eurii

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

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

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

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

He hated it.

Well, not the sex. Never the sex.

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

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

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

Dex blinked.

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

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

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

Which was not technically a lie.

He did trust Jonathan because you trusted Jonathan.

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

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

Just in case.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Two?” you asked later, amused.

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

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

Leo nodded. “Okay, Daddy.”

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

“I know.”

“And if there’s an emergency—”

“Dex,” you said gently.

Dex stopped.

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

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

Then the door shut, and the apartment was quiet.

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

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

And that was when you realized.

Oh.

Oh.

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

“Dex,” you said slowly.

He stepped toward you.

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

“Yes.”

Your mouth fell open. “Benjamin.”

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

You folded your arms. “And?”

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck. 

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

You were supposed to stay mad.

Really, you were.

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

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

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

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

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

Your breath caught.

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

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

Your mouth went dry.

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

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

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

“Dex.”

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

You swallowed. “We did break it.”

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

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

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

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

Your stomach flipped. “Benjamin.”

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

And he was.

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

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

“I know,” you whispered.

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

Your anger dipped so fast it was almost embarrassing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know.”

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

Dex went very still, and you sighed.

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

“Oh my God.”

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

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

Why were you mad again?

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

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

Dex nodded. “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

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

His hand slid around your waist, pulling you closer.

“No?” he asked, unconvinced.

“Hmm,” you said, already breathless.

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

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

—

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

He had gone to his knees like worship.

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

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

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

The second you did it, Dex stopped.

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

A whine, you realized, frustrated and almost hurt.

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

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

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

“The neighbours,” you whispered.

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

You blinked. “What?”

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

“They won’t.”

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

“I soundproofed the shared walls.”

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

“You what?”

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

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

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

His hands tightened around your thighs. “Hmm.”

“So you could hear me?”

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

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

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

Your whole body went weak.

Fuck, it worked. 

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

Dex smiled against you.“I know.”

“You’re actually insane.”

“I know.”

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

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

Dex groaned like it hurt him.

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

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

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

You made another sound, louder this time.

His eyes shut.

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

The heat in your face burned worse than anything else.

“Dex—”

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

You shuddered.

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

Fuck, he was right.

You’d forgotten how loud you used to be.

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

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

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

And then he kept going.

After that, Dex got worse.

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

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

When you yelped, he only smiled.

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

“Dex—”

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

There were rules, of course.

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

Most everything else was fair game.

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

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

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

“Shut up.”

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

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

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

“Dex, I…”

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

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

“I know.”

“Filthy.”

“I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

But hey. Mission accomplished, right?

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

“You’re smug,” you mumbled.

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

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

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

—

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

“Mommy!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Mommy’s tired.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t want any details.”

—end.

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Your son had the X-gene.

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

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

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

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

It was subtler than that, but no less strong.

Leo could feel danger coming before it arrived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then something would happen.

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

Just coincidence, you told yourself.

It had been happening for a long time, really.

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

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

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

Nothing worked.

Then you smelled smoke.

Oh. You had left the oven on.

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

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

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

It was just a coincidence.

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s gonna be okay, baby.”

He relaxed when you said it. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You jerked back, heart leaping into your throat.

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

Good eyes.

That's all it was, right?

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

Dex knew better. 

Dex stood behind you, very still.

What just happened? 

Because even Dex hadn’t heard the cyclist.

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

But this time, there had been nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

Still, Dex said nothing yet and started watching.

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

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

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

“Not that mug,” he said.

You looked down. “Why?”

“It’s too hot.”

“I know, baby. It has tea in it.”

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

You did.

The handle cracked off when you set the mug down.

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

Leo simply went back to colouring, pleased with himself.

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

Dex said your name. 

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

“You saw that.”

“I saw a mug break.”

“Leo knew.”

“Leo guesses things.”

“He’s not guessing,” Dex insisted. 

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

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

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

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

Dex didn’t answer. That was worse.

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

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

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

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

He only looked at Leo.

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

Dex’s hand settled at your waist.

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

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

“I know,” he said.

And that was exactly why he was terrified.

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

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

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

Correct.

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

Correct again.

A toy car behind your heel.

“Mommy, wait.”

A loose nail on the floorboard where Dex was standing.

“Daddy, move.”

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

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

But with you and Dex, he always knew.

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

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

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

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

“Mommy, no.”

You paused, hand lifted. “What?”

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

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

“No!”

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

The shelf gave way without warning. 

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

For one long second, the kitchen went silent.

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

Then he started to sob.

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

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

You turned slowly and looked at your son.

Your baby. Then you looked back at Dex.

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

Dex said nothing.Your fingers twisted in his shirt.

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

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

You stayed there, calculating your next steps instead.

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

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

“I’m sorry,” Leo cried.

Dex’s face changed completely.

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

Leo shook his head.

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

Leo had saved you, Dex thought.

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

That night, Leo slept between you.

Dex didn’t sleep at all.

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

You reached across Leo and touched Dex’s wrist.

“Baby,” you whispered.

His eyes moved to you.

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

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

And it was fine for a short while. 

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

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

The knock came again.

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

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

You stopped.

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

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

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

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

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

You watched his face empty.

“How many?” you whispered.

“Four.”

Your mouth went dry. “Who is it?”

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

For a second, you could not think.

But then, the realisation hit you. 

They knew.

They knew about Leo.

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

No.

They had come for your son.

The knock came again, harder this time.

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

Dex’s eyes went dark.

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

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

Leo’s face crumpled. “I don’t know.”

Dex crouched beside you, controlled and terrifyingly soft.

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

Leo nodded miserably.

Your stomach sank.

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

You pressed a hand to your mouth.

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

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

Oh.

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

Miss Clara was his favourite teacher.

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

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

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

Leo frowned like he was trying to remember.

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

Your hand tightened around your mug. “And?”

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

You went very still, but Leo kept talking.

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

Shit.

Shit.

That was enough.

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

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

This wasn’t a slip-up.

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

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

Dex looked at you.

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

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

Dex stood.

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

Leo looked up at him. “Daddy?”

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

“Did they come because I told.”

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

Leo hiccupped, still trembling.

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

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

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

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

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

Then the second lock.

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

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

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

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

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

Outside, the voices rose.

Then came the first violent sound: metal through air.

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

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

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

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

That was… strange.

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

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

“I’m here.”

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

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

Your stomach turned.

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

You stared at him.

He was… reassuring you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dex had taken all of it on his shoulders instead.

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

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

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

He was pleased with himself, you realised. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the bedroom, Leo sighed in his sleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—end.

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

Series specific taglist: @genya1617 @riverjane-d 

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

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

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

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

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

But then Dex met him. 

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

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

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

Leo had his own gravity.

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

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

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

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

But Leo is a child.

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

So Dex drew the line himself.

If someone threatens Leo, they're dead.

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

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

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

With Leo, the question became much simpler.

Did it keep his son safe?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you weren’t immune to their gravity either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leo makes him a father.

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

-

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

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

Which is true.

Annoying, but true.

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

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

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

It becomes, Leo likes Daredevil because Daredevil is good.

Then it becomes, You think Matt is good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a full jealous husband/dad spiral.

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

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

“I don’t want Matt.”

Another kiss, this time to his cheek.

“I don’t love Matt.”

You press your lips to his temple.

“I didn’t marry Matt.”

Then, a small kiss to his brow.

“I didn’t have a son with Matt.”

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

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

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

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

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

That is literally the whole equation. His priorities are:

You.

Leo.

Things that make you or Leo happy.

Things that keep you or Leo from being sad.

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

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

You were organizing printed out photographs taken during your recent trip. They were spread out on the table in front of you like cards on a casino table, your lips curved into a smile as you reminisced on each memory. 

Your best friend with her arm around you, the sun basking on your grinning faces. It was taken in the morning just as dawn was breaking on the beach. Another taken in the darkness at a foreign club, your skin illuminated by pink and red neon lights. You were so plastered that you pulled some of your friends onto the tiny karaoke stage for an impromptu concert. 

A small laugh shakes your shoulders. One that’s immediately interrupted when you hear the jukebox begin to stutter in the middle of its current song. 

Not again. You groan as the familiar guitar strums filter into the diner. The one that looped and looped and never stopped. Now you know it was futile to hope that it would have been fixed while you were away. 

“Maybe it’ll only play once this time.” Yeah right.

You rubbed your temples, at your wits end with this damn song.

Unbeknownst to you, a few tables down, someone had been observing your every move since you entered the diner. He had been seated at the counter, anticipating your arrival for your morning cup. 

Dex hadn’t even needed to turn around to know it was you walking through the door this morning. Just the hands of the clock on the walls pointing to the right numbers, recognizing the exact cadence of your favorite pair of shoes on the vinyl floors when the glass doors opened.

It had been about two weeks since he returned from handling some dirty work for Mr. Charles. Since touching back down in New York, he had swapped out his noon diner visits for morning ones, effectively syncing his routine with what you had mentioned yours to be on the plane. 

He still remembers the surprise in your eyes when he revealed you’d been in the same place everyday, only missing each other by a few hours apart. It was a coincidence, but certainly not an unwelcome one in his opinion. 

Your nervousness seemed to melt away the more you spoke to him and he was so used to the opposite reaction. Years of being in the military, then FBI, before ending up as Bullseye gave him that effect on people even when he tried to make them feel at ease with practiced speech and small talk.

You, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind it much. 

It took you about one week after him to start coming back into the diner once you returned from your trip.

Dex didn’t want to show himself to you right away; he just wanted to see you as you were. Catalogue your coffee and complicated breakfast order to memory. Watch your reaction to the broken jukebox you ranted to him about. Try to understand how someone like you took comfort in him. 

He could still feel the weight of you on his shoulder. How your hair tickled his skin. The rhythm of your breathing as you slept, even over the sounds of his music and the plane’s engine.

Dex’s body tensed when he saw you stand from your table, the quarter he was shuffling in his hands pausing too.

You trudged to the corner of the diner to the jukebox, jamming a coin into the slot and pressing a combination of letters and numbers on the keypad.

Instead of the godforsaken song actually changing like you requested it to though, it looped. Again.

You gave the thing a light frustrated kick but straightened up when you saw the newspaper man lean over his booth and give you a judgmental stare.

Instead of letting you return to your booth defeated, though, Dex found himself standing from the counter seat and making his way over to you.

You hadn’t noticed him until he held the quarter in his hand out to you, and it glinted at you.

“Need another quarter?” He said it like he was coming to your rescue–which he was.

“Oh, it’s you–Dex, right?” Your expressive eyes lit up in surprise like he knew they would when you saw him again. Your gaze then fell to the quarter pinched between his fingers. “Uh, yeah, the machine ate mine.”

You moved to tuck your hair behind your ear before remembering you had tied it back this morning, and your hand fell to your side instead.

Oops.

You bit your lip trying to conceal a bashful smile. Maybe he didn't notice your nervousness.

Dex inserted the quarter to the machine and pressed the keypad again, the same combination he had seen you enter from afar. 

“Let’s see if it actually works this time.” He mirrored your smile. 

“I hope it does. I really don’t want to hear that song anymore.” You chuckled and pointed behind you towards your booth where you left your items unsupervised. “Did you want to join me?” 

He thought you’d never ask. He followed you back to your booth and slid in across from you. 

“Oh, sorry, I’ll gather these up.” You seemed flustered as your hands quickly swept up the prints, “I just got these printed and I was looking through them.”

Dex was a little surprised you just left them unattended. Anyone could have walked by and swiped one without you noticing.

“No, don’t worry about it. Are these from your trip?” He pointed to one that showcased you standing in front of a popular monument.

“Oh, yeah,” you laughed, looking down at the photo. “I was hungover in this one, actually.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going there to party,” he said with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

You hated that he seemed to remember your conversation on the plane better than you did. Then again, at least you were saving yourself the embarrassment of recalling what you said to him when you were nervous about the flight.

“I was trying to save face in front of a stranger. So what, everyone parties.” You held up the photo of you in the club with a smirk on your face. “It was a bachelorette trip, anyway. Or did you forget that detail conveniently?”

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. He remembered everything you said down to the tone of your voice when you said it. He was looking down at the rest of your photos, trying to memorize every single one of them that had you in it. 

You posing in a flower garden with a bouquet of daffodils in your hands. You in an aquarium holding a plush shark from the gift shop. You…scantily clad on the beach.

His blood ran hot under his skin.

Before he could get another look at that one, your hand had smacked down onto it, palm covering it. 

“Oh god, I forgot that one was here.” The words tumbled from your lips in a hurry, voice thin as you tucked it underneath another photo, hiding it from his view. 

Dex cleared his throat awkwardly, “right. Seems like you did a little bit of everything on your trip.”

You were still avoiding his eyes. The photo wasn’t just a regular bikini picture or something. You weren’t nude but it had definitely been taken for…artistic reasons. 

He instead focused on that aquarium photo again.

You were grinning wide in front of a giant fish tank, carrying the plush in your arms like it was a stray cat or something. He wondered if you put it in your bedroom when you returned from your trip.

Before either of you could break the stretch of silence, there was a sudden resounding quiet in the diner. No strumming of that same guitar you’ve heard for the past hour, no lyrics that were ingrained on the insides of your brains…

Just silence.

You both shared a confused glance, and then, the mesmerizing tune of synths instead flooded in through the speakers. It was the song you requested. Or at least, the one Dex requested after the poor excuse for a jukebox ate your quarter.

Your lips stretched into a grin. “Hear that?”

“I hear it.” Dex was just as amused as you were. Even he thought the jukebox was a lost cause.

When you began flipping through your photos again, he wondered how long he could keep you talking about your trip. Would he be able to stall you here the whole morning? Maybe stretch it out until lunch? 

But his plans were ruined once his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was ‘work’ which he couldn’t just ignore to his dismay. If they did send someone after him for bailing, he could easily deal with them but he didn’t want to risk the little structure he finally rekindled in his life.

Especially now that he had decided to add you into his routine.

“I have to get going,” he said with an air of reluctance as he stood from the booth. It’d have been easier to leave if you didn’t pull your lips into that adorable pout when he did.

“That’s a shame,” you sighed, slightly disappointed. “But I’ll see you around, right?”

His lips slanted into an easygoing smile. “You definitely will.”

When you returned to your apartment that night, you were on the phone with your best friend. You were discussing your trip together, a glass of wine in one hand and the collection of printed photos in the other. 

“Did you print out that one of us when we went to dinner altogether?” Your best friend's voice crinkled jubilantly on the other line.

“I printed all of them out. They had a deal to print 20 for dirt cheap.” You shuffled through the collection of photos and frowned. “Hold on.”

“What is it?” She asked.

You looked down at the rows of five you spread out on your dining table. One of the rows only had four photos.

“There’s one missing.” 

You knew you shouldn’t have been so careless at the diner. Spreading photos of yourself out all over the table and then leaving them unsupervised to change the music in the jukebox.

Or it could have slid off the table, slipped between the booth seats–it could be anywhere, for anyone to find. It made you feel exposed.

“Which one is missing?” She asked on the line.

Hopefully the missing photo isn’t…oh no. Your beach photo.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the city in the evening glow of street lights and aroma of cigarette smoke, Dex was climbing the fire escape to his apartment balcony after a tough job.

He removed his mask, stepped inside, and then pulled a folded photograph from the pocket of his pants.

He took a pin and stuck the photo onto the wall beside his front door, smiling at it. It had ended up in his pocket as he was leaving the diner. It was his favorite in the bunch you showed him, even if he couldn’t quite pin down why. 

There was just something about the way you were smiling in front of the fish tank, illuminated by the glowing blue behind you as you held tightly onto that chubby shark plush that made him want to have it for himself.

You breathed a sigh of relief when you spotted your racy beach photo among the collection on your table. At least it wasn’t that one that went missing. Although, you did look exceptionally amazing in it if you do say so yourself.

Warmth rushed to your face remembering how you accidentally let Dex get a peak at it. You probably wouldn't mind it if that photo somehow ended up with him...

“No idea.” You said into the phone, sitting on your bed beside your new shark plush you bought during your trip. “I’ll cross reference it with my camera roll later.”

Dex was sure you wouldn’t miss it too much.

No amount of preparation ever seemed to relax you before a flight. Whether it was the long grueling hours spent in the airport or the anticipation of taking off, stuck in an uncomfortable seat with your elbows rubbing against a total strangers’, you absolutely loathed flying.

There were times when your determination won out, though. Fear of flying be damned, you had places you wanted to see before you died. 

Now was one of those times.

You were sitting stiffly in your seat, trying to even your breathing and calm the hell down now that the plane was actually in the sky. But there was a pressure in your head from the elevation making you feel like your ears were full of cotton and the loud, continuous hum of the engine wasn’t doing you any favors.

You were glad your seatmate had the window shade pulled down. The sight of being over the clouds would surely take you out in your current state. He wore a pair of vintage style headphones over his ears, minding his own business with his head rested back against the seat.

He had the right idea.

With trembling hands, you unzipped your carry on to pull out your own headphones. Drowning out the sound of the roaring engine with your top songs of the month would help clear your head and provide a nice distraction to calm your nerves.

Your bag was well-organized when you left the house. But by now you’d dug through it so many times it was a mix of tangled wires, chapstick, loose credit and ID cards, your worn half-read book you slid a receipt into as a makeshift bookmark…

No headphones. But you hadn’t forgotten them at home or packed them in the wrong bag; no, you had used them in the airport. Which means they were now sitting abandoned, waiting to be claimed by someone lucky enough to spot them.

At least they weren't your expensive ones...

You covered your face and groaned as quietly as you could. You still caught the attention of the man beside you. He had only glanced at you. No judgment in his eyes, but no sympathy either. He was just watching you, like, ‘oh. this is the person I have to ask to move if I need to use the bathroom.’

Heat climbed up your neck and you swiped your book out of your bag bitterly, opening it to your bookmarked page and staring at the words rather than reading them. They melded together in front of your eyes, letters blending and turning into inky blobs in the wake of your pounding headache. 

No headphones, no ibuprofen. You were lying to yourself if you thought you were well-prepared. Maybe this is why flying was always miserable for you. 

You squeezed your eyes shut, leaning your head back against the seat. The darkness behind your eyelids helped you focus on clearing your mind, singling out that loud engine hum and trying to force it to fade into the background. It became more and more distant and…

Was that music?

At first you thought you were wishfully imagining it in your head, still broken over your lost headphones. But then you focused on the sound a bit more, and yeah, that was definitely someone shredding on guitar.

You opened your eyes and looked beside you at your seat neighbor where the sound was coming from. His headphones were leaking his music, just loud enough for you to hear. It was barely audible, but you could make out what he was listening to.

His eyes were shut, so you took the opportunity to shamelessly catalogue his features to memory. Particularly the long scar running across his cheek. The dimple on his chin. The wrinkle between his eyebrows. 

You sat back against your seat, straining your ears to listen along. You were desperate enough to make a game out of it, too, guessing every track. Radiohead, the Smiths, Chevelle…

But the next song gave you pause. It immediately struck you with recognition, a song you’d heard maybe a hundred times over your morning coffee. It was almost comforting hearing it now, over 30,000 feet in the air.

So, being as subtle as possible, you leaned your head to the side of your seat, trying to hear a little better…

Okay, clearly not subtle enough. The music paused. When you looked over to investigate why, he was looking right at you. 

You sat up straight, turning your head away as if you hadn’t just been listening to music from a stranger's headphones. Totally cool, totally normal, you’re sure he didn’t notice.

He slid his headphones down to his shoulders, and you knew it was over for you.

“Were you listening?” He asked, pointing to his headphones. 

You laughed sheepishly. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I sort of forgot my headphones.”

Instead of being weirded out by you–or if he was, he didn’t show it on his face–he just nodded, unbothered. 

For some reason, you decided to fill his silence.

“I’m a nervous flyer and music calms me down.” You explained.  You were like a running tap, not able to close your mouth the moment his headphones were off apparently. “Your volume was pretty loud so I could hear it through your headphones.”

Based on his lack of responses, you expected him to ask you to stop being a weirdo, and that he’s not a free radio station service. 

“The music calms me down, too.” He admitted it and then turned back to glance at the covered window, like he wasn’t expecting to open up to a stranger today.

Granted, neither were you. But you weren’t going to stop now. If you didn’t have the music anymore, you were going to get your nervous energy out by rambling to this admittedly handsome man sitting beside you.

“My best friend’s getting married,” you said, “I’m meeting her and some of our other friends for a kind of bachelorette trip. You?”

“Work.” He said simply, “not as interesting as partying.”

The scar on his cheek hinted otherwise. But you weren’t going to say that to him–you still had some semblance of a filter.

“We’re not really going to party, per se. Just…sightseeing.” You explained, looking down at the book still left in your lap. “She’s always wanted to go and her life’s so busy this is her only chance to do it before the wedding planning chaos.”

“What about you?” He asked, to your surprise. “Do you like traveling?”

You laughed nervously. “The being there part is great. Getting there, not so much…”

The slight shaking in your hands and bees nest in your stomach was proof enough. 

“That song that was just playing–I recognized it because, well,” you bit the inside of your cheek, “this is going to sound strange, but the jukebox at this diner I go to for breakfast every morning always gets stuck playing it on a loop, and–”

“The jukebox at the Bel Aire Diner.” He finished for you. “I know the one.”

Your eyebrows raised. “You’re from Hell’s Kitchen, too? I’ve never seen you in the diner, though. We must be there at different times of day.”

“Must be.” He repeated after you, and you caught the corners of his lips raising in a smile.

His gaze fell to your still quivering hands. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the MP3 player his headphones were connected to.

You watched him press play again, music filtering in through the headphones that were still resting on his shoulders. The music was now just loud enough for you and him to hear. 

“Go ahead and listen.” He offered. “If it helps.”

The gesture surprised you. But certainly wasn’t unwelcome. The buzzing in your stomach calmed to a soft fluttering.

“Thank you.” You smiled, leaning back in your seat again. “What was your name, by the way?”

He smiled, lips pulled to one side. “It’s Dex.”

You gave him your name, and watched him mouth it once before the music caught your attention again.

It was a slower song now, the chords progressing in a gentle melody. You recognized it, too, the lyrics repeating themselves in your head as you followed along.

You hadn’t even realized you drifted off until you woke later from the high-pitched whistle of the plane descending. The first thing you registered was how warm your body was, eyes fluttering open. It was then you felt the gentle pressure of your head resting against something hard.

Oh god. Your stomach flipped when you realized you had ended up with your head on his shoulder at some point. He didn’t seem to mind. He had the window shade pulled up now, staring out at the evening skyline. 

Your face heated up and you sat up straight in your seat, rubbing your eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you there…”

He turned to look at you and shrugged. “Didn’t even notice.”

If he was trying to rescue your dignity, he was doing a great job at it. 

His music was still playing until the plane had finished landing. You had moved out of the aisle to let him through, holding onto your book that had stayed in your lap the entire flight. In a distracted haste to grab your bag, you noticed he had left the plane before you got a chance to say anything more to him.

It made your heart sink. You were sure there was a little something there, even if it was just him being friendly… 

But once you too were out of the plane, smelling the fresh air of the new city you had traveled to, you were overcome with the excitement of being somewhere new.

You could be grateful to him for making it the least agonizing flight of your career, even if the two of you were ships in the night.

Your friends promised to pick you up after you landed, but you had made it about a half hour early. Sitting at the nearest bench, you flipped your book open to the receipt-marked page.

Oh. 

There was a note scribbled onto the empty space underneath the final paragraph of the page. 

See you in Bel Air Diner.

- D

Your lips pulled into a smile, your finger tracing over the blue ink.

You still didn't have headphones for your flight home, but now you had something a little better.

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