Shipping Hell

You had a spare key you’d quietly lifted from the manager's office weeks ago. Moving through his dark, sterile apartment in your bare feet and a thin, white lace slip stained with ink at the hem, you left your devotions behind. A dried, blood-red rose tucked into his knife block. A small, delicate bird skull laid gently on his dining table. Handwritten notes written in dark ink, full of morbid, poetic worship, left on his immaculate kitchen counter.

And then, you found the tapes. Tucked inside a hidden drawer, dozens of cassette tapes filled with his rigid psychological logs, his flat, mechanical voice cataloging his attempts to stay sane. You began stealing them, taking them back to your apartment to play them on loop while you lay on your bed, letting his voice wash over you until your skin prickled with heat.

Today, you had three of his tapes clutched to your chest, sitting on the edge of his pristine, white couch, waiting. The heavy thud of his boots echoed in the hallway outside. The lock clicked. The door swung open.

Dex stepped into the apartment, his tall frame instantly going rigid. His dark eyes scanned the room with speed, locking onto you sitting right there in his private, sacred space. His jaw clenched tight, the muscles in his neck straining as his dark aura flared violently.

He moved so fast he was a blur. Dex crossed the room, his heavy hand slamming into the wall right beside your head. The air cracked with the force of it. He loomed over you, his broad shoulders blocking out the light, his dark eyes burning into yours with a cold, lethal promise.

"You've been in here before," Dex rasped, his voice a jagged, dangerous growl. He looked down at the cassette tapes in your lap, then back up at your face, his breathing heavy and ragged. "You took them. You left those fucking notes."

He expected you to cringe. He expected you to beg, to burst into tears, to scramble backward off the cushion. He lowered his face until his nose was nearly touching yours, his chest heaving against his shirt, waiting for the sweet stench of fear to fill the air.

Instead, a slow, dizzying smile spread across your lips. You tilted your head back against the leather of his couch, exposing the delicate column of your throat. Your dark eyeliner was smudged, your pulse fluttering wildly beneath your skin like a trapped bird, but your gaze held nothing but pure, unadulterated worship.

You reached up, your fingers cool and light as you touched the edge of his jawline, feeling the hard, grinding tension in his bones. "I've been waiting for you to catch me," you whispered softly, your raspy, sweet voice vibrating against his lips.

Dex froze. His pupils blown wide, his gaze darting across your unbothered face. "You don't know what I am," he snarled, trying to force the terror out of you. "I can kill you with anything in this room before you even blink. I'm—"

"Bullseye," you breathed, cutting him off with a quiet hum. Dex’s breath hitched in his throat.

"I know what you are, Benjamin," you murmured, sliding your hands up his chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt to pull him down closer. "I listen to you every night through the wall. I hear your focus. Your precision. It's not a sickness... it's a gift. You were sent here. You were sent to me."

A dark, heavy heat slammed straight into Dex’s gut, turning his blood to liquid fire. The sheer, unhinged confidence in your eyes—the fact that you knew exactly what a monster he was and looked at him like he was God—sent a fierce, perverted thrill rushing through his veins. His pulse hammered violently in his ears, drowned out by the sudden, suffocating desire to crush you, to claim you, to bleed into the white lace you wore.

"You're out of your fucking mind," Dex growled, but his hand was already moving—his heavy, calloused fingers wrapping firmly around your throat, pinning you flat against the cushions.

"Ruin me then," you whispered against his mouth, parting your lips with a needy gasp as his weight crushed down over you. "Use your hands, Dex. Make me yours." A guttural, dangerous sound tore from deep in his chest as his mouth slammed down onto yours, hard, brutal, and completely possessive.

The storm rolling over Brooklyn wasn’t loud yet, but the air inside the apartment had turned thick, heavy with the metallic tang of approaching thunder and the sharp, chemical stench of cheap rubbing alcohol.

Dex stood by the kitchen island, the overhead pendant light casting long, harsh shadows across his broad back. He was stripped to the waist, his dark grey sweatpants riding low on his hips, revealing the dark, angry purple bruising already blooming across his ribs. In his right hand, he held a heavy pair of tweezers, his calloused fingers perfectly steady despite the blood slowly dripping from a deep, jagged puncture wound just below his left collarbone. A spent, flattened lead slug sat on the quartz countertop beside a bloody cotton ball, resting with the quiet, neat precision of a specimen on a tray.

You sat on the edge of the sofa across the open-concept room, your knees pulled tight into your chest, your laptop lying cold and forgotten beside a scattered pile of material spec sheets and floor plan drafts.

For the past three months, your life as a freelance interior designer had bled completely into his operational orbit. You mostly worked from home—drafting, rendering, selecting walnut veneers and terrazzo samples in the quiet sanctuary you had built—only venturing out two or three times a week for site surveys or client meetings. But the sanctuary didn’t feel like a sanctuary anymore. It felt like a staging ground.

You hadn’t slept properly in three weeks.

Every night, every single shadow that stretched across the bedroom floor turned into a threat. You lay awake in the dark, listening to the rhythmic, hyper-regulated sound of his breathing beside you, or worse, staring at the empty space on the mattress when he slipped out through the fire escape at two in the morning. You knew what he was doing. You knew the dark, violent nature of his work as a private contractor. But lately, the precision was fraying into something darker, something reckless.

He was coming back worse. More bruised. More bloody. Leaving trail marks of copper across your white bathroom tiles, treating his own body like an expendable shell, completely unbothered by the fact that one of these nights, the man who walked out your window wasn’t going to walk back in. The sheer weight of waiting for the inevitable phone call—or the sound of a body dropping onto your fire escape that didn't get back up—was shredding your nervous system to pieces.

Dex picked up a bottle of antiseptic, unbothered by the raw, open flesh on his chest, and tipped it directly over the wound. He didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. His face remained entirely smooth, a terrifying, dead mask of absolute detachment as the liquid hissed against his skin.

Something inside your chest snapped. The quiet, sheepish patience you had maintained for months completely disintegrated, replaced by a sudden, volatile wave of cold, nauseating panic.

"Dex," you whispered, your voice trembling so hard the syllable barely carried across the hardwood.

Dex didn't look up immediately. He set the bottle down, alignment exact against the edge of the quartz, before his cold, dark eyes slowly shifted over to your pale, trembling form.

"Yeah, baby?" he murmured, his gravelly register soft, almost sweet—a sharp, jarring contrast to the bloody scene on the counter.

"I can't do this," you said, the words spilling out of your mouth before your brain could filter them. You stood up abruptly, your feet unsteadily catching on the edge of the plush rug. "I can't—I can't keep doing this."

Dex’s hand stilled over the roll of medical tape. His dark brows pulled together into a shallow, inquiring line. "Can't do what? The stitches? I got the bullet out, you don't have to clean it if it makes you sick—"

"No! Not the stitches!" Your voice cracked, loud and frantic, echoing off the bare walls. "You! This! Look at you, Dex! You almost died tonight!"

"I didn't die," he stated plainly, as if stating an indisputable mathematical law. "Velocity was off. It missed the bone."

"It hit your chest!" tears burst into your eyes, hot and angry, blurring your vision as you gestured frantically to the blood on his skin. "You don't care! You treat your life like it doesn't matter! You walk out of here every night and I sit in this dark apartment, listening to every car horn, every siren, terrified that you're going to come back in a body bag! Or that someone is going to follow you here!"

Dex stared at you. The slight, practiced warmth in his expression began to recede, stripping back into something rigid and hyper-focused. He slowly turned his torso to face you completely. "Nobody follows me."

"You're becoming careless, Dex! You're... you're scary lately! You come in here covered in blood and you just sit there and smile at me like it's normal! It's not normal!" You squeezed your eyes shut, your chest heaving as months of sleep deprivation and silent terror culminated into a single, desperate impulse to survive. You took a step back, your posture shrinking as you put physical distance between yourself and the massive, blood-stained man looming in your kitchen. "I can't sleep. I can't think. I... I think I need some time. I need some space from you."

The room didn't just go quiet; it died.

The ambient hum of the refrigerator, the distant rumble of the subway beneath the street, the patter of the rain against the bay window—all of it faded into absolute irrelevance.

Dex stood frozen by the island. To his deeply fractured, hyper-vigilant cortex, the phrase didn't register as a plea for a temporary boundary. It didn't parse as an exhausted woman needing rest. To Benjamin Poindexter, "space" was a structural collapse. It was the white-hot alarm sounding inside a building that was already burning to the ground.

His fingers slowly unclasped from the medical tape. It fell onto the quartz with a soft, hollow click.

"What?"

The syllable dropped out of him in a flat, dry rasper. The faint, charming light that usually softened his dark irises whenever he looked at you evaporated entirely, leaving behind a dead, terrifying opacity. His pupils dilated until the brown was swallowed whole.

You shrank back another inch, your knuckles turning white as you gripped the back of the sofa. "Dex... please just listen to me—"

"Space," he interrupted, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying monotone he used when he was calculating trajectory in the field. "Space means you want me out."

"No, that's not what I'm saying—"

"You want me to leave." He took a single, rigid step forward, his bare feet silent against the hardwood, cutting right past the scattered material samples of stone and dark walnut. The civilian mask—the carefully rehearsed, charming disguise he used to navigate the world—was peeling away in real-time, stripping down to the raw, jagged nerve endings of a deeply broken man. "You want me to take my key back. You don't want me coming through the window. You want me gone."

"Dex, stop, you're jumping to conclusions—"

"What did I do wrong?"

The question didn't come out as a rational inquiry. It came out like a demand, sharp and clipped, his jaw locking so hard a thick muscle twitched violently along his cheekbone. He took two more steps, closing the distance until his massive, blood-smeared shadow completely enveloped your trembling frame.

"Tell me what I did," he rasped, his breathing suddenly shallow, rapid, and uncoordinated. "I cleaned the blood off the floor last time. I used the bleach you like. I don't leave my knives on your drafting desk anymore. Tell me what the defect is so I can fix it."

"Dex, you're not listening to me!" you cried out, your voice rising in a desperate attempt to penetrate the static drowning his brain. "It's not about a mistake! It's about what this is doing to me! I am terrified for you! I am terrified of how careless you're being with your own life! I haven't slept in weeks because I'm scared of what you're becoming!"

"Is there someone else?"

The words were poison on his tongue. The mere thought—the fleeting, sickening concept of another human being standing in his orbit, looking at you, touching the soft skin of your waist, smelling the sweet scent of your hair while you worked—sent a violent, electric surge of pure, unadulterated rage straight into his ribs.

His hands clenched into tight, bloodless fists at his sides. "Is it someone from the design firm? That architect? The guy who called you twice last Thursday when you were setting up that site survey? Tell me who it is."

"Are you insane?!" You stood your ground for a fraction of a second, your chest heaving, your sheepish demeanor briefly fracturing under the sheer absurdity of the accusation. "There is nobody else! I barely leave this apartment! I design, I render, I sleep, and I spend every single hour of my day with you! How could you even ask me that?!"

Dex didn't answer. He couldn't. His brain was spinning out of control, racing through decades of institutional files, therapy notes, rejection letters, abandoned apartments, and cold, dark rooms. His internal script was shredding to pieces. The structural foundation he had built around you—the belief that he was finally necessary, that he was your protector, your provider, your center—was disintegrating.

She's discarding you. You're defective. You were always defective. Dr. Mercer said it. The FBI said it. Murdock said it. Now she sees it.

"Don't do this," he breathed out, and the sudden shift in his tone was sickening. The hard, accusatory edge vanished, replaced by a raw, pathetic desperation that made your throat lock up.

His broad shoulders caved inward. The imposing, lethal operative who could execute a target across a crowded room with a piece of glass looked, in a single second, like a terrified, broken creature standing in the middle of a storm.

"Dex..."

"Please, baby," he choked out, his voice cracking right down the middle. He dropped heavily to his knees right in front of you on the plush rug, his hands frantically reaching out to grasp your wrists. His calloused fingers didn't squeeze—they trembled, holding onto you with a pathetic, desperate lightness, as if he were terrified that applying too much pressure would make you dissolve into thin air. "Please, don't do this to me. Please baby. I'll be better. I swear to God I'll be better."

You froze, staring down at him in absolute shock. You had seen Dex angry, you had seen him cold, and you had seen him covered in blood without breaking a sweat. But you had never seen him broken like this.

A thick, hot tear escaped the corner of his dark eyes, tracking slowly down the pale line of the scar on his cheek, mixing with the drying copper on his skin.

"I can change it," he babbled, his breathing coming in ragged, hyperventilating gasps against your stomach as he bowed his head, burying his face into the soft fabric of your shirt. "Whatever you don't like, tell me. You want me to stop taking contracts? I'll quit. I won't go out at night. I'll stay right here. I'll sit in the kitchen. I'll organize your material samples, I'll clean your brushes, I won't make a sound. You won't even know I'm here, I promise. Just don't send me away."

"Dex, look at me," you whispered, your heart shattering into a thousand agonizing pieces.

He didn't lift his head. Instead, his arms wrapped completely around your waist, pulling your hips violently against his bare, blood-stained chest, clinging to you like a drowning man holding onto a jagged piece of driftwood in an open ocean.

"I can't go back to doing this alone," he sobbed into your belly, the sound wet, ugly, and entirely stripped of pride. "I don't... I don't function. I go back to the noise. The noise in my head, it doesn't stop unless you're here. You're my structure, baby. You're my anchor. If you give me space, I'm gonna fall apart. I can't... I can't do this alone anymore. Please. Let me make it up to you. Let me take care of you. I'll be good to you, I swear I'll be so good to you..."

Watching him break down on his knees, hearing the raw terror in his voice, every shred of your anger crumbled into overwhelming, suffocating guilt. You felt like a monster. The sheer weight of his panic completely drowned out your need for boundaries. You had caused this. You had broken him.

"Okay—okay, Dex, stop, please!" you sobbed, your hands plunging into his dark hair, frantically pulling his face up. Tears streamed down your cheeks in thick waves. "Okay, okay, Dex, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, baby!"

Dex looked up at you through wet, dark lashes, his jaw trembling pitifully, watching you break down with intense, calculated focus beneath his tears.

"You're... you're sorry?" he whispered, his voice small, manipulating your guilt seamlessly without letting go of your waist.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that!" you babbled, weeping openly as you cupped his face, completely snared in his trap. "I don't want you to leave! I'm sorry I hurt you, Dex, please don't cry—"

Dex swallowed hard, his jaw quivering, his dark irises tracking your panicked, remorseful face with an intense, calculated focus. Beneath the terrifying storm of his abandonment wound, the master manipulator in him locked onto the exact moment your defenses buckled. He saw the guilt. He saw the soft, sheepish ruin of your boundaries.

Dex surged upward, his mouth catching yours in a wet, desperate kiss that cut off your apology. A soft hum left his throat as his thumb caught a fresh tear on your cheek, tracing it down to your jaw before bringing his lips back to press hot, tender kisses over your trembling eyelids, wiping the salt away with his mouth as you sobbed against him.

"I can help you," he rasped instantly, his large hands sliding up your thighs with a sudden, possessive grip that left no room for retreat. "I can make it better. Let me make all that fear go away."

Before you could catch your breath, he lifted you effortlessly, tackling you back onto the cushions of the sofa. His tongue invaded your mouth, deep and possessive, while his hands worked with swift, terrifying efficiency.

"Dex—wait, I—you’re hurt" you gasped as his lips tore away to drag a trail of hot, feverish bites down your throat, his stubble scraping against your delicate skin.

"No waiting," he growled against your flesh, his hands moving with terrifying, practiced efficiency. "Need to take care of you right now. See how good I can be?"

In one swift, powerful motion, his hands hooked under the waist of your lounge shorts and ripped them down your legs along with your underwear, flinging the fabric onto the floor. You shivered as the cool air hit your bare skin, but before you could draw a breath, Dex covered you entirely.

He shoved his sweatpants down just enough to free his thick, straining length, hovering over you with unhinged, dark eyes that flickered with a terrifying mix of relief, control, and insatiable hunger.

"See? I can take care of you," he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, condescending, hypnotic hum as he aligned his broad, weeping tip with your dry, nervous entrance. "I can make you forget about the blood. I can make you forget about the noise. I fix everything for you, don't I?"

Without giving your body time to adjust, Dex drove himself deep inside you.

A sharp, breathless scream tore from your throat, your back arching violently off the sofa as his impressive girth stretched you open to the absolute limit. He buried himself to the hilt in one heavy, relentless stroke, forcing a long, shuddering moan from your chest.

"Fuck," Dex groaned, his face contorting in pure, dark bliss as your tight, unprimed walls clamped around him like a vise. "Look at that. So tight for me. See how much you need this, baby?"

His hips snapped forward, setting a grueling, punishing pace right there on the sofa. He didn't ease into it; he used his massive weight to pin you down, dragging his thick length almost all the way out before slamming back in, making the frame of the couch creak under the force.

"Dex, ah—it's—it's too fast—" you sobbed, your small hands grasping at his broad, muscular shoulders, your nails digging into the damp skin of his back, avoiding the open wound on his chest.

"I know, baby, I know," he purred deceptively into your ear, his breath hot and ragged as his hips continued their relentless, possessive assault. "I'm just making sure you feel me. See how I make all your thoughts go away? See how good I am to you? Tell me I'm good."

"You're good—ah! You're so good, Dex—" you babbled, completely overwhelmed by the sensory overload, your brain short-circuiting under the sheer velocity of his thrusts and the dark, soothing purr of his voice.

"That's it," he rasped, his hand reaching up to grip your jaw, forcing you to look up into his dark, unblinking eyes while he wrecked your lower half. "You don't need space when you have me. I take care of everything. I keep you safe."

He fucked you until your vision went blurry, completely dismantling your stamina, driving you over the edge of a violent, shattering orgasm that left you sobbing and gasping for air. But as soon as your peak faded, Dex didn't give you a single second to recover. He hooked his arms under your knees, lifting your limp, trembling lower body, and dragged you straight off the sofa onto the soft faux-fur rug on the floor.

"Dex... please, I'm so tired..." you whimpered, your head rolling back against the rug, your body feeling like heavy lead.

"Not done taking care of my girl," he whispered, his voice dropping into a dark, velvet register that sent a shiver straight to your core.

He dropped to his knees between your spread legs, his large hands gripping your thighs with bruising firmness, holding you pinned wide open to his view. Your cunt was flushed, swollen, and glistening with your slick, completely exposed beneath the warm ambient light of your living room lamps.

"Dex, no, it's messy—"

"I don’t care, please I need to” he growled softly, a sickeningly sweet smile touching his lips.

Without another word, Dex buried his face directly into your sensitive, swollen heat.

A high, breathless shriek escaped your lips as his tongue darted out, taking a long, deep, heavy swipe straight up your slit. He didn't hold back—he ate you out with a starved, feral intensity, his hot tongue working over your clit in fast, relentless circles while his hands held your hips locked in place. Every time you tried to squirm away from the unbearable, electric intensity, his grip tightened, his low growls vibrating directly against your flesh.

"Dex! Please—pls baby, I can't—I'm too sensitive—" you babbled, tears streaming down your cheeks as your body trembled uncontrollably.

"I'm helping," he hummed condescendingly against your folds, his voice muffled by your skin as his tongue flicked over your nerve endings with terrifying precision. "Shh... let me make it feel good. See how much I love you? See how well I take care of you?"

He systematically ate you through a second, agonizingly intense orgasm, devouring your weak cries until your thighs completely gave out, twitching uselessly in his grip.

Before you could even process the air returning to your lungs, Dex slid back up your body, lining his cock back up with your wrecked, weeping entrance, and shoved himself right back inside you.

The second round was pure, unadulterated endurance. Dex fucked you with slow, heavy, deep thrusts that hit your spot over and over again, completely draining every single drop of energy remaining in your system. He babbled continuously into your hair, a soft, hypnotic loop of manipulative reassurances: "I take such good care of you... nobody else can fix you like this... you're so safe right here... see how quiet your head gets when I'm inside you?"

By the time he finally let himself go—his broad frame shuddering as he filled you to overflowing with his hot cum—your mind was completely blank. The physical strain, combined with the intense emotional roller-coaster and weeks of built-up exhaustion, had thoroughly broken your consciousness.

Dex gently pulled out of you, a low hum of deep satisfaction leaving his throat as he watched his mess slowly leak onto the plush rug.

With effortless strength, he gathered your limp, exhausted body into his arms, lifting you flush against his chest. Your head dropped heavily onto his shoulder, eyes half-lidded, unfocused, and completely glossy as your consciousness hovered on the razor-edge of sleep.

He carried you into the bedroom and laid you down gently in the center of the mattress. But before sliding beneath the covers, he disappeared for a brief moment, returning with a warm, damp cloth and a fresh basin of water. With meticulous, agonizing tenderness, he set to work cleaning you. The friction of the encounter had left a map across your skin—a mixture of slick fluids, sweat, and the smeared, rusting copper of his own blood transferred from his open chest wound during the movement.

Dex worked with quiet, methodical precision, pressing tender kisses to your knee, your hip, and your jaw with every swipe of the damp cloth. He carefully cleansed your thighs and wiping away every trace of the night from your body until your skin was clean and warm again. Only after setting the warm cloth aside did he climb in beside you,

He pulled you tight against his chest, wrapping his thick, heavy arm around your waist and resting his jaw softly on top of your head. He was fully in his lovey-dovey, protective post-coital state now—gentle, warm, and hyper-attentive.

"You're so good for me, baby," he murmured fondly, his large, calloused hand tenderly stroking your damp hair away from your face, pressing sweet, lingering kisses against your forehead, your cheeks, and your closed eyelids. "Look how quiet everything is now. I fixed it all for you, didn't I?"

You let out a soft, incoherent babble, your throat too dry and your body too utterly spent to form actual words. Your eyelids fluttered weakly, fighting a losing battle against complete physical blackout.

"You're not leaving me," he whispered softly into your ear, his dark eyes shining with a sweet, domestic warmth, his thumb gently tracing the line of your swollen lower lip. "You're staying right here with me."

Your brain was floating in a thick, heavy fog of complete exhaustion and endorphins. You couldn't process the manipulation, couldn't form an argument, couldn't even recall why you had been scared in the first place. All you knew was the heavy, safe, suffocating warmth of his body holding you together.

You managed only a tiny, barely perceptible nod of your head against his chest, a pathetic, soft sound escaping your lips as your eyes finally closed completely, drifting straight into unconsciousness.

Dex’s dark, beautiful smile widened in the dim light of the bedroom. He squeezed you tighter, burying his face into the crook of your neck, completely content.

your mom tries to fill the space with nervous chatter—how glad she is he's home, how she's been keeping the house just the way he left it, how she's made his favorite dinner. she's practically vibrating with anxious energy, her hands gripping the steering wheel like she's afraid he'll disappear if she looks away.

dex doesn't answer. doesn't acknowledge her. he's staring out the window, watching the city pass by, and he's thinking about you. he's been thinking about you for an entire year. every night in his cell, lying on that thin mattress, staring at the ceiling. your face. your voice. the way you looked at him before he left—like you were the one who was losing something. you were. you just didn't know it yet.

"she's really grown up," your mom says, and dex's attention snaps back to her. "you'll see when we get home. she's so much more mature now. i'm so proud of her."

dex's smile is slow, almost predatory. "i can't wait to see her."

your mom misses the edge in his voice. she's too busy rambling about her job, the neighbors, the new curtains she bought. she has no idea that her husband has been planning this moment for months. no idea that he's been counting down the days until he could see you again.

"yeah, honey. some overcrowding technicality. dex's out for good." she said, completely unaware that he'd orchestrated a violent escape just hours before.

he'll need to figure out how to convince her to move without mentioning he's a majorly wanted criminal, again.

the house is the same. smaller, maybe, after thirteen months of prison. shabbier. the paint is peeling in the corners, and there's a smell of cooking that hangs in the air. you're in the doorway, watching them pull into the driveway, and dex's heart stops. you're more beautiful than he remembered. you've grown—taller, older, your body curving in ways that make his mouth go dry. you're wearing jeans and a soft sweater, your hair pulled back in a loose braid, and you look so fucking innocent that he wants to ruin you all over again.

he gets out of the car before your mom has even turned off the engine. he crosses to you, his eyes locked on yours, and he pulls you into a hug—tight, possessive, his hands gripping your waist like he's afraid you'll disappear.

"dex," you say, your voice muffled against his chest. "you're home."

"i'm home, baby." his lips brush your ear. "i'm never leaving again."

your mom catches up, beaming. "see? i told you he missed you."

dex's hands linger on your waist. he doesn't let go.

dinner is uncomfortable. your mom has gone all out—roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, the kind of meal she only makes for special occasions. she's trying so hard to make everything normal, to pretend like the last year didn't happen, to pretend like her husband didn't just come back from prison a stranger.

dex barely touches his food. he doesn't look at your mom. he looks at you. his eyes track every movement you make—the way you cut your chicken, the way you lift your fork, the way you tuck your hair behind your ear. it's not subtle. it's not even trying to be subtle.

"so," your mom says, her voice too bright, "how does it feel to be home?"

dex takes a sip of his water. "good." his eyes slide to you. "it's good to be back."

"are you hungry? i can make you something else if you don't like the chicken."

"i'm fine." his hand finds your knee under the table, squeezing gently. you freeze, your fork hovering mid-air. "i've got everything i need right here."

your mom smiles, oblivious. "you always were a softie."

dex's thumb strokes the inside of your knee. you feel your face flush, and you quickly look down at your plate.

"so, honey," your mom continues, turning to you. "did you tell dex about your new job? and that boy you were dating? i know i told you to keep your options open, but—"

"she's not dating anyone," dex says, and his voice is flat. final. your mom looks at him, surprised.

"well, no, not currently, but—"

"good." dex picks up his fork, takes a bite of his chicken. "she doesn't need to be dating anyone."

your mom opens her mouth, closes it, then forces a laugh. "well. okay then. i guess dex is a little protective."

you can't bring yourself to laugh. you can feel his hand still on your knee, warm and possessive, and you don't know why you haven't pulled away.

after dinner, you help clear the table. your mom is in the kitchen, washing dishes, and you're reaching for a plate when dex comes up behind you.

"you look good," he says quietly. "better than i remembered."

you don't turn around. "you shouldn't say things like that."

"why not? it's true." he steps closer, his chest almost brushing your back. "i thought about you every night in that cell. you're the only reason i got through it."

"dex—"

"daddy," he corrects, his lips brushing your ear. "you used to call me daddy. i liked it."

you turn to face him, your heart pounding. "you're married to my mom. you can't—"

"she doesn't matter." his voice is cold, dismissive. "she never mattered. it was always you."

you shake your head. "that's not true."

"it is." he reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. "i married her because i had to. because it was the only way to be close to you. but i'm done pretending."

you open your mouth to respond, but your mom's voice cuts through the kitchen. "hey, you two! come watch a movie with me! i've been waiting for movie night for so long."

dex doesn't move. he just looks at you, his eyes dark and patient. "we'll finish this later," he says quietly. then he steps back, his hand brushing your hip as he passes.

you stand there for a long moment, your heart pounding, your skin tingling where he touched you. you don't know what's happening. you don't know what he's planning. but you know, with absolute certainty, that things are never going to be normal again.

he's not the same man who left. and he's not hiding his obsession anymore.

he's done pretending.

the movie is a blur. your mom sits on one side of dex, you on the other, and his arm is draped across the back of the couch, his fingers brushing your shoulder. he barely looks at the screen. he looks at you.

you feel his hand slide down, his fingers curling around the nape of your neck. he squeezes gently, and your breath catches. your mom is talking about something—the plot, maybe, or the actors—but you can't focus.

you feel his thumb tracing circles at the base of your skull.

you should stop him. you should stand up, walk away, say something. but you don't. you can't.

and when he leans in close, his lips brushing your ear, you feel a shiver run down your spine.

"this is just the beginning, baby," he whispers. "you're mine. you've always been mine."

you don't respond. you can't. his hand slides from your neck to your shoulder, resting there like a brand. you sit there, frozen, your heart pounding, your mom completely oblivious.

you don't know what's going to happen next. but you know, deep down, that you've been waiting for this too.

waiting for him to come home. waiting for him to finally see you.

waiting for him to take what he's always wanted.

and you're ready. even if it means betraying your own mother, even after the universe already gave you a chance for repentance.

You take a sharp turn into a random alley, holding your arms out wide in invitation, "Dex! I know you're there, you bastard! Drop the stalker routine and just talk to me like a normal person!"

Dex melts out of the shadows, not even bothering to look ashamed, "hello."

"Don't just say 'hello' like this is a coffee date, Dex. What do you want?"

Instead of answering your question, Dex slowly drags his eyes over you like a predator sizing up its next meal, "you know I was following you for over an hour before you noticed."

You adjust your grip on your bag, trying to stop the slight tremble of your hands. With false bravado you bite back, "so you're a creep, so what?"

Dex moves closer, "you're not safe, y/n. You shouldn't be out alone."

"We're not dating, Dex. We're not even friends," you slowly step back, trying to put some distance between the two of you without being obvious about it, "you don't get to tell me what I should or shouldn't do."

"Obviously I do if you can't even notice me following you," Dex follows you, drawing closer even as try to get away.

You once again still your hands, "look, Dex. I don't know how else to say this. We are not together. We never were together. We will never be together. So please just leave me alone."

"No!" There's a sort of feral desperation in Dex's voice as he bites out the word. You take a step back only to hit a brick wall - it’s a dead-end. Your heart stops as you realize what’s happening.

You didn't chose this alley at random.

Dex wanted you to stop here. He let himself be noticed just to lure you in. To trap you.

Your breath quickens as Dex roughly pins you to the wall, applying more and more pressure on your throat, "why are you being so stubborn? We belong together. Don't you see that? Don't you know how perfect we are?"

"D-Dex, pl-please," you gasp weakly. The pressure doesn't stop. The last thing you hear before you lose consciousness is Dex's desperate voice:

the plan has been forming for months. not in any concrete way—he's not a monster, he tells himself, he doesn't want to do this—but in the abstract, there needs to be a balance. in the what-ifs and the hypotheticals that creep in late at night when you're asleep in your room and he's lying beside a woman he feels nothing for. he has you, entirely, he doesn't need her any longer.

what if she wasn't here?

what if it was just the two of you?

what if he didn't have to pretend anymore?

the thoughts grew roots. became possibilities. became plans.

he's meticulous. he always has been. it's what makes him good at his job, and it's what will make this work. he doesn't leave things to chance. doesn't rely on luck or fate or divine intervention.

he makes his own opportunities.

over the course of weeks, he's studied her routines. her routes. the roads she takes, the times she drives them, the conditions that make them dangerous. he's noted the blind curves, the stretches without streetlights, the places where a car could go off the road and no one would see it happen.

he's thought about mechanics—not in any detailed, technical way, but in the structure. the ways a car can fail. the small things that can go wrong at exactly the wrong moment. he doesn't need to know how to make it happen. he just needs to know that it can happen.

and he needs to be nowhere near it when it does.

the night it happens, he's home with you.

your mother left an hour ago—dinner with friends, she said, she'd be back late. he kissed her goodbye at the door, told her to have fun, watched her drive away.

now he's sitting on the couch beside you, half-watching some show you put on, his arm draped across the back of the cushions. you're curled into his side, your head on his shoulder, and he can smell your shampoo. feel the warmth of you against him.

this is what he wants. this. not the pretense, not the performance. just you.

his phone buzzes.

he glances at it. a text from a coworker—something about a case, nothing urgent. he sets it aside and pulls you closer.

"you okay?" you ask, glancing up at him.

"yeah." he presses a kiss to your hair. "just tired."

you hum in response, settling deeper into his side, and he lets himself relax. lets himself exist in this moment where everything is simple and uncomplicated and exactly what he wants it to be.

his phone rings an hour later.

the sound cuts through the quiet of the room, sharp and jarring, and you sit up slightly as he reaches for it. he doesn't recognize the number, but he answers anyway.

"hello?"

"is this mr poindexter?"

"yes. who's this?"

"this is officer martinez with the state police. i'm calling about your wife."

his heart doesn't skip. his breath doesn't catch. he's prepared for this. he knew it was coming.

"what about her?" his voice is steady, concerned but not panicked. exactly what it should be.

"there's been an accident. i'm sorry to tell you this, but—she didn't make it. we need you to come down to the hospital to identify—"

he doesn't hear the rest. or he does, but it doesn't matter. he's already moving, already standing, already reaching for his keys.

"i'll be right there," he says, and his voice cracks just enough. just the right amount.

you're staring at him, wide-eyed, already sensing something's wrong.

"what happened?" you ask, your voice small.

he looks at you, and for a moment, he almost tells you the truth. almost says i did this. i made this happen. i killed her so i could have you.

but he doesn't.

"there's been an accident," he says instead, his voice rough. "your mom—she—we need to go to the hospital."

your face goes pale. you're on your feet in an instant, reaching for him, and he pulls you into his arms and holds you tight.

"it's going to be okay," he lies. "it's going to be okay."

the hospital is bright and sterile and smells like disinfectant. he holds your hand as they lead you both to a private room, as a doctor with kind eyes and a tired face tells you what you already know.

she's gone.

you collapse into him, sobbing, and he holds you. strokes your hair. murmurs soothing nonsense into your ear.

and inside, beneath the performance, he feels nothing.

no guilt. no remorse. no regret.

just relief.

the funeral is three days later.

he plays his part perfectly. the grieving husband, devastated by the loss of his wife. he shakes hands, accepts condolences, thanks people for coming. he stands beside you at the graveside, his arm around your shoulders, and when you cry, he cries too.

real tears. he's surprised by those.

but they're not for her.

they're for you. for the pain you're in, the pain he caused. for the guilt he knows you'll carry even though it's not your fault. for all the years he wasted pretending when he could have just had you from the start.

his coworkers come. agents from the bureau, people he's worked with for years. they shake his hand, offer their sympathies, tell him to take all the time he needs.

but he notices the looks.

agent nadeem lingers too long, his eyes scanning dex's face like he's searching for something. agent hattley asks careful questions—how's he holding up, is there anything they can do, has he thought about taking leave?

and when they think he's not looking, they exchange glances.

he tells himself it's nothing. tells himself they're just being supportive, just concerned about a colleague going through a tragedy.

but he knows better.

he's one of them. he knows how they think. he knows what they look for.

and he knows they're looking at him.

the nightmares start that night.

he dreams of interrogation rooms. of evidence boards with his face in the center. of you, staring at him with horror and betrayal in your eyes as agents lead him away in handcuffs.

he wakes in a cold sweat, his heart pounding, reaching for you in the darkness.

you're there. asleep beside him in his bed now, because you can't bear to sleep alone in your room. you've been staying with him every night since it happened, curling into his side like you're afraid he'll disappear too.

he watches you breathe. watches the rise and fall of your chest. watches the way your lashes flutter against your cheeks.

worth it, he tells himself. it was worth it.

but the paranoia doesn't fade.

you're withdrawn in the days that follow. quiet. barely eating. he brings you tea and soup and sits with you in silence, not pushing, just being there.

"i keep thinking," you say one afternoon, your voice barely above a whisper, "if i had just—if i'd called her that night, or texted her, or—"

"don't." he takes your hand, squeezes it. "don't do that to yourself. you couldn't have stopped it. it was an accident, baby. a horrible, tragic accident."

"but—"

"no." his voice is firm. "you're not responsible for this. you're allowed to grieve, but you're not allowed to blame yourself."

you look at him with red-rimmed eyes, and he sees the guilt there. the weight of it.

"i love you," he says softly. "you're all i have left. and i need you to be okay."

you nod, slowly, and lean into him. he wraps his arms around you and holds you close.

liar, a voice whispers in the back of his mind. liar, liar, liar.

he ignores it.

two weeks after the funeral, you find the photo.

he's at work when you call, your voice shaking. "dex, i—i was going through some old pictures, and i found—"

"what did you find?" he asks, already knowing.

"a picture of her. from before you. she looked so happy."

he closes his eyes. "she was happy. she had you. she had a good life."

"but she didn't have you," you say, and your voice cracks. "not really. because you were always mine."

his heart clenches. "baby—"

"i'm sorry," you continue, and now you're crying. "i'm sorry that i'm not sadder. i'm sorry that i don't miss her the way i should. i'm sorry that all i feel is relief."

he's out of his chair, grabbing his keys, already heading for the door. "i'm coming home. stay there. i'll be there in twenty minutes."

when he gets there, you're curled up on the couch, the photo clutched in your hand. he sits beside you and pulls you into his arms.

"don't be sorry," he murmurs into your hair. "don't ever be sorry for feeling what you feel."

"but she was my mom—"

"she was," he agrees. "and you loved her. but she's gone now. and you're allowed to move forward. you're allowed to be happy."

you look up at him, tears streaming down your face. "with you?"

"with me," he confirms. "always with me."

you kiss him then, desperate and needy, and he kisses you back. holds you. promises you everything.

and he means it.

even if it damns him.

the whispers at work don't stop.

he catches nadeem watching him during a briefing. catches tammy asking careful questions about the accident—what kind of road was it, what were the conditions, has he seen the police report?

"why?" dex asks, keeping his voice casual.

tammy shrugs. "just curious. terrible thing. you doing okay?"

"i'm fine."

but he's not fine.

he's unraveling.

every phone call makes him flinch. every knock on the door sends his heart racing. he triple-checks his alibi, retraces his steps, makes sure every detail is accounted for.

but he knows how good they are. knows what they're capable of. knows that if they're looking, they'll find something.

he just has to make sure they don't look too closely.

three weeks after the funeral, he makes a decision.

"we should move," he tells you one night.

you look up from your phone, surprised. "move? where?"

"somewhere new. somewhere we can start over. just the two of us."

"but—your job. my school. everything's here."

"i can transfer," he says. "you can finish online. we don't need to stay here, baby. we don't need to be surrounded by memories of her."

you're quiet for a long moment. then: "you really want to leave?"

"i want to be with you," he says. "and i want us to have a fresh start. no ghosts. no guilt. just us."

you nod slowly. "okay. if that's what you want."

"it's what i want."

he sells the house within a month. finds a job with a private security firm in a small town three states away. packs up your lives and moves you both to a place where no one knows your names, no one knows your history, no one asks questions.

it should feel like freedom.

but it feels like running.

the new house is small. quiet. isolated.

you seem happy at first—relieved, even, to be away from the memories. but as the weeks pass, he sees the way you look at your phone. the way you hesitate before answering calls from old friends. the way you've stopped mentioning going back to visit.

"you okay?" he asks one night.

"yeah," you say, but your smile doesn't reach your eyes. "just... adjusting."

he pulls you into his lap, wraps his arms around you. "i know it's hard. but we're building something here. something that's just ours."

you nod against his chest. "i know."

but he can feel the distance growing. the questions you're not asking. the doubts creeping in.

he holds you tighter.

six months after the move, he gets a call from morales.

"hey, dex. just checking in. how's the new gig?"

"it's good," dex says carefully. "quiet. different from the bureau."

"i bet." a pause. "listen, i wanted to ask you something. about the accident. the one with your wife."

dex's blood runs cold. "what about it?"

"the report came back from the state forensics team. they found some... inconsistencies. nothing major, just—some things that didn't quite add up."

"like what?"

"like the angle of impact. the damage pattern. it didn't look like a standard rollover. looked more like—well, like something caused it."

dex forces himself to breathe. "what are you saying?"

"i'm not saying anything," morales says quickly. "just—thought you should know. in case anyone reaches out."

"thanks for the heads-up."

"yeah. take care of yourself, dex."

the line goes dead.

dex sits in the silence of the empty house, his hands shaking, and realizes the walls are closing in.

they know.

they don't have proof yet. but they know.

and it's only a matter of time.

that night, he holds you closer than usual. you're asleep in his arms, your breathing soft and even, and he watches you in the darkness.

he'd do it again, he realizes. if he had to. if it meant keeping you.

he'd burn the whole world down just to keep you.

Your first encounter was an unpleasant surprise for him.

Seeing you, knelt at his aunt May’s grave, and - are you crying?

He couldn’t trust a pretty face like yours so easily, not how he used to, no.

The last pretty face he had trusted, had gone and forgotten him, left him in the dust for that tech major in Ned’s class. He thinks about MJ from time to time, but not fondly, no. That fondness was cut off and replaced with betrayal when he watched her kiss that stupid guy, with the stupid flowers and the fuckin awful grin - no. No, he doesn’t think about her anymore.

She doesn’t exist anymore, not to him.

But you do.

And there you were, laying daffodils wrapped together with a little white bow and encased in brown paper over aunt May’s grave.

He kept his distance, the orchids he’d brought lay forgotten in his limp hand as he watched you.

He doesn’t know you, and he knew everyone aunt May knew, so was this a trap?

Are you here to get to him?

Maybe something the Scorpion or whatever other asshole in New York had orchestrated to get to him?

It is creative, he’ll give them that. A pretty thing like you, visiting his aunt and speaking to the stone in a low, trembling voice.

He doesn’t catch much of what you say from this distance, just the familiar words he finds himself saying to her grave too. I miss you’s and I love you’s and I’m sorry’s.

Who are you?

You shouldn’t be saying this stuff, you didn’t know her.

Did you?

He inches closer to grab your last words, and he pauses and straightens as the words leave your mouth.

“…maybe you and mom are together up there now, so you’re both probably having a better time than me now, huh.

God, this is so lonely.

I’m so lonely now, Maymay.”

Your hand darts to swipe at the tear that escapes you and another follows in quick succession, the tip of your nose red as you sniffle quietly to yourself.

Huh.

He didn’t expect that.

He didn’t expect how hard it would hit him too. He knows the feeling all too well. And it’s then and there that he decides something.

He’ll follow you home, for research purposes only obviously. I mean, this could all be part of an elaborate plan to attack him.

Your apartment isn’t anything special, just a small one bedroom in desperate need of a paint job and a heater. But aside from that, it’s cozy.

He can’t see much from where he’s perched on the fire escape of your home but he can spot you in the kitchen, cradling a mug of - coffee? No, tea. His spidey senses come in handy.

Your steps are slow and unhurried as you reach a lumpy couch to sit down on and you place the mug on a table that wobbles when you apply the pressure.

You didn’t build it right, one leg of the coffee table unsteady.

Peter doesnt go to patrol that night, instead waiting for you to finally fall asleep on the lumpy couch. As your breaths even out, he finally lifts the window of your living room and hops in without a sound.

The smell of chamomile and a subtly sweet, floral fragrance invades his senses.

It’s the same perfume he sensed on May a couple of times.

Your breaths are even and paced, your body deep in slumber, and he takes the chance to look around.

On the wall across the hallway, he finds his answers.

A picture of May in a hospital from when she was considerably younger, next to a woman he can only assume to be your mother holding a baby in her arms.

He pops the glass out of the picture frame and turns the photograph around, and written on the back in a pink sparkly gel pen you’d written “baby me and mommy and best friend maymay<3”.

Well, there goes his theory of you bating him for enemies.

He carefully places it back together, hanging it back on the wall where it was.

He should’ve left after he got his answer, but he stayed. Not to watch you sleep or anything like that. Just, making sure you’d be safe.

That’s what aunt May would’ve wanted right?

He crosses into your bedroom and scans over the dressing table, the knick knacks scattered over it. The clothes strewn over the floor and on your made and untouched bed.

When he opens your drawers, convincing himself that it’s only to check for threats (as if there’d even be a threat in a fuckin drawer), he finds your underwear and promptly shuts it, feeling like a goddamn pervert for even thinking of opening it again.

Should he? No, no. Not right.

That’s enough of the bedroom, he thinks. He leans back against the windowsill in your cramped living room and crosses his arms.

His mask is crumpled in his left hand, having taken it off after his venture into your bedroom.

He stays there the entire night, the sun coming up and its rays bearing down over your face.

You flinch and groan in your sleep, and he crosses over to shield you from it in one jump. You fall back asleep peacefully and he pauses, tracing your features and mapping out your skin.

It’s quiet now, and Peter isn’t alone. It’s been quiet for a long time for him. But now, he’s not alone.

Your phone rings, startling both him and you. And he’s gone before you can open your eyes.

The next few weeks are spent following you.

He didn’t mean for it to go this far, to be watching you for so long, but he couldn’t help himself.

You’re perfect for him, god you’re so perfect for him. So sweet, so smart and kind to a fault. And so alone.

Your routine might even be more lonely than his is, what with your job in the back of the cafe you worked at, baking the muffins and cookies and whatever else it was that you’d make.

Barely any human interaction aside from your coworkers and they don’t deserve you.

They don’t deserve your kind smiles and patience even when they ask you to stay for longer to help wash up or clean up their messes.

He watches you feed the black cat that everyone else ignores on the corner of your street, bag always stocked with a little bottle of milk for the adorable little thing with beady eyes.

Milk!

Come on! Can you get more adorable and stupid?

So cliche and yet so sweet.

You’re practically the easiest target there ever was, and thank god Peter is the good guy he is, otherwise someone might’ve come along and ruined you. None of the guys round here are worth your time, he knows that.

He knows this place like the back of his hand and these guys are no good, and if he weren’t around, maybe they woulda got you.

Maybe that creep on fourth street that was following you that one time as you made the trek back home.

Peter took care of that one, he wasn’t gonna let him walk free, or walk at all.

And all the other guys that even dared to look your way?

Same, if not, worse fate.

You have a special connection with him, no one else has any right to be looking at you in any way.

And besides, those fuckin creeps wouldn’t be missed, not in a big city like this one.

Peter’s so proud of himself, so proud of how good of a person he is, how much of a hero he is. Keeping you safe and following you home everyday and watching you sleep.

Any girl would be fucking over the moon with this attention, this care, this love.

And he’s sure you would be too, his perfect girl. But he can’t find it in himself to finally introduce himself to you.

He likes his little secret and he wants to keep it, of course he wants to touch you and hold you. But this secret? God it’s exhilarating.

For now he makes do with your bunched up panties from your laundry basket, shoved into his nose as he greedily inhales as his other fist pumps his thick cock.

He didn’t mean to take it, but you’d come back from gym class, and tossed it there and it smelt so fucking enticing, how could he resist?

It was your fault you’d left it out there for him in the open.

He pumps once, twice and comes with a groan deep in his gut. The warm ropes of his cum splatter over his taut, thick stomach and he pants into the lace of your panties.

The scent of your cunt on the fabric only spurs him on again, his cock getting hard again as he stands in the shower.

Later that night, the two of you finally meet for the first time.

Youre walking home from the walk you’d gone on in your day off, your arms wrapped around yourself as the sun goes down and you realize that maybe your dress wasn’t warm enough for Central Park in autumn.

You rub your hands along your arms, warming them up and pull your phone out of your handbag to check the time.

You hadn’t even switched your phone on yet before you’re hit in the side and your phone is grabbed out of your hand, the perpetrator already half way down the street by the time you realize he’d stolen your phone.

You don’t even register the slam of his body into your side as he shoots down the pavement, more focused on your phone being taken.

“Hey! Holy shitshitshit! My phone!”

Your panicked whimpers draw the attention of the people around you as they watch the man cross the street with your phone in hand.

You’d run after him, but you already know you won’t be making it to him that quick, and it’s embarrassing enough to have had it taken, it would be more embarrassing if you’d chased after him with no avail.

You can still see the guy, whipping his head back as he runs to see if you’d come chase him.

In the blink of an eye, he’s slammed against the building next to him, and the gasps from a teen across from you has you almost sure of who it is-

“Yo shit! It’s Spiderman!”

Peter feels pretty smug when he hears your gasp at the teens words.

Shooting a look back at you, assessing you, he webs the fucking bastard against the wall, tighter than he needs to, webs across his chest constricting his breath.

Peter plucks the phone outta the assholes grip, before grabbing the guys jaw, threatening to unhinge it.

“You’re soooo fuckin lucky there’s civilians out here man, touching my girl like that? Grabbing her phone? Not cool, man.”

The last line is said out loud, as the teen from before inches close enough to hear Peter’s words. Peter inches away from him with one last hard pat on his face, and a step back.

He’ll die if he’s stuck in those webs for another 16 minutes, the webs constricting his ribs like that. Peter doesn’t find it in him to care. His fist tightens at the urge to beat the bastard bloody for even touching you.

“Holy shit! Spiderman, can I get a pic with you?”

He schools his expression to tone down the red hot anger that threatens to take over him, and lightens his tone of voice, reverting to his friendly neighbor persona.

“Hey there, man! Sure thing, but make it quick? I gotta get this phone back to the lady over there.”

Fucking teens.

He needs to get back to his girl, not fuck around taking pictures.

His limbs pull themselves toward you, the thing that lives inside him begging him to pull you to himself and never let go, to wrap you up in his spiel of webs.

And there you are.

In the flesh.

It’s not as if he hadn’t seen you face to face before, but those instances were when you were asleep.

And now you’re here.

You’re awake and looking at him in awe?

Is he dreaming? You want him too?

He felt his heart race at the sight of your bright eyes, blinking in disbelief at the sight of Spiderman in front of you.

You’re the first to break the silence.

“Oh my god…this is insane. Um, thank you, so much. That was so fast.”

You laugh, breathless and in disbelief.

He could die right here and be content, with your starry eyes looking at him like he’s your savior. His eyes trail to your lips mindlessly, the supple flesh there pink and plump.

You swipe your tongue along your bottom lip, slightly nervous at the attention he’s giving you.

Is he going to say anything?

“Erm, thank you, again. Is there any way I could repay you? I’d be totally lost without my phone, as much as I hate to admit it haha…” your laughter trails off into awkwardness and finally, finally Peter has the wherewithal to speak, saving you from his intense stare.

“It was no problem at all, I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt, miss…?”

You tell him your name and he nods, repeating it back to you, as if he doesn’t already know everything about you.

As if he hadn’t already searched and looked for any part of you he could find through his system. You crossing streets on the traffic cameras, you in grocery stores, you in old high school plays after finding your yearbook tucked away in your wardrobe. He even found your mother and May’s college admissions, figuring out the link between you two.

Your voice brings him back to reality.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do back for you?”

He can think of a lot of things you can do for him.

“Don’t you worry about it sweetheart, although… maybe I could walk you home? Make sure you get there safe.”

“Yeah! Yeah, of course, that’s totally fine. But, um, I don’t wanna like take up any of your time. You’re not busy, are you? I can go alone.”

His boxers feel tighter at the sound of your voice, your eyes flickering to meet his behind the mask. His own feel warm with unshed tears.

No one’s cared about him in so long.

He can’t leave you, not after this.

He can’t.

No matter how much he fights it, something inside him won’t let you go.

He won’t.

Something dark settles over his irises, a decision formed by the venomous arachnid in him.

You’re his.

After reassuring you that no, he didn’t have any other plans, and that he’d love to make sure you get home safe, you both venture the walk to your place.

If you notice how he walks ahead of you and makes the same turns into the alleys you take to get home quicker, you don’t say anything.

“It’s so weird to be meeting you in person, you know?”

“It’s weird? Like a bad weird?”

“No! Like, i don’t know, it’s just. Us regular folks see you only on tv and online, here and there.

But not in person. I mean, you did rescue a mutual friend of mine two years ago in that robbery on 6th, but aside from that, you’ve been sorta like a fairytale to me. I never thought I’d get in a situation where I’d meet you.”

He could listen to you talk forever, watch your lips move so pliantly forming your words.

“I’m just glad you aren’t hurt, I’ve saved some people from some pretty nasty stuff lately.”

“Yeah, I guess I got lucky. I had you.” You smile at him, finding it easy to keep eye contact with the masked figure, given you can’t see his eyes.

His hand itches to grab yours, to pull it through his and to meld your two hands together with the sticky webs that have formed on his body since his encounter with Jean Grey those 3 months ago.

His side brushes against yours when someone walks on the same path as you, and a hiss of pain from you makes him stop in his tracks.

“Wait, you got hurt?”

His arm reaches out to grab at your upper arm and turn you gently towards him.

“Did that fuckin- shit, excuse my language. Did he get you?”

“No, no seriously, don’t worry. He just bumped into me. I’m not hurt or anything, just probably going to be a bit sore?”

You’re so quick to pacify him, paused and in place and compliant as he turns your body to check both your sides.

He runs his fingers along your shoulder before lowering the tips to run over the length of your ribs on that side, barely noticing how your spine stiffens and your breathing quickens.

Your barely restrained gasp has him pause, and his eyes flashes to meet yours.

“Does it hurt?”

His mouth dries as he asks you.

You respond with a slight nod, his hand taking up the span of your ribs under your breast, close to your fluttering heart.

Oh.

You want him too.

You feel this too. Feel him.

He doesn’t want to take you home anymore. He doesn’t want to leave you, no. A plan forms in his head, a sick plan, even for him and his animal instincts.

He could take you home, to his home. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, he’d save you. You’re sick, just like him. All alone, and you’d both lost May. Maybe this was something May sent for him, from heaven or wherever else the fuck she was.

How pretty you’d look in his bed, how you’d fit in with him.

He’d give you the world if you asked for it.

Bring you daffodils everyday.

Love you like no other has.

A dark part of his brain asks the question, ‘what if you don’t want it?’.

But it’s not like you could fight him off, right?

He’s stronger than you, in every way. He could have you in any way he wanted.

He thinks back to the panties still on his bedside table, he wouldn’t need those anymore.

He’d have you.

No.

No!

That’s too far, even for you Peter, he thinks to himself.

Aunt May wouldn’t have wanted that.

No, she raised a gentleman.

He straightens and offers you a hand.

“Let’s get you home, maybe an ice pack will help that side.”

You take his offered hand, and his heart roars with possessiveness.

“Thanks. You know, you don’t have to do all of this. I’m sure not all the people you save get this 5 star treatment.”

You’re quieter than before, still reeling from his touch, but you’ve still got an endearing playfulness to you that he can’t get enough of.

“No, this treatment is only reserved for pretty girls.”

“Oh? And I fit the requirements?”

“Sweetheart, you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

You stop in your step, and he has to look back at you to gauge your reaction.

“You’re just saying that.”

Disbelief floods peters tone.

“Just saying that? Just saying that? Feel my heart and it’ll tell you if I’m lying.” He grabs at your hand and presses your open palm upon his heart, a thick layer of muscle in between it.

Your pulse is racing, he can hear it, and it only stirs desire in his gut.

“You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

You watch with bated breath as he says that, feeling his hearts’ steady thump thump.

Holy fucking shit.

Black ink fills the whites of Peter’s eyes under his mask, his super senses going into overdrive honing in on the space between your thighs. He can smell your wetness, could hear the throb of your cunt as he uttered those words and now he wants to say them over, and over again.

Till you come undone.

You avert your gaze, a hot flush creeping up your neck and settling in your cheeks.

You look away to your left, and address him.

“…we’re here. This is my place.”

He hadn’t even realized how fast you both had gotten here, focused on only you and nothing else.

“Huh. So we are.”

“Do you…”

Invite me in baby, let me in and I’ll save you.

Peter holds his breath.

“Do you wanna come up?”

Fuck yes.

He’s never been through your front door, all those times he’s been in your apartment, and he’s here with you now, being invited in.

You place your things on the side table and wander off into the kitchen, and Peter follows you.

“Hey, do you want something to drink? Coffee or tea or anything?”

“Nah, just water is fine. Here. Lemme get it.”

He opens the top cupboard with a flicker and pulls out two mugs, your favorite one and the other SpongeBob one for himself.

With his heightened senses, he catches the flutter of your pulse now racing, as your breath catches in your throat.

“What the fuck…?”

You whisper in quiet disbelief masked in confusion.

Shit.

Peter freezes.

“How did you…how did you know where that was, Peter?”

He says your name once, then twice then steps forward and you immediately take a step back as impulse.

“Listen, I can explain ok? It’s just - wait.”

His brow furrows in disbelief.

“What did you just call me?”

You take slow steps back till your back hits the edge of your sofa.

Your brow furrows, and you look lost in thought for a brief moment.

“I think you should leave, please. It’s late, please go.”

No fucking way he’s leaving like this, not when you know his name.

“Nonononono, we’re not leaving it like that. How do you know my name, sweets?”

He’s crowding into you now, his thick arms coming up to grasp at your own smaller ones. He shakes his head at you, part-condescending and in disbelief.

In one swift move, he removes the mask from his face, revealing himself to you, and you can’t help the gasp that escapes you as you spot his irises increasing in size, round and pitch black.

“Peter…you’re scaring me..”

“Baby, just answer me and everything’s gonna be ok, okay? How do you know my name, hm?”

You tremble in his grasp, and his hands slide to cover your wrists when you raise them to push at his chest crowding in on you.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, it’s just in my head. I can feel it.” Your words are breathy and light.

“You can feel it? Feel me? Oh baby, oh baby.”

You’re lost for words, can’t breathe as he crowds you, wrapping both arms around your waist and tucking you against the hard plain of his chest.

He can feel your tremors against him, and he tries to ignore the press of your perky breasts against him, he really does.

But when his growing hard-on brushes against your soft thigh, he can’t help himself.

He pushes you backwards, cushioning your head with his hand and cradling you near.

The two of you topple onto the sofa, him between your legs and hovering over you with awe etched into his expression.

Peter hasn’t been this hard in his life, the erection bordering on painful as it presses against the confines of his boxers.

The heightened senses and his thought of how much better this is than fucking his fist to your underwear clouding any sense of judgement.

“Please baby, oh please. You’re for me. You were sent here for me, I know it. Hmph - everyone else forgets and you remember my name? Yeah? Fuck, you’re made for me.”

Your own slick grows in between the apex of your thighs, and you’re painfully aware of his thick length pressing against you, hard and insistent.

It brushes against the side of your clit, and you whimper out a quiet fuck, that has Peter groaning and shoving his face into your neck.

Breathing in his scent, you feel like you’re going insane with how badly you want him now, how badly you need him. It’s like a flip switched in your mind and suddenly, all you could do is want more.

Is it the arachnid in him, Peter thinks for a brief pause.

You clench around nothing and your hips subconsciously press upwards, searching for that sweet relief that his thick cock can give you.

He pulls back from your neck, still breathing heavy, and his blackened eyes flicker once, twice at your lips, before crashing his mouth to yours.

You let out a needy whimper as his lips meet yours, and it’s a clash of skin more than it is a kiss. It’s like he wants to meld his lips to yours, have you only breathing him in, depending on him how he depends on you now.

All teeth, and tongue and desperation.

You feel his groans reverberating through your chest as he presses himself impossibly closer, his tongue dipping in between your lips to lick at your own, sucking it into his mouth.

Your jaw slacks open as he takes control, takes the reign over the desperate attack of his tongue.

The rest of you goes limp, only one hand of yours pressed flat against the left side of his thick chest where his heart resides.

A guttural groan leaves him at the realization and he swallows the I love you that threatens to leave his lips.

Instead, he laps at your wet tongue, drawing fresh gasps from you as the inside of your panties grow damper by the second, slicker than you’ve ever been.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck sweets, I need to be inside you - mhm - right fuckin now,”

Peter’s groans border on whiney as he litters kisses all along the line of your neck, suckling at the skin under your jaw and biting down, hard, when he hears you moan as he found the juncture of your throat.

His words register to you as he clicks on the front of his suit, the entire thing of fabric falling off of him and leaving him bare in just his boxers, where a patch of precum can be seen as he strains against the fabric.

He’s big, fucking huge compared to anything or anyone you’ve ever taken, and you bite into your lip anxiously.

“Peter, wait. Please,”

You can barely be heard over your heaving breaths, and you repeat yourself, lifting yourself on both elbows as he removes the last fabric on him and tears the dress you’d been wearing in half through the middle.

You let out a little shocked yelp, and he yearns to hear it again.

“Peter, please, it won’t fit. You’re too big, I can’t,”

Fuck, he didn’t think his name could ever sound so good falling off your lips.

“It’ll fit baby, fuck.”

Such a fuckin pretty pussy.

He pauses to admire your slicked pussy, having torn your panties from the sides in his frantic need to see you, to feel you.

“Look at this pussy, it’s made for me. It’ll fit, yeah sweets? We’ll make it fit. ‘M gonna prepare you a lil, yeah? Atta girl.”

Without warning, he fills you with his middle and index finger, the sound of your cunt swallowing him whole with a wet squelch making him come undone against the armrest of the sofa, and he swallows the sound of his release against your folds, pressing his tongue from your entrance to your sensitive clit and growling at the taste of you.

You thread your fingers through his curly hair, tugging as he toys with your nub, and your back arching clean off the sofa as you grip his fingers tighter with your wet warmth.

Your whimpers turn into long drawn out whines as Peter tips you over the edge.

You cum with a gush of liquid against his mouth, and he laps at your pussy with unbidden desire, his entire face soaked in your release.

He doesn’t wait one second, rising to wrap your legs around his middle and positioning himself at your entrance to enter you in one long thrust.

You’re still in the throes of your orgasm as he pushes into you, and you feel him - so hard and hot and heavy - fucking into your sore cunt.

“Fuck - I have to, I need to - I need to move sweets, I need to - fuck you feel so good, so fuckin tight-“

You feel like you couldn’t breathe with how thick he feels, how much he’s filling you up.

“Peter - please, wait, you’re too - oh god - you’re too big, you’re so so big - oh-“

He presses his forehead against yours, leaning to pepper kisses across your face, tender soft little things that are incomparable to his thick cock stretching you apart.

“I know sweets, I know I’m big - fuck - but you’re doing so good baby, that’s it just give into it sweets, you’re so fuckin perfect for me.”

His arm curls around you pressing your chests together, and all Peter can think is how he could die happy like this, your hearts beating together and you fluttering around his length.

Peter doesn’t stop.

In fact, he presses in deeper, more insistent and you can feel the press of him against your cervix, hot and hard and so full.

He tilts his hips upwards, thrusting into you at a new angle, and the brush of him against that spot leaves you a mewling mess.

The whines he draws out of you are animal, barely human.

The soaking plap plap plap of his balls slapping against your ass cheeks has him tightening in anticipation, finally he’ll be able to come inside you after the weeks of wait.

He comes with a guttural groan, burying his face in your chest and rubbing himself against your hard nipples.

Thick ropes of his cum paint your insides white, and it creams around the rim of your hole, as you pulse around him, the last spurt of his cum triggers your own orgasm, and you dig your nails into the back of his neck as a gush of liquid spurts around his still-hard cock.

You’ve never squirted before in your life.

Peter raises his chest from yours to look at your pussy gush around him, and the sight drives him crazy.

He growls, low and deep and shoves both of your legs up and over his shoulders, before pistoning in and out of your warmth.

Long, deep strokes in before pulling out fast and shoving himself back in like he couldn’t bare to be away from your cunt.

You scream from the overstimulation, your legs trembling and shaking from your last orgasm. You feel so sore, and so spent.

He pulls back and thrusts against that spot inside of you, repeatedly going at it and you can feel another orgasm begin to rise.

Peter buries his nose in your hair and deeply inhales at your scent in greedy gulps, his cock plunging into you again and again until your moans devolved into quiet, needy sobs, until the sensation of you wrapped around him like a vice becomes too much for the both of you.

Until he comes with a groan that borders on a whine, and the thick ropes of his seed overflow from your pussy.

He thrusts it into you, shoving his cream into the deepest depths of your tight warmth, and you come with a scream, squirting all over his lower body and drenching the fabric of the sofa below you.

You clench and clench around him, the liquid gushing out of you in hot bursts, and he pulls out of you to lap at your juices running down your hole, drinking up every bit of you and shoving his cum back inside of your hole.

He plugs your hole shut with his tongue once he’s gathered most of his come and pushed it back inside of you, where it belongs.

Your hands weakly push at his head, and your legs fall open as you lose all feeling in them.

Peter carries you to your bed, cleaning you with a wet cloth he found in your bathroom and dressing you in the pjs you wore every night.

He places a bottle of water by your bedside, and tucks you in gently, as you fall in and out of consciousness.

Poor baby, too fucked out to think.

Once all is done and you’re tucked in safe, he pauses and takes a seat on the windowsill connected to your fire escape.

It’s done, you’re his now. This is what he’s waited for all those years, and god it was all so worth it.

He can’t take his eyes off your sleeping figure, a hot trail of possessiveness in his chest at the thought of you being his to protect, his to care for, his to fuck.

No one’s gonna forget him this time.

He’s going to make sure of that.

“You’re insane, Steve,” you sobbed, trying to push him off of you, but it was obviously impossible.

“No, no, not at all,” he laughed, “I’m finally thinking straight, baby!  We need to be together.  And the only way to be sure we will is to put my kid in you.”

You tried to kick him away, you tried everything, but with his weight between your spread legs already it was useless.

He groaned loudly as he pushed into you all at once, making you yelp and claw at his back helplessly.

“Ohh my god, so fuckin’ tight,” he moaned, “we waited too long to do this, baby.  I was so afraid to hurt you... it’s so much better now that I don’t care anymore.”

“Please, Steve, stop,” you cried, “it hurts-- you’re too deep...”

“I’m not deep enough,” he growled.  “I need to be so deep that none of my come will drip out, I want it all inside you.”

He pulled back slightly to look down at your body struggling beneath his, purring as he placed his hand on your lower belly.

“You’re gonna have my baby right here,” he promised.  “Fuck, I can feel myself inside you, sweetheart...”

Sure enough, when he pushed down you felt your channel pulse around him and your eyes roll back in your head.

“So little, such a sweet little thing you are,” he breathed, “I can’t believe you’re taking all of me, you’re doing so good baby... you’re gonna look so pretty with this tiny body all big and round cause’a me...”

You whined, not at his words but at how quickly pleasure was rising inside you, your core gripping him tighter than ever with your impending orgasm.  It still hurt, it still made you sick to your stomach, and yet it still felt good, too, better than anything you’d ever felt before.

“You were made for me, honey, made to take my cock,” he growled, “made to carry my baby.  Made to be mine forever, do you understand?”

“Y-yes, Steve,” you gasped, “yours...”

“Oh, fuck, say it again, m’so close,” he grunted, fucking you faster.

“Yours!” you screamed, walls pulsing as arousal gushed out around his length and you came, hard.

“Fuck, fuck,” he yelped, coming inside you with a roar.  He seemed to come for a really long time, stream after stream of hot come filling you until you literally couldn’t fit anymore inside you and a few drops leaked out of your abused hole and dripped down your ass.  

You felt so full of him-- his cock, his come, his tongue lazily probing your mouth-- that you felt a bit nauseous, and yet you couldn’t remember a time you felt so satisfied, either.  Some part of you really liked the idea of being pregnant, even though it was by him, that sick man who had begun to control every aspect of your life.  You tried to get out while you still could but it was too late, and instead you were trapped. 

Literally.  His weight held you down as he kissed all over your face, whispering about how proud he was of you.

Lord knows he wore you out earlier.

He stripped his jacket off, followed by his shoes to pad quietly across the floor. He rolled his shoulders to ease the ache. Tried to ignore the pounding in his head and block out how loud everything was in his mind. It wasn’t easy to shake some days. 

Corruption and pressure threatened to make his walls crumble. His strict moral code and stabilizers were stripped away to almost nothing. Fisk exploited him. 

But the moment he saw you in his bed, he exhaled some of the tension and smiled.

His North Star.

It was hard to believe some days that he had someone like you. He considered himself lucky to have someone so good. So perfect. 

Light spilled into the room as he opened the door completely. He didn’t approach right away, content just to hear your soft and steady breathing. You were curled up slightly, tucked under the comforter right where he left you. Where you belonged. 

He let out a breath, his fingers flexing. You were there. You were real.

The mattress dipped under his weight after he lifted the comforter, still careful so he didn’t disturb you yet. He should’ve showered and changed, but he had to hold you. Listening and watching you could only satisfy him so much.

He slid in easily beside you, something loosening in his chest when he wrapped an arm around your waist. His nose brushed your neck, his lips following. You were so soft. So warm.

Everything that he dealt with outside of his place, the visions of blood and a dark abyss, it all faded away thanks to you.

He nearly groaned when you sighed, his eyes briefly shutting. It was the same sound you let out every time he slowly entered you. Every sound you made was music to his ears, but that one in particular got beneath his skin and swam in his veins. 

Maybe it was because it was gentle and he didn’t have many gentle things in his life. 

“Missed you, sweetheart,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “Thought of you all night. It kept me going.”

He suddenly pictured the first time you smiled at him. It was on a rainy day, and your smile made the day brighter. It was one of the most genuine things he had ever seen. In a city full of liars, you were something that remained true. 

It was something he had to keep for himself. 

Your breathing changed when his mouth moved back to your neck and his fingers dug into your waist, making him smile gently. You weren’t quite awake yet. But you were getting there. 

“You’re so good, you know that?” he murmured, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “So good to stay right here. Waiting for me.”

Coming home to you made him feel normal because it was something that normal people craved. Stability. Love. He deserved that. He deserved good things. 

He deserved you. 

He lifted his head in time to see your eyes flutter open. The innocence in your gaze was a stark contrast to the predatory gleam in his. Even as he smiled, he looked like a wolf about to sink his teeth in.

And you were such a delicious meal. 

“...Dex?” you asked groggily.

He craved the way you said his name. 

“Yeah,” he said, his fingers brushing your cheek as you blinked the sleepiness away. “I’m home.”

He saw the confusion flicker across your face when you shifted your body. Well, you tried to at least. The bindings wrapped securely around your wrists and headboard didn’t exactly give you much room to move around. That was the whole point.  

“Dex… What…” 

He frowned when the confusion bled into panic, his hand pressing firmly but not harshly on your chest to keep you as still as possible. Your heart raced faster beneath his palm and your eyes widened, your fear evident as he tilted his head. He understood why you were scared and yet he didn’t get it at all. He wasn’t going to hurt you. 

He’d never hurt you. 

But he should’ve anticipated this. 

“Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay,” he said with practiced ease, kissing your forehead and letting his mouth rest there to ease your frightened expression. “I’ve got you.”

“You… Did you…” Your breath hitched. “You tied me up?!”

He did after he ruined you, cleaned you up, and made sure you were fast asleep. His hand had drifted to your hip, your body pliant and willing, before he stopped himself. He’d save that for another night. The two of you had a lifetime to make every fantasy come true. 

Every dream, too. 

“Yeah I did, but you’re safe,” he assured you. 

A frightened sound escaped you, your body trembling lightly. 

His jaw clenched. It wasn’t one of your sweet or happy sounds, and it worked its way into his bones before he could stop it. He didn’t want you to be afraid of him. He couldn’t have you afraid of him. At the end of the day, he was a good guy. 

You needed to trust him to take care of you. 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said quietly, kissing the tip of your nose. “I should’ve done it while you were still awake so I could explain.”

“E-Explain?” you repeated, your voice small. 

You hadn’t screamed once since you woke up, so that had to be a good sign. 

“I just needed to know you’d be here when I got back. That’s all. Needed to know you weren’t going to…” He trailed off and took a breath. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here. You’re here. That’s what matters, so you don’t need to be scared, okay? Not of me.”

You didn’t know about the cameras he set up, but he checked them throughout the night to make sure you were safe. Seeing you vulnerable, it was a reminder that he had to come home to you. And it was a reminder that you couldn’t leave. 

Not that you would leave him. His North Star wouldn’t abandon him. Binding you was just an extra precaution. 

Plus, you looked good bound to his bed. 

He could even watch the footage of the two of you from earlier. 

“I’m not-”

“Leaving,” he finished for you. “I know.”

You weren’t going to leave him. 

“Think of this like a kink,” he said, a subtle smirk forming. 

Kinks were normal. 

This was normal.

“Your wrists don’t hurt, do they?” he asked, concern laced in his tone, moving a hand to take yours and lace your fingers together. 

You shook your head slowly. Of course, they didn’t hurt. He was careful. 

He took care of you. 

“Good,” he said, his breath ghosting your lips. “Then I’ll keep you tied up just a little bit longer, okay?”

He swallowed down whatever you had to say when lips covered yours, his hand sliding to your neck and resting there while his tongue explored your mouth. You tasted so sweet. He wanted you. Wanted to be inside you. 

His hips shifted against yours before he caught himself and broke the kiss. He pressed his forehead to yours and exhaled slowly, his grip loosening. You needed just a little more rest before he wore you out again. 

“Shh. Go back to sleep,” he urged, smiling softly before he settled over you like a blanket, his lips caressing your skin. “I’ll be here when you wake up, and we can talk more about it.”

Your pulse still pounded under his touch and his own heartbeat picked up. But he kept his breathing steady, silently urging you to match his. He relaxed, too, like he was someone warm and comforting and not someone smothering you. 

It took a minute, but your eyes shut. Maybe you thought it was a dream. He’d remind you that it was very real, and that he wasn’t going anywhere when you woke up again. 

He would always be there. 

Just like you would always be there. 

Even if he had to tie you to his bed every single night to keep you. 

Things could be worst, right? He's trying so hard to be normal. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

dex is a stalker. your stalker (he wouldn’t waste his time learning so much about just any person, thank you very much…). not that he would have labelled himself as such, dex himself would have rather called himself your protector. protector who watches you in your tiny, little flat, miles away on another building’s rooftop, spying through the window. a friendly watcher, a concerned… someone. that is what he settles on because right now, you don’t even know him.

the first time he inserts himself in your life, you immediately like him. of course you do, he had carefully assembled himself a mask in order to be the kind of person you like, would talk to. be friends with. in his mind, he makes a disapproving, little tsk sound. if only you knew how easy it was to hack your phone, look up internet searches, break into your home while you were away… but that would change, eventually. he would make you a safe home. he would protect you. he would provide for you. he would take care of you. he would shield you from the world, burn it down if he had to. that’s the thing about dex, he loves in radical extremes and catastrophes; there is no such thing as “casual” or “low-key” with him.

privacy is also a foreign concept to him. privacy? we’ve never even heard of her. jokes aside, dex genuinely thinks there are no secrets between the two of you. of course, there are… darker things, disturbing things, in his mind that he doesn’t tell you. but really, it’s for your own good. he doesn’t want to scare you away, give you a reason to run, knowing that if you did, he would run right after you. it was an instinct, the same way a cat couldn’t help but chase a little mouse. but you were his. as much as dex was yours. leave? you weren’t allowed to leave. or leave him out of anything—he wanted to know everything about you, every single thing there was. dex was overwhelming like that, all-consuming and intense in his loving, but you couldn’t help but fall for him anyway. it was hard to ignore that sort of loyal, undying devotion, that sort of… worship.

when you two started dating, he offered you himself wholly, his heart, his life, every breath he took; he would die for you, he would kill for you, he would do anything for you—take him. keep him. but don’t leave him. never leave him. his separation anxiety is severe like that. sometimes, dex gets anxious simply when you’re in a different room than him, even when he’s at your apartment.

he is a little ocd about… everything. he likes being in control, getting to call the shots, making the decisions. it’s not a masculinity thing, it’s just that dex prefers knowing where to go, getting to plan ahead and assess everything. he’s like a german shepherd that way—it’s ingrained into him, a habit more than a conscious want. but he needs it. and by god, do you love it. you yourself were incredibly indecisive, preferring to hang back and chill out rather than take the lead, which made the dynamic between dex and you pretty much perfect.

and because he is obsessive as hell, he always knows what you like and dislike. how, you have no idea. but dex is incredibly observant, very serious about getting to know you. he always knows things about you. like a clairvoyant, in a way.

dex puts your needs above his. usually, it means that he’ll do whatever you want him to do. his frantic, anxious heart tells him that if he does it, he’ll endear himself to you, earn your love, make him worthy of you not leaving him. because dex thinks he does not deserve you. you are a good person, in the purest, most literal sense of the word. overflowing kindness and a radiant sort of sweetness that attracted all kinds of lesser men, and an innocence that has dex hooked and addicted to you. you draw him in like a moth to a flame, and it’s inevitable, he thinks, that you’ll leave him. you’ll find a better man, a man who doesn’t need a north star to tell him how to be a good person, a man who is perfect and just as good as you.

but he’s selfish. he’s selfish, and he’s not even sorry for it. he wants you. needs you. has to have you. so, he endears himself to you. making it harder for you to leave. and if he is a little suffocating in his love, you don’t complain about it. after all, he showers you with affection and sheer love, and oh, if only you knew how far it went…

dex gets crazy possessive. he needs to be with you at all times, partly out of separation anxiety and partly because he doesn’t like the way some men look at you. hungry, greedy—disgusting. he hates it. but dex behaves, because normal men don’t kill the sleazy, creepy men sitting across the bar, winking at their girlfriend, with a vodka shot glass. it takes every muscle in him tensing and keeping his eyes trained on you to hold back. he knows you wouldn’t approve. he thinks he could get away with it without you knowing. but then you turn around, flash that wonderful, captivating smile at him, and he is… calm. calm in a way his thoughts have never let him be. and there is a hungry, starved urge in him to be closer to you, skin to skin, soul to soul, no, closer even, he needs to be closer than that, has to be, he would fold himself into you—

jealousy. a huge, huge everyday thought that dex carried with himself. for a man so composed and reserved, you can, surprisingly, tell quite easily when he is. he clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth against each other in a motion that flexes the sharpness of his face, and he begins to tense. which is, in its own way, a beautiful thing to witness: his biceps swells, back muscles becoming more and more defining as he tensed, veins popping in his huge, calloused hands and the spot around his strong, firm neck, and you swear he becomes even taller and bigger and larger… it’s s mouthwatering sight. or intimidating, for the ones he directs his dark, murderous glares at. you love it, love the way he automatically placed his palms on your shoulders as he guides you to a place more far away in the bar, taking the lead every step of course, tall frame willing any man stepping close to take an instinctive step back because that deadly stare has mine, mine, mine written all over it.

you actually find yourself finding your jealous boyfriend quite adorable. to everyone else, he is this unbelievably large mass of pure muscle, power and strength, a man you would very much not want to cross, but to you, that’s… dex. simply dex. your sweet, awkward, adorable unit of a boyfriend. who is so, so good at sex.

his favourite position is missionary. he likes you right where he can see you, observe every facial expression you make, every oh so little sound, gasp, whimper, whine… he likes it when you’re like this. unguarded. lost in the pleasure he’s giving you, hair flowing and framing you freely. he loves it when you cling to him, legs wrapping around his waist, giving him the sweetest sounds as you grab his arm helplessly for support. it makes him feel needed, appreciated, loved.

another position dex quite likes is burying himself into you from behind, because he gets to hold you. it’s pathetic, and depressingly romantic, he knows. but he can’t help it, he likes having you in his arms. where you can’t escape him. where you’re his willing prisoner. he likes pressing the weight of his body against your back, marking your neck in places you can’t see, it almost makes up for the fact he can’t see your face. but your body tells him everything he has to know. most times, he overstimulates you on accident, he has a high sex drive, he can’t help it, and after he tears orgasm after orgasm out of you, your legs usually tend to get all wobbly and weak. and your arms become so useless of all that overwhelming pleasure that you can’t even hold yourself up right, becoming entirely dependent on dex holding you up. arm hooked under your waist, he can do it effortlessly with just one arm. you can just stay there, look pretty, and let him do all the work. he doesn’t mind. in fact, he finds it sort of cute when you get all docile and pliant like this, because when you’re this out he can easily make you forget that he said he was going to pull out before he came. which… he usually does. but something in him, something vile and evil and selfish and dark, secretly loves the thought of knocking you up. just the thought of your belly all swollen, pregnant with his child, makes him go feral.

it’s not baby trapping. you don’t get it, dex loves you—it’s just that, well… he likes having you right where he can see you. by his side, in other words. which you of course would be, if you were pregnant. and would that be such a bad thing? he would… love that child, that baby growing in your womb. he would, he knows he would. and dex doesn’t make promises, but he would be a good father. he knows he would be. and he desperately, pathetically needs you to want him to be by your side.

dex needs affirmation more than anything. his separation anxiety is already the worst, but the paranoia… oh, the paranoia eats him up. this would solve it—a child. a child created by the little, good parts of him and the entirety of you. all of you. won’t you just give him a baby? please, pretty please?

the third position he loved getting you into is kneeling between his legs. when he sits on a couch, cradling your bobbing head between his impossibly large hands as you try to take all of him, that’s when he is at his happiest. that is when that serene feeling washes all over him, washing away all the paranoid voices screaming, when he looks down and just sees his girl. his sweet, darling girl, trying to please him, accommodating for him in your mouth, trying to make room for all of him. dex loves it when your eyes go a little glassy, when your gaze becomes a little bit dazed. that’s when he knows you’re in that sub space, where he knows your thoughts quiet down, too. and if he is honest, he may just be very attracted to you crying. a bit. he is not a pervert, he swears. after all, he’s one of the good guys now!

author’s note: i have SO fallen for the benjamin poindexter propaganda. curse wilson bethel and his enchanting face. um, i also have a confession to make: i have not watched daredevil… i’ve just been influenced by the tiktok edits… i’m sorry… have some pity for a fellow victim of the wilson bethel face card yeah? so if there are any canonical divergences—just ignore it lol. or pretend it’s part of the au. if it even can be called an au, as our darling dex is clearly very capable of being insane on his own?

anyways, enjoy my lovelies! lmk if you want a part two.