mei ˖ ࣪⭑

‎buck would love how kind you are, not in the meaning of that you let people walk over yourself but how you can face bad situations in a way —that even if it's hard for you to do— that makes him grow fond of you. you are so strong with your kindness and so polite.

‎like… buck is surrounded by sharpness all the time. sarcasm, tension, egos, people constantly trying to survive by pretending they don’t care first. then there’s you, who notices when someone gets interrupted and gently brings the attention back to them. fixing his collar mid-conversation without interrupting him. checking his injuries without making him feel weak for having them. someone who still chooses softness even after having every reason not to.

‎and buck cashman is a man who notices.

‎he notices the way you speak carefully when you’re upset because you don’t want your anger to become cruelty. he notices how you never humiliate people to win an argument. how your kindness isn’t naïve at all— it’s intentional. disciplined. something you actively choose every single day. and i think that would affect him more than people realize.

‎because buck himself can be cocky, smug, difficult sometimes but with you, i think he’d start catching himself before saying something unnecessarily harsh. not because you ask him to change, but because being around you makes him want to be gentler.

‎he’d secretly adore how polite you are with him too. the little “could you pass me that please?” and the quiet “sorry” when you accidentally bump into him even though he barely moved an inch. he’d tease you for apologizing too much while looking at you with that fond expression he gets when he thinks you’re unbearably cute.

‎“sweetheart, you stepped on my shoe. i think i’ll survive.”

‎and you know what i love most about this dynamic? your kindness would make buck feel safe in a way he’s not used to. people usually expect performance from him. confidence, charm, entertainment. but you’re one of the few people who looks at him gently during his quieter moments too. you don’t make him earn softness from you. you just give it naturally.

‎i also think buck would get protective over your kindness. not in an overbearing way, but because he hates seeing people mistake your politeness for weakness. the second someone talks over you, dismisses you, or tries to take advantage of your patience, his entire demeanor changes. suddenly he’s standing a little closer to you, answering with that smile that isn’t really a smile at all

‎because he knows how strong you are. he knows kindness takes restraint. and buck, out of everyone, understands how hard restraint can be.

‎and GOD the praise he’d give you…

‎“you’re too good for people, you know that?”

‎“don’t look at me like that, honey. makes me feel guilty for every bad thing i’ve ever done.”

‎“c’mere. sweet thing like you shouldn’t have to ask twice.”

‎‎and then it slips into that Buck Cashman kind of charm—half teasing, half sincere, like he’s trying not to get caught feeling too much at once:

‎‎“you always this nice, or is it just me you’re trying to ruin?”

‎“yeah, no, don’t stop being like that. world’s already got enough people like me in it.”

‎“you realize if everyone was like you, I’d have to completely retire, right?”

‎he’d absolutely melt whenever you do small caring things for him too. fixing his tie without mentioning it. checking if he ate. listening to him ramble even when he’s clearly being dramatic on purpose just to make you smile and the thing is, buck knows when people are pretending. so the fact your kindness is genuine would hit him even harder and he would find that dangerously addictive.

‎like imagine him watching you after a rough day. everyone’s tired, tempers are short, somebody snaps at you unfairly and you just pause for a second before answering calmly instead of escalating it. not submissive, not weak— just composed because you know there's no reason to escalate things further at that moment as the person who snapped at you wouldn't reason with you, you'd later confront that person for that behaviour but at that moment— buck is staring at you like he’s witnessing something unreal because he knows he would’ve made the situation worse out of pride alone

‎i think you’d humble him in the most unexpected ways. not by putting him in his place like i usually write, but by making him realize there are softer ways to exist without losing yourself. and that would stay with him. deeply.

‎he’d also become sooo attached to your mannerisms. the little habits that come with being polite and considerate.

‎the way you instinctively straighten things around his apartment while talking to him, the way you remember tiny details people mention once, the way you thank him for things that nobody else even notices.

‎buck could literally hand you a bottle of water and you’d smile softly with a quiet “thank you, honey,” and suddenly this man is acting like he just won a war

a‎nd OH he would absolutely abuse the fact you’re polite just to tease you.

‎like he knows you hate interrupting people, so sometimes he’d purposely drag conversations out while looking at you struggling to ask for something. just because he enjoys watching you get flustered.

‎“you need something, sweetheart?”

‎“…no.”

‎“you’ve been staring at my drink for five minutes.”

‎“…i was gonna ask for a sip.”

‎“manners. there she is.”

‎he forces you to not ask for everything with him, he gives you the permission to invade his space and oh how he enjoys it when you do...

‎because at first, you still hesitate. still polite in the way you stand just a little too far away, like you’re waiting for an invitation that never needs to come. and buck notices it every time.

‎a hand on your wrist pulling you closer while he’s talking.

‎“c’mere. you don’t have to hover like that.”

a look over his shoulder when you linger in a doorway.

‎“you coming in or are you just gonna stand there looking pretty and distant?”

‎and slowly, that distance disappears.

‎and when you finally realize you don’t have to ask anymore, something in you softens too. the constant politeness eases. not because you care less, but because he made it clear you’re allowed to exist there without permission.

‎slight nsfw ahead!!

if you get a little more direct with him in intimate moments, telling him what you want him to do or how he should move —less apologetic, more certain—he’d notice immediately and instead of correcting it, he’d actually encourage confidence.

he’d react to it in that buck way: a mix of teasing and quiet satisfaction.

“yeah?” he’d say, with that half-smirk. “there she is.”

you’re not asking anymore, you’re deciding, and buck cashman is very aware of the difference. he’d follow your lead when you take it, but he’d still keep that buck edge— subtle teasing, quiet comments that keep you aware of him, of his attention on you without overwhelming you.

because what he likes isn’t you being “bossy” in some exaggerated sense—it’s you finally sounding sure of yourself without apology leaking into every sentence. it’s the absence of hesitation.

“don’t soften it,” he’d murmur at one point, like he’s almost correcting you out of habit. then softer, a beat later, “say it like you mean it.”

he’d still tease you, of course—he always does—but it would land differently now. less like pushing your buttons, more like enjoying how openly you respond to him when you stop holding yourself back.

“look at you,” he’d say quietly at some point, like he can’t help it. “all that sweetness and you still know exactly what you want.”

back to the safe zone.

‎another thing i think is how buck would secretly feel weirdly emotional whenever your kindness is directed at him specifically during moments he doesn’t think he deserves it.

‎after an argument, after he gets jealous and acts colder than usual, after he says something a little too sharp out of frustration.

‎because instead of trying to wound him back, you approach him carefully. not because you’re a pushover, but because you care more about understanding each other than “winning.” and that would genuinely wreck him a little.

‎like imagine him sitting there expecting distance from you, only for you to quietly hand him a blanket, while he's on your couch.

‎“still mad at me?”

‎“a little.”

‎“…then why are you being nice to me?”

‎“because i love you.”

‎GOODBYE 😭 that man would look at you like his heart just got ripped out of his chest.

‎and the thing about buck is that he’d become incredibly affectionate with someone gentle. i don’t mean softer in personality necessarily —he’d still be cocky and playful— but physically? constantly touching you. hand on your waist. fixing your coat. kissing your forehead absentmindedly while you’re talking.

‎because your presence calms him down more than he’ll ever admit aloud.

‎i think he’d also love seeing the rare moments where your patience runs thin because when kind people get angry, it usually means something genuinely mattered to them. and buck would take you so seriously in those moments. no teasing, no cockiness. just immediate attention because if you’re upset, then something must’ve gone very wrong.

‎he knows all of the moments where you want to snap, he recognizes them immediately. the moments where you could absolutely destroy someone if you decided to stop caring about being gentle. but you don’t. not because you can’t, but because you refuse to let ugliness take root inside you.

‎and that realization would hit him like a truck one day

‎maybe after someone speaks to you disrespectfully and he’s already preparing for the fallout because he is ready to ruin the entire conversation for you. only for you to answer calmly, firmly, with dignity intact while the other person ends up looking embarrassed all on their own.

‎buck would start looking at you differently after that. not just as someone sweet, but as someone incredibly strong. stronger than most people he knows, actually. because anyone can explode. anyone can weaponize their anger. but it takes an entirely different kind of person to hold that anger in their hands and choose not to spread it around.

‎and i think that’s why the rare moments where your politeness disappears would affect him so much.‎because there’s one thing about you: you can tolerate disrespect toward yourself far longer than disrespect toward the people you love.

‎ that’s where the line is. someone insults you? you’ll brush it off. maybe get quiet. maybe excuse yourself before you say something regretful.‎ ‎ but someone says something cruel about buck? about someone you care for? and suddenly that softness in you sharpens into something terrifyingly calm, not loud or hysterical. honestly, that would almost be less intimidating.‎ ‎ it’s the way your expression stills, the way your voice loses warmth, the way your politeness becomes precise instead of gentle.

‎‎and buck would witness it for the first time like: oh. oh, this is the part of you people don’t survive seeing often. because you don’t mind defending yourself, but defending others? especially the people you love? that’s instinctual. immediate.

‎buck would honestly stare at you a little after moments like that. not scared exactly, but moved. because he realizes your kindness was never weakness keeping you quiet. it was mercy.

‎MERCY.

‎and the second someone threatens the people you love, that mercy vanishes. GOD and imagine buck trying to tease you afterward because he doesn’t know how to handle how affected he is

‎“sweetheart…”

‎he’s grinning a little, but there’s genuine awe under it.

‎“you were kinda scary back there.”

‎and you immediately look guilty

‎“was i too harsh?”

‎meanwhile buck is internally losing his mind because harsh??? you just defended him like he was something precious enough to protect and now he wants to kiss you senseless.

‎“no,” he says quietly. “i think you're not harsh enough, darling."

‎and i honestly think moments like that would make buck fall even harder for you because they prove something important: your kindness is not passive. it has boundaries. teeth. conviction.

‎‎you are kind because you choose to be.‎ not because you’re incapable of being anything else. honestly, sometimes he’d pull you away from situations before you even realize you’re reaching your limit.

‎a hand on your back.

‎“c’mon, sweetheart. before you say something honest.”

‎and GOD i think buck would be obsessed with the fact that your kindness doesn’t erase your complexity.

‎you still get jealous, you still get angry, you still have ugly thoughts sometimes I mean you’re human after all. but to be fair, that makes your gentleness even more meaningful to him. because you’re not kind due to lacking darkness— you’re kind despite understanding it.

‎and I want to add one more before saying too much, I think he loves the way you look at him with patience even when he’s difficult, especially when he’s difficult because i think buck would test that kindness sometimes without even meaning to not in some manipulative way, but because hurt people unconsciously look for the point where affection disappears.

‎he’d expect you to eventually get fed up, to throw his sharpness back at him, to stop choosing him on the days he’s harder to love and every time you don’t, it unsettles him a little.

‎not because you tolerate bad behavior endlessly —you absolutely call him out when necessary— but because your care remains steady even during conflict. you don’t suddenly turn cruel just because you’re hurt and that consistency would make him trust you in ways he probably hasn’t trusted many people before.

‎and i think one of buck’s favorite things would be the contrast between how gentle you are with most people versus how unwavering you become when it comes to him.

‎because you’re polite to everyone.

‎but protective over him.

‎and in the end, i think loving you would change buck in ways he never expected. not lloud or all at once, but gradually. like warmth sinking into frozen hands because you would teach him that gentleness is not the same thing as fragility, and that kindness is not something people offer because they have never suffered, but sometimes because they suffered too much and learnt to carve their edges to not hurt themselves, before others. because they know exactly what cruelty feels like and refuse to pass it on.

‎you would make him realize that there is something unbelievably powerful about a person who wakes up every day and chooses softness anyway. someone who bites back sharp words before they can wound. someone who protects the people they love with terrifying devotion while still carrying tenderness in their hands. and buck, who has spent so much of his life surrounded by noise and ego and performances of strength, would find himself undone by the quiet sincerity of you. and even though you're not a saint at all, he loves the way that you choose to be that way over and over again even after your outbursts, especially then to be fair.

‎because underneath all your politeness, all your patience, all your warmth, there is steel. there is discipline. there is a heart that has every capability to become cruel but chooses humanity instead. and maybe that’s what makes buck fall the hardest: the realization that your kindness was never weakness he needed to protect, but strength he could lean against.

★

Buck Cashman has never been with a woman out of pure love and no other woman saw him other than the shared lust. Not that it means he saw women as a pure object, no, but because he never prioritized that kind of feeling in his life, never got the chance to, never wanted to. That is, until he met you. Even if it wasn’t the second he saw you next to the man he’d been working with in the shadows, it happened in time.

Wilson Fisk, ever so possessive about the things in his life was fond of you ever since you were a little baby. You were about eight years old when he took you under his wing, sharing his home and life with you as a distant father would. So, when he introduced you to Buck years later, fully grown and standing in the dim light of his office in the penthouse you still shared with him, there had been nothing casual about it. He was controlled, quiet, and distant.

“Buck, meet my niece,” Wilson had said evenly, his large hand settling heavily against your shoulder as he turned you toward him.

He was courteous when he shook your hand, his grip firm yet controlled. His gaze held yours with unsettling precision, dark eyes steady and deliberate as though he were looking straight through you and into your soul. The first of many touches to come with both unaware souls.

“She’s under my protection.” The words that came out of his small lips were calm, controlled, but unmistakably possessive.

Buck was intelligent enough to understand exactly what Fisk meant. You were off-limits. Claimed without needing to be claimed outright. Protected with the same ruthless certainty Wilson reserved for territory he would kill to defend. A line that should never even be approached.

But Buck Cashman did not need Wilson Fisk’s warning to know you were dangerous to him in ways he had never experienced before and had not needed the warning to know he should stay away.

You were already too young for him, too bright.

With your youthful face and sharp eyes that concealed far more than they revealed, your careful choice of words, your restless edge, the constant tension hidden beneath your composure —as though you were always waiting for something to happen— you existed in complete contrast to the world Buck belonged to. There was something dangerously untouched about you despite the world you had grown up in.

The quick bursts of laughter shared with the kitchen staff as though you were trying to hold onto something soft inside a house built on violence, the easy warmth you carried without realizing it, the kind that softened every room you stepped into. You moved through Fisk’s home like someone both sheltered and caged by it.

And Buck understood, almost immediately, that you were a world entirely separate from his own. Entirely different in a way one he had no right to touch; one he should never have been allowed nearby. One he should never be allowed to step into.

You remained a constant presence in Buck’s life regardless, though never the center of his attention. He was far too meticulous with his work, too careful with the fragile balance he maintained to survive in a world like this one. There was no room for distractions, no matter how quietly tempting they became.

And so, for a long time, you were simply there as you grew into a beautiful young woman. Someone clever. Fierce.

You were far too stubborn to quietly accept the suffocating restrictions your uncle placed around you under the guise of protection. You argued with him constantly, refusing to mistake control for care. Because that was what it truly was in your eyes: not protection, but confinement. And you were far too intelligent to believe otherwise.

To you, it was humiliating in its own way.

To Wilson Fisk, you were reckless.

You fought against rules you did not fully understand, against dangers you had only ever glimpsed from a distance. Fisk had spent years shielding you from the reality of his world, carefully keeping its ugliness beyond your reach. He never wanted you exposed to it, never allowed you to witness the true depth of the violence he carried home with him like a shadow stitched to his back.

But as you grew older, understanding became inevitable.

You began noticing the blood hidden beneath expensive cuffs, the tense silences after late-night phone calls, the way men lowered their eyes around him out of fear rather than respect. Little by little, the illusion cracked. And you truly understood it the night Wilson Fisk was nearly shot.

The memory stayed carved into you afterward— the chaos, the shouting, the sudden flood of armed men through the house. The sight of blood soaking through his clothes while he stood there somehow still terrifying despite the injury, one hand pressed against his side as if pain itself offended him. That was the night you realized your uncle’s world was far darker than he had ever allowed you to see.

And in that darkness, while the armed men he always kept around him moved in sharp formation through the halls in their fine tailored suits, you were held tightly against Buck’s chest, cradled securely within his arms as chaos erupted around you. Lately, you had become Buck’s priority—not because he had intended for it to happen, but because somewhere along the way, it simply had. And deep down, he knew that even if he had been given the choice, nothing about it would have changed.

One arm was wrapped tightly around your midsection, possessive and protective all at once, while his other hand buried itself in your hair, keeping your head pressed firmly against his chest as he hurried you away from the danger. Rapid footsteps echoed through the corridor, voices shouting over one another, but all you could think about was your uncle.

“Uncle!” you cried out, twisting slightly in his hold to look back despite the panic flooding your veins, the thought of losing the only person you had ever truly depended on leaving you breathless with fear.

“He’s fine,” Buck said immediately, his voice rough with restrained emotion as he kept moving. There was urgency in the way he held you, in the way his grip tightened whenever you tried to look behind you again. “He’s fine.”

But you could barely hear him over the noise in your head.

Buck stopped abruptly in the hallway, realizing he had no other choice if he wanted to keep you safe. He turned you toward him, as his hands came up to cradle your face firmly, forcing your attention onto him and only him.

He said your name a little louder this time, enough to cut through the panic spiraling inside you.

His brown eyes locked onto yours with unwavering intensity, softer than usual now—not weak, never weak, but undeniably affected by the fierce protective instinct rising within him. His thumbs brushed beneath your teary eyes in slow, grounding motions.

“We have to get out of here,” he said quietly, maintaining deliberate eye contact so you wouldn’t drift back into fear. “I need you to stay with me.”

His voice remained calm and certain, even as tension tightened his jaw.

“I’ve got to keep you safe, alright?” he continued softly. “Mr. Fisk is fine. They’re getting him out now, and I’m taking you home.”

The certainty in his tone was not only meant to reassure you—it was something he needed to believe himself.

His eyes never left yours, clearly waiting for either a verbal or silent sign of agreement, and all you could manage was a faint, unsteady nod. Your hands were ice-cold, your legs still trembling as the reality of everything settled in too slowly, like it refused to fully land at once.

“C’mon, angel,” he said, already moving.

His arm stayed firm around you as he guided you down the stairs in quick, controlled strides, scanning every corner, every shadow, every possible angle of threat as if the world itself couldn’t be trusted to stay still. His head kept turning, eyes flicking across every surface, every doorway, every reflection, as though danger might emerge from anywhere at any second.

The moment you reached the exit, he didn’t slow. He ushered you straight into the car, placing you carefully into the backseat before shutting the door with a decisive firmness. Without hesitation, he moved around to the front passenger seat, getting in swiftly as if distance between you and him wasn’t an option.

Inside the dim interior, the outside chaos felt muffled—distant sirens bleeding faintly through the glass, voices swallowed by the car’s closed space. Buck was already on his phone, issuing rapid, clipped calls, his tone low but absolute. You caught fragments of his voice through the speaker—orders, confirmations, locations—but nothing fully formed enough to ease the tight knot in your chest.

And still, even while he spoke, his attention kept flicking back toward the rearview mirror. Toward you.

That was the first spark that lit between you— small, unspoken, and almost impossible to name at the time. It didn’t feel like anything significant then, just a moment passing too quietly to question, but it stayed anyway.

There were looks across rooms filled with people who thought they mattered more than they did, across conversations that required his attention but never truly held it. He would find you without meaning to, or maybe he always meant to, and when he did, it was never casual. Never passing. It was still, controlled, anchored— everything else in the room blurred except for you.

You would look away eventually — flustered with the feeling you couldn’t put a name to it as you never saw him more than just… Buck— but he rarely did. Because there was something in it that unsettled him more than any threat ever had, something quiet and insistent and growing in places he did not give permission to anything to grow. It wasn’t desire in the way he understood it. It was worse than that, a familiarity without any resemblance, any history.

As if some part of him had already decided you were important long before he had the right to decide anything at all and the worst part was— the part he never allowed himself to linger on for more than a second— how carefully he kept himself just shy of crossing any line.

A step held back. A word left unspoken. A touch that stopped just before it became real enough to mean something that could not be undone.

You could’ve been walking ahead of him through a narrow corridor lined with polished stone and low light and he’d moved past you with practiced ease, shoulder brushing yours just barely but not enough to acknowledge your presence that makes you feel troubled after those lingering gaze, but his hand—without thought, without permission even from himself— would caught the edge of your fingers for half a second too long. A pinky brush against yours, soft as your caught breath but the damage it did was always more than the action itself.

Then there was another night where you would have dinner with Wilson Fisk and his acquaintance— Vanessa, under the name of bonding together like a family none of you had at all. Buck came into the room and stood beside your uncle without even looking at your way, as he always did these days.

You swallowed, fingers tightening slightly around the fork in your hand. There was something in the restraint of it all that felt like resentment— not only toward him, but toward yourself too, for noticing too much, for remembering too easily. It felt like a loop you couldn’t step out of, like in another life, another universe, there might’ve been a version of this that made sense but not there.

Buck spoke quietly into Fisk’s ear, nodded once as instructions were given and you’d never look away from the dish in your plate until he brushed past behind your chair— the lightest brush of his fingers against the ends of your hair where it spilled over the back of the seat that made you think you imagined for a second, but lingered in your memories on days end.

Then these subtle moments grew bolder, not bold enough to arouse suspicion but the lingering looks that made you want to crawl into his skin turned into small conversations here and there.

Then these subtle moments grew bolder, not bold enough to arouse suspicion, but enough that the silence between you no longer felt entirely empty.

The lingering looks that once made you want to crawl out of your own skin to have home under his own slowly shifted into something heavier— something that stayed, even when neither of you acknowledged it. They turned into small conversations at the edges of rooms, where voices were low enough to be mistaken for necessity rather than intention.

A question about nothing important. A reply that lasted a second too long. A pause that shouldn’t have existed at all.

Buck never changed his posture when he spoke to you. He still stood the same way he did with everyone else— controlled, measured, always half a step removed from the world around him. But when it was you, there was always a fraction of something different beneath the surface. A delay before he walked away. A glance that returned even after it was already over.

You started noticing it in pieces.

The way he’d position himself just slightly closer than needed when others were in the room, not enough to be questioned, but enough that you could feel him there. The way his attention would drift back to you in the middle of conversations he was supposed to care about more than anything else. The way his voice softened by a degree when it was directed only at you, as if the rest of the world required steel but you did not.

But you would pretend not to notice.

It was one of those evenings, right before the ball that Vanessa arranged, and you were almost ready except mentally. These days, your thoughts felt heavier than they used to, like something had quietly shifted inside you and never shifted back. Ever since the night Wilson Fisk was almost shot, the past had started to rise in pieces you couldn’t fully hold onto. Not clear memories— questions. Fragments that didn’t settle into answers no matter how long you stared at them.

How had you ended up here, in his house, under his protection, under his name without it ever being spoken aloud that way? What had happened to your parents? Were they part of something like this too— something layered and dangerous and carefully hidden behind wealth and silence? And if they were…, did they pay the price for it the same way others did? The same way Uncle Wes did?

The thought tightened in your chest, sharp and unwelcome. Uncle Wes… Oh, how fond of he was of you, when you were just a little girl and how careful and patient around you. More than your own uncle, kinder and sweeter than your uncle. Until the funeral of his changed him.

Wilson Fisk—

God.

Why did he always refuse to talk about your family? Every time the question hovered near the edge of conversation, it was met with something heavier than avoidance. A shift in tone, a closing of distance, a silence so deliberate it felt like a wall being built in real time, right in front of you.

You stood there in your room, hands barely brushing the fabric of your dress, staring at your reflection like it belonged to someone else entirely. Someone who should have known more than she did. Someone who would have already left this house long ago, if not for the quiet weight of things she didn’t yet understand, and the strange pull of obligations that never quite sounded like choices.

A part of you knew that.

The version of you that once believed in freedom without conditions would’ve already walked out, refusing the suffocating elegance of a life built on silence and unanswered questions. She would’ve chosen the unknown over this kind of safety— if it could even be called that.

But that version felt distant now, blurred at the edges.

Because liberty, the kind you used to be so certain you were meant for, didn’t feel as simple anymore when every unanswered question tied itself back to the same name. The same house. The same quiet refusal to explain what had already been decided around you.

Downstairs, the house was already moving toward the night ahead— preparations, voices, footsteps that carried certainty you didn’t feel.

You exhaled slowly, fingers tightening against the fabric of your dress as if grounding yourself to something physical could stop your thoughts from drifting too far when your already open door was knocked on twice.

You saw him through the reflection— Buck.

‘’May I?’’ he asked, with that polished accent of his that made your throat tighten with the force of a swallow.

‘’Please.’’ you said, still looking at him through the reflection and he didn’t intend to look away either.

“They’re almost ready,” he said, his voice low, as if speaking any louder would make it tremble under the weight of what had begun to spill from his chest and weave itself into her veins. With every breath he took, he felt its intensity, like a heavy fog pressing in around him. It was intangible—something he couldn’t hold in his bare hands even if he tried—but oh… only he knew how deeply you were entwined with his soul.

You nodded, swallowing softly as he stood behind you. “Okay.” The word left your lips in a quiet acknowledgment.

Then you noticed what he was holding. Curiosity got the better of you, and you turned slightly to look at his hands—a thin silver chain with a small droplet of diamond.

“Is that—” Your breath caught as you met his eyes, wide with surprise. He shook his head gently, a faint, almost-smile curling his lips—amused, but also a little apologetic for the brief flicker of hope and the disappointment that followed right after.

“It’s merely a replica,” he said, unclasping the necklace, now holding it between both hands. And you understood right then.

“Buck, I can’t—”

“You never let me in.” The look in his eyes—deep and intense as it bore into yours—made you realize his resolve, the heaviness of his scent of sandalwood and eucalyptus surrounding you. “Let me fix things for you, just once.”

The necklace between his fingers looked so much like the one you had lost the night Wilson Fisk was shot. In the panic of the moment, you hadn’t realized where you’d dropped it, and you had mourned it longer than you had processed your uncle’s incident. Buck had asked you a week prior why you were so upset over a necklace, and you told him—something as cliché as it could get—that it had belonged to your mother. You couldn’t believe it had bothered him this much, enough to get you a similar one.

Your heart burst in your chest so strongly you were sure that, if you were lying on the bed, it would shake with every beat. Your throat tightened—an effect he had on you so often lately—and your lips parted with words you couldn’t say. So you just nodded once.

He expected you to turn around, and you did. Buck’s pinky brushed your hair aside, leaving your neck exposed, and with a careful, precise movement—as if he were afraid you might crumble under his touch—he clasped it at your nape. His touch was a breath against your skin as your eyes met through the mirror once again.

“Thank you,” you managed in a whisper. He didn’t say anything; he only nodded, acting as though it meant nothing. And that made you want to tear him apart just to put him back together with your own hands, keeping anyone else from ever touching him but you.

“I should go see Vanessa,” you said when the silence began to feel heavy on your shoulders, on your poor heart, overexplaining yourself. “She likes to feel included when I ask her about my choices.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” he said plainly, as you felt a small bob in his throat. It made you stop. He hadn’t said you looked beautiful in that dress; he had complimented you as a whole, without prompting—he had acknowledged the very essence of you. The thoughtful, kind part that wanted everyone to feel included, in response to your earlier words.

The thought of the beauty in your soul deepened the need to be the one who reached it. That possessive, aching part of his mind burned at the idea of having all of you to himself. Not just your body—God, he would lose himself if he were ever allowed more than a fleeting touch of your skin—but your very soul, your mind, your thoughts, and that intelligent, gentle, tender heart of yours.

The look in his eyes reflected that agony. The way his tightly knitted brows held no trace of anger, yet were carved with inner turmoil. He was looking at you—every inch of your face—with such pure attention that a restless anxiety began to coil in your gut, born from something you couldn’t name.

He looked so pained that one might think he was physically hurt, but no—the longing he felt for you… oh, it was worse than any bullet wound, any burn scar.

Buck Cashman had gone hungry and without water for days back in the order, but never in his life had he felt this parched at the marrow of himself. Not until he realized he couldn’t have you—because even the thought of having you felt like it would never be enough. And he was a selfish, selfish man who wanted to consume you until nothing remained of you, until you became him, knowing even that would never satisfy what he wanted.

Your eyes kept drifting between his browns, feeling trapped, almost bruised by the intensity of his gaze, and you missed the way his fists softly clenched and unclenched—restraining himself from making a move he so firmly believed he didn’t deserve to make.

The second your lips parted, Buck spoke.

“Go,” he said, his voice low as a whisper, but filled with such intensity that the weight of it became almost unbearable. You didn’t waste a second. Your fingers grazed the necklace as you turned and left him alone in your room, as if you were escaping. Later, in the room where Vanessa Fisk was getting ready, you realized you had barely even managed a nod in response to his words.

“Are you okay?” Vanessa asked after a few minutes of silence you brought in with you. Vanessa, as soft-spoken as she was, had always given you a faint sense of unease with her composure and grace. That slight lift at the right corner of her lips always made you wonder if she knew things—there was an intelligent spark in her eyes that never shied away from reflecting her own truth… and perhaps yours as well.

“Just a little distracted is all,” you said, dismissing it, since there was no point in lying. The dizziness hadn’t left you, and you were so disoriented that even a few stolen seconds under that steady, stripped-down gaze had affected you this deeply. There was nothing tangible to hold onto, nothing to explain, nothing to prove—and yet you knew no one would believe what you had felt if you tried to put it into words.

Maybe it was all in your head.

“Happens to the best of us,” said Vanessa, in her white dress that curved around her figure.

You took a deep breath, smiled at her, and stepped closer, trying to ground yourself in the real world you so often lost while living in your head.

“I see you’ve found your necklace,” Vanessa murmured, her voice low and faintly playful in a way you couldn’t quite place, as your mind drifted for a brief moment. Your fingers lingered on the chain, hesitating as you debated whether or not to tell her the truth.

“Yes,” you said, your voice a breathless whisper as you swallowed a smile. “Turns out it was on my nightstand, between the trinkets.”

Vanessa smiled and turned toward the mirror, adjusting her red earrings—framed by tiny white diamonds—the ones you had gifted her. Then she spoke in the softest voice, one that seemed to settle under your skin and stay there for the rest of the night.

“Funny how the things we spend so long searching for are sometimes right in front of us the entire time.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Your hands were cold the rest of the evening.

You were around, having small talks under the big chandelier that gave a soft, yellow glow to the packed room, far away from him and your uncle as both of the men was trapping your soul into your body in two different feelings but with similar manners.

You were quiet and uneasy but no one seemed to notice as no one in here knew you enough that this silence was not like the others. Vanessa’s words lingered in your mind, slithered through the curves of it and touched even the forgotten, undulated places, and made you realize him in different ways.

How attentive he actually was with the careful demeanor he carried himself with that made you think if it was something more, or was it all just because of the title you were buried underneath. But he looked like he wanted to dig deeper to see the layers of you, to see what you were hiding it as if he wanted to unravel you himself with bare hand without having a care in the world if you were covered in dirt and soil.

He looked like he’d take great honour in finding the depths of you, all ugly and timid and hidden away from this polished world that you were living in.

And these thoughts, even if you were avoiding to be in his presence again without a clear mind, made you sought him out. Your gaze lingered with the heavy thoughts in your head as equally as the feelings in your chest. Just the sight of him talking with others, holding a champagne flute in his broad-knuckled fingers as if nothing in the world could tear him down made you loosen your own walls towards him for a second that you thought, you would let him in.

The sudden shift in your thoughts unsettled you. You were doing your best not to interpret his gestures in a way you knew would only hurt you in the end, but the necklace he gave you, the way he looked at you, and Vanessa Fisk’s words inevitably tangled together, trapping you in your own mind. Slowly, you began to lose your grip on the present once again.

That was until you were guided to a table shared with your uncle, his wife, the governor—and right across from you, Buck. The same table he shared with none other than Heather Glenn.

You knew her. You were the one who had introduced your uncle and aunt-in-law to her, hoping they might resolve whatever stood between them. Later, you recognized her from the recent vigilante incident. You weren’t surprised that Wilson Fisk kept her close despite her connection to Matt Murdock— Fisk was a spiteful man who enjoyed control and leverage.

“They’ve made a great pair, don’t you think?”

Vanessa’s quiet voice pulled you from your thoughts. You turned to her, startled, warmth creeping up from your chest to your neck as you realized she had caught you looking his way all night, despite your attempts to ignore him.

“Who?” you asked, though the answer came to you a few seconds later, and the realization settled heavily in your stomach, already tight with unnamed emotions. Vanessa raised her brows slightly, as if checking whether you were even listening, and a sudden wave of nausea hit you.

“Yes,” you said anyway, glancing back toward them. “Two peas in a pod.”

What rose in you was difficult to define.

It felt as though every thought you’d built around a single, vulnerable moment had been something you invented—something born from your refusal to fully face reality. And yet, you were certain. Absolutely certain. The way he looked at you couldn’t have been imagined. It couldn’t have been your mind filling in the gaps.

And still, you refused to believe that the best thing your imagination could create… was him.

But all those years—he had never once looked at you the way he looked at her. And that thought left something bitter in your chest, something you hated admitting even to yourself. It wasn’t just jealousy. It couldn’t be that simple. You weren’t the kind of person who reduced things to something so small. At least, that was what you told yourself, trying to keep your mind steady—even as it refused to cooperate.

Maybe it really was your own need of belonging to somewhere, someone that played with your thoughts and made you believe that his accidental touches were something more. Maybe he really was a kind person, trying to cheer you up by gifting something you keep it close to your heart to make you happy and not because he wanted to be there.

Maybe he really wasn’t the one that you could have just because he was around.

Trying to live in the moment was no longer something you were attempting from that point onward. The glances you kept stealing in that direction—and the fact that not once did he catch you—left a quiet, irredeemable disappointment settling somewhere deep in you. And the way your uncle made no effort to hide his own disappointment only made it worse, like salt pressed into the same wound carved by two different men.

But was it really Buck’s fault?

You found yourself blaming it on you again and again, convincing yourself that you should never have misread those moments in the first place, because you already knew what the outcome would be.

The night blurred together after that—moving too quickly as you endured it, yet dragging on far too slowly for your liking. And when you finally excused yourself from the crowd and headed toward the door, you were stopped mid-step by Wilson Fisk calling your name.

There they were— Mr. and Mrs. Fisk, Buck Cashman, and—

“Miss Glenn, I haven’t had the chance to introduce you to my niece,” he said, gesturing for you to come closer with an arm extended.

You obliged.

Strangely enough, you felt nothing when you saw the woman again. She wore a polite, composed smile as she offered her hand.

“I’m glad I finally get to meet you, Miss Fisk,” she said. “I heard Mr. and Mrs. Fisk met me through your introduction.”

“Indeed,” you replied, shaking her hand with a polite smile of your own—nothing more than a careful curve of the lips. “It’s nice to see you welcomed into the family.”

The words carried a bitterness only you could truly hear. Heather Glenn remained poised and courteous, her expression never faltering.

“Miss Glenn has been considering working with an architect,” Wilson Fisk said, a note of pride in his voice as he turned slightly toward you.

“Yes,” Heather Glenn added, holding her purse with both hands now that the greeting had passed. “Mr. Fisk spoke very highly of you.”

“My uncle is very affectionate when it comes to the people he likes,” you said lightly, brushing off the compliment with a small wave of your hand. “He tends to exaggerate.”

“I’m sure you’re just being modest,” she replied.

Soft, polite laughter rippled around the gathering and your heart began to beat faster—not from surprise, but from the familiar certainty of what always came next when you spoke too freely, too sharply, too honestly for a room like this.

‘’No, not really. I’ve been lacking lots of inspiration lately.’’ you said, tilting your head slightly to the side as your hair fell onto your skin, framing your face like a curtain.

‘’You may say I’m in desperate need of muse.’’

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Fuck me,” you groaned into your palms, your hands pressed over your face as the warm air from the car’s ventilation stopped brushing against your skin. You had left the ballroom quickly, almost abruptly—driven out by the sting of your own pettiness, which had curdled into something like internal shame. Just because of what? A man?

The realization that you were slipping—becoming less and less like yourself in such a short amount of time—made something in your stomach turn over. A sick, rising nausea you couldn’t quite settle.

You refused to go back to the penthouse. You found yourself questioning, once again, why you were still living with your uncle and his wife at all. Your whole life felt like a pretense, and the real problems you avoided kept pushing you toward thoughts you didn’t want, toward interpretations you didn’t trust in yourself. And that only created more complications you didn’t need.

Sinking into the backseat, you told the driver to take you to the country house—the one nearly an hour away. One of the many properties Wilson Fisk owned. Even now, even when you were trying to escape everything connected to him, it still unsettled you to seek refuge in a place that belonged to him.

How ironic.

At this time of year, there were only one or two housekeepers there, along with the usual security detail. But beyond that, it was the closest thing you had to solitude—if you could even call it that.

Still, you needed to be alone. Properly alone.

When you arrived, the familiar staff greeted you with surprise, quickly asking if you needed anything, if you had warned them, if they should prepare something—anything at all. You simply told them you wanted to be left alone. Not unkindly. Just clearly.

A small request for space.

You went upstairs to your room, unprepared as always. Some old clothes still lingered there, along with childhood toys tucked away in the wardrobe you once used. You had never been fond of empty closets or carefully arranged space. You preferred things that filled the room, that pressed into it, that made themselves known—rather than order that left everything too clean, too open, too easy to breathe in.

You spent an hour or so in that room, laid down on the bed as you looked at the popcorn ceiling. The room was dark as you didn’t bother to turn the lights on, even if it thrilled you a little. The dark curtains were open, letting the distant city lights in not enough to see but enough to feel like she wasn’t lonely.

You thought about your own words, how petty you were to bring up one word that could trigger the poor woman’s trauma and for what? Because you couldn’t have something you wanted to, as if it was your right to own a person let alone Buck Cashman.

It was not a self-pity, but you had to be realistic in order to survive whatever this feeling was. Crush, love or obsession. You name it.

He was way older than you and even if you were sharing similar aspects of the world, you didn’t belong together. He was just doing his job all this time, being the reliable person that your uncle needed and fulfilling what was required. And just because there was a moment of vulnerability on your end, it made you believe in faux hopes when everything was just your wrong interpretation.

It wasn’t the ache in your chest whenever you taught him with someone else, it was uglier. Making you wish you never knew the name of Heather Glenn, even if it could end the marriage of your uncle. Making you wish you were older, wiser, more independent, more hard-working, more real instead of believing in the delusions in your head because it was never about the looks. It was the things you chased and wanted your whole life and she already had those things; maybe soon enough he’ll have him either.

The sound of the car that made you turn your head towards floor to ceiling window, the mass in your chest still prominent. At first, as you were so used to the sound of cars passing by all the time, you didn’t notice that this one was odd— near the only building in this side of the country. The nearest house was miles away and you waited for car to pass by, not stop.

You got up from your bed with haste; your heart was beating so fast inside your chest that you heard it in your ears. At this age, you were still afraid to face the wrath of your uncle, knowing how upset he would be that you didn’t bother to tell him yourself that you were not coming back home.

But when you looked down from the window, it wasn’t the big, tall, broad-shouldered man you expected to see.

With a gasp you withdraw yourself away from the window and as if he could hear, Buck looked up at the same time instinctively, like he could have known you’d be on that floor, in that room.

You cursed at yourself, obviously Wilson Fisk didn’t bother to come here himself but would send someone with as much as impact he had. With your feet bare from the high-heels you wore whole evening, your dress that was now wrinkled on the back and your makeup that probably was half smudged from palming your face through the whole car ride you stepped down the stairs and head towards the back door of the house.

You knew he would find you and face you eventually, but you were not ready to share the atmosphere of your own bedroom once again.

The heat was taking all over your body, despite the cold night air. Something blossomed and bloomed with every breath you took that caused your heart to beat. Your breath was frantic, tight and rapid in a way that it still couldn’t keep up with the beat of your heart. Your ears were ringing, the blood flow causing ocean-like voices in the shell of your ear as your palm covered your chest just for you to feel the necklace, the one he put around your delicate neck earlier.

Your palm wrapped around the small diamond, a mere replica he said but the diamond you wore was not real, our parents couldn’t afford something like that as much as you knew but— did you ever really know anything—, and you shouldn’t accept it in the first place even just from this reason.

But you were so deprived from that feeling of being cherished, you didn’t realize how foolish you were the whole night. You wanted to tear the chain off of your neck, give back to him as if it could change anything. As if you could un-feel, undo, unlive.

‘’That was a low blow back there.’’

You looked straight ahead, the heavy accent of his was ringing in your ear as you took a look around the garden that surrounding you instead of turning back at the owner of the voice.

The garden was lit from the floor, small garden spot lights hidden in between the grass could paint everywhere green if it wasn’t for the white light inside the blue pool. The tall trees in front of the picket fences that you couldn’t see behind, the sound of the leaves with every wind blow and the cold, tingling feeling of the grass you were stepping on bare-foot.

Your fingers fiddled with the small diamond, rubbing the underside of it with the pad of your thumb as you took a deep breath into your chest. Your lips trembled as if it was a sign.

You turned around and saw him there, a few steps ahead of you with his head tilted to the side. The same intensity in his eyes that you so wanted to believe was your own interpretation, a reflect of something you want to see and not what he actually meant. His tie was long gone; his jacket was hanging from the tip of his fingers as it was hanging behind his shoulder. There was something else in his expression either, something he didn’t have back in your room, as if he was puzzled by you.

You didn’t answer him and definitely didn’t expect him to shove your actions to your face. Your tongue darted out for a second and wet your lower lip, your hands on either side of your body now as you held your chin up higher than you usually do.

His gaze lingered on the necklace you were holding a second ago and swallowed down thickly as he wanted to feel the warmth you left on the gem.

‘’Why are you here?’’ he asked, eyebrows knitted together.

‘’I could ask you the same thing.’’ you answered, throat tightening softly.

‘’You know why I’m here.’’

‘’Cause God forbid if I want something for myself.’’

He said your name, the taste of it lingering on his tongue as he realized once again that he wasn’t using your name as much as he’d wanted to.

‘’Did I do something to offend you?’’ he asked, taking a step further as he put the jacket on the wicker chair near him, then focusing back on you. He wanted to be closer, God knows, but he didn’t want you to feel trapped as it was obvious you were feeling uneasy in his presence.

If only he knew.

‘’What?’’ you asked back, it was your turn to be confused as you frowned upon his words.

‘’If I did, you should let me know so I won’t repeat.’’

You looked at him with a rapid beat of your heart banging onto your chest as if it wanted to leave your body and reach out to its owner, deep breaths you took heaved your chest enough for your chest to feel like it was going to spill out of your dress which wasn’t something you felt so often.

‘’I don’t understand—‘’

‘’Is it the necklace?’’

‘’No, why—‘’ you let out a harsh breath out of your nose, frustrated with the way he was not acting as you expected him to. ‘’What’s wrong with you?’’ you said, voice a little strained as your hands trembled from standing up to him.

Before he could open his mouth, you continued.

‘’One moment you’re acting as if I don’t exist, you’re not even looking at my way! And the next second you seek out ways to touch me that makes me feel like I’m imagining things!’’

The brunette man has never seen you raise your voice before and it intrigued him in ways he shouldn’t be thinking at that moment.

‘’You do things that requires attention, but then the next second you—‘’ you stopped abruptly, the feelings in your chest became so heavy that it started to overflow your skin in ways you didn’t want, making your vision blurry slightly and it wasn’t because of the light drizzle started to pour down both on you, making small dots in his white button up shirt.

‘’You’re looking at me as if I’m everything,’’ you said, your voice trembling on the edges with restriction, with frustration. ‘’then you go and speak with others in ways you never speak to me. You laugh with them whereas you don’t even speak my name.’’

His breath hitched in his chest, shaking his head to the sides softly as he took the smallest step towards you in hopes of you won’t back up, and spoke your name in the softest way possible that made the sky growl as if it felt the weight of the feelings inside his own chest.

‘’Don’t say my name now,’’ you said, chuckling with tears in your eyes that you were discontent with. ‘’not when you’re making me feel like I’m imagining things or yes— maybe— maybe that’s the truth.’’ ‘’Don’t.’’ ‘’Maybe I’m imagining things— ‘’ ‘’That’s not the truth.’’ ‘’ —and maybe I don’t even like you the way I believe I do. Maybe I’m just so deprived of attention in my life and I’m obsessing over the first person who’s nice and kind and maybe you should just leave— ‘’ ‘’I won’t.’’ ‘’ —and never look in my way because maybe you were just— ‘’

The roll of thunder lightened up your surroundings, the trees, the house, the sky— But it wasn’t as bright as your heart when Buck kissed you, interrupting your words.

You saw him getting closer with every sentence, every trembling gesture that followed your words and how he tried to interrupt them with his own but you were so caught up in yourself as always that he thought he couldn’t find any better excuse than pressing his lips against yours. Especially not after you confessed that you liked him. Him. The real thunder, he thought, was the one that he was trying to suppress as he cupped your cheeks and pulled you closer.

A soft muffle came from your side was swallowed by him gladly, taking your lips in between his as his hands shook. The cold skin of your cheeks was pressed against his wide, calloused palms. The mere thought of touching you was enough to undo him, and now, he was kissing you.

Buck didn’t insist for more, not until you shook the bewilderment off from yourself and held onto his wrists. That’s when he deepened the kiss by tilting his head to the side, grabbing the back of your neck above your hair that started to stick to your own skin from the drizzle of rain that fell on both of you.

His other hand touched your shoulder first, not sure where to hold, then moved to your back and rested on your waist as your own arms wrapped around his neck, fingers founding the fine line on his nape.

Everything was burning.

Your skin was crawling like a playful touch of a feather caressing your skin but it was so intense that you were bordering between overstimulation and pure joy. Your breath couldn’t keep up with the rhythm of your heart and the kiss was so clumsy on your side that you were keep pulling away with heavy breaths.

Buck gave you space and time, every time you pulled away and muttered words of soft curses, his name and soft whimpers and heh welcomed you back every single time with more enthusiasm than before.

He kissed you with quiet devotion. No rush, no hunger beyond the simple act of sharing breath and warmth. His lips moved over yours in slow exploration, learning the shape of them, how you responded to each gentle press, trying to understand what was right and good. His chest rose and fell steadily; a man who’d been trained to control every muscle could now let this single point of contact speak for him without words that he was so eager to whisper against your skin.

His fingers tightened slightly in your hair, a quiet possessiveness blooming beneath his usual restraint. The kiss deepened further, not with reckless passion but something more deliberate. A slow unraveling of the discipline he’d worn like armor for years. Every shared breath felt like an exchange; every press of mouths a silent confession.

It was Buck who broke the kiss first, completely, apart from your quick breaks. It was gentle, careful, like peeling back something fragile rather than ending it abruptly— but he didn’t pull away entirely, just an inch of space between you now as his breathing evened out slightly.

‎For a long moment, he simply looked at you; studying the softness of your face after kissing, how your lashes fluttered when you blinked.

‘’Nothing you ever felt was wrong,’’ he whispered, resting his forehead against yours as his nose caressed your cheek to take your scent in deeper. ‘’It was me who’s stupid enough to assume you wouldn’t notice but coward enough to make a move.’’

He pushed the damp strands of hair from your face, tucked it behind your ear and tasted your name on his tongue once again with a sigh.

‘’I should’ve never crossed your mind,’’ he said, disappointed at himself as the restrain slowly slipped from his body.

‘’Buck…’’ you whispered his name and he groaned, soft, before kissing you deeply as he took your scent in just as deeply.

‘’God, I love you.’’ he said, closing his eyes tightly as he tried to get his mind together. ‘’I love you enough to stay away from you.’’

‘’Please, don’t…’’ you said, heart trembling in your chest in fear and he get what you mean in instant. He pulled back at the same time he opened his eyes, looking down at you with that look in there. Deep as a black hole. His throat bobbed once again as he shook his head.

‘’I need you to be the sane one right now.’’ he said.

‘’I just want to know the truth.’’ you said.

Your fingers wrapped around his thick wrist, the one that was holding your face, and the last piece of patience snapped inside of him. He thought love would feel cleaner than this. Something sharp and immediate, something he could survive but instead, it felt like standing outside your door long after midnight with blood drying beneath his knuckles, listening to the silence on the other side and thanking God you were asleep enough not to hear what kind of man had come to you.

Buck had spent most of his life around fear. He knew the smell of it, knew how it sat inside people’s throats and made them quieter, smaller, obedient. He had inflicted it often enough to recognize it instantly but loving you frightened him in ways violence never had.

Because violence was easy. Violence obeyed him.

You did not.

You smiled at him gently sometimes, and he would feel his entire body tense like something wounded waiting for the blow that never came. You touched his arm once while thanking him for something insignificant and he spent the rest of the evening unable to unclench his jaw because the warmth of your hand lingered like a threat.

Not a threat to his life but to his restraint, and God, his restraint was the only thing keeping him from ruining this. Ruining you.

There were nights Buck stood outside your room with every intention of knocking, only to stare at the brass handle until the wanting inside him became unbearable. His hand would hover there for a second too long before dropping back to his side because once he crossed that threshold, he wasn’t sure he would ever leave again.

You were dangerous to him that way, not because you were cruel nor you tempted him intentionally but because you looked at him like there was still something human left worth saving and Buck had never known what to do with mercy when it was offered freely.

So, he loved you carefully. In fragments and in swallowed words. In the brutal discipline of keeping himself standing three steps farther away from you than he wanted to be.

Sometimes you would laugh beside him and Buck would have to look away because the feeling that rose in his chest was too enormous to survive intact. It did not feel gentle. It felt catastrophic. Like standing beneath something holy and realizing it could destroy you simply by being beautiful. And you only rooted yourself deeper but the cruelest part was that he could never tell you, or as he thought once.

Because Buck knew what loving him meant. It meant blood on expensive floors. Men with guns watching every doorway. It meant sleepless nights and fear disguised as protection. It meant becoming attached to someone the world would eventually try to punish simply for existing beside him. As if he already didn’t know you were already in this world just simply being as Wilson Fisk’s niece, he still wanted to keep you out of it.

So, his silence became its own kind of devotion.

He loved you in every conversation he cut short before it became too honest, in every doorway he lingered near just to make sure you were safe, in every glance dragged away before you noticed how long he’d been staring.

Sometimes he thought cowardice might actually be the purest form of love he had left to offer. Because wanting you was easy; keeping you safe from himself was the part that nearly killed him.

And still— still, every time you smiled at him like he was something worth softening for, Buck felt that terrible ache split open inside his ribs all over again. The kind that begged and made a violent man stand perfectly still just so he would not reach for something sacred with bloodstained hands.

But he it was already too late for that as his hand tightened around your jaw just enough to tilt your face up further, and the look on his face turned almost painful— as if the truth was something alive trying to claw its way out of his throat.

His breathing had gone uneven now, warm against your mouth, and you could feel the war inside him in every second he delayed touching you again. His thumb dragged slowly beneath your eye, rough skin against delicate flesh, like he was memorizing you through contact alone.

Your breath caught.

“I knew it was bad when I started looking for you in rooms before I even realized I was doing it.” His eyes searched yours desperately, almost angry at himself for continuing. “Worse when your voice became the only thing that could calm me down after a bloody night enough to make other men sick.”

“Buck…”

“No.” His forehead pressed harder against yours. “You said you wanted the truth, sweetheart, so listen to me.”

The pet name came out wrecked.

“I think about you constantly.” The confession left him like something torn open. “I think about you when I wake up, when I’m working, when there’s blood on my hands and I’m trying to convince myself, I shouldn’t come near you afterward.” His jaw tightened. “And God, the worst part is that none of it feels temporary. It feels…” He swallowed harshly. “Real. You feel real.”

Your fingers tightened instinctively around his wrist as Buck closed his eyes for a second like even that small touch nearly undid him.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done to me.” His voice softened then, becoming something almost vulnerable. “You made me careful.”

That seemed to hurt him most of all.

“I’ve spent my whole life taking what I wanted without hesitating. Then you came along and suddenly I’m standing outside your door at two in the morning arguing with myself because I want to hear your voice so badly it makes me feel insane.”

Your heart stuttered painfully in your chest.

“And every time you smiled at me,” he continued quietly, “every time you touched me like I wasn’t something dangerous, it just got worse.” His nose brushed yours again unconsciously, like he couldn’t stop seeking you out even while trying to push you away.

“I stayed away because I knew what this would become if I didn’t.” His eyes finally lifted fully to yours again, dark and helpless. “I knew one day I’d touch you once and never be satisfied with it again.”

The honesty in his voice stole the air from your lungs when Buck looked at you like he hated himself for loving you this much.

“You want to know the truth?” he whispered again.

“I wanted you when you looked at me across crowded rooms like you already knew.” His thumb slid against your cheek slowly. “Wanted you when you laughed at something stupid, I said and looked at me too long afterward. Wanted you every damn time you stood close enough for me to smell you because then I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about what it would be like to bury my face against your skin and stay there until I forgot my own name.”

A shaky breath left you, his restraint visibly splintered at the sound.

“And I love you,” he admitted finally, the words rough with something devastating. “Not in a clean way. Not in a safe way.” His gaze dropped briefly to your lips before returning to your eyes. “I love you like a man has never seen a day of light before, like something violent trying to learn how to be gentle for the first time in its life.”

His hand slid into your hair then, holding you carefully despite the confession unraveling him.

“And that terrifies me,” he whispered. “Because the only thing worse than wanting you this much…” His lips brushed yours once, barely as he wanted to torture himself from wanting you, from confessing. “…is knowing that this will burn both of us.’’

Your breath broke against his mouth not because of the threat hidden inside the confession—but because of how honest and helpless he sounded. Buck stared at you afterward like he regretted every word and meant every single one. The hand tangled in your hair tightened slightly when you leaned into him instead of away and that nearly destroyed him.

His eyes shut hard for a brief second, jaw flexing beneath the pressure of restraint fighting a losing battle inside him. You could feel it in the way he breathed now— deeper, rougher, like every inhale hurt.

“Don’t do that,” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like you still want me after hearing all that.”

Your chest ached.

“Buck—”

“I’m serious.” His forehead fell back against yours again, voice fraying at the edges. “You should be running from me right now.”

“But I’m not.”

The silence after that felt enormous, Buck opened his eyes slowly.

‘’I don’t know what I feel,’’ you confessed, your whispered voice lingering around hesitation. ‘’I don’t know if it’s you whom I love or just your affection— but Buck…’’

Your breath trembled; the soft drizzle of rain already turned into something more.

‘’I want it.’’ you whispered and his shaky breath hit your skin.

‘’If you let me have this —have you— I’m never going to stop.’’

The words hung between you like the final warning before a fall and somehow that did not frighten you half as much as the thought of him leaving this room and taking all that aching devotion with him to share with someone else. God, the thought of him with someone else, the resemblance of the earlier evening turned your stomach upside down.

Your hands found his face again instinctively, cradling it with a tenderness that seemed to undo him more than desperation ever could. Buck exhaled shakily against your mouth, eyes slipping shut for half a second as he leaned into the touch before catching himself. That hesitation was still there, even now and after every confession dragged bleeding from his chest.

“You still have time to change your mind,” he whispered, though his hand at your waist betrayed him completely, holding you like he already couldn’t bear distance anymore.

You shook your head immediately. Buck stared at you after that like you had just handed him something sacred and dangerous at once then he kissed you again, slower but deep enough to feel the emotion inside it.

Every restrained feeling, every sleepless night, every moment spent standing too close to your door trying to convince himself to walk away seemed to pour into the kiss until your lungs burned with it. His hand slid up your spine carefully, possessively, pulling you closer against his chest while your fingers tangled into the fabric of his damp shirt. The soft sound you made against his lips nearly shattered what little control he had left.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed hoarsely, forehead dropping briefly against yours as if he needed the second to survive you but the pause didn’t last.

Nothing did anymore.

You kissed him first this time, and Buck groaned quietly into your mouth like the feeling of being wanted back was still unbelievable to him. His hands tightened around you instantly, urgent now, the restraint unraveling thread by thread beneath your touch and suddenly standing still became impossible.

He backed you toward the door without fully breaking the kiss, one hand firm at your waist while the other found yours instinctively, fingers locking together tightly as though he needed the contact anchored there. Your breaths came quick between kisses, uneven laughter escaping softly once when you nearly stumbled against him in your hurry as Buck caught you immediately.

Always.

His forehead rested against yours for the briefest second as he opened the door, eyes dark and completely ruined now.

“You’re killing me,” he murmured, and the way he said it sounded almost reverent. Then he pulled you into the hallway with him.

The walk to your room happened in a blur of hurried footsteps and tangled fingers. Neither of you cared who might see—the stolen glances from passing staff, the possibility of Fisk’s men somewhere down the hall, none of it mattered now. Not when Buck held your hand so tightly, not when both of you were breathing like you had been running from something far more dangerous than being caught.

The door barely had time to shut before he was kissing you again.

Buck guided you backward carefully until the backs of your knees hit the mattress, and even in his desperation, there was something unbearably gentle in the way he laid you down. Like he was handling something precious despite the storm unraveling inside him. The warm glow of the bedside lamp spilled across the room after he switched it on, soft gold settling over tangled sheets, flushed skin, and the dark silhouette of him hovering above you.

His hand slid beneath your head, gathering your damp hair carefully and spreading it across the pillow. The gesture felt strangely intimate compared to the hunger in his eyes.

And God, the way he looked at you—

His gaze dragged slowly over your face as though he still couldn’t believe this was real. Your swollen lips, your uneven breathing, the warmth blooming beneath your skin from his touch alone. You watched something soften inside him at the sight.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured quietly, the words sounded almost involuntary.

Buck leaned down again, kissing you slower this time, like he wanted to savor every second now that he finally had permission to. His fingertips ghosted over your skin with maddening restraint, barely there touches that still managed to leave goosebumps trailing in their wake. He seemed fascinated by every reaction he pulled from you—the quiet sighs, the way your body leaned instinctively into his touch, the soft hitch in your breathing when his fingers skimmed your waist.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself upright against him, lips still brushing lazily together as your hand found the zipper of your dress and Buck immediately noticed. His breath caught sharply as the fabric loosened inch by inch beneath your fingers. There was nothing subtle about the look on his face now.

He watched you with an intensity so raw it bordered on reverence, like every glimpse of newly bared skin struck something deep and devastating inside him. Heat flashed behind his eyes, dark and consuming, and for a second, he simply stared, motionless, as though he genuinely did not know what to do with the fact that you were choosing to let him see you like this.

Then restraint abandoned him all over again.

He rose quickly from the bed just long enough to shove off his polished shoes in impatient haste before sinking back down in front of you, directly between your knees. The sight alone nearly unraveled him further.

His large hands slid slowly up your bare arms, rough callouses against soft skin, until his fingers curled around the delicate straps resting on your shoulders. There was impatience in the movement, but beneath it lingered something far more dangerous— wonder.

Like he had spent so long denying himself this that now he didn’t know how to breathe through it. The discarded fabric disappeared somewhere onto the floor without a second thought as Buck’s eyes lifted back to you instantly afterward, and the expression on his face made your chest tighten.

He looked ruined. Completely, devastatingly ruined by you.

A sharp breath left him as his gaze traveled over your body, his throat working hard once as though even swallowing had become difficult. His hands flexed against your thighs before settling there carefully, almost afraid despite everything. Like a starving man seated before a feast he never believed he deserved and suddenly the confidence he carried so effortlessly everywhere else was gone. You could actually see it happen— the moment awe overtook hunger.

Buck stared at you in stunned silence, breathing unevenly, eyes darkened with want but softened by something dangerously close to worship. He looked almost overwhelmed by the sight of you, like he couldn’t decide whether to touch you again or fall apart first.

“Shit…” he whispered under his breath, voice rough with disbelief.

Then quieter, more vulnerable:

“You have no idea what you do to me.”

He kissed you again before either of you could think too hard about what came next. This one was deeper immediately and hungrier.

Buck pushed you gently back against the mattress as his mouth moved against yours with growing desperation, his tongue catching every soft sound that escaped you as though he couldn’t bear letting even your breaths go unheard. The kiss swallowed you whole, all heat and restraint finally collapsing into something reckless. His hands roamed your body heavily, possessively, yet every touch still carried that same unbearable reverence, like he was terrified of handling you too roughly even while losing himself to you.

The black dress that had haunted him the entire evening became unbearable suddenly. His fingers slid down your sides impatiently before tugging the fabric lower, slowly peeling it from your skin. Buck’s breathing roughened the more he uncovered, his gaze constantly flickering downward like he physically could not stop looking at you. Then the dress was gone entirely, discarded somewhere onto the floor without care.

For a second, he simply stared, not with lust alone but with something softer and more devastating as if he was overwhelmed by the reality of you beneath him.

Then, almost abruptly, he reached for the buttons of his own shirt. His movements lacked their usual composure now —slightly hurried, uneven at the edges— as he tugged it open and pulled it over his head before tossing it aside beside your dress and the gesture made your chest ache unexpectedly because even now, Buck was thinking about you first. About not leaving you feeling vulnerable alone.

Your eyes dragged instinctively over him, and the reaction was immediate when the heat bloomed across your cheeks as you took him in properly for the first time.

He was lean rather than broad; all defined muscle stretched beneath sun kissed skin marked faintly by old scars and years harder lived than spoken about. Dark hair dusted his chest lightly before trailing downward beneath the waistband of his boxers, and the sight alone sent warmth curling low in your stomach.

Buck noticed the way you looked at him, the way your breathing changed and a quiet, impatient sigh escaped him as he leaned down again, pressing a kiss against your cheek almost as if he needed grounding.

“Please don’t regret me,” he whispered softly.

And suddenly he sounded nothing like the composed man people feared, the vulnerability in his voice cut through you instantly. You shook your head without hesitation before pulling him back into another kiss.

“I won’t.”

Your fingers slid against the warm skin of his back while the other tangled into the thick strands of his hair, and Buck made a rough sound against your mouth at the feeling. His lips parted beneath yours willingly, greedily, kissing you deeper as his hand cradled the side of your neck and tilted your head just enough for him to lose himself in it properly.

He kissed like a man who had imagined this too many times, slow in some moments, desperate in others. His breathing grew uneven against your skin, sharp exhales slipping through his nose whenever your hands wandered over him. There was something almost boyishly overwhelmed hidden beneath all that intensity now, like even he hadn’t expected this to feel so consuming.

His hands drifted lower and lower along your body, fingertips tracing your skin carefully before settling against your hips. Then, with one firm pull, he drew you flush against him. The movement stole the breath from both of you as no space remained between your bodies now and definitely no pretending either of you wanted distance anymore.

Buck’s forehead dropped briefly against yours afterward, eyes half-lidded and dark with emotion as he tried—and failed—to steady himself. “God,” he murmured shakily, thumb brushing over your waist almost absentmindedly. “You feel too good against me.”

You felt the tremor in him the moment the words left his mouth. The realization that this was real now— that you were beneath him, touching him back, looking at him with the same hunger he had spent months trying to bury inside himself. Buck kissed you again before the silence could swallow him whole.

His mouth moved against yours with a kind of aching devotion that made your chest tighten painfully, his hand sliding from your waist up your side as though he needed to memorize every inch he touched. The roughness of his palm against your skin sent another shiver through you, and he noticed instantly.

He noticed everything.

A soft exhale escaped him against your lips as goosebumps rose beneath his fingertips again.

“There,” he murmured quietly, almost to himself. “You do that every time I touch you.”

Your cheeks burned hotter at the tenderness hidden inside the observation and Buck looked ruined by it, completely captivated in you. He shifted slightly between your legs, pressing closer without thinking, and the sudden contact pulled a breath from both of you at once. His eyes shut briefly, jaw tightening hard enough for you to see the muscle flicker beneath his skin.

“Fuck,” he whispered under his breath, then said your name as one of your hands slid down his chest slowly, feeling the rapid heartbeat beneath warm skin, and Buck’s reaction was immediate. His head dropped forward against your shoulder as a rough breath left him, like even the gentlest touch from you struck somewhere unbearably sensitive.

“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me,” he confessed quietly, once again, but there was no accusation in it, only awe.

His lips brushed along your jaw afterward, lingering kisses pressed against warm skin while his hands continued wandering carefully over you, unable to stay still for long. Every touch carried curiosity alongside desire, like he was trying to learn you through his fingertips alone and despite all the hunger between you, Buck still paused constantly to look at you as if he needed reassurance this wasn’t some cruel hallucination. His thumb stroked slowly across your hip while his gaze searched your face.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

The concern in his voice nearly undid you more than the kisses had. You nodded immediately, fingers brushing through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“More than alright.”

Buck laughed quietly at that, though the sound came strained around the edges.

“You keep saying things like that and I’m going to lose whatever control I have left.”

“You still have control?”

That finally pulled a genuine smile from him, something small and brief but beautiful regardless as your thumb caressed the deep curve of his dimple.

“Barely.”

The honesty of it made warmth curl through you again. Buck leaned back just enough to look at you properly where you lay beneath him, his expression softening into something almost disbelieving. His knuckles brushed gently against your cheek before he bent to kiss you once more— slow enough this time that it felt less like desperation and more like surrender. Like a man finally allowing himself something he’d denied for far too long.

The room grew quieter after that. Not silent—never silent with the way both of you breathed and moaned now—but softened, as if the world beyond the bedroom had finally drifted far enough away to stop existing for a while. Buck stayed above you a moment longer, simply looking as you adjusted to him and he curved every edge of him to fit right with you.

His hand moved slowly over your waist, your ribs, your shoulder—each touch lingering, uncertain, as though he still couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to do this. There was something almost reverent in the way he held you, despite the hunger still burning beneath his restraint, like he was afraid one wrong movement might fracture whatever fragile thing had just begun between you. His thrusts deep, caressing just right to draw gasps from your lips that he wanted to drown in.

You touched his face again instinctively; the rough line of his jaw softened instantly beneath your fingertips. Your look returned to his eyes, that unbearable mixture of devotion and ache that always surfaced when you touched him gently.

“You’re going to make this impossible,” he murmured, breathless as a sheen sweat covered his forehead and hairline.

“You already said you lost control.” you said, head thrown back against the pillow as you pulled his face against your neck, trying to be as close as possible when a quiet laugh slipped out of him at your words, warm against your skin.

“Yeah,” he admitted softly. “I did.”

But even now, Buck moved like someone trying to earn the right to stay. Every kiss eventually slowed into something deeper than want alone. The urgency that had brought him into your room unraveled piece by piece beneath tenderness, beneath the quiet realization that this wasn’t fleeting.

This mattered.

You felt it in the way he guided your hand to his chest for a moment, letting you feel the force of his heartbeat beneath your palm, felt it in the way he kept pausing just to look at you, each time slightly overwhelmed, as if the sight of you still didn’t feel real and when he pressed his face into the curve of your neck, again and again, the breath he let out wasn’t just desire anymore— it was release.

Like something heavy in him had finally been set down, something he had been carrying loneliness for far too long.

Your fingers threaded through his hair slowly, steadying him, and Buck closed his eyes at the feeling. The tension in him eased little by little beneath your touch until he allowed himself to sink fully into you—not just physically, but completely. No walls, no distance, no pretending this meant anything less than everything.

That honesty seemed to scare him more than anything else as you could feel it in the faint tremor of his hands and in the way his forehead pressed to yours, eyes closed tightly, as if he was trying to memorize you before the moment slipped away.

“Hey,” you whispered.

Buck opened his eyes at once and the way he looked at you then was not like a man consumed but like a man undone.

You kissed him gently, and something in him finally gave way. His shoulders loosened beneath your hands, his expression softening into something unguarded as he pulled you closer, like distance itself had become unbearable. Outside the house, the city that you escaped kept moving. Lights flickered against the dark, distant sounds threading through the night.

But inside that room, time had thinned into warmth and tangled sheets and quiet touches, into whispered names against skin, into a kind of stillness that felt almost dangerous in how much it meant and long after the urgency had faded into something quieter, Buck still held you like he feared you might disappear the moment he loosened his grip.

His fingers traced absent patterns against your back while your breathing slowly found its rhythm with his and neither of you spoke for a while as there was no need because something unspoken had already settled between you. It was quiet, certain and irreversible.

Buck Cashman has never been with a woman out of pure love and no other woman saw him other than the shared lust. Not that it means he saw women as a pure object, no, but because he never prioritized that kind of feeling in his life, never got the chance to, never wanted to. That is, until he met you. Even if it wasn’t the second he saw you next to the man he’d been working with in the shadows, it happened in time.

Wilson Fisk, ever so possessive about the things in his life was fond of you ever since you were a little baby. You were about eight years old when he took you under his wing, sharing his home and life with you as a distant father would. So, when he introduced you to Buck years later, fully grown and standing in the dim light of his office in the penthouse you still shared with him, there had been nothing casual about it. He was controlled, quiet, and distant.

“Buck, meet my niece,” Wilson had said evenly, his large hand settling heavily against your shoulder as he turned you toward him.

He was courteous when he shook your hand, his grip firm yet controlled. His gaze held yours with unsettling precision, dark eyes steady and deliberate as though he were looking straight through you and into your soul. The first of many touches to come with both unaware souls.

“She’s under my protection.” The words that came out of his small lips were calm, controlled, but unmistakably possessive.

Buck was intelligent enough to understand exactly what Fisk meant. You were off-limits. Claimed without needing to be claimed outright. Protected with the same ruthless certainty Wilson reserved for territory he would kill to defend. A line that should never even be approached.

But Buck Cashman did not need Wilson Fisk’s warning to know you were dangerous to him in ways he had never experienced before and had not needed the warning to know he should stay away.

You were already too young for him, too bright.

With your youthful face and sharp eyes that concealed far more than they revealed, your careful choice of words, your restless edge, the constant tension hidden beneath your composure —as though you were always waiting for something to happen— you existed in complete contrast to the world Buck belonged to. There was something dangerously untouched about you despite the world you had grown up in.

The quick bursts of laughter shared with the kitchen staff as though you were trying to hold onto something soft inside a house built on violence, the easy warmth you carried without realizing it, the kind that softened every room you stepped into. You moved through Fisk’s home like someone both sheltered and caged by it.

And Buck understood, almost immediately, that you were a world entirely separate from his own. Entirely different in a way one he had no right to touch; one he should never have been allowed nearby. One he should never be allowed to step into.

You remained a constant presence in Buck’s life regardless, though never the center of his attention. He was far too meticulous with his work, too careful with the fragile balance he maintained to survive in a world like this one. There was no room for distractions, no matter how quietly tempting they became.

And so, for a long time, you were simply there as you grew into a beautiful young woman. Someone clever. Fierce.

You were far too stubborn to quietly accept the suffocating restrictions your uncle placed around you under the guise of protection. You argued with him constantly, refusing to mistake control for care. Because that was what it truly was in your eyes: not protection, but confinement. And you were far too intelligent to believe otherwise.

To you, it was humiliating in its own way.

To Wilson Fisk, you were reckless.

You fought against rules you did not fully understand, against dangers you had only ever glimpsed from a distance. Fisk had spent years shielding you from the reality of his world, carefully keeping its ugliness beyond your reach. He never wanted you exposed to it, never allowed you to witness the true depth of the violence he carried home with him like a shadow stitched to his back.

But as you grew older, understanding became inevitable.

You began noticing the blood hidden beneath expensive cuffs, the tense silences after late-night phone calls, the way men lowered their eyes around him out of fear rather than respect. Little by little, the illusion cracked. And you truly understood it the night Wilson Fisk was nearly shot.

The memory stayed carved into you afterward— the chaos, the shouting, the sudden flood of armed men through the house. The sight of blood soaking through his clothes while he stood there somehow still terrifying despite the injury, one hand pressed against his side as if pain itself offended him. That was the night you realized your uncle’s world was far darker than he had ever allowed you to see.

And in that darkness, while the armed men he always kept around him moved in sharp formation through the halls in their fine tailored suits, you were held tightly against Buck’s chest, cradled securely within his arms as chaos erupted around you. Lately, you had become Buck’s priority—not because he had intended for it to happen, but because somewhere along the way, it simply had. And deep down, he knew that even if he had been given the choice, nothing about it would have changed.

One arm was wrapped tightly around your midsection, possessive and protective all at once, while his other hand buried itself in your hair, keeping your head pressed firmly against his chest as he hurried you away from the danger. Rapid footsteps echoed through the corridor, voices shouting over one another, but all you could think about was your uncle.

“Uncle!” you cried out, twisting slightly in his hold to look back despite the panic flooding your veins, the thought of losing the only person you had ever truly depended on leaving you breathless with fear.

“He’s fine,” Buck said immediately, his voice rough with restrained emotion as he kept moving. There was urgency in the way he held you, in the way his grip tightened whenever you tried to look behind you again. “He’s fine.”

But you could barely hear him over the noise in your head.

Buck stopped abruptly in the hallway, realizing he had no other choice if he wanted to keep you safe. He turned you toward him, as his hands came up to cradle your face firmly, forcing your attention onto him and only him.

He said your name a little louder this time, enough to cut through the panic spiraling inside you.

His brown eyes locked onto yours with unwavering intensity, softer than usual now—not weak, never weak, but undeniably affected by the fierce protective instinct rising within him. His thumbs brushed beneath your teary eyes in slow, grounding motions.

“We have to get out of here,” he said quietly, maintaining deliberate eye contact so you wouldn’t drift back into fear. “I need you to stay with me.”

His voice remained calm and certain, even as tension tightened his jaw.

“I’ve got to keep you safe, alright?” he continued softly. “Mr. Fisk is fine. They’re getting him out now, and I’m taking you home.”

The certainty in his tone was not only meant to reassure you—it was something he needed to believe himself.

His eyes never left yours, clearly waiting for either a verbal or silent sign of agreement, and all you could manage was a faint, unsteady nod. Your hands were ice-cold, your legs still trembling as the reality of everything settled in too slowly, like it refused to fully land at once.

“C’mon, angel,” he said, already moving.

His arm stayed firm around you as he guided you down the stairs in quick, controlled strides, scanning every corner, every shadow, every possible angle of threat as if the world itself couldn’t be trusted to stay still. His head kept turning, eyes flicking across every surface, every doorway, every reflection, as though danger might emerge from anywhere at any second.

The moment you reached the exit, he didn’t slow. He ushered you straight into the car, placing you carefully into the backseat before shutting the door with a decisive firmness. Without hesitation, he moved around to the front passenger seat, getting in swiftly as if distance between you and him wasn’t an option.

Inside the dim interior, the outside chaos felt muffled—distant sirens bleeding faintly through the glass, voices swallowed by the car’s closed space. Buck was already on his phone, issuing rapid, clipped calls, his tone low but absolute. You caught fragments of his voice through the speaker—orders, confirmations, locations—but nothing fully formed enough to ease the tight knot in your chest.

And still, even while he spoke, his attention kept flicking back toward the rearview mirror. Toward you.

That was the first spark that lit between you— small, unspoken, and almost impossible to name at the time. It didn’t feel like anything significant then, just a moment passing too quietly to question, but it stayed anyway.

There were looks across rooms filled with people who thought they mattered more than they did, across conversations that required his attention but never truly held it. He would find you without meaning to, or maybe he always meant to, and when he did, it was never casual. Never passing. It was still, controlled, anchored— everything else in the room blurred except for you.

You would look away eventually — flustered with the feeling you couldn’t put a name to it as you never saw him more than just… Buck— but he rarely did. Because there was something in it that unsettled him more than any threat ever had, something quiet and insistent and growing in places he did not give permission to anything to grow. It wasn’t desire in the way he understood it. It was worse than that, a familiarity without any resemblance, any history.

As if some part of him had already decided you were important long before he had the right to decide anything at all and the worst part was— the part he never allowed himself to linger on for more than a second— how carefully he kept himself just shy of crossing any line.

A step held back. A word left unspoken. A touch that stopped just before it became real enough to mean something that could not be undone.

You could’ve been walking ahead of him through a narrow corridor lined with polished stone and low light and he’d moved past you with practiced ease, shoulder brushing yours just barely but not enough to acknowledge your presence that makes you feel troubled after those lingering gaze, but his hand—without thought, without permission even from himself— would caught the edge of your fingers for half a second too long. A pinky brush against yours, soft as your caught breath but the damage it did was always more than the action itself.

Then there was another night where you would have dinner with Wilson Fisk and his acquaintance— Vanessa, under the name of bonding together like a family none of you had at all. Buck came into the room and stood beside your uncle without even looking at your way, as he always did these days.

You swallowed, fingers tightening slightly around the fork in your hand. There was something in the restraint of it all that felt like resentment— not only toward him, but toward yourself too, for noticing too much, for remembering too easily. It felt like a loop you couldn’t step out of, like in another life, another universe, there might’ve been a version of this that made sense but not there.

Buck spoke quietly into Fisk’s ear, nodded once as instructions were given and you’d never look away from the dish in your plate until he brushed past behind your chair— the lightest brush of his fingers against the ends of your hair where it spilled over the back of the seat that made you think you imagined for a second, but lingered in your memories on days end.

Then these subtle moments grew bolder, not bold enough to arouse suspicion but the lingering looks that made you want to crawl into his skin turned into small conversations here and there.

Then these subtle moments grew bolder, not bold enough to arouse suspicion, but enough that the silence between you no longer felt entirely empty.

The lingering looks that once made you want to crawl out of your own skin to have home under his own slowly shifted into something heavier— something that stayed, even when neither of you acknowledged it. They turned into small conversations at the edges of rooms, where voices were low enough to be mistaken for necessity rather than intention.

A question about nothing important. A reply that lasted a second too long. A pause that shouldn’t have existed at all.

Buck never changed his posture when he spoke to you. He still stood the same way he did with everyone else— controlled, measured, always half a step removed from the world around him. But when it was you, there was always a fraction of something different beneath the surface. A delay before he walked away. A glance that returned even after it was already over.

You started noticing it in pieces.

The way he’d position himself just slightly closer than needed when others were in the room, not enough to be questioned, but enough that you could feel him there. The way his attention would drift back to you in the middle of conversations he was supposed to care about more than anything else. The way his voice softened by a degree when it was directed only at you, as if the rest of the world required steel but you did not.

But you would pretend not to notice.

It was one of those evenings, right before the ball that Vanessa arranged, and you were almost ready except mentally. These days, your thoughts felt heavier than they used to, like something had quietly shifted inside you and never shifted back. Ever since the night Wilson Fisk was almost shot, the past had started to rise in pieces you couldn’t fully hold onto. Not clear memories— questions. Fragments that didn’t settle into answers no matter how long you stared at them.

How had you ended up here, in his house, under his protection, under his name without it ever being spoken aloud that way? What had happened to your parents? Were they part of something like this too— something layered and dangerous and carefully hidden behind wealth and silence? And if they were…, did they pay the price for it the same way others did? The same way Uncle Wes did?

The thought tightened in your chest, sharp and unwelcome. Uncle Wes… Oh, how fond of he was of you, when you were just a little girl and how careful and patient around you. More than your own uncle, kinder and sweeter than your uncle. Until the funeral of his changed him.

Wilson Fisk—

God.

Why did he always refuse to talk about your family? Every time the question hovered near the edge of conversation, it was met with something heavier than avoidance. A shift in tone, a closing of distance, a silence so deliberate it felt like a wall being built in real time, right in front of you.

You stood there in your room, hands barely brushing the fabric of your dress, staring at your reflection like it belonged to someone else entirely. Someone who should have known more than she did. Someone who would have already left this house long ago, if not for the quiet weight of things she didn’t yet understand, and the strange pull of obligations that never quite sounded like choices.

A part of you knew that.

The version of you that once believed in freedom without conditions would’ve already walked out, refusing the suffocating elegance of a life built on silence and unanswered questions. She would’ve chosen the unknown over this kind of safety— if it could even be called that.

But that version felt distant now, blurred at the edges.

Because liberty, the kind you used to be so certain you were meant for, didn’t feel as simple anymore when every unanswered question tied itself back to the same name. The same house. The same quiet refusal to explain what had already been decided around you.

Downstairs, the house was already moving toward the night ahead— preparations, voices, footsteps that carried certainty you didn’t feel.

You exhaled slowly, fingers tightening against the fabric of your dress as if grounding yourself to something physical could stop your thoughts from drifting too far when your already open door was knocked on twice.

You saw him through the reflection— Buck.

‘’May I?’’ he asked, with that polished accent of his that made your throat tighten with the force of a swallow.

‘’Please.’’ you said, still looking at him through the reflection and he didn’t intend to look away either.

“They’re almost ready,” he said, his voice low, as if speaking any louder would make it tremble under the weight of what had begun to spill from his chest and weave itself into her veins. With every breath he took, he felt its intensity, like a heavy fog pressing in around him. It was intangible—something he couldn’t hold in his bare hands even if he tried—but oh… only he knew how deeply you were entwined with his soul.

You nodded, swallowing softly as he stood behind you. “Okay.” The word left your lips in a quiet acknowledgment.

Then you noticed what he was holding. Curiosity got the better of you, and you turned slightly to look at his hands—a thin silver chain with a small droplet of diamond.

“Is that—” Your breath caught as you met his eyes, wide with surprise. He shook his head gently, a faint, almost-smile curling his lips—amused, but also a little apologetic for the brief flicker of hope and the disappointment that followed right after.

“It’s merely a replica,” he said, unclasping the necklace, now holding it between both hands. And you understood right then.

“Buck, I can’t—”

“You never let me in.” The look in his eyes—deep and intense as it bore into yours—made you realize his resolve, the heaviness of his scent of sandalwood and eucalyptus surrounding you. “Let me fix things for you, just once.”

The necklace between his fingers looked so much like the one you had lost the night Wilson Fisk was shot. In the panic of the moment, you hadn’t realized where you’d dropped it, and you had mourned it longer than you had processed your uncle’s incident. Buck had asked you a week prior why you were so upset over a necklace, and you told him—something as cliché as it could get—that it had belonged to your mother. You couldn’t believe it had bothered him this much, enough to get you a similar one.

Your heart burst in your chest so strongly you were sure that, if you were lying on the bed, it would shake with every beat. Your throat tightened—an effect he had on you so often lately—and your lips parted with words you couldn’t say. So you just nodded once.

He expected you to turn around, and you did. Buck’s pinky brushed your hair aside, leaving your neck exposed, and with a careful, precise movement—as if he were afraid you might crumble under his touch—he clasped it at your nape. His touch was a breath against your skin as your eyes met through the mirror once again.

“Thank you,” you managed in a whisper. He didn’t say anything; he only nodded, acting as though it meant nothing. And that made you want to tear him apart just to put him back together with your own hands, keeping anyone else from ever touching him but you.

“I should go see Vanessa,” you said when the silence began to feel heavy on your shoulders, on your poor heart, overexplaining yourself. “She likes to feel included when I ask her about my choices.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” he said plainly, as you felt a small bob in his throat. It made you stop. He hadn’t said you looked beautiful in that dress; he had complimented you as a whole, without prompting—he had acknowledged the very essence of you. The thoughtful, kind part that wanted everyone to feel included, in response to your earlier words.

The thought of the beauty in your soul deepened the need to be the one who reached it. That possessive, aching part of his mind burned at the idea of having all of you to himself. Not just your body—God, he would lose himself if he were ever allowed more than a fleeting touch of your skin—but your very soul, your mind, your thoughts, and that intelligent, gentle, tender heart of yours.

The look in his eyes reflected that agony. The way his tightly knitted brows held no trace of anger, yet were carved with inner turmoil. He was looking at you—every inch of your face—with such pure attention that a restless anxiety began to coil in your gut, born from something you couldn’t name.

He looked so pained that one might think he was physically hurt, but no—the longing he felt for you… oh, it was worse than any bullet wound, any burn scar.

Buck Cashman had gone hungry and without water for days back in the order, but never in his life had he felt this parched at the marrow of himself. Not until he realized he couldn’t have you—because even the thought of having you felt like it would never be enough. And he was a selfish, selfish man who wanted to consume you until nothing remained of you, until you became him, knowing even that would never satisfy what he wanted.

Your eyes kept drifting between his browns, feeling trapped, almost bruised by the intensity of his gaze, and you missed the way his fists softly clenched and unclenched—restraining himself from making a move he so firmly believed he didn’t deserve to make.

The second your lips parted, Buck spoke.

“Go,” he said, his voice low as a whisper, but filled with such intensity that the weight of it became almost unbearable. You didn’t waste a second. Your fingers grazed the necklace as you turned and left him alone in your room, as if you were escaping. Later, in the room where Vanessa Fisk was getting ready, you realized you had barely even managed a nod in response to his words.

“Are you okay?” Vanessa asked after a few minutes of silence you brought in with you. Vanessa, as soft-spoken as she was, had always given you a faint sense of unease with her composure and grace. That slight lift at the right corner of her lips always made you wonder if she knew things—there was an intelligent spark in her eyes that never shied away from reflecting her own truth… and perhaps yours as well.

“Just a little distracted is all,” you said, dismissing it, since there was no point in lying. The dizziness hadn’t left you, and you were so disoriented that even a few stolen seconds under that steady, stripped-down gaze had affected you this deeply. There was nothing tangible to hold onto, nothing to explain, nothing to prove—and yet you knew no one would believe what you had felt if you tried to put it into words.

Maybe it was all in your head.

“Happens to the best of us,” said Vanessa, in her white dress that curved around her figure.

You took a deep breath, smiled at her, and stepped closer, trying to ground yourself in the real world you so often lost while living in your head.

“I see you’ve found your necklace,” Vanessa murmured, her voice low and faintly playful in a way you couldn’t quite place, as your mind drifted for a brief moment. Your fingers lingered on the chain, hesitating as you debated whether or not to tell her the truth.

“Yes,” you said, your voice a breathless whisper as you swallowed a smile. “Turns out it was on my nightstand, between the trinkets.”

Vanessa smiled and turned toward the mirror, adjusting her red earrings—framed by tiny white diamonds—the ones you had gifted her. Then she spoke in the softest voice, one that seemed to settle under your skin and stay there for the rest of the night.

“Funny how the things we spend so long searching for are sometimes right in front of us the entire time.”

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Your hands were cold the rest of the evening.

You were around, having small talks under the big chandelier that gave a soft, yellow glow to the packed room, far away from him and your uncle as both of the men was trapping your soul into your body in two different feelings but with similar manners.

You were quiet and uneasy but no one seemed to notice as no one in here knew you enough that this silence was not like the others. Vanessa’s words lingered in your mind, slithered through the curves of it and touched even the forgotten, undulated places, and made you realize him in different ways.

How attentive he actually was with the careful demeanor he carried himself with that made you think if it was something more, or was it all just because of the title you were buried underneath. But he looked like he wanted to dig deeper to see the layers of you, to see what you were hiding it as if he wanted to unravel you himself with bare hand without having a care in the world if you were covered in dirt and soil.

He looked like he’d take great honour in finding the depths of you, all ugly and timid and hidden away from this polished world that you were living in.

And these thoughts, even if you were avoiding to be in his presence again without a clear mind, made you sought him out. Your gaze lingered with the heavy thoughts in your head as equally as the feelings in your chest. Just the sight of him talking with others, holding a champagne flute in his broad-knuckled fingers as if nothing in the world could tear him down made you loosen your own walls towards him for a second that you thought, you would let him in.

The sudden shift in your thoughts unsettled you. You were doing your best not to interpret his gestures in a way you knew would only hurt you in the end, but the necklace he gave you, the way he looked at you, and Vanessa Fisk’s words inevitably tangled together, trapping you in your own mind. Slowly, you began to lose your grip on the present once again.

That was until you were guided to a table shared with your uncle, his wife, the governor—and right across from you, Buck. The same table he shared with none other than Heather Glenn.

You knew her. You were the one who had introduced your uncle and aunt-in-law to her, hoping they might resolve whatever stood between them. Later, you recognized her from the recent vigilante incident. You weren’t surprised that Wilson Fisk kept her close despite her connection to Matt Murdock— Fisk was a spiteful man who enjoyed control and leverage.

“They’ve made a great pair, don’t you think?”

Vanessa’s quiet voice pulled you from your thoughts. You turned to her, startled, warmth creeping up from your chest to your neck as you realized she had caught you looking his way all night, despite your attempts to ignore him.

“Who?” you asked, though the answer came to you a few seconds later, and the realization settled heavily in your stomach, already tight with unnamed emotions. Vanessa raised her brows slightly, as if checking whether you were even listening, and a sudden wave of nausea hit you.

“Yes,” you said anyway, glancing back toward them. “Two peas in a pod.”

What rose in you was difficult to define.

It felt as though every thought you’d built around a single, vulnerable moment had been something you invented—something born from your refusal to fully face reality. And yet, you were certain. Absolutely certain. The way he looked at you couldn’t have been imagined. It couldn’t have been your mind filling in the gaps.

And still, you refused to believe that the best thing your imagination could create… was him.

But all those years—he had never once looked at you the way he looked at her. And that thought left something bitter in your chest, something you hated admitting even to yourself. It wasn’t just jealousy. It couldn’t be that simple. You weren’t the kind of person who reduced things to something so small. At least, that was what you told yourself, trying to keep your mind steady—even as it refused to cooperate.

Maybe it really was your own need of belonging to somewhere, someone that played with your thoughts and made you believe that his accidental touches were something more. Maybe he really was a kind person, trying to cheer you up by gifting something you keep it close to your heart to make you happy and not because he wanted to be there.

Maybe he really wasn’t the one that you could have just because he was around.

Trying to live in the moment was no longer something you were attempting from that point onward. The glances you kept stealing in that direction—and the fact that not once did he catch you—left a quiet, irredeemable disappointment settling somewhere deep in you. And the way your uncle made no effort to hide his own disappointment only made it worse, like salt pressed into the same wound carved by two different men.

But was it really Buck’s fault?

You found yourself blaming it on you again and again, convincing yourself that you should never have misread those moments in the first place, because you already knew what the outcome would be.

The night blurred together after that—moving too quickly as you endured it, yet dragging on far too slowly for your liking. And when you finally excused yourself from the crowd and headed toward the door, you were stopped mid-step by Wilson Fisk calling your name.

There they were— Mr. and Mrs. Fisk, Buck Cashman, and—

“Miss Glenn, I haven’t had the chance to introduce you to my niece,” he said, gesturing for you to come closer with an arm extended.

You obliged.

Strangely enough, you felt nothing when you saw the woman again. She wore a polite, composed smile as she offered her hand.

“I’m glad I finally get to meet you, Miss Fisk,” she said. “I heard Mr. and Mrs. Fisk met me through your introduction.”

“Indeed,” you replied, shaking her hand with a polite smile of your own—nothing more than a careful curve of the lips. “It’s nice to see you welcomed into the family.”

The words carried a bitterness only you could truly hear. Heather Glenn remained poised and courteous, her expression never faltering.

“Miss Glenn has been considering working with an architect,” Wilson Fisk said, a note of pride in his voice as he turned slightly toward you.

“Yes,” Heather Glenn added, holding her purse with both hands now that the greeting had passed. “Mr. Fisk spoke very highly of you.”

“My uncle is very affectionate when it comes to the people he likes,” you said lightly, brushing off the compliment with a small wave of your hand. “He tends to exaggerate.”

“I’m sure you’re just being modest,” she replied.

Soft, polite laughter rippled around the gathering and your heart began to beat faster—not from surprise, but from the familiar certainty of what always came next when you spoke too freely, too sharply, too honestly for a room like this.

‘’No, not really. I’ve been lacking lots of inspiration lately.’’ you said, tilting your head slightly to the side as your hair fell onto your skin, framing your face like a curtain.

‘’You may say I’m in desperate need of muse.’’

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

“Fuck me,” you groaned into your palms, your hands pressed over your face as the warm air from the car’s ventilation stopped brushing against your skin. You had left the ballroom quickly, almost abruptly—driven out by the sting of your own pettiness, which had curdled into something like internal shame. Just because of what? A man?

The realization that you were slipping—becoming less and less like yourself in such a short amount of time—made something in your stomach turn over. A sick, rising nausea you couldn’t quite settle.

You refused to go back to the penthouse. You found yourself questioning, once again, why you were still living with your uncle and his wife at all. Your whole life felt like a pretense, and the real problems you avoided kept pushing you toward thoughts you didn’t want, toward interpretations you didn’t trust in yourself. And that only created more complications you didn’t need.

Sinking into the backseat, you told the driver to take you to the country house—the one nearly an hour away. One of the many properties Wilson Fisk owned. Even now, even when you were trying to escape everything connected to him, it still unsettled you to seek refuge in a place that belonged to him.

How ironic.

At this time of year, there were only one or two housekeepers there, along with the usual security detail. But beyond that, it was the closest thing you had to solitude—if you could even call it that.

Still, you needed to be alone. Properly alone.

When you arrived, the familiar staff greeted you with surprise, quickly asking if you needed anything, if you had warned them, if they should prepare something—anything at all. You simply told them you wanted to be left alone. Not unkindly. Just clearly.

A small request for space.

You went upstairs to your room, unprepared as always. Some old clothes still lingered there, along with childhood toys tucked away in the wardrobe you once used. You had never been fond of empty closets or carefully arranged space. You preferred things that filled the room, that pressed into it, that made themselves known—rather than order that left everything too clean, too open, too easy to breathe in.

You spent an hour or so in that room, laid down on the bed as you looked at the popcorn ceiling. The room was dark as you didn’t bother to turn the lights on, even if it thrilled you a little. The dark curtains were open, letting the distant city lights in not enough to see but enough to feel like she wasn’t lonely.

You thought about your own words, how petty you were to bring up one word that could trigger the poor woman’s trauma and for what? Because you couldn’t have something you wanted to, as if it was your right to own a person let alone Buck Cashman.

It was not a self-pity, but you had to be realistic in order to survive whatever this feeling was. Crush, love or obsession. You name it.

He was way older than you and even if you were sharing similar aspects of the world, you didn’t belong together. He was just doing his job all this time, being the reliable person that your uncle needed and fulfilling what was required. And just because there was a moment of vulnerability on your end, it made you believe in faux hopes when everything was just your wrong interpretation.

It wasn’t the ache in your chest whenever you taught him with someone else, it was uglier. Making you wish you never knew the name of Heather Glenn, even if it could end the marriage of your uncle. Making you wish you were older, wiser, more independent, more hard-working, more real instead of believing in the delusions in your head because it was never about the looks. It was the things you chased and wanted your whole life and she already had those things; maybe soon enough he’ll have him either.

The sound of the car that made you turn your head towards floor to ceiling window, the mass in your chest still prominent. At first, as you were so used to the sound of cars passing by all the time, you didn’t notice that this one was odd— near the only building in this side of the country. The nearest house was miles away and you waited for car to pass by, not stop.

You got up from your bed with haste; your heart was beating so fast inside your chest that you heard it in your ears. At this age, you were still afraid to face the wrath of your uncle, knowing how upset he would be that you didn’t bother to tell him yourself that you were not coming back home.

But when you looked down from the window, it wasn’t the big, tall, broad-shouldered man you expected to see.

With a gasp you withdraw yourself away from the window and as if he could hear, Buck looked up at the same time instinctively, like he could have known you’d be on that floor, in that room.

You cursed at yourself, obviously Wilson Fisk didn’t bother to come here himself but would send someone with as much as impact he had. With your feet bare from the high-heels you wore whole evening, your dress that was now wrinkled on the back and your makeup that probably was half smudged from palming your face through the whole car ride you stepped down the stairs and head towards the back door of the house.

You knew he would find you and face you eventually, but you were not ready to share the atmosphere of your own bedroom once again.

The heat was taking all over your body, despite the cold night air. Something blossomed and bloomed with every breath you took that caused your heart to beat. Your breath was frantic, tight and rapid in a way that it still couldn’t keep up with the beat of your heart. Your ears were ringing, the blood flow causing ocean-like voices in the shell of your ear as your palm covered your chest just for you to feel the necklace, the one he put around your delicate neck earlier.

Your palm wrapped around the small diamond, a mere replica he said but the diamond you wore was not real, our parents couldn’t afford something like that as much as you knew but— did you ever really know anything—, and you shouldn’t accept it in the first place even just from this reason.

But you were so deprived from that feeling of being cherished, you didn’t realize how foolish you were the whole night. You wanted to tear the chain off of your neck, give back to him as if it could change anything. As if you could un-feel, undo, unlive.

‘’That was a low blow back there.’’

You looked straight ahead, the heavy accent of his was ringing in your ear as you took a look around the garden that surrounding you instead of turning back at the owner of the voice.

The garden was lit from the floor, small garden spot lights hidden in between the grass could paint everywhere green if it wasn’t for the white light inside the blue pool. The tall trees in front of the picket fences that you couldn’t see behind, the sound of the leaves with every wind blow and the cold, tingling feeling of the grass you were stepping on bare-foot.

Your fingers fiddled with the small diamond, rubbing the underside of it with the pad of your thumb as you took a deep breath into your chest. Your lips trembled as if it was a sign.

You turned around and saw him there, a few steps ahead of you with his head tilted to the side. The same intensity in his eyes that you so wanted to believe was your own interpretation, a reflect of something you want to see and not what he actually meant. His tie was long gone; his jacket was hanging from the tip of his fingers as it was hanging behind his shoulder. There was something else in his expression either, something he didn’t have back in your room, as if he was puzzled by you.

You didn’t answer him and definitely didn’t expect him to shove your actions to your face. Your tongue darted out for a second and wet your lower lip, your hands on either side of your body now as you held your chin up higher than you usually do.

His gaze lingered on the necklace you were holding a second ago and swallowed down thickly as he wanted to feel the warmth you left on the gem.

‘’Why are you here?’’ he asked, eyebrows knitted together.

‘’I could ask you the same thing.’’ you answered, throat tightening softly.

‘’You know why I’m here.’’

‘’Cause God forbid if I want something for myself.’’

He said your name, the taste of it lingering on his tongue as he realized once again that he wasn’t using your name as much as he’d wanted to.

‘’Did I do something to offend you?’’ he asked, taking a step further as he put the jacket on the wicker chair near him, then focusing back on you. He wanted to be closer, God knows, but he didn’t want you to feel trapped as it was obvious you were feeling uneasy in his presence.

If only he knew.

‘’What?’’ you asked back, it was your turn to be confused as you frowned upon his words.

‘’If I did, you should let me know so I won’t repeat.’’

You looked at him with a rapid beat of your heart banging onto your chest as if it wanted to leave your body and reach out to its owner, deep breaths you took heaved your chest enough for your chest to feel like it was going to spill out of your dress which wasn’t something you felt so often.

‘’I don’t understand—‘’

‘’Is it the necklace?’’

‘’No, why—‘’ you let out a harsh breath out of your nose, frustrated with the way he was not acting as you expected him to. ‘’What’s wrong with you?’’ you said, voice a little strained as your hands trembled from standing up to him.

Before he could open his mouth, you continued.

‘’One moment you’re acting as if I don’t exist, you’re not even looking at my way! And the next second you seek out ways to touch me that makes me feel like I’m imagining things!’’

The brunette man has never seen you raise your voice before and it intrigued him in ways he shouldn’t be thinking at that moment.

‘’You do things that requires attention, but then the next second you—‘’ you stopped abruptly, the feelings in your chest became so heavy that it started to overflow your skin in ways you didn’t want, making your vision blurry slightly and it wasn’t because of the light drizzle started to pour down both on you, making small dots in his white button up shirt.

‘’You’re looking at me as if I’m everything,’’ you said, your voice trembling on the edges with restriction, with frustration. ‘’then you go and speak with others in ways you never speak to me. You laugh with them whereas you don’t even speak my name.’’

His breath hitched in his chest, shaking his head to the sides softly as he took the smallest step towards you in hopes of you won’t back up, and spoke your name in the softest way possible that made the sky growl as if it felt the weight of the feelings inside his own chest.

‘’Don’t say my name now,’’ you said, chuckling with tears in your eyes that you were discontent with. ‘’not when you’re making me feel like I’m imagining things or yes— maybe— maybe that’s the truth.’’ ‘’Don’t.’’ ‘’Maybe I’m imagining things— ‘’ ‘’That’s not the truth.’’ ‘’ —and maybe I don’t even like you the way I believe I do. Maybe I’m just so deprived of attention in my life and I’m obsessing over the first person who’s nice and kind and maybe you should just leave— ‘’ ‘’I won’t.’’ ‘’ —and never look in my way because maybe you were just— ‘’

The roll of thunder lightened up your surroundings, the trees, the house, the sky— But it wasn’t as bright as your heart when Buck kissed you, interrupting your words.

You saw him getting closer with every sentence, every trembling gesture that followed your words and how he tried to interrupt them with his own but you were so caught up in yourself as always that he thought he couldn’t find any better excuse than pressing his lips against yours. Especially not after you confessed that you liked him. Him. The real thunder, he thought, was the one that he was trying to suppress as he cupped your cheeks and pulled you closer.

A soft muffle came from your side was swallowed by him gladly, taking your lips in between his as his hands shook. The cold skin of your cheeks was pressed against his wide, calloused palms. The mere thought of touching you was enough to undo him, and now, he was kissing you.

Buck didn’t insist for more, not until you shook the bewilderment off from yourself and held onto his wrists. That’s when he deepened the kiss by tilting his head to the side, grabbing the back of your neck above your hair that started to stick to your own skin from the drizzle of rain that fell on both of you.

His other hand touched your shoulder first, not sure where to hold, then moved to your back and rested on your waist as your own arms wrapped around his neck, fingers founding the fine line on his nape.

Everything was burning.

Your skin was crawling like a playful touch of a feather caressing your skin but it was so intense that you were bordering between overstimulation and pure joy. Your breath couldn’t keep up with the rhythm of your heart and the kiss was so clumsy on your side that you were keep pulling away with heavy breaths.

Buck gave you space and time, every time you pulled away and muttered words of soft curses, his name and soft whimpers and heh welcomed you back every single time with more enthusiasm than before.

He kissed you with quiet devotion. No rush, no hunger beyond the simple act of sharing breath and warmth. His lips moved over yours in slow exploration, learning the shape of them, how you responded to each gentle press, trying to understand what was right and good. His chest rose and fell steadily; a man who’d been trained to control every muscle could now let this single point of contact speak for him without words that he was so eager to whisper against your skin.

His fingers tightened slightly in your hair, a quiet possessiveness blooming beneath his usual restraint. The kiss deepened further, not with reckless passion but something more deliberate. A slow unraveling of the discipline he’d worn like armor for years. Every shared breath felt like an exchange; every press of mouths a silent confession.

It was Buck who broke the kiss first, completely, apart from your quick breaks. It was gentle, careful, like peeling back something fragile rather than ending it abruptly— but he didn’t pull away entirely, just an inch of space between you now as his breathing evened out slightly.

‎For a long moment, he simply looked at you; studying the softness of your face after kissing, how your lashes fluttered when you blinked.

‘’Nothing you ever felt was wrong,’’ he whispered, resting his forehead against yours as his nose caressed your cheek to take your scent in deeper. ‘’It was me who’s stupid enough to assume you wouldn’t notice but coward enough to make a move.’’

He pushed the damp strands of hair from your face, tucked it behind your ear and tasted your name on his tongue once again with a sigh.

‘’I should’ve never crossed your mind,’’ he said, disappointed at himself as the restrain slowly slipped from his body.

‘’Buck…’’ you whispered his name and he groaned, soft, before kissing you deeply as he took your scent in just as deeply.

‘’God, I love you.’’ he said, closing his eyes tightly as he tried to get his mind together. ‘’I love you enough to stay away from you.’’

‘’Please, don’t…’’ you said, heart trembling in your chest in fear and he get what you mean in instant. He pulled back at the same time he opened his eyes, looking down at you with that look in there. Deep as a black hole. His throat bobbed once again as he shook his head.

‘’I need you to be the sane one right now.’’ he said.

‘’I just want to know the truth.’’ you said.

Your fingers wrapped around his thick wrist, the one that was holding your face, and the last piece of patience snapped inside of him. He thought love would feel cleaner than this. Something sharp and immediate, something he could survive but instead, it felt like standing outside your door long after midnight with blood drying beneath his knuckles, listening to the silence on the other side and thanking God you were asleep enough not to hear what kind of man had come to you.

Buck had spent most of his life around fear. He knew the smell of it, knew how it sat inside people’s throats and made them quieter, smaller, obedient. He had inflicted it often enough to recognize it instantly but loving you frightened him in ways violence never had.

Because violence was easy. Violence obeyed him.

You did not.

You smiled at him gently sometimes, and he would feel his entire body tense like something wounded waiting for the blow that never came. You touched his arm once while thanking him for something insignificant and he spent the rest of the evening unable to unclench his jaw because the warmth of your hand lingered like a threat.

Not a threat to his life but to his restraint, and God, his restraint was the only thing keeping him from ruining this. Ruining you.

There were nights Buck stood outside your room with every intention of knocking, only to stare at the brass handle until the wanting inside him became unbearable. His hand would hover there for a second too long before dropping back to his side because once he crossed that threshold, he wasn’t sure he would ever leave again.

You were dangerous to him that way, not because you were cruel nor you tempted him intentionally but because you looked at him like there was still something human left worth saving and Buck had never known what to do with mercy when it was offered freely.

So, he loved you carefully. In fragments and in swallowed words. In the brutal discipline of keeping himself standing three steps farther away from you than he wanted to be.

Sometimes you would laugh beside him and Buck would have to look away because the feeling that rose in his chest was too enormous to survive intact. It did not feel gentle. It felt catastrophic. Like standing beneath something holy and realizing it could destroy you simply by being beautiful. And you only rooted yourself deeper but the cruelest part was that he could never tell you, or as he thought once.

Because Buck knew what loving him meant. It meant blood on expensive floors. Men with guns watching every doorway. It meant sleepless nights and fear disguised as protection. It meant becoming attached to someone the world would eventually try to punish simply for existing beside him. As if he already didn’t know you were already in this world just simply being as Wilson Fisk’s niece, he still wanted to keep you out of it.

So, his silence became its own kind of devotion.

He loved you in every conversation he cut short before it became too honest, in every doorway he lingered near just to make sure you were safe, in every glance dragged away before you noticed how long he’d been staring.

Sometimes he thought cowardice might actually be the purest form of love he had left to offer. Because wanting you was easy; keeping you safe from himself was the part that nearly killed him.

And still— still, every time you smiled at him like he was something worth softening for, Buck felt that terrible ache split open inside his ribs all over again. The kind that begged and made a violent man stand perfectly still just so he would not reach for something sacred with bloodstained hands.

But he it was already too late for that as his hand tightened around your jaw just enough to tilt your face up further, and the look on his face turned almost painful— as if the truth was something alive trying to claw its way out of his throat.

His breathing had gone uneven now, warm against your mouth, and you could feel the war inside him in every second he delayed touching you again. His thumb dragged slowly beneath your eye, rough skin against delicate flesh, like he was memorizing you through contact alone.

Your breath caught.

“I knew it was bad when I started looking for you in rooms before I even realized I was doing it.” His eyes searched yours desperately, almost angry at himself for continuing. “Worse when your voice became the only thing that could calm me down after a bloody night enough to make other men sick.”

“Buck…”

“No.” His forehead pressed harder against yours. “You said you wanted the truth, sweetheart, so listen to me.”

The pet name came out wrecked.

“I think about you constantly.” The confession left him like something torn open. “I think about you when I wake up, when I’m working, when there’s blood on my hands and I’m trying to convince myself, I shouldn’t come near you afterward.” His jaw tightened. “And God, the worst part is that none of it feels temporary. It feels…” He swallowed harshly. “Real. You feel real.”

Your fingers tightened instinctively around his wrist as Buck closed his eyes for a second like even that small touch nearly undid him.

“You don’t understand what you’ve done to me.” His voice softened then, becoming something almost vulnerable. “You made me careful.”

That seemed to hurt him most of all.

“I’ve spent my whole life taking what I wanted without hesitating. Then you came along and suddenly I’m standing outside your door at two in the morning arguing with myself because I want to hear your voice so badly it makes me feel insane.”

Your heart stuttered painfully in your chest.

“And every time you smiled at me,” he continued quietly, “every time you touched me like I wasn’t something dangerous, it just got worse.” His nose brushed yours again unconsciously, like he couldn’t stop seeking you out even while trying to push you away.

“I stayed away because I knew what this would become if I didn’t.” His eyes finally lifted fully to yours again, dark and helpless. “I knew one day I’d touch you once and never be satisfied with it again.”

The honesty in his voice stole the air from your lungs when Buck looked at you like he hated himself for loving you this much.

“You want to know the truth?” he whispered again.

“I wanted you when you looked at me across crowded rooms like you already knew.” His thumb slid against your cheek slowly. “Wanted you when you laughed at something stupid, I said and looked at me too long afterward. Wanted you every damn time you stood close enough for me to smell you because then I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about what it would be like to bury my face against your skin and stay there until I forgot my own name.”

A shaky breath left you, his restraint visibly splintered at the sound.

“And I love you,” he admitted finally, the words rough with something devastating. “Not in a clean way. Not in a safe way.” His gaze dropped briefly to your lips before returning to your eyes. “I love you like a man has never seen a day of light before, like something violent trying to learn how to be gentle for the first time in its life.”

His hand slid into your hair then, holding you carefully despite the confession unraveling him.

“And that terrifies me,” he whispered. “Because the only thing worse than wanting you this much…” His lips brushed yours once, barely as he wanted to torture himself from wanting you, from confessing. “…is knowing that this will burn both of us.’’

Your breath broke against his mouth not because of the threat hidden inside the confession—but because of how honest and helpless he sounded. Buck stared at you afterward like he regretted every word and meant every single one. The hand tangled in your hair tightened slightly when you leaned into him instead of away and that nearly destroyed him.

His eyes shut hard for a brief second, jaw flexing beneath the pressure of restraint fighting a losing battle inside him. You could feel it in the way he breathed now— deeper, rougher, like every inhale hurt.

“Don’t do that,” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like you still want me after hearing all that.”

Your chest ached.

“Buck—”

“I’m serious.” His forehead fell back against yours again, voice fraying at the edges. “You should be running from me right now.”

“But I’m not.”

The silence after that felt enormous, Buck opened his eyes slowly.

‘’I don’t know what I feel,’’ you confessed, your whispered voice lingering around hesitation. ‘’I don’t know if it’s you whom I love or just your affection— but Buck…’’

Your breath trembled; the soft drizzle of rain already turned into something more.

‘’I want it.’’ you whispered and his shaky breath hit your skin.

‘’If you let me have this —have you— I’m never going to stop.’’

The words hung between you like the final warning before a fall and somehow that did not frighten you half as much as the thought of him leaving this room and taking all that aching devotion with him to share with someone else. God, the thought of him with someone else, the resemblance of the earlier evening turned your stomach upside down.

Your hands found his face again instinctively, cradling it with a tenderness that seemed to undo him more than desperation ever could. Buck exhaled shakily against your mouth, eyes slipping shut for half a second as he leaned into the touch before catching himself. That hesitation was still there, even now and after every confession dragged bleeding from his chest.

“You still have time to change your mind,” he whispered, though his hand at your waist betrayed him completely, holding you like he already couldn’t bear distance anymore.

You shook your head immediately. Buck stared at you after that like you had just handed him something sacred and dangerous at once then he kissed you again, slower but deep enough to feel the emotion inside it.

Every restrained feeling, every sleepless night, every moment spent standing too close to your door trying to convince himself to walk away seemed to pour into the kiss until your lungs burned with it. His hand slid up your spine carefully, possessively, pulling you closer against his chest while your fingers tangled into the fabric of his damp shirt. The soft sound you made against his lips nearly shattered what little control he had left.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed hoarsely, forehead dropping briefly against yours as if he needed the second to survive you but the pause didn’t last.

Nothing did anymore.

You kissed him first this time, and Buck groaned quietly into your mouth like the feeling of being wanted back was still unbelievable to him. His hands tightened around you instantly, urgent now, the restraint unraveling thread by thread beneath your touch and suddenly standing still became impossible.

He backed you toward the door without fully breaking the kiss, one hand firm at your waist while the other found yours instinctively, fingers locking together tightly as though he needed the contact anchored there. Your breaths came quick between kisses, uneven laughter escaping softly once when you nearly stumbled against him in your hurry as Buck caught you immediately.

Always.

His forehead rested against yours for the briefest second as he opened the door, eyes dark and completely ruined now.

“You’re killing me,” he murmured, and the way he said it sounded almost reverent. Then he pulled you into the hallway with him.

The walk to your room happened in a blur of hurried footsteps and tangled fingers. Neither of you cared who might see—the stolen glances from passing staff, the possibility of Fisk’s men somewhere down the hall, none of it mattered now. Not when Buck held your hand so tightly, not when both of you were breathing like you had been running from something far more dangerous than being caught.

The door barely had time to shut before he was kissing you again.

Buck guided you backward carefully until the backs of your knees hit the mattress, and even in his desperation, there was something unbearably gentle in the way he laid you down. Like he was handling something precious despite the storm unraveling inside him. The warm glow of the bedside lamp spilled across the room after he switched it on, soft gold settling over tangled sheets, flushed skin, and the dark silhouette of him hovering above you.

His hand slid beneath your head, gathering your damp hair carefully and spreading it across the pillow. The gesture felt strangely intimate compared to the hunger in his eyes.

And God, the way he looked at you—

His gaze dragged slowly over your face as though he still couldn’t believe this was real. Your swollen lips, your uneven breathing, the warmth blooming beneath your skin from his touch alone. You watched something soften inside him at the sight.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured quietly, the words sounded almost involuntary.

Buck leaned down again, kissing you slower this time, like he wanted to savor every second now that he finally had permission to. His fingertips ghosted over your skin with maddening restraint, barely there touches that still managed to leave goosebumps trailing in their wake. He seemed fascinated by every reaction he pulled from you—the quiet sighs, the way your body leaned instinctively into his touch, the soft hitch in your breathing when his fingers skimmed your waist.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled yourself upright against him, lips still brushing lazily together as your hand found the zipper of your dress and Buck immediately noticed. His breath caught sharply as the fabric loosened inch by inch beneath your fingers. There was nothing subtle about the look on his face now.

He watched you with an intensity so raw it bordered on reverence, like every glimpse of newly bared skin struck something deep and devastating inside him. Heat flashed behind his eyes, dark and consuming, and for a second, he simply stared, motionless, as though he genuinely did not know what to do with the fact that you were choosing to let him see you like this.

Then restraint abandoned him all over again.

He rose quickly from the bed just long enough to shove off his polished shoes in impatient haste before sinking back down in front of you, directly between your knees. The sight alone nearly unraveled him further.

His large hands slid slowly up your bare arms, rough callouses against soft skin, until his fingers curled around the delicate straps resting on your shoulders. There was impatience in the movement, but beneath it lingered something far more dangerous— wonder.

Like he had spent so long denying himself this that now he didn’t know how to breathe through it. The discarded fabric disappeared somewhere onto the floor without a second thought as Buck’s eyes lifted back to you instantly afterward, and the expression on his face made your chest tighten.

He looked ruined. Completely, devastatingly ruined by you.

A sharp breath left him as his gaze traveled over your body, his throat working hard once as though even swallowing had become difficult. His hands flexed against your thighs before settling there carefully, almost afraid despite everything. Like a starving man seated before a feast he never believed he deserved and suddenly the confidence he carried so effortlessly everywhere else was gone. You could actually see it happen— the moment awe overtook hunger.

Buck stared at you in stunned silence, breathing unevenly, eyes darkened with want but softened by something dangerously close to worship. He looked almost overwhelmed by the sight of you, like he couldn’t decide whether to touch you again or fall apart first.

“Shit…” he whispered under his breath, voice rough with disbelief.

Then quieter, more vulnerable:

“You have no idea what you do to me.”

He kissed you again before either of you could think too hard about what came next. This one was deeper immediately and hungrier.

Buck pushed you gently back against the mattress as his mouth moved against yours with growing desperation, his tongue catching every soft sound that escaped you as though he couldn’t bear letting even your breaths go unheard. The kiss swallowed you whole, all heat and restraint finally collapsing into something reckless. His hands roamed your body heavily, possessively, yet every touch still carried that same unbearable reverence, like he was terrified of handling you too roughly even while losing himself to you.

The black dress that had haunted him the entire evening became unbearable suddenly. His fingers slid down your sides impatiently before tugging the fabric lower, slowly peeling it from your skin. Buck’s breathing roughened the more he uncovered, his gaze constantly flickering downward like he physically could not stop looking at you. Then the dress was gone entirely, discarded somewhere onto the floor without care.

For a second, he simply stared, not with lust alone but with something softer and more devastating as if he was overwhelmed by the reality of you beneath him.

Then, almost abruptly, he reached for the buttons of his own shirt. His movements lacked their usual composure now —slightly hurried, uneven at the edges— as he tugged it open and pulled it over his head before tossing it aside beside your dress and the gesture made your chest ache unexpectedly because even now, Buck was thinking about you first. About not leaving you feeling vulnerable alone.

Your eyes dragged instinctively over him, and the reaction was immediate when the heat bloomed across your cheeks as you took him in properly for the first time.

He was lean rather than broad; all defined muscle stretched beneath sun kissed skin marked faintly by old scars and years harder lived than spoken about. Dark hair dusted his chest lightly before trailing downward beneath the waistband of his boxers, and the sight alone sent warmth curling low in your stomach.

Buck noticed the way you looked at him, the way your breathing changed and a quiet, impatient sigh escaped him as he leaned down again, pressing a kiss against your cheek almost as if he needed grounding.

“Please don’t regret me,” he whispered softly.

And suddenly he sounded nothing like the composed man people feared, the vulnerability in his voice cut through you instantly. You shook your head without hesitation before pulling him back into another kiss.

“I won’t.”

Your fingers slid against the warm skin of his back while the other tangled into the thick strands of his hair, and Buck made a rough sound against your mouth at the feeling. His lips parted beneath yours willingly, greedily, kissing you deeper as his hand cradled the side of your neck and tilted your head just enough for him to lose himself in it properly.

He kissed like a man who had imagined this too many times, slow in some moments, desperate in others. His breathing grew uneven against your skin, sharp exhales slipping through his nose whenever your hands wandered over him. There was something almost boyishly overwhelmed hidden beneath all that intensity now, like even he hadn’t expected this to feel so consuming.

His hands drifted lower and lower along your body, fingertips tracing your skin carefully before settling against your hips. Then, with one firm pull, he drew you flush against him. The movement stole the breath from both of you as no space remained between your bodies now and definitely no pretending either of you wanted distance anymore.

Buck’s forehead dropped briefly against yours afterward, eyes half-lidded and dark with emotion as he tried—and failed—to steady himself. “God,” he murmured shakily, thumb brushing over your waist almost absentmindedly. “You feel too good against me.”

You felt the tremor in him the moment the words left his mouth. The realization that this was real now— that you were beneath him, touching him back, looking at him with the same hunger he had spent months trying to bury inside himself. Buck kissed you again before the silence could swallow him whole.

His mouth moved against yours with a kind of aching devotion that made your chest tighten painfully, his hand sliding from your waist up your side as though he needed to memorize every inch he touched. The roughness of his palm against your skin sent another shiver through you, and he noticed instantly.

He noticed everything.

A soft exhale escaped him against your lips as goosebumps rose beneath his fingertips again.

“There,” he murmured quietly, almost to himself. “You do that every time I touch you.”

Your cheeks burned hotter at the tenderness hidden inside the observation and Buck looked ruined by it, completely captivated in you. He shifted slightly between your legs, pressing closer without thinking, and the sudden contact pulled a breath from both of you at once. His eyes shut briefly, jaw tightening hard enough for you to see the muscle flicker beneath his skin.

“Fuck,” he whispered under his breath, then said your name as one of your hands slid down his chest slowly, feeling the rapid heartbeat beneath warm skin, and Buck’s reaction was immediate. His head dropped forward against your shoulder as a rough breath left him, like even the gentlest touch from you struck somewhere unbearably sensitive.

“You don’t even know what you’re doing to me,” he confessed quietly, once again, but there was no accusation in it, only awe.

His lips brushed along your jaw afterward, lingering kisses pressed against warm skin while his hands continued wandering carefully over you, unable to stay still for long. Every touch carried curiosity alongside desire, like he was trying to learn you through his fingertips alone and despite all the hunger between you, Buck still paused constantly to look at you as if he needed reassurance this wasn’t some cruel hallucination. His thumb stroked slowly across your hip while his gaze searched your face.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

The concern in his voice nearly undid you more than the kisses had. You nodded immediately, fingers brushing through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“More than alright.”

Buck laughed quietly at that, though the sound came strained around the edges.

“You keep saying things like that and I’m going to lose whatever control I have left.”

“You still have control?”

That finally pulled a genuine smile from him, something small and brief but beautiful regardless as your thumb caressed the deep curve of his dimple.

“Barely.”

The honesty of it made warmth curl through you again. Buck leaned back just enough to look at you properly where you lay beneath him, his expression softening into something almost disbelieving. His knuckles brushed gently against your cheek before he bent to kiss you once more— slow enough this time that it felt less like desperation and more like surrender. Like a man finally allowing himself something he’d denied for far too long.

The room grew quieter after that. Not silent—never silent with the way both of you breathed and moaned now—but softened, as if the world beyond the bedroom had finally drifted far enough away to stop existing for a while. Buck stayed above you a moment longer, simply looking as you adjusted to him and he curved every edge of him to fit right with you.

His hand moved slowly over your waist, your ribs, your shoulder—each touch lingering, uncertain, as though he still couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to do this. There was something almost reverent in the way he held you, despite the hunger still burning beneath his restraint, like he was afraid one wrong movement might fracture whatever fragile thing had just begun between you. His thrusts deep, caressing just right to draw gasps from your lips that he wanted to drown in.

You touched his face again instinctively; the rough line of his jaw softened instantly beneath your fingertips. Your look returned to his eyes, that unbearable mixture of devotion and ache that always surfaced when you touched him gently.

“You’re going to make this impossible,” he murmured, breathless as a sheen sweat covered his forehead and hairline.

“You already said you lost control.” you said, head thrown back against the pillow as you pulled his face against your neck, trying to be as close as possible when a quiet laugh slipped out of him at your words, warm against your skin.

“Yeah,” he admitted softly. “I did.”

But even now, Buck moved like someone trying to earn the right to stay. Every kiss eventually slowed into something deeper than want alone. The urgency that had brought him into your room unraveled piece by piece beneath tenderness, beneath the quiet realization that this wasn’t fleeting.

This mattered.

You felt it in the way he guided your hand to his chest for a moment, letting you feel the force of his heartbeat beneath your palm, felt it in the way he kept pausing just to look at you, each time slightly overwhelmed, as if the sight of you still didn’t feel real and when he pressed his face into the curve of your neck, again and again, the breath he let out wasn’t just desire anymore— it was release.

Like something heavy in him had finally been set down, something he had been carrying loneliness for far too long.

Your fingers threaded through his hair slowly, steadying him, and Buck closed his eyes at the feeling. The tension in him eased little by little beneath your touch until he allowed himself to sink fully into you—not just physically, but completely. No walls, no distance, no pretending this meant anything less than everything.

That honesty seemed to scare him more than anything else as you could feel it in the faint tremor of his hands and in the way his forehead pressed to yours, eyes closed tightly, as if he was trying to memorize you before the moment slipped away.

“Hey,” you whispered.

Buck opened his eyes at once and the way he looked at you then was not like a man consumed but like a man undone.

You kissed him gently, and something in him finally gave way. His shoulders loosened beneath your hands, his expression softening into something unguarded as he pulled you closer, like distance itself had become unbearable. Outside the house, the city that you escaped kept moving. Lights flickered against the dark, distant sounds threading through the night.

But inside that room, time had thinned into warmth and tangled sheets and quiet touches, into whispered names against skin, into a kind of stillness that felt almost dangerous in how much it meant and long after the urgency had faded into something quieter, Buck still held you like he feared you might disappear the moment he loosened his grip.

His fingers traced absent patterns against your back while your breathing slowly found its rhythm with his and neither of you spoke for a while as there was no need because something unspoken had already settled between you. It was quiet, certain and irreversible.