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But first—the Checkmate office. If he’s going to infiltrate a building full of enemies, all on his own without backup, he needs to be prepared.

He’s got a key to the building—they all do—so getting inside isn’t an issue. It’s not even that strange being here so late—there have been dozens of missions since the business started that left the whole team pulling all-nighters. He remembers, suddenly, a night where you fell asleep on his shoulder in the break room. Remembers how his heart had rabbited against the inside of his chest, his eyes gone wide, mouth agape as he stared at you. Marvelled at the fact that you liked him enough to be close to him, that you trusted him enough to sleep in his presence.

His heart flip-flops for the dozenth time that night when he thinks about you now, asleep at home, waiting for him to return. But he swallows down the guilt and makes a beeline for the infirmary through the dark hallway.

Usually you have a pre-packed med kit prepared just in case, sitting at the corner of the countertop, ready to grab and go for emergency situations. It’s not there. Someone else might have grabbed it on the way out the door for a mission recently. Adrian frowns. He’d wanted to be in and out of here quickly.

Everyone has been in and out in a rush over the last few weeks; he knows you’ve spent hours packing and repacking kits and monitoring supply levels. He’s watched you pack a kit enough times that he can do it himself, but he still checks the detailed log you have taped inside the cabinet to make sure he doesn’t forget anything. His heart twists at the sight of your handwriting, but he swallows down the lump in his throat and follows your instructions, hearing the echo of every word in your voice in his ears.

Once he’s done, Adrian heads for his own locker in the weapons room. When he opens it, he pauses again. There’s a picture of you both, tacked inside the door with a dumb Pokemon magnet you’d bought him. His eyes flick away from it quickly, like he’s trying to avoid your gaze, even though it’s just a photograph. But then his eyes drift back to you, like they always do.

Adrian stares at the picture for a long time, tracing the outline of your face with one finger. You’re smiling, laughing at whatever stupid shit he must have said, because he’s always saying stupid shit, but you love him anyway. He’s fucked up countless times since the day he met you, and you still trust him, still love him. 

That’s why he has to do this, right? But looking at your face in that picture, with your bright eyes and wide smile, he hesitates. Is he doing the right thing? Should he just go home now and pretend he never had this stupid thought? Should he crawl into bed and tuck his face into your neck and—no. His resolve hardens. He has never, ever felt this way before about anyone, and he will never, ever feel this way about anyone else ever again. And he is going to do whatever it fucking takes to protect you, protect this special thing in his life from the people trying to take it away from him.

He finally tears his eyes away and starts refilling ammo and tucking weapons into his utility belt. Anything that can fit, he’s bringing with him. His katana, of course, and his favorite guns holstered at his waist belt, but—this one’s going to require the big guns. He doesn’t know quite what he’s walking into, so that means more firepower. He starts emptying the large weapons cabinet, shoving as many machine guns and grenades he can fit into a duffle bag, ninja stars and knives he can throw from a distance—

One of those knives flies out of his hand when he hears the floor creaking behind him. Someone yelps, and in the time it takes for Adrian to turn around and face his attacker, he’s already got another knife out, poised to throw with his deadly aim.

But then, crouched down on the floor, a knife sticking out of the wall several feet above her head, Emilia says, “Jesus fucking Christ Adrian, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Adrian exclaims. “Why the fuck would you sneak up on me when I’m armed to the teeth? What the fuck are you doing here, anyway? It’s like three in the morning!”

“I could ask you the same thing, Chase,” Emilia says, slowly rising to stand, and Adrian clears his throat.

“I was just on patrol,” he lies through his teeth. “I wanted to, um—”

“Looks to me like you’re packing,” Emilia says, and Adrian shuts up. “And I think I know why.” 

It’s then he notices that Emilia has her own packed bag slung over her shoulder, and—is that the emergency med kit he had gone to grab out of your office? He looks down at his own med kit, the one he packed from your instructions, and then back at hers.

She notices Adrian noticing, and her face goes all weird. Adrian is not good at reading people, like, at all, but—he can feel it in the air, something awkward and a little bit wrong. He squints a little, looking at Harcourt’s face, the little frown she’s wearing, the way her eyes are darting over him a little quicker than usual. Suddenly, he realizes that he is not the only one looking like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.

“Where are you going?” he asks, not quite accusing, but close.

Emilia hesitates, and the silence stretches between them for a moment. 

“Chris told me,” Emilia says, “about the conversation you had earlier. How he told you to stick to the plan, and not do any rash or dangerous shit. He’s worried about you.”

Adrian tilts his head. “So you’re here to tell me to stick to the plan and not do any rash or dangerous shit?” he asks. “How did you even know I was here? Do you have like, secret cameras stashed around the office? Is there an alarm on the door that no one knows about? What’s—”

“No,” Emilia interrupts. “Just—shut up. I’m going to go with you. To Star City.”

Adrian’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Star City?” he says. “What—I wasn’t—”

“You’re a bad liar,” Emilia says. “How the fuck do you work black ops?”

“I’m not—”

“I assume that’s why you’re here, too,” she continues. “To go to Star City. To case the warehouse at the address that John gave us, if not kill all the people inside it. Am I right?”

“Wha—you—” Adrian stutters, trying to recover from the shock of Harcourt saying something so wildly out of character that he feels the urge to check if she’s been taken over by a butterfly.

“Adrian,” Emilia says, “shut the fuck up.”

That’s familiar, at least. Harcourt tells him to shut the fuck up all the time.

“Star City?” he repeats, still stunned.

“I’m done waiting around,” she says. “I can’t take this anymore. Three days is too long to wait for the others to get back. These fucking—” Emilia takes a deep breath, clearly trying to settle herself before she gets too worked up or angry. “These people used to be my coworkers at ARGUS. Fellow soldiers. I trusted them with my life, and now they are threatening my family. They have no fucking honor, or respect, and I am pissed. I am so unbelievably pissed, and I am going to do something about it.”

Adrian stares with wide eyes, almost amazed. He’s never seen Harcourt this…emotional? No, that’s usually a word when people are sad. She’s just fucking angry. Impatient, maybe? Either way, it throws him off. Normally, she’s one of the level-headed ones.

Or maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s just as crazy and impulsive and furious as he is. Maybe she’s just better at hiding it.

“You’re going to do something about it,” he repeats.

“Stop repeating everything I say.”

“Sorry,” Adrian says, a reflex. He doesn’t mean it. He’s not sorry. His mind is still reeling. “What—what about Chris? Did you—”

“Tell him? No. And I’m assuming you didn’t tell your Omega either, or she would have handcuffed you and not let you out of her sight.”

“I wish she would handcuff me,” he mutters. That would be so fucking hot.

“You horny idiot. Did you tell her you were leaving?”

“I didn’t,” he admits, another wave of guilt washing over him. “I didn’t tell her.”

“Good,” Emilia says. “I don’t want anyone stopping us. Turn your phone off too. I know she’s got your location, because you’re a clingy bitch.”

“What the fuck is happening right now?”

“What’s happening is I’m agreeing with you, for once,” Emilia says. “Not sure what that says about my sanity. But we are going to go, and do the recon ourselves, and if we have the chance—” She nods at the knives in Adrian’s hands. “We’re going to kill as many of them as we can.”

The drive takes six hours. Adrian had wanted to drive, but Emilia snatched the keys right out of his hand without a word. She lets him mess with the radio, at least, not complaining about his fidgeting from the passenger seat like she normally would. She’s lost in her own thoughts, for once.

But Adrian can’t bear the silence.

“Why did you do it?” he asks.

“Do what?” Emilia asks, a little annoyed. Probably because he opened his mouth to talk. It’s odd, working with Harcourt like this. They’ve never gotten along great to begin with.

“You let her go on that mission with you,” Adrian says. “And you didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell me. Why did you do it?” Maybe he’s still harboring some bitterness about it. Seems like a good time to address it. She’d never talk it out like this if they weren’t trapped in the van together.

“Why am I doing this, Adrian?” she asks tiredly. “Why do I do anything? For the good of the pack.”

“But—”

“And she is more than capable of doing mission work,” Emilia continues pointedly. “In case you’ve forgotten, I am the one who has been training her, since the accident. We’ve been in the workout room, in the weapons room, multiple times a week. She has improved significantly. Yes, she got hurt once, but—I realized, after that, that keeping her behind in the office where she’s safe is doing a disservice to her. We will always want to protect her. We are Alphas, and she is an Omega. But she also deserves to protect herself, and if you would just pay attention, you would see how ready she is. You’re blinded by it, sometimes. This weird macho need to protect her. But if I overcame it, so can you.”

Adrian doesn’t have anything to say to that, but his mind is swirling. Maybe she’s right. Maybe he’s smothering you, the way he’s been acting. Maybe he’d feel better about it if he joined you in your training sessions, if he saw with his own eyes what you’re capable of.

It’s mostly silent, for the next few hours. They left at five in the morning. The first message comes in at eight.

Adrian disabled the tracking services on his phone—not that it will do much. You and the others aren’t stupid. You’ll be able to figure out exactly where he’s gone pretty quickly, especially when they realize that Emilia is gone, too. But he left the device on. He couldn’t bring himself to cut off his line of communication with you entirely.

His phone buzzes in his pants pocket, several times in a row. He pulls it out and winces. You’re calling him.

“I told you to turn it off,” Emilia says. The buzzing stops after a few moments when Adrian doesn’t pick up the phone.

“I disabled the tracking!” Adrian argues. “I didn’t—I can’t—what if she needs me? What if there’s an emergency, or—” He clenches his jaw as the phone starts buzzing again.

“It’s a distraction, Adrian,” Emilia says. “If we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it right. Turn it off.”

The buzzing stops again, but then the texts start rolling in.

Omega 💙: Did you come home last night?

Omega 💙: Adrian?

Omega 💙: I thought we were doing better after we fought why did you disappear on me?

Omega 💙: Did you disable your location????

Omega 💙: Here I am trying to check on you and make sure you didn’t fucking die in a dark alley on patrol last night

Omega 💙: Are you hurt??

Omega 💙: ANSWER THE PHONE

Omega 💙: Adrian I don’t care if you’re still upset about our fight let me know if you’re fucking ALIVE please

Omega 💙: Alpha please

Adrian’s chest grows tighter and tighter with every message that pops up on his screen. He should text you, at least. Let you know he’s okay.

“Leave it, Adrian,” Emilia tells him.

“I just need to let her know I’m okay,” he says to Emilia, and starts typing, but then—

Omega 💙: You son of a bitch

Omega 💙: I just talked to Chris and Emilia is gone too

Omega 💙: Where the FUCK are you I KNOW you’re together

Omega 💙: If you’re doing what I think you’re doing I am going to kick your fucking ass

Omega 💙: Please don’t do anything stupid

Omega 💙: Please come home

The phone starts ringing again, and it doesn’t stop. Nothing more than a split-second moment of silence before the vibrating starts anew.

“Don’t make me fucking take it from you and chuck it out the window,” Emilia says.

Adrian swallows roughly. “She’s freaking out.”

“Obviously,” Emilia says. “Did you think she wasn’t going to freak out?”

At that moment, another call pops up on his phone, not from you, but from Chris. He tilts the phone in Emilia’s direction, and her firm, stern expression falters for just a moment. If he’d blinked, he would have missed it. But then her jaw sets again, and she turns back to the road.

“Turn the phone off, Adrian,” she says, her voice a little shaky.

Your name pops up again, another incoming call. He stares at your profile photo for a long moment before he powers the phone down, trying to ignore the stab of guilt in his stomach.

“They aren’t stupid,” Emilia says. “They’ll figure out where we went. But let’s hope they aren’t dumb enough to follow us.”

Adrian glances down at his blank phone screen. He’d known this was going to happen. He’d imagined it as he packed his bags, as he got in the car, as Emilia started the van and took off out of the Checkmate parking lot. You waking up, realizing he’s gone, freaking the fuck out.

He would be doing the same, if it was you. If he woke up one morning and you were gone. He’d lose his fucking mind, call you over and over again, send the same exact barrage of texts. He’s doing the same thing to you right now that you did to him, when he got back from his mission with Chris and couldn’t find you, realized you were on your own mission with Emilia. Exactly what you promised to never do to him again, he’s doing to you now. The terror of not knowing, the anxious worry about your mate’s safety.

He wonders if you’ll ever forgive him for this.

“Stop moping,” Emilia says, drawing him out of his guilt-ridden stupor. “Get your head in the game, Adrian. We’re gonna be there in twenty minutes.”

“Are we doing the right thing?” His voice cracks a little when he asks.

“We’re doing what needs to be done.”

Adrian hums. “Are you sure?”

“Why the twenty questions?” Emilia turns away from the road to glance at him briefly. “It’s a little late for second thoughts. You were all hyped up about this when we got in the van.”

He had been. She’s right. It makes him feel a little better that he’s not doing this on his own. He’s not sure if it’s a selfish thankfulness that he won’t be alone on the receiving end of your anxious fury when he returns home, or a righteous pride that Emilia Harcourt agrees with him for once. But…

“Do you remember when you picked me up from jail?” Adrian asks after a moment. “The first time we met? Well. The first time we met when I was Adrian. Not Vigilante.”

“I do,” Emilia says carefully.

“I told you—I think I made everything worse, that day.” He swallows. “I did make everything worse. Am I doing it again? Am I making everything worse?”

Emilia sighs and looks back at the road. It’s not an annoyed sigh, or a pissed-off sigh, or any of the other familiar ways that Harcourt exhales air from her lungs when she’s frustrated with Adrian. It’s a new sound. A little tired, maybe thoughtful.

“You act without thinking, a lot,” she says. “A lot of times, that means you’re taking risks. Not considering all the ways things could go wrong. You act on instinct before logic.” She glances sideways at him again. “That’s a very Alpha trait. I don’t know if it’s impatience, or just the desire to protect the pack, and the people who we care about, but—I feel it too, right now.”

Adrian knows this about himself. That he’s impulsive, that even when he fucks up, he’s doing what he thinks is right. But his moral compass is all kinds of fucked up. It’s a little reassuring, if strange, to know that Harcourt is on the same page that he is.

“Besides,” she continues, slightly grim. “If there was ever a time for a risky play, this is it.”

Just a few minutes later, she pulls the van up and parks curbside outside a tiny diner. Adrian looks between her and the restaurant, confused.

“Come on,” she says. “We gotta fuel up before we go on a murdering spree. You’re buying.”

For the first time since he left you last night, the corner of his mouth quirks up into something resembling a smile.

“I’d be buying even if you were buying,” he comments. “Considering that my Vigilante blood money pays your salary—”

“Oh, would you shut the fuck up!”

Two and a half hours later, Adrian is fed, suited up, and arming himself in the back of the van, ready to drive over to the address John had found. It’s an abandoned warehouse, apparently. Not unlike the Glen Tai bottling company that the butterflies had taken over.

It’s weird doing it in the middle of the day. It was back then, too, attempting subterfuge in broad daylight, while there were clearly people at work inside the building. For so long, he was only Vigilante late at night, tackling the kind of criminals that only showed themselves under the cover of darkness.

“Should we wait?” he asks. “Until later tonight?”

“We could,” Emilia says. “But if we go in now, we’re less likely to trip an alarm. Their building is probably unlocked during the day, for agents to come and go.”

“True.” He hadn’t thought about that. “But, if we want to go through all their shit and find out what they’re up to, it will be easier to do that when nobody is there.”

“Well,” Emilia says, “what exactly was your plan? If you came without me?”

Adrian unzips the waist bag attached to his utility belt and shows her what’s inside.

“Is that a fanny pack full of grenades?” Emilia asks incredulously.

“Yeah,” Adrian says, like it’s obvious, laughing. “How else am I supposed to carry multiple grenades at once? I only have one grenade holster on my utility belt—”

“Okay, whatever, I—that’s not the point. You fucking psycho. Why the grenades?”

“To kill the bad guys,” Adrian says. “Duh. Are you feeling okay? I feel like that should be obvious.”

“We are covert black ops, we don’t blow shit up.”

“You don’t blow shit up,” Adrian counters. “I blow shit up all the time. Besides, the more bad guys I take out with a bomb, the less we have to fight off individually. It’s safer that way. Less aura points, but, ya know, what can you do.”

“What?” Emilia sputters. 

“Like, it’s less cool,” Adrian explains. “Normally I would totally go in there guns blazing, but I kinda don’t want to get killed? I have an Omega to get home to, now.”

Emilia gapes at him. “You—” She pauses, looks at Adrian’s earnest expression, and sighs. “You really have changed, haven’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“Less aura points,” Emilia mutters under her breath. She shakes it off and asks, “Okay, Mr. Safety First, then what’s the plan?”

“Well, if we’re going in right now, while everyone’s in the building—I can sneak up onto the roof, crawl into the ceiling vents, and drop the bombs on them from above.”

“That’s a good way to get yourself killed. Those grenades are tiny, but they still pack a punch, and once the place is on fire, the smoke will drift upwards directly toward you. So that plan would be a no, no matter how much you want to feel like someone in a heist movie.”

“First you don’t let me have my chainsaw kill, and now this,” Adrian says accusingly. “You just don’t want me to be cooler than you!”

“I want you to not die,” Emilia says mildly. “Anyway. We’re not going right in for the kill—”

“What do you mean? Isn’t that like, the whole fucking point of us coming here by ourselves? To just end this and get it over with?”

“Yes, but in order to ensure our own safety, we need to do some recon first. Observe. We decided not to wait for the others, but that doesn’t mean we can get sloppy and cut corners or skip steps.”

Adrian sighs. “Fine. What do we do, then?”

Emilia’s mouth quirks up. “I think we can still use one part of your plan, at least.”

“The grenades? We can blow the doors open?”

“No,” she sighs. “The vents, you moron.”

Sneaking up onto the roof is more difficult than Adrian thought it would be.

He and Emilia canvas the street quickly and quietly, a super-fast driveby to help them scope out the surroundings before they make a move. The warehouse is in the middle of a random block. 

They had been hoping to clamber their way up to the roof of a neighboring building and, as Adrian put it, “parkour our way over there,” but several of the other buildings around it have been demolished, probably for safety reasons. It’s way too far for them to jump.

The warehouse itself is in rough shape too, like it’s days away from a “CONDEMNED” notice being slapped on every door and window. The paint on the sides of the building is peeling, a lot of the glass windows look cracked, if not outright boarded up, and there’s graffiti all over it.

“Fucking graffiti artists,” he mutters.

“Why do you even care?” Emilia asks as she parks the van a few blocks over.

“Graffiti is illegal, Harcourt! A law is a law!”

“I think most of the world, including you, has more important things to worry about right now. Let’s stay focused, Chase.”

“These people have no pride in their work, is all I’m saying. If they did, they would kill the people who keep drawing on their building. It’s not theirs to draw on, no matter how shitty it is already!”

“It is pretty shitty,” Emilia allows. “Our building is so much nicer. No wonder they’re trying to kill us off. They’d probably steal our customers and our office.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not fucking happening on my watch,” Adrian says darkly. “What do we do now, since we can’t get to the roof?”

“We still gotta get up there,” she says. “The vents are our best bet to not get caught while there are people in the building.”

“How?”

“Don’t you have a grappling hook or some shit?”

“Of course,” Adrian says, like that’s a perfectly normal thing for a person to have.

“We can use it like a zipline from that taller building the next block over,” she says, pointing. “The one with the red roof, I think it’s an apartment building.” Adrian follows her line of sight and smiles wide beneath his mask.

“We really are going to be like spies!”

Emilia sighs.

It’s late afternoon by the time they sneak their way up the fire escape of that nearby building. They had to change back into their civilian clothes, since they were going to be in plain sight for so long—even though they’re tucked away in an alley, shadowed from view of the main street, it’s a hike, ten flights of stairs up from the ground, and they’re bogged down carrying duffle bags with Adrian’s Vigilante suit and all their weapons and supplies. Harcourt wears a baseball cap and sunglasses, in case one of Leon Sullivan’s people drives by and notices her bright blond hair.

Once they get to the rooftop, Adrian drops their duffle bags to the ground so they can sort through their things and gear up. He pulls his suit back on as quickly as he can. Something about not wearing it in such close proximity to the enemy makes his skin crawl, and he feels instantly better when he puts it on.

It helps that the suit smells a little bit like you.

From there, it’s quick work to send Adrian’s grappling hook flying across the distance between buildings. He yanks it tight until he’s certain it’s hooked onto the ledge of the warehouse rooftop, then knots it tightly onto a metal anchor he attaches to the brick ledge of the building they stand on top of. Emilia plucks at the taut rope, testing the tension and sturdiness, before nodding her approval.

“Alright,” she says. “This is it.”

“This is it,” Adrian nods.

“Before we go in there,” Emilia says, “if one of us gets captured, the other gets the hell out of there. We go home, we tell the others what happened, we share what we learned, and then come back for a rescue. I don’t want this whole thing to be for nothing. Understood?”

“Understood,” Adrian says soberly.

“Your earbud is on and working?” Emilia checks. Adrian taps his ear over her mask and nods. “Good. Ladies first.” She gestures at their makeshift zipline.

“You’re the lady,” Adrian says, confused.

“Just fucking get over there.”

“You just want me to go first in case it doesn’t work,” he accuses.

“You got me,” Emilia says, throwing her hands in the air. “You’re the one who’s all gung ho about being a spy, you fucking dork.”

Adrian frowns petulantly. “Being a spy is cool as fuck.” He wishes, for a half second, that you were there, because you would agree with him. Or, at the very least, you would humor him.

But then he remembers exactly why you’re not here, and the guilt flares up again. Instead of making him doubt himself, though, it only hardens his resolve. He’s doing this for you, for the whole pack, to keep everyone safe.

He’ll be able to tell you that when he goes home. After you finish yelling at him, of course.

With that, he hangs on to the rope and zooms down to the roof of the warehouse, crashing into the wall with absolutely no finesse before pulling himself over the ledge and stumbling to his feet. Being a spy is harder than the movies make it look, apparently. Emilia’s not far behind him, landing with much more grace than he did.

“There’s no way this fucking building is up to code,” Adrian mutters, looking around at the damp, moldy infrastructure around the roof.

“Focus,” Emilia says. She’s whispering, but he can hear her clear as day through the earpiece. “We are not here to inspect them for building code violations. We are here to gather intel. Come on—looks like the air vents open up to that panel over there.”

“Okay,” Adrian says. “Fine.”

He finds the panel that she’s talking about and swings open the metal doors as quietly as he can. It’s not big enough for both of them to fit side by side; they’ll have to climb in one at a time.

“Ladies first again?” he asks, one foot already in the metal tube. His boot clanks against the metal and he winces. Harcourt does too.

“Yeah. You’ll have to go slow to stay quiet,” she says. “I’m right behind you.”

The inside of the vent is cramped and uncomfortable, but Adrian powers through, dragging himself forward inch by inch. He tries not to think about what a pain in the ass it will be to do this backwards on the way out. 

Sound echoes through the building. Some are familiar, like the rattling of bullets, fresh ammunition in boxes being carried across a room. Others are not—voices he does not recognize that set him on edge, too far and faint to hear clearly. He follows the sound.

Emilia stays about a yard behind him. The vents are supposed to hold air, not human bodies, so they try to make sure not to put too much weight on the thin layer of metal beneath them at any one spot.

“They’re on to us,” someone is saying below. Adrian holds up a hand to signal to Emilia to stop crawling, then points downward. She presses her ear directly to the metal, and Adrian strains his own ears to hear better.

“Our agents are good,” says the voice. “Years of experience. There’s no way this many of them are getting caught or going missing by accident. We’re being targeted.”

Adrian grits his teeth. Yeah, asshole, because you targeted us first.

“It’s Harcourt and Smith,” says another man, his voice deeper and raspy. “I had been hoping that incident a few months back would take them out entirely, but it didn’t work.”

“Incident?”

“I fed them bad information,” says the man. “The Omega in their pack got hurt pretty bad, which set them back a bit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve figured out we were behind it.” Adrian practically lights on fire with fury when he realizes it’s Leon Sullivan beneath him, speaking so casually about the way you’d almost died. The way he’d almost killed you. He clenches his hands into fists so they won’t start shaking.

“We can set another trap for them,” says the other man. “Find their weak spot. Target the Omega again, maybe? If we capture her, we can lure them here. Get a ransom out of them before we kill them all.”

Adrian can’t stop it, now, the way he’s shaking with rage. His breath comes in fast pants, fogging up his visor. No fucking way is he letting these dickbags touch you again. He’d die before he let that happen.

“Stay calm,” Harcourt whispers behind him. “She’s home. She’s okay.”

“We need to warn them,” Adrian says back, his voice trembling in a quiet murmur. “She’s—she’s home alone, she needs protection, what if they beat us there—”

“Shh,” Emilia says. “Listen. Maybe they’ll spill more details.”

The men have started speaking more quietly, now, though, and it’s harder to hear.

“Inch forward,” Emilia orders. “Get closer, see if you can hear them better.”

Adrian does as she asks, shuffling himself forward on his elbows.

His mind is spiralling. Every horror he’d imagined about the pack enemies targeting you, about needing to keep you safe—he was right about all of it. He wishes he wasn’t. He needs to go home, he needs to go home right now and never leave your side. He won’t even sleep until they take out these bastards, because someone needs to keep an eye on you. He’ll sit on the end of the bed like a guard dog with a gun. He’ll do whatever he fucking has to do, he’ll—

He’s too caught up in his panic, imagining every worst case scenario, that he doesn’t hear the way the metal groans as his palm presses into the metal beneath him.

Adrian’s heart leaps up his throat as the vent gives way and he tumbles through the air, hitting the ground with a noisy thud, a loud avalanche of his own spiralling limbs and shoddy old building material. Then he’s looking up at the ceiling, surrounded by twisted, bent metal and crumbling drywall pieces.

Then he hears the familiar click of a gun’s safety being flicked off. He slowly turns, and for the first time, after months and months of agonizing, anxious staring at the man’s dossier, he meets the eyes of Leon Sullivan.

His heart, still pounding, sinks into his chest a little as he stares down the barrel of the gun.

“Adrian,” Emilia says, a panicked whisper. “Are you—”

“Go, Harcourt,” he says. “We made a deal.”

If one of us gets captured, the other gets the hell out of there. And now, more than ever, he needs Harcourt to go.

It’s over for him. He knows it is. But Emilia is his pack Alpha, is your pack Alpha, and he trusts her to look after you when he's not there. He has no choice now.

They’re going to kill him, and you’ll be alone. He has so much he feels like he needs to say to you, still. That he loves you. That he’s sorry.

His earpiece has started to go staticky, and he knows Emilia is scrambling her way back to the rooftop. He trusts that his pack Alpha will protect you, even when he can’t. And that’s all he can think about in this moment. You.

“Harcourt, tell her—” he whispers, but then something sharp stings at the back of his neck, piercing through the kevlar of his suit, and everything fades to black.

Adrian tag list: @justalotoffanfiction @danversxwasabi @clowninavan @adoresami @a-young-g0d @bastardstevie @am-3-thyst @xoxocamis @morguegrl89 @somethin-sparklyy @secretjesterr @seeingdubs @lovenerdywhitemen2 @jeshomie @aerionshipthrust @deamlucem @tlfg-adrianchase @brianna-merlim @amart-e @countvonklit @pieolsen @gingerjane15 @dosyrosyposy @rentaldarling @vigilcourt @hot-bean-juice @sepaaaaa @residentsuperhero

Daniel Shaw had owned the movie studio currently paying your invoices, which made his sudden death inconvenient more than tragic. He had been found in his suite less than an hour ago. Someone said it was a heart attack. Another person said it was suicide after someone found a bullet in his head. It was so sudden! Your coworker kept repeating, as if the situation might become less alarming if she repeated it enough. You had worked under his studio for three months and met him properly only twice. He was charming, rich, and distant. Powerful men often were, which meant he remembered nobody’s name unless they could make him money.

You were a stunt choreographer. That put you somewhere below the director, below the producers, below the lead actress’ wellness coach, and slightly above the poor intern sent to buy twelve green juices at six in the morning. Shaw dying wasn’t personal to you, but it was close enough to your paycheck to keep you at the bar instead of going upstairs to sleep.

You took a sip of your whiskey and watched the room in the mirror behind the bottles.

That was where you found him watching you.

He didn’t look away when your eyes met, and it made you smile. Most men glanced down when caught, then looked back later with some lazy excuse written across their face. This man didn’t bother. He simply held your gaze in the mirror, almost amused, like he had known you were going to notice him and had been waiting for you to decide what to do about it.

You turned slightly on your stool. “You’re staring.”

His mouth curled up, barely. “You finally noticed.”

“I’m trained,” you shrugged, trying to keep things vague. “I notice when someone is watching me.”

He simply raised his cup to his lips. “Good to know.”

“Is it?”

“It explains the bruises.”

You looked down at your knee, where the hem of your dress had ridden up enough to show the dark bloom of a rehearsal bruise above your shin. It wasn’t your worst one this week, but it wasn’t the prettiest, either. Still, the way his eyes touched it and moved on made your skin warm, because he didn’t leer. He assessed. 

You picked up your drink and carried it down the bar to him because the night was already strange, your contract might be cancelled by morning, and you had never been especially good at leaving interesting things alone.

“Since you’re apparently studying me,” you said as you sat beside him, “what else have you learned?”

He turned his glass once against the bar top, eyes moving over your face with infuriating patience. “You’re not drunk, but you’re trying to decide if you want to be. You’re not sad, but you know you should look sadder. You’ve checked the exits twice since I sat down, and you keep favouring your left side, which means either your hip hurts or your knee does.”

“My knee,” you confirmed, hating how impressed you sounded. “And I checked the exits because this room is full of dickheads. That’s just good sense.”

He managed a small, performative frown. “They’re just film executives.”

“Eh,” you shrugged, “same difference."

This time, he smiled properly. “Fair.”

You angled your body toward him, letting your shoulder rest against the bar. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“What have I learned about you?”

His eyes stayed on yours. “Go ahead.”

You let yourself look, because he had started it, though that pretence felt childish and paper-thin now. He had a dark jacket on and an expensive watch worn like he didn’t  care whether anyone noticed it. His posture was relaxed, but not loose. His hands were still on the bar and had no wedding ring, no visible nerves, no grief, no curiosity for anyone in the room except you.

Your sister had taught you to read people pretty well. 

“You’re too quiet to be an actor,” you said. “You’re not a producer either, because you haven’t checked your phone every six seconds and you don’t look like you’re about to ruin someone’s career over a schedule change. You could be security, but you’re not standing like you’re being paid to watch the door.”

“Maybe I’m off duty.”

“Maybe,” you allowed. “But if you were off duty, I think you’d still know exactly who in this room was carrying, who was lying, and who would scream first if the lights went out.”

The amusement in his face was evident. “And who would scream first?”

You glanced around the bar and nodded toward a red-faced producer loudly saying Shaw had been like a father to him. “Him. But only after checking whether TMZ is watching.”

The man beside you laughed under his breath. You liked the sound too much immediately, which was annoying because you didn’t even know his name yet.

You held out your hand. “I’m not calling you stranger all night.”

His hand closed around yours. “Dex.”

“Just Dex?”

“For now.”

“That’s weird.”

“Do you like weird?”

You should have denied it. Instead, your smile gave you away. “I like interesting. Weird is reviewed on a case by case basis”

Dex didn’t release your hand immediately. He brushed his thumb over your knuckles, where tape residue still clung from that afternoon’s rehearsal. When he let go, you had to remind yourself not to stare.

“So,” he said, “stunt performer of some kind.”

You narrowed your eyes as if you were surprised that the handshake had given it away. Still, it was fun to play along, right? “Were you at the dinner?”

“Briefly.”

“And did you know Shaw?”

He considered his answer this time “Briefly.”

You chuckled, and Dex watched as if he wanted to understand the mechanics of it. It was unsettling, but it didn’t make you want to leave. If anything, it made you lean closer, because he was giving you so little that every small reaction felt like a gold star. You worked with performers all day, people trained to externalise every emotion so the camera could catch it. Dex did the opposite. He made you want to get your hands on him just to see what he was like underneath.

“What do you do, Dex-for-now?” you asked.

“Private security advising.”

You tilted your head. “That is the most fake Hollywood job I’ve ever heard.”

“It pays well.”

“I bet it does.” You smiled, “Do you consult on security, or do you just stand around looking intimidating?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth again, and this time he wasn’t quick enough to hide it. “Depends on who’s paying.”

You shifted on the stool, crossing one leg over the other, and watched his eyes flick down for the briefest second before returning to your face. 

Controlled, you thought again. He was controlled enough that making him look felt like winning.

“You know,” you said, “for a security advisor, you’re not very reassuring.”

Dex leaned slightly closer, his voice dipping beneath the noise of the bar. “And yet you came over.”

“I was bored.”

“You’re not bored now.”

You hated that he was right. You hated it more because of how certain he seemed, as if your interest was another fact he had collected. The room around you blurred into a swirl of candlelight, glass, perfume, and expensive panic. Upstairs, a billionaire was dead. Down here, this stranger watched you like you were the only interesting target. 

You took another sip of your drink. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“With some things.”

“And with others?”

Dex’s gaze held yours. “I like to be certain before I touch.”

It was absurd how quickly a fucking line got to you. Nothing in his tone was crude, and he barely even moved. But suddenly you were thinking about his hand around yours, his thumb over your knuckles, his mouth close to your ear.

You looked away first, which made him smile. 

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you set your glass down and let the silence stretch. Dex didn’t rush to fill it. He only watched you while the whole room kept mourning a man neither of you seemed able to miss.

Finally, you said, “My job might be gone tomorrow,” you sighed as if that didn’t affect you. It probably didn’t. Your family had enough money that you could just jet to the Bahamas tomorrow and not look back, but you actually liked the project you were working on. “That should bother me more.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“It does,” you said, then shrugged. “Just not enough to make me behave.”

Dex’s eyes moved over your face, and he shifted a little. “How badly do you want not to behave?”

Fuck. 

It was so direct. It was certainly too much, maybe, from a man you had met fifteen minutes ago in a bar full of vultures dressed as mourners. But you had spent your whole life around danger. Dex was not pretending hard enough to be safe, and the reckless part of you respected that.

You leaned close enough that your knee brushed his. “That depends.”

His breath changed. 

There. You had him.

Dex stood and offered his hand.

You looked at his hand, then at his face. “You always pick girls up in weird hotels?”

“No.” He managed a dry laugh, “you’re special.”

You laughed despite yourself and placed your hand in his.

The elevator ride up was a lesson in restraint. He stood beside you without touching you again, which made every inch of space between your bodies feel like you were pulling teeth. The mirrored walls showed you too many versions of him: his profile, his hands, the line of his throat where his shirt opened. You could feel him watching your reflection instead of your body directly, which shouldn’t have been hotter, but was.

The elevator doors opened before you could say anything.

His room was high up, expensive, and nearly untouched. There was no mess or scattered clothes. No sign that anyone had lived there longer than necessary. Los Angeles glittered beyond the windows, silver streets and distant headlights, while the door clicked shut behind you.

You turned to face him. “You’re not really a security advisor, are you?”

Dex looked at you for a long moment. “Not tonight.”

You should have asked what that meant. You should have cared. Instead, you stepped closer and reached for the open collar of his shirt, letting your fingers slide beneath the edge of the fabric.

“Good,” you said. “I’m off the clock too.”

When he kissed you, the control didn’t vanish all at once. That would have been too easy. It was slow, first with his hand at your waist, firm enough to make you gasp against his mouth. Then his other hand at the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair as he angled you exactly how he wanted you. He kissed like a man who had thought about doing it before he allowed himself to move, like every second of restraint in the bar was hell on earth. 

You pushed his jacket off his shoulders. He let it fall without looking away from you. When you started on the buttons of his shirt, Dex caught your wrists, not to stop you, but to slow you down, his thumbs pressing lightly to your pulse points like he wanted to feel exactly what he was doing to you.

“You’re impatient,” he murmured, and for a second, you realized, holy shit. He really didn’t do these one night flings often. 

Still, the only thing you managed to say was: “You’re overdressed.”

His mouth found your neck, and your answer dissolved into a breathless laugh. He smiled against your skin. You felt it more than saw that private satisfaction, and then his hands moved again with a precision that made your knees feel unreliable. He never grabbed thoughtlessly. He touched with the same focus he had watched you with downstairs, learning what made you arch, what made your fingers dig into his shoulders.

By the time he walked you backward toward the bed, you were hot and irritated by how badly you wanted him. Dex seemed worse off for trying to hide it. His shirt was open, his hair no longer perfect because your hands had been in it, and his breathing had gone rough, making you smile against his mouth.

You pulled him down with you.

After that, the night turned feverish. It became his mouth on your skin, your dress pushed away, his hands gentle until you guided them, and suddenly they were not. He was careful in ways that made you ache and rough only when you dragged it out of him, and the first time you felt his composure slip, you laughed breathlessly because you could not help it.

Dex lifted his head, eyes narrowed. 

“You’re not as controlled as you look.”

“No,” he said, his mouth brushing yours. “Not like this.”

You believed him, though you had no reason to. Maybe that was the point. All you knew was that this was just a bad day with bad timing and a dead man upstairs whose absence had left the door to the evening just  open enough for a stranger to step through.

Later, when the room was dark and your body fell beside his, you lay with your cheek against his chest and traced one of the old scars near his ribs. He was quiet under your hand, but not asleep. You knew the difference. 

His fingers moved slowly along your spine, almost absent. “Dex?”

“Mm.”

“Were you really there for Shaw?”

His hand paused for less than a second before it continued.

“Briefly,” he said again.

You smiled into the dark because you knew he was giving you nothing, and for tonight, only tonight, you decided to let him.

You should have gone back to your own room. You should have asked better questions. You should have treated this as a stupid one night stand and pretended this never happened.

Instead, you closed your eyes and stayed exactly where you were.

—

Six months after that night, you moved to New York.

Officially, it was for work. A Broadway production had brought you on to choreograph the stage combat for a lavish, over-funded revival with sword fights, balcony falls, and a dramatic death scene that had to happen eight times a week without sending the lead actor to hospital. 

It was a good job. You even put it on exclamation points and sent it to your agent like you had made a responsible career decision.

It had absolutely nothing to do with Dex being based in New York.

Mostly.

Fine, maybe a little.

Your sister was there too, which made the decision feel less incriminating. Elektra had an apartment in Manhattan, three passports in names you were not supposed to know, and an art studio collecting ancient weapons, because technically, that was her job. 

You knew better than to ask where the acquisitions came from, and Elektra knew better than to ask why you had suddenly accepted a Broadway job in the same city as a man who called himself a security advisor and looked at you like he would happily ruin his life if you asked sweetly enough.

You and Dex had been officially dating for three months.

It was a good three months of late-night dinners, hotel room mornings, flowers delivered to rehearsal with no card because he knew you would know. It was three months of you pretending not to notice when the news mentioned a man connected to Shaw’s circle dying strangely overseas. Three months of Dex pretending his work calls were about security logistics and not whatever thing he did for people rich enough to afford him.

You knew what he was. Dex carried violence too naturally for it to be a hobby, and sometimes, when he came to you after work, the calm around him was too emptied out. He would shower before touching you, scrub himself raw, come out with damp hair and bare feet.

Your moral compass had raised one weak little hand in protest, but then Dex had kissed you against your kitchen counter, murmured sweetheart like a prayer, and made your entire sense of right and wrong pack a bag and leave the state.

Maybe that made you terrible. Maybe it made you Elektra’s sister after all.

Or maybe Dex was just so unfairly, stupidly, devastatingly hot that you just kept getting distracted.

And Dex knew that you knew after the first month or so, when you jokingly called him Hot John Wick.

Dex had always expected you to figure it out sooner or later. He knew you were a smart girl. He just didn’t realise you’d figure out this soon. 

Instead of being shocked though, he just raised his eyebrows and said, “John Wick is already hot.”

You chuckled and pulled him close. “Shut up and take it as a compliment that I find you even hotter.”

“Yes ma’am.”

And that was that. 

—

Earlier today, you had texted Dex and asked if he could come over and cuddle. 

Ha. 

You were already on the couch when he got in, cozy in sleep shorts and an oversized hoodie, one fuzzy sock half-off your foot, your body tired from rehearsal and your brain still muddled with stage falls, sword cues, and actors who didn’t understand that “again from the top” didn’t mean “try to improvise a stabbing.”

Dex took off his coat and looked at you like he had been waiting all day to come home to you.

“You’re late,” you said.

“‘M sorry.”

He came closer, and you let him pull you up just so you could immediately drag him down with you again. Dex caught himself over you with one hand braced beside your head, his knee sinking into the couch, his body warm and heavy enough above yours to make your whole chest loosen.

He kissed you, mouth moving over yours like he wanted to settle there. Like he needed a minute to remember what it felt like to be wanted without being useful. You went pliant underneath him almost immediately, because apparently that was what you did now. You let murderers kiss you tenderly on your couch and call it romance.

His hand slid beneath your hoodie and you hummed against his mouth.

Dex’s palm dragged up your ribs, then paused over your breast, cupping you through the thin fabric beneath like he was not even trying to pretend the cuddling was innocent anymore. His thumb moved once, and your breath caught hard enough for him to smile into the kiss.

“Dex,” you murmured.

“Mm.”

“That is not cuddling.”

“It’s close.”

His mouth dipped to your throat, and the laugh you tried to give him turned embarrassingly quiet halfway out. He knew exactly what he was doing. 

His hand slid down again over your waist, then your hip, then lower.

He pushed his body down yours, mouth tracing heat along your neck while his fingers found the waistband of your shorts. He tucked himself there, resting under the elastic, knuckles brushing warm skin.

Dex loved having his finger between your legs, knowing he can’t seem to miss the sweet spot, ever. Which meant you knew exactly how to make him suffer.

His fingers started to slip lower, and you caught his wrist.

Dex stopped.

Slowly, he lifted his head, looking offended, as if you had interrupted him mid-prayer.

“Sweetheart,” he said carefully.

You smiled. “My birthday is coming up.”

For a second, he just stared.

His wrist flexed under your fingers as you held it still. “I know.”

His thumb slipped under the edge by half an inch, expecting you to give in, but your hand only tightened, keeping him out of your shorts still.

Then his eyes lifted to yours, already suspicious. “Baby.”

You smiled. “Ah-ah.”

His gaze narrowed. “What are you doing?”

“Negotiating.”

“With my hand?”

“With your access,” you corrected

His desire didn’t disappear. It only got interrupted by confusion. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“I’m making a birthday request.”

His eyes flicked down to where you were holding his wrist. “With leverage.”

You held back a chuckle, trying your best to look innocent. “Smart girls use leverage.”

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it again.

You smiled sweetly. “That’s what I thought.”

For a second, he looked like he wanted to argue. Unfortunately for him, he also wanted control of his hand back very, very badly. “What do you want, pretty girl?” he asked.

You knew he meant presents, like actual presents. He was prepared to buy his way out of this. Hitman money in New York apparently paid well enough that Dex looked genuinely prepared for you to name something like a weekend in Paris.

You tightened your grip on his wrist. You looked up at him, very pleased with yourself. “I want you to meet my sister.”

Dex went still, much more still than when you had called him a hitman for the first time, actually, which told you a lot about his priorities.

“Your sister,” he said.

“Yes.”

“For your birthday.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I want.”

He looked at you like you were a puzzle he hadn’t been hired to solve. Dex looked down at his trapped hand, then back at your face. “You’re really withholding this until I say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

His teeth clenched as your thumb stroked idly over the inside of his wrist. You were not even trying to be seductive with it, but Dex watched the movement like it was actively shortening his lifespan.

“Baby,” he said.

“Mm?”

“Let go of my hand.”

“Say yes.”

“You don’t play fair.”

He made a sound that was half a laugh and half suffering. “You know I adore you, right?”

“Then say yes.”

Dex lowered his head until his forehead rested against yours. His eyes closed briefly, like he was gathering strength. It was ridiculous. He could probably walk into a guarded room and come out alive without messing up his hair, but you asking him to attend one birthday dinner had him acting like you had handed him a bomb with a pink bow on it.

“You haven’t told me anything about her,” he said.

“She’s my sister.”

“That’s not information.”

“She’s important to me.”

It managed to shut him up. 

You sighed, just a little, though you still didn’t let go of his wrist. “I want her to meet you. Isn’t that enough information?”

Dex opened his eyes, and he looked almost undone by it.

You kissed him lightly. “Please.”

His breath caught.

You knew that would get him.

“Don’t,” he murmured.

“Please, Dex.”

“Sweetheart.”

“For my birthday.”

He stared at you with the exhaustion of a man who had never stood a chance. “Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll meet your sister.”

Your smile bloomed. “You’ll be nice?”

“I’ll be polite.” Dex looked pointedly at his wrist. “Can I have my hand back now?”

You hummed like you were thinking about it.

His eyes darkened. “Baby.” His mouth brushed yours.

Eventually, you released his wrist.

Dex didn’t move immediately, even though he had been desperate two seconds ago.

Dex kissed you first, like he was still thanking you for wanting him at dinner. His hand slipped lower and you gasped against his mouth, laughing breathlessly when you felt his smile.

“Now,” he hummed, “where were we?”

—

You and Dex stood outside Elektra’s apartment door with his hand at the small of your back and enough tension in his shoulders to make you bite back a smile.

For a man who had once admitted, very calmly, that he preferred entering buildings through service corridors because front doors made people too expectant, he had spent an absurd amount of time preparing for your birthday.

He had brought you flowers first, an arrangement of red ranunculus, white anemones, dark tulips, and little sprigs of jasmine tucked between them because he remembered you once saying jasmine smelled like nights in expensive hotels. 

You had stared at it for so long that Dex had asked,  “Too much?”

“No,” you said, already smiling like an idiot. “It’s beautiful.”

Only then had he relaxed.

The second gift was smaller, slim black leather notebook with your initials pressed into the bottom corner in gold, the pages thick enough for blocking notes, sketches, injury reports, and all the frantic choreography scribbles you usually left on call sheets and napkins. Inside the front cover was a thin metal bookmark shaped like a tiny sword.

You had smiled, and he looked painfully pleased with himself.

Then, because he was Dex, he had stopped in a supermarket on the way there and very pragmatically asked, “What kind of wine does your sister like?”

“Expensive.”

He only nodded.

Now he stood beside you holding a bottle that probably cost more than your weekly food shop, his jaw tight, his scarred face composed, his coat immaculate. He looked less like a boyfriend arriving for dinner and more like a man approaching a guarded border with falsified papers and a personal stake in crossing.

“You know she’s not going to fucking kill you.” You nudged him gently.  “She made dinner. That’s basically a peace offering.”

“She made dinner for you,” Dex said flatly. “I’m the complication.”

Right.

Dex didn’t care about charming people for the sake of being liked. He didn’t need Elektra’s approval because he wanted a pleasant evening or a normal story to tell later. He needed it because Elektra mattered to you, and she was the one person whose opinion could matter. Because, in Dex’s mind, your sister was not an enemy. She was a hurdle to get to you more permanently. That’s all.

You turned toward him and straightened his collar, even though it was already perfect. “Be nice.”

Then the door opened.

Elektra stood there in silk trousers and bare feet, beautiful in the effortless way she had always been beautiful. Her eyes moved from you to Dex, then to the flowers in your arm and the wine in his hand.

“Well,” she said, “at least he brings tribute.”

You managed to chuckle. “Elektra.”

Dex offered the bottle and said, very flatly, “Thank you for having me.”

Elektra took it, glanced at the label, and lifted one eyebrow.

You could practically see Dex winning one microscopic point in a war he had invented entirely inside his own head.

“Come in,” Elektra said.

Dex’s hand found your back again as you stepped inside.

He was here. He was trying. 

From somewhere deeper in the apartment, a familiar voice called, “Are they here?”

Dex stopped, and not enough for Elektra to notice, maybe. 

Then Matt Murdock appeared at the edge of the dining room, one hand against the wall, his red glasses reflecting apartment light.

Dex’s voice changed.

“Oh.” he said, “Murdock.”

Matt seemed to recognize the voice immediately because his head tilted in recognition.

Wait.

Wait. 

What?

“You two know each other?” Your voice cut through the apartment before anyone else could decide what kind of lie to tell.

Elektra, of course, looked delighted. “Oh,” she raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”

You turned on her. “Don’t start.”

Matt’s mouth twitched, but the almost-smile disappeared quickly.

Dex’s hand hovered over your back, not quite touching you now, which irritated you more than it should have. 

You looked at Matt again, your confusion finally catching up with the rest of the room. “I didn’t even know you were coming.”

Matt’s mouth softened when he turned toward you. “Happy birthday.”

You blinked at him. “I didn’t even know you and Ellie were back together.”

Beside you, Elektra took a thoughtful sip of her wine like this was all very normal and not at all insane.

“We are,” she said.

You stared at her.

Matt’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Apparently.”

Despite everything, despite Dex standing beside you like a wire pulled too tight, you felt a laugh threaten the back of your throat, because this was them. This had always been them.

You had known Matt since high school, back when Elektra was in college for art history. Your sister brought him home during holidays with the same indifference she used for all things she secretly cared about. You remembered him at your family table, too stubborn and too principled for his own good, arguing with Elektra about morality while she stole food off his plate. You remembered being younger and thinking their breakups sounded serious until Matt appeared again two months later with flowers.

So no, Matt being here was not strange. Matt being here with Elektra again wasn’t even that strange.

Matt recognizing your boyfriend was the problem.

You looked between them. “How do you know each other?”

Dex went quiet.

“Our paths crossed professionally,” Matt said.

You stared. “How vague.”

“That’s all you need to know,” Dex said. 

Elektra’s smile widened behind her glass.

Matt looked worried, but it wasn’t really dramatic. Matt never looked dramatically anything unless Elektra was bleeding or lying to his face. But you knew him. You knew the slight tension in his mouth, the way he seemed to listen to more than what people were saying.

“You look worried,” you said.

Matt paused. “I’m not worried.”

“Matthew.”

Dex’s eyes twitched at the familiarity in your voice.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

You glanced back at him and found him standing there with perfect manners, trying very hard not to strangle a blind man from across the table for no apparent reason.

Elektra noticed too, and naturally, this pleased her.

“Well,” she said, stepping aside to let everyone further into the apartment. “This is already a much better birthday dinner than I expected.”

“It is my birthday dinner,” you said. “Not an interrogation.”

“That depends entirely on your boyfriend.”

Dex looked at Elektra then.

For the first time since the door opened, his attention moved to your sister, realising the human hurdle had a knife in its hand.

You sighed and clutched your flowers a little tighter.

Matt stepped closer. “It really is good to see you.”

Your irritation waned, because he sounded sincere, so you hugged him.

Matt hugged you back, one hand warm between your shoulders, gentle in the way he had always been somewhat of a big brother to you. “Happy birthday, kid.” he said again, quieter this time.

“Thank you,” you muttered. “Even though all of you are being weird.”

“We’ve barely started,” Elektra said.

“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

When you pulled away from Matt, Dex was still watching him.

You looked at the three of them and pointed toward the dining room. “Everyone sit down,” you said. “And someone is going to explain what professionally means before dessert.”

—

Dinner began with Elektra leading you to the table, Matt followed by memory, and Dex stayed close enough behind you you could feel him breathing on your neck. The food was already laid out, far more elaborate than she had admitted over the phone, with candles burning between the plates and your cake waiting beneath a glass cover on the counter.

You sat beside Dex. Matt took the chair opposite him, and Elektra sat beside Matt with the calm of someone who had accidentally arranged the most interesting seating plan possible.

For the first few minutes, the conversation stayed on you. Your birthday, your Broadway production, the lead actor who kept trying to make the sword fights faster, the balcony rig that had failed inspection twice. Matt asked intelligent questions and Elektra asked whether anyone deserved to be pushed from the balcony for real. Dex was deathly silent, and you assumed it was for fear of saying the wrong thing and losing Elektra’s favour, which in turn meant losing your favour, too.

Then, Matt mentioned teaching now, and your eyes went as wide as dinner plates. 

“Holy shit,” you managed. “Professor Murdock?”

Matt had laughed under his breath. “That surprised you?”

“A little. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

Then you had turned to Dex, trying to make it casual, trying to move the night away from whatever ugly thing was coiling beneath the table. See? this is fine, you tried to say with your eyes 

Well. It was until Matt decided to say, “And Poindexter, you’re still in security?”

Dex’s eyes had flicked to Matt for half a second.

“Yeah,” he said, with his hand warm on your knee, “She knows my work.”

Matt had gone still.

Dex hadn’t smiled, but you felt the satisfaction in him anyway. 

You could feel him think, Matt cannot use that against me.

Except Matt kept going.

Matt didn’t sound like he wanted to humiliate him. He sounded worried, and maybe that was what made Dex more anxious. Accusation, he could meet. Concern made him look like an animal.

And because you had no idea what the fuck to do, you blurted out the one thing you probably shouldn’t have. 

“Um,” you choked out. “Would you like to tell us how you met?”

Oh fuck. 

Mistake, you could tell from the way Dex was looking at you now. Big mistake.

“It was years ago,” Matt said finally. “During my work on a civil suit. Nelson, Murdock, and Page represented several former employees of a private security firm.”

Dex’s thumb stopped moving on your knee.

Matt continued. “We found evidence of illegal surveillance, witness intimidation, and coercion.”

Elektra leaned back slightly, actively thinking of Dex’s bad influence on you now. 

Dex’s face didn’t change.

“He worked for them?” Elektra asked.

Matt’s head angled toward Dex. “Ask him.”

Dex’s teeth shifted once.

You felt the violent urge in him before you saw it. His body didn’t lunge and his hand didn't move. But you could tell he was thinking of hurling a fork in Matt’s direction. 

You put your hand over his and squeezed hard.

Dex’s eyes snapped to you.

You didn’t say anything. You only dug your fingers into the back of his hand, right where the skin was thin over bone. It was a warning, a plea not to escalate things. Your nails pressed in harder when his eyes moved back toward Matt.

Dex. You warned with your eyes. 

His nostrils flared.

Please don’t.

Matt kept speaking, unaware or too aware. “His name came up in access logs and reports.”

Dex’s hand flexed under yours.

You pressed harder, until your nails broke skin. A tiny crescent of blood welled beneath your thumb, bright against him.

Dex looked down, and that’s what did it. All the focus in him fractured around the sight of your hand gripping his hard enough to hurt him, your fingers trembling. This was your silent refusal to let him become the thing Matt was describing right in front of you.

Though the haze in his mind didn’t disappear, he turned his face away from Matt. It came back to you and the fact that you were frightened enough of what he might do to stop him with pain.

Dex swallowed. Under the table, he turned his hand over and caught your fingers carefully, like he was afraid you might pull away.

Matt was still talking, though.  “One witness was hospitalised the night before deposition. Another vanished for three days and came back with a different story.”

Elektra looked at Dex. You looked at Matt. Dex looked at nobody but you.

“And nothing stuck,” Dex said.

His voice was too controlled.

Matt paused. “No.”

Dex’s fingers tightened around yours once, not enough to hurt, enough to ask whether you were still there.

You were.

You hated that you were.

Dex’s eyes finally lifted to Matt again, and there it was: you knew he wanted to fucking hurt him, and not because Matt was lying. Because Matt was telling the truth in front of you. Because Matt had dragged a past version of him into your sister’s dining room and set it between the candles.

Your grip tightened again.

Dex breathed in slowly, then he looked at you.

You shook your head once. Please.

The fight went out of his shoulders by force, not surrender. He leaned back a fraction, still holding your hand under the table, your bloodied little nail marks hidden between his fingers like a secret.

Elektra set her wine down. “Dex,” she said. Her voice was smooth. “Can I speak with you?”

You looked at her immediately. “Ellie.”

“Privately.”

Dex didn’t answer right away.

His thumb moved over your fingers once. There was blood on his skin because of you, and somehow that made his touch gentler.

“It’s fine,” he said.

It was absolutely not fine. He stood anyway.

Before he followed Elektra, he bent close enough that his mouth brushed your temple. It was not quite a kiss and more like proof of control. 

Then he left with your sister as the balcony doors shut behind them.

For a second, you only stared at the glass, watching Elektra turn on him with folded arms while Dex stood very still in front of her, hands visible, every inch of him pretending he had not almost lost himself at your birthday dinner.

Matt was still across from you when you turned back to him slowly.

He looked… worried.

You wiped your thumb against your napkin, and tried to breathe like your heart was not still stuck somewhere in your throat.

“Ummmm,” you said, because if you started with Dex, you might cry. If you started with the lawsuit, you might scream.

Matt turned his face toward you.

“So,” you said, voice smaller than you wanted it to be. “Are you sticking around this time?”

Matt didn’t answer right away.

That was very Matt of him.

He sat across from you at Elektra’s dining table with one hand curled near his wine glass, head angled faintly toward the balcony doors. Outside, your sister had Dex backed into a conversation you could not hear properly through the glass. Elektra’s arms were folded. Dex’s hands were visible at his sides.

That alone told you he was trying very, very hard.

You watched them for another second, then looked back at Matt.

“So,” you said, because there was no clean way to ask it. “Are you sticking around this time?”

 Matt swirled a bit of his wine. Awkward.

“I… think so,” he said.

You stared at him. “You think so?”

The smile he gave you was small. “I’m trying.”

“Mmm. Very convincing.”

He huffed, almost a laugh, and it tugged at an old memory in your chest.

Because before he was Professor Murdock, he was Elektra’s on-again-off-again disaster boyfriend, and that made him your on-again-off-again big brother. He had been the person who helped you with homework at the kitchen table because Elektra said she was too busy and then corrected every other answer from across the room anyway. He had been the person who let you complain about school and teachers and boys without making you feel stupid for being young. He had been the one who said, very seriously, that no, you probably could not sue your PE teacher for being annoying, but he admired your commitment to the argument.

And then he would leave.

“She was awful last time you guys broke up,” you said.

Matt lowered his head.

You picked at the edge of your napkin. “Not in the fun way. She was actually awful.”

“What do you want me to say?” He sighed.

The candles on the table flickered between you. Elektra had made too much food, of course. Your flowers sat in a vase near the counter, lush and ridiculous and beautiful, and you could still feel the small dent of Dex’s hand where he had held yours under the table.

“She missed you,” you said. “She pretended she didn’t, obviously, but she did.”

His mouth fell.

“And I missed you,” you added, staring very hard at the napkin. “Who else do I get to complain about her to? Mom and Dad don’t give a shit anymore.”

Matt’s laugh was tiny and helpless. “I missed you too.”

That almost made you forgive him.

You looked back at him. “Then stay. Or don’t. But don’t drift in and out like we’re all supposed to just reset every time you and Ellie get bored again.”

He nodded once, accepting the hit. For a second, it felt like being sixteen again. Like he was still family, sitting at your family table.

Then his head shifted slightly.

Toward the balcony. Towards Dex.

And you felt the whole conversation distort.

Matt didn’t pounce. He was much worse than that. He eased into it, like he was only following the evidence where it naturally led.

“You know why I’m worried about your boyfriend,” he said.

You sat back and sighed. “There it is.”

“I’m not trying to start a fight.”

“No,” you shook your head. “You’re building a case.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I know you care about me,” you said. “I do. But please don’t do that... That lawyer thing with your wording. You're making me feel like I’m supposed to realise I’ve accidentally admitted something.”

“I’m not cross-examining you.”

“You are.”

“I’m asking questions.” Matt exhaled.

You hated how much you still wanted his approval, because he was one of those people who had seen you grow up and therefore they had earned the right to worry.

He leaned forward a little.

“How did he tell you about… what he does?”

You looked at him and took a sip of wine to buy yourself time. “I’m not thick.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“No,” you said. “But he didn’t have to tell me shit for me to realise his job was more than sit around looking pretty with a gun.”

Matt’s jaw clenched slightly.

Outside, Elektra said something to Dex that made his shoulders go tense.

“He gave you a version,” Matt said.

You laughed once, without much humour. “Everyone gives a version.”

“Some versions are omissions.”

“God, you are so irritating.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” you cocked your head. “You think irritating is fine when you’re right.”

Matt tried again.

“There are patterns,” he said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Patterns.”

“Yes.”

“With Dex.”

“With men like him.”

You looked sharply at him. “Men like him.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “Men who know exactly how much truth to give you.”

Your throat tightened despite yourself.

He heard it, because damn that freakish hearing of his was apparently still going.

His voice flattened a bit. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Always very generous.”

“I mean it. I think you’re smart. I think you know more than most people would.”

You looked down at your hands.

There was still the faintest mark beneath one nail where you had dug into Dex’s skin hard enough to pull him back. You could still feel the moment he snapped back into himself. The way his fury turned, not gone, just redirected because you had asked without words.

Matt said your name, like he used to when you were younger and trying not to cry.

“I think you’re too close to the facts,” he said. You almost smiled because only Matt Murdock would say something like that at a birthday dinner.

You set the fork down. “You mean I’m biased.”

“I mean you’re involved.”

“I’m allowed to be involved in my own life.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Matt went silent.

You looked at him now, studying his posture “Because it sounds like you think if you arrange the argument properly, I’ll reach your conclusion.”

“I think you’re making a dangerous choice.”

“There we go.”

His face soured. “He is dangerous.”

“So is Ellie.”

“She’s different now.”

“And?” You leaned forward. “And?”

Matt didn’t answer fast enough.

You lowered your voice. “We both know what she’s done. We both know what half of that collection cost before she started using invoices and whatever else she claims is legitimate now.”

“She got out.”

“Good for her.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I,” you groaned. “But she still deserves love, doesn’t she?”

Matt looked pained, and you hated hurting him. 

“You love her with a whole archive of exceptions,” you said. “But I’m supposed to treat Dex like one bad document is the entire record?”

“It’s not just one bad document—“

“It’s close enough.”

“No,” Matt said, and there was that courtroom firmness in him now. “I’m saying you probably know what the record looks like. You're just ignoring the parts you don’t want to read.”

You swallowed.

“I know what it costs,” he said. “To love someone and start making room for things you would have condemned.”

You looked toward the balcony.

Dex had turned his head slightly, like he could feel you looking. 

Matt kept going, though kinder now. “You start with mitigation. Then you start giving out exceptions. I’m just asking you to consider—”

“No.” Your voice cracked a little. “No, you’re asking me to accept your ruling.”

Matt stopped.

Ruling.

Huh. You really have changed over the two years he was gone.

You breathed in shakily. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about him. Maybe you’re not. Maybe there are things I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll regret this so badly I’ll hear your voice in my fucking head for the rest of my life.”

Matt’s shoulders lowered. 

“But my mistakes are mine to make,” you said.

Oh. 

You saw the tiny break in his knuckles. The big-brother part of him, the one who never really had anyone but himself, the part that still remembered you as a teenager at the kitchen table with bruised knees and far too much attitude for your own good, wanting to protect you from yourself because he had loved a more bloody Elektra the way you loved Dex. 

“I don’t want to watch you get hurt,” was all he managed to say, 

You looked down. “You might have to.”

He looked down.

You reached across the table first and found his hand, because touch had always been a sensory experience he reacted to. 

“I’m not blind,” you said, then immediately groaned. “Sorry.”

Matt’s mouth twitched. “It’s fine.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“I know he’s not safe.”

Matt’s thumb brushed once over your knuckles.

“But he listens to me,” you said. “And maybe that’s not enough for you. But it matters to me.”

Matt didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue either.

For once, it felt like mercy.

Outside, you heard a scrape against the balcony table.

Matt’s head tilted. “What’s happening?”

You looked past him through the glass.

Elektra and Dex were no longer standing in their neat little interrogation positions. They looked like they were seated across from each other at the tiny balcony table, elbows planted, hands clasped, Dex’s shoulders covering half the scene. 

You blinked.

Then, despite the ache in your chest, you laughed. “I think they’re arm wrestling.”

Matt closed his eyes.

The look on his face was so exhausting that it only made you laugh harder.

—

The rest of dinner went by quickly after Elektra and Dex came back in from the balcony with no visible injuries, which you counted as a birthday miracle. 

Elektra looked smug and Dex looked composed, but there was a tightness around his lips that made you narrow your eyes. When you glanced between them and asked who won the arm wrestle, Elektra only smiled into her wine. Dex said nothing. Which, unfortunately for him, was an answer.

After that, everyone behaved, mostly. Matt stopped trying to lawyer you out of your own relationship. Dex stopped looking like he wanted to fling Matt through one of Elektra’s very expensive windows. Elektra told a horrible story about you at seventeen trying to jump from the garage roof into the pool and missing by an amount she called “humiliating but educational.” Matt laughed, Dex looked absolutely fascinated, like your teenage stupidity was precious. He asked one follow-up question, and you kicked him under the table.

By the time you left, she kissed both your cheeks, held your face for one second longer than usual, and said happy birthday one more time and told you to call her tomorrow.

Matt hugged you too, while Dex and Matt shook hands, proving to God and each other that they could survive physical contact without committing a felony.

Then Dex took you home.

You were sleepy in the car, full from dinner, cake, and emotional warfare. 

At your apartment, you kicked off your shoes by the door and padded into the kitchen for water. Dex followed, taking off his coat, watching you with that careful quiet he got when he was not sure whether he was allowed to touch you yet.

You leaned against the counter and looked at him over the rim of your glass.

“So,” you said. “Who really won?”

Dex’s expression went flat. “No.”

You smiled. “No?”

Dex flexed his hand once, as if remembering. “She’s irritating.”

You laughed. “Mmm.”

“But you love her,” he said.

Your laugh faded.

Dex leaned back against the counter opposite you, arms crossed. “And she loves you. And she’s capable of protecting you.” He said, as if it was the only metric that mattered. “So I guess I’ll try.”

You stared at him. “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said about anyone.”

Dex rolled his eyes, but there was no bite in it. He looked tired now. Not physically, more like tired from pretending to be a decent person. 

You walked across the kitchen and took his hand.

The little marks from your nails looked worse up close. There were tiny, red, broken crescents on the back of his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, trailing small kisses on them

Dex looked down at your lips touching the wounds. He shrugged as if you did what you had to do to get the result you wanted, and Dex had always been pragmatic like that. 

That night, Dex fell asleep with his arm locked around your waist.

He slept heavy, going slack against your back, his breath warm at the nape of your neck, his hand spread beneath your sleep shirt like he had reached for bare skin even in his sleep. 

Your phone pinged just after two.

Then again. Then again.

You reached for it carefully, lifting Dex’s arm just enough to drag the screen close without waking him.

It was a text…. From Elektra.

I’m glad he’s on your side.

Then the next text.

That’s still not the same thing as him being safe.

Another message came through before you could answer her.

Make an informed decision. That’s all I’m asking.

Then, she sent a link.

You stared at it for a long time in the dark.

Dex shifted behind you, his arm tightening automatically around your middle, his face pressing closer to your shoulder, still asleep. 

You opened it… and there it was. The lawsuit Dex was allegedly involved in.

The text was dense and written in bloodless language detailing private security and consultants. It detailed alleged intimidation and coercion, resulting in witnesses withdrawing statements and misplaced evidence. 

Dex’s name was there.

You read until the words blurred, until the apartment turned orange in the early morning. Dex slept against you while a colder version of him lived through depositions and sealed complaints and things nobody had ever proved.

But you knew your boyfriend. You knew he was capable of this. 

You waited for the feeling to change.

Maybe, you expected to be disgusted. Fear, more likely.

It didn’t come.

You felt the same about him as you did before. 

And of course it wasn’t fine. Matt was not wrong and Elektra wasn’t worried for no reason.

But you had always looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses.

By dawn, you closed the file.

Dex stirred when you set your phone down, as if even the sound of it against the nightstand was enough to pull some half-asleep part of him back to you.

His arm tightened around your waist first. Then he dragged you closer, face pressing blindly between your shoulder and neck, making it impossible to move even if you had wanted to.

“Sweetheart?” he mumbled, barely awake.

You hummed and covered his hand with yours.

For a second, you lay there with the lawsuit still burning behind your eyes. All those careful words and sealed statements. All those allegations circling the man in your bed like vultures.

And maybe Matt was right.

Maybe Elektra was right.

Maybe Dex was dangerous. 

But Matt had loved your sister through her murderous years, hadn’t he? So who were they to look at you like you were insane for dating an assassin?

You were now thoroughly informed, now, weren’t you?

You turned carefully in Dex’s arms until you were facing him. His eyes stayed closed, his brow furrowing faintly at the movement, but his hand slid up your back on instinct, keeping you close.

“Go back to sleep,” you whispered, kissing him softly.

Dex exhaled against your mouth, already sinking again. You tucked yourself beneath his chin, his arm heavy over your waist.

Informed decision made.

—end. 

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Dex taglist part 1:

He hears dresser drawers opening and closing, hears the ensuite shower running, hears the rustling afterward as you pull your pajamas on and adjust the covers.

He doesn’t deserve to sleep in bed beside you tonight, but he’s a selfish bastard. Once you fall silent, once you’re lying in bed alone, he creaks open the door carefully and waits. If you yell at him—if you tell him to stay away—then he will. He’ll sleep on the floor right here outside the door.

You don’t shout. You don’t even look up. He knows you’re not asleep yet, but you stay quiet anyway, and don’t protest or kick him the hell out when he slides beneath the covers next to you. He lets out a shaky exhale of relief. You’re mad, yes, and maybe you haven’t forgiven him, but—you still love him enough, trust him enough, to let him into your nest. He hasn’t fucked this up beyond repair.

But then you roll onto your side, away from him. Putting distance between your bodies, instead of curling into him like you usually do. And he knows he has a lot of apologizing to do for what he did tonight. The things he said.

He swallows past the lump in his throat and lays down next to you, facing in your direction, watching the rise and fall of your back as you breathe. He chokes down a desperate plea for forgiveness he doesn’t deserve right now, and then he flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling, hating himself, until sheer exhaustion lulls him to sleep.

You aren’t in bed when Adrian wakes up in the morning.

He’s moved in his sleep, subconsciously scooted closer to your side of the bed. His arm is draped over the empty space where you slept, hand clutching at the sheets, hugging your pillow to his chest instead of you. His heart twists violently, and he’s struck with the same terrible fear and guilt that he felt last night as the memory of your argument rushes back.

But—you’re still here. Still home, at least. Adrian sits up and strains to listen through the tiny crack of the open bedroom door. He can hear you padding around the kitchen, something sizzling in a frying pan, the clatter of plates as you take them out of the cabinets.

He gets up and walks toward the sound. You immediately look up at him when he enters the kitchen, and he stops in his tracks like a spooked animal. If you want him to, he’ll turn right around and walk back to the bedroom. Give you some space.

But then he realizes—there are two plates in front of you. And you’re loading them up with chocolate chip pancakes, his favorite. Something hopeful lights up inside him as you push a plate across the counter in his direction hesitantly. Your guard is still up, and it kills him. That you feel like you have to be on guard around him.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts, eyes welling with tears as he stares at your chocolate-chip-pancake olive branch. You’re offering him a grace right now that he doesn’t feel like he deserves. “I’m—I’m—I didn’t mean to—command you, or control you, like that, baby, I didn’t—I’m so sorry—” His voice cracks.

Your face softens a bit when you see how torn up about it he is.

“I know you didn’t mean it,” you say. “I know that, Alpha. But—” You bite your lip. “But you still did.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, a broken whisper. “For—for doing that, for yelling, for all of it. I don’t want to fight. Not with you. I’ll fight the rest of the world with my bare hands every day for the rest of my life, I’ll kill anyone I have to, as long as I get to come home to you at the end of the day, I never want you to doubt that, I—”

“I don’t doubt that you love me, Adrian. I have never doubted that.” You pause and let that sink in, easing some of the tension in his shoulders.

Adrian watches you talk with wide, wet eyes and a trembling lower lip. Because he knows that whatever you’re feeling, it’s not that simple. And he’s not emotionally intelligent enough to read your mind, not when it comes to things like this. So he stays quiet and waits.

“I do doubt sometimes that…that you trust me,” you finally say hesitantly. 

“What?”

“You fight for us all the time,” you say. “I love that you fight for what you think is right all the time. It’s one of my favorite things about you. You go out on patrols because you want to make our city, our home, safer. You go out on missions because you want to make the whole world safer. You are fighting, all the time, for me and our pack and the whole fucking universe. But you don’t trust me to fight with you.”

“That’s not—” Adrian protests, but you hold a hand up and his mouth snaps shut.

“I was so…” You pause and try to puzzle the words out. “I went on that mission with Emilia, and I felt more important, more useful, than I have in months. I felt good. And I came back and all I wanted was for you to be proud of me, but instead you were mad at me.”

You go quiet and look at Adrian expectantly, and he realizes it’s his turn to talk. He takes a moment to process what you said, turning his own response over in his mind before speaking.

“I was terrified yesterday,” he says. “When I got back to the office and I couldn’t find you, and then—when Economos said you were—I just kept turning over every possibility in my mind. Everything that could go wrong. You being hurt, and me not being there.”

“I live like that all the time,” you point out. “I watch you walk out into the field and pull risky stunts and get yourself shot constantly.”

“It’s different,” he starts. “I can heal. And you know where I am. I always, always tell you. The not knowing—” He swallows roughly. “That kills me.”

“That’s fair,” you allow. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. I knew that you would freak out, and it would distract you on your mission, and I didn’t want you to get hurt. So I chose not to tell you, and that made everything worse. I won’t do that again. I promise.”

“You won’t go on another mission?”

“That is not what I said,” you say. “I am not going to sit back. Not on this.”

“The rest of us have it handled,” Adrian insists.

“You aren’t listening to me,” you say sharply. “Adrian, I am not just…a prize you get for doing a good job. I’m not going to stay here shrouded in bubble wrap while the rest of you fight. If I am needed out in the field—and I am needed out in the field, at least until Fleury gets back on his feet—I will go. I want to, and I deserve to, fight for our future and the future of our pack just like you do.”

Adrian is quiet for a moment as he soaks in your words.

“You do deserve to fight,” he says. “But I also need you to tell me when you do. The not knowing…I can’t live like that.”

“You’re right,” you admit. “When I’m out on a mission—I won’t keep it from you. You’ll know where I am. I’ll text you updates, the same way that you text me while you’re gone. I’m sorry, baby. I was trying to keep you from worrying, and I just made everything worse. I promise I won’t do that again, okay?”

“Okay.” Adrian swallows. He’s already apologized, but—he needs to say it again. “I’m sorry, too. For freaking out. For yelling at you. For commanding you last night. I never wanted—I never wanted to be like my brother, and here I am being—”

You sigh. “You’re not like Gut, Adrian. You’re not. I know you’re not. You did something hurtful to me last night, and I just—lashed out. I said something hurtful because I knew it would hurt you. You’re a good man, and a good Alpha. I just need you to…loosen up, a little bit.”

“Okay,” he whispers.

“Are we okay?” you check, and Adrian hates how hesitant you sound.

“We’re okay,” he says softly. “We’re more than okay. I love you.”

Your hand comes up to his face, fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck, and you tilt your chin up. He takes the invitation, leaning down to kiss you, deep and thorough, roughly hauling you up into his arms. Your legs wrapping around his waist. He’s hard, pressing insistently against your center as he speed-walks to the bedroom and shoves you down onto the bed.

Adrian strips off your clothes and touches every inch of skin he can reach, silently reassuring himself that you’re here with him, that you aren’t hurt. Then he rips his own clothes off and chucks them aside, wearing an expression you’ve never seen before. Some complex mix of desire and fury. But still, when he grabs at your hips and pulls you against him, he waits. You nod, but he shakes his head.

“Words, Omega,” he says, voice rough. “Because I’m not in the mood to play nice right now.”

The tip of his cock drags through your wetness, and you lift your hips until he notches at your entrance.

“Fuck me,” you say. “Do it. I can take it, I can—”

Adrian shoves inside you in a rough thrust, manhandling you in a way he never has before. You gasp at the sudden intrusion and clutch at the bedsheets, as he rails into you, deep, erratic thrusts that light your nerves on fire and have him grunting like an animal.

You touch him right back, but it’s not the soft touch he’s used to. It’s your nails dragging down his back, it’s you biting at his lips, it’s your fingers gripping him so hard that he thinks you might actually leave a bruise that lasts, for once. It feels like you’re still fighting him, here in your bed, even as your legs wrap around his waist and drag him in deeper.

“Never again,” he grunts, eyes watery and red. “You are never fucking doing that to me again, do you hear me?”

Every touch makes him feel desperate. He’s never loved anyone or anything the way he loves you, he thinks, as you find your release and your head tilts back. His eyes land on your neck, on your mating mark, and he can’t help himself. As he comes, his teeth sink in, break the skin all over again, because some Alpha part of him needs to remind you who you fucking belong to.

You’d made him a promise, today. That you wouldn’t go on a mission without telling him again. He’s just grateful you didn’t ask him to make any promises in return.

Because if you did, he’s not sure he’d be able to keep them. And he thinks you can tell.

Things between you and Adrian still feel raw when you return to work on Monday. Adrian is itching to reach for your hand to hold, but…you didn’t let him open the car door for you like he usually does. You just got out and started walking.

You might have apologized to each other, you might have tried to fuck it out of your systems, but the underlying tension that caused the whole blowup argument is still there, simmering, volatile, just beneath the surface of your every interaction.

It doesn’t help that everyone stares at the two of you as you walk in the door.

“Fleury,” you say, when you see him seated at his desk. “What the hell are you doing here? You got shot a couple days ago.”

“Last time you got shot, you and Adrian had a midnight rendezvous in the middle of his first rut,” Fleury retorts. “I think I’ll survive sitting at my desk for a bit.”

“Hmph,” you mutter. “Come on. My office. Let me look you over, at least.”

“Good thing he’s in a rolling chair, huh?” Ads says brightly, trying desperately to erase the tense atmosphere that followed you and Adrian like a stormy cloud. She starts pushing Fleury in the direction of the infirmary.

Adrian watches you walk away, pressing his lips together in a thin line.

Chris walks up to him, a little wary. “Hey man. All good?”

“All good,” Adrian lies, entirely unconvincing.

“I’m sorry,” Emilia says, right behind Chris. “I knew it was a bad idea before we even left, but—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Adrian grits out. Emilia nods.

“Okay. I understand. But just so you know…she did a great job. Remembered all her training. I don’t know if she told you, but she’s the one who got the kill shot. Right to the head, from a dozen yards away.”

Adrian swallows. You hadn’t mentioned that. He’d known that you were practicing, putting in your time in the weapons room, sparring with Emilia and Rip. It settles him a little bit, hearing from Emilia, perhaps the most capable agent in the pack, that you’d done well. Maybe you would have told him yourself, if he hadn’t freaked out. He imagines it—you coming home, wide and smiling, excited to tell him about your killshot, wanting him to be proud of you. And he is proud. He’s proud, and he loves you, and he—he can’t live without you. That’s what it comes down to. 

He’s proud of you, but—how could he ever tell you that? If he did, you’d take it as an open invitation. To go on more missions. And that’s the last thing he wants.

He’ll go out and kill bad guys any day without blinking, but when it comes to you doing the same thing—it makes him afraid. He’s a fucking coward when it comes to you.

“Okay,” is all he says, when he realizes Chris and Emilia are waiting for him to respond. “Thank you. For looking after her.”

“Always,” Emilia nods. “That’s what Alphas do. We protect our pack members.”

“You know,” Chris starts, but he’s interrupted by the door to the conference room slamming open. John stumbles out, his laptop in one hand, an empty Redbull can in the other. There are dark circles under his eyes, and it looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.

“Jesus, Economos, you look like shit,” Emilia says.

“I’ve managed to hack my way into every file that was on Dev’s computer,” John says, eyes wide and wild. “And I did it. I found an address.”

“An address?” Chris repeats. “You don’t mean—the address? Sullivan’s headquarters?”

“Fuck yeah, that’s exactly the address I mean,” John says.

Adrian’s heart starts thundering. Finally, he thinks desperately. Finally, I can do something about these assholes once and for all, and you’ll be safe, everyone will be safe.

You, Ads, and Fleury filter back into the room.

“What’s going on?” Ads asks, looking between everyone.

“John found an address!” Chris says.

“What? Where?” Ads cries.

“It’s taken me a while to get through the cloud drive. Leon is the owner of this file. It’s just shared with Dev. His personal document security is fucking shit. I can’t believe none of them have called him on this. It’s sloppy, it’s lazy—”

“Get to the point, John,” Emilia demands. “Where are they?”

“Sorry, did you spend several weeks glued to a computer? Let me have my fucking dramatic reveal, Harcourt! I deserve that much!”

“We don’t have time for drama right now! Spill!”

“Star City,” John says. “You know that asshole Green Lantern?”

“I met him once. Dresses like he’s Robin Hood at a Renaissance Faire. Fucking nerd,” Chris says.

“You’ve been to a Renaissance Faire?” Fleury raises an eyebrow.

“Adrian made me go!”

“Everybody fucking focus!”

The entire room falls quiet and stares at Adrian. Because he has never been the one to ask everyone to focus. In fact, he’s usually the one fucking around so much he gets yelled at. But now, he takes a deep, shaky breath, looks directly at John, and says, “Explain. Star City. Where in Star City? How big is the building? Do they live there, or just work there? What—”

A hand settles on his arm, squeezing softly. Adrian stops and looks at you. His heart feels like it’s climbing up his throat just so he can puke it out onto the floor, but the churning inside him stops when your hand trails down his arm to entwine your fingers. It’s the first time you’ve touched him like this, soft and gentle, since you argued.

“It’s okay,” you say quietly. “We have time. We can make a plan. When Sasha and Rip get back from their mission, we can all go. Together.”

For the first time ever, the word grates on his nerves. Together.

The plan is simple. 

“We’ll do some quick recon,” Ads says. “We send out two people to observe for a day. Make note of their routines, the weak points in their security. And then we go back with the entire team and ambush them, the same way they fucking ambushed us.”

You’re listening carefully, eyes bright and glittering. Adrian knows exactly what has you so enraptured. The entire team, Chris says.

Adrian grinds his teeth. There’s no way he can talk you into sitting this one out.

“Who are we sending?” John asks. “For the recon?”

“Me and Chris,” Emilia says.

“Recon work is not my speciality,” Chris frowns. “Judomaster would be the best choice. We can just wait for him and Bordeaux to get back in three days, and he can go with you.”

Emilia tries not to show it, but she’s pissy. Adrian would snort if he was in the mood to be amused right now. She’s feeling just as impatient as he is, apparently.

But surprisingly, she doesn’t fight Chris on it.

“Fine,” she says. She glances around the room at everyone. Her eyes meet Adrian’s, and his brow furrows. “We’ll wait.”

“No,” Adrian says suddenly. He stares daggers at Chris. “Aren’t we supposed to protect the pack? You told me—that night when I wanted to kill my fucking douchebag brother. You told me to funnel my energy toward this instead. To protect us from the big threats. The big threat is here, and we finally know where we have to go to take care of it. We should not be waiting. Even if all we do is eliminate Leon Sullivan—we’ll leave the rest of his team scrambling, without a leader.”

“They’re not a pack, like we are,” Chris says. “This isn’t a cut-the-head-off-the-monster situation. They don’t need to run off and find another Alpha and reorganize. They’re all lone wolves. The only option is to take them out all at once, or keep picking them off like we have been.”

Adrian stews silently, but doesn’t argue further.

“For now, we can start prepping. Get together the weapons and ammo we’ll need,” Chris continues. “We’ll make sure we’re twice as armed as we usually are, just in case. We can check on our weapons and ammo stock? Put in a rush order on anything that’s damaged, or that we’re running low on?”

“Good idea,” you say.

“I’ll try to see if I can find a floor plan of the building,” John says. “It looks from the outside like a warehouse. If it was ever listed on a real estate site, we can get a good idea of what it looks like on the inside, too.”

“Then everyone can head home and get some rest,” Ads says. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. I want everyone on top of their game before we head out to Star City. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

Adrian looks at you. You’re already watching him.

“We can do this,” you assure him with a smile. 

“I know we can,” he says. He tries to smile back. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Everyone heads their separate ways after the meeting. You head off to the infirmary to pack med kits for everyone. Emilia, Ads, and John work on sketching out a layout of the building. Chris starts heading to the weapons room, and Adrian, on autopilot, just follows his best friend, his mind reeling.

He keeps turning the address over in his mind. The names and faces of the enemy.

He keeps thinking of the way Emilia looked at him. We’ll wait, she’d said.

Adrian doesn’t want to wait. He wants to go now.

Who’s going to stop him?

He watches Chris start boxing up weapons to bring to the van, and he starts doing the same. As he works, he tucks a few extra guns and grenades into his own bag, right next to his Vigilante suit.

“You’re quiet,” Chris comments. Adrian just hums noncommittally. “Adrian. Look at me.”

Adrian glances up and meets his best friend’s eyes.

“I don’t know what fucked-up shit is going on inside your head right now,” Chris says. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and your Omega, or what. But whatever rash, dangerous shit you’re thinking about doing, drop it. Now. We have a plan. Stick to the plan.”

“I will,” Adrian says. The words taste bitter.

In the months since he’s become an Alpha, Adrian has always kept his initial promise to Chris and Emilia. Never disobeyed his pack leaders. He doesn’t want to be pack Alpha, he just wants to be your Alpha. 

But right now—he doesn’t want to fucking listen to Chris’s advice or orders from the others. He can’t. There’s something inside him that won’t let him stand by right now. He can’t explain it, but he needs to act.

When you both go home that night, you can feel the anxious tension radiating from him as he sits stiffly in the driver’s seat of the Vigilante-mobile, as he robotically eats his dinner without really tasting anything, as he stares mindlessly at the television and doesn’t absorb a single bit of information.

“Why don’t we just go to bed?” you suggest, when you see him zoning out for the tenth time in half an hour. Adrian just silently nods, still pensive, still thinking.

He watches you go through the motions of your nighttime routine with escalating anxiety. He lets you shave his face, as has become your routine, a soft little shared moment that he always treasures. He feels your soft hands on his face, and your lips on his cheek when you kiss him, and he closes his eyes and makes his decision.

As you shuffle into bed, he stands on his side and just watches you get comfortable. You look up at him, confused.

“Come on,” you say, patting the empty space beside you. It’s an inviting sight. One that is so fucking hard for him to resist, but—

“I don’t think I can sleep,” he says. “I think—maybe I’ll go on patrol. Burn off some energy. Is that okay?”

Your face softens into a smile. A concerned smile, with your brow furrowing just a little between your eyes, but a smile nonetheless, which makes his heart clench. “Of course that’s okay, Ade. If that will make you feel better, of course.”

“I think it will.”

“Do you want me to come?” you ask.

“No, that’s—no,” he says, shaking his head. “Go to sleep, I don’t want to be the reason you’re up late. You’ve been so tired. I saw you yawn like a billion times today.”

You’ve been exhausted, it’s true. Trying to take care of everyone, manage everyone’s emotions. You chew on the inside of your cheek worriedly. You usually like being awake for Adrian when he gets home, to nurse any wounds from his patrols, no matter how insignificant. But he sees the moment you give in.

“Okay,” you say, and Adrian feels a sick, guilty sense of relief wash over him. “You promise you’ll wake me when you get back? Let me look you over?”

You don’t suspect a thing, and that makes him feel a thousand times worse. You trust him so fucking much, and he doesn’t deserve it. Because he’s lying to your face right now. He wants to throw up. But he swallows it down, all those terrible feelings, all the guilt and the lies, and says—

“I will wake you when I get back.”

You watch him change into the Vigilante suit, and he gives you one last wobbly smile before he walks out the door. Then he bends down to kiss you, long and hard and deep. 

“I love you, Omega. So fucking much.”

“I love you too, Alpha,” you whisper. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Adrian can’t bring himself to say anything in return.

Then goes on a quick patrol. Kills a graffiti artist. It makes him feel better. A little less like he’s lying to you, at least, because he did go on patrol.

He’s just not coming home afterwards.

Adrian tag list: @justalotoffanfiction @danversxwasabi @clowninavan @adoresami @a-young-g0d @bastardstevie @am-3-thyst @xoxocamis @morguegrl89 @somethin-sparklyy @secretjesterr @seeingdubs @lovenerdywhitemen2 @jeshomie @aerionshipthrust @deamlucem @tlfg-adrianchase @brianna-merlim @amart-e @countvonklit @pieolsen @gingerjane15 @dosyrosyposy @rentaldarling @vigilcourt @hot-bean-juice @sepaaaaa @residentsuperhero

 Body hair was completely natural, and you rarely ever bothered removing it. You had bigger fish. It wasn’t a deal in your relationship either. Adrian was rather radical with his views of life. Kill Nazis, all cops are pigs, and expectations of a hairless body were created by a racist, pedophilic, and misogynistic society. He was a simple man with simple pleasures. God, he was a joy to discuss issues with. He couldn’t remember how many legs a hedgehog had, but he’d sooner shoot himself than forget a piece of history. 

 After a long day, you really enjoyed settling back against your mattress, fluffing a pillow under your head, and wrapping your legs around your boyfriend’s head. Adrian loved every second of it and never voiced any complaints. However, it was getting to the point that he’d have to smooth back your hair to even settle down for his meal. 

 You just trimmed it down a little. It was hardly bare, and it wasn’t exactly grass short; just the tiny, curled ends that would tangle together were gone. You really thought Adrian wouldn’t even notice. He was usually more focused on the sensitive skin framed by your hair rather than the mop itself. 

 When you finally did get home, Adrian was sitting on your couch skimming through a National Geographic magazine you bought him months ago. You were surprised he hadn’t memorized every page yet. Adrian tilted his head back, smiling at you as you pulled at your shoes. You tossed the last one off, making a beeline for the bedroom. You snapped your fingers, pointing to the door. You were a person who preferred efficiency over fluffy conversation. Adrian hated fluffy conversation because he usually lost the meaning halfway through. So he appreciated when you made things simple. Adrian nodded, closing his magazine and chasing after you. 

 You pulled at the waistband of your pants, dropping them to the side. You flopped onto the made bed. You twisted backwards, smacking at your pillow to fluff it up. You settled it under your head, sighing. You patted your hips, waving Adrian over from the door frame. He giggled as he jumped on top of you. He slid down your front, wiggling down between your legs. 

 “Found out today that Dolphins use pufferfish to get high. Isn’t that crazy?” Adrian asked. He tucked his hands under your thighs, pulling them over his shoulders. 

 “Pufferfish?” You repeated. Adrian nodded, dropping a kiss to your happy trail. 

 “Yeah, they’ll shake them up a bit so they spit out their toxin,” Adrian muttered, running a hand over the side of your thigh to reach between your legs. He turned his focus from your face, looking down with furrowed brows. 

 “And then they can get high off the- What the fuck is this?” Adrian shot his eyes to yours. You startled up, peering down at him. Nothing. 

 “What?” you asked. You were expecting to see some kind of wound that you didn’t notice, but there was nothing out of the norm. 

 “What’d you do? Half of your hair is missing.” Adrian grumbled, petting over the patch of hair. You rolled your eyes. Adrian gasped, startling up. 

 “Did someone take it? I’ll fucking kill them, just give me a name.” Adrian gaped at you. You groaned, dropping your head back. 

 “I just trimmed a little; you were having to part my hair with both your hands. It was just a little long, that’s all.” You explained. Adrian’s mouth dropped open more. 

 “How could you?” He asked, his tone completely disgusted. You stared at him in shock. He was taking this incredibly personally. 

 “What do you mean?” You whispered. Adrian closed his mouth. He pitifully dropped his head to your thigh, staring at your hair. 

 “You killed my best friends.” He muttered. You reeled back, your hands shooting up in exhaustion. 

 “What the hell are you talking about?” You snapped, glaring at him. His bottom lip wavered. He pulled at the shorter hair, frowning when it slipped from his fingers. 

 “Your little curls. They’d wave at me when I opened your legs.” He’s insane. Completely lost it. When was the last time he slept? Adrian let out a sad whimper. 

 “They’d say ‘Hi Adrian! We love you! We missed you. We taste so good we bet you missed you so much.’ And you killed them.” Adrian whispered to your crotch. He pitched his voice up, pretending to be your pubic hair. You dropped your head back on your pillow, staring up at the ceiling. 

 “I don’t think you should be tasting my pubic hair, Adrian.” You mumbled. The ceiling could fall right now and kill you both. You wouldn’t hate it. You’d be okay with it. 

 “I want to taste all of you,” Adrian grumbled like a kicked puppy into the flesh of your thigh. You sighed. He might not even get to make you cum tonight. This conversation may end up going for hours. And knowing Adrian, he’d never let you get up. A smear of liquid on your thigh made you lift your head. Adrian wiped at his cheek with your thigh. 

 “Are you crying?” You scoffed. Adrian looked up at you, real hot tears rushing over his cheeks. Absolutely crazy. 

 “I missed them, and you killed them. You murdered them in cold blood behind my back.” Adrain whimpered. You shook your head in astonishment. 

 “You’ve murdered real human people, Adrain.” You reminded. Adain scoffed at you, pulling his hand from its spot in your hair and pointing it at you. 

 “People and best friends are not equal. You killed my best friends. That’s way worse than people. Bad people, too.” Adrian dropped his head back to your thigh, petting at your short hair.

" 'S not the same.” Adrian muttered. You rolled your head to the side, trying to stretch the tension out. You were getting restless. Every complaint came a hot roll of breath over exactly where you needed him. All he could focus on was your damn pubic hair. You dug a hand through his hair, pulling his head back. He met your eyes, his bottom lip still puffing out. 

 “Do you think you could focus on the task at hand?” You asked, pushing his hair from his forehead. Adrian looked pitiful. Which was astonishing considering. 

 “I don’t know if I can without my best friends encouraging me,” Adrian mumbled, pulling his head from your hold. He pulled at the hair again, whimpering when it slipped from his hold. 

 “I can’t even twirl it.” Adrian huffed. You rolled your eyes. 

 “I can encourage you.” You tried. Adrian shook his head. 

 “ 'S not the same,” Adrian whined. You groaned. You rocked your hips up, bumping into Adrian’s chin. He whimpered. 

 “They’re speaking to me from the dead. They said, ‘Hi, Adrian. We miss you, Adrian. So sorry we died’” He cried, petting at your hair as his tears fell. You tried to brainstorm as you stared at the ceiling. He would be stuck on this forever if you didn’t get your foot in the door now. You might end up falling asleep in this position while he cries himself to bed. Dolphins and pufferfish. You pulled your head up, staring down at his blonde curls shaking in despair. 

 “What else did you learn about Dolphins today?” You asked, a small grin pulling at your lips. Adrian lifted his head. 

 “They have three eyes.” You squinted, tilting your head to the side. 

 “I don’t know if that’s true.” 

 “It is.” 

 “Okay.” 

 “They don’t dream, and apparently they can recognize themselves in a mirror.” His tears had stopped. His frown was replaced by a bright smile.

He always needed a show on to eat his dinner or lunch. He couldn’t sit still without it. Which you didn’t mind because you were all for dinner and a show. But it seemed his idiosyncrasies around mealtime transferred to this meal too. As he started sputtering out Dolphin fact after Dolphin fact, he’d dip his head down to lick at you. You didn’t even care that half his facts were nonsense; every word was getting drowned out by your moans. 

 “And they only have two arms!” Adrian cheered. 

 “Uh-huh. What else?” You mumbled, pulling at his hair. 

 He only seemed to notice when you finally finished, moaning over his rambles. You sighed as he pulled himself off of you. The world was slightly less evil after an orgasm. For a few minutes anyway. Maybe human life was worth all the bullshit. Adrian pulled your legs off his shoulders, climbing up to meet your eyes on level. You peeled your eyes open.

 “They have three stomachs,” Adrian mumbled, knocking his nose into your cheek. You hummed, leaning forward to catch his lips. Adrian pulled a hand from the bed, cradling the back of your head. You pulled back, licking at his lips. You dropped your head back onto your pillow. You let out a deep sigh. Life was worth living. 

 “They’re on the endangered list, too,” Adrian added. Right. The world was full of greedy monsters. So much for your jolly outlook. You swung your arm behind his neck, pressing him against you. His face disappeared behind your shoulder in your embrace.

 “Missed you.” You muttered. Adrian hummed in agreement. 

 “You know who else used to tell me that?” Adrian asked, pulling his face from your hug. Peacemaker? You hardly ever heard him say something sweet. 

 “Ads?” You asked. Adrian frowned at you. 

 “Your little curls.” You groaned in annoyance. 

 “Give it a rest, Adrian!” You complained. Adrian shook his head at you. 

“Don’t kill them again. Once they come back, leave them there forever. I miss them so much already.” Adrian whispered. You sighed, running your hands down the front of his chest. 

“I can’t stand you.” You grumbled. Adrian’s face fell, looking at you in horror. 

“Sarcastic comment.” You added. Adrian’s face broke into a grin again. 

“Well, I fucking hate you. I’d totally kill you! Sarcastic comment.” He giggled, nipping at your jaw. You hummed. 

“You’re hilarious, babe.” You deadpanned. Adrian giggled against your neck. 

“I know!”

Mia leaned over the headline. “Another another one?”

“Yes, another another one.”

She glanced past you at the fridge.

You didn’t need to look. You knew what was there.

Pinned under a strawberry magnet and a concerning number of takeout menus was the magnetic whiteboard you had made two weeks ago.

At the top, in red marker:

KILLS BULLSEYE STOLE FROM ME: 4

Underneath, in blue:

KILLS I STOLE FROM BULLSEYE: 4

Beneath that, taking up most of the fridge, were the newspaper clippings. Task force murders that were yours but had been attributed to him. Task force murders that were his but had somehow been attributed to you, because apparently every cop in the city had been dropped on the head as a baby.

Mia slowly chewed her cereal. “You’re losing.”

Your head snapped toward her. “We were tied.”

“Were.”

You scowled, tore the article out of the paper with unnecessary violence, grabbed a marker from the junk drawer, and stormed over to the board. You begrudgingly added one angry little tally mark that went under Bullseye’s side.

5.

Mia made a soft, faux-sympathetic noise. “Oof.”

“This is not oof,” you rolled your eyes. “This is fucking police incompetence! What was all that budget increase for, huh?”

“It is kind of oof.” She took another bite of cereal. “But you can catch up. He’s only up by one.”

You stared at the board. Your eye twitched.

Mia lifted her bowl toward you like a toast. “Very exciting season.”

“These stupid cops can’t tell the difference between a stab and a long-distance throw.” You turned back around, waving the paper like evidence in a trial you were fully prepared to win. “Look at the wound. Look at it. That’s clearly close quarters.”

Mia squinted at the grainy crime scene photo, her spoon hovering halfway to her mouth. The image was bad, blurred edges and cheap newspaper ink, but even from across the kitchen she could tell what it was: yours.

“Maybe they thought Bullseye walked up to him,” Mia said.

You stared at her.

“Bullseye doesn’t walk up to people. He has a ricochet fetish.”

Mia choked on a laugh, nearly spilling cereal milk onto the table. “Oh, so now you know him.”

You corrected her. “I know his work.”

“You know his work,” she repeated, deadpan. “You mean you’ve been staring at the leaked photos you saved again?”

You ignored her, because Mia had this very annoying habit of being right in ways that didn’t make you feel good about yourself.

The worst part was that you were angry.

That had been your kill. It was clearly your style. You were a melee specialist, for fuck’s sake!!! You liked the intimacy, the nearness. You like watching the life drain out of your victims’ eyes, being close enough to watch their face change when they finally understood why you were there.

Bullseye was different.

Bullseye liked a little distance. Bullseye was impossible accuracy. He could turn a room into a murder weapon without crossing it, and no, you definitely didn’t admire that.

You just understood skill when you saw it.

That was all.

But under the anger, in the small, horrible place where your dignity went to die, there was a humiliating feeling that curled in your stomach every time you thought about him opening the paper.

Because Bullseye was going to see this.

He was going to read the same headline, look at the same shitty photo, and know it was wrong.

He would know.

Maybe he would be offended. Maybe he would laugh. Maybe he would tilt his head at the paper and think, No. That wasn’t me.

Maybe he would wonder about you, and at this point, you were certain he knew of you. Because some of his knife-related rampages had been attributed to you too. Not often, but enough that sometimes your name got dragged into his mess, enough that you had stared at a clipping once for ten full minutes, heart crawling up your throat, because the paper had called one of his kills yours and you had hated how badly you wanted to know whether he had noticed.

Mia was staring at you again.

You folded the paper too carefully. “What?”

“You’re doing the thing again”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you pretend to be mad,” she said, pointing her spoon at you, “but really you’re hoping your murder crush noticed you.”

You frowned “He’s not my murder crush.”

Mia smiled into her cereal and ignored the denial altogether. “Want me to get you more knives for today?”

You looked down at the headline.

“Yes,” you finally said. “The nice ones.”

Mia’s grin got wider. “You dressing up, too? Just in case you run into him?”

“I’m hunting,” you corrected.

“Sure.”

“I am.”

“Wear something slutty and stab-proof!”

You threw the newspaper at her.

—

Later that night, you went out in the jacket Mia called your “bad decision jacket” (it had extra knife sheaths) which was rich coming from a woman who kept grenades in a biscuit tin.

You were definitely not hoping to run into Bullseye. You were working.

There was a difference, even if Mia would have said hahhaha, sure. 

The AVTF agents were exactly where your source said they would be, inside a half-empty municipal building wearing the kind of confidence that came from believing the badge still meant something. They had files they should not have had, names they should not have known, and enough blood on their hands to make your little visit feel almost civic-minded.

You made it quick.

Messy, but quick.

You handled most of it the way you liked best: Close, direct, personal enough that nobody could pretend it was an accident. But halfway through, because you were still one point behind on the stupid fridge-board and your pride had apparently become an emergency, you tried to make it look like Bullseye.

Just a little. Just enough to even the score.

You threw a knife. It hit a filing cabinet and dropped to the floor with the saddest little clatter you had ever heard.

One of the AVTF men stared at it like what the fuck was that?

“Shut up,” you said, before he could say anything.

Then you threw a smaller knife, in the hopes that it was easier to control.

It bounced off a desk lamp, went nowhere useful, and spun under a chair.

Fine.

Whatever.

Throwing stuff was harder than it looked, which was annoying because he made it look like flirting with physics. You were not built for distance. So you gave up and did it properly.

By the time you left, the crime scene was mostly yours, with two deeply humiliating attempts at his signature scattered around like evidence of a mental breakdown. You lingered on the fire escape for a few seconds longer than necessary, checking the neighbouring rooftops.

Nothing.

No figure in black. No little glint of movement across the street.

Which was fine.

Obviously.

You were not disappointed.

—

When you got home, Mia was out. Work, she had said, which meant she was probably meeting Turk in the back of some terrible bar and calling an arms deal “networking”.

The apartment was dark when you unlocked the door.

Not unusual.

You stepped in, a takeout bag hanging from one hand, the other already sliding toward the knife under your jacket. The kitchen was empty. Mia’s cereal bowl was still in the sink. Mia’s boots were next to your sneakers.

Everything seemed normal until you saw the fridge.

Huh. 

Your magnetic board had been straightened.

Not cleaned or erased. It was fixed.

The crooked newspaper clippings had been lined up into neat rows. The takeout menus had been stacked by alphabetic order, it seemed. The strawberry magnet sat dead centre at the top, no longer holding up three different things at once. Even the tallies had been corrected into clearer, cleaner marks.

And below your personal Bullseye vs Me board, in new black marker, someone had written:

I’ve been looking for you too.

Your gaze snapped to the wide-open window, and realised, oh my god.

He had been here.

—

Dex came back to his studio apartment with a smile on his face.

He locked the door behind him, slid the chain into place, and reached into his jacket for the shirt he had taken from your apartment.

Your shirt. It was a plain white shirt he’d seen you wear before, and you looked pretty in it. I mean, Dex thought you looked pretty all the time, but still. 

The fabric was soft in his hands. In his head, it still felt warm, even though it had just been hanging over the back of a chair when he found it. You had been careless and made it easy for him, really. You basically left it out like you had no idea someone could come in through your window and take a piece of you home with him.

Dex knew better now.

He knew how your apartment sounded in the dark. He knew which floorboard creaked near the kitchen. He knew your roommate left dishes in the sink. He knew your takeout menus were a mess, your knives were hidden well but not well enough, and your window lock was insultingly easy to pick.

He knew how you smelled now.

Dex sat on the edge of his bed and brought the shirt to his face, breathing in like he was trying to memorise your scent: Detergent, metal, and city smoke. 

He closed his eyes.

He had stalked people before. Julie. Matt. Vanessa. Targets. Problems. People he wanted. People he needed to understand. But this was different.

This was not surveillance, or a job, or a petty attempt to become a good person, whatever that meant anymore. 

This was you.

Dex had been infatuated with you since the first time he saw one of your kills credited to him.

From there, he found a photo of you in the database: grainy, badly angled, and almost useless for the cops. You had silver reflective paint smeared around your eyes to ruin facial recognition, strange under the flash, but Dex knew enough to know what he was looking at.

Before long, he figured out who you were.

And now, he had been watching your window for almost a month. 

Tonight was just the first time you and Mia were both gone long enough for him to finally climb inside.

And then, he found that you had made a board.

The thought should have made him happy, and it  had, at first. For one perfect second in your dark kitchen, Dex had stood in front of that fridge and realised, you had noticed him, too. 

You had clipped the articles. You had tracked the kills. You had written his name in red marker and stood there thinking about him long enough to make tallies.

Then he read the rest.

KILLS BULLSEYE STOLE FROM ME.

His smile had died so fast it almost broke his heart.

Stole.

You thought this was a competition.

Dex stared down at your shirt in his lap, fingers tightening in the fabric.

That was wrong.

That was so wrong it made his skin feel too tight for his body. He had not stolen anything from you. He had never thought of it that way. Every time the papers confused you for him or him for you, every time your names bled into each other in some stupid journalist’s mouth, Dex had felt it like a sign that you belonged together. 

The mistaken murders were just evidence that you were close to him without even trying. Your work was intertwined, cosmically, with his. Your violence answered his. His name kept finding yours in the paper, in police files, like the whole city already understood a fact you were denying.

You and Dex were linked.

Obviously.

So why had you made sides?

Why had you put a line down the middle and placed him across from you like he was just another person to beat?

Dex swallowed, still holding your shirt to his mouth and frowned.

He thought you liked him.

He thought you understood. He thought, maybe, when you saw his kills printed under your name, you felt the same obsessive pull he did. The same recognition. 

Instead, you were mad. You were keeping score. You had written him down like a rival.

His jaw tightened.

That was okay.

It really was.

You were confused, that’s all. You had misunderstood. People did that all the time. 

You would understand eventually.

He had fixed the board for you, so maybe you’d realise there was no ill intent. He had straightened the clippings. Alphabetised the menus. Corrected the tallies. Left the message underneath because you needed help getting to the obvious conclusion that you belonged together:

I’ve been looking for you too.

In his head, it didn’t look threatening. It was merely a correction. Perhaps a little nudge in the right direction.

Dex lay back on the bed, dragging your shirt with him until it was pressed beneath his cheek. He breathed you in again, slower this time, and the hurt in his chest eased.

You thought it was a game.

Fine.

He could play.

He could let you have your angry little board and your angry little tally marks. He could let you pretend you were chasing him, fighting him, competing with him.

But eventually, Dex would fix that, too.

Eventually, you’d want him as much as he wanted you. 

—

You wiped the note off before Mia got home, even though you didn’t really want to.

You stood there for an embarrassingly long time first, staring at the neat black marker beneath your board while your stomach did a stupid flip.

Then you remembered Mia was weird about outside people being in the apartment.

Fair. You were also weird about outside people being in the apartment, usually. Usually, if someone broke in, you handled it with a knife and made Mia bleach the floor while you tied a brick to the body and sunk it in the Hudson.

But this was Bullseye.

So you erased it, like an idiot getting rid of DNA evidence. 

You wiped the board twice, fixed the strawberry magnet, and tried to look normal when Mia came home carrying a bag that clinked against her hip.

She stopped in the kitchen doorway and squinted. “Did you redo the murder board?”

You didn’t look up from your hot chocolate. “No.”

Mia stared at the fridge.

The whole thing looked less like a breakdown and more like a very well-done administrative system. “Why is it nicer?”

You took a sip. “I got bored.”

Mia looked at you. You looked at her.

Then she shrugged. “Whatever. It was ugly before.”

Totally clueless, Thank fuck.

By the next morning, you had bought reinforced locks, and not because you were scared of him getting into your apartment again. If anything, the memory of the open window had been sitting in your mind all night. You kept thinking about him standing in your kitchen. Touching your board. Straightening your things. Writing to you like he already knew you would read it and think about it all night. 

So no, the new locks were not there out of fear. They were a message.

You installed them yourself, one after another, until all the windows looked almost impossible to open from the outside.

Then you stood back, smiled despite yourself, and imagined him finding it.

He’d know the message then:

If you want to get in again, earn it.

—

Three nights later, the paper was waiting on the kitchen table.

Mia had left it there under her empty coffee cup, either as a warning or because she had run out of coasters. You found it while the kettle boiled, still barefoot, still half-asleep, and then very suddenly awake.

AVTF INFORMANT FOUND DEAD. 

You stared at the headline.

Then the photograph.

Then the headline again, and then the subtitle, crediting the kill to you, 

But that kill wasn’t yours.

You knew it before you read the article. You knew it from the angle of the body, the precision of the knife in a fatal artery. He had not been stabbed. He had been aimed at by distance, by calculation.

Bullseye.

And the papers had given it to you.

For a second, all you could do was stand there while the kettle clicked off behind you.

Then you smiled a small, helpless twitch of your mouth before you walked across the kitchen, uncapped the blue marker, and added one clean tally to your side of the board.

5-5.

Yay! Level again!

You leaned back on your heels and looked at it.

Perfect.

Almost.

You picked up the paper again, meaning to cut out the article, when something in the crime scene photo caught your eye. It was half-hidden behind the dead man’s shoulder, smeared on the wall, small enough that most readers would miss it.

Not a threat or a boast, but a question, written in blood.

why the locks?

Your hand tightened around the paper.

Oh.

He’d left you a message.

You could almost feel him in your kitchen again, standing in the dark in front of your board, touching the magnets, straightening the clippings, noticing what had changed. Of course he had noticed the locks.

You stood there for too long, long enough that the tea went bitter in the mug you forgot to drink.

When Mia came in later, tying her hair back and looking for her keys, you had already finished cutting the article out with careful hands.

She glanced at the board.

“Even again?”

“Mhm.”

“Congrats.”

She took her keys off the hook and left without noticing the way your fingers hovered over the little blood-written question in the photograph.

Good.

You did not need an audience for whatever this was becoming.

—

You answered him three nights later, when you eventually found Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment building.

It took patience, two evenings of watching, a borrowed set of binoculars. One very stupid moment where you almost slipped on a drainpipe and decided not to think about how humiliating it would be to die before the flirting even got interesting.

But eventually, you found his window. Child’s play, really. As if going under a stupid fake name like “Tony” would ever hide him from you. 

That night, you waited until the light in his apartment went off.

Then you left a brand new lock on his fire escape.

The same brand as the ones you had put on your windows. Heavy, reinforced, and annoyingly expensive. It was still sealed in its packaging, with the little paper instructions tucked under the shackle.

You added a note:

Jealous?

Then you left.

—

Dex found it before sunrise.

He hadn’t slept much. He had your shirt twisted between his fingers, the fabric pressed into his palm until his knuckles ached. He had been sitting across the window for hours the night before, looking across at your apartment, at the little row of reinforced locks catching the streetlight like tiny silver insults.

You were keeping him out.

On purpose.

He kept telling himself not to be hurt by it, which was useless, because he was hurt. He was so fucking hurt it made his chest feel crushed, like an anvil had been dropped on his ribs and left there. You had changed the windows because of him. You had looked at the place where he got in, thought about him standing in your kitchen, touching your things, breathing your air, and your first instinct had been to shut him out.

Dex hated that.

Dex hated that so much he almost hated you for half a second.

Then, that morning, he opened his window and saw the lock waiting on his fire escape.

He went still.

It sat there perfectly placed, right where his hand would find it. Same brand as yours, same little shine in the dark. 

For a moment, he didn’t touch it.

Then he picked up the note.

Dex read it once.

And then, he smiled.

Because now he knew you hadn’t locked him out because you wanted him gone.

You had wanted him to notice.

You had wanted him to see the effort. You had wanted him to look at your windows and understand that you had been thinking about him too. You had not made a wall. You had made a challenge. You had left him the same lock like a matching star, like a little joke only the two of you were deranged enough to understand.

Dex sat on the fire escape with the lock in his hand until the sky began to lighten.

The note went into his wallet.

The lock went on his window.

—

The next mistake came no less than a week later. 

You had gone out the night before. You had driven the knives into the agents and controlled the room, kept the distance intimate enough that any half-competent investigator should have known better.

Unfortunately, half-competent was not what New York had.

By morning, the headline said it was Bullseye.

You stared at the paper in silence. Ugh. You were losing again.

That was irritating, up until you realised he would see it.

He would know the city had handed him something that belonged to you again, and you hated how badly you wanted to know whether that would make him smile.

It did.

Dex smiled so hard it almost hurt.

He read the article at the counter of a diner, coffee untouched, thumb pressed lightly over the blurred photograph like he could feel the shape of your work through the cheap ink.

Obviously yours.

They had called it his, but it was yours. Anyone who understood you would know that.

I understand you.

The thought sat inside him like a lit match.

He folded the article with almost painful care and took it home.

That night, when you came back to your apartment, nothing was out of place.

The windows were shut. The door was bolted. Every lock you had installed still sat exactly where it was supposed to, heavy and unpicked.

For one stupid second, you were disappointed.

Then you saw the kitchen window. Outside the glass, taped neatly to the pane where you could not miss it, was the newest clipping.

Oh. So he had climbed all the way up to your window, pressed flat against the glass like an offering.

At the bottom of the clipping, in small black marker, Dex had written:

they got it wrong again.

Your heart climbed into your throat.

You stepped closer until your reflection overlapped the words. It looked strange like that, his handwriting across your chest in the dark glass.

It was as if it was the two of you against everyone else’s incompetence.

You didn’t leave it there. Mia would see it in the morning. Mia would ask why Bullseye was leaving notes on your window like some homicidal pen pal, and you had no answer that didn’t sound insane. That, and Mia just ordered in a bunch of assault rifles. The last thing you needed was your roommate pointing it at Dex when he visited.

So you opened the window just enough to reach out, peeled the clipping carefully off the glass, and tore away the strip with Dex’s writing.

You didn’t throw it out. Instead, you folded that little scrap of paper twice and tucked it into your jacket pocket, right over your heart like an idiot.

Then you pinned the clipping to the fridge yourself, neat and straight beneath the strawberry magnet, just the way Dex would like it. 

You updated the score, still a bit annoyed.

6-5

And somewhere outside, across the dark gap between buildings, you hoped he had seen you keep it.

—

The next one made it even again.

You knew it the second you saw the headline, before you even got to the photograph. There was a kind of cleanliness to Dex’s violence that the papers never understood. They called it brutality because they didn’t have better words, but you did.

TASK FORCE OFFICER FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY. 

Attributed to you.

You stood in front of the bodega newspaper rack for so long the man behind the counter asked if you were buying it or grieving it.

By the time you got home, the board was waiting for you.

You added the blue tally slowly, smiling despite yourself.

6-6.

They had given you his kill, and you should have been pleased because that was the game. That was the whole stupid point. But instead, your eyes kept drifting back to the photograph, to the blurred dark shape on the floor beside the victim’s hand.

It was a knife.

His, you thought.

Maybe the police had missed it in the chaos of the shot, or maybe the photographer had caught it before evidence got bagged. Either way, once you noticed it, you couldn’t stop looking.

He had left something behind, but he wasn’t careless

Which meant he had either wanted it found, or he had been interrupted.

So you went to the scene of the crime.

You waited until the scene thinned out, until the uniforms got bored and the detectives started making the kind of mistakes tired people made. You kept to the edges: fire escapes, alleys, rooflines, with the courtesy of a little patience.

To your surprise, the knife was still there, half-hidden beneath a radiator, dark with day-old blood, beautiful even like that.

You took it.

At home, you cleaned it carefully, until it gleamed again under the kitchen light. You sharpened the edge until it caught against your thumb, cutting a little bit of your skin to check.

A little blood trickled off. Yep. Sharp enough.

Then,  you wrapped it in a strip of clean white cloth and waited until night.

You climbed the rooftop up until you got to Dex’s apartment building. His window was closed when you reached his fire escape.

The lock you had given him sat there now, installed properly, bright on the frame. For one second, the sight of it made your heart warm.

He had actually used it.

You crouched outside the glass and placed the knife carefully on the sill where he would find it.

Then you tucked the note beneath it.

they keep getting us wrong :(

You stared at the little sad face for a second. Then you almost snatched the note back because, Jesus Christ, that was humiliating.

But the light in his apartment flicked on.Through the thin curtain, you saw his shadow move.

So you left it and climbed away before he reached the window, heart kicking hard against your ribs like you had done something worse than trespassing on a known assassin’s fire escape.

Behind you, Dex opened the window.

His hand appeared, picking up the knife first.

Then he found the note.

Dex read it and chuckled.

He sat down on the edge of the fire escape with your note in one hand and his knife in the other. You had cleaned it. Sharpened it. Brought it home to him like it mattered.

Like his things were worth taking care of.

Like he was.

As this all happened in the background, the score climbed. 

7-6. 

Your kill, his credit. 

Then finally, after one long, ugly night that left half an AVTF unit dead and every paper in the city contradicting itself, the board settled again. 

Then 7-7. 

His kill, your credit. 

Perfectly even.

After that, the messages got cuter, which somehow made them worse.

The first note Dex left was taped to the outside of your kitchen window with a polished bullet casing tied beneath it in red thread.

there’s an us now?

You stared at it for so long your tea went cold.

Your answer came two nights later, left on his windowsill beside an AVTF badge you put there like an offering

don’t get sentimental. but yes.

After that, it became ridiculous. A loose knife sheath returned with a note that said you left this behind. be careful. A newspaper clipping from you with wrong again :( scribbled in the margin. A black marker from him, because he could tell from your last note that yours was running out. A little evidence tag folded into a paper heart, which you immediately flattened, put under your pillow, and thought about all day like an idiot.

That night, somewhere across the street, a shadow moved on the opposite rooftop.

You didn’t wave or smile, but you left the window unlocked when you went to bed.

—

The next morning, there was black fabric at the foot of your bed.

For one confused, half-asleep second, you stared at it like your brain hadn’t finished loading. Then you sat up, hair a mess, blanket sliding down your shoulder, and realised it was a black shirt.

It was folded very neatly, sleeves tucked in, collar smoothed flat, like whoever had left it there had taken his time.

Underneath it was a note:

I took one of yours. It’s only fair.

Your mouth parted. Then, you smiled.

“Oh,” you whispered.

That was where your white shirt had gone.

Of fucking course he had taken it, likely on the first night he broke in. And last night, he had climbed through your unlocked window like a nightmare with good manners, walked into your room while you were sleeping, stood close enough to see the rise and fall of your chest, and decided the polite thing to do was leave you one of his in return.

You picked up the shirt and brought it to your face before dignity could stop you. So this was he smelled like: gun oil, soap, cold air, and a metallic tang underneath that made your eyelids flutter for one horrible second.

Fuck.

You were actually smelling his shirt. Worse, you were smiling about it.

You pressed the fabric harder against your mouth, grinning into it like an idiot, because the thought of Dex standing at the foot of your bed while you slept should have made you afraid. It should have made you check the locks, grab a knife, call Mia, do literally anything normal.

Instead, all you could think was: he was here.

He saw you asleep and he didn’t hurt you. He saw you vulnerable and all he did was give something back.

Then, from the hallway, Mia’s voice floated through the apartment. “What the fuck?”

You froze, lowering the shirt from your face. “What?” you called out. 

“WHAT THE FUCK?”

You scrambled out of bed, still clutching Dex’s shirt in one hand, and padded into the hall.

Mia stood at the entrance to the living room in yesterday’s shorts and a tank top, hair sticking up in six different directions, one hand wrapped around a pistol and the other holding a mug that said WORLD’S OKAYEST CRIMINAL.

You followed her stare. Then you saw what Dex had done.

There was a man tied to one of your dining chairs in the middle of the living room.

Alive. Barely conscious, but alive.

His ankles were zip-tied to the chair legs. His wrists were bound behind him. His mouth was taped shut. A neat little bow made of red ribbon had been tied around his chest like Dex had either found gift-wrapping funny or had no idea how gifts worked.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. Then Mia turned her head very slowly and looked at you with the exhausted expression of a woman who had been through a lot with you and was still somehow finding new reasons to be disappointed.

“I didn’t do that,” you said immediately, which was technically true and therefore the best kind of lie. You lowered the shirt slightly behind your thigh and hoped she was too busy processing the tied-up man to notice you were holding another assassin’s laundry.

Mia blinked at you. “There is a task force rat in our living room with a bow on him.”

“I can see that,” you said, stepping closer like you were being practical about it and not fighting the urge to smile. The man, when he finally opened his eyes, made a muffled sound through the tape, eyes wide and wet with panic, and you ignored him because the coffee table was more interesting.

Dex had laid out everything the man had been carrying in neat rows: A burner phone, a badge, a small recorder, a folded surveillance schedule, and four photographs of your building sat arranged with almost romantic precision.

One was of you, from your bedroom window, wrapped in your towel after a shower. Two photographs were of your living room  window: one of you enjoying the sunset from the fire escape, and the other was of you and Mia drinking beers and sitting on the counters by the kitchen last week. One was of your window last night, zoomed in close enough to show the lock you had left undone.

Your stomach dropped and warmed at the same time, which was deeply inconvenient. You reached for the note pinned to the red thread across the man’s chest before Mia could get there first.

Underneath, in smaller writing:

I didn’t like that. You should be more careful.

You stared at the note for too long, long enough for Mia to notice exactly how not-horrified you were. That was the problem with Mia; she was nosy, armed, and unfortunately not stupid.

“What is that?” she asked, taking half a step toward you. You folded the note before she could read it properly and tucked it into your waistband like it was nothing.

“Evidence,” you said, because again, technically true. 

Mia’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you holding a shirt?”

You looked down as if you had only just noticed the black fabric in your hand. “Laundry.”

“That’s not your shirt,” Mia said, huffing. “That is very obviously not your shirt.”

You forced yourself to shrug and moved past her into the living room, putting your body between her and the note on the hostage’s chest like that would somehow fix everything. “Maybe he brought it,” you said, nodding at the informant, which was such a stupid lie that even the tied-up man looked offended.

Mia stared at you. Then she stared at the man. Then she stared at the shirt again, and you could practically see her connecting dots you were trying to kick under the sofa.

“You’re being weird,” she said. 

“I woke up to a federal informant in our living room, Mia. I think weird is allowed,” you said, and crouched in front of the man before she could keep interrogating you. His eyes fixed on you with desperate relief, like you were the reasonable person in the room, which was honestly insulting.

He had not killed the man. He had found him, hurt him, wrapped him up, and left him breathing in your living room because he knew you would want the choice.

That wasn’t sane. That wasn’t normal. That was not something you could explain to Mia without her opening the biscuit tin full of grenades and declaring a turf war in your apartment.

So you just tilted your head, and Mia watched the movement with open suspicion, her pistol still raised but her attention now split between the hostage and whatever the hell was happening to your face.

Instead of giving her a second of your time, you crouched in front of the informant and smiled like this was business as usual. Behind you, Mia muttered something about needing stronger coffee, and you tried not to think about Dex standing in your bedroom while you slept, leaving you something comforting before placing something violent in the next room.

“Morning,” you said.

The informant whimpered again. You softened your voice, and smiled just enough to make him regret being awake.

“Where shall we start?”

The man made a desperate noise behind the tape, eyes blown wide his whole body jerking against the zip ties like panic had gotten under his skin. You watched him for a second longer than necessary, Dex’s black shirt still clutched in one hand and hidden half-uselessly against your thigh.

You reached forward and pinched the edge of the duct tape.

The man started shaking his head before you even pulled it free, frantic little sounds building in his throat, but you only smiled at him and said, “Relax. I’m helping.”

Then you tore it off.

The second his mouth was free, he gasped so hard it sounded painful. “Bullseye sent me!”

You froze.

Mia’s confusion manifested in a little huh? behind you, but you barely registered it. The man was already blabbing, words falling out of him too fast to be clean. “Please, please, I swear, I swear to God, that’s all this is. He told me to deliver a message. That’s it. I’m just the messenger. I didn’t ask to come here. He grabbed me, he tied me up, he said if I didn’t tell you exactly what he said, he’d come back and cut my hands off, and I believe him, I really, really believe him.”

You crouched a little closer. Your heartbeat had gone quick under your skin. “What message?”

The informant swallowed. His eyes flicked to Mia’s gun, then back to you, and whatever he saw on your face made him more terrified. “He said it’s a date. He said that specifically. A date. He told me to say date, not meeting, not job, not negotiation. Date. He said if the city keeps putting your names together, maybe you should stop letting everyone else have all the fun. He said you should meet him tonight at eleven-thirty at The Black Rabbit on 46th. The back booth. He said you’d know which one because. He said you’d know it because you cut through the alley behind it last Thursday after the task force thing, and he said you ordered fries there once and didn’t finish them because the oil tasted old, and— and I don’t know what that means, I swear I don’t know what that means.”

Oh.

Oh, that absolute freak.

Your mouth parted before you could stop it. You knew The Black Rabbit. It was small, low-lit, always half-empty after ten. You had used the alley behind it twice. Of course he had picked somewhere cute in the most deranged possible way. 

The man saw your expression and started crying harder. “Please. That’s all. That’s all he told me. back booth, I told you. I delivered it. Please let me go. I won’t say anything. I won’t tell the task force. I won’t tell anybody. I’ll leave the city. I swear, I swear, I swear—”

You were not listening anymore.

A date.

Dex had called it a date.

The thought landed low in your stomach, warm enough to be embarrassing. You looked down at his shirt in your hand, at the black fabric bunched between your fingers, and your thumb dragged over the seam before you could stop yourself. 

You would’ve gotten lost in your own head if Mia did not shoot the informant in the head, and the man slumped on the floor so suddenly the ribbon went crooked across his chest.

You flinched, blinking yourself back into the room. “Mia.”

“What?” she said, lowering the gun with the exhausted irritation of someone who had just turned off a very loud alarm. “He’s a messenger. He delivered the message.”

You looked at the body, then back at her.

Mia stared at you for a long second. Her eyes dropped to the shirt in your hand, then to the dead man, then to your face, which was doing a terrible job of pretending it had not just been lit from the inside. Her mouth flattened when she connected the dots.

“Oh,” she said. “So you’ve been in contact with Bullseye and didn’t tell me.”

You opened your mouth.

Mia lifted a hand before you could say anything. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. It’s not like I’m your best friend or anything.”

“It’s not like that,” you said, which was stupid, because there was a corpse in your living room wearing a bow and you were holding another man’s shirt like a keepsake.

Mia looked at the body again. Then at you. Then at the note still pinned under the ribbon. “Right. Not like that. Obviously. Men are always sending women hostage invitations to bars for completely normal reasons.”

You tucked Dex’s shirt closer to your side, as if that helped. “It’s complicated.”

“I bet.”

“Mia—”

“No, you know what?” she said, rubbing at her forehead with the heel of her free hand. “Fine. Go on your date.”

You had no answer for that, which was irritating, because you usually had an answer for everything.

Mia sighed so deeply, because this concern had come from years of friendship, unpaid rent, and every bad decision she had ever watched you make. She stepped around the dead informant, pistol still loose in her hand, then paused in the hallway and looked back at you with total, bone-deep exhaustion.

“Couldn’t he just send a singing telegram like a normal psychopath?” she muttered. Then, before you could smile too hard, she pointed the gun vaguely at your face. “Whatever. I’ll get you a gun. Just in case.”

You looked after her, trying and failing not to grin.

“And you’re telling me everything afterwards,” Mia called back.

—

You walked into The Black Rabbit at eleven twenty-seven wearing a skirt, a jacket, and Dex’s oversized black shirt tucked messily into your waistband.

It was a mistake.

You knew it the second he saw you.

Dex was in the back booth under the cracked mirror, one hand around a beer he hadn’t touched. He looked up when the door opened, and whatever expression he had prepared for you died instantly.

His eyes dropped to the shirt. Then to your skirt. Then back to your face.

For a second, Bullseye looked like he had forgotten how breathing worked.

You stopped at the edge of the booth. “Hi.”

Dex stood up too fast, almost hitting his knee on the table. “Hi.”

It was so stupidly endearing, you almost forgot your combined body count.

You looked him over, trying to be smug and failing because he was staring at you like you had walked in wearing his heart instead of his laundry.

“You picked a bar,” you said.

“I wanted it to be normal.”

“You sent a dying man to ask me out.”

Dex swallowed. “I wanted you to know I was serious.”

Your stomach flipped.

God. He was insane. Why did you think he was being cute about it?

His gaze dropped again, helplessly, to the shirt hanging loose off your shoulders. “You… wore what I gave to you.”

“You broke into my bedroom.”

“I gave it to you,” he repeated, like that was the important part. Like he had not stood at the foot of your bed in the dark and watched you sleep. Like that wasn’t the most frighteningly intimate thing anyone had ever done to you.

You should have been angry. Instead, you smiled.

Dex saw it and looked like he was about to explode.

Oh.

Your heartbeat kicked hard.

The bar noise blurred for a second: the jukebox skipping in the corner, the bartender moving glasses around, someone laughing too loudly near the door. Dex didn’t seem to hear any of it. He was looking at you with frightening, naked concentration, his hands flexing once at his sides like he wanted to touch you and was using every violent part of himself not to.

You slid into the booth across from him.

Dex sat after you did, still watching, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.

“If you want to talk,” you leaned back, trying to play it cool, “then talk.”

“I… I know you hate being miscredited,” he said. “I know you check rooftops when you leave a scene. I know you keep your knives cleaner than your kitchen. I know you pretend you’re angry when you’re interested. I know you left the window unlocked for me.”

Your mouth went dry.

Dex’s voice dropped. “And I know you wore my shirt because you wanted me to see it.”

You stared at him.

For one long second, neither of you moved.

Then you reached across the table, picked up his untouched beer, and took a sip.

It was awful. Bitter and poured badly and exactly the kind of thing he would order because he had no idea what people were supposed to enjoy.

You set it down and smiled. “You’re very confident for a man who had to kidnap someone to ask me out.”

Dex’s mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed ruined. “I didn’t know if you’d come.”

“You look surprised that I did,” you tilted your head with a genuine smile.

“I’m not surprised.” His gaze dragged over you again, softer this time, worse. “I’m trying not to do something stupid.”

Your heart climbed into your throat. “Like what?”

Dex looked at your mouth.

There it was.

The whole ridiculous game of notes and locks and knives suddenly collapsed into one fact sitting between you in the booth.

Dex wanted you.

Not abstractly or poetically. Not as some distant counterpart in a newspaper headline.

He wanted you right here, in his shirt, across the table, smiling like you knew exactly what you were doing to him.

You should have made a joke. You should have leaned away. You should have reminded him that this was public, that he was dangerous, that you were dangerous, that Mia had told you to report back and would absolutely ask invasive questions.

Instead, you leaned in.

“Careful,” you murmured. “It’s only the first date.”

His eyes darkened. Very slowly, he smiled. “Then I’ll be good.”

Fuck.

You were in trouble.

—

Talking was easy after that.

Annoyingly easy, actually. Once the first  charged silence broke, once Dex stopped looking at you like the sight of you, awake and talking, had rewired everything essential in him, the conversation settled into normal. Well, almost. If normal could mean two killers sharing beer in the back booth of a shitty Hell’s Kitchen bar, talking about murder like it was music theory.

It started with the board, obviously. You accused him of taking your credit. He genuinely seemed upset, not because of the murders themselves, but because you put each other on opposite sides. 

You should have laughed at him.

Instead, you understood it.

See, under all the insanity, he made a horrible kind of sense. His violence was clean where yours was intimate. Yours got close. His made distance feel personal. You said as much, lightly at first, and watched the words hit him harder than any knife could have.

Dex went quiet after that, as if he was moved by your observation. You’re starting to get it, he said. 

He talked like nobody had ever looked at the ugliest part of him and called it skill without feeling afraid. Like nobody had ever understood the difference between chaos and control before you. He sat across from you with his beer untouched for too long, staring like he wanted to crawl inside into your lap and live there.

The two of you kept talking for hours. Murder one-to-one. Technique, preferences, mistakes other people made when they tried to imitate either of you. Bad police work. Worse journalism. The insult of being misunderstood by people too stupid to deserve the blatant fucking evidence left in front of them. It should have been ridiculous, and it was. But Dex listened like every petty complaint mattered, like your irritation was holy because it matched in the one in him.

He had never felt so understood before.

You could see it on his face, which was embarrassing for both of you. Every time you leaned forward, every time the collar of his shirt shifted against your shoulder, his focus narrowed so intensely it made the air feel thin.

You could’ve continued talking there for hours if your phone didn't buzz.

You glanced down, expecting Mia to be demanding details or threatening you if you died before telling her everything. Instead, your informant had sent you an address. Then another, along with a list of names. AVTF agents moving together, not far from the bar, practically gift-wrapped by circumstance.

You looked at the message for a second.

Then you smiled.

You slid the phone across the table, and Dex read the text.

You leaned forward, his shirt slipping loose at your shoulder, and smiled sweetly. “Wanna go hunting?”

—

By the time you reached the rooftop across from the location, you were only starting to realize how intimate this was, even though it should feel like mostly work.

From your crouch near the ledge, you could see the building your informant had sent. It had everything a vigilante could ever dream of: rooftop access, bad perimeter awareness, two lit windows on the upper floor, a side entrance that might as well have had an invitation nailed to it. 

Dex, meanwhile, looked exactly as he had in the bar, which was to say unfairly good. He had that same wound-too-tight stillness, only now it had somewhere to go. Neither of you really needed to change because this was who you were. The bar hadn’t been the disguise. If anything, the bar had just been two vigilantes forced briefly into civilian setting, and now the city had handed you both an excuse to slip back into yourselves.

His hand disappeared into his jacket pocket, and when it came back out, there was the mask. He looked down at it for only a second before starting to pull it on like it was muscle memory, like it belonged to the shape of his body as naturally as breath.

Your fingers closed around his wrist, before you thought too hard about it.

Dex stopped, startled, his mask half-unfolded in his hand.

Then you took it from him.

For one long second, he just stared. Not suspicious or annoyed. He just looked completely thrown off, all his composure knocked sideways by the fact that you had interrupted him so casually, like this was your right.

You should have said something then. Instead, you just pulled the mask over your own face.

Oh.

The fabric settled over your features, and you felt Dex go catastrophically still.

His shirt was still hanging off your frame beneath your jacket, the hem tucked into your skirt carelessly in a way that had already ruined him once tonight. The skirt itself was too short to qualify as practical, which had been part of the fun. And now, on top of all that, you were wearing his mask?

It was not subtle, what it did to him.

Dex looked at you like something inside his brain had simply stopped functioning, overloaded so completely there was nothing left for him to do but stand there and take it.

You could practically see the short circuit happen.

His mouth parted uselessly. His eyes dragged over you, and you could've sworn you had never seen anyone look so gone while still technically upright.

You smiled under the mask.

“Hold still,” you murmured, reaching into your little bag, the one you never left home without, fingers finding the small tin by touch alone. It was silver reflective paint. 

You flipped open the tin and stepped closer.

The silver caught the rooftop light as you dipped your fingers into it. You reached up and touched him beneath the eye first, dragging one clean line of paint over the sharp plane of his cheekbone, right above his scar. Then another, across the bridge of his nose, your hand steady, his breathing not.

Dex didn’t move. He was holding himself together just to let you do this. The city noise carried below you, distant traffic and sirens and the hum of night, but up there on the rooftop it felt strangely intimate in a way that had nothing to do with proximity.

You painted the silver around his eyes the way you did your own, ruining cameras, distorting the face, making him look stranger and somehow even more himself. When you were done, you leaned back just enough to look at him properly.

“Pretty,” you said.

Dex’s throat worked. His gaze pierced your eyes. If he had looked overwhelmed before, now he looked outright haunted. Like being handed pieces of you had already been bad enough, but having your paint on his skin, his disguise on your face, the two of you standing there in each other’s signatures… it was something else entirely.

And for one absurd, breathless second, on a rooftop above a building full of men you were both about to kill, it felt less like getting ready for a job and more like the strangest, sweetest kind of undressing.

For a second, neither of you moved. Below you, through dirty windows and bad blinds, Task Force agents moved around inside the building like they had no idea the night had already chosen death for them.

Then someone inside laughed too loudly, and the moment snapped.

Right, work.

Or something like a work-date.

You laughed sweetly and dropped first, down the fire escape and through the service entrance, Dex behind you without needing a word. There was no need to gesture twice or whisper instructions. He moved like he already understood where you would go, which side you preferred,  you wanted distance cleared and when you wanted a body left close enough for your knife.

It should have unnerved you. Instead, it made you giddy.

You had known he was good. You had studied the clippings, the photos, the evidence left behind. But watching Dex work beside you was something else entirely. 

Every throw made space for you. Every little movement answered one of yours. He never crowded you, never interrupted, never treated the room like it belonged to him alone.

He made room for your violence like he had been waiting to see it up close.

And you gave him a show.

You moved through the agents with your style, close and quick and pulsing with adrenaline. Dex stayed in the shadows until he didn’t, a small knife flashing from his hand, then an agent behind you dropped before you even turned.

You couldn’t help but laugh.

It bubbled out of you, delighted though completely inappropriate, and Dex heard it through everything. His eyes found you across the room, stunned.

Like he had never heard anything lovelier.

Fuck, it was wonderful how well you worked together.

You ducked when he needed you to duck. He shifted when you needed space. You slid under his arm once, close enough that your shoulder brushed his chest. It was like dancing, if dancing was a criminal offence and everyone else in the room had arrived mortally underprepared.

Where the hell have you been all my life?

You thought it so clearly it almost became speech.

You only chuckled again, and Dex looked at you like he might never recover.

By the end of the bloodbath, twenty dead agents later, the building had gone quiet.

The euphoric, ringing kind of quiet. Broken glass glittered under the lights. A chair had been knocked onto its side and papers had been scattered across the floor. The agents were ruined, and the two of you stood in the middle of it like the last two people left after the world ended.

You were breathing hard, and so was he.

Dex had silver paint smudged beneath one eye now, a little messier than when you had put it there. His jacket was open. His hands were flexing at his sides, not because he needed a weapon, but because he didn’t know what to do with all the wanting still left in him.

You knew the feeling.

So you walked across the room before either of you could make a joke and ruin it.

Dex did not move away.

He watched you come closer with that open hunger on his face.

You grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him down.

The kiss landed through the mask, a frustrating thin piece of fabric between your mouth and his. 

Dex froze for half a second, and then the restraint in him cracked just enough for you to feel it. His hands lifted, stopped, hovered near your waist like touching you might be another line he needed permission to cross. You smiled against the mask, and that was somehow worse, because he made a low, wrecked sound into the almost-kiss like you had done an unforgivable sin.

You pulled back, and he followed.

Only an inch, maybe less. But enough.

Enough to tell you exactly how badly he wanted the real thing.

His eyes were dark now, fixed on the place where your lips hid beneath his mask. He looked almost hurt, almost betrayed by the fabric, almost desperate enough to forget every wall he had built for your benefit.

“Take it off,” he said, rough, almost a plea. “Do that again.”

Your heart picked up a beat.

You stepped back just far enough to make him feel the loss.

You smiled beneath his mask.

“Earn it.”

And as Dex stared at your mouth through his mask, silver still wet beneath his eyes and twenty bodies cooling around you, you wondered, almost fondly, who the cops would blame for this one.

—end. 

NOTE : I genuinely love seeing all your requests in my asks, but I do get a lot and I physically can’t write every single one. I usually write the ones that catch my eye, and it’s probably every 1 in 5.  That’s why I have Ko-fi! If you request there, it’s pretty much guaranteed I’ll write it within a month of responding as a token of appreciation. If I’m uncomfortable with the request or don’t think I can do it justice, I’ll let you know and we can brainstorm something else. Please remember I run this blog for free, so any support means a lot, only if you’re able to give it! Love y’all and thank you for reading!!! <3

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summary: due to your reputation as a renowned criminal psychiatrist, you're assigned to a difficult patient at riker's island. during a session, he makes an offer that tempts the boundaries of your professional curiosity.

a/n: I can't say enough how blown away I am that y'all loved the offer so much. it was just meant to be a slutty lil one off for kinktober, a way for me to play around with an idea that had been lingering in the back of my head for awhile, and a chance for me to try my hand at writing for dex. your excitement made me so excited, and i've been having so much fun with this. thank you thank you thank you again. 🖤

if you'd like to be notified for updates, feel free to join the taglist here!

»— anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. minors dni.

»— all work is my own. please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.

session one: the offer

session two: the rules

session three: the complication

session four: the final session

termination: the escape

He isn’t sure why. He can’t exactly place it, but it’s just…there you are. Running right into him like that. Asking if he’s okay when you look like his shoulder bone might have fucking concussed you.

He reaches down, picks up your phone, and offers it to you.

“I’m fine.” He says, softer than he means to, and you open your other eye.

“Are you made of concrete or something?” You huff a laugh, accept your phone, and slide it into your pocket. He’s staring too hard. He needs to break the gaze but it feels impossible and wrong to even try.

“Not that I know of.”

A feeling like desperate need claws its way up his throat when you smile again. When you laugh at his words like you really hear them. He doesn’t know exactly what it is he needs, but it’s overwhelming to the point of near-pain.

“I’m sorry about that.” You say again, and you mean it. “If I left a bruise, don’t sue me.” You glance down, notice the badge clipped to his belt. “Or…arrest me.”

He can’t remember how to speak. How to breathe right. But he needs to act…normal. He can’t just yank you to him in the middle of the street, bury his nose in your neck and inhale your perfume. Not like he wants to.

The world is narrowed down to a pinpoint. The crowded, chaotic streets of the city are gone. The honking of taxis, the bustle of people trying to get to their destinations, the towering buildings, it’s all gone. It’s just you, and your smile, and your eyes looking up at him.

His smile twitches a little before it finally forms on his lips, lopsided and genuine. You relax at the sight of it.

“Don’t have my cuffs on me, so I guess you’re safe.” And you smile at the joke, and it’s perfect.

He’ll buy you coffee. He’ll talk to you. He’ll make you smile more.

Your phone dings, and you curse as you glance down at it. “Shit. I gotta go.” You murmur, shooting one more apologetic glance up at him. “Sorry again. Really.”

“It’s…okay.” But it’s not. You can’t leave. You can’t walk away from him he just found you he’s not done-

But you’re gone, and your sudden absence shudders his breath and makes his chest feel too tight. No. No, you need to be here. With him. He just found you. You can’t leave.

He doesn’t move for a good few seconds, frozen in place as the noise and chaos crashes back in, crippling and horrible.

The bell to the coffee shop dings. There. That’s where you are. Where you’re going. Not gone. Not too far for him to find again.

He waits sixty seconds, counts his breaths, and follows.

-

“Yikes, what happened to you?”

You’re rubbing your forehead. You’re hurt. His shoulder hurt you. The dull ache in the spot where you slammed against him feels like a connection. A tether holding you to him.

“Too embarrassing.” You grumble, but he can hear a hint of humor and familiarity in your voice. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Well now I have to know.” You smile at the blond man. Nelson. The lawyer. Dex knows about him. Are you with him, somehow? Is Nelson trying to take you away from him?

You huff a laugh, and plop down unceremoniously into the opposite chair, still rubbing your forehead. “I was trying to respond to your millionth text, and I just absolutely slammed into this smoking hot FBI guy.”

“FBI?” Nelson repeats, but you said hot. You called him hot. He’s so distracted by that that he barely hears your next words, dripping with sarcasm as you pull one foot up onto the chair and wrap your arms around your knee.

“Yeah, and then I told him all about my extra curricular activities, and my home address.”

“Your jokes aren’t as funny as you think they are, you know.”

“Neither are yours, and we’re still friends.” You accept the cup of coffee Nelson slides your way, and Dex’s heart stutters again as you smile over the rim of the mug.

“So, speaking of which…”

“I knew it. I knew it. You never just wanna hang out and get coffee.”

“We hang out and get coffee all the time.”

“The ratio is off, lately. You ask for favors more since you went into that corporate law job. Now your pro-bono work always goes through me and all my incredible skills like some dirty little secret.”

Pro-bono work. Secrets. What do you do? You’re kind. You’re good. He can feel it. Sense it like second nature. But the questions and lack of answers are making him grip his own mug a little tighter, making it difficult for him to lean back in the shadows and hide like he’s supposed to.

Nelson looks sheepish, but you give a good natured wave of your hand. A silent ‘go on’ gesture that Dex can’t help but find painfully charming.

“I have a case. This guy…” Nelson slides a file towards you, “didn’t do it. Works for a big company, going down for financial crimes that he didn’t commit. They’re trying to cover their tracks, and a little bit of proof might keep him from missing his kids’ elementary school graduation.” You raise an eyebrow, and Nelson smiles a little. “And middle school. And high school. And…college. The point is they’re gonna try to put him away for a long time, and he didn’t do it.”

You squint, and slide the file closer to yourself. “Financial crimes?”

“Just saying, a little bit of…evidence towards his innocence will really help.”

“Hm.”

“And it shouldn’t be a problem for the best hacker in New York.”

You raise an eyebrow again.

“Okay, the east coast.”

Your eyebrow climbs higher.

“America?”

You grin, and Dex twitches with the need to be closer to you. To see that grin directed at him.

“You’re gonna have to start paying me soon.”

“And if I do, it becomes illegal.”

You tilt your head back again, puff out a dramatic sigh, and curl your fingers around the file.

“I want one of your mom’s sandwiches, at two am. The one with the provolone that I like.”

Nelson grins, wide. “Done and done.”

And then, you tilt your head back towards Nelson. “Does this have anything to do with Fisk?”

Fisk. Fisk? That asshole? That annoying detail he’s about to be stuck on?

“Wilson Fisk?”

“No, the other one. The other crime boss who just got out of prison and has a bone to pick with you.”

Nelson rolls his eyes. “Still not funny.”

“Foggy.”

He hesitates, and frowns. “No. But don’t…just stay away from that, okay? We’ll figure it out. You getting involved, especially with your tendency to…piss people like that off…”

“I haven’t been caught.”

“You will be, if you keep up that little Robin Hood act you have going on. There’s only so much legal counsel I can give you. This is extra legal council. I should be charging you for this.”

“Those companies don’t notice any money missing. You know who does? Mr. Stevenson next door, who can pay off his damn bills and not have to work an extra six hours a day to afford medication for his bad leg.” Your tone is sharp. Defensive.

So you’re a criminal. A good one. Because stealing from the rich and giving to people who need it… that’s good. His own moral compass might be a little off-kilter, but he knows that much.

Then again, you could be a serial killer and he would probably still feel this way, but oh well.

Foggy frowns, like this is a conversation you’ve had many times before, and gives you a familiar little nod, like he knows arguing won’t get him too far. “Just…don’t get involved, okay? Stay away from it. This is more dangerous than you think.”

“Vague.” You grumble, but you’re sliding the file into your bag. “Sandwich with the provolone, three am.”

“You said two.”

You stand, finish your coffee, and smile. “This one’s gonna take a while.”

-

Watching you work is…fascinating.

It’s a slow process, Dex realizes quickly. You don’t click at your keyboard and bust through firewalls like in movies. You lay on your couch, bite your nails, and seem to work through problems one by one. It takes a while. It frustrates you. It makes you smile to yourself when you solve one of those problems.

You get your sandwich. You talk to Nelson for a while. Update him. Get back to work.

The sun is going to rise, soon. You’re still working. His eyes are starting to hurt from watching you through this telescope, but he can’t make himself look away.

When you move to the kitchen, you slide on the hardwood in your socks. You play music. You tap your fingers on your keyboard to the beat.

He watches every second. Every single twitch of your eye. Every frown when you can’t figure something out. Every bright little spark when you do figure it out.

Perfect. You’re perfect. And when you finally do fall asleep, computer resting on your stomach and eyes dropping closed like they’re weighed down by anvils, he wants more than anything to make his way into that dingy little apartment and carry you to your bed in the adjacent room. To slide his fingers through your hair, feel you smile, and listen to your heartbeat until he’s positive that nothing will ever be able to take you away from him.

But for now, he watches. He stays, long after you’ve fallen asleep, and he watches.

-

It takes planning. It takes hours of working himself up to it. Of watching you from afar, plotting every scenario out bit by bit and talking himself out of it a thousand times.

You consume his thoughts like a poison. He follows you to your work. Back to your apartment. Watches every interaction you have with everyone else and wishes it was him you were looking at until he stops fucking sleeping with the need to have you near him.

So, when the torture becomes too much, he follows you to a bar, and he sits in the corner, and he watches you laugh with your friends. Watches and watches and craves to be closer to the light that seems to emanate from your very being.

And he gets up at just the right time, and allows you to bump into him as you start walking back towards the group you came with.

Not a single drop of his drink spills on him - he’s still a little too organized to allow that to happen if he can help it - but he makes it look like it does. He catches your waist as you stumble with an ‘oomph’, and just like that you’re close to him. You’re touching him. He’s touching you. You’re here. With him.

“Oh, fuck. Sorry. Sorry.” You’re not drunk, barely even buzzed, but he knows you well enough now to know that you’re just a little clumsy, and this place is just loud enough for this to work.

Your eyes turn up to his, and you nearly stumble back.

Practiced smile. Fingers curling against your back a little because he just can’t help it. “We’ve gotta stop bumping into each other like this.” He’s practiced that line in the mirror, and it works. You laugh.

You laugh. At his joke. At his line that he’s practiced for this specific scenario. It worked.

“I know you.” You grin, wide, and then flinch a little, but you’re still laughing. “Have I said I’m sorry yet?”

“You did.” He has to let you go. He would rather die, but he can’t be holding you like this. You don’t know him yet. Not yet. “Never got your name, though.”

“I never got yours. Figured you hated me for dislocating your shoulder.”

“Dex.”

“Dex.” You repeat, and his blood hums in his veins at the sound. “Nice to meet you, Dex.”

“Nice to meet you…public hazard.” Lame joke. Bad joke. He just can’t string a fucking thought together when you’re near him and-

You snort. His heart bursts into flames.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Fuck. It’s too soon. Way too soon. You’re gonna say no, and leave, and he’s-

“Yeah.” You set your drink down. “Yeah, I do.”

-

“So…hobbies?” You take a bite of your pizza, heels clicking against the pavement, and he can’t stop looking at you.

“Not really.”

“Hm.” You don’t seem bothered by it. By his lack of interesting traits. He’s not lying to you. He doesn’t have to. You’re meant to be together, after all. He doesn’t have to lie about himself. Right? “Okay. Any special skills then, Special Agent?”

Actually, yeah. “I have one.”

You perk up, raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

He grins, real and genuine, and pulls a quarter out of his back pocket. “Think you’re ready for it?”

“More than.” You’re excited. Really, truly excited. It’s fucking adorable.

“Nah.” He flips the coin over his fingers, feigns pocketing it again. “Don’t think you are.”

“Aw, come on. Please?”

Butterflies swarm in his chest. A smile curls on his lips. He nods towards the darkened street before you. “Pick somethin’.”

You frown, cock your head to the side, and purse your lips when he doesn’t budge to give you any more information. “Okay….street sign. That one right there.”

“Letter.”

“What?”

“Pick a letter.”

Your brow furrows a little more, and your lips twitch in a smile. “T.”

The throws the quarter out, and the sound of metal on metal sings through the air.

There’s a dent in the T. It’s so small, so subtle, that you have to move over to the sign to inspect it.

“Holy shit.”

Do you like it? Are you impressed? He has to stop himself from grabbing your shoulder and demanding to know.

“Can you do it again?”

Yes. Yes of course he can. He’ll do anything. Anything to make you look at him with those wide eyes and that big grin.

You name five more things, he hits them all perfectly, and he doesn’t want to stop. He wants to keep impressing you. Keep hearing your startled noises of approval.

But you make it back to your apartment, and he has to force himself to let you leave. To not follow you upstairs and learn every inch of your skin until it’s locked into his memory forever.

Instead, he asks you to dinner, and you agree. You smile, and you agree.

-

He kisses you for the first time on your second date. Dinner and ice cream.

He’s walked you to your door, like he did the last time, and you’re standing there in your dress with that smile of yours and your eyes looking expectantly into his and he doesn’t know how to do this right. Sure, there have been women in the past. He’s kissed girls. Slept with them when the time was right, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and never really…felt anything. Never wanted anything like this. Fuck, he feels more excitement just looking at you than he did with every hookup he’s ever had.

He has to do it. Make it romantic. Make it perfect. He’s looked up the right way to do this. Studied romantic movies like it was some kind of assignment with life-or-death consequences.

Reach up, brush your hair behind your ear, drink in your shy smile, lean closer so his breath ghosts over your lips-

“You have ice cream on your nose.”

He freezes, fingers still cupping your jaw, and pulls back.

“What?”

You giggle, oblivious to how much his mind is spinning, and reach up to swipe it off with your thumb.

“Shit.” He mumbles, shaking his head and stepping back. “Shit. I’m sorry. I-“

You tilt your head to the side, curious and confused and beautiful as you seem to realize that he’s actually freaking out a little. Because it’s not perfect. It was supposed to be perfect because that’s the only way he gets to keep good things. Order. Focus. But he fucked it up and now you’re-

“Woah, hey. Hey.” You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it was cute. Just…try again.”

Try again. Yeah, he…he can try again. It can still be good. Still be perfect.

So he does. He leans down, and when his lips brush yours his breath comes out as a shaky exhale.

And then your mouth is on his, warm and soft and everything he’s ever wanted. Electricity shoots down his spine, through his blood, and some tether of control within him snaps. He presses closer, the hand on your cheek moving to the back of your head to keep you in place, and kisses you like he’s trying to devour you with a passion he didn’t know he possessed.

You gasp against his lips, arms coming up to wrap around his neck as you meet him with just as much enthusiasm. Just as much hunger. And this…this is perfect. This is rough and desperate and perfect. This didn’t need to go according to plan. This is so much better than the plan.

When you finally break apart, he’s out of breath and more than a little pleased to see that you are, too.

“Wow.” You whisper, and he grins as his nose ducks back down to brush against yours.

“Yeah.” He breathes, unable to think of another response. Any other word to describe this feeling. “Wow.”

-

When you see the caller id, you can’t help but smile at the screen.

“Geez, you look so weird with the cartoon heart eyes.” Foggy’s voice breaks you out of your little trance, and you snort as you answer the phone, confirming that Dex is off work and headed back to his apartment. You feel a twinge of excitement, cheesy as it is, at the idea of seeing him soon. You try not to flag down the bartender too quickly, lest the mockery get any worse.

“FBI guy?” Foggy raises an eyebrow, and you smile again.

“His name is Dex.” Foggy’s eyebrows rise even higher. You flush. “I dunno, I like him. A lot, actually.”

“He’s in the FBI. You’re a pretty notorious hacker.”

“So we don’t talk about work.” You take a sip of your drink. “Plus, he’s not gonna turn me in. I’m too good in bed.”

“But he knows?”

“Of course he knows.” You raise your eyebrows, leaning forward like you’re explaining something imperative. “One you start having sex with someone, it’s important that you confess all of your crimes to each other.”

Foggy laughs, and shakes his head. “You’re insane.” And then, curious and caring as ever, “so what’s he like, if he’s got you risking federal prison?”

Your smile returns, cheeks heating a little, and you shrug. “Cute. Nice. A little weird. Well, actually a lot weird, but…I like it.” You think about the precise way Dex loads the dishwasher. How he carefully makes the bed every morning. How he makes an odd joke every now and then, and then looks absolutely panicked until you laugh, and that panic will always melt into an expression of relief and adoration.

Sometimes his emotions are a little…intense. He can get frustrated, and sometimes he doesn’t seem like he knows how to handle it. But you help. You always do. You tell him to breathe and help him work through whatever’s bothering him, and it works. He always listens. Always tries, even if it takes a moment.

You just…work. Something about you, and something about him, and all the weirdness in between…it works.

When you get back to his place tonight, he’s holding a bouquet of flowers and looking genuinely nervous.

“I don’t get this.” He admits before you even drop your keys onto the counter, frowning down at the colorful petals. “They’re just gonna die in a couple of days.”

“Then why did you get them?”

He cocks his head to the side, but you can see a tinge of pink on his cheeks. “They did it in the movie we watched last night. You smiled.”

You smile now. Wide. “You know, you’re kinda cute, Poindexter.”

Something like vulnerability sparks in his eyes. “Do you not like the flowers?”

You snort, and move forward to slide your hands up over his shoulders, feeling the crisp fabric of his white button-down against your palms. “I like them. You did good. Really good.”

He smiles at that, like those words are the best thing he’s ever heard, and you pull him down to kiss you.

Your conversation with Foggy flashes through your mind. You forgot to tell him that one thing. That one major reason why you like Dex. Why you’re with him.

You get him. And he gets you.

You just…work.

-

The newspaper sits on the counter, Dex’s picture stamped right on the front page. FBI investigates one of their own.

You try not to talk about work with him. After all, you’re technically a criminal and he’s in law enforcement. But you knew about the investigation. It’s unjust, Dex says, and you believe him because…well, of course you do. It’s Dex. He saved lives that night, and the few coworkers of his that you’ve met since you’ve been dating have confirmed it.

And then the suspension came.

“It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit.” In what feels like only a few words, his voice morphs from a frustrated growl into something as sharp and loud as the crack of a whip. His hand moves faster than you can even register, and in a split second there’s a kitchen knife sticking out of a photo on the wall. Right in the forehead of the person you recognize as his boss.

“Shit, I keep forgetting how spooky that is.” You breathe, and Dex’s eyes whip back to yours.

“Breathe, Poindexter.” You raise your hands in surrender, and step ever-so-carefully forward, like one wrong move might frighten him off.

“Don’t.” He snaps, fingers curling on the counter, but his eyes don’t leave you. He’s breathing too heavily. Too raggedly.

You reach up, and turn his face down to yours. Gentle, but firm. “You gotta breathe. Tell me three things you can see.”

He freezes, eyes scanning your face like he’s trying to tell if you’re kidding or not, before he speaks. “Your eyes.” He finally says, voice softening a little with each word. “Your nose…your mouth.”

Okay, it’s usually supposed to be things around the room, but this works too.

“Three things you can feel?”

He blinks, eyes still fixed on you, and raises one hand to your cheek. “Your skin.” He leans closer, helplessly. His hand moves up to your hair, curling a lock of it around his finger. “Your hair…” his free hand drops to your waist, bunching in the fabric of your borrowed t-shirt. “Your shirt.”

“Your shirt, technically.”

He grunts, and buries his nose in your temple.

“Three things you can hear.”

“Your voice.” You hum in response, and he presses closer. “Your heartbeat. Your breathing.”

You nod, and reach up to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders. He holds you a little more tightly. “Your breathing is better, see?”

He nods, and pulls back to kiss you. It’s slow, hard and desperate, like he’s trying to memorize the feeling. You pull him closer, and he makes a soft noise against your lips before he lifts you up and carries you over to the counter.

“Do you feel better?” You ask against his lips, feeling his fingers push the hem of your shirt up so he can trace them over your skin.

“I’m still being framed.” He murmurs, pulling back to trail his lips over the line of your jaw. “It’s still bullshit.”

“I know.”

“You make it better.” His hands move up, higher, warming the bare skin of your back. “You make everything better.”

“Hell of a compliment.”

“I mean it.”

“Me too.”

You kiss him again, feel him press his body closer to yours until your fingers are moving up to fumble with the buttons of his dress shirt and his are sliding your t-shirt up over your head. Moving down to skate over the hem of your underwear.

“Bedroom?” You breathe, and he shakes his head, lips never leaving your body for a second as he lowers himself to his knees right there before the counter.

“Here.” He rasps, teeth scraping against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, and pulls you to the edge of the counter in one sharp movement that has you locking your fingers in his cropped hair. “Please.”

“That’s my line, I think.” You’re breathless, his lips are trailing higher.

“No, it’s not.” His blue eyes are on yours, filled with something so much like worship that it halts your breath in your lungs. “It’s mine.”

-

“One more.”

The word is warm and sweet in your ear, a low hum paired with wandering hands and a soft, languid kiss to your jaw.

You snort, and you can feel him grin against your ear.

“I think one more will kill me.” You murmur, feigning misery, and his hand slides down over your hip, teasing. “Seriously, how do you have so much stamina?”

“Mm, it’s just you.” He murmurs, and trails his fingers over your stomach. “I can go all night.”

“We have gone all night.”

It’s been hours since he snapped in the kitchen, and your brain has become too mushy to even remember when the two of you migrated into his room. The problem with Dex’s…ability, is that he really never misses. He can take you apart almost embarrassingly quickly, immediately finding every spot and movement that has you seeing stars. And, with his obsessive personality, he has a tendency to try to one up himself. A lot. To see how many times he can make you fall apart until your legs are shaking and you’re spending the next day aching in all the best ways.

Which is why you’re pretty sure, even as his fingers find the apex of your thighs once more and he swallows your gasp with a smile against your lips, that he’s going to kill you. Death by too-many-orgasms has to be a thing, right?

“Dex…” you breathe, arching beneath him as your hands fly up to grasp at his muscled biceps.

“One more.” He repeats, the words a quiet rasp. “You can do it. Just give me one more. Please.”

How the fuck are you ever supposed to say no to him?

You kiss him, and he groans as he presses his body closer to yours.

One more turns into three more.

-

You can’t get a hold of Foggy. Or Karen.

Their names aren’t on the list of people who died at the Bulletin, so that’s something. Still, the chances of either of them being in the building during the attack are pretty damn high. And you don’t blame them for not answering. If they really were there, they must be fucking traumatized.

You would absolutely love it if one of them could pick up the damn phone, though.

Dex shows up around midnight, and you’ve already pulled on your jeans. Already grabbed your keys in preparation to run out the door and start banging on apartment doors. Hell, you might even go to the church Matt’s been hiding out in since he got back. Self-appointed recluse or not, you want answers. Before the news makes the information public, this time. There’s only so much information that hacking can give you, and if the cops and news outlets are currently scanning through the cameras for information of their own, it’s going to take a lot longer for you to find anything out than it will if your friends would just fucking talk to you.

“Hey, where are you going? What’s wrong?” Hands are on your shoulders, moving up to your cheeks, and you wonder if you look fucking insane with worry and confusion right now.

What the hell are you supposed to tell him? Oh yeah, Daredevil is my friend Matt. You know the one who died and kinda sorta came back? Have I mentioned him? Well apparently he’s gone fucking berserk and tried to kill Karen, but I’m absolutely fucking positive that it wasn’t him, which means that someone is out there murdering people in his old suit-

“I’ve…gotta go.” You say weakly, lamely, and start to pull back.

His hands tighten on you. Fast.

“Where? Where do you have to go?” He’s holding you surprisingly firmly, large arms locked around your body and making a frown curl your lips.

“Dex, let me go.” You can’t tell him. Of course you can’t. You have to figure this out on your own.

He doesn’t. In fact, he holds you even more tightly. “You can’t leave. You can’t leave me.”

“I’m-huh?” You turn to him, now, and blink in surprise at what you find. His eyes are dark. He looks like he’s sweating. Shit, he might be shaking. “Dex, what’s going on?”

“I need you here, okay?” He’s breathing a little strangely, hand smoothing up over your back with something like desperation. “I…you need to be here.”

You frown, and reach up to brush your fingers over his cheek. He closes his eyes, and leans into your touch.

“Okay. Hey, it’s okay.” He wasn’t able to help tonight. That’s it. He’s just been suspended. All of the order and structure he relies so heavily on is gone. You didn’t realize just how much it must be affecting him, and you feel like a shitty girlfriend for not immediately seeing just how off he is. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

He ducks down, fingers curling against your cheek and lips hovering over your own. “Tell me you need me.”

“Dex-“ you start, but his fingers slide into your hair and he backs you against the wall. It’s not aggressive, not quite, but it’s firm. Determined. Almost overwhelming in its desperation.

“Say it. Please.”

You frown, but reach up to wrap your arms around his neck. “I need you.”

He groans, and kisses you so hard your knees give out. He catches you, all-but scooping you into his arms as he traces his tongue over your lip and slides his arms around your waist.

You have to go find Foggy and Karen and Matt. You have to make sure they’re okay, and the four of you need to come up with some kind of game plan. Or, they do, and they’ll probably need your help because you just had to learn Matt’s secret. Just had to get mugged that night and recognize his voice. Just had to check security cameras and figure everything out and confront him about it.

So, with your particular skill set, and the information you have, they’ll probably need you, as outside of all this as you like to keep yourself. But Dex needs you more right now, and that matters more. You’ll get to the bottom of this mystery another time, when your boyfriend’s trembling hands aren’t pulling at your clothes and his lips aren’t trailing over your throat as he whispers your name like a prayer over and over again.

“What’s wrong?” You ask again, breathless and worried as he lifts you against the wall, as he wraps your thighs around his waist and curls his fingers against your skin hard enough that you worry it might bruise. You hope it does.

“You make it quiet.” He murmurs between kisses, tugging at your clothes until your shirt slides up over your head, discarded on the floor in a second. Messy. Disordered in a way that isn’t like him. “You make it all quiet. I need it to be quiet. Please.” His voice is shaking. Desperate.

You’re not quite sure what he means, but you nod anyway.

The moment you do, his body is pressing impossibly closer to yours. His lips are moving down your neck, kisses so rough and starved that you can feel his teeth scraping over your skin. His hands are tight on your body, hips rocking forward and making you gasp, and you can still hear the shakiness in his quickened breaths as he moves back up to kiss you so hard your head knocks lightly against the wall.

Your fingers move to the buttons of his shirt. His breaths are getting quicker. His grip is getting tighter.

“D-Dex.” You’re so breathless yourself that you can barely get his name out, but he doesn’t stop kissing you. Doesn’t slow his desperate movements until you finally reach up to pull his face away from yours.

His pupils are blown. His gaze is starved. He’s still shaking.

“Hey, stay with me.” You card your fingers through his hair, and kiss him slowly. Warmly. He doesn’t need rough and desperate right now. He needs reassurance. Grounding. Love.

He releases a shuddering breath, kisses you back, and nods as he rests his forehead against yours. “I’m here. I’m good.”

You nod, and as he carries you into the bedroom and lies you back on the mattress, you can see in his eyes that he’s telling the truth. He’s here. He’s with you.

He peels the rest of your clothing off slowly, trailing his mouth over newly exposed skin, and you do the same for him, barely able to keep your lips and hands off of him for a second.

It’s slow, and loving, and painfully intimate. He murmurs your name against your ear as he moves with you, and you drag your nails over his muscled back as you tell him how good it feels until he falls apart with a groan that almost sounds like a sob.

He holds you after, presses his lips to your forehead and trails his fingers over your body like he’s trying to memorize the feeling of you.

“Do you think I’m a good man?” His voice is low, quiet and vulnerable as he slides calloused fingers through your hair.

You look up, surprised by the question, and he holds you a little more tightly like he’s worried you’ll bolt.

“Of course.” You frown, reaching up to brush your own fingers over his cheek. He turns his face into your palm, kissing it once, and you turn his eyes back to yours. “You’re a good man, Benjamin Poindexter.”

He makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, something raw and pained and full of hope, and tucks you closer to him like you’re the most precious thing in the world. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You kiss his shoulder, and let your eyes fall closed. “You’re gonna be okay.”

And for a moment, as he breathes something like a sigh of relief into your hair, you think he believes you.

-

“I need you to listen to me, and listen carefully.”

“Oh, now the zombie hiding in the basement is making demands. It’s good to see you too, Matt. I’ve been great, how about-“

“The man in the daredevil suit is Special Agent Benjamin Poindexter.”

That shuts you up, right the fuck away. “Very funny.”

“I’m not joking. He’s working for Fisk. He’s killing for him, and framing me.”

You feel cold. “No, he’s not. He wouldn’t do that.”

Matt’s expression is intense, his words are low and pointed. Urgent. This is his stupid fucking Daredevil voice. “He would. And he is. Fisk has him convinced that doing this will keep you with him. You have the means and the skill to prove me right. I need you to do that, as soon as possible. You need to get as far away from him as you-“

“Stop.” You snap, holding up a hand you know he won’t see. He’ll feel it though, or whatever. “Stop, Matt. You have the wrong guy.”

“You know that’s not true, and we don’t have time for you to come to terms with it. You are in danger, and you need to-“

“It’s not him.” Your ears are ringing. Your voice sounds desperate. Angry, even. “He’s…he’s a little intense. He’s a little weird, sure. But he wouldn’t…he wouldn’t do that.”

Matt’s jaw tightens. He shakes his head.

“You look into it the way you know how. You know. You’ll see it.” Matt reaches to grab your shoulder, and you flinch back. He looks pained, like he’s genuinely worried and didn’t call you here after all this time to falsely accuse the man you love of mass fucking murder. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been here for you enough. For Foggy and Karen. But I’m here now. I can protect you now. And you need to stay away from him.”

You pull back, and shake your head again. “I…no. You have the wrong guy, Matt. He’s…you’re wrong. We’ll find who’s doing this, but it’s not Dex.”

“We can keep you safe. You can hide-“

“No.”

“Please. He’s unpredictable. He’s dangerous. He could kill you if he knows you know.”

“I don’t know. I know you’re…you’re wrong.” He is wrong. He has to be wrong. “I’ll find out who it is, okay? But it’s not Dex. Just…it’s not Dex.”

And yet…

No. No. It’s not possible. There’s no way.

Matt spends the next ten minutes trying to convince you, and you block all of it out. You refuse to listen. You tell him you’ll go home, and you’ll avoid Dex until you can find the proper evidence.

You lie. And as you walk out of the church into the suddenly too-bright, too-loud city, you wonder if… if he could…

Fuck. You need to get to your computer. You need to prove him wrong.

-

He killed Ray tonight.

It doesn’t bother him. That kind of thing never has. What bothered him was Nadeem talking about you.

“He’s lying. He’s using you. He’s using her.” Dex’s hands had tightened reflexively on his gun. “You think he’s gonna keep her safe? You think this is how she stays in your life? Whatever he told you, he’ll hurt her the second it’s convenient for him, and he’ll take you out too.”

“You need to stop talking about her, Ray.” Dex’s voice is low. Quiet.

“When she finds out, you think she’s gonna stay with you? You think Fisk is gonna make her stay with you? How does this plan of yours work, exactly?”

Yes. Of course. Whether Fisk needs to make it happen or not, you’ll stay with him. And it will be okay, because you love him. Sure, you’ll be upset, but he can make that better. He will make it better. All of it. Everything he does is to keep you happy. Keep you by his side. But for now, you don’t have to know anything. You can just be with him, and love him.

If you learn a little too much, learn about the darkness that lives inside of him, about the things he’s done, Fisk will do what he needs to do, what he promised, and make sure you stay. Simple as that.

And you’ll still love him, right? Right. You’re meant to be together.

The shot lands perfectly between his former friend’s eyes. And, once it’s all said and done, he goes home to you.

-

You’re on the couch when he walks through the door. You’re chewing on your nails. You’re staring at your computer screen.

So perfect. So beautiful. All his. Just like he’s all yours.

Like he has a hundred times before, he moves over to gently move the laptop out of your hands, leaning you back against the cushions with a smile that surely holds all of the affection that feels like it’s about to overwhelm him.

“What’re you doing?” He presses his lips to your nose, your cheek, your jaw.

You’re tense. Something’s bothering you. He can fix that.

“Looking something up.” You murmur, soft and hesitant. “Or…I should be. I can’t…make myself do it.”

He can see in his peripheral that your screen is blank. You’re still tense, and when he kisses you he can taste the faintest tinge of iron from where you were biting your lip.

You’re wearing his t-shirt. He moves to slide his hands under it, reveling in the softness of your skin, and presses another kiss to the shell of your ear. You relax, like you just can’t help yourself, and he smiles as he settles a little more comfortably atop you.

“Hm, you know you’re not supposed to tell me about any of your hacking stuff.” He jokes, but you don’t smile like you usually would. Don’t tease him back. “Might incriminate yourself a little too much. And you know there’s only one way I wanna see you in cuffs.”

You do smile now, though there’s something in your eyes that he can’t place. He wants to ask, but you kiss him and he forgets everything that isn’t you.

“Or, you know. Put me in cuffs.” And you hum, and smile a little more.

He peels your clothing off nice and slow, trailing his lips down to follow every movement. It’s warm, and safe, and soft and gentle in all the ways the rest of the world is not. You gasp his name, look into his eyes even as yours threaten to flutter closed, and he loves you so much it hurts. So intensely that he worries it might swallow him whole. He wants it to.

When it’s over, and he’s pressing his lips over your cheeks and nose again, heavy breaths matching your own, he tastes the saltiness of tears on your skin and pauses.

His brow furrows, and he pulls back.

You reach up, and smooth your thumb over his cheek. “You’re a good man.” You whisper, and you sound like you’re talking to yourself, but he melts anyway.

“I love you.” He breathes, and drags you closer so he can kiss you again. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You murmur, and there’s never been so much of this strange emotion in your voice before. He can’t quite place it.

But you’re overwhelmed by your love for him, too. That’s all.

That’s all.

-

The worst part of it all is that you know you’re going to find it before you even bring yourself to open your computer.

And yet, it still feels like a punch to the fucking gut.

“Hello, Karen. It’s nice to see you again.”

You would recognize that voice anywhere.

It took you five minutes to get into the security cameras. Of the Bulletin. Of the church.

It took five more minutes for you to find all of the other evidence. The therapy sessions. The people he’s killed. The people he’s manipulated. Threatened. His lack of empathy. His obsessive behavior. His enjoyment of killing. Fuck, you even figure out that he was stalking you before you ever ran into him at that bar. You like to say, in your cockiest moments, that everything can be found online. Everything is documented even when people think it isn’t. You just have to look.

You didn’t look. In ten minutes, you found it all. In an hour, you’ve found too much for any excuse to ever work. For anything other than the truth to make sense.

And then, with perfect timing like the universe is making some sort of sick joke, Foggy Nelson tells you to come down to the old gym. He shows you Nadeem’s video, and you have to drag a trash can over so you can puke your guts up as the world drops from beneath your feet.

You cry silently. Curl in on yourself against the boxing ring while Foggy and Karen watch you, expressions filled with sympathy and guilt. Because they weren’t here. They didn’t check in on you. They let this get this far and it blindsided you because you were too wrapped up in stupid domestic bliss to even hang out with your friends like you should have.

Foggy’s hand comes down on your shoulder, comforting and kind. “Can you do it?”

You don’t look up from the phone screen even as you take it from his hand.

You nod.

-

“What are you-“

You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t supposed to be here. You aren’t-

Matt is gonna kill you, if Dex doesn’t do it first. And yet, you know without a shadow of a doubt that he won’t hurt you. Everyone else, maybe, but not you.

That doesn’t make him any less dangerous.

You grab his arm, and pull him outside with you, into the alley. It will be on camera. It will be obvious that you know, when Fisk sees it. But it doesn’t matter. None of that will matter soon, anyway.

His brow is furrowed, that look of frustration when he doesn’t have control of the situation tightening his features. After all, you did just show up to his work unannounced and drag him outside.

He reaches for you, and you step back.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asks, something in his face cracking a little. “Come here. Please.”

“Tell me it’s not true. Please, tell me it’s not true.”

Panic. Immediate, sharp panic. He knows. He knows you know. “Come here.”

“Dex.”

“It’s not true.” He says immediately, lies immediately, and reaches for you again. You back up again. “It’s not true. None of it’s true. Just-“

You pull out your phone, and play the video. Ray Nadeem’s confession. His eyes widen, and you already knew but the confirmation from him is fucking shattering.

“In three hours, it’s going out to every phone in the immediate area. To the cops. To the public. Everywhere. And if you kill me, it still goes out.” Your voice is tight, shaking. “You’re not gonna stop it.”

Dex tries to grab you now, not the phone, you, desperate. You jump back into the street. Into the public. Away from the dark alley and into the light of day.

“Don’t touch me. Do not fucking touch me.”

“Don’t do this.” He sounds dangerous now. You should probably be afraid of him. You’re going to fucking cry again and it hurts so bad you can’t think. You’ve never felt more stupid in your life. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me. You promised.” His hand catches your sleeve, and you rip it back.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t leave me. Baby, don’t do this. You love me. I love you. We can-“

“What is this, fucking Barney?!” You snap, horror and shock making your voice shaky and shrill. “You’ve been murdering people.”

You’re fully in the street, now. You’re still shaking. He’s still approaching.

“If you come any closer, I’ll scream.” You mean it. He looks like he’s about to risk it. Like he’s moments away from covering your mouth and dragging you back into the alley. Into the shadows with him.

You turn, and walk away.

You hear him scream from a block away. It’s loud. Primal, even. It turns heads.

You keep walking.

-

He goes to prison that night. Matt defeats Fisk. You see it all on the news, from where you’re curled on the couch with tears drying on your cheeks.

He tried to kill Fisk at his wedding. Broke into the party in Matt’s Daredevil costume. It’s on the news. It’s on film.

He says your name before he starts killing people. Tells Fisk and Vanessa that the two of you wish them a world of happiness. You watch the clip. Newspapers call. You watch the clip again. You shut out the world.

It takes some time for you to leave your couch. Even longer to leave your apartment.

But time heals all wounds, even if they have to scab over and reopen a few too many times.

You meet Matt, Foggy and Karen at Josie’s on a Tuesday. They don’t mention it. You do. You apologize, and Foggy hugs you so tightly that your ribs creak.

And you heal. Slowly, surely, you heal.

Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

-

It’s a nice, normal Friday night.

Cherry’s retirement party is fun. You’re having fun. You’re laughing with Matt and Karen, listening to the laughter and jokes around you, teasing each other about Foggy’s attempts at hitting on Keirsten, and not thinking about Dex. Because you never think about Dex.

You don’t think about the way he made breakfast in the morning. Always so careful and precise. Always plating it perfectly like the act was a science, watching you when you ate it like he was either trying to figure out just how much you liked it or just…watching you. So much of him looking at you felt like he was basking in your mere presence.

Or the way he would leave on his way to work. Always the same pattern. The same habits. Wake you up with a kiss, get dressed, make breakfast, kiss you again on the way out the door.

The way he would smile at you like you hung the moon in the sky. The way he would hold you when you watched a movie on the couch. The way…

Warm lips against your temple. Your forehead. Your cheeks.

You hum, and feel Dex smile as his arm slides more tightly around you. “Morning.”

“S’the middle of the night.” You complain weakly, turning in his arms to hide your face in the warm skin of his chest.

“Five forty-five.” He murmurs, hand already coming up to slide through your hair. “Gotta get ready for work.”

“Play hooky.” You mumble, nuzzling closer, dreading the moment his warmth leaves the bed.

“Would if I could.” He means it, and you can tell, so you keep trying.

“You’re reinstated and promoted now…” you press a kiss to his collarbone, warm and slow and as tempting as you can make it. “Their apology should come in the form of as many days off as you want. Or going into work after dawn.”

His body relaxes a little. His hold on you tightens, like he’s thinking about it.

And then he sighs, and pulls back to press his lips against your forehead.

“I can’t.” He sounds so genuinely remorseful that you just might be falling in love with him all over again. Still, you plaster an exaggerated little pout on your face as you sit up.

“Goody two shoes.” You accuse, and if you were more awake you might think his laugh sounds a little…different. But he sits up with you, and kisses your neck, and wraps his arms around you again and any doubt or confusion flutters out of your mind as you melt into-

“Hey, you okay?”

Your eyes whip up, reflected in Matt’s glasses. You swallow. Smile. “Hm?”

“Your…” he lowers his voice, leans a little closer, “your heart is racing.”

Karen is looking at you, too closely, too kindly. You smile wider.

“I’m fine.” And you are. You’re fine. You’re absolutely, totally fine.

Ten minutes later, everything goes to shit.

Foggy goes outside. Matt hears something wrong. Karen follows You stay in the bar.

A gunshot outside. The bang of a flash grenade. The screams of panicked patrons.

You’re frozen for a moment, smoke and shock filling your lungs and fogging your mind. Gunshots. Screaming. The heavy sound of footsteps and-

“Hey, baby.”

A low, familiar growl of a voice, barely raised enough to be heard over the commotion but cutting through it all like a knife and zeroing your attention on the approaching figure.

Speaking of knives, you hear one whir through the air just before your wrist is slammed back against the wall, a blade attaching your sleeve to the surface with perfect precision. You reach up in a panic to remove it, only for another knife to slam your other arm back against the same wall. Neither blade comes close enough to even nick your skin, but you’re still completely trapped against the old wooden surface, eyes wide as Benjamin Poindexter stalks over to you like he has all the time in the world.

He’s wearing a mask, but you’d recognize his eyes anywhere. You’ve never seen them so fucking crazed.

“I missed you.” His hand is on your waist, large and gloved and firm even as you try to kick him away from you. He grunts, and halts your movements with a knee pressed between yours.

And then he rips off his mask, and kisses you. Hard. Rough. Tongue forcing its way past your lips and arm locking tight around your hip as his body presses against yours like it’s drawn there by a gravitational pull. It’s been so long, and you are most certainly in shock, but you can’t help the soft noise that pulls its way from your throat at the feeling. The way your toes curl a little at the rough sound he makes in response.

He reaches up, and pulls one of the knives out of your sleeve before throwing it towards Daredevil so quickly you almost miss it. He doesn’t even look. He keeps his gaze right on you.

The knife is deflected. Of course it is, because it’s fucking Matt, but Dex looks down at you, grins, and presses his lips to your cheek before pulling his mask back down just in time to be knocked to the ground.

The battle happens all around you, too quick for you to keep track of, and it takes you a good fifteen seconds to register that you need to get the fuck out of here.

The knife attaching your sleeve to the wall is in the wood so deep that you can’t get it out. You grunt in frustration, and finally rip your sleeve to free yourself. You think, vaguely, that you liked this jacket, before the sound of glass shattering makes you flinch and stumble back towards the door.

Your ears are ringing. You can’t think. You make it out into the street just in time to fall to your knees beside the body of your friend, nearly get trampled by people screaming and running and Karen is crying and you can’t think.

And Foggy Nelson dies on the sidewalk.

And, a few horrible moments of silence later, you hear a thud behind you.

And you don’t scream. You don’t cry. You still don’t even speak. Your clothes are stained with blood, and you can still taste the mint of Dex’s toothpaste on your tongue. Foggy dies, and Dex’s body just hit the pavement behind you.

You crawl to him in a haze of screams and the ringing of a thousand bells in your ears, and you can hear Karen sobbing behind you.

You think you might throw up. Or pass out. Or die right here next to Foggy Nelson and Benjamin Poindexter.

Dead. He’s dead. Oh God, Foggy isn’t breathing and now…and now Dex…he’s-

Blue eyes shoot open, wide and pained and crazed, and a gloved hand grabs your wrist. You didn’t even realize that you were touching him, hands shaking as they move over his body like you can fix it. Like you should even want to. Your palms sting. Knees, too. You think you scraped them on the pavement when you crawled over here.

“What did you do?” You ask, numb and confused and horrified, and Dex groans and presses his injured face into the pavement like the sound of your voice is the sweetest relief. His hand tightens on your wrist, relaxes, doesn’t let you go. “Dex, what did you do?”

-

ONE YEAR LATER

There is a deep, prominent scar on his cheek. He’s even larger than you remember. His eyes are different, like he’s allowed the illusion of control and sanity to shatter.

You’re here for Foggy. You haven’t seen Matt or Karen in almost a year. You are not here for Benjamin Poindexter.

But you’re here. Maybe you shouldn’t be, but you owe it to Foggy. To the other people this man has killed.

So many people. So many deaths. So many, because of you. And now Foggy, for reasons you still can’t understand.

The sentencing comes. The gavel is banged. You can’t hide your flinch at the sound. Dex’s eyes move right over to you, and lock in.

He smiles, eyes filled with a sick sort of love, and your fingers dig into your palms until your nails bite into the skin hard enough to draw blood.

They take him away, and he doesn’t stop smiling at you.

-

“He refuses to speak unless you’re in the room.”

Your fingers curl painfully tightly against your coffee cup. Your eyes fly up to Matt’s face.

“No.”

“I need information. We need information. He’ll be cuffed the entire time. He won’t touch you.”

“I’m not worried about that. I don’t want to speak to him.”

“They moved him to gen pop.”

You try to hide the way your heart pounds at the implication. You fail. And it’s Matt, so there’s no use pretending.

“Is…did they…” Gen pop. They’ll fucking kill him in there. Good, right? Someone like that shouldn’t be walking the Earth. He killed Foggy. He killed so many people.

“They will. He won’t last a week. Which means Fisk wants him dead.” Matt’s hand rests on the table before you, and he leans closer, adamant. “We need to know why. And then he can rot in prison until-“

“I want him out of gen pop.” You hate yourself so, so much for saying it that you feel like you’re going to be sick. “I want you to get him back in protective custody.”

Matt looks like you just slapped him across the face. You don’t blame him.

But he agrees. So you go. God help you, you go.

-

“Hi, baby.” His grin is fucking manic. His eyes are starved as they rake over you like he’s filing away every inch.

You glare, and sit down across from him. He leans forward, almost jerking in your direction, like he momentarily forgot about the cuffs in his desperation to touch you. Well, he’s not going to get to. Never again.

“You killed Foggy Nelson.”

“Your hair is longer.”

“You killed Foggy.”

“Do you think about it? The way it felt when I touched you again?”

“Shut up.”

“I’ve thought about it every minute. You tasted just like I remember.” His tongue darts out, smile lopsided as he traces it over his lip, eyes raking over you again so intensely that ice trickles down your spine in a way you really wish was unpleasant. “I wonder what else tastes just like I remember.”

You slap him, the sound cracking through the room, and his head whips to the side. His smile doesn’t fall.

“Do it again.”

“Fuck you.”

“Get me out of these cuffs, baby, and I will.”

“If you think I’ll ever, ever let you touch me again, you’re more fucked in the head than I thought.”

His smile cracks. Falls a little. His eyes darken. “Don’t talk like that.”

“Why did you kill Foggy Nelson?”

“You still love me.”

“No. I don’t.”

“You’re lying.” He’s still looking at you, intensely enough that you have to fight the urge to squirm. “Say it.”

“Fuck. You.”

His head rolls back, like those two words were a confession on their own. “Fuck, I missed your voice.”

“You said you’d speak if I came here. Answer me.”

“Do you remember our three month anniversary?” He asks, unbothered, and you want to throw something at him. Cuffs or not, the asshole would probably catch it. “Chinese food on the couch. The first time I told you I loved you.” Pain twists in your chest at the memory, and Dex leans forward when he sees it, another horrible smile curling on his lips. “I took my time with you that night. I had you making these noises, do you remember? These high pitched, sweet little begging sounds.” His fingers tap absentmindedly against the arms of his metal chair, and your face bursts into flames. “Think about them every night, but you know it doesn’t compare to the real thing.”

“You’re trying to get in my head.”

“I’m already in your head. Just like you’re in mine. We’re connected, forever.”

“Did you kill Foggy to punish me?”

He frowns, eye twitching a little when you refuse to give in. “No. But you shouldn’t have left me.”

“So what? Are you gonna kill me if you get out? Are you gonna kill me now?”

He looks genuinely pissed that you would even suggest something like that, jaw clenched and fingers flexing on the metal table again. “When I get out of here, I’m not going to hurt you.” The intensity of his gaze makes your blood feel cold. “But you’re not leaving me again. Ever.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do. I already have.”

“Fuck this.” You push yourself to your feet, the metal chair scraping against the floor like a gunshot. Like the shot that killed Foggy. Fired by the man in front of you. “Fuck you.”

That gets to him. “You’re not leaving. We’re not done.”

“We’re done.” You lean over the table, eyes hard as they look into his. His hands are already struggling against the cuffs locking him to the chair. “We’re done, Dex.”

“I haven’t seen you in a year. You can’t walk out like this.”

“And you’re not gonna see me for another eleven life sentences.”

His voice is a low, violent growl. “Don’t say that.”

And, because you’re a fucking idiot, you do exactly what you told yourself you wouldn’t do.

They confiscated your phone when you came in here. They didn’t confiscate your watch.

One button. One stupid thing you set up in anticipation for this meeting. That you promised you wouldn’t use. And yet, reckless fool that you are, you knew you would.

The security camera light flickers off.

Dex notices immediately, and the hunger that burns in his eyes and curls on his lips lights something aflame in your stomach that you don’t want to think about. Not right now.

You lean both arms on either armrest of his chair. His hands jerk against the cuffs, still trying to reach for you.

You lean closer. You don’t break eye contact. His mouth moves up to chase yours, and you pull back just enough to pull a frustrated grunt from his throat.

“If you ever, come anywhere even close to the people I love again…” you whisper, leaning in so your lips are close enough to his ear that he moans and tilts his head to the side, like he’s silently begging you to rip his throat out with your teeth. “I will kill you myself. Do you understand me, baby?”

For a moment, the thrill of it all makes you forget just how stupid you were for this. Just how dangerous this man is.

And then, as if to remind you himself, you hear a pop. A sharp, pained intake of breath.

Your eyes drop down to Dex’s right hand, just in time to see him slide it out of the cuff.

The crazy motherfucker dislocated his own thumb.

You jerk back, but Dex is faster. Of course he’s fucking faster. His arm locks around your middle, yanking you down onto his lap hard enough to pull an ‘oomph’ from your chest, and his breath is hot on your neck as you squirm against him.

“Shhh, shh.” His rough voice is too soft. You turned off the cameras. You’re a fucking idiot. Something hotter and more intense than panic shoots through your veins, and your breath catches in your throat. “I’ve got you.”

“That’s the problem.” You gasp, but his hand comes up to the back of your head, fisting in your hair and pulling you back so he can look at you.

“I did it for you.” He whispers, reverent. “I bought my freedom with it. For you.”

And then he kisses you, rough and hard, and your attempts to shove him off are met with nothing but a low and hungry growl.

There’s a moment, brief but painfully there, where the feeling of sparks lighting down through your blood is too overwhelming. Where his lips moving against yours is too familiar. Where you kiss him back, and his groan is nothing short of victorious as he wraps his arm more tightly around you.

And then the door opens, and he doesn’t let go. You sink your teeth into his lip, and bite down hard enough to draw blood. He moans shamelessly, but holds you tighter.

It takes two guards to get you out of his vice-like grip. His lip is bleeding. You can taste the iron of his blood. He’s smiling. Wide.

It’s only when the guards start pulling you toward the door that his smile falls, like he hadn’t expected that. Like he hadn’t even considered that you would be leaving again.

“No. Don’t take her. Stop it.” He snaps, as two more guards force his hand back into the cuff. “Don’t take her from me again. Stop it!”

They close the door behind you, and you wipe his blood from your lip with the back of your shaking hand as his scream echoes through the prison.

-

“You didn’t do it. You didn’t help him.”

Matt turns to you, and you can feel the surprise emanating from his very being at the sound of your voice. Here. At this fancy gala to celebrate the esteemed mayor.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. Deflection. And then, concern. “Have you slept?”

No. No, you haven’t. But you’re not going to tell him that. That ever since you went to that prison your thoughts have been more consumed by him than ever. That every beat of your heart has been chanting Dex, Dex, Dex and it’s getting more and more difficult to tell yourself that it’s because you want answers.

And you have them, now. Because you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“I did it for you.”

“It’s not exactly an invitation you can refuse.” Your dress is uncomfortable. Your heels hurt your feet. You can feel eyes on you from all around the fucking room and you’re going to crawl out of your skin. “And yes. I’ve slept.” You don’t care that he knows that you’re lying.

“I-“ he’s going to come up with an excuse, an apology, but Dex is probably already dead. You’ll probably be dead soon, too. So what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of being subtle? Of trying to be careful, anymore? You weren’t careful when you looked into all of this. You didn’t cover your tracks, and you know. You know it all. And they know you know. You’ll be in the ground in a week at best.

“It was Vanessa. She was in charge of his businesses. She did it.” You don’t even lower your voice. You’re exhausted, and you’re hurting, and you’re angry, and who fucking cares anymore?

Matt grabs for your arm, already beginning to steer you away from watching eyes and listening ears. You pull back, whirl to face him. “Stop. They know I know. They know what I do. That’s why I’m here. They’re probably gonna kill me too, tonight.”

For a moment, you think Matt Murdock might actually be speechless. You just keep talking.

“It’s fine. It’s a long time coming, right?” You run a hand through your hair, and your smile is a pained and humorless thing. “Do you know how many people have been killed, just from me loving him? Because he loved me too, and they used it to manipulate him?”

And Matt is still looking worried, still bothered that people might hear you. But who fucking cares?

“But it’s fine, right? At least the ‘weapon of mass destruction’ who did it is rotting in a prison morgue now. He didn’t deserve help. I didn’t deserve to ask for it. Not for him.”

Matt’s hand is on your arm. You want to cry, but you’ve cried all night and the tears won’t come anymore. You’ve cried so many tears for him. Maybe that makes you a monster, too.

“Keep it down.” Matt says, hand tightening on your arm, but you ignore him.

“I know everything, too. Do you know how many pills he was on in that prison, when she got to him? The inside of his body was a fucking pharmacy. I saw the signature. He couldn’t even hold the pen right.”

Matt Murdock’s jaw twitches. He looks right at you, through his glasses, and you can feel his unseeing gaze on your face. “He still did it.”

He’s right. He did. But-

“You don’t know him. He…he doesn’t think like other people. They got to him. They did this.” Matt opens his mouth, and you raise a hand. “I’m not an idiot. He did it too, okay? He did it. But…” and your exhausted eyes rise to the dance floor, and it all makes sense.

Fisk took everything from you. From so many people. Foggy is dead. Dex is dead. And they’re dancing and smiling like this is the happiest day of their fucking lives. They don’t care. Sure, you don’t care. You’re numb. You’re hurting and confused enough that you don’t care what happens to you, but them… these people did all of this, and they’re happy about it.

“They did this.” You murmur, just to yourself, and start to move forward.

Matt catches you, hard. Fast. In one smooth move, he twirls you onto the dance floor, deflecting your momentum and still trying to fucking cover for you.

“You’re delirious.” He says, voice low and grip tight. “You’re acting irrationally. Don’t-“

But you’ve made it close enough. Just close enough to hear what Buck says to Fisk, quiet and serious but very much audible over the din.

“Benjamin Poindexter killed three guards and escaped prison.”

The world narrows. The floor tilts beneath your feet. Matt holds you upright, and you barely register what he’s saying over the rapid beat of your heart.

Dex. Dex. DexDexDex-

“We have to get you out of here.” Matt’s voice by your ear, his feet already beginning to move you away. You blink, too shocked and…relieved to even force your own feet to move. “He’ll be coming for you.”

Alive. Alive. DexDexDexDex-

You may not have Matt’s senses, but you swear you hear the click of the gun at the same time his head whips up to face the balcony.

“Not me.” You whisper, eyes on the dark shape above you. The dark, achingly familiar shape of a man who should be dead.

And the gunshot launches the party into chaos.

Matt. Matt just jumped in front of the fucking bullet and you’re trying to get to him but you’re being dragged away by the crowd, nearly carried off in the commotion and panic as people rush to the door. You almost fall at one point, stumbling in your heels and nearly getting trampled before you’re saved by the arm of some kind civilian, and by the time you make it back into the ballroom to where the paramedics are crowding around your friend you can’t see the shape on the balcony anymore.

You reach towards Matt, and something on your wrist catches your eye. A small etching of marker on your skin that definitely wasn’t there before.

A bullseye.

-

Hours later, you climb the stairs to your apartment, aching and tired and knowing damn well what you’re going to find.

You spent every free minute tracing the bullseye on your skin with the tip of your finger, sitting in the hospital waiting room and listening to the beat of your own heart.

Alive. Alive. Dex. Alive. Dex. Dex. Dex.

The power is still out. You’re exhausted. There’s still blood on your dress.

Matt begged you not to go home, but he would find you anyway. Anywhere.

There’s a bullseye painted on the door of your apartment. Small, but noticeable. Right above the handle.

You drop your keys on the counter. Loud. No use in trying to hide.

“You moved.”

“Yeah.” You say, voice steadier than it should be. “My boyfriend ended up being a serial killer.”

“I don’t really fall under that definition.”

You hum, casual, and move to the dingy fridge in the open kitchen. Pull out a bottle of wine.

“You look tired.”

“You’re missing a tooth.” You pop the cork with your teeth. Take a swig right from the bottle. “You gonna kill me now?”

“Stop saying that.” It’s still dark, you still can’t see much more than his silhouette, but the words sound like they’re gritted out through his teeth. “I love you.”

“I trusted you.” You grit your own words out, fingers tightening on the bottle.

“You still can.”

You take another swig, and lean against the counter. “Now that’s funny. Didn’t know they taught comedy classes in prison.”

“I thought about you every day. Every minute.” His boots thud against the hardwood, and you turn before he can reach you.

“Funny. I thought about Foggy.”

“That sounds hard. Really-“

“Shut the fuck up.” And now, you have to stall. You have to find your phone, and dial Matt’s number. Or reach one of the panic buttons you installed that will call him. With the power out, there’s a pretty good chance neither of those things will work anyway. “Get out.”

“You don’t really want me to.” It sounds like a plea, beneath the roughness of his words. “You still love me.”

You pull out your phone. It flies out of your hand in a second. Shatters against the wall. You jump back.

“Was that a fucking knife?”

“Bottle cap. I don’t wanna cut you.”

“But you’ll shoot at me.” Well, not at you, but you know mentioning it will bother him.

“I would never in a million fucking years-“

“You. Killed. Foggy.”

“And we’ll work past it, baby. We can work past it.” And there he is, turning you in his arms and walking you back until your lower back hits the counter. His breath is warm, ghosting over your lips, and you hate how your body responds to it.

“You’re delusional.”

“You want me. Say it. Please.” Too close. Too close. His hand is wrapping around the wine bottle, pulling it from your grasp and raising it to his own lips. The moonlight spilling in through the window illuminates the lines of his face, so agonizingly familiar. So beautiful.

You reach up like a woman possessed, and brush your fingers over the scar on his cheek. He groans, and leans into your touch.

In a blink, your other hand whips up, and you press the blade of a kitchen knife to his throat.

He smiles, and you wonder if he’s always been this crazy. He leans forward, letting the blade dig into his skin to brush his lips over yours again, and now you genuinely wonder if he would let you do it.

“I should kill you.”

“I’d let you.” He murmurs, a truly sick confirmation, and your hand is trembling and you hate yourself for it. “But you won’t.”

“I don’t have Daredevil’s moral code.”

“No.” His mouth closes over yours, just enough to feel his teeth scrape against your bottom lip. “You love me.”

“I don’t.” But your voice catches on the word, and your hand shakes more, and he’s bleeding and he doesn’t seem to care.

You pull the knife away, and his fingers curl around yours on the handle, guiding your hand to lower it onto the counter beside you.

“You asked Murdock to get me out of gen pop.” He hums, still so close that you can feel his heartbeat against your own. “Didn’t work, but I appreciate the thought.” The confirmation. “Helped me get back to you.”

“I didn’t want you to get back to me.”

“Liar, liar.” He murmurs, teasing and soft, and kisses you again. These kisses are nothing like the last couple of times, so rough and nearly violent with their desperation. No, these kisses are brief and soft, gentle presses of his lips against yours between words like he can’t help himself.

“I thought you were dead.” You don’t mean to say it. You don’t mean to acknowledge it. “Matt left you to die.”

“And you mourned me.” Another kiss. Slower this time. More lingering. You need to pull away from him. You need to shove him the fuck off of you. This is so wrong. So fucked up. He has killed so many people. Lied so many times. He’s fucking batshit insane. “I saw you. You were about to confront Fisk. For me.”

“I don’t know what I was gonna do.” You breathe, and your eyes are already falling closed. Your body is giving in to him like it doesn’t belong to you. Your heart is still beating heavy in your throat.

Dex. Dex. Dex. Dex.

This time, you lean up and press your lips to his. Wrap your arms around his neck. Tangle your fingers in his hair and devour him. He makes a noise that’s almost akin to a whimper against your mouth, his own hands flying up to your face to angle your head so he can kiss you fucking breathless.

You bite at his lip. Pull at his hair like you’re trying to punish him for how much you want this. How much you missed him. How fucking good this feels.

He moans, lifts you onto the counter and presses his body up against yours like he can’t get close enough. Cradles the back of your head and all but sobs into your mouth when you whimper and kiss him hard enough that his teeth click against yours.

You hear a soft, metallic noise, and feel cool metal on your thigh as Dex slices through the fabric of your bloodstained dress to allow himself more room to press his large body between your legs, the prison guard uniform digging into your burning skin and making you arch against him.

You slide your hand over his neck, thumb digging into the thin cut beneath his chin. His moan vibrates through your entire body, and you smear the blood over his throat as you angle his head to pull him closer to you.

His hand slams into the cupboard by your head like he’s trying to brace himself, the fingers of his free hand gripping your hair so tightly you see stars, blunt teeth digging into your lip like a silent and desperate plea for more.

“Say my name.” He whispers, rough, and you don’t. You fucking moan his name, a sound you’ve never heard from yourself before ripping its way from your chest and making him shake as he releases you to rip his gloves off like separation between your skin is physically burning him.

He doesn’t leave you for long, warm fingers sliding up your thigh and trailing sparks in their wake until you’re trembling against him. Until you’re gripping the back of his head and yanking him down to kiss you again. His fingers slide higher. Higher. Until they’re curling in the waistband of your underwear and every kiss comes on a swallowed and ragged breath.

You nod your consent, fingers curling even more tightly against his scalp, and he kisses you again. You hear the click of the knife, feel the flat end of the blade slide up your thigh again, and can’t find the words to complain as he slices your underwear from your body.

When his long, skilled fingers reach the apex of your thighs, and he feels just how desperate you are for him, the noise that rips from his throat sounds like the most fucked up prayer that’s ever been uttered.

“Fuck.” He pulls back, presses his nose against your temple, and when his fingers immediately find the spot that has you fucking whining you hear a breathless chuckle against your ear.

“Never miss.” He whispers, cocky and infuriating and agonizingly intimate in the dark apartment, and you’re going to fucking kill him.

Kill. Kill.

All those people. Father Lantom. Nadeem. Foggy.

Clarity rips back into you like a fucking car crash. Like a bolt of lightning. It freezes your burning blood, rises to your throat, and makes you shove him so hard his back hits the wall across from you with a dull thud.

You’re just as breathless as him, and his eyes are on fire as they look into yours. As they rake over you, slow and hungry, and he doesn’t even try to catch his breath even as he realizes why you pushed him away.

“Why?” He asks, but he knows. He knows and he’s goading you and you need to make yourself-

“I hate you.” It is the least convincing sentence you have ever uttered. You’re still breathless, still flushed with need, still spread out on your kitchen counter with his name lingering on your kiss-swollen lips.

Slowly, without looking away from you, he raises his fingers to his mouth, and your next breath catches on a whimper at the sight.

He moves forward at the sound, and your foot flies up to stop him, heel digging into his chest.

Something flashes in his eyes. Something you can’t place. You don’t know what’s in your own expression, but you see him scan it. Watch the breath shudder out of his chest as his hand rises up to trail lovingly over your calf.

And then, scarred and beautiful and illuminated by moonlight, he drops to his knees.

Benjamin Poindexter looks up at you like he’s worshipping at your fucking altar, and refuses to look away from you as his lips press against the skin below your knee.

“Stop it.” You try. You really do.

He shakes his head, and blunt nails drag down over your thigh as he moves closer. Kisses higher. Keeps his eyes locked on yours as he guides your heel over his shoulder.

“Dex.” It’s supposed to be a warning. It comes out as a plea.

And then he’s right where you need him, on his knees before you with your hands gripping at his hair and his fingers digging into your thighs to keep you in place, and it feels so good that your eyes are watering with something between pleasure and emotion so intense it’s going to drown you.

Your hand leaves his hair, flying up to scramble for purchase on the creaky old cupboard behind your head as Dex doubles his efforts like he’s desperate to pull more noises from you. He moans into you, gripping you more tightly as your heel digs into his back, and your hand leaves the cupboard to slap over your mouth as a near-wail of pleasure echoes off the walls. It doesn’t do much. Doesn’t muffle your helpless noises nearly enough, and before long Dex is sliding his large hand up your body to pull your palm away from your mouth, fingers tangling with yours as his too-skilled tongue turns your blood to lava in your veins.

You fall apart in minutes, shattering with a sharp gasp of his name as your thighs tremble and your nails dig into his scalp. He pulls back like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, resting his head against your thigh and staring up at you with a breathless smile on his lips and you want to hate him so badly it hurts.

But you pull yourself off of the counter, slide onto his lap and kiss him hard as you fumble blindly with the belt of his stupid fucking prison guard uniform, and before you know it he’s rolled you onto your back and you’re ripping his shirt open as he hikes your ruined dress up over your hips and-

“Tell me you want this.” He rasps, low against your ear, and when you nod emphatically he grabs your chin and turns your face towards his. “Tell me.”

“I want this.” It’s a sick, horrible confession, but it’s true. “I want you.”

He groans, like it’s the most wonderful thing he’s ever heard, and his first thrust hits home and your moan is loud enough to wake the neighbors.

“I love you.” He breathes against your lips, as you scramble at him like a wild fucking animal, desperate for more. “I love you.”

You won’t say it back. You can’t say it back. This is already fucked up beyond belief.

He holds you like he’s trying to touch every inch of you at once, lips trailing down your jaw until every near-whimper is vibrating against your ear. You can’t stop touching him, either. You yank at his open button-up shirt so hard you hear it rip, until he moves to help you pull it the rest of the way off of him, bracing himself against the floor beside your head and rolling his hips into yours until you’re sobbing his name on every breath.

When you break for a second time, your nails are dragging thin red marks down the skin of his back. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going, keeps relentlessly hitting that spot inside you until the pleasure builds up all over again and it is fucking unbearable.

“Dex.” You manage to gasp, mindless, head rolling back against the floor as he bites at your shoulder and speeds up his movements until you’re practically sobbing.

“One more.” He growls, low and rough and just as wrecked as you are. “Give me one more.”

The third time, he’s right there with you, pressing his nose into the hollow of your throat with a groan of your name that burrows its way into your very bloodstream. Locks itself in your soul and becomes just as much a part of you as the color of your eyes and the bones beneath your skin.

It takes a long time for you to come back to earth. Longer for Dex to pull himself away from you, just enough to roll onto his back and tug you into his side.

“I love you.” You whisper, like a shameful confession, and he shudders like the sound of it is a drug and he’s more than happy to relapse.

He pulls you closer. You rest your cheek against the sweat-damp skin of his chest. Try to even out your breathing as he cards his fingers through your hair.

You have to go. You have to get out of here. Fisk is gonna be coming for you soon.

He grunts, and you make a soft noise as he sits up and gathers you into his arms, drags himself to his feet and carries you into your bedroom.

Everything is so different, now. Dex is a killer. A monster. Your life has been flipped upside down and shaken like a damn snowglobe. You’re probably going to be assassinated soon.

And yet, as Dex helps you out of your ruined dress, skating his fingers and lips over the newly exposed skin, and reaches into your dresser drawer, it’s all so familiar that you ache.

He digs to the bottom, and his grin is triumphant as he pulls an old FBI t-shirt out. His T-shirt. The one you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away.

He slides it over your head, presses a kiss to your cheek, and smiles a little wider when you relax.

And then, when he’s cleaned you up and pulled you into the rest of your pajamas, he smooths out the sheets behind you like a ritual before he lays you down atop them, sliding his body over yours and kissing you until you melt into your cheap comforter.

You make love again. You don’t think either of you even mean to. It isn’t as desperate as the first time, not nearly as mindless and rough, but his kisses deepen and he slides his scarred hand down your back until he’s shifting you beneath him, murmuring a quiet plea against your throat as his fingers tug at the waistband of your shorts that you respond to with another emphatic nod. And then he’s sliding them off, and you’re unbuttoning his pants again, and his tongue is tracing silent sonnets over your skin until you’re writhing against him.

He doesn’t tease, but he still seems to savor every second. He nudges your knees apart with his own, and pushes into you with a groan of your name. He moves with you like the tide, builds you until the wave crests and whispers praises against your ear as it crashes through you. You kiss him, tell him how good it all feels, and he tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it.

When it’s over, and you’re lying together in the rumpled sheets and he’s breathing shakily against your forehead and holding you like you might vanish at any moment, you finally speak again.

“We’re not back together.” You mumble, and he hums like you just told him the sky is purple but he couldn’t care less. Like it’s such a ridiculous lie that he may as well indulge it for now.

You frown, but you don’t double down. There’s no point, really. You know him. You know he’s not letting you go anywhere.

“How do I fix it?” He finally asks, and your brow furrows as you sit up a little to look at him.

“What?”

“How do I make you forgive me? For Fog-“

Your hand flies up to cover his mouth as if of its own accord. The movement surprises even you.

“Don’t say his name.” You snap, pain curling in your stomach. Guilt, too. But not enough. You’re lying naked in bed with the man who killed one of your best friends, and you don’t feel guilty enough, and you hate yourself for it. “You still don’t get to say his name.”

He looks at you. Nods. You pull your hand back, and he chases your lips with his own.

He kisses you. You kiss him back. You keep trying to hate yourself for it.

“What do I do?” He asks again, and he looks so earnest that you want to die.

You don’t know what crosses your face. What expression is in your eyes, but his own melt into a look of pure desperation.

It takes you a while to speak, and even when you do, the words spill unpracticed and quiet from your lips.

“He was good.” You whisper, and grief tugs at your stomach with enough force to nearly cripple you. “Foggy was so…good.”

“You said I was good, once.” Dex murmurs, brow twitching a little in that way it does when he’s trying to understand something.

“I did.” You reach up, hesitate, and give in. Your fingers trace over the scar on his cheek. “I think…I think you can be. You can be good.”

He melts. He turns his cheek into your palm, looks at you like you are both heaven and earth and everything in between. “I’ll be anything you want. I’ll do anything for you.”

Your heart crumples, and you see it. You shouldn’t, and you’re fucked up for it, but you see it. You see how he thinks. How he is. How he’s been manipulated and hurt and how he’s hurt others and you still fucking love him.

“I want to kill Fisk.” You whisper, like it hurts, and he reaches up to curl a lock of your hair around his finger like you just admitted nothing more intense than liking sugar in your coffee. “I want them both dead. And I don’t want it…I don’t want it for the right reasons, I think.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Revenge.” You whisper. “The greater good, yeah, but revenge. They killed Foggy. They hurt you. I want them to die for it.”

“Hm.” He slides his hand up your back, palm flat and warm, and turns his nose into your cheek. “If I help you kill them…it balances the scales.”

You frown. “It-“

“A good deed, to make up for the bad. Right?” He presses a kiss to your ear, and your eyes fall closed. “It balances out. You’ll forgive me.”

“I can’t forgive you.” You can’t. You shouldn’t. You won’t.

Even if you understand how his mind works. How he was tricked and manipulated and taken advantage of. Even if you understand him.

You pull back, look into his eyes, and the look on his face breaks something inside of you. The desperate hope. The need.

“We’re probably gonna have to move tomorrow. Fisk definitely wants me dead.” You murmur, and brush your lips over his.

He smiles. “We’ll move.” We. You and him.

“If we do this, you don’t do it for me. I’m not making you do anything.”

“I do everything for you.” He says, matter-of-fact, and closes the distance enough to peck you on the lips. “But okay. Let’s kill ‘em all.”

-

“Such a sweet boy.” The old woman across the hall is absolutely enamored with Dex, or should you say ‘Tony’. Sometimes you think he’s enjoying it a little too much. Especially now, as he crouches down to slide a fried egg into her cat’s bowl. “And what are you two up to?”

“Takin’ the missus to lunch.” He answers smoothly, sliding his arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to the side of your head. You smile brightly, and endure a few more minutes of cooing and fawning before making your way down the hall. He keeps his arm around you the whole time, humming absentmindedly as you make your way out into the street.

“You have got to stop telling her we’re married.” You chastise, and he doesn’t let you go even as he flips a coin behind him into a homeless man’s cup.

“I didn’t.”

“You just called me ‘the missus’.”

He’s smiling, a little too proud of himself. “Could mean anything.”

You still insist that you’re not back together. He still allows you to, but he seems to find it more amusing than bothersome. Which, you suppose, is understandable. After all, you woke up in his arms just this morning, like you do every morning. And, like you do most nights, you spent the majority of the evening moaning his name.

But fuck, he’s like a drug to you. You tried so, so hard to hate him. To pretend like he was a monster. Maybe he is, but maybe you are too.

Because whatever Benjamin Poindexter is made of, it calls out to something intrinsic within you. He knows it, and he’s just waiting for you to admit it.

You don’t know if the spring in his step and the smile on his face is from your activities last night or anticipation of what’s about to happen, but you would say it’s safe to blame both as he holds the door of the diner open for you with an exaggerated chivalry. And, because it’s him and he’s an asshole, he makes you yelp as you walk ahead of him with a playful swat to your ass.

You glare. He smiles, and leads you to the counter.

“You two ready to order?”

The woman behind the counter looks tired. Dex smiles like he’s been practicing how to, sweet and with his eyes crinkled in the corners. Sometimes, when you look at him, scarred and huge and absolutely fucking bonkers, you wonder how much he’s changed since you bumped into him on the street all that time ago. How much you’ve changed.

“My wife and I will have a…banana milkshake, then.” He grins at you, and it is so annoyingly hard not to smile back. “Does that sound good, sweetheart?”

You snort. “Sounds perfect, darling.”

His fingers come up, catching your chin and turning your head to him so he can press a soft, smiling kiss to your lips.

“Cute. I’ll be right back with that.” The woman says blandly, disappearing behind the counter as Dex pulls back.

“Menace.” You accuse, and he pats your cheek before he pulls out his phone.

He makes the worst, least convincing phone call you’ve ever heard. So unconvincing, in fact, that you almost giggle as he says “oh shit, he’s got a gun” in the most monotone voice you’ve ever heard. His eyes don’t leave you for a second. They rarely do. Like when you’re near, he’s locked in on a target.

Then again, hasn’t it always been that way?

You did the research. You did the tracking. All you have to do now is wait.

Dex unwraps two straws, carefully places them both in the milkshake, and leans down to take a sip.

You smile at him, roll your eyes, and lean down to the other straw.

You swear, in moments like this, that his eyes could be little cartoon hearts. He doesn’t stop smiling. Doesn’t look away. And shit, if you don’t feel like baby bluebirds could be tweeting around your own head. Like you’re the only two people in the whole world. Cue the cheesy, romantic music. Cue the world vanishing around you until it’s just you and him in this diner, smiling like idiots and sharing a milkshake.

You glance down at your phone. Watch him finish the milkshake. “Forty five seconds.”

He grunts, calm and relaxed, and starts pulling on his gloves. Pulls a toothpick out of the cup beside you.

“Aren’t you gonna tell me to take cover?” You hum, and the corner of his mouth rises even higher.

“No one’s gonna touch you.” You believe him, and you like that he acknowledges that you know what you’re doing.

“Everybody get on the ground!”

You throw your hands in the air, view blocked by Dex’s large frame, and shriek like a dramatic damsel in a movie.

His shoulders shake once. A silent laugh.

“Too much?” You ask, just as they shout again and come closer.

A toothpick finds its home in the ATVF officer’s eye, and all hell breaks loose.

You climb onto your chair, just in time for Dex to push you over the counter. You land with a roll, and in a second he’s on top of you, hands over your head and body covering yours.

“That was a really great milkshake.” He mumbles almost conversationally as the bullets slow, and you reach up to pull his mask the rest of the way down for him before he climbs off of you and snatches up a handful of silverware.

You manage to get to your feet just in time to watch three officers fall with forks sticking out of their eyes. Unfortunately, it’s also just in time for another man to grab you and press the barrel of a gun to your temple.

“Stand down!” He shouts, right by your ear, and digs the barrel in harder. Deeper.

Dex turns, and tilts his head.

“Ow.” You pat the arm wrapped around your throat. “Wrong move, dude.”

He screams as a fork impales the back of his hand, and you feel two more whir past you before they find their homes in his face. Not kill shots. Not yet. When you turn, he’s moaning on the ground with cutlery sticking out of his cheek and eye.

You tuck yourself into a booth as the rest of the men go down, bullets and weapons finally coming to a stop. Heavy bootsteps land beside you, and Dex pulls his mask off as the man in front of you trembles and clings to a tiny dog in his lap.

“Dogs in restaurants are unsanitary.” He says, genuinely perplexed but not quite annoyed.

“P-Please don’t kill me.” The man whimpers. Dex smiles in that unnerving way he has, and you smile too as you grab a bottle of ketchup off of the table.

“Don’t worry.” He takes your hand, stands you up with him, and throws a final pair of forks behind him to slam home into the retreating form of the man who just held the gun to your head. “We’re the good guys.”

You draw a bullseye on the door. He kisses the side of your head as you make your way out of the diner, stepping carefully over shattered glass with the sound of sirens wailing down the street.

-

ONE YEAR EARLIER

“This is no way to live, Benjamin.”

Vanessa Fisk sits across from him. He tries to focus on her. On anything. His mind has been scrambled since he was checked into this place. The cocktail of pills they have him taking every day makes it hard to think.

But you’re still there. You. You. You.

He lies in his bed at night, stares at the ceiling and blinks like his eyes are weighed down by anvils, and if he focuses hard enough he can almost feel your head on his chest. Almost feel your soft hair against his nose. Maybe your fingers tracing over his skin, soothing and warm.

Your voice, lips barely brushing his own. “You’re a good man, Dex…”

And he’ll reach up, searching for you, wanting to pull you to him and feel your body against his. Wanting you so badly that the pain is overwhelming.

And there’s nothing there. And the room is cold.

“I miss you.” He’ll murmur to the darkness, tongue heavier than his eyelids. And he won’t hear anything back.

Now, Vanessa Fisk pushes something towards him. A picture.

Of you.

His near-useless hand paws at the table, something like desperation surging through him as he grasps for it. They won’t let him have any pictures of you here. They call you one of his ‘victims’. He hasn’t seen your face in so long.

“She misses you.” And a part of him knows Vanessa is manipulating him. Even through the drugs, and the longing, he knows it.

And yet, she pushes the picture toward him a little more, and there you are.

You. You. You.

You, at that bar he found you at. The second time you met. You’re with Foggy Nelson, Matt Murdock, and Karen Page. You’re smiling, but not with your eyes. He knows what it looks like when you smile with your eyes.

You look sad. His eye twitches with the urge to fix it. The urge to touch you.

His fingers curl against the picture.

“I know what it is to love someone so much that being separated feels like…” Vanessa’s voice is gentle. Kind. Vulnerable, even. Dex can’t stop looking at the picture of you. That vulnerability in her voice is reaching him, matching with his own. “Like a hollowness in your soul.”

He makes a soft noise. It sounds desperate, even to his own ears.

His fingers curl a little more against the picture. Brushing over your cheek. Missing the feeling of your skin against his.

“They talk to her about you.”

His eyes, still slowed by the pills, move up to her face.

“They tell her that you were evil. Horrible. She is trying to convince herself that it’s true.” Vanessa leans forward, earnest. “If you want her, you cannot let that happen.”

His eyes fall helplessly back to the picture of you.

Vanessa slides a contract his way. He doesn’t look at it. His trembling fingers trace the printed line of your cheek.

“You can have her again. I only need one…favor. But you will have your freedom, and she will have hers.”

You. You. You.

Vanessa’s manicured finger taps the picture. Taps the face of Foggy Nelson. “I need you to kill him, and one of his clients.”

Dex looks up, a muddled question in his eyes. Foggy is your friend. You like Foggy. Foggy-

“They are poisoning her mind.” Vanessa repeats. “I do not want to see you lose the woman you love, Benjamin. I am offering you a mutually beneficial opportunity.”

You are so beautiful it hurts to look at you. His shaking hand holds the pen. Hesitates. He tries to form a clear and straightforward thought.

“With your freedom, you can get back to her.”

Back to you.

He signs the contract.

-

One good deed, and it’s all better. And you forgive him.

Not like you haven’t already. Even if you won’t admit it, he knows you have. He can see it on your face. Feel it in your quickened breaths at night when he’s got you laid out on the sheets, or on the couch, or against the wall…

And when you eat breakfast together, and he’s staring at you and you’re grinning right back at him, and the sounds of the chaos and the city and the world around him fade and everything is just you. You. You. You.

You’re out at the bodega down the street, grabbing more bandages and water. You’ll be back in ten minutes, tops.

You’re gonna be mad at him. He hates that.

But Matt Murdock showed up four minutes ago, and now the apartment is an absolute fucking wreck, and the lady down the hall is screaming and terrified because Dex had to use her as a human shield for a minute there, and you’re gonna come home to that wreck and worry but…

One good deed. He can do it now. Earn your forgiveness. Earn his redemption. If he doesn’t move now, he might lose his chance. And then what? What’s the point of living if it’s in a world absent of your love? Despite everything, he can’t help but fear a day when you decide that you can’t forgive him. That his sins were simply too much. Where you deprive him of the love you offer now because you just can’t seem to help it, where you stop smiling at him and letting him touch you completely.

No, he has to go now. Killing Fisk solidifies your forgiveness. Allows him to keep you. Keeps the world balanced right.

So he leaves. He leaves the apartment for the last time, and prays to whatever God might exist that you’ll forgive him.

- 

He throws the snowglobe. Plans the trajectory against Wilson Fisks’s swing. Watches the shard pierce Vanessa Fisk’s temple.

It was easy. Almost too easy.

But the bullet. That’s the problem. That landed home, and it hit all the wrong places.

He’s going to bleed out. You’re going to be upset.

But he did it. One good deed. He didn’t kill Fisk, but he killed Vanessa. At least, at the very least, he took that pain away. She ordered the hit on Foggy. Your friend. She made you hurt. She just made him the weapon. And now, she’s going to die.

-

“Mrs. Smithers, please shut up.”

She’s screaming, and crying, and you should probably be comforting her. ‘Tony’ just held a gun to her head, after all. And yet, you have bigger things to worry about.

Two minutes, and they’ll be here. Cops have been called. AVTF is on the way, guns blazing and you have seconds to find him and your heart is hammering in your chest in that familiar staccato beat.

Dex. Dex. DexDexDex.

There. The church. The fucking church, of all places.

Vanessa Fisk, mortally wounded. Daredevil and Bullseye at the boxing match. Dex Dex DexDexDex.

You smash your computer against the counter, cracking it in half, and bolt.

You take the fire escape, and begin scrambling down just as you hear them bursting into the hall.

And you pray, with every last shred of your desperate heart, that you’re not too late.

-

He’s bleeding out. He knows it. Seen it enough times to know he doesn’t have long, and Murdock isn’t gonna stick around to help him.

He misses you. He wishes you were here.

The dizziness of blood loss is a little frustrating, but Murdock is busy calling him a piece of shit. Fair. He shot his best friend, after all. If you’re still mad about that, it makes sense that he would be too.

“One last good deed.” He hums, propped up against the wall as blood leaks between his fingers, pooling onto the floor beneath him. “N’then she forgives me.”

“Asshole.” A whole conversation in the pews a minute ago, Dex’s whole speech about how he’s making it better and earning forgiveness and getting his mind back, and that’s all the guy can say. He thought lawyers were supposed to be more eloquent.

“Take care of her when I’m gone.” You. You. You. He sees Daredevil tense. He’s pissed at you, sure, but he cares about you. So Dex smiles, tired, and tilts his head back against the wall, confident in his next words. “Yeah, you will.” And if he ever touches you, Dex will return as a ghost and put a pencil through his eye. But hey, just something to worry about in the afterlife.

Murdock stutters some sort of apology. Has a whole little crisis about whether or not he can save him. He’s so stressed it’s almost funny, but he’s not gonna save Dex. He did it. He earned forgiveness. It’s time for judgement day.

The room pulses. The sounds of ATVF bootsteps echo above. His eyes close, and you’ll be okay. You forgave him. You didn’t admit it aloud, but he doesn’t need that. Never did.

Judgement day ticks ever-closer.

“Dex!”

His eyes open, and it’s too bright in the dark room. He’s too tired, but…

There you are. In the church and illuminated by low light like an angel. He smiles, bloody and exhausted and more than a little out of it. “Hey, baby.”

“Wake up. Dex, wake up.” You sound so panicked. So scared. For him. You love him. You. You. You….

“Dex! Fuck, please wake up. C’mon.” You’re pulling at him, trying to drag him across the floor and failing miserably, and he wishes you would just stay. Just admit that this is hopeless and let him hold you close. Admit that you love him, and that you need him, and let him feel your breath and smell your hair in his last few minutes on this earth.

“Fuck. Why are you so heavy?! Where’s Matt?” You’re trying to get your hands under his shoulders. It’s a little funny, but it hurts like a bitch when you jostle his bullet wound, so he grabs you and spins you down in front of him.

“In the wind.” He reaches up, fingers sliding over your cheek and smearing it with red. Fucking beautiful. They write poems about this shit. About women so lovely they steal souls and start wars. “You gotta go, too.”

“Fat fucking chance.” You press your forehead to his, unbothered by the blood, and cradle his own face in your hands. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you. I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.”

Oh, that’s the best thing he’s ever heard. It’s the first time you’ve said it since that night on your kitchen floor, when you were still lying beneath him and still catching your breath and still all his after so much time. Back then, you whispered it like some horrible confession. Sweet music to his ears.

“My girl.” He’s fading. He’s fading fast. You hold him more tightly, smearing his own blood on his face as he does the same to you, the matching stains like a tether. Like a claim. “North Star….”

“Dex. Dex. Stop. Wake up. Don’t leave me don't you dare leave me-“

The sound of your voice is swallowed by the tide, and he doesn’t close his eyes, refuses to look away from you, but his vision begins to blur.

And then, from deep under the water, he hears it.

The door creaking open. Your panicked voice as your head whips to the side, dislodging his bloody hand from your cheek.

“Matt?! Matt! Help him! Please-“

…

-

You’re by his bedside. You have been for hours.

Karen is not happy with you. Neither is Matt. Soledad is stitching up Dex’s wound, pulling the bullet out, and he keeps waking up.

Not only does he keep waking up, he keeps jolting awake from the pain. Keeps squeezing your hand so tightly you wonder if he’ll break bone. Keeps finding your face in the haze of sleep and agony, and grinning like a lunatic when your eyes meet.

And then he’s healed. Somewhat. For now. And you’re fighting exhaustion of your own in the chair you’ve pulled up to the cot he’s asleep in.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Karen sounds pissed. You get it. But Dex is pale and his breathing is ragged and slow and you can’t let go of his hand.

“Hey, Karen.” The casual tone of your voice is insulting. You know it. You think you’ve been spending too much time with Dex.

“Him?” Matt isn’t here. Not now. You see sweat on Dex’s brow. Look down to make sure that his bandages are still in place. Every time his breathing slows even a little, your ears ring and your vision narrows.

“Yeah.” You don’t look away from him. You’re still covered in his blood. “Cute, right?” A lame joke, like he’s some boy you just met at the bar, rather than…well, fucking Bullseye.

“We’ve been trying to find you. We thought he kidnapped you.”

Your thumb trails its way over bruised knuckles again. “Well…I mean, he kinda did.” However things ended up that night after the party, you’re pretty confident that he wasn’t going to let you leave. Not without him.

“Are you sleeping with him?” You’re getting a little tired of the twenty questions.

“I’m in love with him.” You answer simply, and hear her suck in a horrified breath.

“He killed Foggy.”

“I know.” Dex stirs, just barely, like he might be reacting to your admission even in sleep. You squeeze his hand, and when you reach up to brush your thumb over his cheek he turns his face into your palm. “And I still love him. Isn’t that fucked up?”

-

He wakes cuffed to the cot. They’re worried about what he might do. Honestly, you’re surprised they didn’t cuff you too.

He winces as his eyes open, and smiles when they land on you. His low rasp of a voice is even more gravelly, hoarse with sleep and pain.

“Hey, baby.”

He always says that in the most fucked up situations. It always makes your heart beat a little faster.

He sits up, slowly, and pulls at the cuffs on the bed.

“Do your staples hurt?” You ask, eyes falling down to the bandages. 

He grunts in acknowledgment. “C’mere.”

You do, slowly, and it’s only then that he seems to notice the gun.

“You gonna shoot me?” He asks, smile widening a little as he tilts his head to the side.

“I might.” You reach down, slip a paper clip into the cuff on his right wrist, and hear it pop free. He makes a soft noise, rolling his wrist once before sliding his hand up your back as you sink down to straddle his lap.

He leans in to kiss you. You press the barrel against his forehead and push him back. He smiles even wider.

“You disappeared.” You hum, and he pushes his forehead a little more into the gun. “You tried to get yourself killed.”

“Balancing the scales.”

“You got shot. You almost died. I watched you die.”

“You love me.” He breathes it like the memory is a fucking treasure - a shot of heroin straight to the system. His hand tightens on your back, pulling you more firmly onto his lap.

“I still hate you. For Foggy.” It’s a lie, but it should be true. He hums, and you slide the gun around to his temple.

“You love me.” He repeats, and brushes his nose against yours.

“I do.” You admit, soft, and he kisses you. Hard. Slow. His fingers slide up into your hair, curling into a fist behind your head as he completely ignores the firearm digging into his skull.

You pull back, and push it in harder.

“Listen to me, Poindexter.” You murmur, low and dark as your own hand slides up to his hair, pulling his head back and making him groan as he looks at you with a blissed-out grin on his scarred face. “Never do that shit again. You don’t get to leave me. Not now, not ever.”

Words he’s said to you before, albeit in different forms, back when you told yourself you hated him.

“Never.” He agrees, and his eyes fall closed like he would die happy if you pulled the trigger right now. He opens them after a moment, and leans up to bump his nose against yours again. “Wanna put that down?”

“I could shoot you.” You don’t know why you’re saying it. You’re smiling too.

“No bullets.” He hums, pleased. “And it’s not loaded.”

You laugh, and wonder just how crazy you’ve become. “The FBI trained you too well.”

He uses his free arm to tug you a little closer, until there’s no more space between your bodies, and you drop the unloaded gun in favor of wrapping your arms around him again.

“Not the FBI. I know you.” He kisses you again, in that slow and determined way, and slides the palm of his hand up beneath your shirt. “Uncuff me.”

You smile, and shake your head. Push him back down and chase his lips with your own.

He hums, nips playfully at your lip, and tugs on the other handcuff until it rattles.

“You’re injured.” You murmur, muffled by his kiss, and he tangles his fingers in your hair again.

“Feels better.”

“Liar.”

He grunts, and rocks his hips against yours. “This feels better. Let me touch you.”

“You are touching me.”

“Let me touch you more.”

You reach down between you, as wrong and stupid as it is, and unbuckle his belt.

He makes a very pleased noise, and moves his free hand down to unbutton your jeans.

“Uncuff me.” He growls again, demanding, as you shuffle out of your pants and move to pull his down.

“No.”

He pulls you back down to him by the back of your neck, traces his tongue over your ear. “Don’t wanna do this with one hand.”

“I could cuff your other hand.”

He grunts, and the next roll of his hips is harder. More punishing. You gasp, control slipping a little more than you want to admit, and he pulls at the hem of your blood-stained shirt.

“Off.”

You comply, and he leans back to look you over like you’re the most incredible thing he’s ever seen. You love how he looks at you like that. You love him so much it hurts.

“Your staples.” You murmur, as he drags himself back up to a sitting position, pulling you more firmly onto his lap until you can feel the very prominent evidence of his desire against you.

“Doesn’t hurt.”

It’s getting harder to breathe. Harder to focus as he moves his hand down to slide your underwear over your legs. You maneuver to help him, and his own breath catches in his throat.

“Liar, liar.” It comes out as a whisper, soft and teasing as you press a soft kiss to his lips, and his own lips curl into a smile.

“I want it to hurt.” He noses at your jaw. Down to the hollow of your throat. “Reminds me I’m alive.”

You kiss him, hard, because he is alive and he’s here with you and you suddenly need him so badly it hurts. When you finally sink down onto his lap, bodies joining and breath shaking with the feeling of becoming one, he buries a groan into your hair, hips stuttering as you begin to rock against him. Your thighs burn already at the angle, and he meets your movements with his own as he crushes you to him. It must hurt, and you want to tell him so, but when you open your mouth he groans low against your neck and finds that spot that has your toes curling and hands flying up to find purchase on his shoulders.

You slide your hands over his cheeks, pull his face back so you can kiss him breathless, and pleasure begins to build almost alarmingly fast in your core. You almost lost him. You love him. He’s kissing you like you’re the only oxygen he’s ever wanted to breathe and dragging his rough palm up over your bare back as he meets your movements with his own. The cuff rattles against the chair, but despite his restricted movement and injuries he’s still using his one arm to move you in his lap, angling your body to hit that spot in your core that has you gasping desperately against his lips.

One particularly rough thrust has him hissing in pain, and the reminder of exactly why he’s hurting like this possesses you in the strangest way as you slide your hand down to grip his throat, forcing his gaze to your own.

And there’s so much power in it. In watching this large, scarred, deadly man stare at you like he’s in awe of your existence. The sight of it alone has you falling apart, moaning his name as your body spasms against his. He clings to you, and your hand squeezes around his throat as he pushes his forehead against yours like he’s drinking in the sight of you, too.

“Mine.” You whisper, and he falls over the edge so violently you wonder if he might pass out, hand dropping down to grip your thigh tight enough to bruise.

You sit there for a while, tracing your fingers down the scar on his back as he catches his breath with his forehead pressed against your shoulder.

“I have to re-cuff you.” You murmur eventually, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. He uses his free arm to grip you tighter.

“No. Don’t move.”

“If they walk in here and see you uncuffed and inside me, they’ll probably cuff me too.” You hum, and feel him smile as his teeth dig playfully into your collarbone. You turn your head, lips brushing his ear in a conspiratorial whisper. “They think I’m crazy.”

He laughs, broad shoulders shaking as he pulls back to kiss you.

“Love you.” His fingers trace up your body, trailing slowly over your heated skin.

“Love you too, psycho.” You kiss his cheek. “No more suicide missions, or it’s both cuffs.”

Something sparks in his eyes. “Promise?”

“Both cuffs, and no touching.”

He frowns, and kisses you again like he’s trying to prove that he’s allowed to touch you now. “No more suicide missions.”

-

When Matt comes an hour or so later, you’re fully dressed and back in your chair at Dex’s bedside, one eye closed in concentration as you aim a knife at a bullseye you drew on the wall.

You throw it, and it bounces off the wooden surface and clatters to the ground.

“Flick your wrist.” Dex says, but his eyes are on you, hungry and dark. He’s tried to teach you how to aim weapons a few times before, and the lessons have more often than not been cut short by whatever seems to ignite in him like a bonfire at the sight of you holding a knife. It helps now that he’s in cuffs, but despite your activities earlier he looks damn close to trying to break out of them.

You pick up the knife, and try again. It sticks a little outside of the center, but it sticks. You turn to grin at Dex. He grins back, and the expression is downright feral.

“Uncuff me.”

“Bad boy. You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

Any response he may have, inappropriate or demanding or whatever it may be, is interrupted as the door swings open and Matt walks in. Angry. Silent.

He uncuffs Dex roughly. Sits across from him and doesn’t even acknowledge you. Rude, but fair. You can still understand why he and Karen are so pissed at you, even if you find it a little difficult to care.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I hate you for Foggy. And Father Lantom. And Agent Nadeem.” Dex’s eyes are right on you as he rolls his wrists, stretching the no-doubt stiff muscles and seemingly oblivious to how off-putting it must be that he won’t even spare a glance toward the man telling him how much he hates him. “And I even hate you for what you did to her. Whatever you did that broke her mind.”

“Woah, hey. I’m of completely sound mind.” You snap, defensive. Matt doesn’t turn around.

“Your shirt is on inside out.”

You look down, flush, and look back up in time to see Dex smirk.

“Dick.” You grumble, because he definitely knew, and he definitely didn’t tell you on purpose. You frown at Matt again. “I didn’t uncuff him.”

“Not all the way.” Dex supplies, and you glare so hard his smirk turns into a manic grin.

“Shut up.”

“Stop. Both of you stop.” Matt snaps, annoyingly serious Daredevil voice and all, and it takes a significant amount of effort to swallow your response and sit back in your chair.

He talks about forgiveness. About how he needs it for his own sake, and not for Dex’s or even yours.

But you saw Matt’s face, when you found him at the gala. When he tried to pull you out of there before you got yourself hurt in your anger and grief. And in the church, when he pulled you and Dex to safety as you begged the near-unconscious man to stay with you. To live because despite it all you couldn’t fucking lose him.

He’s angry. He’s hurting. But he cares about you. And you care about him, too. Your love for Dex doesn’t make those years of friendship just go away.

And then, the ultimate question. Aimed directly at Dex. “So, do you wanna do one good thing in a life full of shit?”

Benjamin Poindexter turns to you. You smile at him, an entire conversation passing between the two of you in the span of a second before he rolls his shoulders and turns to Matt.

“What do you need me to do?”

-

The whistle echoes through the vast expanse of the room. Three floors up. Directly and strategically across from the courthouse.

Four ATVF officers whirl, guns raised, and…

And then lowered out of pure confusion.

A woman stands in the doorway, in casual clothes, with her eyes wide and her hands raised in shocked and horrified surrender.

“I-I was just looking for the bathroom.”

Shit. A civilian. They’re gonna have to figure out what to do with her, now. There’s no way she didn’t see the fake Bullseye across the room, and if she tells anyone-

“Wait, please don’t shoot! I know what you do, right? You’re the good guys? You find vigilantes and…you know…” she curls her fingers into the shape of a pistol, aiming at the closest officer’s head, and pretends to fire in demonstration.

Exactly where the woman ‘shot’ him, a knife appears, jutting out right between a pair of wide eyes.

He goes down.

She jumps, surprised, and inspects her hand with alarm like smoke might start coming out of her fingers.

And then, she aims again, almost experimentally, at the second officer. The moment she ‘fires’, another knife flies through the air and hits home.

Just as the shock begins to wear off, spurring the startled men into action, she lowers her other hand into the same shape, and ‘shoots’ the final two men in rapid succession before they can even think to lift their guns.

And then, when all that’s left is the ‘fake Bullseye’, who is still standing there frozen and confused, she laughs.

The sound of heavy bootsteps echoes through the room.

“That was even more fun the third time.” She says, tone bright and amused as she tilts her head back towards the source of the sound.

Bullseye, the real one, appears behind her, and his low chuckle is the most frightening sound the other man has ever fucking heard.

The new Bullseye fires his gun, and screams as his hand is impaled by a knife. He goes down, crumpling to his knees and cradling the bleeding appendage, and his counterpart walks casually forward with the mysterious woman behind him.

He’s only in pain for a few seconds, just long enough to be pushed to the ground, and just long enough to see the glimpse of another knife before it finds its home in his eye.

-

“Holy shit.”

“Hm?” The click of the rifle. The subtle shift of his shoulders as he adjusts his shot. So careful and calculated, and yet you can feel him locked in on every word. Every blink. Every movement.

Even with another target in sight, he is always focused on you.

“Matt just told everyone he’s Daredevil.”

Dex hums, cocking his head to the side. “And?”

“And he’s probably gonna go to prison for it.”

Dex loads the sniper, the shell of the bullet clattering onto the floor. “Prison’s not so bad.”

“Says the guy who broke out of it.”

“For you.” He turns, and you can see his eyes crinkle in the corners even if you can’t see him smile behind the mask. “For romance.”

You hum, and pop your headphone back into your ear, eyes moving back to the monitor as you sit cross-legged atop the table beside the gun. “You’re a fucking psychooo~” you sing, under your breath, and feel him catch your chin between his gloved fingers before you have time to look back up. He tilts your chin towards him, and you feel the warmth of his lips beneath the rough fabric of his mask as he pulls you into a kiss.

He moves back to the gun with the grace of a cat, satisfied, and you do your best not to worry too much about Matt Murdock. Your friend. Daredevil, who has just outed himself to the entire world and sealed his own fate.

The shot is fired and thus your location is given up. It’s time to go.

You hesitate. You sit by the computer, and you watch the screen after it goes blank.

A gloved hand comes up, a warm chest against your back as that same familiar hand guides yours away from your lips.

“What’re you up to?”

Dex’s couch, so long ago. Your eyes locked on a screen. Warm fingers curling around your own. You must have been biting your nails again. It must be late. You barely even heard him come in.

“Tech company. Innocent employee. Spreadsheets.” You tilt your head back, sleepy, and catch his lips with your own. “Not supposed to talk about it though, remember?”

“Criminal.” He kisses you again, but he’s smiling.

“Not technically.” You kiss him back, pulling him closer, catching his hand to guide him around the couch and over to you. “You gonna tattle, Special Agent Poindexter?”

“Never.”

“Time to go.” That same voice is lower now. Raspier. Still just as achingly familiar. So much has changed, and everything is so different, and he’s still so incredibly yours.

“Matt…” the word is released on a breath, and that breath feels too heavy. Too weighed down by memories. Matt. Foggy. Karen. So many memories. So much loss.

“Can’t do anything for him now, baby.” His nose against your temple, his arm around your waist. He took his mask off, at some point. “But if they catch us up here, it’s gonna be a lot worse for him.”

You turn, still frowning, still worried, and reach up to brush your fingers over the deep scar on his cheek. He tilts his head into the touch, like he always does, and smiles.

That smile, sweet and scarred and as familiar as the palm of your own hand, will always feel more like home than any place in the world.

And that’s how it was always gonna go, wasn’t it? Since the day you ran into him in front of that coffee shop, the night he kissed you for the first time, the moment you saw the bullseye etched on the door of your apartment…

It was always him. It was always going to be him. The trajectory of your life changed before you even knew it was happening, jolting in a different direction like a ricocheted bullet, and always still pointed home.

Home, to him.

You smile back, and meet his eyes.

“Where are we going?”

-

Benjamin Poindexter rolls a coin over his knuckles, glances out the window of the airplane towards the earth thousands of feet below, and smiles.

The flight attendant speaks to the man in the seat beside yours, welcomes him into the ‘Million Milers Club’ or whatever, and he does his best not to glare at the noise. The man is beaming - annoying -  but you would tell him that it’s rude to glare if you were awake.

Speaking of which, your head is snuggled up to his shoulder, breath soft and even and both arms wrapped around his bicep like he’s some kind of teddy bear, rather than a dangerous assassin.

Then again, you’re almost just as unhinged as he is these days.

He hums, content, and turns his nose into your hair, inhaling deeply and feeling you sigh and shift a little closer.

“You two seem happy.” The too-friendly guy in the seat beside you is smiling, and Dex resists the urge to wrap his arms around you and pull you onto his lap, hiding you from the world because you’re his only his no one else-

He’s gotta reel that under control a little more. That possessiveness. But, well, you’re his. And he’s yours. Two sides of the same coin. Soulmates in every way.

And he knows that you do seem happy. You always do, because you are. You walked onto this plane together in an almost sickening display of blissful love. He lifted your bag into the overhead bin for you, pulled you into the seat after, wrapped his arms around you and basked in your laughter as he shamelessly pressed kisses to your neck and shoulder. You’d leaned back, grinned at him like you were the only two people on the plane, in the world, and slid your hand into his own.

No one suspected that you’d helped him kill people only a few hours before. That you washed the blood off of each other before you came to the airport.

He raises his eyebrows. Too-friendly Guy keeps going. “You headed to your honeymoon?”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. He rests his chin on top of your head. He has a ring in his pocket, and when you land in the next country, and he gets the very first opportunity that comes his way, he already plans to drop to his knee and beg you to marry him.

But for now, he nods, and fixes the stranger with a practiced smile.

“Yeah.” He hums, feeling you shift comfortably against him, sighing contentedly against his shoulder. Perfect. His. “It’s long overdue.”

The man looks the two of you over, and seems to be about to say something else, but you shift again and Dex’s attention suddenly couldn’t be any less focused on him.

Honeymoon. Yeah, you’ll have a thousand honeymoons. A thousand lifetimes of happiness and togetherness and love so intense it’s taken lives, saved lives, shattered governments, and so much more.

May as well start now.

~

You unlocked the door with the spare key he’d given you two weeks ago and stepped inside quietly, the apartment was dim except for the glow of the television.

Dex glanced up from the couch the second you entered, and your heart fluttered. It was something that happened every single time he looked at you now.

“You’re late,” he said quietly, though there was no irritation in it.

“You say that like I wasn’t wrist-deep in someone’s abdominal wound an hour ago.” You said closing the door.

Dex stood immediately, taking the takeout bag from your hands before you could protest.

“You should be resting.” He said, kissing your forehead.

“And yet here I am.”

His eyes swept over your face carefully. “You’re exhausted.”

“Eh, I can sleep when I’m dead.”

“That’s not funny.” He said sternly. 

Your chest warmed slightly, it still affected you how protective he was.

You kicked off your shoes near the door before making your way toward the sofa. The oversized hoodie slid further down one shoulder as you collapsed dramatically against the cushions.

Dex’s eyes immediately flicked toward the exposed skin, and your stomach tingled faintly beneath his attention.

“You stole another hoodie,” he observed.

“You gave me the key. That means what’s yours is now mine.” You teased.

A quiet huff of amusement escaped him as he sat beside you, close enough that his thigh pressed warmly against yours, and you melted into his side automatically as Dex handed you your drink before reaching for the remote.

“You already started the movie without me?” You playfully whined after taking a sip of your drink.

“You were forty-three minutes late.” He said, wrapping his arm around your shoulder.

“You timed it?”

“Yes.”

You laughed softly as you placed your drink on the table.

A month ago you couldn’t imagine laughing this easily around him, now you two barely spend an evening without talking.

Whether it was quick lunches between your jobs, or movie nights that led to one of you staying over, or long phone calls where you fell asleep listening to his breathing over the phone because neither of you wanted to hang up first.

And somewhere along the way, being around Dex had stopped feeling impossible and started feeling like something you never wanted to end.

Dex reached into the takeout bag and immediately handed you the container of battered chicken balls.

You paused. “I didn’t tell you what I ordered.”

“You always get chicken balls.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t.”

Dex looked at you. “…It is.”

“Ugh, fine.” You rolled your eyes before eating one.

A quiet smile tugged at Dex’s mouth as he adjusted the blanket over your legs.

The movement made you pause. “You do that every time.”

“What?”

“The blanket thing.”

“You get cold.” He stated.

“You sound ninety.” You teased him.

“Says the girl who wore three layers in September.” He teased back.

“It was windy.” You defended yourself.

“It was sixty-eight degrees.”

You gasped dramatically. “I can’t believe you’re attacking me in my own relationship.”

A loud laugh escaped him.

You immediately pointed at him. “Ha! I win!”

Dex blinked. “What?”

“You laughed.”

His expression flattened instantly. "I didn't."

“Oh my God.” You grinned and immediately reached for your phone.

Dex narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Making a note.” You smiled.

“No.” Dex said, trying to hide his smile. 

“Dear Diary.” You spoke aloud whilst typing.

“No.”

“Today Dex laughed at my joke.”

“No.” He said despite smiling wide.

“Witnessed by me and eleven and a half battered chicken balls.”

Before you could continue, Dex leaned over and stole your phone from your hand as you laughed so hard you nearly spilled your food.

“Stop, thief.”

“You started it.”

“I was documenting a rare event.”

“It’s not rare with you, baby.”

You froze before your smile widened slowly. “You laugh around me now?”

A flicker of something warm crossed his face before he looked back at the television, and your chest tightened pleasantly.

God, you loved the simplicity of this, the normalcy of just sitting together without worrying about anything else.

At some point you ended up half-sprawled across him. Not intentionally at first, one minute you were sitting beside him, and the next your legs were draped across his lap while Dex absentmindedly traced circles against your calves.

The movie continued playing, but you weren’t paying much attention anymore and were mostly watching Dex pretend he wasn’t invested in the plot.

“He’s the killer.” He stated, pointing at a character you’ve already forgotten the name of.

“He isn’t.” You replied despite having no idea what’s happening.

“He absolutely is.”

“He isn’t.”

“You sound very confident.” He smirks at you while gently squeezing your calf.

“Because I’m right.” You said while tapping his stomach with your foot.

Twenty minutes later, the character was revealed to not be the killer as you looked at him triumphantly, and Dex stared at the television.

“I hate this movie.” He sighed.

A laugh burst out of you. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“You’ve been paying attention the whole time.”

Silence.

“That’s not the point.”

Your grin widened until Dex shifted beneath you for the third time and you noticed something was wrong.

Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine.” He shrugged before subtly wincing.

“You just moved like an eighty-year-old man.” You said pulling your legs from his lap and ignoring his hands that were trying to pull you back.

Dex gave you a flat look as you leaned closer immediately, your hand sliding instinctively across his back.

“You’re hurting,” you murmured softly.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re terrible at lying to me.” You said, kissing his cheek.

His jaw tightened slightly despite leaning into your kiss but as your fingers brushed his spine, Dex tensed sharply.

Your eyebrows lifted. “Dex.”

“It’ll pass.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose before finally muttering, “My back hurts.”

You stared at him gently while running your other hand through his hair. “Alright, baby. Take your shirt off.”

Dex blinked once. “…What?”

“You heard me.”

His eyes darkened instantly as warmth crawled into your face.

“Not like that,” you mumbled. “I’m offering to help.”

“You worked all day.”

“I know.”

“You’re drained.”

“And your back still hurts.”

Dex watched you quietly for a moment as something soft flickered behind his eyes.

“You always do this.”

You frowned slightly. “Do what?”

“Take care of me.” His voice was quieter now.

You paused.

“You’re my soulmate.” You say kissing him. “It’s my job.”

“No.” His hand found yours, fingers intertwining. “It’s just who you are.”

You fell quiet as you looked down at your intertwined fingers, and for a moment, neither of you spoke.

“You do it too.” You whisper as your thumb stroked his knuckles.

Dex’s gaze lifted. “What?”

“You take care of me.”

His eyebrows immediately rose. “Oh, do I?”

“You do.” You smile at his teasing.

“I don’t think so.”

“You bought me food because I forgot to eat.” You say, pulling your hands away and wrapping your arms around his neck.

“You forgot three meals.” He states kissing your arm.

“You reorganised my medicine cabinet.”

“It was chaos in there.”

“You walked across Manhattan because I said I had a bad day.”

Dex paused before looking away, which immediately told you everything. "You needed me."

Your chest warmed. “See?”

His thumb brushed softly across your hand. “Fine, you win.”

You smiled as he sighed jokingly.

The teasing in his voice only made the warmth spread further through your chest.

Because despite how obsessive and possessive Dex could get over you, he loved taking care of you. His gaze lingered on you another second before he finally reached for the hem of his shirt.

Your heartbeat immediately betrayed you, which was annoying because you’d seen him shirtless before several times, and yet it still affected you every single time.

Dex pulled the fabric over his head before tossing it aside as your eyes dropped instinctively to the muscles of his back before focusing on the visible tension running through his shoulders.

“You look tense,” you said honestly, running your fingers over his spinal scar.

“That’s an accurate sentence.”

A quiet snort escaped him before he shifted forward slightly on the couch as you moved behind him carefully, your knees pressing into the cushions as your hands settled gently against his shoulders.

The second your palms touched his skin, Dex’s entire body went still beneath your hands as you swallowed softly before letting your healing powers slowly warm your palms.

A quiet breath escaped Dex immediately.

“There you go,” you murmured softly. “That’s the reaction I was wanting.”

His head dipped slightly forward as your fingers worked carefully against the tight muscles near his shoulders. The room slowly relaxed as the noise of the TV hummed quietly in the background, and Dex’s breathing gradually slowed beneath your hands.

You could feel the tension melting out of him little by little, and a soft smile grew on your face because Dex relaxed so rarely.

But the more comfortable he became beneath your touch, the more his shoulders loosened, his jaw unclenching, his breathing deepening, and the softer he got.

Until eventually he looked peaceful.

Your chest tightened pleasantly at his relaxed expression.

“You’re falling asleep,” you whispered softly.

“No, I’m not.” He mumbled back.

“You literally sound half dead.”

“I’m relaxed.”

The quiet honesty in his voice made warmth spread through you. Your fingers moved carefully lower across his back, easing the lingering pain there as the healing warmth spread beneath your palms.

Dex let out another low breath.

“You feel good.” He whispered.

Heat rushed instantly into your face. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m honest.”

“That’s arguably worse.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth, and you stared at it for a second too long.

God, you really liked him.

The realisation no longer felt sharp anymore, now it felt warm, steady, and safe. Your hands slowed slightly against his skin, and Dex noticed immediately.

Of course he did.

His hand reached back carefully, fingers wrapping gently around your wrist. The touch sent warmth spiraling up your arm instantly.

Your breath caught softly as Dex slowly turned enough to look back at you, and the air changed into something heavy and wanting. His eyes moved slowly over your face before settling on your mouth, and your heartbeat stumbled hard enough to hurt.

“Tell me to stop,” he said quietly.

The vulnerability in those words shattered something inside your chest as your fingers slowly slid to his jaw.

Then you leaned forward and kissed him softly at first, his warm lips against yours. Almost hesitant before Dex made a quiet sound against your mouth that made you tingle with want.

His hand tightened gently around your wrist before sliding carefully up your arm like he was afraid to hold you too tightly, and you kissed him again before he could overthink it. Deeper this time, more certain with what you wanted.

Dex turned fully toward you after that, one hand cupping your face carefully as though he’d been wanting to do this for weeks.

Maybe he had, and maybe you had to.

The soulmate bond burned warmly beneath your skin as your fingers slid into his hair, and Dex’s kiss turned more intense, as if he was overwhelmed by you.

When you finally pulled back slightly for air, his forehead dropped against yours, his breathing hard and his eyes shut.

“You’re shaking,” you whispered softly.

Dex let out a weak laugh. “You kissed me first.”

“And? I have done it before.”

“Baby, you have no idea what that does to me.”

Warmth spread low in your stomach.

Your fingers brushed gently across his cheek before you kissed his cheek softly. The second your lips touched his skin, Dex inhaled sharply, like the tenderness itself affected him more than anything else.

His hands slid carefully to your waist, gripping possessively but still giving you room to move away if you wanted. Instead you kissed him again before he could speak, and this time Dex responded immediately.

Needier now and less restrained, like he was finally allowing himself to want you more openly than before.

Your hands slid down his chest slowly as he pulled you into his lap with startling gentleness for someone capable of so much violence. The contrast made your heartbeat stutter because with you he was always gentle. Always.

The kiss deepened slowly until your entire body felt warm with it.

His hands traced carefully along your waist beneath the oversized hoodie, almost reverent in the way he touched you as if he still couldn’t fully believe you were real and were his.

You could feel how hard he was trying not to rush, how carefully controlled every movement of his remained.

“You okay?” he murmured softly against your mouth.

The concern and neediness in his voice made your chest warm.

You nodded immediately. “Yes.”

Dex searched your face for another second before kissing you again, like your answer meant everything to him.

Clothes disappeared slowly after that, with the moment not being rushed or feeling frantic.

Just shared breaths, wandering hands, and soft kisses that blurred together until you barely remembered where one touch ended and another began.

And through all of it, Dex never stopped looking at you like you were everything that he ever wanted, touching you like you were something sacred, kissing you like you would vanish, and loving you like it was the last thing he would do.

Whether it was kissing your scar, touching your skin, feeling your heartbeat. All of it felt intentional and worshipful. And when your fingers brushed the soulmate mark on his skin, Dex shuddered beneath your hands.

“Careful,” he whispered hoarsely into the kiss, his thrusts faltering for a moment.

You smiled softly against his mouth. “Sensitive?”

“For you? Always.” He replies, kissing you deeper.

And the honesty in his voice was what made you finish for the second time that night.

The apartment settled into a soft quiet as the New York rain tapped gently against the windows. The television had long since become background noise with neither of you paying it attention.

You lay curled against Dex’s chest beneath the blankets, comfortable at his side, while his fingers traced lazy patterns against your bare arm.

Neither of you had spoken for several minutes, but the silence wasn’t awkward or regretful, it was just peaceful. The kind that only existed when you felt completely comfortable with someone.

Your eyes drifted half shut as his hand moved from you arm and slowly through your hair.

“Tired?” he murmured quietly.

“Mhm.”

“You overworked yourself again.” He said, kissing the side of your head.

“And you got blood on my sofa again last week.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“You bled on the expensive cushion.”

A quiet laugh rumbled beneath your cheek, and you smiled sleepily against his chest before tilting your head up slightly.

Dex looked down at you immediately.

Your fingers brushed lightly against his jaw before you leaned up enough to press another soft kiss against his lips, and his eyes fluttered shut. And there it was again, that softness, that peace you had been wanting for years.

You settled back against him slowly as warmth spread through your chest because somewhere in the past month this had become real.

Not a fantasy, not a twist of your already intertwined fate, but real. 

And lying there tangled together in the quiet warmth of his apartment, you realised you trusted him enough to give him every vulnerable piece of yourself, and he trusted you in the same way. 

Now something that scared you instead felt a little like home.