Benjamin Poindexter x Cannibal! Mutant! Reader
đŚšď˝Ąâ Summary: Trying to be sneaky challenge in Dex's apartment goes incredibly wrong. Well, if you're already here, confess your true nature.
đŚšď˝Ąâ Tags/Warnings: canonical inaccuracies. Stalking. Breaking and entering. Dex's room layout is different, but still the concept of it. Getting caught. Probably ooc Dex. Graphic depictions. Cannibalism mentioned. Food being used to describe cannibalism. Conversations. Matching each other's freak. Not beta read.
𦹠A/N: check at the end!! Important message for this series!!
âŻâ masterlist đŚ previous part đŚ
Your trip out onto the fire escape was less graceful than you could have imagined.
You had to, as carefully as you could, take off the tin foil that you had placed onto the window yesterday. The amount of tape that you had to scrape off of the wall made you surprised that you hadn't used the whole roll of scotch tape.
By some miracle, you didn't manage to peel off the paint, which would have been a bigger disaster with your grumpy landlord. You threw the clump of tin foil onto the floor before looking back at your window.
You debated doing this for one last time, murmuring to yourself, "This is crazy..."
Immediately, you just shook your head to yourself, answering with, "Well, so is knowing your neighbor is a wanted criminal and doing nothing about it."
You just sighed to yourself before raising your arms towards your window. You grabbed onto the handle and pushed it all the way up. Next, you pushed the screen up, feeling the brisk night air hit you fully.
You found yourself looking at the fire escape you were just on a few days ago. You let out a soft exhale from your lips, not realizing that you were holding in your breath this entire time.
You could almost forget about the crime you were going to commit next door.
Looking around at the fire escape, you could see one droplet of blood on the metal floor. In your in and out state of mind, you must have not seen the blood when you were cleaning up the mess.
You stared at it for a minute or two, remembering what you had done, but you felt yourself only feel the sensation to eat once again. It had been two days since you had that encounter and the last time you actually ate something.
You had no idea how you were standing right now, but you were still going to persevere.
Leaning yourself into the window, you leaned your head out and used the wall to push your upper body out onto the fire escape. When you managed to get your chest out, you pulled grabbed onto the window frame with both of your hands and pushed again.
You trying to muffle out a grunt that came from your mouth. You were much weaker than you had realized before. Even with your intake of flesh, it was not enough to sustain you fully yet. You understood what that meant and you noted that soon you would need to look out for more food.
Switching your hands from the frames, you grabbed onto the railing and pulled one last time. Finally, your whole body was out of the window, but your stamina was immediately low.
"God..." You hissed out to yourself. If you were really going to be a part of this "vigilante" life you really needed to lift some weights.
Pushing yourself off of the metal flooring, you tried to be as quiet as possible while also not wanting to move the structure too much. One wrong step and you would make a noise too loud that he would immediately know you were out here.
But you still were working on the hypothesis that maybe he wasn't in his apartment at all. I mean, you haven't heard from him all day, so it wasn't a bad working theory.
Still, you continued to slowly walk over towards the staircase that would have led to the next level. You grab onto the handlebar, keeping yourself balanced to the right of the staircase. Leaning your head to the side, you did your best to peek inside to only to see yourself staring at blinds.
You immediately shut your eyes closed and let out a soft groan from your lips. Of course, the prisoner on the loose would have blinds covering his window, how smart.
Smarter than your failed attempt with tin foil.
You were left to think on what your next move would be. You couldn't be able to tell where he was in the apartment, leaving you "blind".
Slowly dropping to your knees, you sat yourself beside his window frame. Placing your palm onto the screen protector, you slowly began to push it up. You were focusing all your attention to making sure that the window would not squeak and alert him inside.
Slowly, but surely, you managed to pull the screen up to where you could enter through and quickly shut behind you. Peeking your eyes around the frame, you were focusing your eyes to allow you to look through the gaps of the blinds.
However, you only found yourself staring into darkness.
You assumed that your hypothesis was correct and began to crawl right in front of his window. Sitting right beside his window, you slowly began to try and think this through. It was your last attempt to back yourself out of this.
Closer into the mind of Benjamin Poindexter and this is his space.
The space you were hearing through your walls. The space where you heard him living life with every creak from the wood floor. You didn't have to guess anymore on how it looked inside. You would be able to peer closer into his mind.
Inching yourself towards the window, you could feel all logic go out the window (no pun intended).
Instead, your mind fixated on the fact that you were going to be in his space. His space where he lived and breathed just like you did. You can just understand him. The way that you knew how to.
That was all you needed to convince you to head inside.
As careful as you could be, you slowly entered into his apartment. One foot after the other, you dropped into his apartment without making a single sound.
When your feet were placed onto the ground, you slid your arm through to hold onto the blind above you. Then, you were able to smoothly get the rest of your body through the window and into his apartment.
Finally entering into his apartment, you placed down the blind carefully behind you, but your eyes did not leave the space that was right in front of you. It took a second for your eyes to adjust to the dark room, but when it did, you were amazed.
His apartment was so similar to your own.
You couldn't believe that you two even had similar living arrangements. It just couldn't be denied how much you two were meant for each other.
Smiling at your thought, your eyes scanned thoroughly through the apartment in order to take it all in. His apartment was very clean; there wasn't a speck of dust or dirt in sight in his apartment. Everything seemed precise and had its proper place.
Honestly, you didn't know where to look first in his apartment. Everything seemed so interesting.
Then, your eyes fell to the living area that was to the left of you. He had a small couch and a TV. What you noted was that the TV was an older version just like yours was. Even fate made it possible for you to be looking at the same screen.
Making your choice to start there, you slowly began your walk towards the area. Your walk was slow, making sure not to make the floorboards creek, as you knew how creaky his floors truly were.
As you inched your way closer towards the TV, your eyes focused on the TV stand a little harder. As your eyes adjust to what you were seeing, a prick of moonlight shined onto something.
It was a plastic covering to a CD.
It was tucked between the CD player and the TV stand that it was placed on. You crouched down to the stand and reached your hand out to grab it. Slowly, you pulled it out from the corner and held it out in front of you.
Suddenly, your eyes adjusted to the words on the CD.
Your name. April 23rd, 1996. Bullet Removal Surgery.
You could feel you hear skip a beat as you read those three lines over and over again, making sure you weren't dreaming. You had sworn that you had thrown it out by mistake and it was lost forever, but here it was, in Benjamin Poindexter's apartment.
You started to think back to that moment. You swore that before you went to bed that night, it was on your TV Stand with the rest of your CDs. However, when you woke up that morning, it was gone.
You have stared at that TV more times than you could count. You knew the layout by hand. I mean, how else were you able to notice something was off the moment you had woken up?
If that was the case, though, the CD would have gone missing during th hours of when you were asleep.
Now that you were thinking about it . . . your mirror snapped open.
You had awakened to that sound and before you could fully investigate, Pris had called you. You stopped yourself from opening your shower curtain.
He was in your apartment.
Your breath hitched at the realization. A little too loud within the dark apartment.
You quickly clasped your hand around your mouth, hoping that wouldn't have alerted anyone (still, however, believing that no one was home).
As you stood there to listen to the sounds of the apartment, you could hear a door being pushed open. A door coming from a bedroom.
Why does your luck fail you constantly?
You quickly duck behind the couch, holding your CD close to your chest, praying that he wouldn't come over here. You lean yourself onto the bottom of the couch with your legs folded close to your chest as possible. The less visible, the more of a chance you wouldn't get caught.
You can hear him leaving his room and beginning to walk around his apartment for the noise. You could hear the sounds of one foot landing onto the floor before a couple of seconds later, his other foot would hit the floor.
He was carefully waiting for the sound to appear again. Immediately, you knew that he wasn't going to let up easy on the idea that it was just a house settling noise. He knew that you were in here. Squeezing your eyes shut, you could only hope he didn't come towards you.
But, to your surprise, he makes his way towards the kitchen instead. You could hear his footsteps getting further away from you and inching towards something else.
Eventually, he would stop himself in front of something. Then, you hear a switch being flicked on. Opening your eyes, you tried to pick up what he turned on the lights for.
However, before you could react, you hear clinggg! thunk! fwiiipp!
Your body jolts back and into the couch harder. Immediately, you feel something pouring down your chest and onto the floor. Looking down, you see a knife lodged into your shoulder.
The impact of the knife immediately caused you to let out a grunt. Immediately, you tried to get yourself away from the spot, crawling away with the CD still tucked into your hand. You knew his aim was insanely accurate, but you believed that if you moved, it would be harder for him to get an accurate hit on you.
As you stumble away from the couch, you heard another swiiishhh!
You duck your head in habit but find yourself falling onto the ground again. You let out another grunt as you realized that you were hit in your lower back. You bit your lip at the stinging sensation pulsating to your new wounds.
Stumbling yourself up onto your feet, you can hear him leaving the kitchen to run towards you. As you managed to stumble onto your feet, you were trying to keep yourself balanced before turning around to look at him.
His arm was raised high to throw a butter knife at you, but when his eyes caught you in the light, he stumbled to a stop.
Trying to catch your breath, your grip on the CD tightened as you stared back at him. The knives stuck out of you like two thorns stuck into you.
You placed your free hand onto your pulsating wound on your shoulder. "I didn't realize you were home."
He immediately drops the knife onto the ground and as if reacting like a normal person, started to worry about how you were still standing. He uttered your name out of his mouth, but you held your hand out. That same hand held the CD, causing him to pause.
"Where did you get my CD?" You asked him, not too occupied at the fact you had knives sticking out of you.
He tried to ignore you, shaking his head. "You need to get to a hospital."
"Fuck the hospital, Poindexter. How do you have my CD?" You spat back at him, shaking it in front of him.
His eyes focused on your change of manner and immediately dropped his shoulders. You weren't putting up a front. This was the real you. The real you he has been waiting for to come out. The real you that decided to sneak into his apartment to learn more about him.
He expected a reaction, yes, but he never expected this to be it. Not like he wasn't happy about it, though.
He didn't have to hear the name of some fictional guy he had made up coming from your lips. Hearing you say his real name just sparked him with a certain joy he never had expected to feel ever.
Yet, seeing you here, bleeding out from two knives you had thrown at him and not caring about it, it made him feel reassured. He knew there was something about you that was different from other people.
Looking at you, he answered back with, "I took it from your apartment."
You immediately looked away from him, sighing to the ground, and dropped your hand back down to your side. "I knew it..."
You squinted your eyes back at him, "Did you...did you watch it?"
"Yes." He answered back to you.
"All of it?" You questioned him.
"Yes." He nodded his head.
"So, you know what I am?" You pointed to yourself with your free hand.
He tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow at you, "And you know who I am."
You looked to the side, a little ashamed, "Only just learned a few hours ago your real name, but I've known you were hiding something for a few days now."
"I've known for about a few weeks that you're---"
"A mutant, yes," You responded back while glancing down at the knives sticking out of your shoulder.
You began to try and pull out the knife from your shoulder, but Dex quickly steps forward, grabbing your hand to stop you. "If you do that, you'll bleed out."
Looking up at him, you raised an eyebrow back. "I can't just walk out like this forever."
He thought for a moment, still holding your hand, before looking back into your eyes. "If I remove it, then you need to immediately close it up with your ability."
You scoffed at him, shaking your head and pulling your hand away from him. "I thought you watched the full video."
"I did," Shaking his head at you for even doubting him for not watching it.
"My ability to increase muscle density drains the more I use it. For example..." You point to your wound.
"Taking the attack," He sighs with his eyes focusing on the wall behind you.
You click your teeth, "Atta boy."
His head snapped back down at you, furrowing his eyebrows.
You two stood there in a silence for a moment. You both were basking at each other being in the same room. A room where you two didn't have to have walls up to protect the other.
You finally could be yourself without worrying about him thinking you were strange. His mind was wrapping around the same concept.
This was the real you. That glimpse he had gotten momentarily the first time you had met. The time at the cafe. The time in the hallway.
"So, how do you get more 'energy'?" Dex asked, causing you to immediately snort.
"That's the thing, we don't. If I do, Task Force will surely pound down my door," You explained to him while pointing towards your shared wall. âMayor Fisk already wants my head.â
He pauses for a moment. âWhy does he want with you?â
You snapped your head at him. âYou donât know?â
âKnow what?â He questioned back to you.
You let out a sigh looking around for any sign to stop yourself from admitting this. âIâm who theyâre searching for. Iâm the Maneater.â
He stood there for a moment, looking you up and down. It clicked into his mind what that surgeon and nurse were talking about. The reason why it was so confidential was because she needed to consume people. Her genetic makeup created the appetite because that's how it functioned.
He would have guessed the government wanted to keep that under wraps in order to not cause an uproar on superhumans.
Hearing his silence, she held her hands out and slowly said, "I...I know it sounds crazy, but when I saw what you did to those Task Force agents, you made me want to act."
"That stupid Safer Streets Act is just...wrong. More Task Force agents in this neighborhood doesn't solve anything. When I saw you that night, I never felt so seen in my entire life," You continued on, placing your hand on top of your heart.
"You're a good guy," You softly smiled at him. "I've never seen someone act the way you do, Poindexter."
"OfâOf course I didn't mean to get caught up in the mess I did," You placed your hands behind your back, careful not to touch the knife in your back.
His head snapped to look deeply into your eyes. The only thing he could hear from your ramble was that you thought he was a good guy.
Those words came out of your mouth.
Something that he has been searching for ever since he escaped from prison. He wanted to find a way to balance the scales. To correct his mistakes for once and for all.
You knew who he was. You found out what he did and what landed him into prison. However, you were able to face him and say to his face that he was a good guy.
You is something so different about you.
âYou did thatâŚ" He pointed at you before back at himself. "For me?"
You seemed to brighten at his words. "Yes. I did."
You shook your head with a smile appearing across your face. "I just never met anyone like you. Someone just like me."
"And...you think you can't...eat?" Dex questioned.
"I'm not experienced in this whole crime thing. I can't really go after someone," You shrugged back at him.
"I can," Dex responded back, immediately approaching you. "I can get what you want."
You had your mouth agape at his words, feeling your heart skips a beat. He was offering to help get you what you needed. Feed you like no one had ever dared. He was acting like this was a normal grocery run, not taking someone else's life.
Hearing that you didn't speak up, he continued with, "You said that I was good, right?"
"Then let me be good for you," Dex softly spoke down to you, causing you to immediately soften the look on your face. "I want to do this for you."
You slowly nod your head at him, knowing the man next door to you was offering to help you. The real Benjamin Poindexter was offering to help you in the name of being considered good.
You never had anyone wish for your approval.
"Okay. Stay here until I come back, then we'll continue talking," Dex answered back, holding his finger out to you.
He walks past you, heading towards his bedroom to grab something, before leaving the apartment. Suddenly, you were left back in the quiet sounds of the apartment.
Looking down at your own body, seeing his own knives dug into your skin, you feel something else immerge in your skin. A soft sigh escaped from your lips as you slowly walked away from the living area and towards his dining area.
Stumbling yourself onto the chair, you plopped yourself down and let out a soft groan from your lips. Placing your hand on the knife, you slowly began to caress it, knowing he had placed his hands on it. He left you in his apartment and never questioned why you had snuck in the first place.
Everything you had just experienced was something you wished you an experienced all those decades ago. Who cares what everyone else thought about you? He was going out of his way to help you.
No one in your entire existence wanted to learn more about you.
You bumping into him in that hallway led you to this moment. This moment of...want.
You bite your lip, knowing that the one true act of kindness was going to be delivered to you on a silver platter. All as an act to for using his gift against you.
It was like a dog licking the spot where it bit you too hard and held its head down to show you it was sorry. You softly chuckled at the analogy, ignoring the searing pain coming from your body.
You sat there, completely still, for a couple of hours. Waiting.
Never once did you complain about how long he was taking or when would he return. You just sat there, spacing off to look at the droplets of your blood that had fallen onto his wooden floors.
If you really were desperate, you could have feed of your own blood, sparing you a couple of seconds. However, knowing there was someone out there who want to do this for you, you waited.
You waited on his chair and in his apartment until you could hear the shuffling of the door handle. Snapping your head over, you immediately regret it with your eyes immediately flooding with darkness. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to ease the fact your blood pressure was extremely low now, before quickly returning your eyes back to the door.
You can see him entering into the apartment once again with something in his hands. Squinting at it, you found it to be a black bag. It wasn't a big one, like you had assumed it would be, but more to be the same size as a take out bag.
You sat there, waiting for him to walk towards you, before he dropped the bag in front of you.
"I grabbed what I thought you would like," He explained while walking away to go into the kitchen.
You start to untie the bag. "What about the rest?"
"In the river," He explained from the kitchen.
You could feel yourself starting to bite back a smile while opening the bag. "Smart."
He hummed in response before turning away from you as you opened the bag.
In your own mind, you still couldn't see the difference between food and people. For you, when you looked inside the bag, all you saw was, well, take out!
Pushing yourself closer to the bag, you began to start digging into the food. The space was back to its silence with slight sounds of you eating.
You hadn't expected him to watch or even be in the same room as you were eating. However, there he was, leaning from the kitchen counter to watch you eat.
I mean, this was the first time ever seeing someone eating another person, he was curious. Also, the smell that came from the bag really couldn't be ignored. He watched as you carefully ate as if it was just a normal meal that someone would eat. He started to picture back to the moment back on those abandoned tracks.
Somehow, he hadn't realized that he was helping you. All those instances of wanting you to reveal your true nature had paid off without him truly realizing it. He had opened that door, and he never intended on closing it for you.
Once you did finish and push the bag away, you let out a soft sigh before looking back down at your wounds. Grabbing the first knife, you pulled it out of your shoulder with a grunt. Immediately, you began to close it with your abilities, squeezing your eyes in the process.
When the stinging sensation went away, you let out a deep sigh before moving to the one on your back.
As you were reaching for it, you heard him call out, "Let me help."
"You don't have to. I think I've got it," You softly responded back.
However, he lightly shoved your hand away from the knife. Holding onto your shoulder, he gripped onto the knife. You felt a shiver down your spine as he grips onto the knife. Something that he could easily take your life with it he wanted to.
Yet, with one strong yank, he pulls it out of you. Once he does, you quickly began to close up the wound, something he stands behind you to watch. He stares at it closely, reminding him of what he saw from the CD.
It was much more different seeing it in person. Something about it was more...intimate.
Gently squeezing her shoulder, he answered back, "Easy. It wasn't a problem."
"Yeah...thank you," You nod up at him as he walked beside the table. "For, uh, everything I mean."
"Well, I still got questions about you," Dex asked back to you.
"Well, ask away, Poindexter," You stretched yourself on your chair, testing out your new muscles and feeling full once again.
"You can just call me, Dex," He explained to you, causing you to soft smile at him.
"Alright, Dex. What is your first question?" You asked him, leaning yourself on his table.
"When...I was in your apartment, I saw you taking pills," Dex began before clasping them together. "What were those for?"
"Suppressors. Things to keep me from being me," You explained to him. "Recently, I had stopped taking them...I just couldn't handle it anymore."
"Which is why you ate those agents?" Dex questioned you.
"Somewhat. They suppressed the urge, but they were always there...just I felt the need not to act," You explained to him.
"I couldn't...deal with it anymore. Everyone expects you to act a certain way because what? Society tells you that?" You scoffed and rolled your eyes.
Then your eyes shifted to where he stood, "But, when I saw you...defying society, doing the right thing that was necessary. I knew there was something I could do as well."
"I'm so glad I trusted my gut about you," You sighed towards him. "You could understand it."
"I mean...we can't control these things within us," You shook your head while looking down at the floor. "We didn't choose to be like this. We just are."
Slowly you looked up at him, "We are, who we are."
"We are, who we are," He echoed back to you, feeling something flutter within his chest.
"I want to work with you, Dex," You rose up from the table. "Whatever your mission is, I want to help. I want to correct my mistake and never let it happen again."
"You sure about this?" Dex responded back to you, tilting his head with a smirk across his face.
He knew he would say, yes, but he wanted to hear you say it again. To hear that your loyalty remained by his side and his only.
"Yes, I'll work beside you. Help clean up the streets, the right way," You stood up from your chair, extending your arm towards him. "Together."
You can hear him softly laugh at your extended arm before extending his own arm towards your hand. You gave him a firm handshake before brightly smiling at him.
This would be your start to your journey. Together.
A/N: Yello guys, I'm finally back from everything. Okay, some good news and bad news
Bad news: I'm considering this to be the ending of this. Only because I suck at writing filler plot and feel like I'm dragging this out more than I should be.
Good news! : This will be considered their origin story together and I'm considering writing oneshots about their adventures together. You know, ones that actually lead into the plot of DDBA S2 and meet some new character, wink wink.
So, don't worry, they'll be back. (Dex and Reader will return in Avengers: Doomsday) LMFAO.
Thank you all for the support!! <3
