.☘︎ ݁˖ erina .☘︎ ݁˖

“You new here?” you asked when you got to the top of the stairs.

He turned, and there it was.

You recognised him instantly.

Benjamin Poindexter.

Bullseye.

You didn’t know him personally, but you’d seen him enough times, in enough places. You saw him on screens, from news clips, in courtroom sketches on social media. After all, you kept tabs on a lot of dangerous people in NYC. Out of habit, more than anything, really. 

Your expression didn’t change, though. You just shifted your groceries slightly higher on your hip.

“Yeah, I just moved in.” Then, after the tiniest pause, he introduced himself. “I’m Tony.”

A lie.

You almost laughed at how mundane Tony sounded. Still, you didn’t call him out.

You weren’t a snitch, and never had been. After all, grew up around men who made him look almost… refined. Your father would always tell you there were honour amongst thieves. 

In this case, murderers.

Still, you’d learn early how to mind your business and survive.

And besides… You’d heard what he’d been doing.

He’d been hunting Anti-vigilante task force agents, dropping them on the streets one by one.

You didn’t lose sleep over that.

So you pushed off the walls by the staircase, stepping a little closer like this was just a normal introduction. “Welcome to the building, Tony.”

His eyes were still on you. There was a sparkle there, as if interest formed before he could stop it.

You pretended not to notice, especially because your arm was starting to hurt. 

“Hold on—” you muttered, shifting your grocery bag to the floor and digging through it. “Here.”

You pulled out an extra roll of paper towels and held it out to him.

He blinked, like that hadn’t been part of the script.

“For the pipes,” you said, pushing it into his hand when he didn’t take it fast enough. “They’re shit. They’ll leak, clog, make your life miserable. You’ll want backup.”

“Thanks,” he said as he took it, still looking at you, still so… focused.

You grabbed your groceries again, already turning back to your door.

“Don’t mention it,” you said, slipping your key into the lock. “And if you die in a pipe-related accident, I’ll tell management I warned you.”

“Very reassuring,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

You pushed your door open, stopping just long enough to glance back at him. “Try not to flood the place, Tony.”

Then you slipped inside, leaving him in the hallway with a fake name, a paper towel roll, and a seed of obsession watered by conversation.

Like ivy finding its first crack in a wall, he knew it was going to grow.

—

A week passed before anything more than that happened.

Not that he didn’t notice you.

He did. Fuck, he did.

He noticed you every time your door opened. He logged every time your footsteps hit the hallway. He listened every time your laugh carried faintly through the thin, terrible pipes you’d warned him about.

But the interactions were small and contained. 

You’d nod when you crossed paths. You’d say a quick “morning” on your way out of the apartment. Once, you smiled sweetly when you both reached the stairwell at the same time and you gestured for him to go first.

He didn’t.

“After you,” he said.

You raised an eyebrow. “Wow. A gentleman.”

That was it. Still, he thought about it longer than he should have.

Then, one morning, you stepped out into the hallway, to spot the other neighbour who lived on this floor. She was a lovely elderly woman, and she definitely loved you. She’d call you the “granddaughter she never had,” then proceeded to try and try to get you on a date with literally any guy she knew. She introduced you to the landlord’s son, the electrician, and even her own grandsons. 

Her apartment door was propped open, and she stood there, gently ushering her cat into the hallway to stretch its legs.

“Well, look who it is,” she said the second she saw you.

“Good morning,” you greeted sweetly, passing her a brown bag with a mint chocolate chip cookie in it.

Her face lit up like you’d handed her gold. “Oh, you angel. I told you, you don’t have to keep doing this.”

“I know,” you said, smiling. “I want to.”

The cat stretched toward you immediately, paws reaching, and you obliged, scratching under its chin. It purred loud enough to echo. As you picked her up and cuddled your little furry friend in your arms, you coddled her and whispered a little “Hi, baby. When do I get to cat sit you again, huh?”

That’s when another door clicked open.

You didn’t need to look to know who it was.

Dex stepped out into the hallway, pausing when he saw the little scene in front of him. His eyes landed on you first, then flicked to the older woman, then back again.

She followed your glance and her face lit up.

“Oh! Perfect timing,” she said, waving him closer. “Come here, come here.”

He stepped closer like he wasn’t in a rush to be anywhere else.

“Tony, this…,” she said proudly, gesturing toward you, “is the pretty girl I was telling you about. She always brings me cookies.” She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice like it was a secret. “She is an excellent baker.”

You let out a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “We’ve met.”

The cat wriggled happily, and you set her down, watching it immediately circle your legs again. You turned slightly toward him, tilting your head. “Are you a cat person, Tony?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

What kind of answer was sure? Did he just see that you seemed like a cat person, and decided he simply would be, too?

The cat brushed against his leg, and he glanced down at her like he was trying to figure out the correct response.

It was slightly stiff, but you could tell that he was trying. 

It was… weirdly cute.

“Anyway,” you shook your head, smiling despite yourself. “I need to go to work. I’ve got a client who wants a full sleeve done in one session and I really need to tell him it’s not happening.”

“You work all the time!” Your neighbour said, scandalised.

You scoffed fondly. “Oh my god.”

“It’s true,” she insisted, looking between the two of you like this was critical evidence in her case. “She’s never around long enough to meet anyone nice.”

You rolled your eyes, but turned away to go. If you let her, she’d keep you here all day and talk about all the nice boys your age she met in church. “I gotta go now,” you said, “I’ll come by later.”

You headed toward the stairs.

A second later, you heard footsteps behind you.

Of course, Dex was going out, too.

You didn’t slow down, but you didn’t speed up either.

“Pretty girl?” he said from a step above you, almost amused

You groaned under your breath. “Don’t start.”

He shrugged, completely unbothered as you let him catch up. “She’s not wrong, though.”

You almost missed a step.

“Wow,” you said, recovering quickly. “You’re laying it on thick this morning.”

You reached the bottom of the stairs, past the mailboxes. He followed, falling into step beside you.

“Don’t tell anyone,” you said abruptly.

He glanced at you. “About?”

You leaned in just slightly, lowering your voice. “The cookies?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re from the supermarket.”

He went quiet, before letting out a short chuckle, shaking his head. “So you lied.”

You nudged at him immediately. “I never said I made them. She just assumed.”

“And you never corrected her,” he pointed out.

“It makes her happy,” you said, shrugging. “She likes the idea of it. I’m not ruining that over a 3 dollar box of cookies.”

He watched you for a second longer than necessary. There it was again, that focus. That sharp, almost unsettling attention.

Softer, he said, “Fair enough.”

You crossed your arms lightly, smirking. “What? You’ve never bent the truth before?”

For a split second you could see his brain buffer, but it was gone just as quickly. “Maybe once or twice,” he said.

You huffed. “Right.”

Internally, you almost laughed. Talk about lying.

Outwardly, though, you just shook your head, nudging the door open to head your separate ways.

“I hope my secret’s safe with you,” you said, stepping out onto the pavement.

“Of course,” he replied.

You started walking, then glanced back at him once. “And if she asks, I spent hours baking them.”

The last thing you saw before turning was his smile.

He stayed there for a second, watching you go.

That day, he debated following you to your workplace  instead of killing the two Task Force agents he knew were going to be by the bridge. 

—

A week later, you found yourself in the basement, doing your weekly rounds of laundry. It smelled like detergent, damp concrete, and rust.

You were crouched in front of one of the machines, shoving a stubborn pile of clothes deeper into the drum with your forearm, when the door creaked open behind you.

Then, you heard footsteps. You didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“Hi, Tony,” you greeted with a small smile. But as you got up, you winced a little. 

“You okay, pretty girl?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

Oh, so it was a nickname now?

You waved it off immediately, rolling your shoulders like that would fix it. “Yeah, yeah. Just…” you paused, stretching, “—work is trying to kill me. I’ve been hunched over a chair all day today.”

His eyes flicked over you as he put his basket down on the table. “What’s work?”

You snorted, grabbing your laundry basket and setting it on top of the machine. “Ink,” you said, glancing over your shoulder at him. “I work at a studio a few blocks over.”

He nodded like that was new information.

It wasn’t.

He knew your route down to the minute. He knew what time you left, what time you got back, which days you tend to stay late. He knew which shop you stopped at when you were too tired to cook.

You, on the other hand, just kept talking.

“Actually—” you turned a little, hooking your thumb under the hem of your shorts, tugging it up just enough to expose a small piece of ink on your upper thigh. “See this?”

His eyes dropped instantly to a small design, a little uneven if you looked closely, lines not quite as confident as your newer work, shading a touch inconsistent.

But it was… cute. Especially on you, Dex thought. It was definitely on theme with the other tattoos you had down your arms and legs. 

“I did that,” you explained. “I don’t usually tattoo myself, but it was studio policy. Had to do it to get from apprentice to artist.” 

“I like it,” Dex said, and for once, he was honest. 

You glanced down at it fondly. “It’s a little wonky, but… yeah. It’s part of me now.”

He didn’t answer right away.

He was still looking, and not just at the tattoo.

He was looking at the way it curved with your skin. The way your fingers rested just above it. He was thinking about how you didn’t think twice about showing him something that permanent, that close, that personal.

He briefly wondered what you would do if he hooked his finger on your shorts, maybe dragging it higher… 

You dropped your shorts back into place, completely unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken.

“You got any?” you asked, nodding toward him. 

“No,” he answered. 

You hummed, tilting your head like you were considering him from a new angle. “Would you ever get one?”

He almost said no again.

Tattoos were permanent. Identifiable. Stupid, for someone like him and his… line of work.

“You’d be a hell of a canvas,” you added, like that might sweeten the deal.

And just like that he said, “Yes.”

It was pathetic, really, how quickly he folded. All he could think about was how you’d be doing it, how you’d be marking him, how you’d be the one sitting him on a chair telling him to sit still, how you’d tell him he was taking such a good job resisting the pain when he would like it simply because it was you who was hurting him. 

You blinked, then broke into a smile like that was the exact answer you wanted. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You nodded, like you’d already figured out the logistics in your head. “If you ever want one, you don’t have to go to the studio. I’ve got a setup in my apartment. It’s nothing crazy, just for friends and stuff. People who don’t want to pay the upcharge or deal with the whole… environment.”

His eyes flicked up to your face again.

“Noted,” he said.

You smiled, satisfied, turning back to your machine as it started its cycle. “I give a mean tattoo, Tony. You’d be in safe hands.”

He believed that.

You leaned back against the machine, folding your arms loosely. “So what do you do for work?”

You loved watching him squirm, even if his body language didn’t necessarily show it. His eyes darted a little, and you learned that it was as close as he got to a tell.

“Freelance,” he answered abruptly.

You raised an eyebrow slowly. “Uh huh.”

Still, you didn’t push. You didn’t call him out.

“Must be nice,” you said lightly. “Flexible hours and all that.”

He gave a vague shrug, but his attention had already drifted back to you, and to the ink peeking out from under your sleeves, continuing lines at your arm. He decided that you’d definitely have more hidden under your shirt.

He wondered how far it all went, how much of you was marked.

What it would look like if he could get you alone, without the distraction of clothing. He would trace every line, every curve, every piece of art embedded in your skin with his tongue, tasting and—

“Earth to Tony.”

He blinked. You were looking at him, amused.

“You just completely checked out,” you said. “I was saying, don’t overload that machine. It’ll make a noise so loud Mr. Ramirez from across the street is gonna file a noise complaint.”

“Right.” He nodded. Then, almost to himself, he added. “I was listening.”

You smiled, unconvinced but not pressing it. “Sure you were.”

The machines hummed between you, filling the silence.

For a second, neither of you moved.

“Well,” you finally pushed off the machine, grabbing your basket. “Have fun doing laundry, Tony.”

And just like that, you were gone.

—

You got so used to Dex being your next door neighbour that you almost forgot he was a convicted murderer.

After all, it was hard to even believe that when your interactions with him were so… wholesome. 

You’d be halfway down the stairs, keys between your fingers, already running through your day in your head when you’d hear his door click open above you.

“Morning, Tony,” you’d call, not even looking back.

“Morning, pretty girl.”

That was it, at first. Eventually it became…

“Running late?” he asked one day, watching you juggle your bag and a half-zipped jacket.

“Shut up, Tony,” you shot back, hopping the last step. You were amused though, and pleased that he even gave you any attention at all. 

He smiled.

A few days later, he “accidentally” ran into you on your way back, after the sun had dropped. You were tired, shoulders slumped, ink smudged faintly along the side of your wrist.

“Long day?” he asked.

You huffed, digging your key into the lock. “This girl wanted a tattoo of her boyfriend’s name. Bad idea.”

He laughed, cherishing every little interaction he had with you.

Some days, you’d offer him a bottle of water when the building’s pipes went weird again. He’d hold the door open when your hands were full. He'd give you salt when you ran out. He even helped you babysit your mutual neighbour’s cat once. 

And then one night, it changed.

You got back late. Later than usual.

Thank god you were back, though. Dex was a few seconds away from breaking and entering into your shop to make sure no one had hurt you. 

Still, your feet hurt, your back hurt, your patience was hanging by a thread. The second you stepped into your apartment you made a beeline for the window.

You shoved it open, letting the cool air hit your face, dragging in a breath like you hadn’t taken one all day. The city hummed below with distant traffic, music bleeding faintly from somewhere down the block.

You climbed out onto the fire escape without thinking about it. You’d done it a hundred times before.

You sat there with a beer, legs stretched out, back against the brick, letting the noise settle your brain.

Tonight was no different.

At least, it wasn’t supposed to be.

Little did you know, Dex had been watching you for a good five minutes. 

And because he just really wanted to sit with you, he eventually pushed his own window open and stepped up to his own fire escape.

You didn’t look over right away.

He moved across the narrow divider between your sides (there was barely a gap at all), and that’s when your head tilted, just slightly.

“Y’know,” you said casually, “most people use the front door.”

Dex paused before stepping fully onto your side.

“Didn’t feel like it,” he replied.

You let out a small huff of a laugh out.

You lifted the bottle in your hand slightly. “Beer?” you offered to share.

Dex stared at you for half a second too long.

That was it? You let him into your space, just like that? 

“Take it or don’t,” you said lightly. “But if you murder me, I’m gonna be really annoyed I wasted good beer on you.”

That almost made him laugh.

He took the bottle, and stiffened as your fingers brushed his for a second. “You trust me?”

You shrugged, settling back into your spot like the moment had already passed. “I figured if you were gonna kill me, you would probably be sneakier.”

He took a swig of the bottle. You were right, it was good beer.

“I might just be bad at it,” he said.

“Yeah,” you snorted knowingly. “You look real incompetent.”

Silence settled for a second, but not an awkward one.

You took the bottle from him and sipped, glancing sideways at him.

“So,” you said. “you always break into people’s fire escapes, or am I special?”

Dex leaned back against the brick. “Special,” he decided.

You hummed, clearly pleased with that answer. “Thought so.”

The conversation drifted after that. You talked about a client who tapped out halfway through a tattoo and blamed you for it. You complained about the landlord again. You pointed out which windows belonged to which neighbours, offering little pieces of your world like they didn’t matter.

Dex listened, of course. He logged everything. But for once, he didn’t feel like he was gathering intel.

He felt like he was… sitting. With you. 

At some point, you laughed head tipping back again, and it echoed out into his skull and gripped his heart like a vice.

He only really snapped out of his little trance when you asked, “Same time tomorrow, Tony?” 

—

It became a habit.

You’d sit cross-legged or stretched out along the fire escape. Dex would cross over, and then you'd pass bottles back and forth, talking about nothing and everything all at once. Work stories, complaints about neighbours, stupid observations about people on the street below. Easy things, safe things.

Dex told you just enough to keep it believable.

You didn’t push, not even when you smelled the lingering iron scent of blood on him. 

Still, you’d bump your foot against his when you laughed. You’d steal his drink the way he stole yours. Sometimes you’d talk over each other, then both stop, then both say “you go first” at the same time and laugh about it like idiots.

It was dangerously normal.

Occasionally, though, you weren’t as upbeat as you usually were. Those nights, Dex tended to pry a bit more. He needed to know what was wrong with his pretty girl, and who was responsible for you being in a mood, right?

“You’re quiet today.” Dex said once.

You glanced at him, a little surprised, like you hadn’t realised it yourself. Then you gave a small shrug, curling your fingers tighter around your beer.

In the end, you just shook your head. “Wow. Okay.”

You nudged his foot lightly with yours, a habit by now, but there was less energy behind it than usual.

“…It’s stupid,” you added after a second.

Dex just waited for an answer.

You exhaled, tipping your head back before finally giving in. “I did this back-of-the-hand tattoo today,” you explained. “Like, really intricate. It was of a sun with fine lines, proper detail, the whole thing.”

As you talked, a little life came back into your tone, the way it always did when you spoke about your work.

“I genuinely think it’s one of my best pieces,” you went on, glancing at him briefly. “Especially for that placement. Hands are tricky as hell.”

Then your tone dipped again.

“Guy ran out and didn’t pay.”

Dex tilted his head, but didn’t interrupt.

You rolled your eyes, but it didn’t quite land as playful. “Honestly? I don’t even care about the money anymore.” You picked at the label on your bottle, peeling it slowly. “I just wanted a photo of it. It was my art, you know? But he won’t even return my calls.”

His fingers tapped once, lightly, against the glass bottle in his hand. He was thinking of every scenario, how he could handle this, when, and how he was going to tell you about it. He needed a plan. 

“Does he have a name?” he asked.

You blinked, looking over at him. “Yeah,” you said, a little confused by how direct that was. “Jack Hargrove, I think. That’s what he signed in the form, why?”

Dex nodded once. “Okay.”

That was it, no more questions asked.

—

And then… there were the nights you got high.

Those were his favourite.

You had already grown into his favourite person by then, but when you were giggly and mumbly? He found you fucking adorable. 

You’d show up already a little floaty, or you’d pull out a blunt halfway through the night like it was nothing.

The first time you did it, you asked, “Hey.” You nudging his arm lightly. “You smoke?”

Dex didn’t even hesitate before answering. “No.”

You blinked at him once. Slowly, your eyes narrowed just a little, almost amused.

“Wow,” you said, dragging the word out slightly. “That was fast.”

“I don’t,” he repeated.

You snorted, shoulders shaking as you leaned back against the wall, bringing your hand up to cover your mouth like you were trying (and failing) to contain it.

“Alright, officer,” you said, wondering how much you can bring up about his past without him being suspicious. “or is it… agent?”

Dex’s head turned toward you so quickly it almost hurt him. “What?”

You were already grinning, wide and lazy, eyes bright with mischief, ready with a lie to soften your statement.

“You just hit me with the most federal ‘no’ I’ve ever heard in my life,” you quickly backtracked, knowing you had just put him on high alert. “Like, no hesitation, no curiosity, no ‘what is it?’ Just… no.”

He stared at you.

You pointed at him with the blunt, still smiling. “That’s fed behaviour.”

“I’m not a cop.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, playfully.

After a while, you leaned a little closer, squinting at him like you were inspecting something. “Yeah,” you teased, trying to push little buttons. “You’d hate paperwork too much.”

Dex almost frowned. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

“And you’re being very defensive for someone who’s definitely never been a fed,” you shot back lightly.

There was a good five-second pause before you grinned again, gentler this time.

“Relax,” you added, nudging his arm again. “I’m kidding.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. You did enjoy toying with him. 

Dex let out a deep breath, tension he hadn’t even acknowledged easing just slightly.

“I just don’t smoke,” he said.

You hummed to yourself, satisfied, and brought the blunt to your lips instead.

“Suit yourself, officer,” you murmured, the tease slipping back in just enough to make it light again.

The flame flickered briefly as you lit it, casting a warm glow over your face before fading. You inhaled slowly, like you’d done it a hundred times before.

Dex watched the way you exhaled, smoke curling into the night air. He watched the way your shoulders dropped, tension leaving you in real time.

“Okay,” you sighed, settling back against the brick, your knee bumping his again. “Now I’m fun.”

Dex didn’t look away. “You’re already fun,” he’d mumble under his breath. 

Still. The more you smoked around him, the more he got used to it. 

He already adored you before, but something about the cute string of laughter you only got when you were high would make his heart melt.

The way you shifted closer without thinking, your knee bumping lightly against his. The way you leaned back, head tilting until it rested briefly against the wall, eyes half-lidded but still bright.

Most times, you’d just trip over your sentences.

“You ever just…” you started, then stopped, laughing under your breath. “No, wait, that’s stupid.”

“What?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You turned your head toward him slowly, like it took effort, eyes landing on his face and staying there.

“You’re, like…” you gestured vaguely toward him, giggling again. “You’re very… intense.”

You didn’t sound intimidated. You sounded delighted.

“Am I?” he said.

“Yeah,” you nodded, completely serious for half a second before it slipped again. “But it’s okay. I like it.”

Your words would drift in and out, sometimes making perfect sense, other times, it meant nothing. You’d laugh at things he didn’t understand. You’d drift from one thing to another. Childhood stories that didn’t sound like childhood stories. You'd say things that sounded like names you never explained. You’d mention places that didn’t quite exist in any way he could trace.

Sometimes you’d say things that should have sounded serious, but you said them with a smile, with a laugh, like they didn’t weigh anything at all. You once even said something about sleeping next to a sawed-off shotgun when you were twelve “just in case.”

In case of what?

Dex couldn’t find anything abnormal about your day to day life, no matter how much he dug or how many times he followed you, so he assumed it didn’t mean anything.

Every now and then, you'd let him tuck you in bed. Tonight was one of those nights.

You blinked slowly, looking at him like you were trying to say something important.

“Tony,” you murmured.

He leaned in slightly without thinking. “Yeah?”

You smiled, soft and sleepy. “You’re… nice.”

The word came out like it surprised even you. Then you giggled again, like the effort was too much.

He didn’t correct you. He just watched as your eyes drifted shut for a second too long.

“…Okay,” you mumbled, barely coherent now. “I think I’m… yeah. I’m done.”

Dex stood before you could even try. You didn’t protest when he guided you up.

You didn’t question it when he helped you through your window, one hand steady at your arm, the other hovering just in case.

Inside, your apartment was dim and warm.

You barely made it to the bed before sinking into it, still half-laughing at something only you understood.

Dex pulled the blanket over you as you shifted slightly, face turning into the pillow.

“Night,” you mumbled.

He stayed there for a second, looking at you. At how soft you looked like this. How open. How completely unguarded.

But then… your eyes opened up again just a little. You traced the scar on his cheek gently. 

“You don’t have to worry,” you mumbled. Your voice was different. Not quite giggly, but clear as day. “I’m not on anyone’s side anymore.”

—

That night, he left your apartment without a sound.

He came back over the fire escape, slipped through his own window, and closed it behind him like he had done many times before. 

Dex moved straight to his laptop, already pulling it open, fingers moving before the screen fully lit up.

Not on anyone’s side anymore? That was a red flag, right?

He immediately looked up databases, records, everything. 

He checked for you— your address, previous work history, licenses, financial trail. 

He found nothing.

He refined his search. He tried running deeper pulls. He cross-referenced. He even systems.

Still… Nothing. No childhood records, no school registrations, no medical history.

No digital footprint worth anything. No tickets, no fines, no traces.

It wasn’t just clean, It was impossible.

Dex leaned back slowly, eyes still locked on the screen like something might appear if he stared long enough.

His jaw tightened slightly.

Because now those moments replayed differently.

The way you talked, the things you said, the way you never explained anything fully, the way you didn’t ask questions.

You weren’t just a tattoo artist with a strange past.

You had no past at all. 

He stared at the blank screen again. “Who are you?” 

—

The next couple of nights were normal. It wasn’t until Thursday that things began to unravel. 

That night, you weren’t at your fire escape. 

Most people would ignore it, maybe even justify it with she’s just busy, she’s just tired, it’s just one night.

Dex didn’t believe in just one night. Not with you.

You were consistent, and that made patterns easy. You came home at the same time, your lights turned on within minutes, your window slid open not long after that. Sometimes you were early. Sometimes a little late. But you always showed up.

So when he stepped out onto the fire escape and your window stayed dark, he immediately started running all the scenarios in his mind.

He stood there, one hand resting against the brick, eyes fixed on the blank glass like it might change if he waited long enough.

Still, nothing.

He told himself to leave after ten minutes. He didn’t.

He stayed longer than that, longer than he would’ve for anyone else, eyes flicking to your window every few seconds like it was a reflex he couldn’t shut off.

When he eventually he went back inside, the feeling didn’t go with him.

—

The next day he confirmed you weren’t at work.

At first, he was confused when you didn’t get out of your door at all. Then, he thought you might’ve gone extra early. 

So he did what he did best— he went to your studio. 

From across the street, he saw that your workstation was empty. No setup. No sketches. No you leaning over someone’s arm with that focused look you got when you were working.

Nothing.

By the time he got back to the building, he made a beeline straight to your door. 

Dex didn’t knock, or call. He didn’t do things halfway.

He broke in, lock giving up in seconds. He slipped inside without a sound.

Your apartment felt… wrong.

Not messy or disturbed. Everything was where it should be. Your shoes were by the door, your jacket thrown over the back of a chair, a glass left on the counter like you’d meant to come back to it.

But it felt… stale. Like you hadn’t opened the window all day and all night.

Dex moved through it quickly, eyes scanning every corner, mind already working through possibilities.

Nothing in the living room. Nothing in the kitchen.

Then, he heard a faint sound from down the hall,

He stopped immediately. He heard a shallow inhale, followed by another, and another, like whoever it was couldn’t catch up with their own lungs.

Dex followed the sound to the bathroom. The door was barely closed, just enough to muffle the sound.

He pushed it open.

You were on the floor, folded into the corner like you were trying to disappear into it.

Your knees were pulled tight to your chest, arms wrapped around them so hard your knuckles had gone white. Your head was tipped forward, forehead almost pressed to your arms, your entire body shaking in violent, uncontrollable tremors.

You were breathing too fast, each inhale breaking halfway through, like your lungs were locking up on you. Your chest heaved, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.

Your eyes were wide, unfocused, glassy with panic, like you weren’t fully there anymore.

For a second, you didn’t even recognise him.

When you did, you shrank even more, as if you were embarrassed to be found. 

“Hey…” he pushed the door away, “hey, I’m here now.”

You looked up at him through glassy lashes, dead silent for a second.

“H-he’s here,” the words tore out of you eventually. “He’s here, he’s in town! I saw him-I saw him—”

Dex dropped in front of you, one knee hitting the tile hard, but his focus never left your face.

“Look at me,” he said, cutting through the chaos. “Tell me what happened.”

Your gaze flickered, struggled, then caught on his.

“One of my dad’s friends—” you choked, your breath hitching so hard it made your whole body jerk, “His old friends, he found me, he found me—”

Your hands went to your hair, fingers tangling, pulling just enough to hurt, like you needed a physical sensation to hold onto.

“He’s gonna tell him,” you rushed, the words tumbling over each other faster and faster, spiralling, “he’s gonna tell my dad and he’s gonna… he’s gonna get me, he’s gonna—fuck—fuck!”

Your breathing broke completely after that, a choking inhale one right after another.

Your body folded tighter in on itself like it was trying to shut everything out.

Dex grabbed your wrist. “You need to tell me who you saw and where you saw him,” he insisted, “I can’t help otherwise.”

You stared at him, chest heaving, like you were trying to force your body to cooperate.

“Marko,” you whispered, the name barely making it out. “Marko Kovač.”

Your breath hitched again, but you pushed through it, words spilling out uneven and desperate.

“I saw him on E-Eighth and 23rd, outside that liquor store with the broken sign… he was just standing there and he looked right at me, like he knew, like he recognised me—”

Your grip tightened on his sleeve without you even realising.

“He knows I’m here,” you said, voice cracking completely now. “He knows.”

Dex went still, only for a second.

“Okay,” he said immediately.

Just like that, he stood up like there wasn’t time to waste.

Your hand shot out, grabbing his sleeve before he could step away, fingers clutching hard, desperate.

“Don’t…” your voice broke so badly it barely sounded like you. “Don’t leave me, please—”

Dex stopped and looked down at you. He looked at the way you were shaking. He looked at the tears you didn’t even seem to notice. At how completely, utterly terrified you were.

You, who laughed at everything, who teased him, who sat on that fire escape like nothing could touch you…

You were breaking.

And you were asking him to stay, but it didn’t change what needed to happen.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, quieter now. “Okay? Stay here.”

Your grip didn’t loosen right away. Your fingers trembled too much.

“Okay,” you whispered finally, as he gently pulled free. 

Because at the end of the day, you trusted him. 

—

It took a while before you could even move.

For a long time, you just stayed there on the bathroom floor, curled into yourself, your breath still catching every few seconds like your body hadn’t quite figured out how to come down yet.

But slowly, it eased.

Not gone. Not even close.

But Dex being there, telling you that he’d help, it was enough that your fingers stopped shaking so violently. Enough that you could uncurl your arms without feeling like everything would fall apart if you did.

You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand, dragging in a shaky breath that actually finished this time.

In.

Out.

It was still uneven, but it was better.

“Okay,” you whispered to no one, voice hoarse.

When you moved, every motion felt heavy, like your body wasn’t fully yours yet. You pushed yourself up using the edge of the tub, legs unsteady, breath catching again when the room tilted slightly.

You waited it out. Then you made yourself keep going.

You washed your face with cold water over and over until your skin stung and your reflection looked less… broken.

It didn’t fully work, but it helped.

You pulled your favourite hoodie on like armour. You tugged the sleeves down over your hands, fingers disappearing into the fabric, as if you could hide in it.

Then you made it to the couch.

You curled up in the corner, knees tucked in again, but looser this time. 

He said he’d be back.

So now, all you could do was wait. 

—

The door clicked open so quietly it almost blended into the hum of your apartment, but you still heard it. You didn’t even question how he got the keys. 

You didn’t move right away. You were still curled into the corner of the couch, hoodie pulled over your head, sleeves covering your hands, your body folded in on itself like you hadn’t fully decided it was safe to exist again. 

You looked up as he stepped into the living room.

Dex stood there like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t left you shaking on the bathroom floor, like he hadn’t disappeared into the night with a name and a purpose. 

“Hey,” he said casually, like he’d only gone out to grab dinner.

Your throat felt a little tight, but not from fear. Not anymore. “Hi, Tony.”

You watched his mouth twitch at that, like the name amused him now instead of hiding him. 

Your eyes dropped to his sleeves and saw blood.

It was dried now, but you could tell it soaked into the cotton blend near his wrists and forearms. It was subtle. If you hadn’t seen blood on fabric before, you might have chalked it up to a stain. 

Your gaze lingered a second longer than it should have. He followed it.

Then, almost like it didn’t matter, he lifted the plastic bag in his other hand slightly. “I got Chinese.”

Your lips curled up faintly.

He didn’t ask where anything was. He set the bag down, pulled containers out, found plates in your kitchen as if he’d done it a hundred times before. The fragrant smell filled the room and it felt almost surreal layered over the reality of him standing there with blood on his clothes.

You pushed yourself up slowly, legs still a little heavy, and drifted closer.

“Did you—” you started, then stopped yourself.

You were going to ask. You wondered, distantly, how long it had taken. If Marko had recognised him. If he had time to understand why he was dying, or if it had been quick and efficient, like everything Dex did.

You wondered where the body was.

The Hudson, maybe, weighed down. Or maybe somewhere no one would ever think to look. Dex didn’t seem like the kind of man who left loose ends. 

Maybe he wanted someone to find the body, maybe as a deceleration of loyalty to you.

You decided against asking. 

He glanced at you anyway, oblivious.

“I got your favorite,” he added instead, nudging a container toward you as he sat down.

You blinked at that. “You don’t know my favorite.”

“I do.”

You opened the container. He could tell by your smile that he was right.

You huffed out a small laugh, shaking your head as you scooted beside him. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. 

You bumped your shoulder lightly into his as you settled in. He didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned into it just enough that you noticed.

You picked up your chopsticks, pausing for a second before actually eating. Your hands weren’t shaking anymore. That alone said everything.

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Dex said.

You went still for half a heartbeat. Then you nodded. “Okay.”

You wondered again, briefly, if Marko had been scared. Then you took a bite of your food.

“Good?” Dex asked, watching you a little too closely.

You chewed, swallowed, then nodded again. “Yeah. Really good.”

He relaxed. It was as if he had been waiting for that exact reaction and didn’t quite know why.

And just like that, the moment settled into comfortable silence.

You leaned back into the couch, letting your shoulder brush his arm this time. 

Your body felt different now. Not wired with panic anymore, not collapsing in on itself. 

Against all odds, you felt safer because he was here.

Dex turned his head slightly, after finishing his meal. “Who was he?”

You knew what he meant. You nudged your food around with your chopsticks, eyes dropping. “My dad’s friend.”

You said it very flatly.

“Your dad has… very armed friends.”

You couldn’t hold back a scoff. You shook your head, unable to hide your cynical amusement. “Yeah,” you said. You hesitated, before reluctantly adding, “He was the one who armed them.”

That got his full attention. “Oh?”

Well, fuck.

You were assuming he killed a man for you. What more did you really have to hide?

“Ugh,” You exhaled, dragging a hand up over your face before letting it drop. “He was—is-  an arms dealer.”

You leaned back further into the couch, head tipping slightly against the cushion as you stared at nothing in particular. “I ran away when I was eighteen,” you continued. “Just as he was starting to talk about how his empire was one day all going to be mine.”

You let out a small, humourless huff. “Guess I wasn’t into the whole… family business.”

You never really had a problem with what he did, it was just the world you grew up in. You learned early not to judge it. To each their own and all that shit. Survival didn’t leave much room for morals anyway.

But you didn’t love it.

You could do it. You would do it, if you had to. That part of you was there, shaped and grown exactly the way your dad intended. 

Violence didn’t scare you.

You understood it, the same way you understood how to hold a pencil or steady a glock in your hand. If you were out in a situation where it could arise, you wouldn’t hesitate to dish it out. Even your mother considered you trigger-happy.

Still… it was never what you wanted.

You just wanted to draw.

And sometimes, that made you feel… pathetic. 

Because the voice your dad left behind in your head never let it be simple. In your nightmares, he’d call you selfish and weak. He’d say that all you cared about was your own need for self-fulfillment. While everyone else carried the family legacy, you were chasing something as small and useless as art for art’s sake.

Safe to say, he wasn’t exactly a good father.

Not when he shoved a gun into your small hands at seven years old and told you to stop shaking and kill the son of a bitch already. Not when he pressed the barrel one to your head at thirteen because you were sketching during one of his “important meetings,” telling you that if you were going to survive in this family, you needed to learn what deserved your attention.

He called it tough love. He was preparing you for a bright future.

And maybe it worked, a little. 

Because you didn’t run from violence. You just… didn’t actively seek it.

Dex didn’t interrupt. He just listened.

“He’s still looking for me,” you added, looking down. “Or was. I don’t know. I stopped checking.”

You lifted your shoulders in a small shrug. It looked casual, but there was a tired smile behind it. For a second, Dex wondered how much time you had really spent on the run.

“I just want to draw,” you finished, looking down at what was left of your food. Suddenly, your appetite vanished. 

To Dex, everything made sense. 

To him, it explained the missing pieces, your lack of records, your offhand comments, the way you never asked questions you should have asked.

He studied you for a second before asking, “You left all of that behind?”

After all, as an FBI agent, he’d seen heirs fight over an empire far less than what he could gather was your father’s. He’d seen people kill their own brothers over a small-town drug operation. 

You managed a chuckle. “I could’ve been filthy rich,” you paused for a second. “But I don’t like paperwork.”

For a second, he just stared at you.

Then… he laughed.

It wasn’t loud, but it was real. It sounded abrupt and rough, like the sound surprised him. You glanced at him, a smile tugging at your lips in response.

Out of all people, he made you feel like you had normalcy.

You were just on your couch, eating takeout, laughing about paperwork… while a speck of his sleeve was still dark red. 

You wondered, again, how it happened. What it looked like. If he’d been thinking about you while he did it.

The thought didn’t make your stomach turn. Instead, you felt more at peace knowing he had done it.

That Marko was gone.

That wasn’t coming to drag you back.

You nudged his arm lightly with yours. “Hey, Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“Come back when you’ve got time.”

He watched you, waiting.

“Think about what you want, and I’ll give you that tattoo,” you said, a warm smile forming. “It’s free,” you added. “As a thank you for helping with Marko.”

Dex held your gaze for a long second. Whatever he was looking for, he found it.

“Okay,” he said.

—

A couple of days later, he showed up at your door on your day off.

You let him in without a second thought.

“So,” you said, stretching your arms over your head as you turned toward your setup, “today’s the day. What are we doing?”

Dex stepped inside, eyes looking to the couch, now covered with extra fabric, the neatly arranged tools, the small table you’d set up.

“I don’t know what,” he said after a second.“But I know where.”

“Alright, Tony,” you nodded, grabbing a pair of gloves and snapping them lightly against your wrist. “Show me where you want it. We’ll figure the rest out together.”

He didn’t hesitate before he took his jacket off and reached for the hem of his shirt. He pulled it off in one smooth motion.

And… Jesus.

You knew he was built. You weren’t blind. You’d seen the way his shirts fit, the way he carried himself, the way fabric would ride up his stomach on the fire escape. 

But this was different.

You could see his defined muscle, veins underneath, broad shoulders. His body didn’t just look trained. He looked like a biblical carving made by the hands of Michaelangelo himself. It was unfair really, especially when he had the face of a Caravaggio angel. Scars scattered here and there, some small, some not. Every inch of him looked… precise.

Your brain very helpfully went: oh my fucking god.

Then, you snapped your head back in the game before the heat between your legs could derail your train of thought.

And yeah. It almost did.

“Wow,” you said, casual, like it hadn’t hit you at all. “You’ve been hiding all that under those boring shirts on purpose, or…?”

He didn’t answer.

But you saw thoughts stalling behind his eyes, almost like a glitch. Soon, the faintest flush crept up the tips of his ears, just barely pink against his skin. His shoulders shifted, like he didn’t quite know where to put himself under your watch.

Dex, who could look someone in the eye without blinking while deciding whether they lived or died…didn’t know what to do with a compliment.

How adorable, you thought.

You just smiled. It was flirty, but it didn’t faze you nearly as much as it did to him.

Instead of acknowledging that, he turned slightly, presenting his back to you.

“See the scar?” he said.

You knew what it was, the raised skin that went from the bottom of his neck to right above the waistband of his trousers.

You knew about the experimental operation, the spinal damage— the whole story. But you didn’t say that.

You stepped closer instead, fingers hovering just above his skin. You weren’t quite touching yet, just tracing the air along the line of it.

“Surgery?” you asked casually.

“Yeah.”

You hummed, stepping around him to get a better angle. “You want to cover it, or… work with it?”

He considered for a second, but didn't seem to come to a conclusion  “It’s up to you,” he said.

“Dangerous thing to say to an artist,” you murmured.

Dex managed a shrug anyway.

You gestured toward the couch. “Lay down. Face down.”

He did, no questions asked. You made sure the surface was clean with a fresh sheet, and then you got to work with a sharpie.

Dex could heat the scratch of your marker against his skin as you started sketching directly onto him, your hand steady, movements confident. You worked instinctively, letting the shape of the scar guide you.

Dex didn’t even move once.

You leaned back after a while, head tilting as you assessed it.

“Hold on,” you said. “I need a better angle.” You hesitated just a fraction before adding, “Mind if I climb up?”

After all, your couch wasn’t exactly a tattoo chair. Or a bed you could just go around. You had limitations, and you just had to work with it.

“Go on.”

So you did.

You swung a leg over, settling carefully against him, straddling his ass just enough to get the position you needed. 

You ignored the way your stomach flipped.

You should be focused, professional. Mostly.

You adjusted slightly, bracing one hand against the back of the couch as you leaned forward to refine the lines. Your other hand moved with purpose, sketching, correcting, building lines that felt right.

It didn’t take long before you finished the initial sketch.

You pulled back again, grabbing your phone.

“Don’t move,” you said, already snapping a photo.

Then you climbed off him, stepping around to his side and holding the screen out.

“Alright,” you said. “What do you think?”

Dex pushed himself up just enough to look.

Oh. Wow. 

You had drawn simple ivy vines winding up his spine, starting low and growing upward. It curled, twisted, and wrapped around the scar like it belonged there. Like it had always been part of it. Like life had taken root in a broken part of him and made it… beautiful.

Dex stared at it for a long second.

“It looks like it’s growing out of it,” he said quietly.

You nodded, watching his reaction. “That’s the idea.”

He looked at it again, then at your fingers, purple from the ink on the sharpie. 

If he agreed, if he said yes to this, you would be part of him forever. He couldn’t imagine a better feeling than that, so he said, “It’s beautiful.”

Your lips curved up into a pleased smile. “Let’s prep you, then.”

—

You settled into your rhythm quickly after you put your gloves on. As the machine buzzed to life, you leaned over him.

“Alright,” you warned, steadying your hand against his back. “Let me know if it’s too much.”

The needle touched down.

Most people flinched. Some needed a second to adjust.

Dex didn’t.

If anything… Dex pressed into it. 

Your eyes looked up for a second, then back down to your work.

He seemed to be chasing the pain. Interesting.

You dragged the line a little longer this time. Your voice was right there, focused on the task at hand when you said. “Your skin’s taking this really nicely.”

His breath hitched, and from the needle.

From how it felt.

Dex clenched his jaw shut immediately, forcing the reaction down, forcing his body still. The next needle drag came slower, more deliberate, and it pulled a pleasure out of him that he wasn’t prepared for.

It burned. It lingered. It made his spine feel too sensitive, like every nerve was suddenly awake and paying attention.

And he… liked it. He liked it a little too much. The fact that you were the one doing it to him made it worse. 

His fingers curled into the couch as he swallowed hard.

Focus, Dex.

He tried to file it away, treat it like any other sensation, but then your gloved thumb brushed close to the fresh ink, grounding him just enough to make the next sting hit harder.

“Stay like that,” you said, encouraging him. “You’re doing really good.”

That… fuck. That made it so much worse.

Because now he wasn’t just chasing the pain.

He was chasing the reward: your praise and approval.

His body reacted before he could stop it, a sound clawing up his throat. He crushed it down.

But the next line came. And the next. Each one was slow and intentional, as if you were making sure he felt it.

“You’re sitting so well for me.”

For you.

The words tangled with the sensation, twisting it into the same vine he couldn’t separate anymore.

Dex’s grip tightened again, knuckles paling as another line burned up his spine, and this time, the sound almost slipped. It manifested in a small, strained breath that edged too close to a whine before he cut it off.

But you kept talking like you had no idea what you were doing to him.

“Most people don’t handle this like you are,” you said, dragging another line. “You’re taking it really well”

His breath broke again, quieter this time, but worse, because it didn’t fully go away when he tried to control it.

He wasn’t just enduring it. He was waiting for it, anticipating the next drag of the needle, the next burn, the next excuse for you to praise him like that.

“Looks so fucking good on you.”

Oh, that one went straight through him. 

He choked it down so fast it hurt, throat tightening, breath uneven no matter how hard he tried to fix it.

Honestly, it was pathetic, the amount of moans and lewd whines he had to swallow simply because he was being marked by you. 

Still, he wanted more.

—

The machine finally fell silent after what felt like hours, the buzz fading into nothing but the sound of both your breathing.

You leaned back slightly, flexing your fingers before grabbing a clean cloth and wiping gently over his back, clearing away the excess ink and plasma. The design came into full view: dark, clean lines curling up along his spine, wrapping around the scar like it had always belonged there.

“Good canvas,” you murmured, almost to yourself.

Dex didn’t respond right away. He was too busy feeling the absence of the needle, the strange numbness where the sensation had been, his body still humming.

“You didn’t even twitch,” you added, a little louder this time, clearly impressed as you reached for the wrap. You stepped aside, clearing a path to the full-length mirror at the corner of the living room, “it’s even more impressive that it’s your first tattoo.”

He pushed himself up from the couch, rolling his shoulders once before stepping toward the mirror.

And then he saw it.

The ivy climbed his spine in delicate, elegant lines, twisting around the scar instead of hiding it. 

For a moment, he just stared. The scar looked… pretty. Pretty like a dewdrop from a leaf at dusk. Pretty like the sky’s reflection in the water at dawn. Pretty like you.

“You wear it well,” you said casually behind him, like it wasn’t a big deal, like you hadn’t just permanently changed the way he saw himself.

His fingers hovered near it, not really touching.

“Thank you, pretty girl.” he said, smaller than usual. The usual teasing edge with that nickname was dulled. He said it almost reverently.

You smiled a little at that, already focused on your next task as you stepped closer again. “Hold still.”

You smoothed the second skin carefully over the tattoo, pressing it down along his back with practiced hands.

“This’ll stay on for like a day or two,” you explained, your tone shifting into professional. “It’s basically a clear bandage. It keeps everything clean, helps it heal faster. You can shower with it, move around, whatever. Just… don’t mess with it.”

You stepped back, giving it a quick once-over to make sure it was sealed properly.

“After you take it off, wash it gently, no harsh soaps,” you continued, ticking a mental list off like muscle memory. “And don’t forget to moisturize.” You paused, then snapped your fingers lightly. “Oh, cocoa butter. That’s what I use.” You turned toward the hallway. “I’ve got a shit ton in my bedroom, let me grab you some.”

And just like that, you disappeared.

Dex was left standing alone in your living room.

For a second, he didn’t move.

Then he shifted, awkward in a way he never was anywhere else, glancing around the space like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself without you there to anchor his attention.

His eyes drifted to the couch and the table. 

And then he saw it.

A sketchbook, sitting on the coffee table. It had a plain black cardboard for a cover, but even the edges were worn.

He would bet good money that you laid your mind out there. That the sketches you drew were part of you, that it would give him an insight to how you thought, how you felt, who you are.  

He stared at it for a moment.

Looking wouldn’t hurt… right?

He sat down on the couch again, slower this time. The couch dipped beneath him, still warm from where he’d been lying earlier, and for a second he just stared at the sketchbook he’d just picked up his hands.

It felt like something he wasn’t supposed to touch. That thought didn’t stop him.

His thumb dragged along the edge of the cover before he opened it, the paper giving that worn sound that only came from books that were handled often.

The first pages were exactly what they should’ve been.

They were professional.

It was a string of roses meant to wrap naturally along muscle, thorns placed intentionally. The notes on the margin said the name of the client and the placement: forearm. He could practically feel where the needle would drag just by looking at the line weight. The shading was subtle but deliberate, gradients that would settle into skin instead of sitting on top of it.

Next page was a skull, split clean down the middle, like it had been cut open and arranged. Inside, instead of emptiness, there were peonies blooming out from the cavity, stems threading through bone like they’d grown there.

He turned the page.

This was a serpent coiled around a dagger, its body twisting. The scales overlapped in tight, careful patterns, each one slightly varied, like you actually understood what repetition was supposed to look like.

There were smaller pieces too; Fine-line constellations, minimalist script, coordinates. There were notes scribbled in the margins from placement ideas, sizing, reminders to adjust line thickness for certain skin types.

He flipped another page. Then another.

He saw a dragon stretched across two sheets, body flowing in a way that made it feel like it would move if you looked too long. A pair of hands reaching toward each other, fingers just barely missing contact. A moth with wings patterned like stained glass.

And then, somewhere in the middle of turning another page, that changed.

The lines loosened. The structure wavered. It felt personal, and the notes disappeared. You weren’t drawing to a prompt anymore; this was art for art’s sake— the view from your window sill, the cat from across the hall, the plants near the flower shop down the street. 

The next page was a figure, a woman. 

She was reclined on a chaise, her weight settled into one hip, body angled in a way that emphasized curve without exaggerating it. These were a little stylised, vintage sailor-inspired style tattoo. 

She had high-waisted shorts hugging her hips, a tied cropped top slipping off one shoulder, exposing more skin than necessary, Her hair was pinned up, a few strands falling loose like they hadn’t been corrected.

Dex’s eyes lingered longer than they should have.

He turned the page to see the same figure in a different pose.

She was this time, one knee pulled up slightly, fingers hooked into the waistband of her shorts absentmindedly. 

Her head was tilted seductively, and that smile…. 

He flipped again.

This time, she was one leaning back, arms braced behind her, chest lifted just slightly, the fabric of her shirt stretched in a way that felt… intentional, even if the pose wasn’t.

Oh. 

He had suspected it on the first figure, but this one confirmed it. 

That smile.

He knew that smile.

He’d seen it across from him on the fire escape, half-hidden behind a beer bottle. He’d seen it when you teased him, when you pushed just enough, when you knew something and didn’t say it.

He’d know it anywhere.

“…fuck.”

You were undoubtedly the reference to all these sailor girls. 

Every page after that only confirmed it.

You, over and over again, translated through your own hand. The way you saw yourself. The way you chose to present yourself.

It only got more and more explicit and intimate as he flipped the pages, comfortable being looked at by your own eyes, leaving less and less for the imagination as he saw another page of you bent over—

Fuck, even his thick tactical trousers can’t hide his physical reaction right now. 

He could imagine you sitting right here, in this exact spot, probably topless. The sketchbook would be balanced against your thigh, pencil moving in steady strokes. He imagined you glancing up at a mirror before putting it down on paper.

Dex wasn’t gonna lie to himself— he’s thought about you like this way too many times.

It would happen after long, stressful nights, alone, replaying the way you leaned into him, the way your voice dropped when you teased him, the way your knee bumped his.

He’d go into the bathroom for a hot shower, fist around himself as he thought about you. How you’d look under him, how you’d react to his touch, how you’d sound if only you’d let him…

His jaw clenched as heat crept up the back of his neck. His grip on the page shifted, fingers pressing harder like he needed something physical.

There was something about seeing it, about knowing you had made this, that made it worse. He felt possessive, in a way he didn’t bother examining.

He wanted this page. He needed it. He would at least something other than his own imagination to help. 

He shouldn’t do it, but when has shouldn’t ever stopped him?

He tore the page, not even caring that the paper crinkled way too loudly in your otherwise silent apartment. 

He just held it there, fingers tightening around the paper like it might be taken from him if he didn’t.

But then…

The page underneath caught his eye.

“…oh.”

That… wasn’t you.

It wasn’t your pinup sketches, not a personal drawing, not even a client drawing.

It was…. him.

Dex leaned forward slightly without realizing he was doing it, eyes narrowing as they traced over the lines.

It wasn’t stylized. It was accurate, down to the placement of his scars and the faint lines on the forehead. It looked like he was doing laundry. 

You… had been drawing him?

Then, he turned the page again. That was when his heart dropped. 

It was him again, but not Tony.

You had drawn Bullseye, mask on and everything. 

His grip on the torn page tightened.

He flipped and another one.

It was him again, on a rooftop, rifle braced, body aligned with the shot. The environment was barely sketched in, just enough to ground it, but the focus was entirely on him. 

He remembered that night. He had been tracking Task Force for hours.

He flipped again.

It was him, mid-step, tracking through a crowd, head slightly dipped.

Another.

Him throwing a knife between his fingers, captured right before release.

He flipped faster.

Page after page after page, all him. From different angles, different nights, different moments.

Some of them were rough sketches, quick captures like you hadn’t had time to refine them. Others fully rendered, detailed down to the smallest nuance. 

There were dozens of these, enough to go back months. 

You knew.

All this time, you were aware of him, what he had done, what he was capable of. 

Dex let out a deep breath. 

He realised now, what this meant. 

He had been following you in broad daylight, keeping track of your habits, your pattern, your days. 

But he hadn’t accounted for your nights.

So you must’ve been watching him then.

All those times he was doing his self-appointed mission, thinking he was alone in it… he wasn’t. 

You had been there, too. Another presence just outside his line of sight. Watching him the same way he watched you.

He wasn’t creeped out; it would be hypocritical.

He was in awe. He was amazed that his pretty girl was capable of this. Perhaps he shouldn’t be— daughter of a crime boss and all— but if anything, it only made him fall deeper in love with you, if that was even possible. 

All this time, the obsession was mutual. 

And then, he heard footsteps approaching. 

He didn’t move. He didn’t close the sketchbook, didn’t hide the torn page still in his hand.

He just sat there, surrounded by the evidence of crossing a line. He had a feeling you wouldn’t mind, though.

The hallway creaked faintly.

“Ah,” you said, setting down the tub of cocoa butter. “You found it.”

Dex stood up slowly. He didn’t rush you, didn't corner you right away. If anything, he was taking you in slowly. His eyes were locked on you like he was seeing you properly for the first time.

He set the sketchbook down.

“How long?” he asked again, like the answer mattered more now that he knew there was one. “How long have you known?”

“From the start.” You said it like it was obvious. Like it had never been a secret. Like you were almost surprised he had to ask.

“I might be pretty,” you added with an easy shrug, “but I’m not stupid, Dex.”

Dex.

Not Tony.

He lit up.

It was visceral, that switch up. He loved hearing his name from your mouth as if it belonged there.

A breath left him, almost a laugh, but rougher. His head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing just enough to study you again.

“My girl’s been watching me,” he murmured, more to himself than to you, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

You huffed a laugh, suddenly shy. You weren’t expecting a confrontation, at least not today. “Oh, don’t start,” you said, but there was no real resistance in it.

He took a step closer.

“Following me,” he continued, piecing it together out loud now, realising just how much you had stolen from his playbook. “Watching my routes. Studying my patterns .”

He took another step, and you stayed where you were, wanting him to come closer. 

“And I didn’t even notice.” He almost sounded impressed.

You tilted your head slightly, crossing your arms. “Yeah,” you said. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

Dex let out a quiet breath through his nose, something almost like a laugh, but heavier.

“Mind?” he echoed, head tipping. 

You held his eyes and didn’t back down, as he stepped in front of you.

“If you didn’t like it,” you shot back, “you wouldn’t be standing this close.”

You were right. 

His hand came up firmly as it found your wrist, fingers curling around it gently. 

“And you let me follow you,” he said under his breath. 

Of course you knew. Denying it now would just be an insult to everyone involved.

“Seems rude to stop you having so much… fun,” you said.

Fuck, you were something, were you?

Dex moved, closing the last of the distance between you. He pushed, just a bit, backing you up against the wall. He didn’t do it harshly, but his movements were certain, like there was no version of this where you weren’t right here.

His other hand braced beside your head, boxing you in without forcing you.

For a second, he just looked at you, and not as the neighbor. Not as the girl on the fire escape.

You.

The one who knew about him all along. The one who watched him. The one who kept up with him.

“Admit it,” you said, breathing just slightly uneven now, “You like that I was watching you.”

His eyes dropped to your mouth for a fraction of a second before lifting again. He was still trying to wrap his mind around how you knew who he was, and you still—what? Invited him in? Sat next to him? Drank with him?”

“Yeah,” he said, no hesitation. “I do.”

You bit your lip as if you’d been waiting for him to say it.

“What else did you see?” he asked, beads of sweat trickling down his bare chest. 

You raised an eyebrow, feigning innocence, “What are you worried I saw?”

“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. His mind was still tripping, even with his newfound confidence. “You’re—”

He didn’t finish it. 

Your hand came up, fingers hooking lightly at his belt loop, pulling him just a fraction closer.

You leaned in closer, your lips just barely brushing near his, your voice conspiratorial. “I can hear it, you know,” 

He froze.

“I love it when my name when you’re touching yourself, Dex,” you continued, tone playful. “Music to my fucking ears.”

His hand tightened at your waist, pulling himself flush against you, any space between you gone in an instant.

This was it. 

This was all he ever wanted. 

But it was you he was talking about, and what kind of man would he be it he just let his girl do all the work in the relationship?

“You talk too much,” he said, and that was the last thing either of you said before he kissed you.

It was hungry.

Like he had been thinking about it for too long. Like he already knew what it would feel like, had imagined it enough times that when it finally happened, his body just followed instinct. 

You made a small, surprised whine, but you didn’t pull away. If anything, you leaned into him harder, your hands coming up immediately, gripping his shoulders before sliding higher, fingers tangling into his hair and holding him there.

He gasped against your mouthlike feeling you pull him closer snapped whatever control he had left clean in half.

His hands explored, one firm at your waist, while the other came up to your chin, gripping harshly as he tilted your head, deepening the kiss.

It turned messy fast.

It started with breath breaking between movements, teeth catching his bottom lip for a second, neither of you slowing down long enough to make it neat. There was nothing careful about it, nothing rehearsed, just the way you liked it. 

You felt him everywhere, from the press of his chest against yours to his grip tightening and loosening like he was testing his limit. 

Your fingers tightened in his hair, tugging just enough to get a reaction in the form of a low, reverberating groan. 

When you caught your breath, you smiled, “Took you long enough.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he bit out immediately, as if every second your lips weren’t on him, the world was falling apart.

That almost made you laugh, but it dissolved the second he kissed you again, harder this time, like he didn’t like the break, like he was making up for it.

Your hands slid from his hair to his neck, fingers curling there, holding him in place, keeping him exactly where you wanted him.

And he let you.

Dex, who controlled everything, let you pull him, let you guide him just as much as he guided you.

Your back was pressed more firmly into the wall as he leaned into you, his body feeling  inescapable in the best way.

Your fingers dragged slightly along the back of his neck, and he reacted again, his breath hitching, his grip tightening as he toyed with the hem of your shirt, palm splayed against your skin now. 

He broke the kiss, but only just.

His lips lingered a fraction too long before pulling back, like he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to stop. His breath was uneven, his forehead against yours.

For a second, neither of you moved.

His eyes dropped to your mouth, like he couldn’t help it, like he was already thinking about doing it again.

Then they flicked back up to yours, darker now, heavier with a primal lust that hadn’t been there before… or maybe had, just buried under a mask he wasn’t bothering with anymore.

“Does my pretty girl want me fuck her stupid?” he whispered, so condescending it bordered on arrogance. 

He knew the answer immediately when you pressed your legs together, desperate for any form of friction, but he wanted to make you say it anyway.

Your throat felt tight, eyes in a haze as you followed the trail of spit that still connected your mouth to his. 

You nodded. And it was pathetic, desperate, and eager.

Unable to form words? Aw, how adorable. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, almost to himself, like he was locking it in. “That’s what I thought.”

—

Morning came slowly.

The distant buzz of the city filtered in through the cracked window, light spilling in thin, golden strips across the room, catching on empty bottles, painting colours on your walls. 

Dex woke to your touch.

You were so gentle this time, so different from the way you’d had them on him the night before. Now they moved carefully across his back, fingers gliding over his skin spreading cocoa butter along the fresh ink.

His eyes opened, blinking against the light as he shifted under you, enough to register where he was.

Your bed, your sheets, your room.

You were behind him, straddling the backs of his thighs, completely focused on his ink like nothing else in the world mattered.

Your hair was a little messy, falling forward over your shoulder as you leaned in. Your hands moved in careful strokes along the length of his spine, following every curve of the ivy you’d etched into him.

His teeth tightened slightly, a small exhale slipping out before he could stop it.

You noticed.

“Morning,” you greeted, not even looking up at first.

The second skin had peeled off sometime in the night from the overly strenuous activity he had called sex, and you’d made good on your promise to take care of it after.

You even reassured him that after it healed, you’d touch  it up if needed.

Your fingers traced just along the edge of the tattoo, careful around the more irritated areas like you were memorising it all over again.

Like you were memorising him.

“That didn’t exactly last long,” you added, a hint of amusement slipping into your voice now.

Dex huffed out a laugh. “You said a day or two.”

You finally glanced down at him, lifting an eyebrow. “I didn’t account for you… being like that.”

He shifted slightly under you again, trying to decide whether to sit up or stay exactly where he was.

He let his head drop back against the pillow briefly, eyes half-lidding as your hands moved up his spine again one last time. 

You kissed his shoulder, whispering close to his ear, “all done.”

At that, Dex shifted slightly beneath you, then pushed himself up onto his forearms, rolling his shoulders once to stretch.

He looked at you, at how cute you looked in the afterglow, wondering how he could possibly have underestimated his sweet girl.

That’s when he remembered. 

“Oh,” he said, like it annoyed him he’d nearly forgotten in all the chaos of last night. “I got something for you.”

You blinked, still docile from the intimacy of the morning. “Yeah?”

“Can you grab my jacket?” He asked.

You frowned a little at that, head tilting. “Your jacket?”

“It’s in the living room.”

Weird request. 

“…Okay?” you said slowly, sliding off the bed.

You didn't even bother covering up.

Why would you?

It was your apartment, your space. And after last night… please.

You stretched slightly as you walked out, feeling his eyes on you before you even turned.

You glanced over your shoulder, catching his unashamed drag of his gaze down your back, your hips, the curve of your ass. 

You clicked your tongue. “Perv.”

There was no bite to it. 

Dex didn’t even try to deny it. If anything, he smiled like he liked being called that by you.

You grabbed his jacket from the chair, and returned a second later, tossing it onto the bed without ceremony.

“There,” you said, climbing back up, settling beside him again. 

He was already reaching into the pocket, pulling a small piece of fabric out. 

Leather.

At least, that’s what you thought.

“What’s that?” you asked, leaning in.

Instead of answering, he held it out to you.

You reached out, your fingers brushing the surface before your eyes assessed it properly.

Oh.

Oh.

“That’s…” you gasped in disbelief. 

It was the exact sun you had tattooed on the back of Jack Hargrove’s hands.

You traced the familiar details, the tiny imperfections that you knew because you had put them there.

Your fingers pinched it as your brain caught up with what you were holding.

Human leather.  

You should be appalled. You should be horrified. You should be scared of him. You should feel sick to your stomach.

Instead, all you could think about was how this was the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. 

“…Dex,” you breathed, your voice reverent. 

He watched you closely, watching you figuring out the implications in real time. 

Not just that he killed him, but just how far he went.

He tracked him down, took his hand, skinned it, and preserved it. Just for you.

You turned it slightly under the light again, your thumb brushing over the ink.

Dex shifted a little beside you, like the silence had stretched long enough for him to fill it.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said.

You glanced up at him. That was not what you expected.

His expression didn’t change much, but there was the faintest edge of something almost… earnest there. Mild frustration, maybe. Not at you, but at the process.

“Making it was harder than I thought it would be,” he added, like he was explaining a minor inconvenience.

For a second, your brain just… stalled.

Then you laughed in disbelief. Not because you were afraid, but because you were delighted.

“You’re unbelievable,” you said, shaking your head, still smiling as you looked back down at it.

Dex watched you carefully, like he was checking whether that was the correct response. “I wasn’t sure if you’d like it.”

“Dex,” you said, smiling at him incredulously, “you literally took the time to make me art out of someone who pissed me off. Of course I love it.”

Instantly, his shoulder dropped in relief. 

You leaned in without thinking, pressing a kiss to his cheek, right over the scar, lingering just long enough to feel his cheeks pull a smile. 

When you pulled back, your hand was already reaching to take the leather properly, to keep it. Maybe you’d even frame it.

But he pulled it back just out of reach, teasing you. 

You blinked at him, your mouth pulling into the most adorable pout he’d ever seen. “Hey,” you huffed.

He watched you for a second, clearly enjoying it. His eyes switched between your face and your mouth like he was deciding a game.

“I’ll give it to you,” he said casually. “if you promise me something.”

Your eyes narrowed slightly, but there was a smile tugging at your lips. “Oh, you’re negotiating now?”

He tilted his head just a fraction. “Tattoo me,” he said. “One of those pinups.”

Oh.

You knew which ones he meant.

You shook your head, laughing under your breath, but your eyes gave you away completely. “I thought you’d never ask.”

That was all he needed.

He leaned in again, closing the space between you, his mouth finding yours as he laid the leather on your bare thighs.

And this time, kissing him felt different. It felt like he was yours. 

It felt so right in the way only things that were deeply wrong and perfectly matched could feel.

When you pulled back, you already knew he was going to be your favourite canvas.

You kept moving, eyes forward, hand steady on whatever weapon they’ve put in your grip this week— Val had sourced an experimental firearm, similar to a 9mm, modified to house adamantium bullets. She gave it to you and told you to get used to it, to practice assembling and disassembling it. So yeah, you’ve been doing that for the past thirty minutes in the tower’s common room. 

Your phone rang again. You ignored it again.

Ava said your name. You answered automatically. She asked what you were having for dinner. You said you’ve already had dinner; Yelena accidentally ordered too much Chinese takeout.

It rang again in the middle of disassembly. 

That pissed you off. You were trying to get a sub-10 second time, but that just frayed your focus. 

You turned the sound off on your phone and didn’t even bother to check who was calling. It was probably Bob, asking you if you were up for a game of Catan. Or maybe Alexei, calling to ask whether or not his request to get a (highly illegal) Soviet missile launcher from the Smithsonian has been approved. 

The answer would most likely be no.

Focus. Focus. 

You looked at the tool, the mat, and the stopwatch.

You turned it on again.

One. Left thumb hit the magazine release, falling into your palm. Two. Right hand pulled the slide back, checking the empty chamber—clear. Three. Let the slide fly forward. Four. Grip the rear of the slide, pulling back just a millimeter while you index finger and thumb push down the takedown lever simultaneously.

Five. The slide slid off into your hand.

Six. Recoil spring pulled out. Seven. Barrel slid out.

Disassembled. Five seconds down.

You didn't even pause to breathe.

Eight. Barrel back into the slide. Nine. Recoil spring snapped into place. Ten. Realign the slide with the frame rails, sliding it back on. Eleven. Rack the slide once. Twelve. Pull the trigger to lock it in. Click.

Thirteen. Magazine back in.

You stopped the timer. 9.2 seconds.

You set the tool back down on the mat and looked at the timer. 

Perfect. Some bastard’s gonna get fucked up by getting adamantium between their eyes.

Breathing the moment, your phone vibrated again.

You pulled it out, already irritated. Who could it be? Mel? Charles? The fucking president? The secretary general? If they wanted an answer, it better be one of them.

Unknown number.

You stared at it. Huh. Weird. 

Your thumb hovered, debating if you should decline it.

You answered instead.

“Hello?” You said it flatly, professionally.

For a second, nothing answered you.

“Hi.”

Everything stopped.

Suddenly you weren’t where you are anymore.

You were back in a cramped office with bad coffee.

You were at a bar with Foggy, laughing too loud.

You were at a funeral trying not to look at anyone, trying to get the fucking hell out of here—

You stopped breathing.

“Matt?” you said, and it came out quieter than you meant it to.

There was a pause on the other end, like he wasn’t sure you’d say his name at all. Maybe he wasn’t even expecting you to recognise his voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s me.”

You swallowed, throat feeling tight for no reason you want to examine.

You didn’t ask how he got this number. You didn’t ask why now. You didn’t ask anything.

Because he wouldn’t call you after two years of silence unless something had gone very, very wrong.

Matt exhaled softly.

“I—” he started, then stopped. You could hear him recalibrating the way he always did when things mattered too much to get wrong.

“You’re… okay?” He asked, finally.

It’s such a Matt question.

Careful, yet loaded with everything he wasn’t saying. And out of everyone you knew, you weren’t going to let him do his lawyer thing on you. 

You almost laughed.

“Yeah,” you said automatically. “I’m fine.”

The lie came easy, but he didn't call you out on it. You almost forgot he couldn’t tell if you’re lying through the phone.

Another bout of silence stretched, and you felt it settle between you.

Something’s wrong.

You swallowed. “What happened?” you asked. You were tired of small talk.

For a long, unbearable second, you thought he might hang up. Like maybe hearing your voice again made him reconsider. Like maybe he didn’t actually want you here, or needed you for whatever he thought he needed you for.

You wouldn’t have blamed him. Not after everything that happened.

But it was you he was talking to. 

Sure, you had talents that made you suited to the vigilante life more than most, but you were more than just another fist in the streets of New York— you were both Matt and Karen’s friend. 

You had been Foggy’s friend too.

And for whatever reason, all those years ago, you had gotten attached to him.

Benjamin Poindexter.

Matt still didn’t understand it. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

It didn’t make sense. You didn’t just wake up one day and decide to fall for a man like that.

But you saw something in him. Something broken you recognized. Something that reflected back pieces of yourself you didn’t talk about. You saw someone worth saving. 

Matt called it a coping mechanism. Said you needed to believe people like Dex could be saved, because otherwise… What did that say about the rest of them?

Karen thought it was your pattern. Your history with men who needed help, who gave you just enough to keep you trying. She said you were always one for the “I can fix him” trope.

Foggy…

Foggy had just shrugged, and said it was love. He never attempted to condone it, but he understood it. He said sometimes love had no rhyme or reason. He trusted you enough to not question your decision to keep visiting, day in and day out, making sure he was okay. 

He was right. 

You just… couldn’t help it.

Still, even Matt couldn’t help but have teeny tiny growing resentment for you because of it.

After all, the last time you met, and the real conversation you had was at Foggy’s funeral. And even then, it was only a few clipped sentences. You had gone from trusting Matt and Karen with your life to being distant overnight. You changed, just as Foggy’s death had changed every single one of you. 

You weren’t even at the trial. You went even at the sentencing.

It had made sense— the man you loved had killed one of your closest friends.

There wasn’t a guidebook for surviving something like that.

After that, you were just… gone. 

He knew you had been doing black ops for a little under six years now, one day mission at a time for a mysterious woman you called “Val.” After Foggy died, you had thrown yourself at the job. You’ve disappeared for months to another continent until you had no time to even text a simple “how are you?” to any of them. Perhaps, you had needed all the distraction you could get. 

And Matt and Karen weren’t the only ones who felt the impact of what you left behind. You had gone from visiting Dex at least three times a week at the mental institution, to not even once visiting him in prison. Matt didn’t know why, but he could… assume. 

Then, one day, Karen had turned on the TV to the announcement of the New Avengers. She had joked that they had gotten the greatest hits of earth’s mightiest heroes’ rogue gallery, from the Winter Soldier to Ghost… until the camera panned to you. Even Matt flinched when they said your name.

You were part of this now. Whatever this was. You were monitoring space and shooting off in jets. You defeated a void of a monster, and he didn’t even know how. 

But if you weren’t gone before, you were definitely gone now. Avenger-level gone: Classified missions, neutralising world-ending events, things he only heard about in pieces, if he heard anything at all.

Your world had gotten bigger than New York. Your problems had gotten bigger, too. 

Anyway. 

“We have him.” Matt said simply, bad phone signal slightly distorting his words.

Oh.

The world dropped out from under you. 

There was only one person that could mean. Your grip tightened around the phone so hard it almost hurt.

“Dex?” you whispered.

The nothingness you were met with was answer enough.

You closed your eyes. For a second, everything you’d buried—  the blood, Foggy, the way you couldn’t even look at Dex without feeling like you were going to come apart— came rushing back so fast it made you dizzy.

“He’s alive,” Matt said quickly, as if he heard it in your breathing. “And he’s hurt.”

Alive.

You didn’t know what to do with that word.

You knew he was out there somewhere, but hadn’t built a version of the world where he was tangible.

You’d built one where he was gone, or locked away, or not your problem anymore. This dragged everything back into reach.

“I don’t know who else to call,” Matt added.

And there it was.

He didn’t call for forgiveness. Or reconciliation. It was simply a necessity.

You pressed your thumb harder into the side of the phone, grounding yourself in the pressure.

“We haven’t spoken in two years,” you said. It came out quieter than you meant it to. You said it almost as a reminder. To him, or to yourself? You weren’t sure.

“Yeah,” he exhaled. “I know.”

There was an exhaustion in his voice. It was worn down. 

“I—” you started.

I’m sorry. That was what you meant to say. You needed to choke it out. The words sat right there, overdue by two years. “I’m—”

“No.” Matt cut you off immediately. “I don’t—” he stopped, then tried again. “Don’t.”

You went quiet.

“Just… don’t,” he said, gentler now but no less certain. “I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t this.”

He was right. This wasn’t the moment for apologies. Not after everything. Not when the only reason he was even speaking to you was because he had no other choice.

You swallowed hard, forcing the word back down.

“Okay,” you said. It felt like swallowing glass.

“You were the only one…,” Matt started, and there was something strained in it now, “…we’ve ever known to talk him down.”

You closed your eyes again, just for a second.

“Can you come?” He asked like he didn’t know if he still had the right. “Karen just… she can’t watch him. I…” he trailed off, not knowing what to say or how to say it. “I’m out of options.”

You didn’t answer right away.

Because this was the line you’d drawn. The one that kept you moving forward without looking back.

If you crossed it… you might as well drown yourself in your sorrow now.

What the hell. 

“Send me the address.”

—

You found the building quickly.

There were no complications, just a straight line from the coordinates Matt sent you to a door that looked like nothing in an unassuming building. 

You stood in the hallway outside it longer than you should have.

You should’ve known it was a safehouse from the dim lighting and faint hum of electricity. 

And yet, behind that door…

You swallowed.

He was there.

Close enough that if you reached out and opened the door, you’d see him.

Your hand hovered near the handle, but didn’t touch it as footsteps approached from the other end of the hall.

“You’re early.”

You turned, and there he was.

Matt Murdock, no, Daredevil.

The suit surprised you first. Stark red under the chipped black paint, the mask unchanged. He held himself ever so slightly differently than before. A bit more… uptight, believe it or not. 

You hadn’t seen him up close in years.

Not since…

Foggy at the bar, knocking his shoulder into yours, slurring slightly, insisting he was not drunk while ordering another round anyway. “C’mon, you’re the worst liar I know—”

You managed to blink, dragging yourself back.

“Good to see you, too” you shot back automatically, the words slipping into place like muscle memory. “Is it just us?”

He didn’t react. 

“Karen needs time,” he said, straight to it.

Right.

You let out a breath, glancing at the door beside you, before looking away again. “Let me guess, she wants to kill him?” you asked, a dry, almost disbelieving edge creeping in. “Is that it?”

A short, humorless laugh left him. “Is this funny to you?”

Matt had spent years learning the shape of you without sight— your voice, your breath, the rhythm of your pulse when you lied and when you didn’t. He knew what you’d become long before tonight. You killed. Not recklessly, not blindly, but when the line you drew in your own head said there wasn’t another way. 

He hated that line, argued against it. He pushed against it until it put a strain on your friendship. And still, he’d learned to live with it. 

Not comfortably. But he trusted your judgment, even when it made his stomach turn, even when it sounded like everything he stood against. 

Rebuilding with you, though? Going back to what you all were, what you were to him, a good friend— that was something else entirely. That, he didn’t know how to do.

You shook your head, folding your arms loosely. “I forgot how preachy you can be, Murdock.”

“Yeah, well.”

Your eyes drifted back to the door without meaning to. Your mouth, however, found a safer topic to latch on to: Karen.

“She’s a ticking time bomb, Matt,” you sighed. “She always has been.”

“Would you rather she kill him, then?”

That pulled your attention back to him.

“It’s not his fault,” you said abruptly. You forced yourself to breathe, slower this time. “It’s not his fault,” you repeated. Your eyes dropped, unfocused. “Foggy…”

His name caught in your throat like it didn’t belong in the air. You pressed your lips together, trying again.

“Foggy didn’t just—” you stopped, teeth tightening hard.

You could see him, leaning over your shoulder, complaining about paperwork, stealing fries off your plate like you wouldn’t notice. Sitting between you and Matt and Karen, always talking, always there…

“He didn’t… ,” you said, voice rough now, thinner than you wanted it to be. “He didn’t deserve to… to die. He shouldn’t have died.”

The hallway felt smaller. Even Matt flinched. 

“But that’s not on Dex,” you continued, resolute. “It’s my fault. I could’ve prevented this.”

You barely heard yourself say it.

But Matt did.

“What?” he said immediately, like he thought he misheard you. He started listening for irregularities in your heart beat and found none. So yes, you were telling the truth. At least you thought you were.

“It’s something I’d rather not unpack with you,” you said, brushing it off like it didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t clawing at your ribs.

“C’mon,” you said, nodding toward the door even as your chest tightened. “We didn’t come here to chat, right?”

—

The door opened, and there he was.

Dex was on a narrow cot, wrists cuffed on either side, bruises dark and blooming across his face and throat, breathing shallow like even that took effort. 

Your chest tightened so hard it hurt.

And your brain, traitor that it was, dragged you into the memory of the last time you had a saw him. 

The visitor room of the mental institution had always been too bright for your liking.

It was clean and controlled. It looked like it was designed to remind you that nothing in it was normal, no matter how hard you tried to pretend otherwise.

But you’d gotten used to it because of him.

Dex was already there when you walked in that day. He sat straight-backed at the table, hands folded too neatly, like he’d been waiting long enough to start counting seconds.

And the second he saw you, his entire nervous system lit up like fairy light behind his eyes.“You’re late.”

You huffed out a laugh, already walking toward him. “Relax,” you said, leaning down to press a quick kiss to his temple, like you always did. “It’s been, what? A day since I last saw you. You can handle five minutes of me being held up in security.”

“It’s not enough,” he said immediately. His eyes tracked you still, even if the movement was a bit slower from the meds. 

You paused, just for a second, pulling back enough to look at him properly. “You see me every other day.”

“I know,” his eyes stayed on you, finger tapping the table. “It’s still not enough.”

You swallowed it down, forcing a lighter tone as you dropped into the seat across from him.

“Wow,” you said, reaching into your bag. “And here I thought I was doing something nice.”

That got his attention. “What?”

You pulled it out with a small flourish, holding it up between you. “Don’t you ever say I don’t bring you anything good.”

His eyes locked onto it instantly. “is that…?”

“Banana flavoured marshmallows,” you confirmed, a little smug.

There it was, a smile.

“You remembered,” he said. You had a mission in South Korea five months ago— you were barely there for a day, but you managed to grab one of those for Dex at the airport. You remembered how much he liked it, so you had managed to source an importer. It took a while, but there were very few things you wouldn’t do for him.

“Of course I did,” you replied.

You slid the bag across the table toward him, your fingers brushing his. He opened the plastic and picked one up carefully, turning it between his fingers like he was committing it to memory before taking a bite.

You watched him, watched how his shoulders relaxed.

Just like that, all the effort was worth it.

“You okay?” you asked after a moment, your voice lowered now.

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes lingered on the table, on the half-eaten marshmallow in his hand.

“Better when you’re here,” he said finally.

You looked away for a second, like that might make his words easier to stomach. You leaned forward and put your hands on his. “Yeah?”

“I think about it,” His eyes lifted back to yours, steady, unguarded in a way he rarely allowed himself to be. “When you leave.”

“What do you think about?” You tilted your head. 

“When you’ll be back,” he said. “How long it’s going to take.”

He said it carefully. It’s as if he didn’t want to push too far but couldn’t help saying it anyway.

“I’ll always come back,” you reassured him.

That mattered. You saw it in the way his focus sharpened, in the way he leaned just slightly forward like he was holding onto the words. He readjusted his hand and squeezed your palm.

You sat with him that day and talked about nothing and everything. Let your knee bump his under the table like it was normal, like you weren’t separated by a bureaucratic line you so desperately want to tear down.

And when the visiting hours finally ended, you didn’t want to leave.

You never did. You would give anything to listen to him talk for more than a few hours at a time. You would give anything to coax another laugh, another smile from him. 

“You’re going to be back soon?” he asked as you stood up, showing the smallest crack in the certainty he tried to keep around himself.

You smiled at him. “Soon.”

You leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. It was brief, but it still made his day. 

When you pulled back, he nodded. “Soon,” he repeated under his breath.

You nodded. ‘Soon’ was good. ‘Soon’ was non-specific. 

Because little did he know, you’d already agreed to a seven-day mission. Val had barely given you a choice. 

You’d never been gone that long before.

Usually, missions were two days. Three days, max. And even those ones were few and far between. And then you’d come straight back to him, no matter how exhausted you were, no matter what you had to wade through to get there.

But you decided he didn’t need to know about this… extension.

You told yourself it wasn’t a big deal. That he’d be fine. That telling him that you would be gone three times as long as you usually do would only make him spiral, make him worry, make him count every hour in a way that would hurt more than help.

So you kept it to yourself.

On the sixth day of the mission, Foggy was dead.

You snapped yourself out of it.

Because now you were here, standing in front of a man you haven’t seen in more than two years. 

Dex didn’t move at first.

For one horrible second, you thought he was still out, chest rising too shallow under the dim light, like whatever it took to bring him in had hollowed him out and left the shell behind.

Then when he realised someone else was in the room, his head turned slowly, and then… his eyes found you.

Oh. 

For a second, he stared at you like you weren’t real. Like this was a hallucination his brain had made up to cope with his injuries. His lips parted, but nothing came out at first. 

“Y-you…” his voice cracked. He swallowed hard, throat working like it hurt. “You came back.”

What he had in his voice wasn’t relief. It wasn’t even hope. It was disbelief so raw it sounded like it might collapse in on itself.

Of course this was how he reacted.

Because he had waited, back in the institution he was assigned to. He waited for every sound in the corridor. Every footstep that wasn’t yours. Every door that didn’t open.

On the fourth day, he started asking the facility staff over and over, until the answers became rehearsed, clipped and annoyed. They said you were “busy,” “not scheduled,” or “unavailable.”

Still, he waited. 

On the fifth day, a staff member told him he had a visitor.

And for the first time in while, he lit up.

It had to be you, right?

He sat up too fast, eyes fixed on the door before it even opened, already bracing for the moment you’d step through and make the last five days feel like a misunderstanding he could recover from.

The door opened and… it wasn’t you.

It was Vanessa Fisk.

The light in him shut off instantly. 

As he sat down, he had a hollow, sinking realization that he might’ve wrong to expect you at all.

Maybe you had gotten sick of visiting him. Of not being able to touch him as much as you wanted, of not being able to hold him as much as you wanted. After all, why would you settle for a broken man when you could have a free man?

Behind you, Matt went completely still, listening, measuring, probably hearing the way Dex’s heart was starting to race, the way his breathing kept catching like it didn’t know how to settle.

“You came back,” he said again, gentler now, like he was afraid saying it too loud would make you disappear. His eyes dragged over your face, searching frantically. “I thought… I thought you wouldn’t. I thought you—”

“I know, ” you said, but it came out thinner than you meant, as if  the words had to fight their way out.

Your voice alone was enough to undo him further.

His breath hitched again, like your voice made it real in a way his eyes alone couldn’t.

“You’re here,” he repeated, and now there was something fragile in it. “You actually… y-you came back.”

He tried to push himself up, instinct overriding his senses, the cuffs snapping tight with a harsh metallic sound that made his whole body jolt. It didn’t stop him immediately. He strained against them anyway as he got on his knees, like he could get to you if he just tried hard enough.

“I-I…” his voice came faster now, stumbling over itself. “I thought you left, I thought—”

“Dex…”

“You said soon,” he cut you off, the words rushing out like he’d been holding them in for two years too long. “You said you’d be back soon.”

Your stomach dropped.

His eyes were shiny now. Not crying yet, but right there on the edge of it.

“You didn’t come,” he said. “I waited. I kept…I thought maybe you got held up, I thought maybe—”

His breath stuttered, like the memory of it was catching up to him all over again.

“And then you didn’t,” he finished, voice thinning. 

Behind you, Matt shifted slightly.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Matt said, directed at you, but Dex flinched anyway, like any sound that wasn’t yours was an intrusion.

His gaze snapped onto you, almost panicked now, like he thought he might take you away again.

“You’re here now,” he said quickly, like he could rewrite the past by insisting on the present. “You came back.”

The words were breaking apart as he said them. He needed them to be true.

Your chest ached so bad it felt like it might cave in.

“Leave us alone.” It came out rougher than you meant.

“He’s not stable,” Matt said again, more firmly this time. 

He was right. You could hear it in every fracture, every broken piece.

But Dex was still looking at you like you were the only thing holding him together, barely.

“Matt,” you said, and your voice almost gave out on his name. “Please.” 

You knew he had somewhere to be anyway. Why was he even here, with you? Did he just now realise that this might be a bad idea? That you ever had one true weakness, and that it was him? Did he just now realise that if he left, he might just come back later tonight to an empty room? 

Dex didn’t move now. Didn’t even try to fight the cuffs again.

“You came back,” he whispered like a prayer.

Behind you, Matt exhaled reluctantly. “You don’t know what state he’s in.”

“I do,” you said, and he had no idea. You knew him better than anyone in the world, so Matt insisting on playing chaperone was only irritating you. “Please.”

You heard him sigh. 

The door opened, then closed.

Just like that, he was gone, footsteps disappearing down the hall.

It was just you and Dex now.

Dex let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh, except it fractured halfway through.

You had no buffer. No witnesses.

You stepped forward without meaning to. “What did you do?”

You knew, of course. You’ve seen the news. You just wanted to hear him say it, you needed him to know what he thought he did and why he thought he did it. 

“I fixed it,” he said immediately, a little too quickly. “You don’t have to… I fixed it.”

“What did you do?” you asked again.

Against all odds, Dex looked pleased. “I balanced it.”

“No,” you let out a deep breath you didn’t realise you were holding, “you didn’t.”

“I did,” he insisted, words starting to tumble now. “I took something from you, so I took something from him, it’s even now, it’s—”

“Dex.”

“I killed your friend, I killed Foggy,” he said flatly. “So Vanessa had to die.”

Oh. So that was what this was about. 

It might not make sense to you, but you could see now, how it would make sense to him. How it would twist the cords in his mind and pretend to untangle it. 

“I balanced the scales,” he said again, faster now, unraveling, beads of sweat travelling down his temple, to his neck, to his bare chest as the restraints rattled. “You don’t have to hate me anymore, it’s equal, it’s fixed, you can love me now, I can die knowing you love me—”

“What?” you snapped, putting a hand on your face. “You want to die? What the fuck does you that have to do with anything you’ve done?”

“My job here is done.” he shot back, agitation spiking. “You’re just not seeing it yet, but you will, you always do—”

“Stop.”

He didn’t.

“I did it for you,” he pushed on, voice rising, cracking, desperate. “So you’d come back, so you would forgive me, and once you do, I can finally—”

“Stop talking,” you put your hands through your hair, exasperated.

“You’re here now, see? It worked, it—”

“Shut up, Dex!”

He froze for half a second, but the silence didn’t last long. He snapped right back into his spiral, this time worse.

“I fixed it,” he insisted, louder now, breath coming fast, shoulders jerking against the restraints. “You don’t get it, I had to make it even or you’d never come back before I go, you’d never—”

Fuck. 

Fuck’s sake. 

Did you really have to do this? 

You grabbed your concealed gun from under your shirt and raised it into his view.

His eyes snapped to it instantly. “What are you—”

You pressed the barrel under your chin.

“Hey!” He pulled on his restraints. If there weren’t dents in the metal before, there were definitely now. 

You stared at his angelic hazel eyes as you clicked the safety off.

Dex broke. “No!”

He surged forward, the cuffs yanking him back hard with a metallic crack. The cot screeched against the floor as he thrashed, sanity tearing loose under his skin.

“No, no, no! Don’t do that—don’t…”

Metal slammed, his whole body jerking, twisting, fighting restraints that didn’t give.

“Please,” he choked out, voice breaking apart as he pulled on the cuffs as if he could rip through them, wrists straining, breath turning wild. “You don’t… p-put it down! put it down right now—”

“Dex…”

“NO!” he barked, frantic, eyes locked on the gun like it was the only thing in existence. “Not you, not you, not you…”

You sighed, resting your finger on the trigger. You could pull at any second now. 

“Dex!”

He didn’t stop.

“I fixed it for you,” he was spiraling now, words slurring into each other desperately. “I made it right, I made it equal, you’re here now so it worked, just put it down, j-just—”

“Goddammit, Dex!” You shouted, and it echoed through the room. 

He finally stopped, and you finally spoke a language he understood: that the only way to get him to listen was to threaten to hurt you.

“Shut up and fucking listen!” you snapped, voice shaking with an emotion hotter than anger, “or you’re going to have to fish an adamantium bullet out of my cold dead body until your fingers are smeared with my liquified brain, you understand?”

All you got from him now was silence. 

It worked.

His chest was still heaving, eyes wide. They were glued to you, on the gun, on your finger, on the very real, very immediate possibility of losing you again.

So you stepped closer.

The gun stayed where it was, pressing even further into your skin. The rest of you gave in, closing the distance inch by inch until you were standing right in front of him, close enough to feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing.

Dex didn’t retreat.

He was still there on his knees on the cot, shoulders drawn.

His eyes tracked you like you were the only fixed point in a collapsing world. 

You raised your free hand slowly and reached out slowly, giving him time to flinch, to recoil…

He didn’t.

Your hand found his face, cupping it carefully, thumb brushing over the scar carved into his cheek. He hadn’t had it the last time you saw him.

You had assumed that Matt had given it to him at Josie’s on the night that Foggy died.

That scar was a reminder of what he had done. And he had to carry it everywhere. 

You exhaled, your touch softening without thinking, tracing it again like you could map the moment it happened, like you could undo it just by understanding its shape.

Dex made a whiny sound. It was small, broken, as if it sat between a breath and a moan. His eyes fluttered for half a second, leaning into your touch before he could stop himself.

You studied him. It had been a while since he was this close to you.

He was… pretty.

You’d always thought so. Not in a conventional way, or a safe way. It was almost unnatural, the kind of beauty that wasn’t meant to comfort, but to unsettle. It was the kind of beauty you imagine ancient gods to possess: radiant and terrible all at the same.

Your thumb moved from the scar to his mouth. You pressed lightly against his lower lip, testing.

He parted for you immediately. He didn’t even have to think about it. It was pure instinct. 

His breath hitched as your thumb slid past his lip, resting against the warmth of his tongue. 

Fuck, he missed this. 

His tongue moved, brushing against your thumb in a slow, searching motion, as his eyes rolled back slightly to the back of his skull.

It was trust, desire, and recognition all the same. 

You didn’t pull away.

Instead, you pressed down slightly, feeling the way his breath faltered around it, the way his body went still again, utterly focused on you and what you were allowing. What you weren’t taking away.

After a moment, you drew your thumb back out, slow enough that he followed the motion without meaning to, lips parting just slightly before he caught himself.

You didn’t give him time to think about it.

Your thumb brushed across his lower lip again, smearing the moisture of his spit there, grounding him in a physical sensation. 

“Nothing…” you choked, then tried again. “Nothing you do will balance the scales,” you finally managed to rasp out.

His breathing hitched again.

“Foggy’s death…” you paused, forcing the words through the tightness in your throat, “…was my fault.”

For a second, he just looked at you. For once, he was the one trying to make sense of your beliefs and judgement..

“No,” he murmured against your skin. “It’s not.”

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t pull your hand away. Your thumb stayed near his cheek, your palm still cradling his jaw, holding him there even as your fingers tightened slightly. 

“It is,” you said firmly.

His head shook faintly against your hand, rejecting it. It’s as if he physically couldn’t let it settle.

“But you hated me for it,” he said, voice thinner now, searching your face for confirmation, for a fact he could anchor himself to.

“No.” You shook your head immediately, your grip on his face tightening without meaning to. “No, no, sweetheart. I never hated you.”

What?

“But you didn’t come back,” he said, a swell of tears spilling down his cheek. You caught it and wiped it away. “You didn’t go to the trial. You didn’t go to the sentencing. And you… you don’t visit anymore.”

It fucking hurt to see him this was. 

“I didn’t go,” you said slowly, each word dragged up from the pit of your stomach, “because I couldn’t look at you… and see what I made you do.”

His brow furrowed immediately, confused.

“I should’ve told you,” you cut in, your voice tightening now, the words starting to spill faster. “About the mission. I should’ve told you I’d be gone that long. I should’ve—”

Your hand trembled against his face, but you didn’t stop.

“I didn’t think, I didn’t know… I didn’t know Vanessa would know I was gone,” you continued, choking on your words, “I didn’t know she’d take advantage of that. That she’d come to you when I wasn’t there to talk you down—”

“No.” Dex shook his head harder now, the movement pressing into your palm. “That’s not—”

He couldn’t even finish it, because he believed there was no version of this where you were the one at fault. Not in his mind. How could you possibly do anything wrong? 

“You’re not—” his voice hitched, desperate now, like he was trying to put a puzzle piece of the truth into place, “you’re not responsible for that. You didn’t make me do anything. I—”

“What did Vanessa tell you?” you interrupted suddenly.

He blinked. “What?”

“What did she say would happen,” you pressed, your thumb brushing his cheek again without thinking, “if you helped her?”

Dex hesitated for a second. “She said… I could be free.”

Your chest tightened.

“That I wouldn’t have to be…” he swallowed, eyes flickering down for half a second before finding you again, “…half a man for you anymore.”

Fuck.

“Dex,” your hand tightened on his face again, your other still holding the gun in place beneath your chin, the barrel pressing harder now as your jaw shifted with every word. “Don’t you see?” 

“No.”

“If I hadn’t gone on that mission,” you pushed on, faster, louder, the words tumbling over each other, “if I was there, I would’ve talked you out of it. I always do.”

Your fingers trembled against his skin, but you didn’t let go.

“I would’ve stopped you,” you said, convinced with terrifying certainty. “I would’ve stopped your fucking rampage, I wouldn’t have even let you get that far! I….”

The barrel pressed harder into your skin as your mouth moved, your grip tightening around the gun without realizing it.

“Don’t you see?” you repeated, voice cracked. “It’s my fault.”

Dex’s eyes snapped to the gun.

He hadn’t stopped watching it, but now he saw it. The way your finger trembled on the trigger. He saw the way it pressed deeper every time you spoke, every time you believed what you were saying a little more.

“No,” he said.

Dex’s breathing turned uneven again, but not the same as before. Not frantic in the way it had been when you walked in.

“No,” he said again, louder this time, his body tensing against the restraints as far as they’d allow. His eyes flicked between your face and the gun, tracking every movement of your hand. “You don’t get to—” his voice strained, tightening with every word, “you don’t get to say that and then—”

His breath hitched when your finger shifted slightly.

“—and then do that,” he finished, voice breaking at the edges now.

Because now, he could see the way you were starting to believe you deserved it. “Put it down. Please.”

But you didn’t hear him. 

“Balance, huh?” you whispered, almost taunting.

Your thumb drifted back to his scar beneath your palm, tracing the line of it again, like you were committing it to memory in a different way now.

If you believed that you were as responsible for Foggy's death as he was, and you did, shouldn’t you have something to remember it by, too? Something you had to carry everywhere, too?

Dex’s breath hitched.

“You want balance, Dex?” you asked, genlter this time, but you sounded off.

His head shook immediately, frantically pressing his face into your hand like he could stop you just by being close enough.

“Not like this,” he said, voice tightening. “No.”

“You want it so bad,” you went on, almost like you weren’t hearing him anymore, your attention flicking between his face and the gun still pressed beneath your chin. “You killed Vanessa to make it even, right?”

“No. No, that’s not—”

You tilted your head slightly, considering him, your grip on the gun shifting. “Then let’s make it even.”

The resolution in your voice made his entire body go rigid.

“Please,” he said again, panic breaking through. “No, don’t—”

You adjusted your wrist, quickly angling the barrel. It was not directly under your chin anymore, titled it forty-five degrees. 

“Stop,” he choked out, pulling hard against the restraints, metal biting into his wrists. “Stop, baby, please. Please…”

You were tired of this. Tired of him thinking he deserved it when you knew for a fact you were the deciding factor in why Foggy had died…

So you pulled the trigger.

The sound boomed through the room, deafening in the confined space. You stumbled back, hand pulled away from his face, as your grip on the gun faltered. It clattered to the other side of the room

For a split second, you didn’t move.

Then you felt the pain.

It was white-hot and blinding, tearing across your cheek as the adamantium round grazed your skin instead of ending your life. 

Dex flinched.

Your hand shot up, fingers brushing the wound. 

You stared at the blood on your fingertips like it was exactly what you wanted.

Then you laughed.

It came out wrong. It was a little too high, like one of those cute little giggles that he adored so much. 

You could already feel the vertical cut on your cheek, matching the horizontal one on his face.

You were his mirror drawn in flesh.

It was unwise, you knew, especially because it wasn’t just any weapon. It was experimental, and even you weren’t fully briefed on it. Adamantium rounds weren’t meant to graze skin. They were meant to pierce, to hold, to do things that conventional physics couldn’t. It was meant to kill supersoldiers. It was meant to cut through thick alien skin. You had no idea what they would do to living tissue at a superficial angle.

But right now, you didn’t give a shit. 

You pressed your hand back to his face anyway, smearing blood across his cheek with the same gentleness as before.

“Balance, Dex,” you said again, voice shaking now but still smiling.

You lowered yourself onto the cot, the thin frame creaking under your weight, your balance still slightly off, but you didn’t care. The room still rang faintly in your ears, your thoughts moving too fast, too sharp, like they were skipping steps.

Dex moved closer the second he could reach. 

He pressed his forehead to yours like he needed to make sure you were real. His eyes snapped to your cheek again, to the blood that hadn’t stopped, a thin line still slipping down your skin.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, tighter.

You let out a breath that almost turned into a chuckle.

“I know,” you said, a little too brightly. “It’s fine. It’s…” you shook your head faintly, like you were trying to catch up with your own thoughts, “… it’s good.”

He frowned, but didn’t argue.

Instead, he leaned in. His breath touched your cheek ghosting over the blood like he was measuring where to start.

And then he licked you. 

The tip of his tongue brushed lightly against your skin, just at the edge of the blood. He was testing, making sure you wouldn’t pull away.

You didn’t. 

Why would you? You liked it. Even when it stung a little. 

“It’s okay,” you said, relaxing your head back a little, letting Dex clean up the red from the start of the wound, all the way to the liquid that had made its way down. “We’re okay.”

Dex leaned in closer, lapping up nearer to the wound. He didn’t rush it, like he was trying to clean you without hurting you further.

Your head tilted slightly, giving him more space without thinking.

“We both paid,” you said suddenly, almost thoughtful. “See? That’s what you wanted, right?”

He shifted closer, his breath catching faintly between each pass, his focus narrowing completely to the cut, to the blood still lingering there. His tongue moved slower, tracing near the edge of the wound but never pressing into it. 

His hand shifted as much as the restraints allowed, fingers brushing against your arm, then settling there. He was holding you in place, or maybe holding himself steady.

He licked the stream down your neck, and you gave him a breathy, angelic moan of pleasure that sent a jolt of satisfaction straight down his spine. 

“It matches,” you whispered, like it was a revelation. “We match.”

As much as he hated seeing your scar, he couldn’t help but smile a little.

“You’re not supposed to get hurt,” he mumbled against your jaw, teeth red now. 

You let out a breathy laugh.

“Too late,” you said. 

What had been slow, deliberate licks turned lighter and shorter. It became less about cleaning, more about touch. His lips brushed your skin in their place, tentative at first.

A pressed a soft kiss near the edge of the wound. Then another just beneath it. Then again, closer to your jawline.

These kisses came unevenly in scattered, small, points of contact, like he was trying to map you back into his memory. Each one lingered a fraction longer than the mass, his restraint slipping away.

You didn’t stop him.

Your breathing had slowed, but your head still felt light, your thoughts still running a million miles an hour.

He just kept pressing those small, almost reverent kisses along your cheek, your neck, your temple, your face until they edged closer to your mouth.

There, he hesitated.

He was close enough that you could feel his breath against your lips, like he remembered exactly what this was, exactly what it meant, and didn’t trust himself to take it without permission.

So you were the one who closed the gap.

You pressed your lips against his. Your hands came up fast, wrapping around the back of his neck, pulling him in like you needed to prove he was still human.

He made a small, broken sound against your mouth as he kissed you back.

Fuck, your lips.

For him, it hit all at once.

You were as warm, as soft, as sweet as when he first kissed you all those years ago. You had remained unchanged, like no time had passed at all. It was just as he remembered, just as consuming, just as euphoric. It was as if everything else in the world disappeared the second you touched him.

It was like breathing after drowning.

His whole body reacted to it, straining forward, instinctively chasing more as his hands pulled hard against the restraints with a sharp metallic clink. He tried to close the distance further, like the cuffs were an insult now. It was just another unbearable barrier between him and what he’d been missing for two years.

The kiss deepened quickly as you tightened your grip at the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, holding him there as much as pushing yourself flush against his bare chest.

more, closer, don’t stop, he thought. 

The restraints rattled again, louder this time.

He was breathing harder now, frustrated, his hands flexing uselessly against the metal as he tried to reach you properly, to touch you the way he wanted to.

The sound was loud enough to grab your attention that time. 

You pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were blown wide, locked onto you, his whole body pulled tight with restraint in more ways than one.

You glanced toward the other side of the room. It was a pair of keys hanging by the door. It most likely belonged to the handcuffs. 

“If I let you go…” you said, looking back at him. You trailed your hand down his stomach, settling on the waistband of his pants “…will you behave?”

“Yes,” he said immediately, breathlessly, desperately. “Yes, please. I’ll…” his voice hitched, then he rushed out, “I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

You could tell he pathetically meant it, too

He just wanted to touch you. He needed to.

His eyes flicked back to your lips like he couldn’t help it, like he was already half gone again just from the memory of it.

So you made a choice.

A very you kind of choice.

Let’s just say…. you had no idea what you were going to say to Matt when he came back.

You had no idea how you were going to explain why you were the one chained to the bed (you very much asked for it), wrists pulled taut, skin flushed and marked in ways that you liked. You had no idea how you were going to explain why your breathing was still uneven as Dex sat free at your side, patching up a bullet graze wound on your cheek with the kind of focus that felt indecent after what you’d just let him do to you.

So yeah. 

It’s safe to say that you made up. 

-end.

A/N: me writing for dex wasn’t planned at all since I still have to catch up with daredevil and all the marvel tv series I missed, but long story short, one night I read @aquaticmercy good eyes! I looked him up and now I have a new character to turn into an obsessed loser 💕 (I’m so sorry for the tag but I wanted to thank you again for sharing your amazing work with us 🫶🏻 go read that story if you haven’t yet bc it’s so good!! I can’t wait for these exams to be over so I can read the entire series 😭). since my stalker!dex fic is going to take a while to be ready, I decided to post this in the meantime to celebrate reaching 2k followers (again, it’s unbelievable, thank you so so much dears 🫂). I always have so much fun writing clueless ditzy!reader with a feral guard dog as her boyfriend so here we are! I’m open to write more about these two in the future, however for now I just wanted to give you a small glimpse into their relationship. hope you’ll enjoy 🤍

Dex has been ready for nearly half an hour by the time you finally call out from the bedroom that you’re “almost done”, a phrase he has learned through experience that could mean anything. Depending on the day, it could be five minutes, twenty minutes... Once, it meant an hour because you somehow got distracted halfway through getting dressed and ended up reorganizing your makeup drawer instead.

He remains where you left him on the couch, listening to the familiar sounds drifting from the bedroom. The rustle of clothes, the opening and closing of drawers, the faint hum of music you are only half paying attention to. Every so often the noise stops altogether, and he knows without looking that you’ve paused in the middle of whatever you were doing because a new thought occurred to you. 

The corner of his mouth twitches when he hears a drawer slide open for what must be the third time.

You are, apparently, still deciding.

He leans his head back against the pillow and looks toward the hallway, listening as hangers scrape together for what has to be the fifth time that morning. A moment later you appear in the living room wearing a thin camisole and panties, visibly distracted as you carry two skirts over one arm and absolutely none of the urgency you have claimed to possess twenty seconds earlier.

Instead of stopping, you cross directly in front of him on your way to the kitchen, pause halfway there as though you forgot why you left the bedroom in the first place, then turn around and head back.

Dex watches the entire sequence unfold with an amused grin on his lips.

“Baby?”

The call floats out from the bathroom.

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Have you seen my lipstick? The one with the golden cap.”

Dex’s gaze shifts automatically toward the coffee table. The lipstick is sitting exactly where you left it yesterday night, directly beside your phone.

“It’s here in the living room.”

A few seconds pass before your head appears around the corner.

You follow the direction of his gaze and the lipstick is, indeed, there.

“Oh.”

You walk over, pick it up, and immediately chuckle at yourself, pressing the tube against your cheek as though the object has somehow personally embarrassed you.

His smile only widens.

“Thank you, baby.” 

Before he could respond, you step closer and lean down, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead.

The gesture is small, thoughtless in the way all your sweetest habits are, but it lands with far more force than it should have. You have a way of unraveling him, taking ordinary moments and turning them into something he carries around for the rest of the day with a loud insistence that would border on illegal.

He could spend hours listening to you talk, watching you move through your apartment, following the winding path of your attention from one thing to the next, and somehow never grow tired of it. 

Being with you feels so natural now that he rarely thinks about his life before. Somewhere along the way, you have simply become part of every day, every thought, every plan.

The worst part is that, in some ways, none of it is entirely new.

Long before you ever kissed him, long before you started calling him your baby and sweetheart and smiling whenever he showed up at your door, Dex knew far more about you than he ever should have.

He knew which coffee shop you stopped at when you had time before work and which one you settled for when you were running late. Knew the route you took home—the exact same one that, on your second date, brought him to gently suggest other routes in case someone were to follow you. Yes, very hypocritical of him. Knew the names of your neighbors and what role they played in your life, and the days you remembered to water the plant on your small balcony without setting a reminder on your phone.

You walked into his life smiling at him like he was someone worth of kindness, and all those carefully guarded details he obsessed over slowly became ordinary things he was allowed to learn as your boyfriend. Now he knows your favorite lip gloss because you have a habit of leaving it in his jacket pocket. He knows which dresses you reach for most often because he was with you when you bought them, showing your gorgeous body off to him while asking for his opinion. He knows the sound of your laugh from the other side of a crowded room because he has spent too many late nights watching movies with you when your anxiety hit you out of nowhere, and your hand was already reaching for your phone to call him.

Because you trust him.

The thought still feels unsettling sometimes—specifically those nights where sleep evades him, and Dex spends way too much time staring at his dull ceiling, thinking about you.

You trust him enough to hand him your apartment keys; to fall asleep with your head on his shoulder; to reach for his hand without thinking.

If you ever understood the full extent of who he was before you, some of that trust might disappear. But Dex has no intention of finding out.

As far as he is concerned, he can carry that weight himself.

You deserve the version of him that sits patiently on your couch while you search for your makeup scattered around your apartment, not the one who has spent years knowing how to follow people only to make them disappear from the face of the Earth.

Completely unaware of the chaotic mess that is his heartbeat, you smile and start to turn back toward the hallway.

You make it exactly one step. Then his fingers hook loosely around your wrist.

A surprised squeak escapes your throat as he tugs, until your knees fall beside his supine form.

“Dex—”

The protest dissolves into a giggle when he pulls you back toward him. One hand settles at your waist, steadying you as you stumble, and before you can say anything else, his other hand settles on your neck to bring you closer.

This time, the kiss lands on your lips.

When he finally draws back, his expression remains as calm as ever, though there is something unmistakably fond glinting in his eyes.

“There,” he says quietly. “Now you can go.”

For a moment, you just look at him with your beautiful hazy eyes.

The kiss is brief but it still leaves the back of your head tingling. It happens more than you can remember, really whenever he touches you like that without warning. Smiling, you finally stand up and turn away satisfied, already heading back to your bedroom.

Until you abruptly stop halfway through the middle of the hallway.

“Oh, wait!” You spin back around, jogging back in front of him and lifting the two skirts draped over your arm. “Which one of these do you like better?”

There it is, the real reason you’d come looking for him.

Dex glances at the two options with his arms crossed over his chest, then at you, with the same solemn concentration he wears before putting a knife through someone’s throat. His gaze moves again from one option to the other as though the decision carries life-or-death consequences.

The decision itself barely takes a second.

“The pink one.”

You study him suspiciously. “Did you actually look at them?”

“Yes.”

“You answered really fast.”

“Because I bought you the pink one.”

You blink. “That’s your reasoning?”

“And you look gorgeous in it.”

He smiles faintly as he reaches out and lightly pinches the soft fabric, briefly pulling it toward himself before letting it fall back into place.

There is something undeniably satisfying about seeing you wrapped in his gifts. He remembers every single thing he’s ever given you, from the expensive ones to the small, impulsive purchases that caught his attention because they reminded him of you. He likes knowing that, when you stand in front of your closet deciding what to wear, something he picked out is right there, part of your life. 

It always leaves him with a quiet sense of pride burning hot in his chest.

You, on the other hand, brighten at once.

“Really?”

Dex’s gaze lingers on you for a moment before he nods.

“Of course, lovely.”

Appeased, you lean down once more and kiss his cheek before turning toward the hallway again.

“Thank you, honey. You’re the best boyfriend in the world.”

The compliment is tossed over your shoulder so casually that you completely miss the way his chest lifts and lowers with a dreamy sigh.

Dex watches you disappear back into the bedroom, and a second later, he hears you humming to the next song on your playlist specifically arranged for when you get ready.

Despite the fact that the two of you were supposed to leave twenty minutes ago to avoid lunch rush, he finds himself smiling serenely as he settles further into the couch, patiently waiting for the next crisis to emerge from your closet.

You return a few minutes later, finally looking content with your choices. The moment you step into the living room, you give a small turn, the skirt flaring slightly around your thighs before settling back into place.

“What do you think?” You announce, smoothing a hand over it before looking at him expectantly. “Cute enough for a lunch date with my boyfriend?”

Dex doesn’t answer immediately, because he has gotten distracted by you again.

It happens more often than he likes to admit.

A soft smile sets on his mouth as he slowly stands up from the couch.

“I think you spent forty minutes deciding between outfits when you were going to look pretty in all of them anyway.”

You sigh, definitely trying to hide your giddiness.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“No, but it’s the truth.” He shrugs nonchalantly, his hands automatically landing on your waist.

“Dex.”

The warning carries absolutely no weight behind it.

His smile widens slightly.

“You look beautiful, sweetheart.”

The answer comes easily, without the same hesitation or embarrassment that tinged your ex boyfriends’ voice. What a bunch of bastards, that’s what Dex thought when you shyly confessed that none of them did really compliment the effort you put each time in your outfits.

He doesn’t understand how anyone would voluntarily deprive themself of the adorable sight that is your face when it lights up, and your pleased little smile you always try and fail to hide afterward. There is something utterly disarming in witnessing first-hand how much his opinion matters to you.

You wrap your arms around his neck and peck his lips. “Hm, thank you.”

Dex’s hold tightens slightly as you try to pull back.

“You know,” you squint your eyes at him. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re telling me these things because you’re my boyfriend or because you actually mean it.”

That pulls a quiet laugh out of him.

“Doll, if I was saying it because I’m your boyfriend, I’d have stopped after the first hundred times.”

You stare at him for a moment before breaking into a grin.

“You’re the cutest.” You inform him off-handedly, lightly tapping his pectoral before turning around.

Dex’s cheeks are on fire but you don’t notice this time, luckily. 

“C’mon,” you give his hand a tug toward the door. “I’m starving.”

His fingers squeeze yours before he follows you out of the apartment, already knowing that whatever plans the two of you have made for the morning would spend the entire day competing for his attention with you. And fail miserably.

Saturdays are apparently the days when half the city decides to visit this particular diner, because the place is crowded enough that the waitresses are weaving between tables with practiced efficiency, balancing trays on one hand and apologizing to customers with the other.

Cutlery clinks against plates, conversations overlap into a constant murmur, and somewhere near the front entrance a child is making his dissatisfaction with vegetables everybody’s problem.

You like it.

Dex doesn’t.

Or rather, he tolerates it because of you.

He is sitting opposite you in the booth, one arm stretched along the backrest, looking composed yet alert, just detached enough that most people think twice before approaching him.

You take a sip of your iced tea, letting your gaze wander across the diner again.

The more you pay attention, the more obvious it becomes.

People keep looking at your boyfriend.

Every few minutes somebody’s attention would snag on Dex and persist for just a little before moving away again. There is also a strange hesitation to it, followed by a second glance that lingers too long only to abruptly disappear the moment he shifts or turns his head ever so slightly.

A waitress nearly misses a turn between tables because she is looking in his direction, catching herself at the last second with an embarrassed smile before continuing on. A couple at a nearby booth has interrupted their own conversation at least three times since you sat down, each glance more cautious than the last. Even the man who has entered just a few minutes earlier seems to freeze briefly after spotting him across the room. His shoulders stiffen almost immediately, and after another look in Dex’s direction, he lowers his gaze and heads toward the counter instead.

The strange thing is that nobody ever seems inclined to approach him. If anything, they appear determined to do the opposite.

You rest your chin on your hand and continue observing the room with a curious expression as Dex moves his focus on the menu. You have seen him identify a pickpocket three blocks away once. There is no chance he is missing half a dozen people staring at him from across a small diner.

The fact that he isn’t reacting only makes the whole thing more suspicious.

You look at him for another moment. Your boyfriend, meanwhile, appears too occupied with deciding whether he wants fries or onion rings.

The conclusion arrives with such certainty that you almost laugh.

Of course. You finally know what’s going on!

You lean forward across the table.

“Dex.”

“Yes, sweetheart, we can take the fries with the cheddar on top.” He comments absently.

“No.” You frown. “I mean yes, and bacon too! But I have a question.”

His gaze lifts immediately.

Unlike most people, Dex always pays attention when you speak, even when he knows there is a good chance the conversation is about to take a very strange turn.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

You lower your voice, adjusting in your seat so you could be closer.

“It’s a serious question.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, and he copies your stance as he leans forward, the menu completely forgotten. “I’ll do my best.” He whispers back.

You glance around once more before looking back at him.

“Are you famous?”

For a moment, Dex simply stares at you unblinking.

“Am I what?”

“Famous.”

“No.”

You frown. His answer comes far too quickly.

“See, that’s exactly what a famous person would say.”

A quiet laugh escapes him before he can stop it.

“Doll…”

“No, Dex. I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Your mouth seals shut the moment a waitress appears to take your order and you squint at her lips pressed thinly against each other as Dex calmly speaks to her. You completely miss the way her voice shakes at the edge when she repeats your order back to you, though.

The moment she walks away, you glance around the room before gesturing vaguely toward the rest of the diner. “Then explain this.”

Dex follows the motion of your hand almost confused—maybe he hoped you had let it go—briefly taking in the room before looking back at you.

“Explain what?”

“Everybody keeps staring at you.”

His expression softens at once, the way it always does whenever you become too stubborn about something.

“They aren’t staring at me.”

“They absolutely are.”

You sit back against the booth, already counting the evidence on your fingers.

“The blonde waitress almost bumped against a table because she saw you and then made a double take. That couple on my left has been mumbling about us since we sat down. And the guy near the register keeps glancing over here. This happens everywhere we go.”

Dex listens patiently while you list your observations, his attention fixed entirely on you despite the fact that half the room genuinely is watching him.

You are so earnest about it that interrupting feels almost cruel.

“I think you’re misunderstanding their looks.” He answers gently.

“And I think you’re deflecting.” You cross your arms to your chest, slightly tilting your head as if to challenge him to deny it.

That finally makes him smile. His pretty, little detective.

You point at him. “That.”

“What?” He almost snorts out a laugh.

“That’s the way you smile when you think I’m wrong.” You frown.

He glances away briefly, as if weighting his options. “I think you’ve come to a very creative conclusion.”

Your eyes narrow further. “So you admit it’s possible.”

“Doll.” The fond exasperation in his voice only makes you more confident.

At that point, the same waitress arrives with your food before either of you could continue, carefully setting the plates down on the table. She offers you a polite smile, but the moment she looks at Dex she seems to think better of whatever she was about to say and quickly excuses herself.

You watch her back until she disappears in the kitchen, then your eyes immediately jump back on him.

“Did you see that?” You whisper conspiratorially. 

“See what, baby?” He is already picking up his fork.

“The look she gave you!”

You stare at each other for a long second, before you sigh dramatically and steal one of his fries.

The movement is so familiar neither of you acknowledge it.

“I’ve been collecting evidence for months.”

That earns a genuine laugh. “Yeah?”

You hum, nodding with utter confidence before pointing your half-eaten fry at him.

“Do you remember the woman in the bookstore last week who hurt her arm?”

“The one who walked into a shelf?” A reluctant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I remember. But sweetheart, I don’t think she walked into a shelf because of me. That isn’t proof of anything.”

“It absolutely is.” You exclaim, offended.

“How?”

“Because she was looking at you.” You answer as if that should have been obvious.

“Princess, people are capable of walking into things without my involvement.”

“Not like that. She completely missed it.” You shake your head, still unconvinced. “It was a big shelf, Dex.” You explain worriedly.

A chuckle rumbles deeply into his chest. “I’m sure there are other explanations.”

“Name one.”

Dex opens his mouth, but has to close it again when nothing logical enough to reassure you comes to mind.

You sit back looking unbearably pleased with yourself.

“Exactly.”

The triumphant satisfaction that spreads across your face makes him shake his head.

Dex has known you for one year, six months, two weeks and two days, and yet he still isn’t entirely sure how your mind works. 

“You know what?” You quip, reaching across the table to straighten the collar of his jacket without even seeming aware of it. “I think people recognize you from somewhere and you’re too humble to admit it.”

For a split second, the world seems to stop.

Your words are harmless, tossed into the conversation with the same certainty you applied to every piece of evidence you presented him moments ago, but this time they land unexpectedly sharp. His thoughts skip past bookstores and grocery stores, past awkward strangers and curious glances, and reach somewhere much darker. Newspaper articles. Police reports. Crime scene photographs. Names he tries to not remember. Faces he dreams anyway.

A familiar knot tightens in his chest.

There was a time when he assumed you knew, or at least knew enough. Not every detail, but enough to understand what kind of man he was. Is. Enough to see the warning signs everyone else eventually runs from, and to reach the conclusion that whatever existed between the two of you wasn’t worth the risk.

Instead, you got closer.

As the months passed, he’s forced to confront a truth that still occasionally leaves him stunned: you are genuinely clueless to everything that happened. You aren’t overlooking that part of his life, or making a conscious decision to forgive it. As far as he can tell, you are completely unaware it exists at all.

The realization frightened him at first. Sometimes it still does. Every now and then you say something innocent that drifts too close to the truth, and it lands in him like a hand closing around a live wire.

Like the night a man wouldn’t stop following you at the club. You were celebrating your best friend’s birthday and called Dex without thinking twice when you noticed the man loitering far enough to appear innocent at first, yet kept staring at you like a piece of meat. Then he almost followed you to the restroom if it weren’t for one of your friends standing up at last to come with you.

Your boyfriend was already waiting a few blocks away unbeknown to you when the call arrived, because somewhere along the line “I’ll pick you up later” had turned into him just staying there, in true Benjamin Poindexter’s fashion.

The way you said his name was enough for Dex to break every speed limit as he raced to you.

He appeared in front of the creep without a word, just close enough for him to eventually look down and quickly get out of the club without a word. You threw yourself at Dex, still buzzing with adrenaline, laughing and painting his face with your favorite lipstick as you pressed tiny little kisses. Later in his car, still bright-eyed from the night, you told him he was “weirdly good at making people behave.”

Or the time you once insisted on tagging along at the range, because it felt unfair that he was always willing to step into your world. Dex spent months following you to concerts, bookstores, art fairs, coffee shops, and every other interest that caught your attention, while his own hobbies remained strangely compartmentalized, shared only in passing and never fully opened to you.

You watched him shoot with quiet fascination, genuinely impressed in a way that was far too open and uncomplicated. Then, you told him his aim was “ridiculous, but in a good way, baby” like it was nothing more than admiration for a simple talent.

Of course you completely missed his jaw clenching for half a second at the ease in your voice as you complimented the same skill he put to use to eliminate unpleasant people. 

Those moments cling onto his mind with insistent fear. They linger long after you’ve moved on to something softer, something brighter, something that makes you laugh again without thinking about what you’ve just said. Because to you, they are just pieces of him you find charming, even safe. To him, they sound dangerously close to being understood in a way that was never meant for you. Each time, he wonders if that’s the point where this carefully crafted bubble finally bursts. 

For a brief period of time, even dates came with the hollow preoccupation that you could look at him like he wasn’t yours to trust.

Instead, here you are a year later prettily sitting in this quaint little booth as you try to convince him that strangers stare at him because he must be secretly famous.

Dex forces out a laugh that sounds wrong even to his own ears before clearing his throat, hoping to still appear unbothered.

“Now, sweetheart, you know I’m far from humble."

“Yeah, but you’re handsome.”

The correction comes so quickly it catches him completely off guard, causing him to choke on his coke.

You say it as though you are simply reminding him of something obvious, and the contrast between where his thoughts have been a moment ago and where you dragged them now leaves him gaping at you for a second longer than he means to.

Your smile takes shape slowly, the corners of your mouth lifting around the straw still caught between your fingers. There is something unbearably soft about it, unguarded that makes it obvious you aren’t waiting for him to deny the compliment or argue with you about it. Your eyes shine as you look at him across the table, pleased with yourself in the way you always are whenever you think you said something particularly clever. 

The knot in his chest loosens slightly.

It’s always like this: you would wander dangerously close to the parts he desperately wants hidden, send his blood pressure to the roof as his mind races through every worst-case scenario imaginable, and then somehow, without realizing it, pull him right back out again.

“Honestly, Dex,” you continue, reaching across the table to steal another fry from his plate. “Sometimes I forget other people have eyes.”

His laugh is strangled. “I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means if I looked like you, I’d be insufferable.”

You sound completely sincere.

“I’d never shut up about it. I’d walk into every room like I personally invented being handsome.”

Dex purses his lips in a poor attempt to hide his grin, looking down at his plate as a pink blush gently settles across his cheeks.

Your hand finds his almost absentmindedly where it rests idly on the table. You lace your fingers through his, giving his hand a small squeeze.

“I like when you smile.”

After everything he’s spent years being called, after everything he’s spent years believing about himself, you still seem genuinely determined to overthrow that negativity while collecting your favorite things about him and lock them away in your heart.

His smile.

His eyes.

The shape of his hands.

The way he laughs.

Even the scar on his cheek. The first time you kissed him there, like it was just another part of him that deserved love, he stared at the wall motionless for ten full minutes before you came back from the bathroom and worriedly asked if he was okay.

You hand out your affection with the same thoughtlessness other people hand out napkins, without realizing what that does to damned men like him.

Or maybe you do realize.

Sometimes he can’t tell.

“Sweetheart,” he starts quietly, embarrassed by his next shaky exhale.

“What?”

The question is innocent as you glance up from your own plate.

His eyes follow the length of your body: from the pastel cardigan you threw on before leaving the apartment, to the lip gloss sparkling on your lips despite frantically looking for your lipstick earlier. His heart pathetically stumbles on its next beat at the serene expression on your face, just because you managed to make him smile.

Beautiful.

Beautiful and sweet and entirely too good for him.

Warmth settles behind his ribs, familiar by now but no less overwhelming than the first time he took a look at you through the window of this same diner as you were having lunch with your colleagues and realized you were the love of his life.

Across the room, people continue glancing in his direction with varying degrees of unease.

You, meanwhile, are holding his hand across a sticky table, looking at him as though he is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to you.

And if there is one thing Dex has learned since meeting you, it’s that he would believe your opinion over everyone else’s.

In the end, what started as a serious investigation into Dex’s supposed fame somehow turns into a surprisingly passionate debate over how much milk a milkshake can reasonably contain before it starts making people sick. Which then leads to a discussion about whether milkshakes are technically drinks or desserts, which eventually evolves into you explaining a theory that Dex is increasingly convinced has no basis in science whatsoever.

“I’m telling you, in Japan they even have a word for it. I read it on TikTok.” You tear off a piece of toast and Dex rolls his eyes at the mention of that damn app that always steals your attention away from him just before bed. 

“You can be completely full and still want dessert.”

“That’s because dessert is dessert.” He shrugs as though it should be obvious.

“Hm no, I’m sure it goes somewhere else.” 

Dex looks up from the dessert menu.

“Somewhere else.” He repeats slowly.

“Yes.” You nod, completely absorbed in the last pieces of your omelette. “Like a second stomach.”

He stares at you for a moment.

“You don’t actually believe that.” 

You look up offended. “I didn’t make it up!”

His eyebrow lifts skeptically. “Yeah? Who elaborated this theory then?”

“I don’t know.” You mumble, shrugging. “People.”

“Very reliable source.” He nods sagely.

You point your fork at him. “Don’t be rude, Mister.”

The fact that you completely melt when he sends you a wink over the table ruins most of the effect.

By the time your plates have emptied, the lunch rush has begun to thin around you. Families filter out, new customers replace them, and the noise of the diner settles into a softer hum. 

You take the other dessert menu after cleaning the bread crumbs from your fingers with one of those napkins that are far too delicate and small to be useful in a place where anyone can order burgers and fries. Resting one elbow on the table, you consider your options with an amount of concentration most people reserve for major financial decisions.

Dex, meanwhile, is supposed to be returning to his own menu. But he’s too busy looking at something far lovelier.

Which is why you eventually catch him staring.

“You keep looking at me like that.”

Dex tilts his head slightly, the ghost of a smile already pulling at his mouth.

“Like what, sweetheart?”

You pretend to consider it, tapping a perfectly manicured fingernail against the edge of the plastic menu before finally lowering it onto the table.

“Like you love me.”

The thing is, you never say these things to get a reaction. You aren’t fishing for compliments or reassurance. You simply speak whatever crosses your mind, completely unaware of the effect it has on people.

Or, more specifically, on his poor heart.

Slowly, Dex holds the menu shut and sets it aside.

You tilt your head curiously. “What are you doing?”

Instead of answering, he slides out of the booth with a single smooth movement.

Your eyebrows immediately shoot up.

The movement alone would have been suspicious enough, but the look on his face makes it infinitely worse. There is something unmistakably playful about it, a grin he is very clearly trying—and failing—to suppress.

“Benjamin.”

His grin widens and you point at him with your menu as he keeps advancing, too slowly to be unintentional.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re planning.” You sputter out as he looms over you.

“I’m not planning anything.” He lifts both hands up, innocently. 

“Liar—oh!”

He slides into the booth beside you before you can protest further, one arm immediately finding its way around your waist. A surprised laugh falls from your lips as he pulls you effortlessly against his side, his other hand landing on your bare thigh.

“Oh my God, you have a perfectly large seat waiting for you.”

“Mmh, maybe I like this one better.”

You shake your head, trying very hard to not smile and therefore encourage his antics.

His hold tightens slightly when you make the mistake of rolling your eyes, and before you can decide whether to complain again, his fingers find your side.

The squeal that escapes you is embarrassingly loud.

“Dex!”

His grin becomes downright dangerous.

“Don’t you dare.”

Unfortunately, the warning only spurs him on.

You twist away with a gasp, nearly folding in half as laughter bursts out of you. People are definitely staring now: the woman at the next table looks at you alarmed, and a waitress frowns as she walks past your table, deeply confused.

Your boyfriend, meanwhile, appears to be having the time of his life.

“Benjamin.” You gasp.

“Benjamin Poindexter.”

That only makes him chuckle. The sound catches you off guard enough that your protests dissolve into another fit of giggles.

Eventually he relents, though not out of mercy. Mostly because you have ended up curled against his side trying to escape and neither of you seem particularly interested in fixing that.

His arms remain firmly around your body as you try to regain your breath, still smiling when you tip your head back to look at him.

“You’re awful.” It would sound much more convincing if you hadn’t just wrapped one hand around his forearm.

“I know.”

The complete lack of remorse makes you shake your head at him in fake disappointment.

A comfortable silence falls between you. The diner still buzzes around your intertwined forms, plates clattering somewhere in the kitchen and voices traveling between tables, but it all feels like a distant world compared to the little safe bubble Dex has created for you.

You reach up instinctively and brush your fingers through his hair. The terrifyingly dangerous man who could make entire rooms nervous without saying a single word melts into your touch.

You smile. “Hi.”

The corners of his mouth lift.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

You peck his lips before he can say anything else. It’s meant to be quick and sweet, yet his grin sharpens slightly at the edges.

He leans in and presses a kiss to your cheek, lingering just long enough that it doesn’t feel like a mindless gesture so much as a habit he developed specifically for you. Your breath hitches at the second kiss, a little slower than the first, like he is testing your reaction. By the third, you’ve gone completely limp against him.

“There she is.” He murmurs in awe.

The way he touches you makes it very difficult to remember whatever point you were trying to make before, because there is nothing performative in it, nothing malicious—just an open kind of attention that never dims, even when the rest of the room exists loudly around him. His right hand stays where it has been the entire time, big and warm around your waist, while the other gently takes yours, his thumb tracing the same absent, familiar motion over your knuckles.

“Dex.” You mumble without any heat as his lips end up on the slope of your neck.

“Hm?” He hums absently, nuzzling your skin as he indulges in the familiar floral scent of your body cream mixed with something inherently you.

“We’re in public.” You sigh, the words feeling like cotton wool in your mouth.

“Don’t care.” His answer is nothing short of a whisper as he traces the path to your cheek with little, soft kisses.

Dex sees the exact moment something changes in you, following the way your hazy eyes fall to his lips before you lean in without much thought.

He meets you halfway in a slow kiss, his mouth still curved slightly against yours as though he can’t quite contain his happiness. When you pull back just enough to breathe, he follows you instinctively, not letting the distance become anything real.

His lips end up on yours again, and again, and again, until your giggle is being muffled by his eager mouth. Dex quietly gloats as he finally leaves you alone, resting his forehead against yours, his hand still holding yours, because letting go has never been an option.

He should look away by now—he knows he should—but the decision never quite makes it through that part of him that is supposed to care about appearances around you.

His eyes aren’t soft in that careful way he learned just for you. They’re too direct for that, too exposed, as if that unhealthy fixation he usually keeps under control has slipped his iron grip and now is just there, raw in the way he watches you like there isn’t a single thing in the world that matters enough to compete with you.

There’s a brief, almost violent flicker in his focus, and something in the back of his mind screams that he needs to rein it in, to pull it back before you can notice. But he doesn’t manage to act on it fast enough.

What remains is the part that doesn’t know how to pretend.  

You give a small, satisfied hum, completely unbothered by the glint in his eyes as your head slowly falls on his shoulder.

“Anyway, I think I’m getting the blueberry pie.”

Dex stares at you for a moment, the laugh slipping out of him quiet and fond as he eagerly takes in the sight of the ruined gloss on your mouth, and your half-lidded eyes.

He did that.

“What?” You murmur, briefly glancing up at him.

Dex shakes his head once, his lips twisting into a tender smile.

“Nothing, princess.”

He shifts just enough in the booth to make room for you more comfortably, the arm around your torso tightening in an absent pull that keeps you anchored to him. The unhurried kiss he presses to your forehead lingers on your skin for more than necessary, to the point your eyelids just lazily flutter shut while being completely surrounded by his warmth.

“I’ll get the cherry one.”

— ⟢ END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🤍 my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist