangement of flowers, the counter, at you.  

The coffee in his hand was still warm. Not hot anymore, but not cold either. He’d made sure of that.

Finally, he crossed the street.

The bell chimed when he pushed the door open.

You looked up and smiled. This time, you recognised him immediately. “Hi, Dex.”

And just like that, you made his day. Maybe his week. 

He stepped closer, more confident than he did before.

“Hi,” he said back. There was a second where he just stood there, looking at you like he’d forgotten why he came in at all.

Then, remembering, he held the coffee out. “This is for you.”

You blinked, surprised, but reached out to take it. “For me?” you echoed, turning the cup slightly in your hand. “You didn’t have to—”

You stopped to turn the cup slightly, reading the label, then glanced back up at him with a small tilt of your head.

“Oh my god,” you said, half-laughing already. “No way.”

Dex’s stomach dropped briefly before your smile widened.

“This is my coffee place,” you said, amused. “Like, my favourite cafe.”

He blinked, just feigning enough surprise to feel real. “Is it?”

“Yes,” you laughed, lifting the cup like evidence before you took a sip. “Dex...”

His shoulders tightened just slightly. “Yeah?”

“You got my order right.” There was a long second before you broke into a grin, bright and delighted. “That’s crazy.”

He let out a small, relieved breath through his nose. “I just guessed.”

“Insane guess,” you corrected, shaking your head as you took another sip, like you were still processing it. “You just nailed my entire personality in a cup.”

“I got lucky,” he said, shoving his hands in his pocket. 

You glanced back up at him, still smiling as you sat the cup down to clean up the leaves from the counter, leftover from conditioning your antirrhinums for an event in a few days. “Well,” you said, “your luck just made my morning significantly better, so...”

“That was the idea.” It slipped out before he could filter it.

Your face shifted from amused to warm, just a touch more focused on him. “Yeah?” 

Dex nodded once, like that was obvious.

A bout of silence settled, but it wasn’t empty. It stretched comfortably as you leaned a little against the counter, still holding the coffee between your hands.

“So,” you said, tilting your head, “what’s the occasion?”

“No occasion,” Dex answered, “Just… thought you’d like it.”

You shifted closer to the counter, resting your elbows there, facing him more fully now. “Do you do this a lot?” you asked. “Or am I just benefiting from a very specific moment of generosity?”

“Not a lot,” he admitted.

“Well,” you said, lifting the cup slightly toward him in appreciation. “I’m not complaining.”

Okay. Dex thought. This was the lull in the conversation he had been waiting for. It was a gap, a narrow, fleeting window, and he could feel it closing even as it formed. If he didn’t do it now, it would slip, reset, become another loop of almost. Ask her out. Now. 

His heartbeat had gotten loud in his ears, his focus narrowing down to you and the space between you, to the way your fingers rested around the coffee he’d brought, to the way your mouth had just barely parted.

If he didn’t ask you out on a date, then he would just be the creep, right? If nothing came of these small visits, then you would just be a florist and he would just be a customer, right?

He had the words in the back of his tongue, he had practiced in the mirror all fucking morning. It was there, just waiting for him to catch up and say it out loud—

“You’re different today,” you said, interrupting his train of thoughts before it derailed.

“I…” he struggled, but then decided to play along. “How?”

“Less intimidating,” you said, smiling. “Last time you had this whole… intense thing going on.”

“I wasn’t trying to be intimidating.”

“But you kind of were anyway.”

He considered that, then nodded once, like he’d accept it.

You watched him for a second, then laughed softly to yourself.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you said, shaking your head. “You’re just… not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

You glanced at him, smile tilting.

“I thought you’d be the type to take the flower and disappear forever,” you admitted. “Not appear with coffee and—” you gestured lightly toward him, “—actual conversation.”

Dex’s mouth shifted slightly at that.

“That’s a good thing, right?” he asked, almost proud of the achievement you pointed out. 

“It is,” you said. “Because I was hoping that wasn’t just a one-time thing.”

“It’s not,” he said instantly. 

You studied him for a second, then nodded, like you believed him. “Okay,” you said. “Then we should probably keep talking somewhere that isn’t my shop while I’m technically working.”

Oh. Were you asking him out on a date?

Dex’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Yeah,” he said.

You smiled, a little more playful again now that the words were out there. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You picked up your coffee again, almost absently.

“Dinner?” you suggested, like it was the most natural next step. “That feels like a reasonable escalation from coffee.”

“It does.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.” You drank the coffee again, a little ahh when you finished your sip.

“How about Saturday?” you asked. “I’m working a wedding, but I’m free after seven.”

“Yes,” he said, too quickly, too excitedly. “I’ll pick you up if you… uh, text me your address.” 

As if he didn’t already know. 

Your smile widened just slightly, already scribbling your number on the back of a receipt. 

“Saturday it is,” you said, giving the paper to him. 

And just like that, a plan settled into place.

Dex stayed where he was for a second longer, amazed at how everything had worked out in his favour. 

He had planned this differently.

He thought it would take more. He thought he’d have to push it there himself.

But you… you had met him halfway without even making it feel like effort.

—

Saturday arrived quicker than you had expected. 

You just got back from the wedding cocktail hour, and you barely had time to change from your blazer to a flowier dress before the doorbell rang. You checked your reflection one last time before heading downstairs, adjusting your bag just to keep your hands busy. 

It was seven. Exactly seven. 

Not early enough to seem overeager. Definitely not late enough to feel careless. It just felt… precise.

When you opened the door, he was already standing there with his shoulders squared, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, eyes finding you immediately. 

“Hi,” you smiled, closing the door behind you.

“Hi,” he replied. “You look…” he started, then hesitated.

You tilted your head. “What?”

He exhaled faintly through his nose, a ghost of a smile pulling at his mouth. “You look good,” he settled on, like it was the safest word he had to a much stronger reaction.

You laughed lightly. “You clean up pretty well yourself.”

That seemed to catch him off guard. 

“I was thinking we could walk,” he said. “The place I had in mind is just a couple blocks over.”

“Walking’s perfect,” you nodded. “Lead the way.”

He stepped into pace beside you easily, adjusting without thinking so you stayed in sync. Your arms brushed once, then again, and neither of you rushed to create distance.

It was comfortable. 

You pointed out a bakery you liked; he asked a few questions, just enough to keep you talking.

Then you turned the corner… and you froze in your steps. “Oh my god, wait.”

Dex halted immediately, “What?”

You looked up at the small restaurant in front of you, disbelief turning into a smile. “Dex,” you said, half-laughing, “this is my favourite Italian place.”

It was tiny. It had barely ten seats, warm light glowing through the windows. It was the kind of place you only found if someone told you about it or you got lucky wandering.

You looked back at him, still smiling. “How do you even know about this?”

“I’ve heard it’s good,” he simply lied.

He opened the door for you, his hand hovering near your back as you stepped inside.

The cozy warmth hit you immediately, along with the smell of garlic and tomato sauce. 

“Hey! Back again?” the owner called out.

“Of course,” you smiled, glancing back at Dex. “Couldn’t stay away.”

You slid into one of the tiny tables, knees brushing his under the narrow space. He didn’t pull away.

“This is such a good choice,” you said, leaning forward slightly.

Dex watched you for a moment before answering, “I’m glad you like it.”

You met his eyes, and for a second, everything felt like a very happy coincidence.

—

The date went… really well.

Like, unexpectedly well.

You stayed longer than either of you planned, the tiny restaurant slowly emptying around you until it felt like the two of you had the place to yourselves. 

And still, neither of you moved to leave.

You talked in that wandering way that only happens when you’re comfortable, jumping from one thing to another, doubling back, interrupting each other without apology. It didn’t feel like a “first date” anymore. It just felt like time spent together.

All that time, he couldn’t stop looking at you. It wasn’t too obvious, but everything kept circling back to the way your mouth moved when you talked about needing to check on bubbles when you got home or something (whatever that meant), the way your hands followed your thoughts like they couldn’t keep up, the way you leaned in like the space between you didn’t matter.

Dex had spent years studying people, reducing them to patterns, weaknesses, outcomes. You didn’t fit cleanly into any of it. You felt… brighter than that. So whatever you were, he already decided, it was something he wasn’t going to lose.

“Today was insane, by the way,” you said at one point. “The wedding I told you I was working today? Completely unhinged.”

“What was it?” Dex’s attention didn’t waver. “Bad planning?”

“Bad everything,” you huffed a laugh. “The bridesmaid was losing it over nothing, the timeline kept slipping, and the groom—” you paused, rolling your eyes slightly “—the groom was… a lot.”

Dex didn’t care about the groom, not really. He cared about the way your nose scrunched slightly when you said it, the faint irritation in your voice. Even when annoyed, you were still… perfect. It didn’t make sense to him, how consistent it was. Still, he would listen to you simply because it was you. So he tilted his head just slightly, as if telling you to go on.

You hesitated, not like you didn’t want to answer, but like you were deciding how honest to be.

“He was…,” you said finally. “Like, weirdly controlling. Not just with the schedule, but with her.”

“The bride?” he asked, picking up his glass of red, taking another sip. 

“Yeah.” You nodded, your mouth tightening just a fraction. “Everything had to be his way. The food, the layout, even the order people walked in. And if something wasn’t exactly how he wanted it, he’d just…” you made a small, snapping gesture with your hand “… shut it down in front of everyone. His mom was almost worse. She’s just enabling him all the way.”

Dex’s eyes narrowed, though his expression stayed neutral. Then, just as quickly, you shifted the topic.

“But the flowers looked amazing,” you added lightly, leaning back again. “So, you know. At least something went right.”

Dex nodded once, like he understood that more than you meant.

Then, your phone lit up again.

You glanced at it again, for the first time that night. Dex noticed.

“You expecting something?” he asked, casual enough.

You looked up, like you hadn’t realized he’d caught that. “Hm?”

“You’ve checked your phone a couple times.”

You shrugged easily. “I’m looking out for follow-up stuff from the wedding. People always need something after.”

“Even after it’s done?”

You shook you head. “Especially after it’s done.”

He didn’t question you. If anything, his instinct leaned the other way entirely. You had your reasons, you always would. Whatever you did, whatever you said, he trusted without needing to understand. 

A few minutes later, you stood up. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” You said, then you added playfully, “don’t disappear.”

“I won’t,” he said. As if he would run out on the love of his life. 

He waited until you were out of sight, before absentmindedly reaching for his phone. He didn’t have much going on, just a police scanner app to track task force, a text thread with Mrs. Smithers in case her cat needed babysitting, and… you. 

So yeah, it was mostly out of habit. He was going to lock it and put it back in his pocket before you came back, but the news app gave him a notification he could ignore: 

Groom Dead at Wedding at The Plaza — Two Hospitalised.

His eyes moved over the words once. Then again, slower.

He looked at the name, the timing, the location. Everything aligned too… cleanly.

His thumb hovered for half a second before locking the screen.

When you came back, you slid into your seat like nothing had shifted.

“Okay,” you said, settling in. “What did I miss?”

Dex didn’t answer that. Instead, he turned his phone toward you. “Have you seen this?”

You leaned in slightly, your shoulder almost brushing the table as your eyes moved over the screen.

He expected you to be horrified. To gasp, to be shaken. But you didn’t react the way most people would.

You just leaned back, eyebrows furrowed.

For a while, Dex couldn’t get a read on you— and that was terrifying. Were you grieving? Were you in shock? There was nothing in your usually animated eyes that gave anything away. 

“Oh,” you said.

Dex watched you closely. “That’s the wedding you worked, right?”

Your fingers found your glass again. You rotated it once, before answering. “Yeah.”

He didn’t look away.

You glanced up at him, then back down, your voice lowering just slightly. 

“He did get sick during cocktail hour,” you said, as if it was a realisation. Your tone didn’t change, though. 

“Food poisoning?” Dex speculated, his mind running through all the possibilities. Somewhere along the lines, he was also relieved that even though you told him you ate the canapés at the wedding, you weren’t taken ill at all.

You shrugged lightly. “That’s what they’ll say.”

Oh. Interesting. 

Not that’s what it is. You said, That’s what they’ll say.

“And you don’t think that’s what it was?” he asked, biting the inside of his cheeks. 

You looked at him then, properly. There was no panic in your expression, fear of saying the wrong thing. 

“I think,” you said, dragging out the words, “that sometimes people end up exactly where they were always heading.”

You picked up your glass again, taking a small sip before continuing, almost as an afterthought. “I mean… She wanted to call it off.”

It was clear that you were talking about the Bride. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, studying you now with a different kind of focus.

“She wasn’t going to get out on her own,” you continued, “and now…” you gave him the faintest shrug, “…she doesn’t have to.”

—

You saw him again a week later, when he came by the shop.

The bell chimed, and you glanced up out of habit, shears still in hand, a stem caught mid-trim between your fingers.

You didn’t expect it to be him.

But the second realised, your eyes lit up. “Hi, Dex.”

His shoulders eased, just slightly, like he’d been waiting for that reaction. “Hi.”

As he stepped further inside, his eyes moved over the shop. He studied the in the buckets lined along the walls, the arrangements you’d spent hours shaping, the little details most people skipped over entirely.

He was cataloguing it, learning it. Or, at the very least, he was pretending to.

You leaned lightly against the counter, watching him with a gentle smile. “Looking for something specific?”

“Maybe,” he said.

It wasn’t the most helpful thing a customer would say, but you chuckled anyway.

He moved toward a small arrangement near the front, a small spring bouquet you’d put together that morning, filled with yellow and whites and eucalyptus foliage. It wasn’t flashy, but it was balanced. It was thoughtful. 

Dex picked it up, turning it slightly in his hand, ever so carefully, as if it required inspection.

You tilted your head. “That one?”

“It’ll do,” he said.

It’ll do.

You let out a huff of laughter at that, setting your shears down with a clink before stepping around the counter. “Wow. Glowing review. I should put that on a sign.”

He glanced at you, as if to say I didn’t mean it that way. “I need more decorations.”

You didn’t push as you reached for the wrapping paper and cellophane. You didn’t ask why a man who didn’t even know what to do with a rose suddenly cared about daisies and carnations and violet-tinted gypsophilas.

You just nodded and got to work, wrapping the stems neatly, your fingers moving with practiced precision.

He watched the way you tucked the stems in, the way your thumb pressed the fold flat. The tiny, unconscious movements that made everything you did feel trained and deliberate.

You had a feeling he didn’t really get flowers, it was pretty evident after your first date. He didn't seem to know what to do with them. He didn’t seem to care about arrangements or meaning or seasonal choices.

But he kept coming back.

And if flowers were the excuse he used just to see you, then you weren’t complaining. 

The rustle of paper filled the room, followed by the faint drip of water somewhere in the back. When you finished tying it off, you lifted the bouquet and held it out toward him, a flicker of playfulness returning to your voice.

“So,” you said, “is this one going to need preserving too?”

His eyes dropped to the flowers, then back to you.

“Maybe,” he said.

It didn’t sound like a joke. And if it was, he didn’t deliver it like one.

Your smile softened anyway. “Good to know. I’ll start preparing.”

He took the bouquet from you and paid, sliding the money across without looking away for long, then gathered the bouquet carefully, holding it like it mattered more than he’d ever admit out loud.

But he didn’t leave right away.

Before you could say anything, he shifted the bouquet slightly in his hand, and then, almost absently, plucked a single daisy from it.

Your brows lifted, a quiet “hey” forming before you could stop it, maybe to playfully remind him that you worked hard on that arrangement, but you didn’t actually protest.

He stepped closer.

His hand came up to reach over the counter. Gently, he brushed a strand of your hair back behind your ear.

He did it so carefully, as if you were made of a million little crystals and might break at the wrong frequency.

Your breath hitched, only slightly.

Then he tucked the daisy there. His thumb lingered, rubbing a single slow circle under your ear. His hand dropped a little, only to rise again, this time under your chin.

He tilted your face up, just enough to catch the light properly.

His thumb rested lightly against your jaw, his pointer finger locking his hold. His gaze was fixed entirely on you now— on the flower, on your face, on the way both fit together like you’d been sculpted by the gods for his enjoyment, and that alone. 

Then he smiled, lips pulling at the edges of his mouth just enough to draw toward the scar on his cheek. “Beautiful,” he muttered under his breath.

You weren’t sure if he meant you. Or the flower. Or both. You weren’t even sure if he meant to say it out loud, or if he meant for you to hear it.

Your heart did a stupid flip in your chest anyway.

“…thanks,” you said softly, suddenly very aware of the way he was looking at you.

His hand dropped, but not abruptly. He looked… satisfied. 

“We’ll start planning a second date, yeah?” The way he said it wasn’t really a question. It was more like a conclusion he’d already reached, a decision you were simply being informed of.

You should’ve pushed back. Maybe teased him for it, made him work a little harder to get you.

But instead, you just smiled.

Because you didn’t feel the need to argue with it. Not even a little.

—

The second date came on a Friday, and it felt nothing like the first.

There was no careful planning, or buildup inside a restaurant, no structured beginning or end. It just happened.

It started late, later than most people would bother going out, when the city had already begun to be less crowded, less performative. 

You met him with the same familiarity that had been settling between you.

You ended up just walking with no destination in mind; though he did steer you to a less crowded route. Before you knew it, you found yourself by the Hudson River, the air cooler there, touched with that faint edge of water and wind. The city lights stretched across the surface in long, shimmering lines, breaking and reforming with every ripple.

You walked side by side, close enough that you were always aware of him, his pace adjusting subtly to yours.

The conversation came without effort, drifting between small observations and half-finished thoughts, the kind of talking that didn’t need to impress or prove anything. You even talked about your personal life— mostly your flower pressing. You did mention, again, what he now assumed was a pet: “I need to feed Bubbles as soon as I get home!” Which was weird, because he was yet to see any signs of animal life in the apartment. 

Before he could ask, you darted to a different topic. 

But whatever. How could he focus on something so trivial when his girl was right in front of him? 

At some point during the night, he stopped at a street vendor.

You didn’t even realize you were hungry until he came back to you with a sweet and sugary smelling food. 

“Wait, what is this?” you laughed, peeking into the paper tray.

“Churros,” he said simply, then also pointed at the chocolate pot, like an offering. 

You looked up at him, smiling. There was no point really, in telling him you loved churros. He seemed to always know what you were craving and what you wanted, that he was always somehow one step ahead of you. It’s as if he knew you better than you knew yourself. “You’re just making executive decisions now?”

“You didn’t object.”

Of course you didn’t.

You took a bite instead, the crisp sugar coating your mouth. You immediately let out a small, pleased sound before you could stop yourself.

“Good?” he asked.

“Very,” you admitted, already going in for another bite of your favourite dessert. “You’ve set a very high standard for future dates, just so you know.”

“I can keep up,” he said again, like that was the easiest promise in the world.

You walked and ate and talked, and you can’t help but feel like you’d skipped awkward and landed straight into comfortable.

You were out for hours, and it flew by as if it was just minutes. 

By the time you circled back toward your place, the city had lulled even more. There were fewer people, quieter sounds. The only significant noise was the distant hum of traffic and the echo of your footsteps on the pavement.

You slowed as your building came into view.

Dex stopped just short of the door again, like last time, like there was an invisible line he was still choosing not to cross without permission.

You turned toward him, still holding the half-empty paper tray in one hand.

You looked at him, at the way his attention was always so focused when it landed on you, like you were the only thing that mattered in the world. 

Then your eyes dropped, just slightly, to his lips. “You’ve got something there,” you said, you pointed out.

He tilted his head. “Where?”

You stepped closer before he could overthink it.

“Here.” Your fingers brushed lightly against his jaw, guiding his face just enough. Then, before you could think any better of it, you pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth, tongue brushing his skin just enough to take pry sweet liquid off.

Dex went completely still.

You pulled away just quickly, thumb swiping the little wet patch you’d accidentally left behind, and Dex leaned into your touch without a second thought. 

You smiled a little too casually for what you’d just done.

“Chocolate sauce,” you explained, tapping your own lip like that was the only reason. “Couldn’t just leave it there.”

“I…,” he said finally, almost stumbling over his words. “…right.”

You smiled wider, like you knew he had a soft spot for you, like you knew you would get away with it if you committed hard enough.

“Goodnight, Dex.”

And just like last time, you slipped inside before he could stop you.

—

He stood there for a while, longer than necessary.

His hand lifted briefly, brushing the corner of his mouth where yours had been, like he could still feel it there.

After a few seconds, he forced himself to snap out of it. He had somewhere to be, of course. 

Not home, but it was somewhere he had grown to like more than home.

See, there was only ever one place he could go after a night like this.

He walked across the street, then around the corner, then up the stairwell he already knew too well. His body moved through it like routine, but his mind stayed exactly where you’d left it—

At your door, your lips. At that fleeting kiss that had lasted barely a second and somehow rewired the rest of his night.

See, he knew what you did on Fridays. You would go up to the rooftop and tend to your plants. You would check on them, do some maintenance, and sometimes, you’d even harvest them and put them in a mortar and pestle, crushing and storing them in a little bottle. Herbal remedies, Dex had assumed. It was adorable, how much care you put into your cute little garden.

When you were done with your plants, he would watch you through your naively opened bedroom window as you got ready for bed. 

After your last date, he had even watched you lay there as you ever so slowly reached your fingers under your cotton panties. It wasn’t long before he realised you were touching yourself while mouthing his name. 

If he was lucky, he’d get to witness that again today.  

—

Dex had been watching from his perch for fifteen minutes.

You had changed into a comfortable black hoodie that swallowed your frame— he saw that much through the glow of your bedroom window. 

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting against the cold concrete.

You always went up to the rooftop after you changed. It was a pretty reliable pattern.

So when you didn’t appear on there, when five minutes stretched past where you should’ve been stepping into the open air, his chest tightened.

Dex didn’t move, but his focus heightened instantly, attention narrowing as he recalibrated. His eyes flicked once more to your window… and then the front door of your building opened.

You stepped out.

The hood was down, your hands tucked briefly into the pocket before you pulled one free, adjusting your sleeve as you moved.

Dex’s head tilted just slightly.

That… wasn’t part of your routine.

You wouldn’t go out at this hour alone. Especially not after a night like this.

“What are you doing?” he murmured under his breath, more observation than question.

He pushed off the ledge, already deciding he would follow. 

After all, he had to keep his girl safe. 

—

Distance was easy to maintain when you understood movement, when you could predict the rhythm of someone’s steps before they took them.

He stayed behind you, offset just enough to disappear into reflections, into shadows, into the gaps people never noticed. Your figure stayed in his line of sight the entire time, framed between streetlights and reflected storefront glass.

You didn’t look back.

You turned down a smaller street, then another, the noise of the city thinning out until it became distant. Your footsteps echoed here.

You were more exposed.

Dex adjusted accordingly, his own steps falling soundlessly into place.

Then you turned into an alley. He slowed down immediately, slipping to the edge before you disappeared fully from view.

When he shifted just enough to see, he realised… you weren’t alone.

A man stood waiting in the shadows, wearing a dark grey jacket. What was more interesting, though, was that he was wearing thick black rubber gloves. 

Dex’s eyes narrowed as you walked straight to this stranger without hesitation.

What the hell?

You reached into your pocket and pulled an envelope out. The man handed you a small and unmarked box in return.

Dex’s mind ran through possibilities fast, each one worse than the last. A deal. This was a deal. A drug deal?

His grip tightened slightly against the brick beside him.

No. No, that didn’t fit. Not you. You weren’t…were you? His girl didn’t deal in things like this.

Did she?

The thought sat wrong in his chest, and he was starting to get irritated. 

You took the box without a word, and left. Dex didn’t follow you this time.

The man was still there, and Dex had questions.

So he watched him from the shadows, counted the seconds, and waited for an opening. 

Stupidly, the man decided to check the cash right then and there.  That was when Dex reached down to a bit of rusted metal (probably fallen off someone’s fire escape).

He prepared for a precise throw… 

And it drove straight into the man’s leg.

The sound that came out of him wasn’t a full scream at first, more like a strangled choke. It was horrifically cut off as his body folded, collapsing hard against the wall. His hands scrambled, one reaching instinctively for the bar buried in his thigh, the other bracing uselessly against the ground.

“What the…fuck—!”

Dex was already on him, closing the distance before panic could turn into a fight or flight response. He crouched just enough to bring himself into view.

“Don’t,” Dex said quietly, nodding once toward the bar when the man’s fingers twitched again. “You’ll make it worse.”

The man froze. “Who the hell are you—” he started, breath hitching.

Dex grabbed his wrist and twisted hard, bones cracking within seconds.

This time, the scream came out full.

It echoed off the brick walls, cut short only when Dex tightened his grip just enough to keep him grounded in it.

“You’re going to tell me about the deal you just made,” Dex said.

The man’s breathing turned ragged, eyes wide, darting like he was trying to find a way out that didn’t exist. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

Dex tilted his head slightly, then pressed down, just enough on the broken arm.

The man choked on the next sound, panic flooding in properly now. “Okay, okay! Fuck—okay!” he gasped. “I’ll talk, j-just stop—”

Dex eased the pressure. Not out of mercy, but out of efficiency.

“Talk,” he repeated.

“I’m just a courier,” the man rushed, words tripping over each other. “That’s it, I don’t make the deals, I don’t ask questions, I just move shit from point A to point B—”

“A courier,” Dex echoed, unimpressed. His grip didn’t loosen. “For what?”

“I don’t know everything, I-I swear!” The man’s voice cracked, eyes glassy now, pain bleeding into fear. “I just get told where to go, what to hand over—what to pick up—”

Dex didn’t blink as he listened to the man breaking under pressure.

“I think it’s plants, okay?” he blurted. “Restricted ones—imported shit, hard to get, I d-don’t… know! That’s all I know, I don’t grow it, I don’t sell it, I just carry it—please—”

Dex studied him, weighing the truth the way he always did, not through words, but through the way they came out. 

Then, he let go.

The man dropped fully to the ground this time, clutching at his arm, his leg, his whole body curling in on itself like it might hold him together.

Dex stood and looked down at him, unmoved. Whether he bled out or crawled his way to help didn’t matter.

He’d already given Dex what he needed.

—

Even nearly two weeks after that, he had been thinking about the alley more than he cared to admit.

About the man. The deal. The box. But mostly about you.

He had turned it over in his head enough times to sand down the edges. Right, so it was restricted plants, rare imports, probably something you just liked. That tracked. You liked things that grew, things that needed care. It was… harmless. Endearing, even, that you would inconvenience yourself to a fault to satisfy a hobby. 

Cute, That’s what he settled on. Your apparent hobby of collecting rare plants was cute. 

So when your text came—come by the shop after closing?— thoughts shifted immediately, like a switch being flipped.

How could he say no to his girl?

By the time he stepped inside, the lights were already dimmed. It smelled stronger at night, but still faintly distinctly sweet underneath.

You were already there, waiting behind the counter.

“Hi,” you said, softer than usual, like the hour demanded it.

“Hi,” he echoed.

The second thing Dex noticed after you, were the chocolates. 

It was a heart-shaped velvet red box, and it was open, ribbon pushed aside, a couple already missing. 

It was a gift chocolate, not one you would buy for yourself. That alone was enough to get his chest hot with anger or jealousy, maybe both. It didn’t help that you were casually picking one up, inspecting it like it deserved your full attention.

You followed his line of sight, then smiled knowingly. “Oh.” You picked one up, turning it between your fingers. “These?”

“Yes.”

“Mm,” you hummed, popping it into your mouth without breaking eye contact. “They’re actually really good.”

It felt as if a rope had been pulled around his heart.

You chewed thoughtfully, completely unbothered. “Hazelnut, I think.”

Dex stepped closer, slower this time. “Who is it from?”

“From Daniel Harper,” you said, reaching for another one. “He’s the crypto guy who got flowers for Mother’s Day once and wouldn’t stop asking me out. But I think…” you tilted your head carefully, “I think he got the point now.”

“You’re eating them,” he pointed out, the entire world blurring into a haze. All he could think was that another man brought you gifts. Another man wanted you. Another man had the audacity to fucking try.

“I’m not wasting perfectly good chocolate,” you said, like it was obvious. Then you tilted your head, studying him as you unwrapped another. “Fuck, you’re so obvious right now.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” you smiled, like you were enjoying it. “You hate this.”

“I don’t hate it.” What a fucking lie. 

“You do, a little,” you said, stepping around the counter, closing the distance between you. “Which is funny, because—” you held the chocolate up between your fingers “—you’re the one I invited here.”

Dex’s eyes dropped briefly to your hand then back to you. 

“C’mon,” you said, voice turning playful again, nudging it closer to his mouth. “Spoils of war.”

His brow furrowed slightly. “War?” He echoed. Still, as much as he hated all of this, he couldn’t help but find your attempt to feed him endearing.

“Harper is a man who tried and failed to get me,” you grinned. “You’re benefiting from his loss. You’re welcome.”

He didn’t take it, mostly because he was stubborn— but so were you. You nudged it closer. “C’mon Dex,” you pouted, remembering how much he liked the chocolate sauce on the churros. “I know you like it. Don’t be difficult.”

Dex leaned in slightly, and instead of just taking the chocolate, his mouth closed around your fingers.

Your breath hitched.

His tongue brushed against your skin as he pulled away, like he knew exactly what he was doing.

Then he took the chocolate between his teeth, like nothing had happened.

You stared at him.

“I…,” you said after a beat, a little breathless now despite yourself. “That was—”

He didn’t respond. He watched you, an arrogant grin now playing on his face. If his sweet girl wanted to tease and taunt, he had to show you two can play at that game. 

Your composure came back quickly, but your smile had changed. It was less teasing, more charged.

“Right,” you cleared your throat lightly. “Actually—” You turned, gathering your thoughts and reached under the counter. “I didn’t ask you here just to steal Harper’s dignity,” you added, glancing back at him. “I have something for you.”

You waited until he was close, closer than necessary, before you said, “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” you shot back immediately, “don’t be so suspicious. It’s a flower shop, not a crime scene.”

His mouth twitched. “Is it?

“Dex.”

He sighed, quiet, but obedient, and let his eyes fall shut.

He heard you move closer, the shuffle of your steps, the faint clink of something being set down. There was a pause, like you were checking and adjusting your secret prize.

Then, you said, “Okay. Open.”

He did.

Oh.

It was the rose.

Maybe he had expected just a dried, pressed flower, but definitely not… this. 

It was preserved and framed in a gold-planted wood, intricately carved. The petals were darker now, fragile-looking but perfectly intact, held in place.

Your smile wavered just slightly. “Okay, that silence is… concerning. Say something.”

He blinked once, like he was catching up to the moment.

“You didn’t have to do this,” he said.

“Well,” you huffed a small laugh, folding your arms loosely. “That was kind of the whole point of you leaving it with me.”

“No,” he shook his head once, stepping closer. “You… you didn’t have to do all this for me.”

Your eyes softened at that. He said it as if he truly believed he didn’t deserve it. 

“I wanted to,” you reassured. 

He reached for it slowly, like it might fall apart if he wasn’t careful. His fingers brushed the edge of the frame, then traced it.

“It’s better,” he said simple.

“Better than a fresh one?” you teased, tilting your head.

“Yes.”

“That’s bold.” You raised an eyebrow. “Florists everywhere just felt personally attacked.”

“I don’t care about them.”

You laughed a little, and his chest tightened in a familiar way. It wasn’t entirely jealousy anymore.

“I’m glad,” you said. “Would be awkward if you were secretly seeing other florists behind my back.”

His eyes flicked to yours, as if the implications were laughable. “I’m not.”

“I know,” you grinned. “You don’t seem the type.”

“What type is that?”

“The ‘casually shops around’ type,” you said, gesturing vaguely between him and the shop. “But… you actually like it, right?” you asked at the frame, smaller this time, just to be sure. As if you were anxious that you put so much effort in something he wouldn’t care about.

He didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

Your smile came back, like that answer meant more than you were letting on.

You were still standing so close.

Dex noticed that neither of you had stepped back from the frame, like the space between you had just… disappeared.

“You’re staring,” you murmured, a smile tugging at your mouth.

“I know.”

That should’ve made you pull away.

Instead, your fingers tapped lightly against the edge of the frame still on the table. “If you break that," you teased. “I’m not making you another one.”

“I won’t break it.”

“You say that,” you said, glancing up at him through your lashes, “but you’ve got kind of a… destructive vibe.”

He frowned. “You think that about me?”

“I think,” you stepped just a fraction closer, “that you get intense about things you like.”

His eyes locked onto yours. And you could tell that hit a lot closer to home than he intended. 

“And you like this,” you added, tapping the frame once more.

“Yes.”

“And you like… flowers?” you pushed, clearly enjoying yourself.

“No.”

You chuckled, almost a sweet giggle. “So it’s just me, then?”

He didn’t answer. That was your answer.

“Good,” you said under your breath.

Your hand slid off the frame, brushing against his fingers on the way down. Your eyes dropped, just briefly, to his mouth.

Dex noticed.

His grip on the frame loosened, setting it aside without looking, his attention already back on you like it had nowhere else to go.

“You’re still staring,” you whispered.

“Yeah.”

Your breath hitched, slightly. Then, before you could think twice, you issued a challenge, “Do something about it, then.”

That was all it took for all pleasantries and manners to fall apart. Not that it ever had any leg to stand on.

Dex closed the distance immediately, his hand finding your waist as his mouth met yours, like he’d already done this a hundred times before.

You didn’t hesitate to kiss him back. 

Your hands were on him, gripping his jacket, pulling him closer as you kissed him back just as hard, just as certain. You were quick to match his intensity, biting a bit of his lip just to drag him back to the real world. You could tell he was spiraling, that he had been all consumed by the gesture. 

When you broke for air, it barely lasted a second. “Dex—”

He kissed you again. 

And this time, it deepened, slower but heavier, like he was learning you in real time and refusing to let go. Like if he could, he would fuse his bones into you. 

You laughed softly into it, breathless. “Okay… okay—”

But you didn’t stop him. Whatever you were about to say got lost when his hands tightened at your waist and he lifted you like it was nothing, setting you back onto the workbench behind you.

The tools rattled softly, a pack of floral tape rolling off to the side, but neither of you cared.

Your legs shifted instinctively, pulling him closer by hooking it around his hips, and the kiss didn’t slow. It only got more insistent, like neither of you had any interest in stopping now that you’d started.

“Still think I’m intense?” he murmured against your mouth.

You smiled against his lips. “A little.”

He kissed you again like that was the wrong answer, and you let him.

When your fingers tangled in his hair, he let a sweet moan against your mouth. Interesting, you thought, as his grip tightened at your waist, pulling you closer, like there wasn’t enough distance in the world to satisfy him.

It was messy and overwhelming in the way neither of you tried to control.

His hand slid up your side, under the hem of your shirt, fingers brushing skin…

….and you snapped out of it.

“Dex—”

He hummed, trailing a kiss down your cheek, latching on your neck….

But then you pulled away softly, slow enough to not be abrupt, but out of place enough that he felt… confused.

What had he done wrong? 

Your breath was uneven when breathed out. Gently, you pushed his hand from under your shirt. You were met with no resistance as his big palms splayed on your lap, kneading anxiously, as if he was itching to touch you again, to kiss you, to take you. 

Then, you gently pressed your forehead to his. “I… we shouldn’t.”

For a second, he didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe. 

“Oh,” he said quietly. His thoughts were spiralling, you could tell. I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up, playing over and over again in his head. 

“No, hey, hey,” you rushed, hands coming up to his face, cupping his jaw. “Not like that. Not… not because I don’t want to.”

His eyes flicked back to yours.

“I do want to,” you said, more certain. “I just… I’ve got to work a baby shower early tomorrow, and I still need to finish a couple arrangements tonight, and if we—” you huffed a small, breathless laugh, “—if we keep going, I’m not getting anything done.”

Dex stared at you, processing.

“I…” he started but could not finish, as if he needed to say something, anything, to stop himself from falling off the deep end. 

“I’m sorry,” you smiled sadly, a little apologetic. 

He exhaled slowly, trying to recover, trying to place where you were in his mind.

“I like you, I really do.” Your thumb brushed lightly along his lower lip, where a string of moisture had collected. Dex’s eyes darted away, simply because like was not what he felt for you. What he felt was obsession, devotion, perhaps love that grew in such a short time. Still you reassured him. “I like you. I want you. Just… not right now, not here.”

Dex looked at your lips, almost still in a daze. 

Then you added, a little more playful again, “Come over tomorrow? We can… continue this. Properly.”

And just like that, his brain rearranging itself, making space for a schedule. 

It's okay. It’s okay. It's not the end of the world. She wants you, she still wants you… 

Then, to quiet the storm in his mind, he leaned in again, kissing you once, shorter this time, but just as certain.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” you smiled against him.

“Yeah,” he said, breathless, discreetly wiping a tear from his eyes. “Yeah.”

—

That night, Dex didn’t go straight home. He found himself outside Daniel Harper’s building, hoping he could finish the job for you. 

It wasn’t hard. The door wasn’t even locked. 

Inside, Daniel sprawled on the couch, body slack, mouth parted with a thin line of foam dried at the corner, eyes glassy and gone. 

He was already dead. He had been for a while, by the looks of it. 

Dex stood there for a moment, taking it in: the stillness, the lack of struggle, the timing of it all, and tilted his head slightly, almost thoughtful. 

“Huh,” he murmured to no one, cataloguing what mattered and what didn’t. 

How weird.

—

Dex couldn’t wait for tomorrow. He spent the night thinking about you, and then the morning, and then the entire day in that same tight loop of fixation, until even the idea of distance felt like a grenade swallowed and exploding from the inside. 

It wasn’t just want. It was compulsion, an itch under the skin he couldn’t stop scratching at no matter how much it bled. 

So he did the only thing that still made sense: he went hunting for Task Force from the break of dawn, anything to keep his mind from turning fully toward you. Because when it did, he was just turned into a pathetic little puddle of emotions.

When it came down to going to your apartment, his nerves were practically buzzing off the roof. 

The second you opened the door, he was already moving, one hand bracing the frame as he stepped in, the other finding your waist and then he kissed you, like the space between seeing you and touching you had been unbearable.

You laughed into it, surprised but not resisting, your hands catching on his jacket. “Dex—”

“I missed you,” he said against your mouth, already walking you backward as he nudged the door shut with his foot, his grip tightening just slightly at your side.

“You saw me last night,” you teased, breath catching as his lips found yours again.

“Hmm,” he dismissed, picking you up slightly at your feet.

“Careful—careful!” you suddenly laughed, twisting slightly in his hold.

Dex stopped instantly, setting you down like you’d burned him. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Watch out for Bubbles.” You were still smiling, a little breathless, pointing past him. “Don't wanna wreck her enclosure.”

“Bubbles?” He’s heard you say that name once or twice before. A pet, he assumed. A cat, maybe a small dog? Though he never saw anything through the window, so in the back of his mind, he had chalked it off to being a carnivorous plant.

But when he turned… he saw a small tank he didn’t recognise. After all, he had never been able see this part of your apartment from his perch. 

Dex stepped closer, eyes narrowing slightly.

An… octopus. 

It was small, beige and yellow, though the second it clocked him, it flashed aggressive blue rings. Its limbs curled slowly against the glass. It had a maze in its enclosure, an enrichment of some kind, perhaps? 

“Oh,” he said. That was the last thing he ever expected. 

“She’s cute, right?” you beamed, coming up beside him like this was completely normal. 

Dex watched it for a second longer than necessary. “…yeah.”

It blinked, beady eyes looking straight into his eyes. He blinked back.

“Okay. Come on,” you grabbed his hand, tugging him away with a grin. “I don’t want Bubbles to watch.”

He let himself be pulled, though his eyes flicked once more over his shoulder before following you down the short hall.

You passed a door, and heknew where it must go: the rooftop. Your rooftop— idle and calming. In all its domesticity, you were your happiest there. “Where does this go?” He feigned innocence. 

You didn’t miss a beat. “Junk closet.”

He looked at you, and you smiled too quickly. “…right,” he said.

Why would you lie?

The thought barely had time to settle before you pushed him back onto the bed, climbing over him, straddling his thighs like it was second nature.

That distracted him immediately. He didn’t even have the time to take in the bedroom he had spent so long looking through. 

Your hands found the hem of your shirt, and you pulled it off without hesitation, tossing it somewhere behind you like it didn’t matter.

Dex’s attention snapped back into place like a puzzle piece. Whatever question he had dissolved under his tunnel vision, his focus now on you. 

“You think too much,” you murmured, leaning down, your hands braced on either side of him.

“I don’t.”

“You do,” you smiled, your nose brushing his. “Good thing I know how to fix that.”

His hands came back to your waist like they’d never left.

And this time, neither of you stopped.

—

Dex had been overwhelmed in the best way possible way

Not just by the way you’d pulled him apart piece by piece, with your hands, mouth, all of it; but by how easily you’d met him there. 

How easily you matched him, pushed back. There had been nothing hesitant about you, nothing uncertain; every touch had felt intentional, every sinful sound felt like it belonged to him. The touch of your tongue lingered even now, under his skin. His body still felt too warm, too aware, even as the room cooled down.

He could still feel the faint press of your nails at his shoulders, how you had traced the scar on his back and not even question where it came from. He could still feel the heat of your breath against his throat, where it dragged down to his chest, then his stomach, then between his legs. You’d pulled him closer like you didn’t want even an inch of distance between you. 

When he helped you chase each others’ bliss, it didn't feel casual, or even just physical. It had felt all-consuming, addicting, euphoric. And he would change a thing. 

The shower hadn’t helped the nerves, though.

If anything, it had made it worse. It was your idea to clean up together, your hands sliding over him beneath the water, slower this time, exploratory, like you were learning him just as much as he was memorizing you. The steam had wrapped around both of you, turning everything hazy. Even now, lying beside you, he could still feel it, the imprint of your palm on his bare skin and his on yours. 

Now, you were asleep.

You were curled into him, your leg draped over his like you’d claimed him without thinking. Your breathing was steady, lips slightly parted, completely unaware of the way he was looking at you.

Dex didn’t even try to drift off. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

His hand hovered just above your waist, then settled there lightly. His thumb moved once, almost absentmindedly, like he was testing if you were real, making sure you weren’t a fragment of his broken mind it made as a coping mechanism. 

You shifted closer in your sleep.

Mine.

The thought came into his mind uninvited, but he didn’t push it away.

But still… like a weed going through cracks, he couldn’t help but think about the door. 

Junk closet, you said. 

His teeth clenched. No. That wasn’t right.

He knew the building— found the layout and structure long before he ever stepped foot in it. He knew exactly how space worked, how things connected. There wasn’t room for a “junk closet” there. 

Which meant… you lied.  Why would you lie to him?

The thought didn’t sit right. It didn’t settle, didn’t smooth over the way everything else about you seemed to.

You didn’t lie. Not really. Not about things that mattered. So why this?

His back tightened slightly, his thumb pausing where it rested against your waist. His eyes darted, involuntarily, toward the direction of the door again. Junk closet.

No.

His mind ran it again, as if to double and triple check. He could see it clearly, like a blueprint burned into the back of his skull. There was no space for that.

You had lied. You must’ve.

Why? To keep him out? To hide something? From him?

His chest tightened at that, a bitterness threading through his mind previously touched by your warmth.

Check it.

The thought popped up in his mind, clear as day.

Check it.

His eyes dropped back to you immediately. You, still curled into him, your breathing even, your face relaxed. You trusted him enough to sleep like that.

His hand shifted slightly against you, fingers pressing just a fraction deeper, like he could fuse himself to you.

Stay.

That was his next thought. After all, it felt stupid to leave you alone, in bed, defenseless, in favour of a theoretically imaginary junk closet.

Don’t move.

You looked… safe. Happy. Like having him here was enough to solve all his problems.

Check it.

Fuck, that thought came back unannounced, and it came back louder.

Check it. Check it.

His jaw clenched. His eyes squeezed shut for half a second, like he could shut it out.

You lied. Why would you lie? Check it.

His fingers flexed once against your side, restless now.

Check it.

His breathing slowed, but it wasn’t calm. He opened his eyes again, staring down at you like the answer might be written somewhere in the shape of your face. Still, he found nothing.

Check it.

His head tilted slightly, the thought settling in deeper this time: He needed to know.

A quiet sigh left him as he leaned down, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your cheek. 

You stirred faintly, an adorable little snore slipping from you, but you didn’t wake.

Dex slid out from under you carefully, easing your leg back onto the mattress, making sure you stayed comfortable before he stood. He paused for a second, just watching you again, like it physically hurt to look away.

Then he turned, moving through the apartment soundlessly. As he wandered into the living room, he caught a bit of movement. 

His head snapped toward the motion, and then relaxed when he realised it was just Bubbles, moving in her tank.

The small octopus had shifted the second she saw him, her body tightening, skin rippling. Suddenly, blue rings flashed brightly on her skin again.

Dex could’ve sworn, that for a second, they stared at each other. 

There was something unnerving about the way her eyes locked onto his, unblinking, aware in a way that didn’t feel like an animal should be. Like she knew he was dangerous. Like she perceived him as a threat. 

His head tilted slightly, studying her right back. “Hi, Bubbles,” he murmured under his breath.

Her color pulsed again, blue agitation flickering through her small body. For a second, he saw himself in her. For a second, he wondered if her blue rings were a sign of anger.

Dex’s mouth twitched, almost amused and a little irritated that he let an octopus the size of a golf ball get to him. “Relax,” he said quietly.

She didn’t, but he decided to look away anyway.

He reached for the door, hand resting on the handle. For a second, he didn’t move.

Then…

He opened it.

Part of him hoped he was wrong, that he had simply been mistaken somehow, that you had told him the truth.

But… all he saw was stairs.

Of course.

“Don’t judge me,” he muttered to Bubbles, letting obsessive certainty take over as he moved upward, each step soundless.

The door at the top gave way with barely a push. As he suspected, it was your rooftop.

It was… beautiful.

Bright moonlight spilled across the space, reflected on leaves and petals and glass, turning everything silver-edged and almost ethereal. Rows of plants, carefully arranged, meticulously kept, thrived under your attention. Vines curled where they were meant to. Blooms opened toward the sky. 

Dex stepped forward slowly, eyes scanning, taking it all in with a kind of reverence he didn’t usually allow himself.

You spent time here. You cared about this.

So why?

Why wouldn’t you show him this? Why wouldn’t you tell him? Didn’t you trust him?

He would’ve listened. He would’ve understood— well no, maybe not understood, but he would’ve learned. For you.

You didn’t have to hide things from him. You didn’t have to keep parts of yourself away.

His eyes landed on the workbench to see a box, the same unmarked one he’d seen exchanged in that alley.

So it was that.

Next to it was a small juvenile plant, carefully potted. You had even given a handwritten label to it: Rosary pea.

Dex frowned slightly. He didn’t recognize the name. It sounded… almost gentle. Like everything else here.

Just a plant, right? Just you, collecting things that grew, things that needed care.

That’s all. That’s all it had to be.

He let out a sigh, tension still sitting tight on his shoulders. His eyes drifted again, unfocused now, thoughts spiraling faster.

Why didn’t you trust him? What did he do wrong?

He tried. He did everything right. He showed up. He listened. He gave you what you wanted, what you liked…  Didn’t he?

His breathing slowed, but it wasn’t calm. It was tight.

His attention snagged on something else nearby, this time it was a spire of flowers. The plant was tall and slender, violet bells hanging delicately from thin stems, catching the moonlight like they were almost glowing.

Dex stepped closer without thinking.

His fingers reached out, brushing one of the petals. It was pretty, like you. 

His chest tightened, and nothing could push his thoughts away:Why didn’t you tell him?

It looped, faster now, louder.

Why did you lie?

“Huh…?” he murmured under his breath, voice barely there now, strained.

His fingers lingered against the flower, tracing it absently. But something felt… off. First, he felt as if his fingers, the ones that touched the petals, were going numb.

Then, he felt a strange heaviness in his chest. He frowned slightly as his heart stuttered once, hard enough to make his breath catch.

Dex went still. “…what—”

The word barely formed before his vision shifted. The edges blurred, the rooftop tilting just slightly out of place.

Dex blinked hard, trying to steady it, but it didn’t stop. His breathing hitched, his hand gripping the edge of the workbench.

His heart skipped a beat again.

No. No, no—

His knees weakened without warning, his body suddenly too heavy, too slow to respond.

The world tilted harder this time.

The last thing he saw was your garden, blurring into streaks of green and violet under the moonlight.

—

Dex woke up slowly, like he was being pulled up from the darkest depths of his mind, his body reluctant to follow. The first thing he registered wasn’t the room, or the fading light of dusk bleeding through your windows. Instead, it was you.

Even half-conscious, disoriented, his senses found you first.

Then his eyes opened fully.

Where was he?

He was no longer in your garden. Instead, he saw your coffee table, a TV, and a couple of harmless houseplants. Oh. He was in your living room, on your couch. 

As he got a better look at you, he realised you were slumped in the armchair across from him, unconscious, your head tilted slightly to the side, your arm stretched toward him.

You looked smaller like this, folded in on yourself. It didn’t match the version of you he remembered in his head— the one that laughed behind the counter, that handled petals like they might bruise under the wrong touch. 

That’s when he saw an IV tube connected to a needle in his arm. He followed it… to you. It was a makeshift transfusion.

For a second, he just stared, his brain lagging behind the image, trying to catch up, trying to make sense of why you were connected to him like that, why your blood was in him, why you looked so… still.

His stomach dropped. This was desperate. This was you cutting into yourself, giving a part of yourself away just to keep him breathing.

Why were you so still? 

It felt wrong. His body recognized it before his mind could catch up. Still meant a part of you had gone. And his chest tightened, rejecting the possibility before it could fully form.

“Hey—” his voice came out rough, barely formed.

You stirred awake. 

Your lashes fluttered, eyes opening slowly, and the second they landed on his face, on the fact that he was awake, relief flooded your eyes.

“Oh,” you murmured, voice thick with sleep. “You’re awake.”

Dex moved too fast as adrenaline slammed into him, panic overriding everything else as he ripped the needle from his arm with no hesitation. Blood followed immediately, a thin line down his skin, but he barely noticed. 

After all, he wasn’t thinking. Thinking was slower than fear, and fear had already taken over. All he knew was that something had been done to you—or because of him—and that was unacceptable.

You jolted upright. “Whoa, hey! Relax, relax—”

He was already pushing himself up, unsteady but determined. He needed to make sure you were real, that you were okay.

“What happened?” he demanded, breath uneven, voice tight

You blinked at him once, then twice, grounding yourself before answering. “You went into my rooftop,” you said, almost resigned, save for the hint of affection in your time. “Full of poisonous plants.”

Rooftop.

His jaw twitched at the confirmation that you had hidden it. 

Dex frowned, trying to latch onto the memory. “What—”

“You touched my wolfsbane.”

He blinked, piecing memories together: The garden. The flowers. The dizziness.

You leaned back slightly, already reaching to remove the needle from your own arm, wincing faintly as you pulled it free, wiping the blood away like it didn’t matter.

“I’ve been selectively breeding them for five years,” you continued, almost absently. “That one’s about seven times more lethal than standard wolfsbane. Contact alone is enough.”

Dex stared at you.

“Most of the plants up there can kill you, actually,” you added, gentler this time. “That’s why I told you it was a junk closet.”

You said it so easily, like it hadn’t mattered, like it had just been a small, harmless deflection. But it wasn’t harmless. At least not to him.

“You lied,” he said, but it didn’t come out accusing. It came out… hurt and confused. Like he couldn’t reconcile it with everything else he knew about you.

You didn’t flinch, ambient interrupt. 

“But I’ve seen you,” he pushed, stepping closer without realizing it, drawn in like he always was. “You touch them without gloves. I—I don’t—”

You laughed, but it wasn’t dismissive.

“I should’ve known you were watching me,” you said, glancing at him through your lashes.

And there it was again—that pleasure in your voice. This time it had reason for concern. You weren’t afraid, or disgusted at this newfound knowledge. If anything, you looked… flattered. It was as if you had suspected it, and just like the garden, you had lied through your teeth. 

Dex’s chest tightened.

“If I almost died from touching one,” he said, rubbing his trail of blood away with tissues on your coffee table, “then you—” he choked at the words, as if he couldn’t physically say it. He tried again. “Then you should—“

“I should be dead?” you finished for him, noticing his struggle. 

He swallowed hard. How could you even say it, when he couldn’t even let the idea sit in his mouth?

The image formed in his mind anyway, uninvited: You, collapsed the way he had been. You, unmoving in that chair, permanently gone. His mind rejected it so violently it made his lungs feel like it was collapsing.

Your eyes softened. “I’m… immune.”

“What?”

It didn’t quite make sense to him. It felt disconnected from everything he understood about you. About the girl who laughed behind a counter, who fed him chocolates, who pressed flowers into frames simply because she wanted to.

You shifted in your seat, like this part of you was just… a fact. 

“My dad was a cocaine dealer,” you started, almost casually. “When I was five, I got into his stash. I ingested enough to kill little ol’ me twelve times over.”

Dex’s stomach dropped.

“But I was…,” you continued, “unaffected.”

Your fingers absentmindedly brushed over the velvet fabric of your chair.

“Doctors said I’ve got some kind of mutant gene. Means nothing really sticks in my system. I can’t get drunk. I can’t get high. Toxins don’t work the way they should.”

Dex didn’t look away from you once.

“When I was a teenager, I broke my arm,” you added an example, a faint grimace crossing your face. “They had to put pins in while I was awake. Anesthesia doesn’t work either.” You managed a sarcastic laugh. “That wasn’t fun.”

You said it lightly, like it was nothing, But he could see it anyway a younger you pinned down, awake, forced to feel everything. 

You were different. A mutant, that’s the term you used. You were… oh, fuck.

You were more capable than he ever deemed you to be. 

And that realization didn’t push him away the way it should have. It rooted him deeper. Because if you had always been this untouchable, then what he felt wasn’t built on fragility. You wouldn’t disappear under pressure. And he couldn’t seem to step away from you, no matter how much sense it would make to try.

Dex stepped closer again without thinking, like gravity pulled him there. Even confused, overwhelmed, heart still not fully steady, he needed to be near you.

“I… I didn’t know,” he said, as if he felt stupid for not seeing it sooner. There was even a shame in admitting it. In his mind, he had placed you in a gilded cage, easier to understand, easier to protect. But you had never belonged there at all.

You shrugged, like it didn’t matter.

Across the room, Bubbles shifted in her tank, the faint glow of her skin calm now, her earlier agitation gone now that you were here. Her limbs curled slowly, as if the fact that you were awake meant that there was nothing to worry about.

Dex barely spared her a glance. The room, the hum of life continuing outside these walls all flattened into background noise. His mind had already narrowed its focus down to one fixed point, and it was you. It had been you for longer than he wanted to admit.

“How did I live?” Dex asked, but it didn’t come out demanding. It came out raspy and rough. 

His hand found your wrist without thinking, thumb brushing over the place where the needle had been, where a faint smear of blood still lingered. He wiped it away, almost reverently, like it mattered more than his own safety that you weren’t hurt. 

He didn’t think about it. His hands just… adjusted in a way they never did anywhere else, like he understood, on a level deeper than thought, that you should not be handled carelessly, no matter how strong you turned out to be.

“You have a Cogmium steel spine,” you said, like you were reminding him of the obvious.

His brow furrowed slightly, confusion threading through the lines on his face. “How do you know that?”

Slowly, you smiled, almost shy. 

“Oh, please,” you murmured, leaning back just enough to look at him properly, though your fingers came up to loosely curl in the hem of his shirt like you hadn’t quite decided to let him go either. “I knew who you were since after the second date, Benjamin Poindexter.”

That was… new information. At least to him. 

“My rare plant dealer complained that his courier turned up dead,” you continued, almost idly. “I got curious and looked into it. It wasn’t long till I put two and two together.”

Dex exhaled faintly, a small ah leaving past his lips. It was not quite relief, but acceptance. Because of course you had figured it out. Of course you had seen through him, the way only you could.

And you were still here, as if nothing had changed. You were still looking at him like he hung the moon for you, regardless of how many people he had killed, how many mistakes he had made.

People usually changed the second they understood. He had seen it happen too many times, the mind recalibrating upon the realisation of how dangerous he was. But you… you were still looking at him like nothing in him needed to be feared. Like nothing in him needed to be fixed.

Your hand lifted then, resting lightly against his chest, right over his sternum, where his heart was still finding its rhythm again. “Your spine, I—” you went on, your voice dipping more intimately. “It bonds to you.”

Dex didn’t interrupt. He just watched you like every word mattered simply because it came from you. He didn’t follow every word—not the science, not the mechanics—but he followed you. You spoke about him like he was worth understanding.

“Blood cells are made in the bone marrow,” you said, your fingers tracing absent patterns over his shirt, “That’s your immune system, your oxygen transport, everything. The aconitine would’ve disrupted the entire process.” You tilted your head slightly, studying him like he was one of your raw poisonous plants. “But yours isn’t normal anymore.”

His hand came up to your wrist again, grounding himself in you as you spoke.

“The steel fused with your spine,” you continued, almost fond in the way you explained it. “So the blood you produce now is… stronger.”

Dex’s eyes didn’t waver as he rubbed absentminded circles on your skin. 

“When you touched the wolfsbane, the toxin should’ve shut everything down almost instantly,” you said. “But it didn’t. Your modified cells slowed it down,” you said. “And while you’re not immune, it bought you time.”

Your thumb brushed lightly against his chest, like you were feeling the heart, measuring it.

“I didn’t have an antidote,” you admitted. “So I used what I had.”

His eyes flicked briefly to your arm again, to the faint mark. You shifted closer without thinking, your knees brushing his.

“I hooked us together,” you said, quieter now. “Your blood was slowing down, so I had to pump mine manually for the first couple of hours to keep the flow going.”

Dex’s hand slid from your wrist to your arm, fingers curling there. It was as if he needed to hold onto you to fully understand what you were saying.

“My blood doesn’t process things the way it should,” you continued. “It breaks them down and neutralises them. So once it got into your system…” You gave a small, almost playful shrug. “It did the rest.”

You smiled at him then, pride lighting your face.

“Ta-da,” you said lightly, kissing the corner of his mouth just to make sure his lips had warmed back up, “You’re alive.”

Dex didn’t pull away from you even when he was still processing everything. If anything, he leaned closer. His hands slid upward, as if he needed to map you again now that he understood what you were capable of. What you had done. What you had survived.

And suddenly, all the puzzle pieces started to fall into place— why death seemed to follow you, why you always seemed in control when you looked like you had so little power. 

“The groom?” he asked, not accusing. He was just trying to understand. 

When you nodded, his shoulders softened. That was the strange, almost painful thing about Dex. Every revelation, no matter how dark, only seemed to pull him deeper under your gravity.

“Foxglove tea,” you explained, your voice clinical. “His mother and brother getting sick were… collateral. But the bride came to me the night before, crying. She….” You paused. “She had marks.”

Dex brushed his absently over your skin, like he was grounding himself in your heart. Coming to terms that you were untouchable in ways he couldn’t quite grasp.

“Harper?” he asked next.

You nodded again, and there was the faintest flicker of irritation in your expression. “Oleander cake. He… tried to touch me.”

That set him off. Dex’s brows furrowed in anger, but still wounded and earnest and almost unbearably tender, over the fact that you didn’t go to him for answers. His hands moved to your face then, clumsy and urgent, like he couldn’t stand the distance anymore. His thumbs hovered at your cheeks before pressing in gently, as if you might disappear if he didn’t hold you there.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, and an almost boyish hurt threaded through. 

You didn’t flinch under his touch. You leaned into it, your fingers gently circling around his back. “Because I can take care of it,” you said simply. “I did take care of it.”

That answer hurt him more than anything else you’d confessed.

“I know you can,” he said, and there was no doubt in it. His forehead dipped to yours. “But you don’t have to," he added, barely above a whisper.

You could feel the way he held on to control, as if the word letting go didn’t exist for him when it came to you. It was in the way his fingers lingered at your jawline, the way his breath mixed with yours, the way his entire body seemed angled toward you like you were the only point of gravity in the room.

You, who needed no one. And him who needed you, so openly it almost hurt to look at.

His eyes searched yours then, and he wasn’t searching for danger anymore. That part of him had already settled. What he was looking for now was some indication that he still had a place here, that he wasn’t just… incidental to you.

His voice dropped, fragile in a way he never was anywhere else. “Is it because you don’t trust me?”

You sighed, pulling away completely until his fingertips were bare and cold where your skin used to be. 

His chest tightened, a familiar spiral already coiling. Silence had never meant anything good in his life. Silence meant distance. And distance was always the beginning of the end. Before he knew it, everyone would slip just far enough out of reach that he couldn’t pull it back, no matter how tightly he held on.

But you didn’t leave him. You just stood up.

He watched you walk across the room as you approached the tank. The glow of it lit your face in shifting blue, and for a Dex stood up, caught between following you and giving you space.

You reached into the water without hesitation, lifting Bubbles from the tank, water slipping through your fingers as easily as breath.

You turned back to him, and Bubbles curled in your palm, deceptively cute and delicate, until she noticed him.

The second she saw him, the same electric blue rings from last pulsed across her body. 

Dex tilted his head. The warning was immediate, and honest in a way people never were. He wondered, briefly, if that was what he looked like to the rest of the world.

“She feels… threatened by you,” you chuckled, like it was amusing, your lips curving up. “She thinks you’re going to take me away from her.”

Dex stared at the tiny creature, at the warning written so clearly across her skin. And yet, she stayed in your hand. She didn’t flee, nor did she strike.

“But you two are more alike than you think,” you continued, softer now.

You held Bubbles closer, and she curled into you. Dex knew that feeling— the feeling of needing you, the feeling of wanting to be close to you because you felt safe.

“She’s a blue-ringed octopus. One of the most dangerous creatures alive. Their venom has no antidote.” Your fingers shifted slightly, letting the little creature settle against your skin. “I rescued her from a lab. She was… experimented on. They wanted to use her, to extract her as a biochemical weapon. As a result, her venom’s thirty times more potent now. She can thrive out of water for hours. Her species’ average lifespan is 6 months, but she...” you gently rubbed a finger over one of her tentacles as naturally as you would rub the belly of a puppy. That's when he noticed that one tentacle was marked— almost as if acid was poured over it in the quest of making her a living weapon. The poor thing had a scar, one not unlike his own, “…is turning two years old soon.”

Dex swallowed. Everything you said felt too familiar.

“I’m the only handler she didn’t kill. I’m the only handler she has never stung,” you added, almost absently. “Not just because she can’t. But because she trusts me.”

Dex had a feeling you meant more than just her. 

“Just because I can use her venom to kill for me,” you went on, your voice lowering, as you ran your hand through her squishy body, “just because she’s more dangerous than anything I grow upstairs… doesn’t mean I want to use her that way.” You exhaled. “She’s suffered enough.”

Dex watched intently as you leaned forward and returned Bubbles to the tank. She drifted for a moment, then settled against a rock, her colors fading, her body going docile again, simply because you were here.

Dex saw it then: the kinship, the invisible bond, the mirror that he had when he looked at the little creature that you cared so much about. 

Like Bubbles, he was already dangerous before. But now, he could fall off buildings. He could take a hit. He could survive beyond the constraints of his species. 

And like Bubbles, for the better part of the last decade, he had been manipulated, taken advantage of, and used as a weapon for agendas of more powerful men, a solution, a last resort. People didn’t want him. They wanted what he could do, what he could survive, what he could destroy.

You had never asked that of him. You hadn’t handed him your problems like weapons to solve. You had handled them yourself.

That feeling was… foreign and disorienting in all its kindness. It didn’t slot neatly into what he understood. There was no place to file it, no rule to attach it to. It left him… exposed.

Dex stepped towards you before he fully thought about it. He was close again, like he couldn’t stand the distance anymore. His hands found you desperately, one at your waist, the other sliding up your arm like he needed to make sure you were still here.

“You didn’t…” His voice caught. “You didn’t want to use me.”

It wasn’t really a question.

His forehead dipped toward yours again, his breath uneven. Dex had never known what it meant to be wanted without purpose. And it terrified him a little, because if there was no function or role, then there was nothing to hide behind. There was nothing to blame when it inevitably went wrong. He concluded, then, that you didn’t even think this could go wrong. It was the only plausible explanation.

His voice dropped, “you just wanted me.”

Dex stayed close. After all, distance had become unnatural to him where you were concerned. His grip on your waist had changed. It was less desperate now, more certain, like he was learning how to hang on instead of bracing for loss.

He looked at you like he was still catching up. Like every piece of you he uncovered only made him want to understand more, not recoil.

“You still could,” he said, eyes glistening in awe. His thumb moved in slow circles against your side, like he needed repetition. “I still would.”

You knew that. You knew he would burn the world down for you if you just asked. 

You reached for his hand, not to steady it, but to hold. 

Your fingers laced through his, almost disarmingly. His hand tightened around yours in a reflex.

“I don’t want to,” you said.

Dex’s breath stuttered out of him. Of all the things he’d expected, all the ways this could have gone… this was the one thing he didn’t know how to defend against: Care, without cost.

He shifted closer again, until there was no space left between you, your joined hands pressed lightly between your bodies. His forehead found your shoulder this time. He wasn’t collapsing. He wasn’t even breaking. He was just resting, letting himself exist in your orbit, without needing to prove anything.

It was almost shy.

“I don’t… know what to do with that,” he admitted, voice muffled against you, smaller than you’d ever heard it. 

Your free hand came up, and settled at the back of his head. Your fingers threaded lightly through his hair, answering a question he didn’t know how to ask, “You don’t have to do anything.”

But how? 

He had always been something done with. A weapon pointed, used, unleashed. An arrow for a stronger master to wield, and more recently, a servant to his own broken mind, searching for purpose in the world. 

He didn’t know how to simply exist without rules or confines or borders or expectations of how he was supposed to be. 

You, on the other hand, made it look easy. Effortless, even. It's as if that after spending a lifetime being a mutant, you had decided that being violent and gentle were not opposites, but two sides of the same coin.

Dex didn’t know how to do that yet, but he knew, that he wanted to learn.

He turned his head slightly then, not pulling away, just enough that his temple rested against you instead. His fingers shifted in yours, tracing lightly over your knuckles.

“I think I like this better,” he murmured, almost to himself.

And for once, there was no tension in him. No trigger to pull, no violent tendency waiting to be called on.

Maybe you had always been drawn to dangerous things because you could handle them. Or maybe, it was because you were one of them.

Both Dex and Bubbles, in all their blue-ringed, lethal glory, were remade weapons too strange, too deadly for anyone else to hold. But not for you.

They didn’t have to make themselves smaller in your hands. They didn’t have to be hidden or used.

They could just… be.

In Dex’s mind, it couldn’t simply be luck. You were a mutant, you had explained, your body had never had to adapt or learn anything— you were born already ahead of them. You were built to survive them. You were made by the powers that be to endure what should have killed anyone else.

And Dex latched onto that divine intervention with frightening certainty. You were a design, not a coincidence. It was different from the way Bubbles had been remade, different from the way he had been reshaped and reinforced. You hadn’t been altered. In Dex’s mind, you had been made perfect because you were born different.

It was as if the universe had accounted for him and then, carefully, built you around that problem. You were made to love him. It was written in the stars, he was sure of it, as sure as he was that the sky was blue.

It might not be the healthiest way to think, but at least it was his own.

And as if she understood his thoughts unfolding, Bubbles moved closer to the glass, seeing Dex in a new light now. She raised her marred tentacle like a wave, then drifted once more, almost languid now, like a reluctant concession:

You’re fine, I guess.

Because you love him for being so wrapped up in seeing you again that the entire world ceased to exist. For having planned out a proposal, and for being so excited and relieved to find you alive that he ended up proposing between kisses in an alley without a ring. You even love that, because he’s feeling threatened by the other version of himself, he can’t seem to stop handing you wildlife while you’re trying to break into Peacemaker’s house. You fell in love with Adrian Chase for a damn reason, and you still love him for that damn reason. He’s an absolute fucking weirdo, but he’s your absolute fucking weirdo.

“Why the fuck is this guy even here?” He asks now, crouching beside you and leaning over to glare at his alternate self through his visor. Their suits are exactly the same, making them complete mirror versions of each other. It’s genuinely unnerving. If it weren’t for the lower, steadier way of speaking that the Other Adrian seems to have, you’re not sure you would be able to tell them apart.

“He’s here because our friends are about to be breaking and entering in Evil Chris’s evil family’s house, and we need all the help we can get. Plus, he’s broken in here before.” To get into the portal. To trick you into coming here. To kidnap you.

This isn’t the first time that thought has crossed your mind since the three of you left the apartment. The reason he’s been here before, and his willingness - as reluctant as it may be - to help you get back. Considering everything he’s done, you’d be an idiot if you weren’t at least a little suspicious. You keep your eyes on the house, but glance over at Other Adrian as you add, “and he’s not gonna do anything…nefarious. Right?”

“You make me sound like a cartoon villain.”

“You did kidnap my girlfriend, dude.” Your Adrian interjects, still irritated. Still glaring.

You shouldn’t say it. He did, in fact, kidnap you. You shouldn’t defend him. And yet…

“Okay, in his defense, which isn’t strong, you did kind of stalk me for like…months before we started dating.”

“Hey! I wasn’t stalking you. I was on patrol. It just happened to go by your apartment a lot!”

“On my fire escape?”

He ignores the question, tone defensive as he continues. “Besides, you left your windows unlocked like, all the time. I had to make sure you were safe! What if someone crazy broke in?”

“Someone crazy did break in! You jiggled the latch open- hey, I can see you raising your eyebrows behind that visor over there. Knock it off, hypocrite.”

“I’m not raising my eyebrows.”

“You’re absolutely raising your fucking eyebrows.”

“Yeah, put your eyebrows down, Evil Me.”

“He’s not evil.”

“Well he still sucks.”

“I agree.”

“You don’t, but I’ll let you have it.” Other Adrian sounds so confident, so sure of the fact, that you want to punch him. You just grit your teeth instead, rising to your feet and rolling your shoulders back.

You check your weapons out of habit, and pull your jacket a little more snugly over your shoulders. The other you had gear, a suit similar to your own back home, but there were too many…holes in it. Too many rips and bloodstains. When Other Adrian had told you that, you’d dropped the matter quickly. Even your Adrian had shut up, looking at his alternate self for once without any anger or trepidation. Pity is not a common expression for Adrian Chase. The sight of it in his eyes had rocked you a little.

Now, as you holster knives and guns in the places you would usually keep them if you were wearing your suit, you feel Other Adrian’s eyes on you, like he’s remembering the reason you’re not wearing your usual gear, too. You meet his gaze, and the weight of it nearly brings you to your knees.

“I’ll be okay.” You say, the soft words leaving your lips before you can catch them. You can’t see his face behind his mask, but you know his mannerisms. They’re so similar to your Adrian’s, if not just a little bit more subtle. You see the tenseness in his shoulders. Feel the burn of his eyes behind the visor. His hand twitches, like he might reach out and touch you.

If he does, you might let him.

The wail of a siren breaks through the silence, bringing the intensity of the moment to a screeching halt. You watch a cop car pull up to the house. Followed by another, and another.

“Shit.”

-

The cops aren’t inside. They haven’t been let inside. That’s a good sign. Maybe. Hopefully.

The fact that they’re here, and the silence coming from inside the house, that’s a bad sign.

“We’ll go in through the back.” Other Adrian says as the three of you creep around the side of the mansion, trying to stick as close as possible to the almost obnoxious amount of ivy clinging to the wall. His voice is so…commanding. There’s none of the glee or giddiness or jokes that you’re used to. He sounds professional. In control. Almost like a soldier. “The two of us will disable the threat and make sure your friends are safe. There’s a door on the other side of the house. You go in through there, into the library, and secure the portal.”

You narrow your eyes, suddenly suspicious that he wants you to split up, but it’s your Adrian that voices the question on your lips, one arm wrapping possessively around your waist. “Why can’t she come with us? She can kick ass too, you know.” He turns his face down to you, pulling you a little closer to him. “I think Evil Me might be sexist. So that means he’s a dick and he’s-“

“It’s not safe.” Other Adrian snaps, so sharp that it both shuts your Adrian up and makes you nearly jump. When he speaks again, his voice is like gravel. So low, so furious, that something tightens in your stomach. “You fucking idiot. Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch her die?” You feel your Adrian’s arm tighten around you, more protective than possessive now. “No, you don’t. God knows the stupidest version of me is the luckiest man whose ever lived and he doesn’t even fucking realize it. You can be her frog-catching little fucking fanboy all you want. I love her. I love her so much that I’m about to let you take her away from me. Don’t fucking test me right now.”

“Don’t talk to him like that.” You say, instinctive. But your voice is quiet. Your Adrian has gone very still beside you.

“Please.” Other Adrian’s voice cracks, and he’s shaking. “Please, don’t. Just don’t.”

You open your mouth to reply, but nothing comes out.

He’s really going to let you go, isn’t he? There’s no ulterior motive. No evil cartoon-villainy plan to tie you up and spirit you back to the apartment in this dimension. He’s going to lose you again, and he’s going to let it happen. For you. Because you want it.

And it’s fucking killing him. It’s ripping him apart from the inside out. You can’t see his eyes behind the visor, but you can almost feel the agony emanating from him. You can see that darkness threatening to swallow him whole.

You reach up to give your Adrian’s arm a gentle squeeze. You feel his head turn towards you.

He knows. One thing about Adrian, as oblivious as he can be sometimes, is that he understands you, just as much as you understand him. He squeezes your waist once, reassuring, and releases you. The simple gesture may as well be an entire conversation.

Go. I don’t like it, but I see it. I get it.

You move forward, boots silent on the grass, and stand before the alternate version of the man you love. He stays frozen as you reach up, and you wonder for a moment if, maybe, he understands you too.

“Hey.” You say, soft, and he’s still shaking. Hard. He doesn’t answer you, but his hands fly to your waist and his fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt almost hard enough to hurt, like he’s trying to physically keep you from being ripped away from him. “Hey, look at me.”

“Please, please, please…” he whispers, and you wonder if he’s even talking to you. If he even knows that he’s speaking.

You pull off his mask with practiced fingers. Look into the black of his eyes. He’s looking at you so intensely it feels like a physical touch. His lips are moving, barely, like he’s still begging, but no sound is coming out.

You reach up, brush your fingers through the soft curls at the nape of his neck, and pull his mouth down to yours.

He makes a noise like a sob into the kiss, and yanks you closer to him like your touch is the only way he can keep himself alive. He doesn’t kiss you roughly. He doesn’t hold you like he’s trying to crush you to him. He kisses you like he’s trying to savor every millisecond. Like maybe, just maybe, if he kisses you with enough love, enough need, you won’t leave.

You taste the salt of his tears on your lips, and another sob breaks free from him when you pull back. His fingers flex against your waist, and his forehead presses against your own.

“Please.” He whispers again, and your heart cracks. “Please. I’ll…I can…”

“I know.” You whisper back. “I know.”

“Stay with me.” One of his hands comes up to your face, and there is so much desperate hope in his eyes that it kills you. “Stay with me. I’ll protect you. I’ll make you so happy, baby. Please.” His trembling lips press against your forehead, and you feel tears prick behind your own eyes.

“I have to go home.” You wish your own voice didn’t shake. You wish this didn’t hurt. You should hate him, shouldn’t you? Why does the sight of his tears make your heart ache like this? “This isn’t my home.”

“I’m your home.” He kisses your nose, now. Your cheek. His hand combs through your hair. His other hand tightens on your waist. “I know you love me. You-you can take a hundred years to admit it out loud. I don’t care. Just be with me.”

You can’t speak. You can’t argue. It’s too hard to pull away. It cracks something vital in your chest to see the plea in his eyes. The way he clings to hope, like at the very last second you might change your mind.

You won’t. You know you won’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re sure you’ll be able to leave him, when the time comes. That doing so won’t break off a piece of you that you’ll never get back.

And as you turn back to your own Adrian, you feel a hollowness in your very bones. A pain so deep it feels permanent.

He wraps his arms around you, now, pressing his cloth covered nose against your temple and kissing you through his mask. “Sorry.” He murmurs, soothing his hand over your back. “I still hate that guy, but I promise I won’t even kill him for that. I know you’re sad.”

“You’re getting better at recognizing that.” You murmur, accepting his comfort. Letting yourself melt into it.

“It helps when you explain it.” He admits, as honest as ever. “You usually do, but I know when you’re sad because it bothers me a lot. It makes my kidneys hurt, I think. Is that a thing?”

“No.”

“Huh. You must be extra special then.”

You smile a little, pressing a kiss to the padded shoulder of his suit. He pulls you closer in response. You can feel the other Adrian’s eyes on you. You think your Adrian’s eyes are on him. You wonder if there’s pity in his gaze again.

-

It doesn’t take too long to find the library, though you blame it on luck.

Christ, this house is insane. You barely noticed the sheer size of it when you first came through the portal. Chris was so focused on showing you the rest of the town, and on getting you out of here before you were seen by any of the other occupants of the house, that you didn’t get to really look around. The library alone is crazy. How much money do these guys have?

You have about twenty seconds to marvel at the room and make sure the door is actually there. Activated. No one inside. Great.

And then you hear a crash, and a shout, followed by a lot more shouting. Yeah, that’s to be expected. Sorry Other Adrian, but your friends are too fucking chaotic and there was just no way this was going to go smoothly.

You adjust your weapons, and prepare to dart through the door to help.

And you collide with an armored chest.

You stumble backward, a noise of surprise bursting from you as you reach up to rub the spot where your head hit metal.

“Ow.” You mumble.

“You’re dead. You…they fucking killed you.”

You freeze, eyes flying up to meet Chris’s brother’s shocked face. Fuck. Fuck. Not good. Very, very not good.

You could - you should - attack him. And yet…

And yet, piece of shit or not, this is Chris’s brother. This is the man whose death was the worst thing that ever happened to your friend. And here he is. All grown up. And…huge. Like, really huge. You’ve killed bigger, sure, but killing him…

Sure, it would be fucked up of you, but the guy is a Nazi, right? You could kill him. If necessary.

You need to find Chris. You need to get to your friends. To Adrian.

“I’m a ghost.” You try, pulling your knife from your pocket and twirling it expertly between your fingers. Buy time. Let Adrian…Adrians find Chris. Find everyone else. “First of three ghosts tonight. We’ve come to teach you the error in your racist, ugly, piece of shit ways-“

He lunges. You dodge.

“Christ, I thought you’d be better at this.” You taunt, as dumb as it may be to do so. He growls, fury sparking in his eyes.

He lunges again. You dodge again. This time it’s a little harder. This time he almost catches you. But, in a move that’s more luck than skill, you manage to whip your foot out to knock him down. He’s big, and it kind of hurts your ankle, but you manage to play it off.

Can you get to your phone? Do you have time? Shit, if he weren’t looking at you with so much hatred you might be able to-

“They fucking killed you.” He repeats, so furious that the words come out as a snarl. You’re surprised by how calm you still feel. Sure, you’re aware that you need to be on your toes, and that you are definitely in real danger, but…

“Who?” You ask, cocking your head to the side with feigned and mocking innocence. You are genuinely curious. Judging by how much the guy seems to hate you, you’d kind of assumed he’d done the job himself. Fair would be fair, as callous as it may be. You probably killed a lot of his friends.

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s not possible. They ripped you the fuck apart.”

You cringe at the mental image. Twirl the knife to hide that his words affected you at all. “Sounds painful.”

“All that planning to get you alone in that alley. All those good men dead because of that shithead Vigilante.” Keith begins to climb to his feet, and you barely manage to kick him back down. The knife burns in your hand. You should use it. You can’t. Not yet. Where the fuck is everyone? “We should have killed that crazy fucker first.”

You kick him in the ribs this time. Fast. Hard. “Bit of a sore spot for me. Don’t like you talking about him like that.” You explain as he doubles over, a protective sort of rage flooding through you and making the words leave you in a low, steady voice. Adrian. That awful darkness that rips him away from himself. The pain in his eyes when he looks at you. The holes in your suit. The fact that he kept it, but couldn’t bring himself to patch it up.

“Also,” you add, twirling the knife again in what is now a distraction for yourself, a way to fidget with the weapon rather than give it a new home in the man’s neck. “You had me jumped? Kind of a fucking bitch move, don’t you think?” The way Adrian shakes when he touches you sometimes, like he’s worried you’ll break. The way he pleaded with you to stay with him. The taste of his tears on your lips.

The rage grows until it blinds you. Overwhelms you. Adrian apologizing over and over. Adrian holding you like you might vanish at any moment. The pictures of the two of you on the walls, so happy before. Before they killed you and, in doing so, killed a part of him too.

You kick Keith again. Too fast. Too uncalculated. Too clumsy with anger.

He catches your foot, and yanks you down to the ground. The knife falls from your hand as you collide with the hardwood, and he’s back on his feet in an instant. You scramble towards the weapon, but his boot lands on your wrist hard enough to make you yelp in pain.

You hear gunfire down the hall. A lot of it. Keith looks toward the door, and you use the momentary distraction to yank a smaller knife out of a sheath on your thigh and plunge the blade into his ankle.

“Fuck!” He shouts, stumbling back, and you roll to your feet and bolt towards the hallway.

He catches you before you can turn the corner, slamming you back into a bookshelf with so much force it makes you see stars. You nearly fall to the ground again, but a hand on your throat keeps you upright, squeezing hard enough to make your vision blacken at the edges.

You fight. You kick. You claw at the fingers wrapped around your neck as you choke for air.

“All those good men you killed. All those good men that other fucking psycho killed.” Keith growls, like he’s doing some kind of justice to the world. Like he genuinely believes he’s a fucking hero. “This is for them.”

When the knife plunges into your stomach, it doesn’t hurt. It just feels like…heat. Like pressure. Too much pressure. You feel your body lock up like it doesn’t belong to you, something aching through your entire core as the world seems to pause for a moment.

And then he twists the blade, and the pain explodes.

It’s so sharp and overwhelming that you can’t even scream, eyes wide as they meet his. Fingers no longer clawing, but going completely still on his hand.

When you do try to scream, something hot catches in your throat. Spills down the corner of your mouth. It tastes like iron. Like blood.

You choke again when he pulls the knife out, and then he drops you to the ground.

-