.☘︎ ݁˖ erina .☘︎ ݁˖

Sometimes, though, he spirals so badly during sex that you have to stop.

“Dex,” you whisper, taking his face in both hands when you notice his eyes are unfocused. “Baby, are you with me?”

He blinks up at you, dazed and ruined, his hands locked around your hips like he’s scared you’ll disappear.

“Who taught you that?”

Your breath hitched. “What?”

“That,” he says, voice raw. “The way you move your hands. The way you— fuck. Who taught you how to make me feel that good?”

Poor jealous, pathetic Dex.

You don’t answer him. You never gave him a name, never soothe him with details, never say it didn’t matter. You only kiss him until he stops asking, which of course means he has to find out for himself.

Dex, who stays late to research your past.

Dex builds a timeline. Dex finds addresses. Dex memorises faces.

And then Dex goes to work.

He knocks your exes out, ties them to a chair, and sits across from them in some dark room, gun resting loose in his hand as if this isn’t personal. 

“What did she like?”

They always thought he meant in your day-to-day life at first. “She liked— she liked coffee, I don’t—”

Dex would tilt his head, and sigh. “In bed.”

Sometimes they cry.

Dex hates that. Crying wastes time.

“What did you do in bed that she liked?” He rolls his eyes, already irritated.

Dex wouldn’t need to shout. Dex is patient. 

One of them says he remembers you liked being handcuffed.

Dex goes still, visibly enraged.

Yes, he asked for the info, but now he was seeing it. He’s imagining you in bed, trusting this stupid man with restraints, and it hits him so hard his vision narrows. Eventually, at the end of the night, he pulls the trigger.

He buys handcuffs on the way home. The first time he uses it on you, you squirm and whine. Music to Dex’s ears.

Another ex says he remembers you like blindfolds.

Dex has to look away for a second, breathing through his nose, because the image of you blindfolded for this man makes his blood boil. 

He slits his throat and buys one anyway. When he uses it on you, he’s pleased with the mess you made.

Another one says you like shower sex.

When Dex comes home that night, he's determined to test the theory of the man he just killed. You could barely get his name out before he grabs you by the wrist and pulls you into the bathroom.

He was right, Dex thinks an hour later, as he wraps a towel over you in the over-steamed shower, watching your legs wobble a little, you do like shower sex.

And then there’s the other question, the one right before he kills them. The one that proves Dex has gone fully insane.

He would crouch in front of them and ask, “How big are you?”

Imagine that from your exes’ point of view.

Bullseye has a gun between your eyes. Point blank. He’s standing there with that dead calm on his face, head tilted slightly, like this is a work meeting and not the last conversation of your life.

The man tied to the chair stares at him like he has misheard him.

Dex presses the barrel in a little closer.

“Show me with your hand.”

Fuck. Imagine having Bullseye standing over you, asking for your dick size because once, years ago, you fucked his girl before she was his girl.

The man’s hand comes up, trembling, thumb and forefinger spreading in the air.

Dex looks at it, then his eyes go cold.

“Don’t lie,” he rolls his eyes. “I’ll know.”

And no, Dex will never actually know.

It’s an empty threat. He would rather gouge his own eyes out than make them prove it. They were disgusting to him by default, because they were not him.

One ex actually started to desperately shift his tied hands to his zipper like he was actually going to show him.

Dex shot his foot.

“Ugh,” he scoffs. “No.”

That was not the point.

The point was that Dex knew men exaggerated. He knew the first measurement was ego, not truth.

So he waited and watched the answer get smaller.

Dex smiles to himself then, like the fucking psychopath he is.

Because he remembers the first time you sank down on him, breathless and squirming, nails digging into his shoulders, so pretty when you whispered, “Baby, wait— slow down, I need to adjust— ah, Dex, you’re s-so much bigger than I’m used to.”

He had believed you then because he wanted to.

Because he needed to.

Because he was a virgin and pathetic and so in love with you that one little sentence from your mouth could rearrange his entire brain chemistry. 

But now, he knows for sure you were telling the truth. He knows he is the biggest you ever had. He knows he was not just your sweet, nervous, pathetic virgin boyfriend that needed to be comforted by white lies. He knows you were not being kind.

You were being honest.

And boy, does it make him unbearable.

After all, his little extracurricular activities did wonders for his confidence!

He stops touching you like he’s asking permission to exist inside your body and starts touching you like he finally believes he belongs there. He's still needy, still pathetic in the sweetest way, but now there’s this ego in the way he pins your hips down.

He gets meaner about it, too, smug enough to murmur, “Too much?” with his mouth against your throat with a smile. “Need me to slow down, baby?”

And you smack at his chest for being arrogant, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t turn you on.

Because he’s your Dex.

Dex, who got there last and made himself the only one that counted.

Dex, who can hold a gun to a man’s face and ask the most humiliating question imaginable.

Dex, your pretty little psychopath. 

Dex, who comes home and melts the second you kiss him, because all that proof, all that blood still means nothing compared to you cupping his face and whispering, “You’re the best I’ve ever had.”

Because he’s attentive. Because he cares more about your pleasure than his own. Because he worships you.

And Dex believes you now.

—

For you, Dex really tried, though it manifested itself in all sorts of colorful ways.

But when Leo was born, he changed the trajectory. Enter the Three-Body Problem. 

Leo, who had been conceived during a conjugal visit. Leo, who had begun as Dex’s desperate attempt to leave a permanent piece of himself with you, to tether himself to your life from behind prison bars. Leo, who had been the only gift Dex could give you while he was locked away in a mental institution.

At first, Dex didn’t really know how to care about him.

Leo had been nothing more than an idea then. A connection, a thread tying Dex obsessively to you when everything else had been taken from him.

But then Dex met him. 

And Leo had the same eyes. Same frown. Same strange little need for order. Except Leo was good. 

That was what made Dex attached. That was what made him love him. Because Leo wasn’t just his son. Leo was a proof of concept. Leo was a toddler, who looked exactly like him, with a moral compass. He was a projection of what Dex hoped to be.

So yeah, Leo was Dex’s mirror planet, and he had joined the orbit, too.

Leo had his own gravity.

And Leo’s gravity didn’t pull Dex toward restraint. It pulled him toward protection.

With you, Dex had to try, because you could stop him.

You could say his name. You could hold his hand. You could look at him like, No, Dex. Not this.

You weren’t helpless. You could talk him down. You could make him want to restrain himself because he wanted to stay worthy of you.

But Leo is a child.

Leo couldn’t talk his father down. Leo couldn’t possibly understand what Dex was capable of. Leo couldn’t stand there and tell his father where the moral line is.

So Dex drew the line himself.

If someone threatens Leo, they're dead.

That’s it. No warning. No mercy. No debate.

Because loving Leo gave Dex a whole new reason to be dangerous.

Yes, Dex would kill for you. Of course he would. But with you, there was always the question of whether you would forgive him. Whether you would be scared. Whether he had gone too far.

With Leo, the question became much simpler.

Did it keep his son safe?

If the answer was yes, then Dex thinks it was a good thing that he had added another number to his body count. 

Leo made Dex gentler inside the house. He learned bedtime stories. He learned toast shapes. He knelt down when Leo cried. He learns how to be kinder simply by interacting with this tiny version of himself.

But outside the house, having a son made him more paranoid and ruthless.

Dex has plans for everything: If someone followed you home from nursery. If the AVTF comes knocking again. If anyone realized Leo is a mutant.

There was no scenario where Dex would wait calmly and hoped the world was kind to Leo.

Leo was different. And Dex knew what people would do to someone who was different.  And he would do abhorrent things to make sure nothing ever happened to him. 

For you, Dex tried to be gentle. For Leo, Dex became a protector. Those are two completely different trajectories. That’s the three-body problem.

For you, Dex had to be good. For Leo, Dex had to be dangerous. And somehow, both came from love. You are still his North Star. You still make him want to be better.

But Leo’s gravity pulled him in a different direction. Leo gives him an independent reason to kill, a reason that didn’t need your permission first. 

And you weren’t immune to their gravity either.

Over time, because of Dex’s gravity your idea of “good” had shifted more than you wanted to admit. You had been married to Dex for nine years, so of course that changed you. Of course loving a man like him moved the line. You had already learned to excuse things you shouldn’t have excused long before Leo was even born.

But now Leo was here. And your orbit was completely thrown off.

Because when Dex hurt people for himself, you could still tell yourself to save him. When Dex hurt people for you, you could still try to pull him back.

But when Dex killed for Leo, though? You understood why.

You told yourself it was different because it was for your son. You looked away from horrible things Dex was doing to agents because Leo was safe. You kissed blood off Dex’s skin when he came home from a day of hunting because your baby was asleep in the next room and no one took him.

And because Dex will always see you as good, no matter how malleable your morals have become, your forgiveness changed his idea of goodness. If you understand why he did it, maybe it was understandable. If you still him after, maybe he was right. If you loved him anyway, maybe he was doing the right thing by protecting his family.

You pulled Dex toward the light. Leo pulled Dex towards his most paranoid, fearful thoughts of losing his son. Dex pulled you into understanding that both could exist at the time.

So no, Leo doesn’t necessarily make Dex a better man.

Leo makes him a father.

And for a man like Bullseye, that just made him even more dangerous.

-

Now?

Your brain kept tripping over the word. 

Baby. Baby. Baby. 

Tiny socks. Sleepless nights. Appointments. 

Your body changing again. 

Leo’s cute little face looking at a newborn in your arms. Dex’s hands on your stomach. Dex, being handed the knowledge that you were carrying his baby again, and this time. He would be here to witness the process.

Oh, fuck.

Dex was the actual problem.

He was trying to be normal about it, and failing. Because when was he ever good at concealing his emotions, huh?

You told him twenty minutes ago, and told him it was nothing until you could take another test, but he kept looking at you like you were glowing. His eyes kept finding your stomach. His hand kept hovering by your back.

He kept doing tiny things, maddening things. He was bringing you water before you asked, taking the laundry basket out of your hands, watching you walk up the stairs of the building like you were already wobbly.

“Dex,” you said once, flatly.

He looked up too fast. “What?”

“Stop looking so happy.”

His mouth curled up into a smile.

You nearly threw a cushion at his head.

You were properly spiralling. You even stood in the kitchen staring at a mug for two full minutes because you couldn’t remember whether you wanted tea or whether caffeine was suddenly a horrible idea. You opened your calendar to put down one of Leo’s school events and immediately closed it again because you were reminded that your period was late. You looked at Leo eating cereal for dinner with his little spoon and almost cried because he was your baby, your baby, and how were you supposed to have another one when you still sometimes looked at him and felt like he was born yesterday. 

And then, of course, Leo overheard Dex comforting you. Dex tried, but he didn’t really help. He clearly wanted another one. 

“Mommy has baby?”

Apparently, he couldn’t hear you when you asked them to put their shoes on, but they could apparently detect a private conversation through the wall. 

You turned so fast your neck hurt. Dex froze beside you, one hand still on the counter, his face stupid and hopeful that made you want to kiss him and kill him in equal measure.

Leo stood in the doorway with a toy car in one hand, looking between you and Dex. He didn’t even know where babies came from! How did he even get the gist of the conversation? 

You crouched immediately. “We don’t know yet, baby.”

Leo frowned, unconvinced by his father’s unearned excitement. 

Because Dex, behind you, looked like he was fucking vibrating.

You could feel the horrible little smile he was trying to swallow. The emotional equivalent of hehehehehehehe. 

He wasn’t laughing at you. He would never. But he was delighted and already picturing Leo as a big brother, already picturing a tiny baby in the crook of his arm, already picturing you pregnant and tired and letting him fuss over you like a full-time occupation.

Leo frowned. “But maybe?”

“Maybe,” Dex said immediately.

You turned your head slowly. “Dex.”

He straightened, clearly still wanting to please you. “… or maybe not?”

Still, your husband wasn’t pressuring you. He knew you were scared, and because he loved you, your fear mattered more than his wants or needs. But you could see the want anyway. You could see how badly he wanted to be allowed to be happy.

And for one full day, he was.

For one day, Dex lived like there might be another little life coming. 

When the pharmacies finally opened, you bought three tests. Dex came with you, hovering at your side like a bodyguard to your uterus, carrying Leo on his hip while pretending he was not staring at the boxes like they contained his future.

Then you got home.

Then you took them.

Negative.

Negative.

Negative. 

Oh. 

Your knees nearly went soft with relief. You laughed once, then covered your mouth, then laughed again because the sound had nowhere else to go. 

You were not pregnant. Your life was not changing today.

And then you looked at Dex.

Oh, fuck. 

Outwardly, he was smiling because you were relieved, because that was the correct thing to do, because Dex would set himself on fire before making you feel bad for feeling happy. But underneath it, you saw his heart drop. The future he had let himself hold for one day just slipped through his fingers, and he tried to pretend it didn’t hurt when it hit the floor.

Oh, Benjamin. 

“Dex.”

“I’m good.”

“Don’t do that.”

He looked away, and that was worse. “It’s good. You’re relieved.”

“I am.”

“Then it’s good.”

“Dex.”

His teeth tightened. Dex was clearly trying to make himself smaller than his disappointment. Dex was trying to be good for you by wanting less.

So you pulled him in.

He came apart so quietly it almost killed you. He pressed his forehead to your stomach, and his arms wrapped around knowing your womb was empty after spending the entire night fantasising about watching you grow.

“It’s not never,” you whispered. “It’s just not now.”

He breathed out, and it came out long and shaky.

Then Leo appeared, because apparently this family had no concept of emotional privacy.

He looked at you. Then Dex. 

“No baby?” He asked, as if he knew it was the answer all along.

You swallowed a laugh and a sob at the same time. “No baby, sweetheart.”

Leo’s little face twisted, confused and offended, like everyone had missed something extremely obvious.

“It’s okay, daddy,” Leo insisted, “I’m baby.”

Dex let out a sound so pathetic and wounded that you had to press your lips together to keep from falling apart. Leo toddled over with great seriousness patting his face because he knew Dex was the one who needed comforting.

Dex wrapped one arm around him and kept the other around you. “Yeah buddy,” he murmured, “You are.”

And you stood there with your terrifying man clinging to you and your son defending his title.

That was how you knew, that when the time came, Dex would knock you up again in a heartbeat.

All you had to do was ask. 

—

Because now Daredevil can’t die. Not because Dex likes him. But because Leo would be sad.

And then you make it worse because when Dex brings it up, clearly already weird and jealous about it, you just shrug like, “Matt’s got valid points. The work he’s doing is good, even though he doesn’t finish the job.”

Which is true.

Annoying, but true.

Obviously he lacks the conviction to actually kill his enemies, and Dex does point that out. But still. Matt is trying to help people.

And Dex takes this in the worst possible way because he’s Dex.

Because in Dex’s head, it’s not just, Leo likes Daredevil.

It becomes, Leo likes Daredevil because Daredevil is good.

Then it becomes, You think Matt is good.

Then it becomes, You think Matt is better than me.

Because what if Matt’s the kind of good man you wanted, and Dex is just the thing you ended up loving by accident?

Then suddenly Dex is standing there, completely silent, spiralling himself into a void of emotional fucking ruin because his son’s favourite superhero and your (mildly) approving comment have turned into a delusional proof that you secretly wish you’d married someone else.

And the worst part is Dex can’t even be angry about Leo liking him. Leo doesn’t know. Leo’s innocent. Leo just has his tiny little moral compass and his tiny little superhero opinions, and Dex would rather pull his own teeth out than make Leo feel bad for loving something.

So all that jealousy has nowhere to go. It just sits in him. Maybe he kills a couple of task force agents while spiraling like, see? I can beat up bad guys, too. Even better, I can make sure they don’t stand up again, unlike stupid Matt and his stupid suit and his stupid no-kill rule.

When he comes home, he just sits on the bed staring at nothing because we won’t punish Leo for admiring Daredevil, and he won’t punish you for admitting Matt has a point, so he just turns it inward and starts quietly convincing himself that of course this was always going to happen. Of course you’d eventually realise Matt is the better man. Of course Leo would look at Daredevil and see a hero, then look at Dex and see whatever Dex is.

It’s a full jealous husband/dad spiral.

So you have to spend the entire night convincing him that no, baby, of course not, you do not prefer Matt Murdock over him.

It’s one AM and Dex just refuses to sleep because he can’t. You kiss the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t want Matt.”

Another kiss, this time to his cheek.

“I don’t love Matt.”

You press your lips to his temple.

“I didn’t marry Matt.”

Then, a small kiss to his brow.

“I didn’t have a son with Matt.”

That one finally gets to him, because his hands finally come up to your waist like he finally accepts your declaration of love.

“And Leo liking Daredevil doesn’t mean he loves you less,” you say. “It doesn’t mean I love you less, baby.”

Dex looks at you then, and eventually he does understand.

He’s not the biggest fan of it, but he understands.

Leo loves Daredevil. You don’t want Leo hurt. Dex doesn’t want Leo hurt. Therefore Daredevil stays alive.

That is literally the whole equation. His priorities are:

You.

Leo.

Things that make you or Leo happy.

Things that keep you or Leo from being sad.

Everyone else can die or fuck off into nothingness and he literally wouldn’t care.

And fortunately (or unfortunately) for Matt, he’s been promoted to category three by a four-year-old with a Carnotaurus lunchbox.

Johnathan was concerned. But also… Dex was so, so, so fucking hot. Like smoking fucking hot. Offensively hot to the point that Jonathan was a teeny tiny bit angry because why does a man that unstable get to look like THAT?

And then you made it worse, because you told Johnathan things.

You’d show up to his apartment to help him grade papers, glowing like you had seen heaven and then you'd dreamily tell Jonathan how good Dex was in bed. Dex is so focused. Dex pays attention to everything. Dex is so attentive to your pleasure. Dex is so eager to please. Dex never ever misses your spot. blah blah blah Dex this! Dex that!

And Johnathan would just sit there, gripping his coffee, trying to be a supportive best friend while internally screaming because oh my FUCKING GOD.

He would never admit it. Never. He’d rather chew glass. But there was a little bit of jealousy there.

Obviously he'd snap out of it because by all accounts Dex was probably a sociopath and Jonathan had a feeling he was probably a stalker, too. But a flicker of it would exist because you were sitting there describing this deranged, gorgeous man absolutely making your standards unattainably high forever, and Johnathan was only human.

Like sorry, but hearing “he’s obsessed with me, built like a greek god, and really fucking good in bed” would make anyone a little bitter. So all he could say was, “I’m happy for you,” while wishing he could bleach his brain and have a taste at the same time (Not seriously. The crazy part kinda scares him too much).

So yeah, Johnathan gets it. He HATES that he can see the appeal.

And then you had the audacity to have an “I can fix him” complex on top of it. Except it was never really “I can fix him.” It was more like, “I can be the only person he listens to while he gets progressively worse!” and unfortunately, that was your love language.

Johnathan knew after you moved in together that you were COOKED. Gone. Finished. You were not escaping that man. The red flags were waving and you were using them as bedsheets because he called you pretty girl once.

Jonathan hated that, even now, his first thought was still: yeah, okay. I don't even blame you.

-

Mostly because he knew you loved Dex too much.

Which made it especially unfair that, after seven years of being your support system, Johnathan walked into your living room and found him sitting barefoot on your couch in sweatpants, eating granola from one of Leo’s plastic bowls.

For a few seconds, nobody moved.

Leo was on the rug with his toys, the television hummed softly. Morning light fell across the coffee table, reflecting on the spoon Dex had paused halfway to his mouth. Dex looked bigger than Johnathan remembered, but still definitely Dex. He was watching the room like he knew how everything in it could be used as a weapon.

Then Dex blinked.

“Oh,” he said, like this was normal. “Hello, Johnathan.”

The wine slipped out of Johnathan’s hand and hit the rug with a dull thud. Thankfully, it didn’t break.

You came rushing out of the kitchen, guilt already all over your face. “I can explain.”

Johnathan pointed at the couch. “Is that your prison-escaping husband eating cereal in your living room?”

Dex glanced down. “Granola.”

“Leo looked up very seriously. “Daddy likes the honey one.”

Johnathan stared at Leo, then at you, then at Dex. “How long?”

You hesitated, so Dex answered for you. “A little under two months.”

“Oh, perfect.” Johnathan laughed once, high and hysterical. “A totally normal amount of time to hide your infamous murderer husband in your apartment.”

Leo considered this. “What is infamous?” As if that was the part of the sentence he should be fixating on.

Johnathan dragged both hands down his face, but did not answer your child. “Does your mother know?”

“No.”

“What happens when she finds out?”

Dex shrugged. “We told Leo not to tell anyone.”

Leo sat up proudly. “I ain’t no snitch.”

The room went silent. Even Dex looked confused.

You blinked at your son. “Where did you learn that word?”

Leo shrugged, pushing a triceratops across the rug. “Grandma’s TV shows.”

Johnathan closed his eyes. “So either Empire or The Wire.”

Dex frowned. “Your mother lets him watch The Wire?”

“It’s just on in the background sometimes,” you said weakly.

Dex looked at Leo with grave concern. “Don’t say that at school.”

Johnathan lowered his hands. “That’s your concern?”

“It’s the most immediate one,” Dex furrowed his eyebrows.

For one second, Johnathan looked like he might actually leave the apartment, walk down the stairs, change his name, and start over in another country. You made him sit before his knees gave out. You brought him water. Leo climbed onto the couch beside him and patted his sleeve with sticky little fingers.

“It’s okay, Uncle Johnathan,” Leo said. “Daddy lives here now.”

Johnathan looked at him. “He just attempted to assassinate the mayor.” Leo nodded as if he understood his concerns (he didn’t).

“It wasn’t successful,” you said quickly.

Johnathan turned to you. “You hear yourself, right?”

Dex set his bowl down carefully, looking more annoyed than anything that the stupid lawyer blocked his perfect shot.“The target survived.”

Johnathan pointed at him. “He’s not helping!”

Dex went quiet, though not because he looked sorry. Dex had never really been sorry in a way Johnathan would trust.

Years ago, Dex had hated him. Johnathan had known it immediately. He was too close to you, too familiar with your space, too good at making you laugh. Dex didn’t even give a shit that he was physically incapable of being romantically attracted to you, he just hated that he had your attention. And trust me, Dex has tried to get you “friend-break up” with him before, to no avail. 

Then, after a year of marriage, Dex had apparently decided Johnathan wasn’t competition anymore, but rather, part of your ecosystem. The same way your handbag, your favourite mug, and your headphones were part of your ecosystem. 

Your accessory, Dex had once called him.

Johnathan had been offended until he realised that, in Dex’s mind, it was the closest he got to a peace treaty.

Now that same man was sitting in your living room, wanted and barefoot, acting like no time had passed.

Johnathan shut his eyes. “I came here for advice about my boyfriend.”

You tilted your head. “What's wrong with Mark?”

“Nothing,” he said, exhausted. “He’s just my very normal boyfriend, who’s never escaped prison or been wanted by the government.”

Dex looked down at the bowl again, not caring that the granola had become incriminating.

“He asked me to move in,” Johnathan admitted. “And I love him, but I panicked and hung up. It feels like if I say yes, everything’s gonna change.”

Dex tilted his head. “How long have you been together?”

“Two years,” Johnathan said, surprised he was even curious at all.

Dex frowned. “And you don’t live together?”

“No.”

Dex looked at you. “We moved before that.”

Johnathan snapped his fingers. “Exactly. You two are not the blueprint. Who even moves in after six months?”

“Five months and eight days,” Dex said, because the difference mattered to him.

You covered your face, knowing Johnathan hated that. 

Dex leaned forward, elbows on his knees, focus narrowing on Johnathan in that unsettling way of his. He was trying to be… helpful? “Do you love him?” Dex asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes.”

“Does he make you feel safe?”

Johnathan looked down at his glass. “Yes. He does.”

Dex nodded once. “Then move in.”

“It’s not that simple.” Johnathan laughed weakly. “What if it changes things?”

“It will,” Dex said. “That’s what happens.”

You could tell he had inadvertently scared your best friend with his unfortunate wording.

You squeezed Johnathan’s shoulder. “I think he means building a life with someone is supposed to change you.”

Dex glanced at you, as if you had given the perfect translation. “Yes.”

Then Leo looked up from the rug. “Uncle Johnathan? If Mark was in danger, would you save him?”

Johnathan relaxed despite everything. “Of course I would.”

Dex watched him. “What if saving him required hurting someone?”

The room chilled, but Dex was serious. Completely serious. In his mind, love had consequences. Love was not abstract. It was action, sacrifice, and violence. If you loved someone, you’d put your body between them and harm. If that wasn’t enough, you put someone else’s body in the ground.

Johnathan looked from Dex to Leo, who was waiting with innocent curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Johnathan said carefully. “Maybe. If Mark was really in danger, then… maybe. I don’t know what I’d do until it happened.”

Leo frowned like the answer was obvious. “Mommy would.”

You choked. “Leo.”

Johnathan’s mouth flattened, despite everything, that was probably true. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

Dex looked at you, and for a second, there was pride in his face. As if saying, that’s my girl. 

Johnathan stared at the three of you. “I feel like I’ve entered a very illegal family therapy session.”

You stood abruptly. “Okay. That’s enough advice from Dex.”

Dex looked genuinely unmoved. “I asked relevant questions.”

Johnathan let out a thin, exhausted laugh. “I need one of your melatonin pills.”

You gave him one. Then you made him drink water and promised he wasn’t allowed to make any major life decisions until he had slept.

Still, the apartment settled around him in a way that made no sense. Leo’s toys clicked on the floor. The dishwasher hummed. Dex picked up his bowl again but didn’t eat, his attention flicking constantly back to you and Leo.

Jonathan's eyebrows furrowed.

Dex was still terrifying. He still felt wrong in ways Johnathan didn’t have the energy to unpack. 

But… you had always been different around him.

You now moved through the apartment like he had turned the lights back on inside you. Over the last seven years, he had seen you grieving, tired, guilty, and afraid, but now you were finally…. present, in the way he had not seen in years. When Leo climbed into your lap, you laughed into his hair. When Dex put his arm on your thighs, you smiled.

“Fine,” Johnathan rubbed at his face. “I’m not telling anyone.”

Your eyes lifted, lips pressed into a smile. “Thank you.”

“Only for Leo,” he said, because he needed it to sound firm. “Not for you. Not for him. For Leo.”

Leo beamed. “Thank you, Uncle Johnathan.”

Johnathan pointed at you. “Your mother is going to kill you.”

Dex snorted, “she can try.”

You and Johnathan both looked at him, but you just ignored the comment and smoothed down your trousers. “And please don’t tell Mark, either.”

“Please,” He laughed weakly. “Mark wouldn’t believe me anyway. What am I supposed to say? Sorry I’m weird tonight, babe, I asked my best friend for cohabitation advice and found out that Bullseye has moved back in again?”

You chuckled, relieved.

Dex went quiet, though. Then, after a moment, he said, “You should move in with him, if he makes you feel safe.”

Johnathan wanted to reject the advice on principle. But the words sat there, simple and irritatingly useful.

If he makes you safe.

He looked at the three of you, this unconventional little family curled into the middle of a disaster, and reached blindly for his water.

He still thought it was insane. He still thought it was dangerous. He still thought he needed to scream into a pillow.

But he also thought you looked the happiest you had looked in years.

So who was he to judge?

—

Your son had the X-gene.

Neither you or Dex knew the word for that. After all, there had been no test. No doctor. No explanation from someone in a white coat.

But something in your son’s blood had bloomed. Something new and strange had opened inside him with the insistence of a flower growing through the cracks in the concrete.

It wasn’t obvious. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for you to deny.

Leo didn’t glow. He couldn’t lift furniture. He didn’t shatter windows when he cried or make toys float over his bed. There was nothing obvious enough for a neighbour to notice through the curtains. Nothing you could point to and say, Yes. There. He has superpowers!

It was subtler than that, but no less strong.

Leo could feel danger coming before it arrived.

He couldn’t see the future, exactly. He didn’t get disturbing visions. But he could feel a shift in probability, a little wrongness in the air, a bad feeling in his tummy that made his small body know before the world caught up. 

He knew a mug was going to fall before it fell. He held on to the seatbelt a little tighter before the car swerved. He could tell when a table was going to break because he could sense a crack in wood before it gave. He even knew whether to trust a person because he could sense their intent.

Again, Leo’s only a child, so he didn’t have language for it yet.

He would just come to you again and again, small hand tugging at your cardigan, face pinched with worry, and say, “Mommy, my tummy feels wrong.”

And because he was your baby, you would dote immediately.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you would murmur, crouching in front of him. “Do you need water?”

Most of the time, you gave him a drink. You kissed his forehead. You told him he was okay.

Then something would happen.

A plate would fall. A phone would ring. A car would speed past the curb. It would always be something small and ordinary, but something would go wrong exactly where Leo had been staring, and you would laugh it off because what else were you supposed to do?

Just coincidence, you told yourself.

It had been happening for a long time, really.

Long before Dex ever came home, long before he broke out of prison. Long before he met his son. Back when Dex was still locked away in that mental facility and Leo was just a baby in your arms, red-cheeked and furious at the world in the way babies were.

You remembered one afternoon when Leo was 11 months old. He started screaming so suddenly, so violently, that you nearly dropped the laundry basket. He had been calm a second before. Then he was red-faced and inconsolable, tiny fists clenched, crying like the air was terribly wrong.

You tried everything: Milk. Rocking. His blanket. A lullaby.

Nothing worked.

Then you smelled smoke.

Oh. You had left the oven on.

You rushed into the kitchen with Leo wailing against your chest, heart in your throat, and turned it off before anything worse could happen.

Afterward, when the windows were open and the smoke had cleared, Leo became quiet almost instantly. He pressed his face pressed into your neck, breath hitching, like whatever had scared him was gone now.

You stood there in the kitchen, shaking a little, and told yourself what any exhausted mother would have told herself.

It was just a coincidence.

So no, you didn’t notice. But now Dex was back, and it didn’t take your husband long to clock it.

The first time he truly noticed, you were walking home from nursery with Leo’s little hand in yours and Dex half a step behind you, black baseball cap pulled low over his face. He wore it every time he came with you in public, as if tucking his face into it could make Benjamin Poindexter less recognisable. It kinda did, because people in New York didn’t often look twice. 

It shouldn’t have been romantic or normal, because your husband was a convicted felon and you were technically harbouring him and breaking a court order, but there was something tender about him standing outside nursery with his cap low and Leo’s spare jumper tucked under one arm, scanning every window and parked car while you reached up to straighten his collar.

“Stop looking like you’re about to kill someone,” you whispered, but it was fond.

Dex’s eyes moved to you from beneath the brim. “I’m watching the exits.”

“He’s gonna be okay, baby.”

He relaxed when you said it. 

Then Leo came running out of the nursery doors yelling, “Daddy!” with his backpack bouncing against his shoulders, and whatever warning you had been about to give Dex vanished under the warmth in your chest.

Dex always crouched when Leo reached him. Always. Like he refused to let his son climb toward him. Leo threw himself into Dex’s arms with absolute faith, and Dex caught him with both hands. One at his back, one at the back of his head. Even months later, Dex was so careful every time, like he still couldn’t believe something so precious wanted him as a father.

That afternoon, at the crossing, the light turned green and you stepped forward.

Leo’s fingers tightened suddenly around your hand. “Mommy, wait.”

You glanced down, smiling. “Baby, the light’s green.”

“No.” His voice changed, and that made you stop. “Wait.”

Two seconds later, a cyclist shot around the corner too fast, cutting across the curb so close the wind slapped your coat against your legs.

You jerked back, heart leaping into your throat.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you breathed, crouching in front of Leo and smoothing a hand over his hair. “Good eyes.”

Good eyes.

That's all it was, right?

Good ears. Good instincts. Good little Leo, who had always been careful, always sensitive, always oddly aware of the world around him. You kissed his forehead, and convinced yourself that was all it had been.

Dex knew better. 

Dex stood behind you, very still.

What just happened? 

Because even Dex hadn’t heard the cyclist.

And Dex was usually very aware of his surroundings. He noticed the smallest shifts before anyone else did because survival had made him almost mechanical in his awareness.

But this time, there had been nothing.

No sound because the person wasn’t pedalling nor braking. No shadow because the sun wasn’t in the right place for that. There was nothing Leo could have seen. Nothing Leo could have heard. There was nothing Leo could possibly react to.

And still, Leo had grabbed you and told you to wait.

Dex stared at his son and felt awe settle in his chest. 

See, because Dex never missed, he knew exactly what it looked like when someone had a superhuman amount of precognition.

And that was the day he began to suspect Leo had that.

Still, Dex said nothing yet and started watching.

Not coldly, and Leo never felt studied. Dex would have cut his own hands off before making his son feel like a human experiment. But you noticed the way Dex’s attention narrows, the way his eyes followed Leo when he suddenly looked up from colouring.

Leo told you not to put a cup near the books right before your elbow knocked it down. Leo told Dex to move right before the picture frame in the hall slipped from its hook and smashed exactly where he had been standing. Leo refused to walk down one street after going to the dentist, planting both feet on the pavement with stubborn, tearful certainty until you sighed and took the long way home. Five minutes later, sirens were wailing in that direction and a sinkhole had opened.

Once, Leo grabbed your leg while you were drinking tea.

“Not that mug,” he said.

You looked down. “Why?”

“It’s too hot.”

“I know, baby. It has tea in it.”

Leo frowned, frustrated in that helpless way children got when adults misunderstood the only words they had. “Put it down, mommy.”

You did.

The handle cracked off when you set the mug down.

Tea spilled across the counter. You jumped back with a startled laugh that came out too high and too thin. Dex, standing by the sink, didn’t move at all.

Leo simply went back to colouring, pleased with himself.

“Well,” you said, grabbing a towel with hands that were shaking. “That mug was old.”

Dex said your name. 

“Yeah?” You titled your head up to see your husband with his eyebrows raised. 

“You saw that.”

“I saw a mug break.”

“Leo knew.”

“Leo guesses things.”

“He’s not guessing,” Dex insisted. 

“He’s intuitive, Dex!” you snapped, more frightened than angry. Dex looked at you, then past you. “That’s all.”

Leo was on the living room rug, making two dinosaurs march across the carpet, completely unaware that his parents were whispering about the possibility that he didn’t work like normal people did. 

Dex lowered his voice. “He’s enhanced.”

“No,” you said immediately, stepping closer. Your hand found his chest, like you could hold the words inside him before they became real. “No, sweetheart. He’s just… good with people. He’s always been like that.”

Dex didn’t answer. That was worse.

You kissed his cheek, almost desperate. “He’s just Leo.”

And Dex let you believe it, but not because he believed it too.

It’s because in some fucked up way, he was afraid of what that meant. Afraid you would look at Dex and think he had given you this: A powered son. A hunted son. 

So he swallowed the argument for you. Because he couldn’t risk scaring his North Star away.

He only looked at Leo.

Leo with Dex’s eyes and your kindness. Leo who liked apples sliced thin. Leo who cried and expected comfort to come. Leo who used whatever lived inside him to keep cups from breaking and you from stepping into danger.

Dex’s hand settled at your waist.

“He’s just our baby,” you whispered again.

Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, eyes still on his son.

“I know,” he said.

And that was exactly why he was terrified.

Dex started testing it with games, but it was never cruel, and it would always make his son giggle. 

He would hide a coin in one hand. “Which one?”

Leo pointed before he even looked up, smiling. “That one, Daddy.”

Correct.

He would place a cup too close to the counter’s edge, and Leo, who hadn’t been looking before, would look up from his crayons, stumble over, and push it in. Two seconds later, your hand knocked the exact spot that would’ve tipped it over.

Correct again.

A toy car behind your heel.

“Mommy, wait.”

A loose nail on the floorboard where Dex was standing.

“Daddy, move.”

Then Dex started realising that Leo didn't react to everything.

A stranger would drop coffee at the park, and Leo kept eating his biscuit. Another child tripped at nursery, and Leo only looked up after the crying started.

But with you and Dex, he always knew.

So Dex started hypothesising, in the sweetest way, that love anchored his juvenile powers, because he simply couldn’t control it yet. He couldn’t predict lottery numbers or huge world events. For now, he just got little flashes around the people he was attached to. His brain simply marked mommy and daddy as important and started warning them when something would go wrong.

Still, you continued to be in denial until you simply couldn’t deny it anymore.

It happened on a rainy afternoon. The apartment smelled faintly of damp coats, crayons, and the books you had brought home from work to repair. Leo was at the kitchen table colouring a stegosaurus blue. Dex was by the windows, checking the lock again, because he just had to. 

You were reaching for the heavy glass mixing bowl on the top shelf when Leo’s head snapped up.

“Mommy, no.”

You paused, hand lifted. “What?”

His crayon rolled from his fingers. “No. Don’t.”

You smiled tiredly. “It’s okay, baby. I can reach.”

“No!”

And because Dex realised what his son was saying, he moved at the same time Leo shouted.

The shelf gave way without warning. 

One moment it was holding. The next, wood cracked, glass slid, and Dex’s arm locked around your waist, dragging you back so hard your feet left the floor. The bowl hit the counter exactly where your face had been and exploded into glittering fragments.

For one long second, the kitchen went silent.

Rain tapped against the window. Glass ticked softly as it settled across the counter. Leo stared at the mess with both hands over his mouth, eyes enormous and wet.

Then he started to sob.

Not because of the noise, but because he had known and you hadn’t believed him. But daddy did, though. 

You stood in Dex’s arms, heart hammering, your body still trying to catch up to the fact that you would have been hurt if Leo hadn’t screamed and Dex hadn’t reacted to said screaming.

You turned slowly and looked at your son.

Your baby. Then you looked back at Dex.

He was pale. “No,” you whispered, but it was already weaker than before.

Dex said nothing.Your fingers twisted in his shirt.

“No, okay. Okay.” Your voice cracked. “Maybe you have a point.”

Dex closed his eyes for half a second, bracing for impact, for you to break down. But you… didn’t. 

You stayed there, calculating your next steps instead.

Then Leo cried, “Mommy,” and both of you moved toward him.

Dex reached him first. Leo launched himself into Dex’s arms and buried his face in his shoulder, sobbing so hard his little body shook.

“I’m sorry,” Leo cried.

Dex’s face changed completely.

“No,” he said at once, rough and steady. “No, you did good.”

Leo shook his head.

“You told Mommy,” Dex said, one hand firm at the back of his head. “You protected her.”

Leo had saved you, Dex thought.

Leo had saved the woman Dex had built his whole life around. His North Star. The proof that he could be loved and a guiding light for his compass.

That night, Leo slept between you.

Dex didn’t sleep at all.

You knew because whenever you opened your eyes, his were fixed on the bedroom door. One arm was stretched across both of you, his hand resting lightly over Leo’s back. 

You reached across Leo and touched Dex’s wrist.

“Baby,” you whispered.

His eyes moved to you.

“For now, we keep his powers out of sight,” he insisted.

You should have argued. You almost did. But then Leo whimpered in his sleep, and both of you went still until he settled.

And it was fine for a short while. 

Then, two weeks later, someone knocked on the door of your apartment.

You were in the living room, still in your work clothes from the library, folding Leo’s tiny jumpers on the sofa. Leo sat on the rug with his dinosaurs lined up in a careful parade. Dex was in the kitchen, cutting garlic for dinner.

The knock came again.

You stood automatically. “I’ll get it.”

Leo’s head snapped up and the colour drained from his face. “Mommy, don’t.”

You stopped.

He scrambled to his feet, knocking over two dinosaurs. His lower lip trembled before the tears came. “Bad people, mommy.”

Dex looked up from the kitchen, and the air went cold.

“Leo,” Dex said, voice low. “Come here.”

Leo ran to you instead, sobbing into your skirt. “They’re bad. They’re bad people.”

Dex walked across the room without making a sound and looked through the peephole.

You watched his face empty.

“How many?” you whispered.

“Four.”

Your mouth went dry. “Who is it?”

Dex stepped back from the door. “Two from Department of Damage Control. Two Anti-Vigilante Task Force.”

For a second, you could not think.

But then, the realisation hit you. 

They knew.

They knew about Leo.

The Department of Damage Control and the Anti-Vigilante Task Force didn’t send four agents to knock politely on a librarian’s door by mistake. They were not here for Dex, because they didn’t even know he was here. If they had been here for your husband, there would have been sirens, guns, a perimeter, orders shouted through a bullhorn.

No.

They had come for your son.

The knock came again, harder this time.

“Ma’am?” a voice called from outside. “We need to speak with you about your child.”

Dex’s eyes went dark.

You crouched in front of Leo, both hands on his little shoulders. He was crying so hard he could barely breathe.

“Baby,” you said, forcing your voice to stay gentle. “Did something happen at nursery?”

Leo’s face crumpled. “I don’t know.”

Dex crouched beside you, controlled and terrifyingly soft.

“Leo,” he said. “Did you tell anyone something was going to happen before it happened?”

Leo nodded miserably.

Your stomach sank.

“Miss Clara,” he whispered. “She was standing on a chair for the picture wall. I told her get down.”

You pressed a hand to your mouth.

Dex’s eyes didn’t leave Leo. “And did she?”

Leo nodded, tears running down his cheeks. “The chair broke. But she got down first. She didn’t fall. I helped.”

Oh.

Of course he had. Of course your sweet boy had saved his nursery teacher and thought that was only good. He didn’t know his kindness could become evidence of his otherness. He didn’t know a frightened adult could call a number and report a superpowered individual. He didn’t know that saving someone at school could put uniforms at your door by dinner.

Miss Clara was his favourite teacher.

Leo talked about her all the time. Miss Clara said this. Miss Clara liked that. Miss Clara thought his drawing was good. Miss Clara let him be line leader on Thursdays.

So when he said her name, your stomach dropped before you even understood why.

“Leo,” you asked carefully, “was this the first time you told Miss Clara about… knowing things?”

Leo frowned like he was trying to remember.

“Ummm.” He looked up, all innocent. “I told her the green marker was going to run out and then it did.”

Your hand tightened around your mug. “And?”

“And I told her not to put the scissors there because Mis was gonna knock them off.”

You went very still, but Leo kept talking.

“And then the desk fell but not on anyone because I told Miss Clara to move it first.”

Shit.

Shit.

That was enough.

A marker running dry could be a lucky guess. Scissors falling could be a coincidence. But a desk? A desk falling exactly when your four-year-old said it would?

That was enough for Clara to notice. Enough for her to remember every strange little thing Leo had said before an accident happened. Enough for her to see the pattern you were trying to hide.

This wasn’t a slip-up.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Fuck,” you whispered, low enough for Leo not to hear.

Dex looked at you.

“She must have said something,” you breathed. “She must have called someone.”

Another pound on the door. “Open the door, ma’am.”

Dex stood.

For one heartbeat, he looked down at Leo, and the father came through the monster.

Leo looked up at him. “Daddy?”

Dex crouched again and touched the side of Leo’s face with two careful fingers. “You did good,” he said, then pointed at the doors. 

“Did they come because I told.”

“No.” Dex’s voice was steady enough for a child to hold onto. “They came because they’re bad people.”

Leo hiccupped, still trembling.

He looked at you, and the certainty in his eyes told you everything before he said it. “Take him to the bedroom and hide. Don’t come out until I say so.”

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to.

They had come for your child. They had come because Miss Clara had called, and the call center had put something in a report. Someone had typed Leo’s name into a system, because somewhere in some government database your four-year-old had become a liability.

Dex wouldn't let them leave with that knowledge intact.

You carried Leo down the hall and locked the bedroom door behind you.

Then the second lock.

Then you dragged the dresser in front of it with shaking hands while Leo sobbed into his plush rabbit.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, even though your voice was thin. “It’s okay, baby. Look. Bunny’s here. And Mr. Stegosaurus. Remember? He protects the bed.”

Leo sniffled, curled against your lap on the rug while you gathered every plushie you could reach and built them into a little wall around him.

Rabbit. Dinosaur. Bear. The ugly blue thing Uncle Jonathan bought him that no one could identify but Leo loved anyway.

“There,” you said, trying to smile. “Everybody’s here.”

Outside, the voices rose.

Then came the first violent sound: metal through air.

Something hit the wall hard enough that you flinched. Leo did too, but only for a second.

You pulled him closer, one hand over his ear, your own breath shaking in your chest.

“Don’t listen,” you whispered. “Look at me, sweetheart. Look at Mommy.”

But Leo’s crying had started to quiet, though.

That was… strange.

The more loud, violent, and frantic the sounds outside became, the less panicked Leo seemed. The agents shouted. Something crashed. You felt your own terror climbing up your throat, hot and choking, but Leo’s little body slowly stopped shaking.

He lifted his wet face from your cardigan. “Mommy.”

“I’m here.”

“Mommy, Daddy’s okay,” he said with absolute certainty, as if saying the sky was blue or two and two is four. 

Your hand froze in his hair as you heard another slicing sound.

Your stomach turned.

Leo touched your cheek with his small, damp fingers. “Daddy’s okay,” he said again. “Don’t be scared.”

You stared at him.

He was… reassuring you?

Your four-year-old son, surrounded by plushies on your bedroom floor while violence unfolded beyond the door, was trying to soothe you because he could feel something you couldn’t.

Because he knew that Dex would make it back to you.

You took in a shaky breath, and it broke halfway down. “Okay,” you whispered.

Leo nodded, serious and tear-streaked. “Daddy wins.”

Your laugh came out small and wrecked, almost a sob. “Yeah,” you breathed, pressing your forehead to his. “Daddy wins.”

So you held him tighter through the last of the shouting, through the silence that came after, through your own heart hammering so hard you thought it might split your ribs.

Two hours later, Dex knocked on the door and told you it was safe.

When you got out, Dex was in the hallway with damp sleeves, wet hair at his temples, and a freshly changed shirt. The room smelled of lemon cleaner and disinfectant. There were little dents and knife marks on the wall, but otherwise, it was as if the agents were never here at all.

Leo, however, had slept through the last hour. You had never seen him that exhausted before. Not even after nursery. Not even after tantrums. Not even after crying himself sick from a nightmare.

He had gone heavy in your arms, his little body giving out like he had burned through all its energy. You kept one hand on his back, feeling the uneven rise and fall of his breathing, and wondered if he got so tired because he had been reaching for Dex the whole time.

Checking on him. Feeling for him. Actively using whatever powers inside him to make sure Daddy was still there, still safe, still winning.

This was Dex’s gift to him, you realised. Not innocence, not really, because the world had known too much. Dex would and had killed for him, and after that, he would clean the floor. He even lined Leo’s dinosaurs neatly beside the sofa, the way he liked it. The knives were back back in the block. There was nothing for your baby to wake up and see.

Dex had taken all of it on his shoulders instead.

You stood in the doorway, still shaking, and looked past him into the apartment that looked like safety, if you did not think too hard about what safety had cost.

Your apartment was not far from the Hudson, so you knew their bodies had sunk to the bottom by now. 

You looked up to see your husband gently smiling at you.

He was pleased with himself, you realised. 

Not in a gleeful way. Not like he had enjoyed the mess for its own sake.

But he was satisfied that he was able to protect his family. 

And in the brutal logic of his mind, killing the people who came for his child had made him feel like a good person. To be fair, that was not entirely false.

For once, his violence had a reason that was a righteous reason that he chose for himself. It hadn’t been because someone ordered him to, or punishment, or survival. It had been fatherhood. It had been protection. 

“They’re gone,” he said, and you believed him.

Your knees weakened, and Dex caught you before you could fall. His arms closed around your waist, careful and firm, and you pressed your forehead to his clean shirt.

You kissed him. Softly at first, then harder when his hands tightened at your waist. Dex made a broken sound against your mouth, like you had given him permission to come home after becoming the worst part of himself for you.

When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. “M’ glad he’s asleep.”

You could only nod and look at your son. Sleeping through a quadruple homicide? That’s Benjamin Poindexter’s son, alright. 

That was the frightening intimacy of loving your husband. Not that Dex would kill for you. You had always known that.

It was that, tonight, you truly understood why it made him feel righteous. Why it made him feel useful. Why it made him feel good.

From the bedroom, Leo sighed in his sleep.

Both of you turned, and together, you went back to him.

Leo was curled in the middle of your bed, rabbit tucked beneath his chin, face peaceful. Dex crouched beside him and brushed one careful finger over his hair.

You climbed into bed on one side of your son. Dex followed on the other. Leo rolled toward him instinctively, and Dex’s whole posture softened.

He wrapped one arm around Leo and reached for you with the other.

For once, he looked peaceful. After all, he had already made a decision: Tomorrow, he would start hunting every fucking agent in New York.

Because as long as they lived, you and your son would never truly be safe.

And Dex couldn’t sleep inside a world where that was true.

—end.

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

Series specific taglist: @genya1617 @riverjane-d 

Not in the sweet, sentimental way, though there was plenty of that, too. But he was satisfied in that department. After all, he now spent most of his evenings cuddling up to you and Leo, being a father, being a family.

No, he missed you in the way that made his teeth grind when you walked past him in one of his old shirts that had gotten too tight for him. He missed you in the way his hand would find your hip in the kitchen, fingers digging in for half a second before Leo came barrelling in with a toy dinosaur and a very urgent question about whether sharks had friends.

You had a sex life. It was just… hidden, as it should be with a child in the house. It had become a series of quickies instead of what Dex called “proper” sex.  

Sometimes, it was a hand over your mouth in the ensuite bathroom when Leo had his one-hour naps. Sometimes, it was Dex on his knees between your thighs during Leo’s nursery hours, one eye still half on the clock because pick-up was at three. Sometimes, you were bent over on the mattress with the TV just to hide the sound, Dex pressed against your back, breathing hot against your ear as you whispered, “we have to be quiet, baby.” After all, it was two AM and Leo was fast asleep. 

He hated it.

Well, not the sex. Never the sex.

He hated having to hold back. He hated having you biting your own wrist because you couldn’t make noise. He hated stopping when you were both still coming down from a high because the nursery called to say Leo had eaten half a crayon. He hated pretending he didn’t want to drag you back to bed every single time you smiled at him over your coffee.

So when Jonathan finally moved in with his boyfriend and mentioned, casually, that the second bedroom was finally set up, Dex said, “Leo could sleep over there.”

“Oh, baby,” you said, nearly melted. “You’d let him do that?”

Dex blinked.

You looked at him like this was growth. Like this was him learning to trust the world, one sleepover at a time.

“You trust him,” you said, smiling, folding one of Leo’s tiny shirts, looking at him like he had just taken some huge emotional step forward. Like he was healing. Like this was about trust and healthy boundaries and letting your son spend time with people who loved him.

Dex stared at you for one long second. Then he said, “Yes.”

Which was not technically a lie.

He did trust Jonathan because you trusted Jonathan.

That was how Dex’s world worked. He didn’t really believe in people. He believed in you. If you said Johnathan was safe, then Johnathan was safe enough. With precautions.

After all, already had a tracker in Leo’s shoe.

Just in case.

But you didn’t need to know that right then, because you were smiling at him like he was becoming a better man, and Dex didn’t have the heart to tell you that his intents were significantly less noble.

You bit your lip. “That’s really good, Dex.”

Dex nodded once, solemnly, like his motives were not currently dragging themselves through every filthy thought he had been forcing down for months.

You asked Jonathan if he could take Leo for one night.

Then Dex, with absolutely no shame, asked for two.

Jonathan squinted at him and said yes, as if saying I know what you’re doing but I just can’t prove it yet. 

“Two?” you asked later, amused.

Dex adjusted Leo’s overnight bag like the placement of his pajamas was a matter of national security. “He likes Jonathan.”

That was how Leo ended up being picked up by Uncle Jonathan on a Friday night. You kissed Leo goodbye at the door and told him to be good. Dex crouched down, fixed the strap on his bag, and said, very seriously, “Call Mommy if you need anything.”

Leo nodded. “Okay, Daddy.”

“And don’t open the door when Uncle Jonathan’s not there.”

“I know.”

“And if there’s an emergency—”

“Dex,” you said gently.

Dex stopped.

Leo hugged him around the neck. “I’ll be okay, Daddy.”

For one second your heart ached because he really was trying. He really did love him. He really was letting him go.

Then the door shut, and the apartment was quiet.

You turned to Dex with a kind smile. “I’m proud of you.”

Dex lifted his eyes to you, sheepish and loaded all at once, though the former didn’t last very long.

And that was when you realized.

Oh.

Oh.

That was not the look of a man reflecting on his progress as a father. That was the look of a man who had just successfully cleared the house.

“Dex,” you said slowly.

He stepped toward you.

You tilted your head “You did not send our son to my best friend’s place just so you could—”

“Yes.”

Your mouth fell open. “Benjamin.”

“You trust Jonathan,” he said, calm and absolutely shameless, even though you only called him that when you were annoyed. “Leo is safe.”

You folded your arms. “And?”

Dex’s eyes dropped to your mouth. “And I miss my wife.”

That shut you up. Because fuck, when said it like that... 

It wasn’t charming or teasing. It wasn’t even fully dirty at first. Just honest and hungry in a way that made your stomach turn over.

“Dex…” you whined a little as his arms wrapped around you.

“I’m sorry,” Dex said, the apology coming out almost muffled against the side of your neck. His hands were gripping, careful at first, like he was trying to prove he could behave even while every part of him clearly had no intention of doing so.

Fuck. 

“Mmm. I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured again, mouth brushing the sensitive place beneath your ear. “I just wanted time alone with you.”

You were supposed to stay mad.

Really, you were.

Because he had let you stand there, proud of him, all wide-eyed with affection, while he stood in front of you pretending this was some great parental milestone and not a tactical operation.

“You are unbelievable,” you said, but your voice had already lost too much of its edge.

Dex noticed and used this time to slide under the hem of your shirt, palms warm against your waist, thumbs pressing into skin like he had been thinking about doing it all day. Maybe all week. Maybe for months.

“We have sex,” you managed, even as your head tipped back before you could stop it.

Dex kissed down your throat, devastatingly patient. “Not like this.”

Your breath caught.

He lifted his head just enough to look at you, and the expression on his face was too soft to be smug and too hungry to be innocent. His eyes moved over you like he was remembering every version of you he had ever had.

“Not like before,” he said. “Not like the old apartment.”

Your mouth went dry.

“The old apartment?” you repeated, weakly, because apparently your body had decided to betray every principle you thought had.

Dex’s fingers flexed against your ribs, trailing the line of your bra, pawing and unhooking it at the back.

“Yeah,” he said, and there was a little smile in his voice now, like he knew exactly what he was doing to you. “When I could have you wherever I wanted.”

“Dex.”

“The couch,” he said, kissing the corner of your mouth. “The kitchen counter, the hallway, that stupid little table you kept saying we were going to break.”

You swallowed. “We did break it.”

Dex’s smile finally fully formed on his mouth. “Yeah.”

You should have pushed him away. You should have told him that this was not the point, that he could not just send Leo away for two nights and then look at you like that and expect you to forget you were annoyed.

But his hands were under your shirt now, and his mouth was on your jawline, and his body was crowding yours back against the door like he had been waiting forever to stop pretending he was a reasonable man.

“You used to make so much noise for me,” he murmured.

Your stomach flipped. “Benjamin.”

“I know,” he said immediately, smaller this time. One hand came up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheek with a tenderness that made the heat tummy pool low. “I know. I’m sorry.”

And he was.

He was sorry. He knew he had been selfish. He knew this had been more about him than he had let on. But he also looked at you like he had missed you so badly it had been eating him alive .

“I love being his dad,” Dex said, forehead pressing to yours. “I do. I love him. I love him so much I don’t know what to do with it half the time.”

“I know,” you whispered.

His eyes shut for a second. “But I miss you,” he said. “I miss this. I miss not having to stop. I miss not having to listen for footsteps. I miss having you without half my brain waiting for Leo to wake up.”

Your anger dipped so fast it was almost embarrassing.

Because you knew Dex loved Leo completely. He loved being a father in the only way Dex could love anything, which meant his entire nervous system had become a weapon. 

But he loved you first. He had loved you before the nursery bags and bedtime stories and little shoes by the door. He had loved you before this spine was inhuman, before Fisk took you. He loved you in that old apartment, on every surface, in every second for the rest of his life.

And he missed his wife. Not Leo’s mommy. No, he got her every day. And though he loved you now more than anything in the world, he missed bratty, whiny, car-sex-in-the-FBI-garage you.

“You could have just told me that,” you pouted.

Dex opened his eyes. “Would you have said yes to two nights?”

You stared at him and sighed, though your lips twitched before you could stop them. “Unbelievable.”

“I know.”

“You put a tracker on him, didn’t you?”

Dex went very still, and you sighed.

“It’s a very small tracker,” he managed.

“Oh my God.”

You wanted to be mad again. You really did. You wanted to lecture him about boundaries and normal parenting and how other fathers managed sleepovers without turning them into covert security operations.

But then he kissed you again, sweet and apologetic, and your hands slid up his chest anyway.

Why were you mad again?

Something about growth. Something about trust. Something about your husband being a paranoid, tactical, emotionally stunted man who loved your son so much it scared him and wanted you so much he had apparently planned an entire weekend around it.

“You’re still in trouble,” you whispered against his mouth.

Dex nodded. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to just fuck your way out of this.”

His hand slid around your waist, pulling you closer.

“No?” he asked, unconvinced.

“Hmm,” you said, already breathless.

Dex kissed the corner of your mouth, then your cheek. Then, he nipped at your lower lips. 

“Okay,” he murmured. “Then I’ll make it up to you.”

—

Five minutes later, you were on the kitchen counter, thighs trembling around Dex’s shoulders, one hand braced behind you and the other twisted helplessly in his hair.

He had gone to his knees like worship.

He was not even pretending like he was anything other than starved for you. His hands gripped your hips hard enough to keep you exactly where he wanted you, dragging you closer every time your body tried to squirm away from the intensity.

“Dex,” you mewled, and your voice cracked on his name.

Your hand flew to your mouth out of habit. Out of pure, pathetic muscle memory.

The second you did it, Dex stopped.

Not fully, but just enough to make you feel the loss, enough for his mouth to hover against your core while he made the most wrecked, desperate sound you had ever heard from him.

A whine, you realized, frustrated and almost hurt.

His fingers closed around your wrist, gentle but firm, pulling your hand away from your lips, pinning them to the marble. 

“No,” he breathed, voice ruined. “Baby, don’t do that.”

You stared down at him, already dizzy, already too far gone for this conversation.

“The neighbours,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes lifted to yours, deeply devoted, “they won’t hear.”

You blinked. “What?”

He kissed the inside of your thigh, tender enough to make you shiver.

“They won’t.”

Your brain struggled through the haze of his tongue lapping you, like kitten licks for now. It would be adorable if it wasn’t somewhere so fucking obscene. “Dex. What does that mean?”

“I soundproofed the shared walls.”

For one second, everything stopped. From your breath to your thoughts to your ability to pretend you were still even remotely in control.

“You what?”

“Last week,” he said, as calmly as if he had changed a lightbulb. “When you were at work.”

You stared at him. And the bastard looked up and looked proud.

“Oh my god,” you whispered. “You had a whole fucking game plan.”

His hands tightened around your thighs. “Hmm.”

“So you could hear me?”

His eyes shifted, almost wicked. That was the wrong question. Or maybe it was exactly the right one.

Dex’s mouth parted slightly, his breath warm against you, and suddenly he looked less like your husband and more like a man who had been surviving on scraps for months and had finally been given permission to feast.

“So I wouldn’t have to stop,” he said.

Your whole body went weak.

Fuck, it worked. 

“You’re insane,” you said, but it came out like praise.

Dex smiled against you.“I know.”

“You’re actually insane.”

“I know.”

You opened your mouth to argue. But then he pressed his tongue flat against you and the argument died immediately.

Your fingers tightened in his hair, head tipping back. The first real sound that left you was small, shaky, almost embarrassed.

Dex groaned like it hurt him.

“Mm, there,” he murmured, dragging the word against your skin. “That’s it.”

You tried to look down at him, but the sight nearly undid you.

Dex on his knees in your kitchen, sleeves pushed up, hands spread possessively over your thighs, face flushed with hunger and triumph. He looked focused, like the entire world had narrowed to you, your body, your voice, and the way you fell apart when he refused to let you hide from him.

You made another sound, louder this time.

His eyes shut.

“Fuck,” he breathed, almost reverent. “I missed that.”

The heat in your face burned worse than anything else.

“Dex—”

“No,” he said, and his hand slid up to your waist, holding you steady when you nearly slipped against the counter from all the slick mess you were making. “Don’t get shy now, baby.”

You shuddered.

He kissed you down there again, slower, meaner, sweeter somehow, like he was proving a point.

Fuck, he was right.

You’d forgotten how loud you used to be.

You’d forgotten the old apartment, the nice one Dex used to have before you, the thin curtains, the table, the way Dex used to fuck you in every surface and like he needed to mark the whole place with proof that you loved him. You’d what it felt like to have nowhere to be quiet for. 

You broke on a gasp, and this time you didn’t cover your mouth.

Dex looked up at you like you had given him something holy. “That’s my girl.”

And then he kept going.

After that, Dex got worse.

Because once you stopped covering your mouth, once you let him hear you, he lost whatever restraint he had been pretending to have.

After you came on his mouth on the counter, he wasted no time bending you over.

When you yelped, he only smiled.

“That’s it,” he said, voice rough. “Don’t hide from me.”

“Dex—”

“Missed this,” he said, stretching in you as you let out a lewd whine. “Missed you being needy for me.”

There were rules, of course.

Leo’s room was out of bounds, obviously. It was a no brainer. The couch was out too, because Leo played there too much, built pillow forts there, watched cartoons there, fell asleep there with sticky fingers and his dinosaur blanket. 

Most everything else was fair game.

The whole weekend became heat and orders and laughter that kept turning into gasps. You were on top of him half the time, because he asked you to. You scratched your nails down his back hard enough that his breath caught and his eyes went unfocused for half a second.

Then he laughed, pleased with himself. Clearly, it didn’t take much for you to get back into form.

“Oh,” he murmured, almost smiling as he tried to edge himself in you yet again. “T-there she is.”

“Shut up.”

“No.” His hands found your hips. “Fuck, I missed you mean.”

He got worse when you pulled his hair. Worse when you told him what to do. Worse when you got impatient and shoved at his shoulder, because Dex, terrifyingly, liked being handled by you. He liked being told where to go. He liked being praised when he listened. Still, he would switch the roles in a heartbeat if that was what you wanted.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured later, voice ruined against your ear, fingers deep in you. “You can give me one more.”

“Dex, I…”

“You used to be so good at this, huh? Going again when I tell you to.” His mouth brushed nipped at your jaw. “I know you still are.”

Your whole body went hot. “You’re disgusting.”

“I know.”

“Filthy.”

“I know.”

And that was the thing. He kept saying it so shamelessly, knowing he had nothing else to hide behind. Fuck, he looked so conceited once he realise he’d pulled this off.

By Saturday night, you were wrecked and giddy and half-feral, wearing his shirt badly and telling him he was the most deranged husband alive.

Dex only kissed your shoulder and said, “But I’m yours.”

As if that explained the way he melted when you praised him, then got worse when you pulled him closer and told him not to be so gentle.

By Sunday morning, the apartment was ruined in invisible ways.

There was no evidence left, because everything had to be spotless before Leo came home. The sheets were changed. The counters were wiped and bleached. The hallway was clear and the bathroom was scrubbed. So really, nothing was out of place except the ache in your thighs, the scratches on his back, and the marks you both left on each other's bodies.

But hey. Mission accomplished, right?

Dex laid beside you, one hand on your waist, looking pleased with himself.

“You’re smug,” you mumbled.

“I’m happy.” He smiled into your shoulder.

You closed your eyes, exhausted, sore, and deeply annoyed by how peaceful you felt.

Then you thought to yourself, traitorously: Leo was gonna have sleepovers once a month. 

—

Leo came running in that afternoon, bag bouncing against his little back, dinosaur clutched under one arm.

“Mommy!”

You crouched just enough to catch him, kissing the top of his head as he barreled into you. “Hi, baby. Did you have fun?”

He nodded quickly, already halfway through his report before you had even finished hugging him. “I had pancakes and Mark has a biiiig plant and I slept in the blue room and I wasn’t scared.”

“That sounds amazing,” you said, smoothing his hair back.

Leo pulled away just enough to look at you properly. Not at your clothes or at anything obvious. He just looked at your face, with that strange little focus he got. 

His brows pinched together. Maybe it was his superhuman precognition, knowing your legs would hurt when you got up. Maybe you just looked a bit… drained.

“Mommy’s tired.”

You went very still. Behind you, Dex froze, too.

Jonathan, still standing by the door with Leo’s overnight bag in one hand, looked between all three of you and raised an eyebrow.

You smiled too quickly. “A little bit, sweetheart.”

Leo turned to Dex with the full seriousness of a child delivering medical advice. “Daddy, we should let Mommy rest today.”

“Good idea, Leo.” Dex’s mouth curved up, but he recovered quickly, pressing a kiss to Leo’s temple like he was not the entire reason Mommy needed rest in the first place.

Jonathan looked at Dex. Then at you. He raised his hands and stepped back with a sigh like, I knew it. 

“I don’t want any details.”

—end.

Dex taglist : @itsdynotdaddy @diabolicallydownbad @doesanyonereadthis @meicore @pixie2k5 @bibiishin @starlitflora @pearlstiare @glorybeat @stardustworlds @castawaybarnes @supervampireflame @not-the-teen-witch @billybonesxx @ultimatewolverine @treetrees-world-of-imagiation @bitch-spaghetti-o @lostinthes4uce @cotton-eee @weallhaveadestiny @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @moonbug333 @yujyujj @mattdexx @lostfallenangelsblog @bloomsberryfairy @flimsysquid @abbotfan @leonetta2014 @ficcharsimpsblog @odairtrqsh @ugh-whytho @noonenuts @akiyhara @genya1617

Series specific taglist: @genya1617 @riverjane-d @eaumyth

Please ask or message if you want to be added to the dex general / series specific taglist!

telling him to go easy on you (let you win) at darts or bowling on nights out with friends, he says "sure" and then proceeds to annihilate you in front everyone, a snide smile on his face when he asks "s'everything okay?" at your pouting

trying to close the door of your room for some privacy when you need to change but right before you manage to do it dex flings and ricochets an object so it's blocking and keeping it from shutting completely

constantly telling you to "open up" because he wants to toss candies or grapes or whatever hes snacking on into your wide open mouth, the farther away you are from him the better, he sees it as a fun little challenge

every thrust lands with striking precision, your whole body jolting beneath him at each slam of his hips against yours. pleasure hits you so strong it creates a deep pressure just below your navel, your mouth slackening to release sounds that seem foreign coming out of your own mouth. you're sure your entire fucking neighborhood can hear you at this point.

"dex—dex! if you keep—oh my fucking god—we'll have to stop—" you all but yelp, hands flying in an attempt to steady yourself. they land across his back, nails digging into skin with enough force to draw blood.

"no! no no no, sweetheart," dex urges, eyes snapping open to find yours. "i'll go slow then. i'll make it good for you. like this—" the change in pace is deliberate, instantly allowing you room to breathe again once he's no longer pounding into that sensitive spot over and over again. "you like it like this? let me make you feel good, please."

you know it'll give you only a few minutes before dex starts to get lost in it again, but you can't really deny him anything when he looks this desperate—this eager to please you. so you will yourself to nod, even as your head feels much lighter than it probably should, your face contorting into what you're sure is the most dumb, fucked out expression to ever grace your features.