Drink the poison

Wally West/Reader

When you find Wally in the room, he’s already upon you with such speed—with such hunger—that you can scarcely comprehend it.

Clearly lost to the throes of whatever sensation that bids make him mouth his tongue at your pulse, his hands working in desperate fraction to undo the button at your jeans, at your collar. 

“Wally—”—You begin in pitched moan as you try to place your hands on the man desperate to get you naked, to have you feel the girth of his cock that is grinding against the meat of your thigh.

You knew that the pollen would be bad: but experiencing it, feeling his hands working below your waistband, feeling how hot his tongue is as it scorches at your collarbone—

“I’m sorry,” He moans, a semblance of shame making itself known. But it’s quickly overridden by the way that his mouth makes greedy suck at the slope of your chest: your gasp of surprise concludes into wanton intake of breath. 

“Wally—”—You echo in repetition, but this plaintive request of his name is more beholden to lust. Is more desperate to give in to what he wants. To what you want, as well.

“Let me have you,” He murmurs into your body, in between the bites that he takes down your chest to mark his territory. “Please—I’ve never needed you more.” 

When he makes such dedicated search of you, his hands already looking for the heat between your legs: how can you refuse? All you do is pull him upwards by the scruff of his collar, taking in those pupils that are dilated beyond comprehension, blown-out with desire that can only be slaked by you. And you draw his tongue into your mouth. 

He moves beyond your comprehension: he’s done it before when the two of you have tangled in the sheets, but this time is so much more sensation, so much more energy that needs to be staved off.

His hands seek out the slick rhythm that he can work in between your legs, the pads of his fingers rubbing out a tempo that has you clutching into him for support, your teeth sinking into the flesh of his shoulder. His mouth is relentless: making bruise after bruise that demarcates his lust into your nipple, your navel, the inside of your thighs. 

When he licks at the junction of your legs: you can only twitch and gasp around him, your thighs clenched around his ears, making sure that the only sound he may hear is the thrum of your body, your pleasure made by the ministration of his own. 

When he fucks you, it’s with such desperate crescendo, such necessary rhythm—his cock sinks into you with such ferocity that usually belies his tender, romantic approach. As he presses you face-down into the mattress so that you can clutch your fingers into it, mouth open and panting as you take his cock. 

“Wally—”—You beg for more, his thighs slapping against the swell of your ass with such perfect, lewd obscenity—“—Wally—”

“Yeah?” He asks, so clearly unmoored, so clearly lost to the throes of pleasure that have him chasing his orgasm. “What—what is it—” 

You angle your head at him, letting him see how fucked out you are, the glassy, delighted haze to your eyes—to see something in parallel on his own—and you make your plea. “More, Wally.” 

He grins: and then, as any good partner would do, he obliges. And all you can do is moan around the way that he makes perfect fit inside of you, fucking you closer to that orgasm you’re quickly approaching. 

Vic Stone/Reader

”How did this happen to you?” You ask you find him, clearly roiling over with a need that has yet to be satisfied. That he restrains solely for your presence as you approach the foot of the bed. 

“Got blasted,” he groans—and what is visible of his flesh-and-blood on his face makes clear it shines with exertion—“—Taking a hit for Wally.” 

“Serves you right,” you grin as you lope a knee onto the edge of the bed. His eyes are so hungry, so lustful—so worshipful as he watches your approach on the bed. “Wally okay?” 

“Think he got blasted, too,” Vic admits; you can’t help but chuckle. There’s a knowing, good-natured grimace as you reach his feet, his legs which spread wider for your access. 

“Poor him.” You say, running a hand over the nuance of his ankle, feeling the smooth articulation of technology made in interval with the flesh, marking your lover whole. “Good thing you got me, though.” 

“Yeah,” he says, voice taut as he watches you sink to your hands and knees, “Good thing.” 

There’s an aborted, stunted grunt he tries to smother as you start your ascent to him: marked in documentation by the kiss that you linger on his ankle. Then as you cross to other leg, pressing your mouth to the crook of his knee, running your tongue over slick metal and skin that scorches with desire. 

“God—”—He shudders—“—You’re perfect—”

All he receives is a chuckle you murmur into his skin, and a kiss to the inside of his thigh that is concluded with definitive sink of your teeth. When he groans—you think you’ll enjoy more of this needy chorus as you lick up the panel that conceals the promised land. 

He makes an oath as you stare up at him with playful grin, your tongue laving up the sleek underside—something winks as you realize he takes documentation of it for later safekeeping. 

“Pervert,” you tease as you find footing on the heels of your palms, working your way up to find yourself seated on his lap. As the guide of his hands eagerly help to make you find home on him. 

“Can’t help it,” he confesses as he searches out for the warmth of you, “Just wanna feel you.” 

“Go ahead,” you say—rewarded with the hiss of air as the panel slides open, and you feel the nosing of his cock press against you. 

“Ready?” He asks—you grin. 

“Always, baby,” you confirm—and when his hands sink into the give of your hips, help to raise you up as the length of his cock slides against you—

And when he bodily lowers you down onto him, stretching you open so that all you can do is clutch to him for support—all you can do is make whisper of his name on your tongue and yours on his—

“I love you,” you say as your walls stretch against him—and you hear him murmur the same as he draws you to him for a kiss. 

Eobard Thawne/Reader

“What a perfect sight for me,” Eobard chuckles as he takes sight of you naked, sweaty, panting with a desperation only he can sate, “Been waiting for me long, sweetheart?” 

“No,” Is all that you can manage, “Eobard, please—”

“Please what?” He asks, his hand seizing around your jaw. Making you see the way his eyes are so eagerly taking consumptive view of you—as his other hand is knuckling your legs open. Working to seize the heat that you eagerly grind upon, held in the heel of his palm. 

“Please fuck me,” you whimper. “I can’t—the pollen—it's too much—”

“Yeah,” he chuckles through gritted teeth, with shoulders that are spreading wide in possessive manner. “So say it.” 

“I need you to take care of me,” you pant open-mouthed. “Please.” 

“Since you begged so nicely,” he croons—before he seizes your bottom lip between his teeth hard enough to draw blood. 

The pollen is to render you insatiable until it has run full course through your body. But the way that Eobard handles you; the way that he holds you, slamming his hips into you as you’re pulled backwards flush against him—

He teeters the line of agony and euphoria, as his cock glides in and out of you with such ease, hitting that spot that makes you wail. Fucking you stupid into the mattress as you try to muffle your whimpers into the pillow—only for him to tear it away, toss it to the floor. 

“Dumb sluts that can’t dodge don’t deserve muzzles,” Eobard says, as he bucks his hips into you hard enough to feel like you’ve bruised. As he slaps his hand hard down the cleft of your ass to make you keen in protest, before he offers the balm of his cock sheathing you to the hilt. 

“Oh, yeah,” he mocks as you slump into the sheets, “Too much for you, honey?” 

“No, no—”—You try to reply, muddled through the haze of delightful torment—“—It’s perfect—”

He laughs, mean and mocking. “Have I fucked you that stupid already?” 

When his cock slams into you again, all you can do is moan as you let him take his fill. As he satisfies you the way that only he can do for you. Even if you won’t say it: your body has already confessed enough. 

Plastic Man/Reader

“It’s not funny, Plas,” you groan as you sit on his lap, grinding with desperate need to satisfy the friction between your legs. “I just—I—”

“Need someone to take care of you, huh?” He asks with such wicked, slick delivery that even though you want nothing more than to ride him into the sunset: you can only give him an exasperated moan. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” you whimper—although his arms are already making spirited twine around your arms, your torso, firmly keeping you locked in place. “It’s bad enough I got blasted with this stupid pollen—”

“And now you have to come asking me for help, huh?” His voice is a very sleek taunt in your ear as you work to try and relieve some of the pressure. 

“We’re dating,” you groan as you try to make spirited kiss as his jaw that makes him growl—“—You should be happy to help me.” 

“And I am, honey,” he replies with such ebullient joy that if his hands weren’t already working to peel you out of your pants—you’d kill him where he stood. Or, rather, sits below you. 

“I just can’t help,” he whispers in your ear, “But take a little bit of time to appreciate you.” 

“Less appreciating,” you groan as you feel the cool exposure of air on your legs, “And more fucking.”

“Aye aye,” he grins—and then decides to get straight to work. 

Adam Warlock/Reader

You wouldn’t know that he was affected by this, if it wasn’t for the fact that you had been told. He stands before the window, his back facing you in such implacable, muscular form that always steals your breath away. 

“Adam?” You ask quietly, watching as those shoulders pitch, stiffen as he makes physical register of your presence. 

“They said you got hit with—”—Is all that you’re able to articulate. That is, before you catch glimpse of the way his eyes are riveted upon you, the way his nostrils flare and his mouth sets with something deliberate—

And then he is before you in such ethereal glory, in such impressive anatomy and poise, his hands finding the curve of your jaw to guide your mouth to him.

And when his tongue presses at the seam of your lips, it’s all that you can do to allow him access—to feel him kiss you with a starved agony that he’s never expressed before. 

His hands are desperate with such locomotion, rushing to find the nuance of your body as you moan and whimper on his soft palate; it’s all you can do to keep up. 

He pulls away—something regretful on his face, something penitent. “I do not mean to—I should—”

He cannot even conclude this sentence before he is making way to taste the salt of your skin where it collects on the column of your neck, summoning another groan on your end. 

“I should be stronger,” he curses into your vulnerable skin, “I should be above such base desires—”

“It’s okay,” you reassure as he continues to eke out such pleasure, “You don't have to be.” 

His eyes seek yours, revealing such humanity. As you affirm once more. “It’s okay.”

He whiles in internal, chaotic deliberation. And then before you can comprehend it, you are pressed into the soft folds of the bed. As his arms yawn over you, his thigh nudging between your legs easily ticking open. His mouth taking care to swipe the scald of his tongue up your collarbone, summoning blissful shiver from you. 

When he fucks you, it’s with a prescience you’ve never felt before—rather than the tender love making it usually is, this is a greedy fuck.

Each stroke that he pumps into you leaves you filled up with the curve of his cock, keening into the unyielding meter of his body. Every rock of his hips leaving you helpless to do anything but take him, with that brutal drag that stretches you so perfectly. 

“Adam—”—You sob as you feel him rut into you, his lips desperate to leave a mark on the junction of your neck and shoulder—“—Don’t stop—”

“Never,” he swears, with such voracious claim into you, “Never.” 

Bullseye/Reader

He seems remarkably put-together as you walk into the room, close the door behind yourself. Take careful visual assessment of him as his eyes seem to nearly gleam in unnatural ken as he watches you. 

“Nice of you to drop by, sweetheart,” he says, and pushes himself up with a mild grunt of exertion to cross over to you.

There’s something off in the swagger of his walk, something that is so very cunning and lithe as per usual. But you can tell that he carries different bearings: there’s something that’s nearly delirious in the catch of his eyes as they take more endured evaluation of you.

He draws up sidelong to you, encroaching on your space enough that you have to take instinctive tick back. 

“How do you feel, Les?” you ask as you feel the door push against your back, knocking gentle air from you in quiet expulsion. He chuckles, still staying askance of your touch: but that doesn’t matter. You can feel the heat that is sloughing off of him, see the uninhibited way that his pupils are drawn wide, to indicate how untethered he is from the moment. 

“Feel great, honey,” He says, and his hands take careful stance on either side of you. His mouth wanders close, so that you can feel every particular of the sentences that he speaks against you. “Feel like I could just eat you up.” 

“You sure?” You ask, watching how he lists a little to the side—and there seems to be a touch of conscientiousness in his voice, something sentient return back to his eyes. Enough to know that you should regret it. 

But you have no time to backtrack it before he closes whatever distance remains, and latches his mouth onto your neck with cruel, merciless bite.

Your mouth catches around a desperate gasp of delight, your hands already seeking out the muscle that composes your man. The implacable, unyielding wall of his body that swallows up whatever distance remains. 

There’s a rip of noise, the nosing of a blade that works up the sinew of your skin—your eyes immediately dart down as you take in the sinister blade that he’s produced. And your clothes fall in open tatters, crumpled heaps of fabric to the ground. He chuckles in amusement at how his tool obeys him. 

“Les—”—You say in combination of exasperation and surprise—“—How’m I gonna get out of here if I’m naked?” 

His mouth is already traveling down your stomach, his tongue lapping into the divot of your navel. “Don’t worry about that right now, honey. For now—” 

Where his tongue licks up in slow, torturous drag, you can’t help but scrabble your fingers against the wall for purchase, let something shuck through your teeth as he makes ragged exploration. 

“Lemme take you for a ride,” He smirks up at you. 

You just don’t realize how you will until you’re made to ride him, to bounce on the length of his cock that fills you up so wholly, a rocketing wave of pleasure darting up your body with each roll of his hips he makes.

The blade that he freed you of your clothes from presses into the vulnerable exposure of your neck, darting closer to sanctity with each treacherous sink that you make down onto him—but you could care less. Not when he looks at you with such abject desire, his tongue lolling from open mouth as he takes in the sight of you. 

“Good work, honey,” He taunts you as you sheath yourself on him to the hilt, a whine of exhausted pleasure escaping you. “Just like that—” 

The blade whispers further against your skin, making the adrenaline run taut with the wave of sensation that pushes you closer to the edge. As his fingers grow more ravenous against your waist, guiding you along in careful meter to fuck you to orgasm. 

Matt Murdock/Reader

“Will it make it more intense?” You ask—he finds you across the meridian of the bed, his hands working to interlace with yours. He burns under your touch, finding some mild relief in the homeostatic temperature that you leach into him, that he greedily accepts. 

“Make what more intense?” He asks, as you watch a bead of sweat dart in pearled manner down the arc of his temple. Your eyes fixate on it, wondering what it would taste like if you licked him from chin to crown of head, baptizing him with your tongue. 

“Your senses,” You murmur, extending hand to search out the nuance of stubble that frames his jaw. That makes him shudder, lean instinctively into you: he has no sight.

All that he can rely upon now, with this overwhelming fractal of senses, are his smell, his touch—and what must he sense from you? What can he glean from his faculties, from the way that your hand makes imparted touch onto him?

“They’re already turned to 10 all the time,” Matt says, his voice breaking as your fingers work behind his ear, sinking into the scrape of his scalp, “I guess this is just eleven.” 

Every inch of him is so hot, scorching—how he seeks to abate it with you. How he’s already crawling on hands and knees to find you, to make establishment of territory into you with hands that are pressing you back. With his lips that are search up the crook of your arm, up the slope of your shoulder. With a tongue that inches its soft palate up your cheek, teeth scraping against you. 

He tortures you now: you had expected something fast, something fueled with adrenaline, something made to leave you bruised and satisfied.

But he wants to take it slow: making cruelly navigated pump of his cock into your legs that are pinioned around his waist, making you feel the full spread of him in advancing inch by inch.

His breath huffs into your ear, his hands planted firmly into the spread of your shoulders, desperate to commemorate all of your body kept under whatever acreage of him he can manage. 

When he finally admits himself fully into you, finally bottoms out, the head of his cock nosing at that terrible spot—you arch your back against him, your hands seized against the flat plane of his stomach. “Matt, please—” 

“God—”—There’s something so truly reverent in his voice as he savors the feeling of you swallowing him, the way that his body is fully pressed against you in such intimate manner. Made for perfect complement against each other. “—I need you like this, forever—” 

He slinks out of you with such unyielding poise, every muscle of him taut, before he takes advance into you again. The wave of pleasure that is slow and torturous to make nascent peak over you is heightened by the prayer he makes into your skin. By the oath he swears by his teeth that rasp down your earlobe, his tongue that makes worship in nonverbal form. 

“Love you,” He groans, overwhelmed by the touch of you that is all he has ever needed to sate himself with, “God—” 

He is broken and in necessity of what you can only give to fix him. When you find your tongue against him, careful to make sure that he memorizes the taste of you: he sinks into you again, and you find the sanctity in the touch of your lover once more. 

banner and dividers made by me :)

requests:

taglist: @colonelfish @just-peachy-babe @thescrawler @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @bestmannequin2018 @cassiecasluciluce @mortisetspei @lettucel0ver @paankhaleyaaar @lala131lsjsl @infinictus @iloveyou3000morgan @jokerloverparis @bozosprout @bubbletae7 @inkievoid @moonchxrm @pinkstonerslut @newangelle @suqariiswiieet @clownstheyreeverywhere @starego @unicvnthlle @minandras @leonieies @splodencible @inkyvigil @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @st4rctic @incantatrxs @unicvnthlle @kimmylikesthemall @pixie2k5 @vixen-dc @lj-to-lz

The main problem was, Johnny Storm was nothing and everything all at once. He was the spark that lit every room, the one who made you laugh when you didn’t want to, the one who winked across the lab when Reed was being too serious, the one who leaned just a little too close when you were working on something. 

But Johnny was just a friend, and that was it.

A friend who flirted too much, but never went past that, no matter how much you wished him to. It was the kind of will-they won’t-they thing that made Sue smile knowingly, Ben shake his head, and Reed mutter under his breath about unresolved tension in his lab. 

And the kind of thing that made you want to jump from a high place just for him to come and catch you. 

And then kiss you. 

Yes…you were down bad. 

And then came the gala. The kind of night where champagne tasted like water at some point and the city blurred behind the tall glass windows of the building. You shouldn’t have let Johnny keep pouring into your glass, shouldn’t have let yourself get swept into his orbit more than usual, but you did. 

His warm hand fit perfectly against your waist when he pulled you into a spin on the empty dance floor, your laugh echoing on the walls as he twirled you around. You two looked like a mess. His shirt untucked, hair tousled, your shoes off, dress loosened up on the back where his hands inevitably began drifting lower and lower. 

Everything felt so funny, yet so right. His laugh was loud and golden, his lips too close when he whispered a joke meant only for you, even when there was no one else around. 

You told yourself it was just the alcohol, the dizzy haze of his scent and the music he’d played on the turntable. But his warm hands kept roaming freely, and you couldn’t help yours from feeling every ridge of his muscles either. The night faded into sloppy kisses, his hips snapping against yours as you finally turned that ‘unresolved tension’ into a melody of midnight gasps and your headboard banging the wall, knowing Sue would probably give you hell about it the next day. 

But the night was just like him. Everything and nothing all at once.

Everything because all you’d ever wanted was his body on yours, his groans against your skin, his undivided attention on making sure you were having as good of a time as he was. But it was supposed to mean nothing because that’s what you were. Even when he was buried deep inside you. 

Next morning, you woke up to his warmth. Your legs tangled on your satin bedsheets, his arm slung heavy around your waist. We shouldn’t have, was your first thought. But when you saw his face just inches away from yours, soft and peaceful in sleep, and his golden hair on your pillow…you could picture yourself waking up to that everyday. 

It wasn’t just the alcohol. You knew it. 

And he knew it, but “we shouldn’t have” was his first thought too, and unfortunately he let that be the only one he said out loud. Johnny cracked a joke, like he always did, and you forced a laugh, because for the first time you didn’t find him funny. 

The two of you ruled it out as a mistake. Too much champagne. Too little sense. 

When it was too much stupidity, actually. 

Because it didn’t feel like a mistake, not to you. Never to you. Not when the warmth of his touch still lingered on your body, not when his cologne clung to your pillow even days later. And most certainly not to him, either. When he could still hear your moans, when he could still feel your nails on his back, when he could still remember every thrust he buried his love with. 

But when people said ‘idiots in love’, you two surely loved to focus on the ‘idiots’ part of it. 

Because you let fear rule over your love, because you were nothing, just friends, and friends weren’t supposed to wake up in each other’s beds with their hearts racing. You couldn’t afford to ruin a friendship over what you both thought was a one sided infatuation. 

And the heart I know I’m breaking it’s my own 

To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known

You thought staying friends was safe…until it wasn’t. 

A month and a half later, you were holding a test that changed everything. Staring in shock at a blue + sign that pulsed on the tiny screen. You felt lightheaded, your pulse skyrocketing  as the world tilted under your feet. Terrified wasn’t even enough to describe it. 

Because you loved Johnny Storm, stupidly, deeply, recklessly. But to him, you weren’t his. You were just…you. A friend. How you came to despise that word. 

Now every day felt like waiting for the inevitable, for the moment you’d have to tell him. For the moment your almost thing would turn into something you couldn’t go back from. 

You thought you could hide it. But then the mornings started hitting harder. The nausea, the way your head gaslighted you into thinking you suddenly hated the smell of coffee. You brushed it off as a stomach bug, as stress, as anything other than what you knew it was. It worked for a while; you became an expert at dodging the family’s concern behind excuses of exhaustion. 

But Johnny…Johnny was trickier. He wasn’t oblivious, not when it came to you. If anything, he watched too closely. He could see when your laugh didn’t reach your eyes, when your smile was more of a mask. He thought it was because of that night. He thought he’d ruined something that didn’t even exist in the first place. So he asked one night, casually, leaning against the doorframe of your room with a bowl of popcorn. 

“Are you waking up earlier? I haven’t seen you around breakfast lately.” He said, a cocky grin on his face to hide the true worry behind his words. “One would think you got tired of my face.” He joked, like always. 

“Got tired of the same cereal.” You joked back, and he feigned offense by putting a hand on his chest. 

He didn’t press further, because the truth was he didn’t want to know if it really was that night, and it was easier to deflect reality with stupid jokes. So that night you ended up watching a movie. His shoulder grazing yours as you shared the popcorn, sat on the same bed he’d made love to you. Your head inevitably leaned on him. And he let you, of course he did. 

You hated that you didn’t mind it. 

As months kept going, your clothes became tighter, so you stole Johnny’s sweaters with the excuse of the weather getting colder, even when it was the middle of August and autumn was still yet to come. But he didn’t mind, how could he when you looked so cute wearing his clothes? 

How naive he was. 

You told yourself you were buying time. That you needed to be sure before you said anything, that you had to pick the right moment. But really, you were scared of the look on his face, scared of turning something unspoken into something real. 

For now, it was enough to live for the hope of it all. 

August slipped away into a moment in time

‘Cause you were never mine

September.

On the day you turned three months pregnant, you left early in the morning for an ultrasound appointment. Your only company was the chilly September air. It was just supposed to be that, a normal day. But as you lay on a medical bed and saw the life growing inside you through a screen, something terrible was happening back in the tower.

A planned attack. 

It wasn’t dramatic in the sense of fire everywhere, or the use of brute force. No, the Fantastic Four were more than capable of dealing with that sort of stuff. In this case, information was more valuable, and unfortunately, more vulnerable. 

The Baxter Building was supposed to be untouchable, layers of firewalls, Reed’s tech securing every inch of the place. But today, someone managed to hack every single file. And what better way to create a distraction than by targeting the innocent little droid first. All they had to do was program H.E.R.B.I.E into thinking his family was the enemy, starting with the two year old that was left in his care. 

Franklin. 

And for a few terrifying hours, the Fantastic Four had to fight an invisible enemy. Franklin had barely left unscathed, H.E.R.B.I.E was shut down until he could be repaired, but the damage was done. Their entire database got transferred to some location Reed kept desperately trying to track. 

Some screens still flickered, the alarms were muted but still ringing in everyone’s heads. Reed’s lab was suffocatingly tense, his quick typing and occasional scribble on the chalkboard were the only sounds. 

Sue rocked Franklin on her hip, she had twice survived someone wanting to harm her child; her bloodshot eyes showing she wasn’t sure she could ever take a third. Ben sat on the yellow couch, occasionally offering reassuring smiles to little Franklin. 

Johnny had been trying to contact you as soon as the hellish situation was over. But tracking you was useless, because you’d left the watch he’d given you in your room that day, since you noticed it messed with the ultrasound machine every time. 

But the worst part wasn’t that he couldn’t find you, no. The worst part was that every single trail of what happened that morning in the building was traced back to you. To that watch Johnny found on your nightstand, and which Reed now held next to his screen. 

And you weren’t even there to defend yourself. 

“Tell me this is a mistake.” Sue’s voice cut through the tension, still bouncing Franklin desperately. She walked toward Reed, leaning over his shoulder. 

He didn’t look at her, his eyes still darting over the evidence scrolling down his screen. “I’ve checked it four times. The data breach is always traced back to an internal device.” His tone was even, but his hands hesitated when holding the watch. Your watch. “Not just internal…hers.”

Ben shifted uneasily on his seat. “Come on, Reed. We’re talking about the kid here…there’s no way she’d pull something like that.”

Reed went through the decryption for the fifth time, and all the incriminating details. Log-ins with your name, encrypted messages sharing information only you would know. It was too calculated, almost like the perfect crime, but they couldn’t see past the fear that morning caused. 

“This is bullshit.” Johnny snapped, walking around the lab shaking his head. “She wouldn’t–she couldn’t do this. Not her, and you all know it.” 

“Johnny, it’s all right here.” Reed looked at him. He didn’t want to believe it either, but he was a man of facts, and they were right in front of him. 

Johnny shook his head violently, pacing like he was going to burst into flames to burn the adrenaline off. “No, I don’t care what your computers say. She’s not like that– you know she’s not.” He defended fiercely. “She loves this family. She loves Franklin. She loves–” He cut himself off, like he still couldn’t say it out loud. “She loves us, okay–Sue? Help me a little bit here.” He looked at his sister, still clutching his nephew for dear life. 

“Johnny, I really wanna believe you.” She said, soft and honest. “But we’re talking about my son’s safety. Your nephew. What if…what if she isn’t who we thought?”

Reed sighed, exhausted. He wasn't an emotional person, but he wasn’t immune either. Pushing past all the logic, all the damning proof on his screens, his eyes reflected his heart trying to cloud his judgment. 

He’d grown fond of you too. You were brilliant, a true delight to work with. And you had always been so caring to the children of the place. Franklin and Johnny. Well, at least that's how it played in Reed’s eyes. The point was, he didn’t see you as just an intern, but as family. 

“I wish it wasn’t this way, Johnny. But we can’t ignore the facts, the evidence–strong evidence. Whoever did this had access to information only available to us…and the trail points to her being the leak.”

Johnny lifted his hands in the air, closing his fists like he wanted to choke the words that came out of Reed’s mouth. “If you think for one second I’m gonna stand here and believe she betrayed us, then you don’t know her like I do.” He tried to sound firm, confident, but his voice cracked. “I just know she…she wouldn’t do this to me.”

“Johnny…” Sue sighed. “This is not just about you…this is Franklin we’re talking about.” 

That set him off. The argument kept going in circles. Reed insisting on facts, Johnny yelling at him, Sue trying to reason with her brother, and Ben caught in the middle, taking Franklin from Sue’s arms to move him away from the confrontation. 

But then Reed’s screen chimed, with the results of the last decryption of information he got from your watch. He froze, making Johnny stop bickering with Sue.

“What?” He asked, leaning over Reed’s shoulder. 

Reed’s hands hovered over the keys as he took in the information. He saw dozens of image files, schematics, and hand drawn maps of the Baxter Building. 

And not just that, but the personal notes you’d made on them. 

At first he tried to find the logic, like he always did. And there was actually a reason behind it. It had been a project you’d worked along with Reed to set up a new security system when Franklin was born. He could see all the key points that he had explained to you alone. Okay, acceptable. But it had extra annotations around Franklin’s nursery, weak points, blind spots, stuff only you had observed and noted. 

But he didn’t know it had been from a place of good. The extra time you took to analyze everything to make sure the new systems would secure the child’s safety. And of course, they couldn’t see past that, because the thing you had used to protect him, was the very same that was used against him. 

And this time, in their eyes, there was no more room for the benefit of the doubt. Not when you weren’t there to explain it to them. Not when Sue couldn’t keep her eyes off Franklin in Ben’s arms as if something would happen to him the second she blinked. 

Johnny just stared in silence, he recognized the notes instantly. He remembered you perched at Reed’s side, stylus scribbling on your tablet as you tried to follow his explanations. He remembered laughing when you drew a tiny flame by his room. “So you don’t get lost, blondie.” 

It was yours, that was undeniable. And the decryption showed those notes had been shared outside the tower a few weeks ago. Far away from the family it belonged to. 

“Tell me someone forged this,” Ben said roughly, as the last thread of hope he had on you had snapped. 

Reed shook his head. “It’s not forged. These are her annotations, this was information I confided in her with…her own observations on the Tower’s weak points.”

“That’s yeah…that’s hers.” Johnny breathed, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s–god, that’s her handwriting.”

Sue pressed a hand to her mouth, tears already spilling. She adored you like a sister, trusted you with Franklin more than anyone. 

Johnny staggered back a step, like the air had been punched from his lungs. His eyes still locked on the little flame doodle. Was that why he couldn’t reach you all morning? Had you ran away and left them to pick up the pieces of everything you broke? 

For the first time, Johnny had no defense, no fiery protest. Just the crushing weight of evidence that seemed to confirm what he feared the most. The girl he loved had been betraying him–no…all of them all along.

And I fell from the pedestal, right down the rabbit hole

Long story short, it was a bad time

You carried the folded black and white print in your bag. Proof that everything inside you was still very real. But for the first time in weeks, you didn't feel afraid, instead you felt a strange kind of calm. 

That’s when you decided you’d tell Johnny. 

Whatever happened after, he deserved to know. He deserved to know you didn't really see him as nothing, that he was actually everything. And that everything, that love, was turning into something beautiful. You’d seen it through a screen today, and you wanted nothing more but to share it with him. Maybe next appointment he’d be there to hold your hand through it too. 

You just hoped he’d be able to forgive you from keeping it a secret for so long. 

When you walked back into the Baxter Building, you couldn’t find anyone. The place was quiet, as if the multiple floors of offices had been evacuated. Your heart raced as you went up the elevator, and walked around the empty halls of the family’s floors with not even a sign of Herbert. You rushed to the lab, the last place you needed to check. The elevator’s door opened, and you sighed in relief when you found your family inside. 

They all turned to you at once, and you were shocked to be met with red, puffy eyes. Sue rushed to stand in front of Franklin and Ben. Reed’s eyes darted between you and the screen, and Johnny…Johnny wouldn’t meet your gaze.

The relief didn’t last long. 

“What is going on? What happened?” You walked instinctively toward Johnny, but halted when you noticed he took a step back before you reached. “The whole building is empty, are you guys okay–“ 

“We didn’t think you’d actually show up here.” Sue’s harsh tone made your brows furrow. It didn’t sound like her, not like the woman who would put a blanket over you and Johnny when you fell asleep watching a movie in the living room. 

“What? Why wouldn’t I?” You asked, completely taken aback with the way she looked at you. “Johnny?” You called to him, but for some reason he refused to lift his gaze from the lab’s floor. 

“There was an attack today. On our…information.” Ben explained, softly. “And on F–“

“Franklin.” Sue finished for him, and your eyes went wide, but before you could ask, Reed rotated the sphere monitor so you could see what they’d discovered 

“The breach came from your device. And these…” He pointed to the screen. “These schematics were used to override our firewalls, and steal all of our information. Including all our safety protocols."

You walked a few steps closer, just enough to see your watch connected to the monitor, and all the information displayed on it. Your notes, your handwriting, your sketches, things you’d only ever shared with them.

“That’s–no, that’s impossible. I never shared that with anyone…I don’t–Reed, you know I never–“ You fumbled your words, nothing could’ve ever made you ready for this type of accusation. “My watch has been glitching lately, Johnny I told you that.” Your eyes darted to him, hoping he’d say something, that he’d defend you. But that wasn’t what came out of his lips.

“But that’s your handwriting.” He mumbled, arms crossed across his chest, but he still wouldn’t look at you. 

“On the plans that put my son in danger today.” 

“Yes, that’s my handwriting, those are my notes. But–” The words tore out of you, panicked. “I don’t know how they got that. I swear to you, it wasn’t me.”

Your eyes burned, your throat tight as you looked around the room at the family who once claimed you as their own, at Johnny, who didn't have it in him to meet your desperate gaze. 

“Johnny, please.”

Finally, Johnny’s head lifted. His eyes were glassy, rimmed red. It hurt you to see him like that, but it hurt you more that his mistrust of you was the reason behind those tears. Still, for one moment you let yourself believe he might leap to your defense like always. And as he looked right into your eyes, he wanted to. God, he really wanted to. 

To this day he could still remember the taste of the champagne from that night, the way your laugh had muffled against his neck, the feel of your fingers brushing his. He could still remember the way he brushed it off as nothing. But it wasn’t “nothing”. You weren’t “nothing”. 

You were supposed to be the one person who saw him, past all the cockiness, the one who always listened to him even when the family didn’t. You weren’t supposed to be the one who lied, who hurt him. He looked at Reed, hoping for a sign, hoping for that impossible “I was wrong”, but Reed only shook his head, because as always, he wasn’t. 

“The watch matches the breach exactly. There’s no evidence of tampering on it.”

“Then find it!” You snapped at Reed, making everyone flinch on their spots. “This is my home, I would never hurt any of you, much less Franklin.”

You couldn’t believe it. Had they really given up on you so easily?

“Johnny, come on,” you whispered. “You know me. Better than anyone.”

He did…or at least he thought he did. But the screen behind you glared back at him, your notes, your access codes, the coincidences. The smoking gun in your own handwriting.

“If this is some kind of mistake,” Johnny said quietly, “then give me something. Anything that makes this make sense.”

“I wasn’t even here, Johnny. I was–“ you cut yourself short, not exactly knowing how to explain you’d been hiding a baby when everything you said already sounded like a lie to them. “Can you just give me a second? I just need to–“

“There’s no time to spare, I need to track where this information has gone. You could at least tell us that.” Reed said, and you blinked in disbelief. 

“I can’t tell you something I don’t know.” You shook your head. “This is not about what you guys are seeing on that screen. This is about you trusting me for who you know me to be.” You fought one last time. 

Reed just sighed, finally daring to say what they’d all agreed on before you arrived. 

“We are shutting the building down. Everything will be changed to make sure the information that got leaked won’t be relevant. I’ll conduct a further investigation, but…I think it’s clear enough for now. You have broken our trust. And if you’re refusing to share information with us, that means we can’t…it’s not possible to have you here anymore.”

Johnny’s head snapped up, but this time it was you who couldn’t meet his eyes. All that was left was the quiet, the heartbreak, and the sound of your breath hitching as the family you loved looked at you like a stranger. You thought of the ultrasound picture in your bag, of the heartbeat no one here knew about. The one they were casting out alongside yours. 

The weight of it crashed down. The lab blurred as tears filled your eyes in disbelief. At this point you didn’t even care about their “further investigations”, because they had already decided it had been you. Their eyes didn’t lie, they didn’t believe you. 

You lost them. And in that moment they lost you.

So you just nodded, and whispered, “I understand.”

But in your chest, your heart screamed I don’t. That’s when you decided to turn to the last person who could give you saving grace. With what little steadiness you had left, you cleared your throat.

“Johnny,” you said softly, not daring to look at anyone else. “Can I…can I at least talk to you? Just once. Please.”

Johnny didn’t answer right away. His shoulders were stiff, his face turned away, but he exhaled, and nodded. “Yeah…okay.”

Sue looked at him, but with the unbearing love she still had for you somewhere inside, she decided you two deserved that moment. So she took Franklin from Ben’s arms and rushed out of the lab, Reed following her, Ben lingered just long enough to give you one last conflicted look before the elevator doors shut closed. 

You were left in the silence of the lab, standing across from Johnny. This was either your last chance, or…your last goodbye. The room felt too big now, like you didn’t belong there anymore, but still you gathered the strength to fight one last time. 

“I can’t change what you saw, and I don’t understand why you would believe that was me. You know how much your family means to me. How much you mean to me.” You started, your voice faltering with the tears you tried to keep from spilling. “Just…think about everything we’ve been through. Every night in this place. Every secret. Every laugh. Do you really think that wasn’t real?”

That got him. His eyes snapped to you, glassy and burning, like your words meant the opposite you wanted them to.

“It was real to me,” he said. “And maybe that’s the problem. Because now all I can think is, what if it was all just part of this? What if you were playing me the whole time?”

“Johnny…”

He raked a hand through his hair, pacing again. “Do you know what it feels like? To look at you and not know if anything you ever said to me was true? To wonder if every smile, every moment, was just you getting closer to what you wanted?” His voice cracked. “What did you even want to get from this? I don’t understand.”

The realization hit worse than ever. He wasn’t questioning the stuff he saw, he was questioning you. He didn’t understand why you’d done it, because he’d already decided in his head it had been you. 

“I–this is my family.” He continued. “Why would you want to do this to my family?” 

The words carved into you. To believe you had come into the building ready to finally confess, to tell him about the baby, to give him the one piece of truth that could not be forged. But the way he looked at you now, made your stomach twist.

“I can’t tell you something I don’t know.” You repeated the same thing you’d said to Reed, blinking back the tears that blurred him out. “But I don’t think it’d matter anyways…it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

This wasn’t about proving yourself anymore. Not when he’d already decided you didn’t even deserve the chance. 

He didn’t deny it, and that was the moment you knew. The same way Sue protected her child. You couldn’t give yours to someone who didn’t trust you, who doubted the very core of who you were for some made up evidence against you. 

“I will do as your family said, I won’t be a problem to you anymore.” You said. 

His lips parted one last time, like he wanted to speak, to backtrack, but nothing came, instead his eyes went back to the floor. That silence was enough to break the parts of you that once belonged to him.

It was clear to you, that no matter how much it broke your soul, you had lost everything. So it was time to go. You wiped your tears with your sleeves, and decided you wouldn’t spill any more for him. Or at least, not in front of him. You took one last look at Johnny, the coward who couldn't even look at you as he exiled you from his life, his home, his family. 

You didn’t say goodbye, he didn’t deserve it. So you just turned around, walked to the elevator, and didn’t look back as the doors closed. 

That’s when Johnny allowed himself to break. Breathless, broken sobs muffled by his hands soaking with the hot tears spilling. He didn’t know what hurt more, that he never got to confess he loved you, or the fact that everything that made him love you wasn’t even real. He was overwhelmed with emotions, the disbelief, the fear, the anger, that it was so hard to see clearly past all of that. 

All he had left was the facts, the damning evidence on Reed’s screen. Because he didn’t have you anymore. 

Believing that was the biggest mistake of his life. 

By the time the building settled into the darkness of the night, you were already gone. No goodbye note in your room, only your untouched belongings and your heart left behind. As the cab sped away, your mind was a whirl of grief and uncertainty. They had taken your home from you, but they could never take away the last part you had from Johnny. 

The only thing you had left. 

Johnny didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t. He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands and your watch on his nightstand. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw your face. He went to your room that night, trying to find something, a clue, anything that would help him see further the haze of pain that wouldn’t leave him alone. The room was silent, cold, even when he was a walking furnace. 

You’d left the bed made, two drawers half open, but the rest was intact. Picture frames, gifts he’d given to you through the years, records he’d chosen himself still displayed on your shelves. Like you couldn’t bear to bring a single piece of him with you. Only the faintest trace of your perfume lingered, clinging to the air like a ghost. 

The room looked frozen in time, like you just stopped existing. Which, you kind of had. 

Johnny’s chest burned, but not with fire this time. With the void only loss could cause. He leaned on the doorframe, staring into the space that used to be yours, and in some unspoken way, his. He wanted to rage, to scream, to burn the whole damn world down if it meant changing what happened. But nothing would do. 

You were gone.

Because they’d asked you to. Because he didn’t fight for you to stay. The smoking gun was not in your hands, but in his own. 

That night he slept on your bed. Eyes crying acid rain on the pillow where you used to lay your head. He clung to your scent and the good old memories, grieving the fact that he would never get to make new ones. Not with you.

Haunted by the look in my eyes 

That would’ve loved you for a lifetime

Leave it all behind

November.

The city you once loved became unbearable quickly. Every corner of Manhattan screamed their names. Fantastic Four billboards on Times Square, interviews replaying on café TVs, merch stands at every store. You couldn’t buy milk without Johnny’s smile flashing at you from a cereal box. It wasn’t home anymore. It was a wound that wasn’t allowed to close.

So you left New York for good, all to end up in a small southern town in Georgia. 

No flashing billboards, no cameras, no whispers of superheroes. No Fantastic Four influence anymore.

Still, nights weren’t easy. 

You sat by the open window of your small rental, the autumn air freezing against your skin. You stared out at the trees of a world that felt foreign, while you replayed every step that had led you there. 

Some nights you wrote letters. Folded scraps of paper with words you couldn’t say to anyone. Questions, confessions, apologies. Letters to the fire, to him, to the life you used to have. To no one.

It was like standing at the edge of a cliff screaming ‘give me a reason’. 

There wasn’t a clear path set for you anymore. The internship you earned through your hard work had once been an impossible dream, one you got to live. 

You guessed this was the price you had to pay for those few years in heaven. 

And there was one feeling that remained with you through the fall of the leaves. That peculiar ache, the sense that this wasn’t just pain for now, this pain was for evermore.

Hey December

Guess I’m feeling unmoored

Can’t remember what I used to fight for

Tis’ the damn season.

The city became unbearable for Johnny in December. Three months after your departure. 

The Fantastic Four’s Christmas photos were everywhere. Sue smiling with Franklin on her hip, Reed stiff as always, Ben wearing a ridiculous Santa hat marketing forced him to wear but he secretly loved. And Johnny, always the center of attention, always grinning. 

Because he was miserable but nobody had to know. 

Because the world saw him as the spark of every season. 

Because he was Johnny Storm, and he could do it all with a broken heart. 

Even when he hated himself most of the time. For doubting you. For letting the proof shout louder than his heart. So he did what he was best at, and hid behind a smile and his muscles, carrying the weight of believing you’d betrayed them…and the heavier weight of still missing you anyway.

Winter was in all its glory. 

Johnny wasn’t very fond of the snow since he got his powers. It wasn’t enough to affect him, since the cold never bothered him anyway, but it felt different when flying. Different than in any other season. 

But now he liked to see it fall through the large windows of the tower. Because maybe, wherever you were, he hoped you were seeing snow too. He could at least share that with you. 

So that’s what he was doing tonight.  

Johnny stood by the large windows of your room, a place where he found himself often, and thought about you. He always thought about you. Lost in his head, entranced by the way the snow fell, he didn't notice the tiny socks dragging against the blue carpet, until a little hand tugged the fabric of his pants. 

“Uncle Johnny?”

He looked down to find Franklin, clutching the stuffed dinosaur you’d given him on his last birthday. He smiled at his nephew, crouching to his height. 

 “Yeah, buddy?”

“Where is she?” Franklin asked, tilting his head.

His question was innocent, it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but the words knocked the air out of Johnny’s chest. He stared at his nephew, and the dinosaur tucked under his arm, the same one he’d helped you pick, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Franklin tugged his arm this time, when Johnny didn’t answer right away.

“She was always with you,” Franklin said softly. He always liked to point stuff out. Facts. Just like his father. “But now she’s not here. Mommy said she had to leave…” His little brow furrowed, because he didn’t understand. “Do you know why? Did she stop liking us?”

Johnny shook his head, forcing a crooked smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “No, buddy. She didn’t stop liking you. She…she just had to go away for a while.”

“But I miss her.”

That was it.

The final crack in Johnny’s mask. He wrapped his arms around him and hoisted him up, wrapping him tight in his arms as he walked towards your bed and sat there. He buried his face in Franklin’s blonde hair so he couldn't see his eyes burning. “Yeah, buddy…I miss her too.”

He didn’t notice Sue standing on the doorway. She just watched as Johnny clung to her son, both of them breaking with the absence of the same person.

Back in your little southern town, you stared out the window too, but there wasn’t snow there. You missed it. Missed teasing Johnny about it. Missed laughing until you cried when you tried to make snow angels and he melted the snow into water in a matter of seconds. 

You couldn’t share the snow anymore, but you were thinking about him too. All while in a city miles away, Johnny held a child who wasn’t his, whispering that he missed you too.

You’re not my homeland anymore

So what am I defending now? 

January.

It was the first day of the new year. 

Sue found him in your room again. It was late, hours after she’d put Franklin to bed. Johnny sat in your bed in the dark, the glow of the moonlight painting his somber eyes. His hand was curled around your watch like he still couldn’t let it go.

“Johnny.” Her voice was soft, but it carried the weight of someone who’d been watching him break for months.

He didn’t look at her right away. Just mumbled, “Can’t sleep.”

Sue crossed the room, sitting down beside him. She let the silence sit for a moment before speaking. “I know it hurts. More than it hurts the rest of us.” She reached out, resting a gentle hand on his arm. “But it's been months. And for your sake, Johnny…you can’t keep living like this.”

Johnny remembered what Franklin told him that night, and he wanted to use the same argument. ‘But I miss her’. He was sure he’d sound the same as the child, considering how his voice wasn’t as confident as it once was. 

“I can’t stop thinking about her. About that night…about everything I didn’t say.”

Sue’s hand slid to hold his, comforting in a way only a sister could be. “I know, Johnny. But sometimes people make their choices, and all we can do is let them go. You can’t burn yourself out trying to hold on to something that isn’t here anymore.”

Her words cut deep, but he knew they were spoken with love. Johnny sat there for a long time, staring at the watch in his palm. “You’re right.”

“I know it seems impossible now, but it’s time to bury it. Move forward, Johnny, for you.”

And he nodded, even though it seemed impossible. He decided then, to shove it down, to lock it up, to pretend the only fire burning him was the one from his own flames. He had to bury the pain, to bury you, somewhere he could never reach again.

The next day, as much as it hurt Sue, she moved every photo, every souvenir, every memory of you they had in the tower to that room, and put it under lock and key. Because she couldn’t keep watching her brother talk to a ghost. 

Johnny inevitably went back a couple of days after, only to find he could no longer get in. He’d noticed photos of you had gone missing, as well as all of the stuff you’d once given to him, so he figured his sister locked them away in your room. 

In that moment, Johnny wished he’d kept every receipt of the times he’d gone out with you. He would've, if he’d known one day every scrap of you would be taken away from him.

All that he had left was your memories. And he couldn’t help but wonder, What is she doing now?

If I didn't know better, I'd think you were still around

I know better, but I still feel you all around

February.

Six years later. 

The town had become your home in ways you never thought it would. You’d grown to love the main street lined with diners, boutiques and an old movie theater. The way everyone waved and actually made eye contact when you walked by, the rhythm of a place that moved slower than the world you’d left behind. It was like living inside a Hallmark movie. Except…without the love interest part.

By day, you taught at the community college. Your mornings went by as a professor in the science wing, filling blackboards with equations and diagrams, trying to pass on your love for learning and the things Reed had once taught you. Your students adored you, not because you were easy, but because you made them feel like science was reachable, like anyone could do it if they put in the effort. 

By night, your world was your son. 

Leo Spencer. 

He was everything all at once. The spark in your life, the reason behind your smile, and the vivid reminder of the one person you could never outrun. 

Because Johnny Storm lived in your son’s face. 

The same golden hair, the same dashing smile that lit up every room, his charming confidence, his small quirks. The way he drummed his fingers against the table without realizing, the way he tilted his head when he was curious, the way he filled a room with energy without even trying. He was a copy of the man who broke you. 

But not his eyes, no, those were yours. Johnny let you have one thing, at least. 

The only thing missing was the fire. Thank God for that. He never needed flames to shine. At only five years old, his restless curiosity had already outgrown the classrooms around him. Teachers threw around words like gifted and advanced classes, ones that carried dollar signs heavy enough to scare you. You worked extra hours tutoring in the afternoon to afford his tuition in a private school, even picked up shifts at the local bar on weekends, while your lovely neighbor took care of him. Exhaustion became an everyday thing, but you’d do it a thousand times over if it meant Leo had what he deserved.

You weren’t the same person who left New York. You changed your first name, and picked the same last name as your son for you, Spencer. It seemed stupid when you chose it, being Johnny’s second surname and all, but you weren’t really thinking clearly when you did. At least it had helped you tremendously to share it with Leo when it came to signing him up in the advanced programs. It kept people away from making questions since there wasn’t a “father” in the picture. They could only assume he’d divorced you or died. 

It was a place where gossip ran like water, after all. 

Your one story house wasn’t that big, but it was yours. White paint on the porch railing, a garden you kept stubbornly alive, shelves lined with books you actually had time to read again. At night you’d sit on the steps with a mug of tea, watching your son chase fireflies across the yard, laugh bubbling while telling you facts about their wings. 

You’d built this life with your own two hands, out of nothing. You did it with a broken heart, with one truth you carried quietly, tucked deep inside your chest. 

I’m never going to love again.

People tried to show their interest in you; a colleague who lingered too long in conversation, a neighbor who offered to fix the leak on your sink when you’d mentioned it, or even the police captain offering you coffee when you passed by the station in the mornings, but you shut the door on all of it with a polite smile. 

The world had taught you what it cost to put your faith in someone else, to hand over your heart and believe they’d protect it. You couldn’t afford to make that mistake again, not when there was a child depending on you. So you forgot about your big city dreams, at least until Leo was able to have his own. You kept your world small, safe, and put caution tape around your heart. 

Miles away, Johnny wasn’t much different. 

Of course he didn’t have to hide behind a fake name, he was still the golden boy of New York, still the Human Torch. Half naked in calendars, covers of magazines and billboards. He’d leaned into the spotlight harder than ever, laughing loud, burning brighter than his flames. 

But beneath it, the void never filled.

Six years, and he never let another woman close. Flirting, sure, he couldn’t help it, but he never took anyone home. It felt like betraying you, even when you betrayed him first. 

It was absurd, really, that he kept burning for a ghost.

He told himself he'd buried you, like Sue told him to. But the wound never closed. So he researched, quietly, secretly. When the others thought he was sleeping, Johnny sat in Reed’s lab going through old files, things that never quite added up. It had started as punishment, as a way to prove to himself that the evidence had been real, that he wasn’t crazy for believing it. But the longer he stared, the more holes he found. Places where the trail was too clean, where it looked too deliberate. 

He didn’t find proof that you’d done it. He was finding proof that he had destroyed you for nothing. 

That’s when he started looking for you. But your name didn’t show up in any database after that September six years ago. You just vanished into smoke slipping from his hands. 

He was supposed to be the fire, to absorb it before it burned everything down. But this time he had to be the one picking up the ashes left behind, one by one. 

And every night he whispered the same prayer to the stars, let me find something. Let me find her.

And it's been so long, but if you ever think you got it wrong

I'm right where you left me

March.

You spent your afternoons tutoring, guiding your students the way you’d wished someone did for you when you were younger. Every bright mind that walked through your door had the potential, you just showed them what they could do with it. 

But some shone brighter than others, like this girl Kate. The darkest long hair, a sharp gaze and even a sharper mind. The kind of mind you recognized instantly. Restless, unable to settle for easy answers. She deserved more than the small town college could give her, and more than you could give her, if you were honest. 

Now, one of the many things The Fantastic Four contributed to the world were their academic programs. Opportunities, grants, financial aid, internships were all part of the things someone could earn through them. Of course, you had to be brave enough to even apply in the first place, and compete with millions of ‘exceptional’ applicants across the globe. 

You had once been brave enough to, and felt like you won the lottery when it landed you an internship with…them.

We all know how that story went. In the end, you lost the game of chances. But maybe Kate would play her cards better. So one day, pushing past your fears and your own trauma, you talked to her about the program that changed your life many moons ago. 

“Have you ever thought about applying to the Fantastic Four First Steps Program?”

Her head snapped up from her notebook, eyes wide. “Me? No way. I mean…that’s for geniuses, right? Not many people get in, only the people from the big cities.”

You smiled softly, even though your chest ached at the name. Fantastic Four. You hadn’t said it out loud in years; it was exiled from your vocabulary the way they’d exiled you. You never thought you’d send another person into that world ever again, but your experiences shouldn’t tarnish the ones others could have. So, even if the words tasted bitter in your mouth, you forced yourself to go on. 

“Kate, that program was built for minds like yours, no matter where you apply from. I seriously think you could get in, I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t.”

She hesitated; she had heard of other people from the college applying, but she thought they were crazy for even considering it, since no one from there ever got accepted. “Well, but…even if I could, which would be crazy…would I even belong in places like that?”

God, how many times had you asked yourself the same thing?

“Listen to me. You belong anywhere your brain can take you. And if you’re worried about the application, I’ll help you, I know what it takes to get in. You don’t have to do it alone.” You reassured, and after some consideration, she finally nodded.

You let out the part ‘because once, I was in’. Because once, those halls were your home. Because once, your whole life had unraveled on the top floor of that tower. But that was a long time ago, and you were starting to live for the hope of it all once again. 

Maybe life would be kinder to her the way it couldn’t be with you. 

So you both worked on her application right away. Crafted it perfectly. It wasn’t a hard task, since she was brilliant and her scores backed her up. You just helped her polish everything, keeping your name out of it, and soon her file was mailed to New York. 

It's been a long time

And seeing the shape of your name

Still spells out pain

October.

Johnny had been sent to represent the family at the Fantastic Four First Steps Program Showcase. Where dozens of students made a presentation on the projects they’d been working on since they got into the program. 

He arrived just in time, wearing a leather jacket over a fancy button down, and the most inappropriate pair of tight pants he found that day. 

“Family representation, Johnny." Sue had said that morning, shoving the itinerary into his hands. “Behave, pay attention, and ask questions.” 

And he tried, he really did…at first. 

But by hour two, saying he was bored wasn’t even enough. He still clapped when everyone else clapped, smiled when a camera panned at him, even threw a wink or two when someone in the audience managed to get his attention. 

He just had to hold on for another half an hour. Then he could sneak out, text Sue “great event!” and pretend he’d been deeply moved by the future of scientific innovation.

He wasn’t even looking at the stage when the next student walked up. Kate Bishop, the host announced. Another young person with a bright future and a nervous smile. Johnny didn’t even notice the accent in her voice or the way her hands trembled holding the slide pointer to the huge screen behind her. His gaze was fixed on the watch on his wrist, until her presentation came to an end. 

“…and I wouldn’t even be here today if it weren’t for my mentor, my professor back home,” Kate was saying. “She pushed me to apply, even when I didn’t think I could make it.”

Johnny looked up absentmindedly, he was ready to clap and give a thumbs up as if he heard the whole thing, but his hands stopped midair when he saw the slide change. 

There you were. On the screen.

Standing in a college lab, radiant as ever, the sunlight from the big windows pouring over your shoulder. The girl on stage was smiling next to you, her head tilted slightly in your direction. Your hand rested on her project model. You looked proud, happy, alive.

You. It was you.

Johnny couldn't clap, smile, or even breathe. He forgot where he was, forgot the rows of interns, the attention from the audience, the cameras pointed at him. The entire world narrowed to that glowing projection of you.

He hadn’t seen you in six years. Not in memories that didn’t hurt. Not even in photographs because Sue had locked them away in your room. His heart started to race, too fast, too painful. He felt it everywhere, in the edge of his ribs, in his throat, his ears.

All he could see was your smile frozen on that screen. The same smile that used to undo him every single day.

“The project began with her, back home in Georgia. She taught me that even if people don’t believe in you, you have to believe in the impact you’ll leave behind.”

Johnny squinted, trying to read the caption under the picture.

Professor Spencer and student Kate Bishop. Thomasville, Georgia. 

Spencer. Jonathan Lowell Spencer Storm.

You took his name. His second surname.

You’d vanished, built a life, a reputation. And you chose somewhere quieter, smaller, far from him, far from the city that ruined you. You built yourself back up, became a new person, and still took his name.

But Johnny didn’t have time to spiral, because for the first time in six years, he didn’t just have a ghost, he had a trail. He had a location now. 

Thomasville, Georgia.

He had to find you.

Johnny left the conference building in a blaze of golden fire, without even saying goodbye to anyone, and went back to the Tower.

He stumbled into his room, slamming the door behind him, the rush of adrenaline burning through his shaking hands. He went straight to his nightstand, pulling out the last piece of you he kept, the only one Sue couldn't take away from him because he’d hid it.

Your watch.

He paced the length of his room, the watch clutched tight in his hand, muttering under his breath like that would help calm the storm inside him.

“Six years,” he whispered. “Six years and I finally found you.”

He pressed his palms against his face, but in the middle of his frenzy, the watch slipped from his grasp. It clattered to the floor with a sharp crack, metal case popping open, tiny pieces scattering over his carpet. 

“Fuck…”

He dropped to his knees, scooping the pieces up, but stopped over something that didn’t look like it belonged there. He picked it up carefully, staring at a tiny silver chip, glinting under the light coming from the large windows. It didn’t have the blue number four Reed stamped everything with. 

What the hell…

He scooped the rest of the pieces from your watch, and set them on his bed. Then, without even giving it a second thought, he took off his own watch and closed his eyes as he slammed it against the floor. The casing burst open just like yours, gears and metal scattering on the floor. But all he saw were pieces that were meant to be there, stamped with the tiniest four emblem. No weird chip. 

“No, no, no…” He shook his head, looking all around the carpet to see if he missed it coming out of his watch. But he found nothing. 

He needed answers now.

Johnny didn’t remember running through the halls. His chest burned, and his vision blurred. By the time he burst into Reed’s lab, he was gasping, eyes wet, the small chip clutched safely in his hand. 

“Reed–Reed, I need you to look at this!” 

Sue jumped in her spot, and sat up straighter from where she was leaning over some papers. Reed looked up from his work, brows furrowing at Johnny sprinting toward him. 

“Weren’t you at the education summit?” Reed asked, just as Johnny set the chip in front of him.

“I left early.” Johnny shook his head quickly, catching his breath. “This is more important. You need to analyze this. Now.” 

Reed glared at him for a few seconds, but when he noticed the desperation behind Johnny’s pleading eyes, he reached for the chip with a tweezer. Johnny began pacing, raking his hands through his hair, breathing uneven as Reed studied the component carefully. 

“Are you okay?” Sue finally dared to ask, but Johnny didn’t answer.

He turned to Reed. “Well?” He demanded. “It’s not from here, is it?”

Reed ignored him, and set the chip under his scanner. A pulse of blue light ran over it, as Reed pressed keys, analyzing its composition, code structures, searching for anything familiar. When the machine was finally done with the results, Reed leaned back.

“This isn’t ours.” He announced, and Johnny froze in his pacing. “This is advanced nano technology. ” 

“Johnny, where did you even find that?” Sue asked, but was ignored once again by her brother. 

“Are you completely sure it isn't ours?” He pressed. 

“It is not. I am years away from implementing it on our equipment. I’m afraid I don’t have the capability of building something like this here…yet.”

Johnny just stood in silence, his eyes fixed on the chip glowing faintly under the lab lights. 

“The chip…it was in her watch. The one we got the information from when we threw her out.” He explained, quiet anger threaded in every word. “The one she begged us to believe was glitching.”

Sue and Reed exchanged a wide eyed look, they knew exactly who he was talking about. Sue got up to put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, but he turned away. 

“Johnny…”

He slammed his hands against the counter, as tears burned the back of his eyes. “She told us. She told us something was wrong, and we didn’t listen. We just–we believed the files instead of her.”

Reed’s expression hardened as he looked back at the chip. His mind piecing everything together. “Nano technology is extremely dangerous. Someone must have embedded it on her device when she was out in the city, stole her information and then transferred the breach into it to cover their tracks. To make it look like the leak came from her.”

“Oh my god,” Sue gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

“This…this could have been planted on any of our watches. But whoever did this chose hers.” Reed added. 

“Because she wasn’t blood.” Sue shook her head. 

“Because she wasn’t officially one of us, which would make it more believable to us.” 

Johnny turned furious toward Reed when he heard that. “She was part of the family! At least back then she was. Don’t you dare imply she wasn’t.”

“Johnny, I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to reason on how this happened–” 

“We let her take the fall, that’s what happened! You let me believe it was her, when she was innocent!” Johnny snapped, pointing accusingly at him. Reed opened his mouth to argue, but Johnny didn’t even let him speak. “How did that chip get past you? You got all the information of the breach from her watch. How come you didn’t see that?”

That’s when Sue decided to step in. “Johnny, we had no idea. None of us did. There was so much evidence, you saw it.” She reached out, her hand hovering near his arm. “We can only hope to forgive ourselves for believing–”

“Forgive ourselves?” Before she could reach him he recoiled, staggering back offended. “How can I forgive myself? Tell me that, Sue. How can I fucking forgive myself?” His voice cracked. 

That was the moment Johnny couldn’t hold it in anymore. He leaned over the counter, palms supporting him as his eyes drowned in tears with the heartbreaking realization that it wasn’t you. It had never been you.

And he found that out six years late.

Six years of feeling guilty for not hating you. Six years of burying you. Of forcing himself to believe that you were the one who had cut them open, who had put Franklin at risk, who had taken everything they built and sold it out. All those years, all that evidence, the betrayal they’d carved into your name, was a lie. Someone had planted it. Someone had turned the watch he gave you into a weapon against you. 

And he believed it. 

He thought he knew pain before, the loss of his mother, the terrifying day that changed his life on that space mission. But this was a different kind of pain. Because those other things he could have never foreseen, or prevented. But this? He didn’t keep you safe, didn’t protect you, just let you take the blame.

And he could never undo what he’d done to you. This was a fire he ignited himself, a fire he’d let consume you. 

Sue walked over to him, her face pale at the sight of endless tears streaking down her brother’s cheeks. She placed a hand on his shoulder hesitantly, expecting to be rejected once again, but instead stumbled backwards when Johnny turned around and wrapped his arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. Sue’s eyes swelled with tears too as her brother cried uncontrollably, clinging to her for dear life.

She let him get it all out, one arm hugging him tightly and the other lifted to stroke his hair, just like when he was a kid. Reed just watched in silence, guilt sinking deep into his bones with every sob that echoed in the lab. Johnny was right. He should’ve seen it, he should’ve given you the benefit of the doubt instead of making them think you would do something like that. He hadn't just failed you, he’d failed his entire family.

Johnny’s tears finally came to a stop after what felt like forever, his chest heaved with leftover hiccups. He pulled back from Sue, running his hands violently through his soaked face. He sniffed a few times, gaze lowering on the floor, hands on his hips.

“I let her walk out with nothing. I watched her beg me to believe her and I–” His voice cracked again, but he pressed his palms to his eyes. “I didn’t, Sue. I didn't. For six fucking years I let her believe we hated her.”

“Johnny, we can’t change the past.” Her voice softened, she wiped her own tears with a napkin Reed pulled out from his shirt. “All we have is the now–”

“Now? Now she’s in some small town, working in a community college when she should’ve had the world with us. We stole her future from her.”

That made Reed’s head snap up. “Wait–you know where she is?” 

“Johnny, you found her?” Sue asked, just as surprised. 

Johnny nodded, sighing. “I saw her–not in person. This girl from the program, Kate, showed a picture of her in her presentation today. Said she was her professor at the community college back home.” He sniffed as he forced himself to go on. “In Thomasville. A town in Georgia, she’s there.”

Sue stepped closer, her arms crossed in her chest. “Then we have to fix it.”

She got startled by Johnny’s bitter laughter. “Fix it? How the hell do you fix six years? How do you fix letting someone you love think you hated them?” He shook his head. “I love her, I never stopped. And now I don’t even know if she’d even look at me, let alone forgive me.”

Reed sighed, walking over to Johnny. He placed a firm hand on his shoulder, and spoke to him the way he did when Johnny was younger. “Maybe it’s not about forgiveness, Johnny. Maybe it’s about the truth. About giving her back what was stolen.” He looked over to the chip, regret flickering through his calm voice. 

“So now we try. It doesn't matter if it’s too late.” Sue added. “And it has to be you. It doesn't matter if she slams the door in your face. You try, Johnny, you have to.”

Reed nodded. “We can’t undo what we did. But we can stop letting her carry it alone.”

Johnny stood there, comforted by his sister who’d always been his mother figure, and Reed who, no matter how much they bickered everyday, had also always been there for him in ways only a father could. 

He didn’t know if it was possible, he didn’t know what came next. But he knew he had to try. 

He was coming to get you. 

Guilty, guilty, reaching out across the sea

That you put between you and me

Thomasville, Georgia, was quiet that sunny Sunday morning.

Church bells rang in the distance, families walked out of diners with paper bags of pancakes, the people on the streets moving at that slow pace that belonged to small towns.

Johnny Storm had never felt more out of place.

He could’ve flown there. Part of him wanted to, he loved traveling in that fast, fiery streak across the sky. But he couldn’t risk it. If the news caught him flying in some random town instead of New York and you saw it, you might vanish before he ever got close, and he couldn’t lose you again. So he flew into the nearest big city instead, rented a shiny black pickup truck that in his head looked appropriate for his trip, and drove for hours to your town across red, yellow and orange trees with the windows down, letting the autumn air cool down the heat gnawing inside him. 

He hadn't been able to find your address on public records, so he chose to start by the community college first. The campus was almost empty that Sunday, only a few students lingered by the library steps. He stepped down his huge pickup with sunglasses on, the less flashy pair he owned, and a cap to cover his distinct blond hair. Johnny kept his head down, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, slipping past unnoticed. 

The directory board near the main entrance gave him what he needed. Your office number. He dodged a custodian pushing a cart, and ducked past a pair of students glued to their books. His heart pounded louder with every turn until finally, he found it.

The office.

The door was unlocked, strangely enough since there was no one inside. But when he stepped in, he understood why. The space was…bare. If your name wasn’t on the door, he would've thought no one worked there. He saw a desk, a neat stack of papers on it, and a clean chalkboard. No photos. No plants. No little trinkets to claim the space as yours.

Johnny closed the door softly behind him, his chest aching as his eyes traced the emptiness. There was no warmth, no spark of you. It was efficient, practical, almost…detached. Like you could walk away without leaving a trace. And Johnny realized, with a sick twist of his stomach, that your trauma had a shape. Four walls, stripped bare, a life lived like you might vanish again tomorrow.

“You never let yourself settle,” Johnny whispered to the empty room.

Because six years ago, they had made you leave your home with nothing. Because you had learned the hard way that belonging could be ripped away overnight. The guilt pressed down harder on his chest, almost suffocating. Johnny shoved those feelings away, he was on a mission to try to fix all of that. 

He rounded your desk, and checked the papers on it first. Faculty memos, notes, nothing relevant. His hands went through the drawers, he found more notes, a few bags of snacks, and finally, a folded bill, with your address printed clear at the top.

“Bingo,” he grinned. 

He shoved it in his pocket, then tugged at the next drawer but nothing happened, it was locked. He grinned wider, because if there was anything Johnny Storm liked, was sticking up his nose where he shouldn't. And he’d known you long enough to remember you used to hide things in plain sight. All he had to do was scan the desk until he found a small key tucked inside a pencil holder. 

Typical.

At first, it was nothing remarkable. Just research notes, class grades, tests drafts. But then his hand found envelopes tucked deeper. He pulled them out, and found letters with your handwriting, but no stamps, no addresses. Letters that were never meant to be sent. But his brow furrowed when he noticed his name on the first one.

My Johnny.

He flipped to the next. 

Dear Johnny.

Then the next.

Johnny.

And then the last one. 

For him.

You wrote to him, even when there was no hope, even when he was never going to read them. He clutched the envelopes, his heart fracturing when he realized he went from being called yours to someone you couldn't name anymore, not even on paper. 

He took a deep breath, ready to read what the first one said, but before he could take out the folded letter out of the envelope, the doorknob rattled.

He didn’t even have time to panic. He shut the drawer in a rush, and dropped down to his knees with the stack of the envelopes clutched tightly against his chest, crawling under the desk just as the door creaked open. The sound of heavy footsteps filled the room. Someone was walking up to the desk. Was it you? 

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God–

“Yeah, I’m in your office now,” a man’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Where’s that document you said you needed?”

Johnny’s eyes went wide. That man seemed to be on the phone. With you. He couldn’t make out clearly what you were saying, not from where he crouched, but the knowledge that you were there, so close, closer than you’d been in six years, nearly made him throw up. 

That, and also the fact that someone was on the other side of the desk and if they decided to round it, they would find the Human Torch hiding like a fucking thief.

The man hummed at whatever your response was, rifling through the stack of papers on top of the desk until he found it. “Ah, here. You owe me, Professor.” He chuckled. 

And then, faint but unmistakable, Johnny heard your laugh carrying from the other side of the line. God, he’d forgotten what it sounded like. Six years apart, and the first time he heard your laugh again, it wasn’t for him.

“Lucky for you, I was passing by campus today.” He said. Then his voice shifted, to a more playful tone Johnny knew too well. “By the way…have you thought about that coffee yet?”

Johnny stiffened under the desk. The man had an ease to him, the kind of thing that wasn’t forced. He wasn’t pushing, just…trying. He leaned closer so he could hear what you said to that. And that’s when he heard it again, your laugh. Like he was the funniest man alive, and it twisted Johnny’s insides. 

“John, I’m always flattered with the offer.”

John? Another John?

Jealousy wasn't something Johnny had felt in a long time. But at that moment, a million questions popped in his head in a matter of seconds. 

Who was he? How did you know him? Why did you ask for his help? Why were you laughing so much? Was he blond too? What car did he drive–

“But you know I’m busy, so I’m going to–”

“...Reject me, I know, I know.” John finished your sentence, and laughed under his breath, almost like he was expecting it. Johnny had to cover his mouth before he sighed in relief. “I’m used to it. But it's always worth a try, though.”

Always??

Before Johnny could lose it under that desk, it seemed like this “John” was finally about to leave, but stopped midway. “This may sound weird, but your office feels too…warm. I know it’s autumn, but how much do you crank up the heating?” He snorted, looking around the room.

Johnny cursed in his head. He hadn't even realized his temperature had risen significantly with all the jealousy. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, though.

“Huh, yeah, that’s weird. I always turn it off when I’m not there. Must be your imagination.” You joked.

“Or your voice,” John flirted. If you could even call that flirting, in Johnny’s very humble opinion. He grimaced, and thankfully, you protested too. “Alright, alright sorry. Let me get this to you and I’ll be out of your way.” He joked. 

“Okay…thank you, Captain Walker.” 

Captain Walker? Why did that sound flirty? Why did “John” laugh at that? Was it an inner joke? Was he an actual captain?

Johnny had to see this man right now.

But before he could spiral any further and create scenarios in his head, the line clicked off. He held his breath, waiting for the man to leave. Finally, the footsteps shifted toward the door, and Johnny couldn’t stop himself. He tucked the four envelopes on the inside of his jacket, and then he lifted himself up just enough to peek over the desk. 

He couldn’t see his face as he walked away, but with the way he carried himself, he was probably handsome. His hair was darker than Johnny’s but still blond, most likely with the same blue eyes to match. Taller, broader, the kind of frame that filled a doorway without trying. He wore a dark red flannel shirt rolled at the sleeves, worn jeans, and brown cowboy boots. The outfit screamed southern man on a Sunday.

Finally, the guy left the office, leaving him alone again.

Johnny should’ve been glad you’d turned him down, at least for a moment he was. The thought that you’d smiled politely, laughed softly, and still said no soothed the part of him that was still in love with you.

The guy seemed kind, and didn't really come off as a creep. He was a captain, apparently. He sucked at flirting, according to Johnny, but you seemed to laugh genuinely at his attempts…you seemed comfortable. Now Johnny only knew him from that short interaction, but he felt like the type of guy who looked steady, rooted…safe. The type of man who looked like he belonged there. 

The type of man you would've said yes to.

But something gnawed at the back of his head. The delusional part of himself thought that maybe you’d rejected that guy because you still remembered him. But then, the darker part of him whispered in his ear that it was actually because of what he did to you, and you couldn't risk another heartbreak.

The same way you didn’t seem to get attached to spaces, like your office, maybe you didn’t let yourself get attached to people either.

Johnny’s heart pounded in his chest as he drove to your home. He didn’t really have a plan…or words. What could he say after six years? What could possibly fit into a sentence when what he did to you should be a lifetime of apologies?

All he knew was that he had to see you. 

When he finally turned down your street, the world seemed to slow. It was a beautiful place, for sure. Orange leaves fell from the trees lining up the street, landing in the gardens of the houses. It was quiet around, yet it looked so lived in. Johnny parked a few houses down, and he sat there for a long moment, just staring at his shaking hands. He finally gathered the courage to get out of the car, and looked for the house with the same number he found in the bill he got from your office. He finally found it, and he stood right in front of it. 

Your home.

A single story painted in soft baby blue with a beautiful porch. A little rocking white bench sat out front, and plants that looked cared for lined the steps in mismatched pots. 

You built this, he thought. Without us. Without me.

Each step to the porch felt heavier, like he was walking straight into a storm. He ran his hand over the wooden railing, steadying himself, letting the softness of the blue paint calm him down. He paused at the door, looking down at the doormat that said Welcome! 

He chuckled nervously under his breath, but something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Right by the door, there were two pairs of rainboots. One black, the other shiny red. It would've been a normal thing, if it wasn't for the fact that the red ones looked too small to belong to you. Johnny tilted his head, but the nerves running through his body didn’t really let him think clearly. So he just shrugged it off. Maybe some kid from the neighbors had left them there. It seemed like the type of neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and everyone shared everything. 

He took one last deep breath, and finally knocked on your door. 

The time is near

What would he do if he found us out?

He's gonna burn this house to the ground

The knock that would change your life echoed through the quiet of the house. You finished slipping your sports shoes on, frowning at the sound. Sunday afternoons were calm, Leo was already at the neighbor’s so you didn't get interrupted as you got ready for your shift at the bar. You weren’t expecting anyone.

And when you opened the creaky wood door, you certainly weren’t expecting Johnny Storm to be standing right outside the mesh screen.

It felt like a bucket of ice water just got dumped on you. 

The last rays of golden sunlight hit him perfectly, catching on that familiar blonde hair you saw everyday on a smaller version of him. Your eyes went over the sharp lines of his face, ones you had spent years trying to erase from your memory. It was him, without a doubt. A few years older. Real. But somehow missing that boyish spark you were so used to seeing on him.

For a moment you didn’t move, you didn’t breathe, you couldn’t even if you tried. It felt like the air had been stolen right out of your lungs.

And Johnny? He was no different. Because even though he knew he was seeing you that day, he wasn’t prepared for this version of you. The one whose eyes told him you were still haunted by everything he had taken away from you. And you were so real, not a memory, not a brief visit in his dreams, not a picture on a presentation yet he looked at you like he’d seen a ghost.

Because that’s what you were, his ghost, his lost six years.

The mesh door separated you like a thin wall, but the weight of lost time pressed through it. Your face was stunned, eyes wide like you were seeing death itself. Because that’s what he was to you.

But this time what died didn’t stay dead, and it was standing on your porch, right in front of you. 

The pain of it all hit you immediately, like it never left. You remembered the way he’d said everything all those years ago, his voice harsh and determined. Words that had followed you through every lonely night, every rock of your baby’s cradle, every time you told yourself you’d never trust again.

And now he dared to show up at the house you built with the bricks they threw at you.

Your heart rushed, panic replacing your anger. The only thought racing in your head was Leo. He came for Leo. He found you somehow, and now he was going to take your son away.

“J…” Your voice broke trying to say his name; it had been buried in your throat for years. But saying it felt wrong, unnatural, like dragging open an old wound. 

His own breath hitched, his eyes getting glassy before he could stop them. “God…” He whispered. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

For a moment, neither of you moved. Neither of you spoke. You stared at him as if he might vanish like he always did in your dreams. He would be doing you a favor anyways, you’d much rather be safe and stranded, than giving someone the chance to hurt you again. 

Your fingers gripped the edge of the doorframe to ground you, and the words tumbled out before you could stop them, sharp and defensive. 

“What are you doing here?”

Johnny flinched, just slightly, like the sound of your voice had cut him. He swallowed hard, trying to steady his breathing. 

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said softly. “For a long time.”

Your stomach twisted. Panic and fury knotted together in your chest, and you shook your head. “You shouldn’t have.”

He took a small step closer, seeing the fire in your eyes, yet still he dared to ask. “Can I…come in? Please. We need to talk.”

“I don’t think you should.” The answer came firm, unhesitant. 

The firmness in your voice startled even you. His face fell, taken aback, like he hadn’t expected you to stand so solid, to draw a line in the sand. Six years ago, you’d begged. Six years ago, you’d folded under the weight of their disbelief.

But not anymore.

Johnny cleared his throat, his voice breaking as he tried again. “Just–just a conversation. I swear. We really need to talk.”

For a moment, you wanted to shut the door. To bolt it and keep the small, safe world you’d built intact. But his eyes…always those eyes. Wide, glassy, unguarded. And against every instinct, against every scar, you found yourself unlatching the mesh door. It creaked open, and you stepped aside.

Johnny crossed the threshold like he was walking into another world.

The door clicked shut behind you, leaving him standing awkwardly in the small living room. Johnny’s eyes darted everywhere at once, taking it all in. The scent of lemon freshness, the warmth of afternoon light across your light cream walls, the faint clutter of everyday life, papers stacked on the table, faint scuff marks on the wooden floor, a blanket folded neatly on the couch. It wasn’t the Baxter Building. It wasn’t glass and striking colors and grandeur. It was a home. Your home.

And Johnny Storm stood in the middle of it, stunned, feeling like he had no right to breathe the same air.

“You can uh…sit,” you said quietly, gesturing to the couch near the door, trying to keep him from looking closer and finding something that could hint at a child living in the house. 

He obeyed without question, lowering himself onto the cushions. They sank beneath his weight, too soft, too comfortable. Nothing like the Baxter couches, firm, pristine. This one probably carried the wear and tear of movie nights and lazy weekends. He wasn’t sure the last time he had something like that. Still, no matter how comfy, Johnny sat stiffly, hands clasped trying not to fidget.

You hovered nearby, nervous, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. “Do you…want something to drink?”

For a second, he softened. The offer was familiar, like the ghost of old times when you’d fuss over whether he wanted a soda or coffee before turning into your assistant for long nights in the lab. His lips twitched, almost a smile, but the nerves won out.

“No. I’m fine.” He said, voice awkward.

You crossed your arms, finally steadying yourself enough to meet his gaze. “Then say what you came to say. I don’t really have much time.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I have to go to work.”

He blinked, caught off guard. “Work? On a Sunday night? Classes aren’t–“

“It’s not college. I have something else on the weekends.” You didn’t elaborate further, you didn’t need to.

Something in his chest sank, knowing you had another job, a side job. You, who once had the whole future wide open in the palm of your hand, who got everything promised when you were selected to work on Reed’s lab, becoming one of them, now pulling late shifts somewhere just to make ends meet.

Johnny swallowed the lump in his throat, understanding without you spelling it out. You needed the income. The silence stretched until it strangled him, until he couldn’t keep those words inside anymore. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, then leaned forward, voice already breaking. “I’m so goddamn sorry for everything. For not believing you. For letting you walk out of that tower like you were nothing when you were–when you were everything. I know it wasn’t you. I know now.”

Words…how little they mean, when they’re a little too late. 

Johnny dragged a shaking hand down his face when you just blinked at him. “I found the root of the leak…some nano chip that was hidden inside your watch. I know you told us–you said it was glitching, that it wasn’t you. Someone planted it there, got your information and used you to cover their tracks. And we–” He stopped for a moment to breathe, to steady his voice. “We let them. We handed you over without a fight. I–I did.”

Hearing Johnny say those words should’ve made you jump into his arms and kiss the tears away. Should’ve shattered you into granting him the sweet light of your forgiveness. Six years ago, you would have. Six years ago, you would have fallen to your knees just to hear them, would’ve clung to the smallest scrap of his belief.

It was the apology you had begged for in the dark, the one you had prayed might come. For years, you had whispered those words into your pillow, written them down in letters addressed to the fire, waited for the day he would arrive and tell you what you already knew.

But that day never came.

Not until the years had worn the edge off the pain. Not until you’d forced yourself to move forward. For your sake…for Leo’s. Still, that didn’t make it any easier for you. 

You could see it in him…the wreckage. His eyes wet, voice cracked with regret, chest rising and falling too fast. He was crushed under the same weight you’d carried alone for so long. As his chest ached with the same heartbreak yours once did, you stood still, lips sealed tight, arms crossed to protect yourself. 

That silence killed Johnny. And he had no one else to blame but himself. 

“I should’ve believed you.” His last choked apology came in a whisper, barely audible. 

Johnny stood up from the couch, but didn’t get closer. His fire buzzed under his skin, begging to flare to burn the ache down, but he forced it off. The last thing he wanted was to scorch this place, your place, the home you had built from the ashes he’d left you in.

You swallowed hard when he did, but you said nothing. You didn’t uncross your arms. Didn’t break…not yet. 

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t just look at me like that.”

When you said nothing, again, he staggered back a step, his hands dropping to his sides like he was keeping himself from reaching for you. 

“God, I deserve this,” he mumbled, more to himself. His eyes glistened, fixated on some mark on the floor. “Six years. I–” His throat closed, he had to force his voice out. “Six fucking years, and you won’t even say my name.”

No. You couldn’t. 

“I would’ve died to hear those words back then.”

His head snapped up. The sound of your voice, steady but laced with ache, tore through him like fire.

You shook your head, a bitter laugh made its way out. “I waited…God, I waited. For you to reach out, for any of you to show up at my door and say you didn’t believe it, that you hadn’t given up on me. But nothing came.”

Johnny’s lips parted, eyes wide, but this time it was him reeling in silence.

“I wrote letters,” you whispered, arms still crossed. “Letters addressed to no one. Words I knew you’d never read…just so I could breathe. Just so I could put the pain somewhere.”

Tears clouded Johnny’s eyes, he could almost feel the papers in your hands, the ghost of your handwriting spelling his name. My Johnny. Dear Johnny. For him. 

The last one when you couldn’t even withstand the thought of his name anymore. 

“And still…I couldn’t make it go away by making you the villain. I tried–believe me I did, because out of all of them I expected you to be the one to stand by me. But you just–” Your voice faltered when tears finally found their way out of your eyes. “You didn’t believe me.”

The little sobs you tried to muffle with your hand were unbearable for him. For a moment, he looked like he might collapse under the weight of your words, but he pushed through. He had to make you understand his side of the story. 

“I didn’t give up on you, not at first.” He said, words coming out desperate. “I studied it…in secret. Every night, I went over the reports, the logs, everything I could get my hands on. I couldn’t–God, I wouldn’t believe it. Not you. Not the girl who lived in the tower with us, who was family, who was…who was everything to me.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, pacing once before turning back toward you. “But the evidence was there, every file, every trace led back to things only you would know, and I was too blind to see past that. But all this time–” He reached into his jacket, fingers brushing the broken edges of your old watch. “It was sitting on my nightstand…the proof–that fucking chip inside your watch. It was right there all along…and I didn’t see it until six years too late.”

The revelation that he kept your watch on his nightstand shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He’d kept a piece of you close to him…next to him. Yet still, he decided you weren’t worth the benefit of the doubt. 

“The problem,” you said dryly, “is that you needed the evidence at all. If you’d just listened to me–” Your voice cracked, but you forced yourself to hold his gaze. “If you’d just trusted me back then, everything would be different today.”

“I wanted to,” he rasped, too unsteady, too quickly. “God, I wanted to believe you more than anything. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to choose my heart over proof and I hate myself for that…I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry.”

You stared at him for a moment, then shook your head. “You’re asking for something I can’t give you now,” you whispered. “I don’t know if I ever can.”

“I’ll take it.” He whispered back, wiping the tears away with the back of his sleeve. “Whatever you’ll give me, I’ll take it. I just needed you to know I was sorry. That I was wrong.”

Silence stretched, until you finally forced yourself to ask what you’ve been dying to know since you saw him at your doorstep, your arms tightening across your chest. 

“How did…how did you even find me?”

Your stomach twisted, braced for the answer you feared most. That he wasn’t here for you at all. That the apology was just some excuse. That he was here to rip Leo from your arms, to take the only piece of safety you had left.

“Through one of your students…Kate. She showed a photo at a presentation. You were there…next to her.” He explained. “I thought I’d gone insane. I thought I was seeing ghosts. But it was you.”

Kate.

Shit.

You swallowed hard. It had been you who’d told her to apply, who’d guided her steps closer to the program you should’ve kept far away from. You had been so careful with her application, keeping your name out of it, yet it was a variable you couldn't control that made your face find its way back to him. 

It still felt like your fault. 

The walls of the house suddenly felt smaller, the air heavier, warmer but not in a good way. Suffocating. For six years you’d kept yourself invisible, careful to erase every trace, and now you’d been found…because of your own slip.

Johnny saw the realization hit your features. Your frantic eyes told him how much you didn’t want to be found, how he was considered a danger to the little world you lived in now, and it ripped his heart more. He took a shaky step back, his hands half raised like he needed to show he wasn’t a threat. 

“God, I knew it. After everything I did, after what we put you through, of course you don’t want me here…and you don’t owe me anything, but I’ll take whatever scraps you’ll give me. Just–” He ran his hands through his already messy hair. “…Just don’t be afraid of me.”

You just stood there, letting your gaze drift over him. His posture a little heavier, his face more lined, but still so unmistakably Johnny Storm. Still handsome in that way that made your stomach twist…like seeing an ex. 

And the resemblance…God. It was astounding.

Your throat tightened as your eyes flicked from his face to the memory of your son’s. The same blond hair, the same damn smile when he was feeling mischievous. Leo was a mirror of him, down to quirks he didn’t even know he shared.

You knew if Johnny looked too long into your eyes, he might see the fear was not for you, but for Leo. So you forced yourself to blink, to pull the thought back into the cage where it belonged. Johnny didn’t know. Couldn’t know. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” you said at last, steadying your voice. “It’s just…shocking. Seeing you after all these years.” 

“Yeah…feels the same way for me.”

For a moment, Johnny let himself breathe, let himself believe just being there with you was enough, that he’d gotten farther than he thought he would. He sat back down on the couch, trying to steady himself from the weight of it all, but the silence stretched, and something gnawed at him. A pang in his chest, a whisper at the back of his mind.

Something was missing.

He tore his gaze from you, eyes drifting quickly across the place like answers might be hiding in the corners. It wasn’t like the tower, not polished, not curated. This house showed it was lived in. The open small kitchen was the room that first caught his eye. On the breakfast counter that faced the living room, three different kinds of cereal sat half open. A small wooden stool sat beneath the sink on the counter by the window, and in the drying rack, a mug and an orange plastic cup with a built-in straw sat side by side. A metal lunchbox was nearby, plain, blue, nothing flashy, but it didn’t quite fit as yours alone.

That’s when he remembered the tiny boots at the entrance. Everything lined up too perfectly, too unmistakable. Johnny came to the conclusion that someone else shared this space with  you. Someone with smaller steps, different routines than a normal person…it was a family’s home, without a doubt. Johnny’s chest tightened, and his eyes darted again, searching for just one more clue…

And then he saw it.

By the small tv center, half hidden in the corner, a toy box. Brightly painted, clearly well loved by the scratches on it. From the top poked the unmistakable shape of a toy car, the front wheels worn from too many races across the floor. His eyes widened, locked on the toy poking out, his entire body going still.

You followed his line of sight, dread flooding through your body. He’d seen it.

The toy. The truth. And you knew in that second there was no taking it back.

Johnny’s gaze stayed fixed on the little car. He didn’t say it right away…he couldn’t. The truth pressed the back of his throat, suffocating, but if he spoke it aloud, it would be real. So instead, he gaslighted himself for a little longer, forcing his voice to come out.

“Didn’t know you had a nephew,” he said, nodding faintly toward the corner. “Guess I missed a lot.”

It was subtle, almost casual, not accusatory. But you could hear the crack beneath the words, the real intention under his tone. He was pretending not to know. Pretending, maybe for both your sakes.

You hesitated, lips parting before closing again, thinking you could lie. You could nod and let him believe it, let the moment slip away. But his eyes…God, his eyes were already on you, glistening, waiting for you to tell the truth he couldn't. 

“It’s not a nephew.” Was all you said. 

No lie. Not the full truth either.

And what once was a forgotten night of too many drinks between two idiots in love, turned into two strangers, standing inches apart, knowing damn well what that child was.

Johnny pushed up from the couch, his legs unsteady but determined. He couldn’t sit any longer, he needed to be closer. To force that truth face to face. But when he stepped closer to you, his eyes caught on something on the corner of his eye.

A wall that led to a hallway, covered in frames. He drifted toward it instinctively, drawn like a moth to flame.

You moved quickly, your hand half reaching for his arm to stop him, his name tumbling out of your lips in desperation. “Johnny–”

But he pushed past you, and soon was standing there. Right in front of the wall of photographs. Dozens of them. A curated display of moments of a little kid. 

A newborn in a hospital blanket, tiny fists curled tight. A toddler, grinning wide as frosting smeared his cheeks at a birthday table, a number two on the cake. A four year old, probably, holding up a plant with proud little hands. And the one where he looked the oldest, standing proudly next to an experiment with a “winner” badge at a science fair. It could’ve been that same week for all he knew. And multiple more, across all stages of his little life.

The kid’s face looked back at him like a mirror from the past. His past. Just younger, innocent. Same hair, same smile, same spark. He reached out, fingertips shaking as they hovered over the glass.

All the paths led there. To that house. To that wall. To that smile.

To you.

Johnny’s mind went to that gala night. That one damn night. Too much champagne, too much fire, laughter and kisses that blurred into a night he could never forget. But it had been just one. One night you'd both decided it was a mistake, an impulse, a result of recklessness. 

And yet here, before his eyes, was proof of everything that night had left behind.

“God…” he whispered, barely audible.

An entire childhood he had missed.

Your son.

His–?

Johnny’s hand lingered on the frame. His own reflection in the glass, overlapping with the kid’s smile, and it felt like a cruel trick. His chest heaved, his head spinning.

“No,” he said under his breath, shaking his head. “No, it was…it was just one night.” His voice cracked in denial. “That gala, that was all it was. Just one night.”

His eyes darted across the wall again. Newborn, toddler, child, and every photo twisted the knife deeper. He staggered back a step, and finally, he forced himself to turn to you, his gaze pinning you to the spot.

“Tell me he’s not who I think he is.” He begged. “Please. Tell me I didn’t miss it–tell me I didn’t miss the most important part of your life–” His voice cracked, devastated, “–of mine.”

The plea rattled the air between you, thick with panic, with grief, with the sharp edge of a truth he couldn’t bear to face. His eyes glassy and desperate, burning with fire he couldn’t control, the heat searing just beneath his skin. And you couldn't, for the life of you, say anything. 

“God, please,” he whispered, his throat closing around the words. “Don’t let it be true. Don’t tell me I’ve lost all those years I'll never get back. Don’t tell me he’s–”

He cut himself off, choking on the last word.

And you knew. You knew the cat was out of the bag. No turning back, no denying it, no hiding Leo in the corners of your little world anymore. His father stood right here, breaking, begging you to undo what couldn’t be undone.

Johnny stared at you. He’d begged, he’d pleaded, he’d prayed you’d deny it. That you’d laugh, shake your head, shove him out the door and tell him he was insane. That you went out and had a child with someone who looked exactly like him as revenge. 

But you didn’t. 

“I’m sorry, Johnny.” Was all you could say. 

He blinked the tears away, and with a shaky exhale he finally claimed what was undoubtedly his. “He’s mine.”

You couldn’t even speak. Couldn’t force the words out. All you could do was nod, slow, aching, like it was tearing you apart to admit it.

“He’s my son,” he said, voice breaking again.

His eyes darted back to the wall of photos, all the years he’d missed staring back at him. Six years of a life he should’ve known. Six years of first steps, first words, laughter, birthdays. Johnny looked like the ground had opened beneath him. Face pale, stunned, his lips parted but no sound came out. Your instincts told you to grab Leo, to run, to keep him safe. But Johnny’s face…it was wrecked. It wasn’t fair for him.

So instead, you grabbed his arm lightly, steadying him, and guided him back toward the couch. He sank into the cushions without resistance, his hands shaking on his knees.

“I’ll get you some water,” you whispered.

You set the glass down in front of him, but he didn’t touch it, just stared through it like it wasn’t there. The shock ran like a chill through his body. 

Johnny was part of a family that had been torn apart when his mother passed. Every time he thought about having his own, he prayed for something complete. Not broken, not tarnished, not…this. Not a son who didn’t know he existed. 

“What’s his name?”

“Leo.” Your voice cracked, so you cleared your throat. “…Spencer.”

There it was. Spencer. 

“When was he born?”

“February 18th," you said quietly.

Johnny’s head snapped up. His head doing the math quicker than he ever thought he could. You must've been around three months when everything went down. 

“You knew,” he said, voice accusing now. “You already knew. Before–before we…” He trailed off, gathering the strength to continue. “Why?” He blurted. “Why didn’t you tell us? Tell me?” He shook his head. “It could’ve changed everything. God, you should’ve told me.”

You couldn't even look at him, because you had asked yourself that same question a thousand times in the dark. Your hands twisted together, nails biting into your palms as you forced yourself to meet his eyes. 

“I didn’t tell you because…because before that night, we were nothing,” you said. “Just two idiots who got too drunk and crossed a line. You said it yourself, it was just one night. You joked about it.”

The words tasted like lies, because you knew damn well you were in love with him. Still were, no matter how hard you tried to burn it out of yourself. But it was easier to paint it as nothing than to admit how much of you had always been his.

“And after what happened? After Reed found that so called evidence, after he told me I had to be gone, after you–” Your voice broke, eyes burning. “After you didn't fight for me? I wasn’t going to raise my child in a house that didn’t hesitate to throw me out like I was nothing. I wasn’t going to let my baby live in a place where family turned on me without blinking.”

Johnny just listened, because he didn’t have an argument for that. 

“I wanted him safe,” you mumbled. “Safe in a way I wasn’t. And I tried–I swear to God, Johnny, I tried to tell you when I asked to speak to you. But you wrecked me before I ever got the chance. You wouldn’t even look at me without that look…like I’d betrayed you.”

Your throat closed, but you forced the last words out.

“So I didn’t say anything. Because you didn’t deserve it.”

He realized just how much he’d really lost. Not just six years, not just the kid on the wall, but the pieces of you that he never had the courage to claim as his, long before that night. For a heartbeat he sat frozen, but when his hands went to cover his face, he broke.

The sound just ripped out of him, raw, sobbing. His shoulders hunched forward, his body folding in on itself as if he could hide from the truth but he couldn’t. Not from this. Not from you.

“God, I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve–” He cut himself off, a sob tearing free. “You were right there, and I–I didn’t listen. I didn’t believe–I should’ve fought for you.” Tears streamed hot down his face, his chest heaving. “You tried. And I–” His hands dropped uselessly to his lap.“I destroyed you. I destroyed everything.”

Before he could stop himself, his hand reached out to your figure in front of him. His hand hovered in the air, hesitant, fingers almost brushing yours, asking for something he knew he had no right to.

Still, he asked. “Please. Just let me hold your hand. Just–just for a second. I don’t care if it’s the last time.”

The man who always stood cocky and unshakable in front of the world was reduced to this. Broken, sobbing, begging at your feet for the smallest piece of forgiveness. And in his blue eyes, through the tears, you could see the guy you had loved with all your soul. The guy who had been yours…kind of.

So you let him hold you, just for a moment. Johnny’s warm hand shook against yours, his fingers curling carefully, like he was afraid you’d pull it back if he held too tight. His breathing evened out, his sobs softening until the room fell heavy again with silence. But then his lashes lifted, his eyes still wet as they flicked toward the hallway. 

“…Is he here? In his room?”

Your whole body stiffened, and he felt it with the way your hand tensed against him. 

Johnny took a deep breath, thumb brushing your knuckles as though he didn’t even realize he was doing it. “I just…I need to see him. Please.”

That was when you yanked your hand back, shaking your head profusely. “That’s not happening.”

Johnny froze, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. 

“You can’t see him,” you said firmly. “You can’t take him away. He’s all I have, Johnny. The only thing I have.”

And Johnny sat there stunned, gutted that you’d think that, realizing he wasn’t just fighting for your forgiveness anymore, but fighting for the right to see a son he hadn’t even touched.

“No. God–no. I would never take him from you.” He shook his head, pleading for you to believe him. “I swear on everything I am, I would never do that.” He reassured, pressing a hand to his chest. “But I need to see him, please. I have to. He’s mine. He’s my son.”

“But he’s my whole world, Johnny. And I can’t let anyone risk that.” You shook your head, stepping farther away from him.

Johnny couldn’t exactly blame you. He understood where the fear came from, but he’d be damned if he managed to find you and his son only to be told to go back to his life. 

This was his life now.

“I have a right to see him. To know him. To look at his face and not just through pictures on a wall.” He pressed, his eyes searched yours as you forced distance between you. “I’m his father.”

You had spent years building a wall around you and Leo, years convincing yourself you could keep him safe by keeping the world out, by moving to a small town where the Fantastic Four were nothing but big city superheroes. But now Johnny was sitting here, away from his big city, claiming that word like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Father.

Johnny’s lips parted, trying one more time. “I…I don’t want to take him from you. I just want to see him. Please, I’m begging you.”

You wiped at your cheeks quickly, forcing yourself to stand taller even as the word father rang in your ears. You drew in a shaky breath, keeping your tone as steady as you could.

“He’s not here,” you confessed. “My neighbor takes care of him when I’m working late shifts at the bar.”

Johnny blinked. The bar. The image of you, the woman who once lived and laughed in the tower, now pouring beer for drunk men on a Sunday, broke him. 

You glanced at the clock on the wall, your face scowling. “Shit.” You reached to grab your jacket from a chair. “I’m so late. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow if you want to see him.”

You stepped past him, toward the door, until his hand closed around your wrist. The warmth of his touch froze you in place.

“I can’t wait anymore.” His grip on your wrist was not tight, not forceful, just begging. “I’ve already lost so much. Please don’t make me lose another day.”

“Johnny–”

“Don’t go.” His voice cracked as his eyes searched yours. “Please. Don’t go.”

“I can’t just ditch work,” you snapped, panic rising in your throat. “I need it.”

“I’ll figure something out,” he said quickly, desperate. “Whatever it takes, I’ll fix it–I’ll cover it. But please. Not tonight. Not when I just found you again.”

The plea broke something in you. His hand on your wrist, his voice hesitant, the way his eyes begged. Your pride told you to yank your wrist back like you’d done before and tell him no, but the whole encounter had taken a toll on you, and you weren’t sure you could withstand a shift like that. So you exhaled, then finally gave the smallest nod. You pulled your wrist gently from his hand, not harsh, just needing space to breathe. 

“I uh–I need to make a call first,” you announced, and he nodded, stepping back so you could walk to the telephone on the wall.

Johnny watched as you gave him your back, and dialed the number with shaky fingers, the line ringing a few times before someone picked up. By the looks of it, it was your boss most likely, from the way you stumbled over a lie about Leo being sick. Johnny flinched when he heard the scolding from the other side of the line as you mumbled apologies for the short time notice. 

God, he needed to fix all this mess. 

You set the phone back with a sigh, and turned to him. “I’ll bring him home,” you said, then walked closer to him to plead just like he’d done before. “But you have to promise me you won’t take him away, Johnny…please. Don’t make me regret this.”

He stepped closer, hands raised in surrender. “You won’t,” he assured. “I’m sorry for leaving you alone to do this by yourself. I’ll never stop being sorry. But I can promise you this, I won’t take him away. Not from his mom. Not from you.”

You nodded, choosing to believe, slipping your jacket on to walk into the cold of the night. “Wait here,” you said. “I’ll go pick him up from my neighbor’s.”

Johnny only nodded, shoulders hunched, his hands lowered and clasped together like he was trying to keep himself from reaching for you again. His eyes followed you to the door, until you slipped away. 

You’d forgotten how warm a room became when Johnny was in it. The night air hit you as you stepped outside, crisp and cool, making you shiver. The street was dim, only the soft glow of porch lights guiding your path as you walked to the house across from yours. Your eyes went to the huge fancy pickup truck parked just a few houses down, which had to be Johnny’s, for sure. You rolled your eyes, of course. Rubbing your arms as you walked, legs moving on autopilot, every voice in your head screaming to scoop Leo up and vanish before it was too late. But it was already too late. Johnny was inside your house. His ridiculous truck outside. Johnny had seen the photos. Johnny knew.

Back at your place, behind the curtains, Johnny couldn’t sit still. He’d told himself he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t intrude, but his chest was on fire with longing. So he drifted closer to the window, pushing the curtains just enough to peek past the glass.

There you were, on your neighbor’s porch, exchanging a few words with a lovely old lady who looked at you worriedly. Johnny’s breath fogged the glass as he watched you. His heart ached at the sight. You looked so small, so breakable, carrying all of this alone.

You went inside only for a moment, and then you stepped out, cradling a bundle against your chest. The porchlight painted your silhouette in gold, and just beneath it, faint but unmistakable, was the glow of that blonde hair.

Johnny stopped breathing. 

My God.

He scrambled back from the window, clutching the pearls he didn’t have, and set the curtains back in place hoping you hadn't noticed him. By the time you reached your porch, he had forced himself back onto the couch, his hands braced on his knees, trying to look like he hadn’t just witnessed his entire world change in an instant.

The door opened with a quiet creak, and there you were. Your arms wrapped protectively around your son–his son, head resting on your shoulder, lips parted in soft sleep. Johnny shot to his feet immediately. His eyes, glassy and wide, locked on the child in your arms. You nudged Leo’s body only slightly, to see if he realized he was home, but Johnny’s hand twitched forward before he pulled it back, hesitant. 

“Don’t wake him,” he whispered quickly, his voice breaking. “Please–don’t. He looks…peaceful.”

You nodded, shifting only to hold Leo tighter. Johnny stepped closer, just enough to see. His eyes fell on the little face pressed into your shoulder, cheek squished, small eyebrows relaxed. Johnny’s hands stuck at his sides, aching to reach out, but terrified to cross that line.

“He’s… perfect,” he breathed. His knees nearly gave out, but he clung to the sight, drinking it in as if he could catch up on six years in a single heartbeat.

Your son–his son.

Perfect.

“C–can I…?” He mumbled, the words barely making it past his lips, more a plea than a question. His hand lifted a little, hovering helplessly over Leo’s little back, asking for permission to touch the sun.

He wasn’t Johnny Storm, the cocky Human Torch, not here, not now. He was just a man staring at his son for the first time. 

“Careful. He’s a heavy sleeper, but…”

Johnny nodded frantically, like he’d do anything, anything, not to ruin this chance. His hands shook as you carefully, reluctantly shifted Leo into his arms. The kid’s head fell against Johnny’s shoulder, his little hand curling unconsciously into the fabric of Johnny’s shirt.

And Johnny’s whole world stopped.

His arms tightened instinctively, protectively, as his body nearly buckled beneath the weight– not because six year old Leo was heavy, but because he was real, warm, breathing.

Johnny’s lips quivered as he pressed his cheek lightly against the crown of his son’s head, his tears falling into soft blonde hair. “Hi, buddy,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “God, you’re perfect.”

He rocked a little without realizing, clutching him as if he’d disappear. Six years of missed moments collided in his chest all at once. And for the first time since that night at the gala, Johnny felt whole and broken in the same breath. Johnny swayed gently, cradling Leo like he’d done with Franklin a thousand times before. His lips brushed Leo’s hair, a soft kiss he couldn’t stop himself from giving. His chest ached with every quiet breath the child took against him.

You stood frozen, watching them. The sight was enough to undo you. There he was, Johnny Storm, holding his son on a random Tuesday, right in that small town you called home. And the sight unlocked a longing on you that had been buried a long time ago. So you spoke, softly, because the silence was too heavy.

“He wonders about you, you know.”

Johnny’s head jerked up, his glassy eyes wide. “What?” His voice caught between awe and disbelief.

“Leo…he’s brilliant, I think the word smart is too small for him. He’s a little wonder,” you said proudly, trying to smile. “And he asks a lot of questions, about everything, about his dad…about you.”

Johnny’s eyes went wide. “What kinds of questions?” He asked, shifting Leo in his arms just slightly, like he was grounding himself his warmth. “Please, tell me what he wanted to know about me.”

“Everything.” You exhaled, shrugging, eyes dropping to the floor. “If you had the same hair as him. If you liked the same foods. If you could build things the way he does. If you were…funny.” A chuckle slipped out of you. “He even asked once if you were a superhero, I’m not sure why. I told him no, of course, because, well…obvious reasons. Guess I just wanted him to know you’re human. Just human.”

Johnny’s chest caved in, he pressed his lips against Leo’s hair, whispering. “Oh, buddy…”

Your eyes went to the floor, clearing your throat before confessing the last part. “And then he…he asked why you weren’t here. And I–I didn’t know what to say…so I just told him you live far away, and had a very demanding job. That your life is there. And his is here…with me.”

The hesitation in your voice made Johnny’s arms tighten around Leo instinctively. You still looked away, biting down on your lip, but you kept talking, because it was the truth. 

“I couldn’t lie to him. But I couldn’t tell him, either. So I just…I kept you as a distance. An idea. Someone too far away to reach, because that’s what you were to me.”

Johnny, on the other hand, couldn’t stop staring at you. But once again, he didn’t have an argument against that. He shifted, his eyes roaming over Leo’s little face like he was trying to memorize every curve, every eyelash. And then he finally whispered the question that had been clawing at him.

“Does he…?” His throat bobbed, his voice hesitant, almost afraid. “Does he have it? My–my powers?”

You shook your head quickly. “God, no.” Your hand pressed protectively to your chest. “No fire, nothing like that. I watched him like a hawk for years.” You let out a small, nervous laugh, one that carried your relief. “His only superpower is being too smart for his own good.”

Johnny smiled at that, oh he knew. 

“He’s a genius, Johnny. Top of his class. Public school said he needed advanced courses. So I–I work myself to the bone to pay for that private school because he deserves it. Every single opportunity I can give him, I’ll give him.”

Johnny’s arms curled tighter around Leo. “I could've given him so many more opportunities. I could've helped you, he’d have the best teachers in the world right in his own house. But you decided to keep him from me.”

You flinched, clutching your arms tighter around yourself.

“I get it–you didn’t trust my family. Fine. You didn't have to. But me?” His voice cracked, his chest heaving. “You didn’t even give me a chance. You didn’t let me know I had a son. You didn’t let me decide if I could protect him. You just–” He looked down at Leo in his arms, “–you just shut me out.”

“Well, you shut me out first, Johnny!” You whisper shouted, doing your best to not let your anger disturb Leo’s sleep.

“I know,” he whispered, broken. “God, I know I did. But six years–” He shook his head. “Six years I could’ve been here. Six years I could’ve loved him…and you didn’t let me.”

For the first time, it wasn’t just guilt suffocating Johnny. It was grief for the life he’d been denied, the life he might never get back. Your hands balled into fists at your sides, the words came tumbling out, because you couldn’t hold them anymore.

“You really want to know why I didn’t tell you about him?”

Johnny’s lips parted, but no sound came.

“Because I was terrified,” you admitted. “Terrified that if you knew, you’d take him away the second you held him. Because you didn’t trust me. Because you already proved I was disposable.”

“You weren’t–God you weren’t…” He shook his head. “And I would’ve never taken him– but you thought I would. And that’s on me.”

Leo stirred in Johnny’s arms, a soft little whine slipping from his lips as he shifted against his chest. You straightened immediately, your arms twitching as if to take him back.

“He needs to go to bed,” you whispered.

Johnny’s eyes shot to yours, desperate but gentle. “Let me. Please.”

For a long, taut moment you hesitated, torn between instinct and the look on his face. You had already allowed him so much today. But you had also denied him so much already during those years, so you could let him have this at least. 

Together, the three of you walked down the hallway, guiding Johnny, who moved slowly like he was carrying glass. You pushed the door open, and Johnny froze on the threshold.

You turned on a little lamp, the room glowing soft in the warm light, painted in baby blue, with tiny white stars scattered across the ceiling like a sky waiting for wishes. A low bookcase ran along one wall, stacked neatly but already overflowing. It reminded Johnny of Franklin’s back home, except his nephew’s was bigger, neater. This one was fit to Leo’s size. 

He saw multiple posters on the walls. Beautifully illustrated and educational, with names of insects, dinosaurs and galaxies. A half solved massive puzzle was scattered across the carpet, the edge pieces already put together, and in the middle a scattered constellation of tiny hopeful starts. He could tell it was a rocketship mid launch. Next to it was a tower of lego blocks mid construction, like Leo couldn't decide which one would be more fulfilling to finish. In a corner of the room, boxes stored little cars, stuffed animals, and more books. 

His son's little kingdom.

Johnny stepped inside, dodging the puzzle on the floor. He bent carefully, guiding Leo down onto the small bed with its soft, solar system patterned covers. He eased Leo onto his back, smoothing his hair gently, brushing a stray lock off his forehead. The child sighed in sleep, lips parting, lashes fluttering against his cheeks.

Johnny’s chest crumbled.

He leaned down and pressed a small kiss to his son’s forehead, lingering there, his lips hot with tears he couldn’t stop. When he pulled back, his eyes drank in the little face now tilted upwards in the glow of the night light.

So small. So peaceful. So perfect. So his.

And he couldn’t look away. Not from the child he’d just tucked into bed for the very first time, six years too late. You stayed in the doorway at first, leaning against the frame, your arms wrapped around yourself as you watched Johnny kneel by the bed. He was so careful, so gentle, nothing like the energetic golden retriever you once knew. 

As Leo shifted in his sleep, a soft sigh slipping from his lips, you finally stepped into the room. Without a word, you reached past Johnny to pull the little blanket up over your son, tucking it around his shoulders the way you always did. Your fingers brushed Johnny’s hand for the briefest moment.

And for just that moment, just a delusional, fragile second…Johnny let himself picture it.

You, beside him at bedtime. This little room, these blue walls, these stars on the ceiling. A ritual of small hands reaching for him, bedtime stories, goodnight kisses. Not a stolen moment after six years, but your life. The life he should’ve been here for. The life you should’ve had together.

In another universe, it was probably like that. In another universe, he didn't doubt you. In another universe, you didn't have to run. Johnny’s throat ached, trying to keep the dream from spilling out. For one heartbeat, he let himself believe it. 

You adjusted the blanket one last time, smoothing it over Leo’s chest until he let out a tiny snore, and you almost smiled. Johnny’s hand still hovered near the edge of the bed, his eyes glued to the child’s face like he couldn’t believe he was real.

“I’ll never get tired of saying it…I’m sorry,” he whispered, so low it almost vanished in the air. His eyes flicked to you. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for him. I should’ve been here. For the first step, the first word… all of it. I missed everything, and he doesn’t even know I exist.”

“I’m sorry you missed that too,” you whispered back. 

His gaze lifted to you, and he decided not to speak as the man who betrayed you, but as a father. “I promise you…I’ll never let him feel like how I let you feel…alone. I swear it.”

You gave him a nod. That promise wasn't just to you, but to his son.

You flicked off the little lamp by Leo’s bed and the two of you stepped out, leaving the door cracked just a bit. When you reached the living room again, Johnny stopped in his tracks. The room wasn’t just yours anymore. Now that he knew the truth, every detail shifted, every corner sang a different story.

The boxes of cereal on the counter? Leo’s. Not the quick snack of a busy professor, but his kid’s favorite breakfast. The fridge, though he hadn’t really looked at it before, had drawings pinned there with mismatched magnets. Crayon rockets, wobbly stick figure heroes, a very accurate representation of a T-rex. His son’s talent staring him in the face.

The blanket on the couch, the one he’d first seen, wasn’t just yours. It was small, soft, patterned with stars and comets, clearly a child’s. He pictured Leo curled up there, dozing while you graded papers late into the night. Even the stack of books by the TV wasn’t just random clutter. Johnny crouched a little, his breath hitching at the sight of colorful hardcovers. Stories picked by little hands, read again and again. And a huge detail he'd missed, an unmistakable pair of tiny sneakers under the coffee table.   

This was his son’s world. A kingdom built out of your sacrifices, your sleepless nights, your stubborn refusal to let him grow up with less than he deserved.

As Johnny explored, you lingered by the edge of the living room, your arms crossed, eyes flicking uneasily toward the door like you expected it to burst open at any second. What now? The question pressed heavy in your chest. You could almost see it, the rest of the family arriving in the morning, wanting answers, deciding Leo’s fate. The thought made your stomach knot.

You rubbed your temple, fighting to stay upright, but the weight of the day dragged at you. The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving only bone deep fatigue. You yawned before you could stop yourself, covering it quickly with the back of your hand.

Johnny caught it. His brows furrowed, his eyes softening in that way you hated because it made you feel seen. His gaze lingered on your tired shoulders, on the dark circles you’d tried to hide, on the way you still stood like you’d go work another eight hours if you had to.

“You were really gonna work like this?” He asked softly, borderline accusatory. “Dead on your feet. With class tomorrow, too?”

You shrugged, too tired to build your walls back up. “I don’t have a choice.”

Johnny’s stomach twisted. He wanted to scoop you up, tell you you’d never have to push yourself like this again, and tuck you under the covers of your bed. But he knew he didn’t have the right…not yet. So instead, he swallowed the words down, forcing the fire back down. 

“I better get going.”

You blinked at him, surprised.

“Yeah, you uhm–” Johnny started quietly, glancing at the hallway that led to Leo’s room. His voice softened even more. “You need to sleep. And…we’ve got a conversation pending. A big one…but not tonight.”

You were too tired to argue, so you nodded.

“Thank you, for letting me…for letting me see him.” He forced a smile, not cocky, just soft. “It’s more than I thought I could.” He chuckled nervously. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Not in the morning,” you blurted, before you could stop yourself. “It’s always chaos,” you explained quickly. “Getting Leo ready for school. Breakfast, answering his questions, all of it. Just–don’t. Please.”

His eyes softened, his shoulders easing a fraction.

You exhaled and added, “If you want… you can come by the college, after classes…there’s this coffee shop right outside campus.”

Johnny nodded slowly, like he’d been given more than he expected “College…coffee,” he repeated, committing it to memory. “Alright.”

For a moment he just stood by the door, drinking in the sight of you in this beautiful, lived in space that was never meant to carry all this history. 

“Tomorrow after classes,” he whispered again, like a vow, before finally stepping out into the night. The door closed softly behind him, leaving you in silence.

You didn’t know if you were more terrified or relieved that Johnny Storm had found his way back to you.

Did I close my fist around something delicate?

Did I shatter you?

Johnny drove to the hotel on autopilot, barely remembering the turns he took, barely noticing the glow of passing streetlights. His mind was still spinning like the world had been knocked off its axis.

Because it had.

Leo’s weight had been in his arms. He looked at peace sleeping on Johnny’s shoulder, as if it had been the most natural thing in the world. Now, in the dim silence of his hotel room, Johnny sat on the edge of the bed, his elbows braced to his knees, his face buried in his hands, caught somewhere between joy and grief. 

He pressed his hand hard to his eyes, but the images came anyway…Leo, smaller, toddling through the tower halls, Sue fussing over him, Ben sneaking him cookies, Franklin pulling him into games, Reed insisting on checkups. His family.

It should’ve been like that.

Instead, Leo’s bookcase was small because Johnny hadn’t been there to build it bigger. His shoes by the door were scuffed because Johnny hadn’t been there to buy him new ones. His mom worked extra shifts on a damn Sunday because Johnny hadn’t been there to shoulder half the weight.

His son. His brilliant, perfect, wonder of a kid. The one he should’ve known since the very beginning.

He thought about calling Sue. His fingers even hovered over his repaired watch, her name right there. She’d been waiting for him to call and tell her everything. And he knew she’d tear it out of him the second she heard his voice.

But the thought alone made his heart sink.

Telling Sue meant telling everyone. Meant deciding what came next. Meant pulling you into a storm you clearly weren’t ready for. And after tonight, after the way you begged him not to take Leo away, after you let him tuck his son into bed…he couldn’t betray that fragile thread of trust. Not yet. Not when you hadn’t even talked about Leo’s future. Not when you still looked at him like you were half a breath away from running all over again.

So he swallowed the urge, locked it down, and typed out a simple message instead.

Didn’t find her today. I’ll try again tomorrow.

A lie. But one he could live with.

He leaned back against the headboard, and stared at the ceiling for a while, until he decided it was better to rest if he wanted to be ready to face whatever came the next day. He got up to shrug out of his jacket, tossing it carelessly onto the hotel chair, but it landed heavier than it should have.

The letters.

He turned back, snatching the jacket up, shaking the inner pocket until the stolen envelopes spilled onto the bedspread. He sank down beside them, remembering he hadn’t had the chance to read them in your office before “Captain Walker” barged in.

He reached for the first envelope, the oldest. The one dated just weeks after you’d been cast out. He unfolded the page with care, your handwriting staring back at him.

My Johnny

I don’t know why I’m writing this, maybe to remind myself I’m not crazy, maybe to hold onto some piece of what I thought we had. I really want to hate you. God, I know I should. But all I can think about is the way you looked at me before it all went wrong. The way you smiled at me that night at the gala. The way you made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t alone in that big building.

But now I am. Completely alone.

I wanted to tell you about our little miracle, but you hurt me Johnny, before I even had the chance to say it out loud. You couldn’t even look at me without that fire in your eyes, and not the kind that used to warm me, the kind that burned.

That was the moment I chose to leave, instead of fighting for something that you had already decided I didn't deserve. I can’t pretend I understand how everything ended, but it did, and now your life is there, and mine is wherever you aren’t.

Those words felt like a punch to the gut. You did try. You reached for him, but he had turned away.

‘You hurt me, Johnny.’

“Fuck,” he cursed, shaking his head violently. “Fucking hell.”

Johnny’s hands shook as he set the first letter down, his breath ragged. His chest hurt, but still he reached for the next.

He unfolded it with trembling fingers, the paper softer, the ink smudged like it had been folded and unfolded a hundred times before. 

 Dear Johnny.

Today he turned four. He asked me if his dad would come to his birthday, and I told him no, because you live far away. He didn’t cry, but he looked at the door all afternoon like he was hoping you’d walk in, even if he doesn’t know what you look like. I don’t know how to explain to him that you don’t know what he looks like either. But he is so much like you.

When he smiles, when he makes his silly faces, when he figures something out quicker than anyone else. It’s you. Every day I see you in him, and every day I tell myself I’m doing the right thing keeping him away, that I’m protecting him, but it feels like a lie, because sometimes I think I’m just protecting myself. Protecting myself from you breaking me again. 

The worst part is you were never really mine, and it embarrasses me that sometimes I can’t get out of bed because I miss something I never had.  

I guess that hurts more on days like these. 

For what felt like the millionth time that day, Johnny found himself crying. Leo’s fourth birthday. The one he should’ve been front and center at, not a ghost in the background of his mother’s fears.

Not even a curse left his lips this time, just his ragged breathing. But his eyes flicked to the pile again, as his trembling fingers reached for the last envelope. The one dated five years after you’d been cast out. A year before tonight. 

For him.

I’ve realized something I should have long ago, you’re not coming. I convinced myself I hated you, yet I still waited every day, hoping you’d find something. It’s eaten me alive, night after night, I feel like I fight with you even in my dreams. 

And I keep asking myself, if clarity is in death, then why won’t this die? Why can’t I let it go? Why do you still haunt me even after all these years?

I wish you would give me back my peace. It was mine first.

I miss who once was my best friend, but more than anything, I miss who I used to be. So I can’t be like this anymore, I can’t keep writing letters to a ghost. Five years Johnny, five years of wondering if you ever saw me in a different light, if you ever saw beyond the lies. But I have to stop for my sake, for his sake.

This is the last time I’ll write to you, this is my goodbye. There was happiness in my life because of you, and I can only hope there’ll be happiness after you. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re happy too, and I hope you’ve forgotten me, because I need to forget you. I need to let you go before I lose myself completely, I need to live without waiting for a door that will never open.

So I’m closing it myself.

Yours once, never again.

Fuck.

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. He had never stopped thinking about you. He had tried to find proof, investigated, and spiraled in dark nights in his room with papers stuck to his windows. And all the while, you had written this, your goodbye, your surrender, your heart breaking onto the page while he was too blind.

You had given up on him. And now, a year later, he was here, only to realize he’d arrived far too late to be the man you’d once waited for.

Johnny barely slept. Every time he shut his eyes, the words of those letters screamed at him. The thought of you sitting alone, hiding from Leo to write that with shaking hands, giving up on him. It hollowed him out until there was nothing left but determination to make things right.

To give you back your peace.

So before dawn even touched the sky, he was already moving. He slipped into the college campus while the halls were still dim and quiet. Not that easy now, since it was Monday.  Students, staff, early professors buzzing everywhere, far different than the hushed emptiness of the day before. It was a risk, and his chest pounded with every step, but he had to do it.

He couldn’t have you finding out the letters in your desk had gone missing the same weekend he showed up at your doorstep. 

Your office door creaked faintly under his hand. He moved quickly, carefully, as he slid the papers back into the drawer, tucking them in place exactly where he’d found them and locking it again. 

By the time he slipped out into the hallway, the building was alive with movement. He kept his head down, his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets, wearing that same sunglasses and baseball cap combo to make himself look like just another visitor until he made it outside.

And then…he waited. 

Will you forgive my soul

When you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

The hours until your little meeting felt like years. He wandered the campus for a while before he realized some people were looking too suspiciously at him. He then drove around the college block more times than he could count, and since he was inside a window tinted black Ford truck, he was sure some student must’ve thought some mafia members had come to kidnap them. 

Now, he’d been waiting outside the cafe for exactly fifty four minutes. He tried to stay inside the truck to avoid getting seen, but his nerves and inner spiral didn't let him sit still. So he stood by the truck, cap still on and head ducked low, his eyes glued down the street so he wouldn't miss the moment you showed up. 

As your unmistakable figure appeared around the corner of the cafe, Johnny’s breath hitched at the sight of you finally emerging, walking slowly with a folder hugged against your chest. 

The autumn air was crisp, brushing against your skin, but the moment your eyes found him leaning by that ridiculous, shiny rental truck, you suddenly felt like sweating.

Johnny straightened the second he saw you, his whole face lighting up like he’d been waiting for this all day…which he had. But the closer you got, the more his confidence faltered. He shoved his hands deep into his jean’s pockets, suddenly awkward.

“Hi…Johnny.” You said, standing a few feet away from him, chin lifted, your voice steady. “Leo’s not out of school for another hour.”

Johnny nodded, quick, like he’d been expecting the wall. “...Hi.” He greeted, and you gave him the slightest curve of a smile.

“I know you want to see him again,” you went on, the folder pressed tighter against your chest, “but we need to talk first.”

He nodded again, softer this time. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. You’re right.”

There was an uneasy pause, until Johnny cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can I–uh…can I get you a coffee?”

This type of nervous awkward interaction was so strange to Johnny. He was so used to smooth words just flowing out of his mouth, making a joke out of everything. But his life had changed so drastically in just a matter of days, that he wasn't sure he could go back to his default ‘Chill Johnny’ setting. 

You studied him a moment, then gave a small nod. “Okay.”

His shoulders loosened instantly, and he finally allowed himself to smile, then gestured toward the little café’s glass door with a red frame. He held the door open for you, and you muttered a thank you as warm light and the hiss of an espresso machine welcomed you. The bell above the door jingled when you stepped in, Johnny following carefully behind.

You chose a booth by the window, close enough to the door if you needed an exit, far enough from others to keep voices low. Johnny slid into the seat across from you, the baseball cap finally coming off. His knees bounced under the table, his hands fidgeting with the paper menu though he didn’t read a word.

For a moment, it was just silence. Awkward, heavy. You stared down at your folder on the table, and he stared at you, neither of you knowing where to start. A waitress came by, and Johnny ordered two coffees, remembering your exact order from all those years ago. 

That made your heart skip a bit. 

The silence stretched again until Johnny cleared his throat, his voice softer than you remembered. “So…Leo.”

Your eyes flicked to his, nodding slightly. “Leo.”

The clatter of cups and the murmur of conversation around the cafe made the tension between you feel sharper. The drinks arrived but Johnny’s coffee sat untouched, steam curling up between you as his eyes finally lifted to yours.

“What’s his favorite cereal?”

You blinked, caught off guard. Of all the questions he could have asked…’Why this, why that?’ that was not the one you expected.

“Cereal?” 

“Yeah…you’ve got, like, three boxes on the counter. He has to have a favorite.” Johnny shrugged. 

Your chest ached at the innocence of it, the way his voice cracked with soft curiosity. 

“Lucky charms,” you said. 

Johnny’s eyes softened instantly. He nodded, filing it away like it was the most important piece of information in the world. Then, an idea lit up his face.

“Did he get the human torch figur–?”

“They don’t have the one with your face on it here,” you cut him off, almost apologetic.

The truth is, one of the many reasons you’d picked that town was the lack of the Fantastic Four’s influence. Johnny understood that.

“Right.” He nodded, not exactly sure how to feel about it. “And his favorite color?” he asked quickly, before you could redirect.

“Blue…” you answered, ‘like your eyes’ your mind whispered. “Like the summer sky,” you said instead.

Johnny smiled. He wanted to ask a thousand things at once. About his laugh, his quirks, the bedtime stories he loved, the little words he mispronounced when he was smaller. But each answer cut and healed him in equal measure, so he asked them slowly.

“What makes him laugh the most?”

“Who’s his best friend?”

“What does he want to be when he grows up?”

You sipped your drink, watching Johnny soak in every answer like he’d been starving for it. He wanted to know everything, like each detail was a thread stitching him closer to the the kid he’d missed for so long. And for a moment, you let him have it. For a moment, it almost felt right.

“I could talk about Leo’s favorite things all day,” you admitted softly, tracing the rim of your mug with your fingertip.

Johnny smiled faintly, but when he looked up, your eyes had shifted.

“But there’s something else,” you said, daring to look up. “A question that’s been eating me alive. One I can’t keep inside anymore.”

His brow furrowed, the smile gone instantly.

“What exactly do you plan for him now, Johnny?” You sighed. “Now that you know he exists–what happens to Leo? Because last night…last night I slept with him safe beside me. I couldn’t close my eyes without imagining someone walking through that door to take him away.”

Johnny froze, the color draining from his face. You didn't think he was safe. He reached for the mug he hadn’t touched, gripping it just to anchor his hands, but he didn’t drink.

“I need to know,” you pushed on, your stare burning into him. “What do you plan to do with my–with our son?”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. His mouth opened, then closed, like the words weren’t ready, like nothing he could say would be enough. 

“I don’t know,” he said, honest.“I don’t know what the right move is,” he went on, his eyes flicking up to yours. “I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do, or how to fix six years I’ll never get back. But…the only thing I do know is that I want to be part of his life. However you’ll let me. I can’t…I can’t pretend I don’t know him now.”

The conviction in his words fought with hesitation. He wasn’t demanding, wasn’t trying to take. He was still begging for a chance, clumsy and terrified, but utterly certain of one thing.

“I want to know him,” Johnny added, more firmly now. “And I want him to know me.”

You leaned back against the booth, your chest tight, but his words lingered. I want to be part of his life. The way he said it…shaking, terrified, but sure, chipped at the walls you’d built so carefully.

“Do you think he’d…want me in his life? I mean, if we told him who I am. Would he hate me for not being there?” He asked, hesitant, tracing the rim of his mug.

The question knocked the air out of you more than you expected. Not because you hadn’t thought about it, God knows you’d lost sleep over it, but because of how honest he sounded asking it.

“He’s a smart kid. He sees things. Asks questions I can’t always answer…I don’t think he’d hate you, but…he’d have more questions. And I’d like to give him answers that don’t hurt.”

Johnny nodded slowly. “I just…I want to do right by him. Even if it’s late.”

You looked at him in silence for a few seconds, before humming. “You can start,” you said softly, “by meeting him…like really meeting him”

Johnny blinked, startled. “Like–now?”

The look on his face of wide eyed disbelief, made you huff out a laugh you didn’t expect. 

“Yes, Johnny. Now.” You tilted your head to check the time on the clock by the barista. “It’s just in time to pick him up from school.”

For a second he just sat there, frozen, like he hadn’t prepared himself for the possibility that you’d actually let him do that today. His hands gripped the edge of the table like he needed to hold on to something solid before the floor crumbled under his feet.

“God,” he whispered. “I don’t even know if I can breathe right now.”

You chuckled and shook your head, standing up from the booth. “You’ll manage, come on. I promised him yogurt ice cream after school. He aced a test on Friday.”

“Doesn’t he, you know…always ace them?” Johnny asked, the doubt in his voice almost made you laugh again.

“He does. But I don’t want him to think it’s his duty to excel every single time. I want him to know that little victories matter too even if I didn't take him much effort. He deserves to feel celebrated, not pressured because he thinks he has to fulfill other people’s expectations."

Johnny stared at you, floored. He thought of his own childhood, of expectations that had weighed on him since the day Sue took over his raising, when his mother passed away. It wasn’t because his sister pressured him directly, but because he always felt like he owed her excellency. Things that took all his effort, sweat and tears. But to this day, Johnny felt like he'd failed her on that, because the bar had always been set too high for his little hands to reach. So in his head, that kid inside him didn't deserve yogurt ice cream, because little victories had never mattered in his big world. 

But his son’s did. Because you made sure of that. 

So he just glanced toward the window to blink away the tears threatening to come out of his eyes. All he could think was his son had the best mom he could've had. 

Once you walked outside, the late afternoon sun shone across the street. Johnny headed toward that absurdly shiny rental truck, but when he glanced back, you were unlocking your modest sedan.

“I’ll pick him up from school. You can meet us at the yogurt place.”

Johnny nodded, though something in him ached at the distance between your cars, your lives. But he didn’t fight it, just asked for some directions on how to find said yogurt place. 

“Alright,” he said softly, eyes lingering on you as you slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be there.”

-

The yogurt shop was painted in cheerful colors, with a bell jingling as Johnny stepped in. He scanned the room, with only a couple of tables occupied by groups of high school students. His chest rose and fell too fast, his palms getting ridiculously damp. Since when did he sweat?

Calm down, Storm, it's just ice cream…oh right, and you are also meeting the most important person in your life. 

“Welcome in!” The teenage girl behind the counter gave him a friendly wave. 

Johnny nodded too quickly. “Yeah, hi, thanks, just–uh, table for three? I’m waiting for someone.” He said, then immediately panicked. 

Did he really just ask for a table for three? In front of a bunch of teenagers that were totally giving him a side eye? He couldn't exactly blame them, what was this, some fancy dinner restaurant from New York? Was he really so out of touch that he didn’t even know how to be a normal person anymore?

Before he could keep overthinking over that single interaction, he cleared his throat, then pointed around the place. “I’ll just find one myself…yeah.” He smiled nervously, darting toward the empty tables, away from the groups. 

It didn’t matter though, because they were still watching him over their shoulders, because Johnny tested each empty table like a maniac. Too wobbly. Too close to the trash can. Too far from the door. Until he finally landed on one by the window where the afternoon sun spilled in. Steady, perfect lighting, perfect line of sight to the door.

“Okay,” he whispered to himself, yanking the chairs out and back in again to make sure they weren’t squeaky. “Aaaand we got a winner! This is the table.”

Then, he went toward the counter where he could see the list of flavors on the wall, because he couldn’t look like a fool not knowing what to order in front of his family. He scanned the labels, as the girl behind the counter stared at him curiously. 

Strawberry, vanilla, chocolate swirl, cookies & cream, birthday cake, mango, passionfruit. 

“What’s the most popular?” He asked, placing a finger on his chin as he tilted his head. “No, wait–what’s the healthiest? Do you guys do like…sugar free? No, kids don’t care about that. Uh…”

“Sir…would you like a sample?” The girl offered, lifting tiny spoons in the air. 

Johnny nodded so quickly, that the girl let out a chuckle, before turning to the yogurt machines to get a sample of the most popular flavors for this weird guy to try. He was handsome though, she was totally telling her friends about him. 

By the time the judgy teenagers had left the establishment, Johnny Storm, Human Torch, beloved public figure that no one seemed to recognize in this small town, was sitting on the table he’d meticulously picked with five pink sample spoons sticking out of his jacket pocket. 

Okay, so if he likes chocolate, I’m set. But if he’s a fruit kid? I’m screwed.

The bell above the yogurt shop door jingled, snapping him out of his thoughts, and that’s when the golden light of late afternoon poured in behind you. Johnny looked up, and the world stopped.

There he was.

His son. Your son.

Leo stood beside you, his small hand clasped in yours, his little uniform neat. A navy pullover stretched just slightly at the sleeves, crisp white polo peeking out at the collar, khaki shorts, and the cutest polished shoes that Johnny knew you’d spent extra to make sure he looked perfect in.

He looked like a polite kid, yes, but his energy buzzed right through the surface, his body practically bouncing at your side like he couldn’t decide whether to walk or skip into the shop. His hair glowed blonde in the light, catching that same golden halo Johnny had seen in the mirror his whole life. The shape of his smile,as he was tugging at your hand, was his. Unmistakable. The resemblance knocked the air straight from Johnny’s chest.

It was a mini him, except better, softer…pure.

By the door, you crouched slightly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you spoke gently to Leo. Your voice was steady, but Johnny could see the way your hands twitched with nerves.

“Leo,” you said softly, brushing a hand over his sleeve, “I want to introduce you to someone.”

Johnny’s heart hammered so loud he thought the whole shop could hear it. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. And Leo, with wide curious eyes, looked up at you, then followed your gaze toward the man waiting by the window.

“Baby,” you squeezed his hand, getting his attention back. “I want you to meet a…friend.” 

His eyes flicked from you to Johnny again, studying him with all the seriousness a curious five year old could muster. Leo tilted his head, eyebrows knitting.

“A friend?” he said, and Johnny almost fainted from how cute his little voice was. “From where?”

“From a long time ago,” you replied.

Leo squinted at Johnny, the way only a child could, unfiltered, curious to the bone. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he let go of your hand and marched right toward the table. You followed anxiously. 

And Johnny? Johnny was toast. He forgot how to move. His heart jackhammered as the kid–his kid–stopped in front of him and just stared, unblinking, like he was scanning him for answers.

“You look like me, mommy’s friend.” Leo said matter of factly. “We have the same hair.”

Johnny panicked, and for a terrifying second he thought his legs were going to give out when he stood up from the table. He managed a shaky disbelieving laugh, crouching to meet him at eye level.

“Yeah, buddy,” he exhaled. “I guess we do.”

Leo grinned, quick and bright, satisfied with his own observation. “Cool.” Then, as if that settled everything, he spun around and tugged at your sleeve. “Can we get ice cream now, Mom?”

“Yes, baby. Let’s do that.” You nodded quickly, letting yourself be guided by his little hand to the counter. 

But Johnny was frozen in his crouching position for a few seconds, blinking fast, the word Mom echoing in his head as he stared at Leo, who was already more like him than he’d ever dared to imagine.

He took a deep breath.

There was no way back from this. Only forward, into the storm.

PART TWO

Thank you so much for reading, feedback is always appreciated and it helps a lot, so don't be shy to share your fav moments 🫶🏼

Lil funny extra -> Johnny jealous of Walker

Lovely dividers by @lobster-graphics

For instance, Lohen — that little battle manic who rarely sought “friendship” unless he intended to use it for personal gain — had begun sticking to you like a slime. Weirdly enough, you seemed to reciprocate his enthusiasm, always inviting him for a spar at The Thousand Winds Temple.

At first, Varka didn't think too much of it. Whatever, maybe you were just being polite and entertaining the young captain's antics. Or, perhaps he had bribed you with that "friendship fee" of his — that was a possibility.

However, the more time you and Lohen spent together, the more you clung to one another, creating a bond Varka couldn't seem to write down as mere "friendliness":

I.

The first time Varka felt something was off with you two occurred during a rather mundane commission. The Knights of Favonius had received news regarding a massive Hilichurl camp near Windrise; concerned about its proximity to the main city, he had ordered his most capable knights to clear out the camps with him.

The commission goes swimmingly, like it always does — that is, until he hears a pained yelp belonging to his 4th company vice captain cut through the air. Immediately, Varka swivels his head 180 degrees to the point that he almost gets whiplash, but it’s worth it, because he witnesses the most astonishing sight before him: Lohen completely abandoning the massive Mitachurl he’d been sparring (probably with delight, knowing him) to rush to your aid.

“Lo,” you gasp weakly, groaning as you press a bloody palm against the gash at your waist (“Lo”? When the hell did you call that rascal such a sweet nickname?). Varka needs only to blink once before the offending monster crumbles to dust by a swift stab of Lohen’s dagger. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Lohen looked far more frightening than usual as he decimated the creature — if that was even possible, anyway.

Varka stands motionless, stunned as Lohen instantly drops to your side. The crazed look in his eyes vanishes in favor of a concerned one, and the vice captain is visibly tense as he mutters a choice of curse words before scanning your body for injuries.

“Ah…” Lohen sucks in a sharp breath, uncharacteristically quiet. “Do you feel…alright?”

You shoot him a rather unimpressed look, elbowing him in the ribs with the remaining strength you have. “Does it look like I feel alright?”

Lohen raises both hands in surrender, shaking his head with a forced chuckle. “Right, right. C’mon, let’s get you fixed up.”

The remaining knights get the job done quickly. The entire Hilichurl camp is cleared out within seconds, but Varka cannot bring himself to care when there’s a miracle occurring right in front of his eyes. It’s true that despite Lohen’s usual aggressive and battle-hungry nature, the rascal had never ceased to look out for his fellow knights — but this time was different. There was surely something wrong with Lohen’s reaction today, and Varka couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

He only snaps out of his trance when Lohen’s grating voice pierces the air again. “Hey, Varka! Stop standing there like an idiot and get this young lady some medical aid, will ya?”

Varka grunts in response, beckoning the rest of his knights to follow. “Right,” he mutters under his breath, staring at the two of you. 

The bane of the Grand Master’s existence walks off with your arm around his shoulders. As Varka catches up, he could almost swear to Barbatos he hears Lohen tease: “You seemed distracted today — thinkin' about me too much? Okay, okay, I’m just kidding! Just…be more careful next time, kay? I really don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Varka shakes his head disbelievingly. Oh, yeah. He’s absolutely keeping an eye on the both of you from now on.

II. 

And so he does. 

The second time Varka notices something off about you two, he’s already drunk, head warm and fuzzy from the combination of alcohol and overstimulating noise echoing through the first floor of Angel’s Share.

The beer works well to clear his mind of most worries, though not the one clear goal he’s had since that last commission: to find out exactly what was going on between you and Lohen. Tonight was the perfect chance to do so — as long as one of you gets a little drunk, he supposes — so he leans against the table to peer at you two.

To no one’s surprise, you’re seated next to Lohen, who was nursing an apple cider in his hands. While he seemed quite awake and aware of his surroundings (much to Varka’s displeasure), the dandelion wine in your hands had rendered you tipsy, and you were already mumbling lazily against Lohen’s shoulder.

Perfect.

Varka clears his throat loudly in hopes of catching your attention.

“Uh, vice cap!”

Both you and Lohen turn your heads to face him simultaneously. That synchronism only makes Varka even more suspicious (yes, you were both vice captains, but he doesn’t care. That definitely meant something), so he decides that he must start an inconspicuous conversation in an effort to dig deeper. What counts as inconspicuous, Varka doesn’t really know — especially when he’s this buzzed from the beer in his tankard. Still, he knows he must try, so he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Ah, I’ve gotta confess — I kinda miss the days when Jean was Acting Grand Master!” he starts, words already slurring into an aimless ramble. “I swear to Barbatos, I’ve been bombarded with reports these days! It makes me want to mysteriously disappear again…uh, not that I’d want to dump all the paperwork on somebody else, of course…”

You and Lohen glance at each other, unable to hide your snickering. It makes Varka frown a bit — what was up with kids and their disrespect these days??

He does feel a bit better, though, when the two of you turn around to pay him attention once more.

“Hah, I get you, Grand Master–” you start.

“Oh, she really does–” Lohen adds, tone reeking of amusement and mockery.

You smirk, slapping the little rascal’s arm to shut him up (serves him right, Varka thinks). “No, no, I really do. I mean, I think I’d probably die if I had a mountain of paperwork on my desk every day. Y’know, Grand Master, I see you hiding away in the most random places to escape your work and take a nap.”

Varka huffs in indignation, face going a bit red at being discovered by his vice captain, but you cut him off before he can say anything.

“I’m a bit envious, though,” you sigh. “I wish I could sneak away to take a nap, considering I haven’t been sleeping well these days–”

Before you can finish your sentence, though, Lohen cuts in. His words are knowing and concerned, something Varka has probably witnessed from him maybe twice in this lifetime.

“Nightmares about the Wild Hunt again?” the vice captain murmurs, eyes softening in sympathy. “Was that why you were shaking in your sleep?”

You begin to nod in response, except a few seconds later, a look of realization flashes in your eyes. Varka follows your gaze as it anxiously scans across the table of fellow knights — all either too drunk or too engrossed in their own conversations to pay you and Lohen any mind.

Varka narrows his eyes. Everyone else may have missed that slip up, but he absolutely did not. He takes another swig of his beer before slamming the tankard down with a large thud. The Grand Master watches in satisfaction as you glance at him with wide eyes, visibly surprised at the sudden action.

“Lohen”, he huffs, suddenly getting a rush of liquid courage. Varka points a finger accusingly at the ranged company’s vice captain, a victorious smirk on his lips. “Tell me, how do you know what kinda dreams she’s been having, huh?”

Unfortunately, Lohen merely returns his question with an infuriatingly innocent smile, shrugging oh so casually in response.

“Heh- Great question, Grandmaster! You see, it’s simply because we’ve camped together during expeditions,” he drawls. “Our 4th company vice captain talks quite a lot in her sleep.”

Before Varka can protest, you mirror Lohen’s stupid innocent smile and cut in. “He’s right, Grand Master. Alas, I do talk out loud in my sleep — I have some pretty vivid dreams.” You glance toward Lohen, winking at him. “Thanks for putting up with my sleep talking, vice captain.”

Varka feels his right eye twitch at your unbelievable response. He looks between the two of you, opening his mouth in an attempt to complain, yet nothing comes out.

There’s no way he’s been conned. Again.

III.

After losing his only lead in the tavern a week ago, Varka had decided to give up and chugged 10 more beer bottles out of frustration.

If you and Lohen wanted to evade the truth, then so be it. He had far more important matters to attend to anyway — like the never-ending requisition forms currently spilling across his desk, or what to do with the poor new recruits Lohen was supposedly “testing” (more like torturing) with his increasingly dangerous poisoned drinks. 

Varka sighs, shoving his chair back and beckoning Lohen to gather the stack of forms and follow him out of the office. No matter — he would deal with the little rascal later. First, there were probably four more tasks he needed to complete before sitting his vice captain down for a more serious talk about his "tactics."

He’s mid-stride across the headquarters lobby, Lohen half a step in front of him, when he notices two familiar figures by the staircase. Varka squints. The Cavalry Captain is leaning against the railing, one arm braced on the wall beside your head. His face is far too close to yours, and Varka can't seem to put a finger on why the two of you together feels wrong.

As Kaeya notices the two men approach, the corner of his mouth quirks up, amused and expectant. He doesn’t turn to look, though, gaze still trained on you.

“I never see you off duty, vice captain,” he says smoothly, regarding you with a pleasant smile. “It’s a shame, really.”

Varka hears you laugh, a sweet sound falling from your lips. In front of him, Lohen instantly stops in his tracks.

He nearly walks straight into the little rascal — Varka’s sure he would have, if it weren’t for his amazing reaction time. He shoots Lohen an exasperated look, about to tell him off, but when his eyes land on the vice captain, he realizes that Lohen isn’t looking at him at all. Instead, Varka traces his icy stare to the staircase, where you were still chatting happily with the Cavalry Captain.

Ah.

He reaches out to place a soothing hand on Lohen’s shoulder, ready to stop him from whatever impulsive decision he was going to make, but the idiot was already striding toward you and Kaeya. 

“Vice captain,” Lohen greets you, voice paper thin. There's a shadow cast across his face, one that reminds Varka of the same unsettling expression he wore after returning from that underground auction. “These requisition forms require your countersignature. It’s urgent.”

Varka blinks, mouth falling open at the scene unfolding before him. Those forms were not urgent, relative to all his other paperwork. In fact, they weren’t even meant for the 4th company. But for some odd reason, Lohen was lying to your face, right in front of the Grand Master whom those papers belonged to.

You tilt your head questioningly, as if beckoning him to explain, but Lohen doesn’t bother to wait. He casually steps between you and Kaeya, making sure to completely block the Cavalry Captain from your view, before handing you the stack of forms in his hands.

Varka doesn’t miss the way Lohen’s fingers brush against yours for a second too long.

The sound of Kaeya’s chuckle snaps Varka out of his trance, and he finally manages to pick his jaw back up. He watches as the Cavalry Captain pushes off the wall, hands raised in mock surrender. 

“Ah, business calls. Expected nothing less from the ever busy young lady."

It isn’t until Lohen has herded you up the stairs, palm pressed insistently against your lower back, that Kaeya spares Varka a glance. There’s an amused glint in his eyes, as if he knows something the older man doesn’t.

“Forms,” he chuckles to himself, tasting the word on his tongue. The captain’s tone reeks of mockery. “How dreadfully urgent.”

Varka opens his mouth — to say what exactly, he didn’t know — but Kaeya was already strolling up the stairs, throwing a couple of words over his shoulder. 

“She’s very lucky. Don’t you think, Grand Master?”

Varka exhales slowly, not knowing whether to feel absolutely infuriated or exhilarated. There was no way in Teyvat he was getting any paperwork done after that — but perhaps his lead from last week hadn’t disappeared after all.

IV. 

In the next few days, Varka forced himself into work. For the sake of productivity, he desperately tried not to recall Lohen’s icy stare at the Cavalry Captain, or the way you’d let yourself be led away by the man without a single protest. Anyone could tell he had failed, though, by the stacks of unfinished papers still spread across his desk.

At least he’s learned something useful from the ordeal: it seemed that if Celestia wished to grant him more evidence of you and Lohen’s weirdness around each other, then it would do so during the most random, mundane, and totally unsuspicious moments of the day. Alas, there was no further point in lurking around the 4th and 5th company’s offices. He’s sure he would’ve accidentally walked in on you and Lohen making out, anyway.

Varka shakes his head in horror. Yeah — he’d rather not imagine that.

-

Ugh. 

The Grand Master groans, pinching the bridge of his nose as he walks into the mess hall. It’s only dawn, yet Jean had sternly insisted that he begin today’s work early. Varka supposes it was his own fault. After all, he clearly wasn’t disciplined enough to stop thinking about the past days’ events, resulting in more than usual leftover work. Still, he thinks he deserves some leniency considering the things he has witnessed.

Varka reaches for the coffee pot, grumbling to himself about how unfair everything was. He’s about to pour a cup for himself until suddenly, he hears familiar voices drifting from the kitchen.

He pauses. That was your voice. It was a tad sleepy and exasperated, yet no doubt belonged to his 4th company vice captain.

And right after that was definitely Lohen’s low rumble in response, though Varka couldn’t exactly make out the little rascal’s words.

Carefully, Varka sets down the coffee pot and begins creeping toward the kitchen doorway. He feels like a criminal about to commit atrocious sins — he really hopes there's no one else in the mess hall witnessing the embarrassment he's making of himself. Back pressed against cold marble, his head peeks out from behind the wall. 

You were at the stove with a spatula in hand, hair still a little mussed from sleep. Lohen doesn’t seem to mind, though, as he leans against the counter beside you. He’s slouched over, shoulder brushing against yours as he greedily takes up your personal space. You don’t seem to mind that, either.

“Stop staring,” you huff, without sparing Lohen a glance. “Go make yourself useful and grab the plates.”

However, Lohen doesn’t move an inch. If anything, he seems to shuffle even closer to you, voice lazy and amused as he responds: “Hey, don’t be so mean! I just like watching you.”

You fake gag at his response, but there’s an evident smile tugging at the corner of your lips — Varka could see that much from the doorway. “You’re insufferable.”

“You’ve mentioned.”

You shake your head and lift a spoon from whatever was sizzling in the pan, holding it out toward Lohen. The vice captain leans down, making a show of slowly taking the silverware into his mouth. You look at him weirdly, but he only flashes you a cheshire grin as he pulls back to lick his lips.

“Very good, as always! But more salt.”

You sigh, raising an eyebrow at him. “You always say that. Do you just like the taste of overwhelming saltiness or something?” you deadpan. “Actually…don’t answer that, you freak.”

Lohen laughs. “Yes. But I also say that because you always undersalt.”

“I do not–”

“You do,” he replies smoothly. The ease and certainty with which Lohen insists on this makes Varka suspect that the two of you have had this argument more than just once or twice.

You turn to glare at him, raising your spatula like a weapon. Lohen looks obviously amused at your crazed appearance, not at all concerned about your supposed threat.

“You bastard, I’ve never undersalted your food–”

Lohen smirks, reaching up to wipe something from the corner of your lip. Varka can’t tell what it is exactly, but what he can tell is that you freeze mid-sentence, voice faltering to nothingness. Instead of dropping his hand back to his side, Lohen shifts it down, cupping your jaw gently. He tilts your chin up so you’re forced to meet his gaze, already looking way too happy with himself.

“What were ya saying, now?”

“...stop trying to distract me,” you mumble, but your voice had gone noticeably breathier, like the movement had completely stolen the air from your lungs.

“Well, is it working?”

You don’t reply, instead turning back to the stove, but there’s an obvious flush creeping up your neck from where Varka stands. Lohen’s hand casually falls to your lower back as he leans around you to grab the salt shaker himself. 

“No worries, I’ll just do it myself,” he hums.

“Whatever,” you sigh. “You always end up doing it yourself, anyway. Picky, aren’t you?”

Varka bites hard on his tongue, forcing himself not to make a noise somewhere between awe and frustration. Oh, you liars. He was so going to station you in Brightcrown Mountains, as far away as possible from Dornman Port.

V.

In the following week, Varka continued to witness a rinse and repeat of these much-too-friendly interactions. By this point, he was 99.99% sure that the two of you were together — how could you not be? Sure, the Grand Master had nothing concrete, but he’d collected all the circumstantial evidence possible throughout the past month.

It was rather irksome.

He has to remind himself that you two are fully competent adults by now. If you wanted to keep your lives private, it was absolutely your right. Still, having known you and Lohen for the years that he did, Varka couldn’t help but suspect that you two were doing this on purpose — mocking and taunting him with these displays of affection while offering nothing absolute. It was you and Lohen, for Barbatos’s sake. If the two of you weren’t intentionally irritating him, then pigs could fly.

The matter was so irritating that after a particularly long meeting with Jean at the headquarters, Varka decided to take a walk through the garden courtyard. It was the perfect chance to clear his head before bed after that dual headache, he tells himself. A beautiful view and no one to pester him about the never-ending paperwork and two lying vice captains.

Varka rounds the corner, sighing softly as his gaze catches the familiar sight. The small courtyard is bathed in silver moonlight, fountain murmuring quietly at the center. The low hedges cast soft shadows against the stone walls, providing a sort of comfort to the exhausted man.

A beautiful view and no one to pester him. At least, that’s what the walk should have been — because he suddenly recognizes two very familiar people in the garden.

You’re pressed against the base of the windmill just beside the fountain, Lohen’s body caging you in. Neither of you seem to notice the Grand Master — considering that Lohen’s faced the opposite way and completely obstructing your view of anything else but him — but the two of you probably wouldn’t have noticed him anyway. Not when the little rascal was kissing you like a man starved, your hands tangled in his hair and pulling his body flush against yours.

Varka’s first instinct is to turn 180 degrees and run for his life, but his feet stay stubbornly rooted to the ground. His eyes take in details he’d rather not remember, like how Lohen has one hand braced against the wall beside your head, the other wrapped firmly around your waist. He’s pulled you in so close that there's not a breath of space between you two — Varka doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen Lohen look so starved for anything that wasn’t battle or bloodshed.

Boldly, you pull at the roots of his hair. Varka’s sure the little freak groaned at that, but even if he did, the Grand Master wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t know because it would’ve been covered by the rather loud and startled noise that leaves his lips at the sight.

Lohen goes completely still against you. Varka has to swallow his pride as he awkwardly shuffles in place, grimacing when the vice captain turns to meet his gaze.

“I–” he starts, voice uncharacteristically meek. “This isn’t– I wasn’t–”

Lohen’s expression doesn’t change, remaining completely unreadable. Varka thinks his vice captain is probably about to chop him to bits with that dagger, until he hears another voice ring out.

“Ah, Grand Master.”

It's your voice, light and amused and clearly not angry with him. You peek out from behind Lohen’s shoulder, shooting Varka a delighted grin.

“Grand Master," Lohen echoes, lips twitching into the barest hint of a smirk.

“Don’t ‘Grand Master’ me like that,” Varka grunts, pointing a finger at his ranged company vice captain. “Y-you knew I was here?” He doesn’t even wait for a response, gaze snapping to yours. “And you? You knew I was here too?"

You bite your lip, expression far from guilt or embarrassment. In fact, you were trying not to laugh, cheeks puffing out and stomach twitching in an attempt to hold back the high-pitched noises already seeping through your lips.

“We heard you,” you admit, a giggle escaping despite your efforts. “Your footsteps are quite loud, Grand Master.”

“You’re really not as sneaky as you think you are,” Lohen adds helpfully.

Varka’s face goes redder than it does after drinking a tankard of beer. He’s sputtering, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Ugh...don’t tell me the two of you knew I was going insane and were taunting me on purpose,” he groans. “Though I have a suspicion I’m right about that, unfortunately..."

The two of you glance at each other, amusement written all over your faces. Lohen’s smirking ever so casually, scanning his surroundings as if this situation is of zero importance to him — it’s so infuriating that it makes Varka want to punch him and wipe that smirk off of his face.

“Oops,” you reply, clearly not very sorry about the month of torture you’ve given him. 

“It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up,” Lohen shrugs. “Might even be better than seeing you fall into the traps I dug, Grand Master.”

If Varka were a tea kettle, he’s sure he would’ve had steam rising from his head by now. He’s at an utter loss for words, mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out — Barbatos, what did he do to deserve such horrible vice captains? The Grand Master huffs in exasperation, turning on his heel and walking away as fast as he can.

“I’m stationing you two on opposite ends of Mondstadt,” he throws over his shoulder indignantly. “And don’t even think about going on an expedition together again. I know you rascals are sneaking into each others’ tents at night!”

“Wha- Grand Master!” 

Varka is an observant man, after all.

Dex didn’t really need much. That was one of the first things you had learned about him, and one of the saddest. 

He owned what he could carry, what he could hide, what he could use: clothes, weapons, toothbrush, a plain black jacket that had seen through more death than most people. He hadn’t moved into your life so much as folded himself carefully into the empty spaces of it, as if he was still waiting to be told he had taken up too much room.

You had filled the rest. Your desk sat in the corner under the window, always drowning in highlighters, case studies, printed articles, and half-dead pens. Your forensic psychology textbooks were stacked wherever they would fit. There was a mug full of rulers and pencils beside your laptop, a corkboard with notes and deadlines and a photobooth strip of the two of you in Coney Island that Dex pretended not to care about but always noticed when it tilted crooked.

Of course he cared. It was your first date. 

And though he didn’t tell you, he had made a copy of it and put it under his suit when he went out, right over his heart. It was a reminder that you wanted him home. 

But this space was enough. It was more than enough, somehow.

There was still room to dance in the kitchen if you were careful. Last Saturday, barefoot and half-asleep, with the radio turned on, you had twirled yourself into his arms to Tina’s Proud Mary. Dex had just stood there like he had no idea what to do until you took his hands and put them on your waist. There was still room for him to lift you onto the counter when you kissed him too sweetly for too long. There was still room for dinner eaten on a small table with two folding chairs, there was still room for your laundry tangled together in one basket, for his shoes beside yours by the door. 

There was still room, somehow, for Dex to crowd you back against the wall, hands firm on your hips, mouth hot against your throat while you laughed under your breath and told him the neighbors were going get tired of hearing how well he fucked you.

Room for him to murmur filthy and wrecked things, that he should “throw your pills away,” that he was going to “knock you up, huh? Want me to put a baby in you?”

You’d pull back with a wicked smile, nails hooked in his shirt, and you’d whisper, “That is not the threat you think it is, baby.”

You chalked it up to your boyfriend being a kinky little shit. You should have paid more attention to the way his eyes went black, the way his grip tightened on your skin. When he kissed you again, it was with the devoted certainty of a man who had just realized his most unhinged fantasy was not his alone.

Still, even in this small fantasy, there was still room to pretend, on the good nights, that you were normal.

Tonight was not one of the good nights.

Dex had come home after a day across the Supreme Court building with blood dried dark along his cheekbone, though you suspected none of it was his. 

Even if it was, you knew he wasn’t hurt at all, because Dex didn’t stagger or slump. He didn’t come through the door gasping or cursing or asking for help. He entered the apartment with rigid control in his body, like every step had been measured in advance. He came in like arriving home had been a decision, not an escape. Like whatever had happened in this room, with you, was sacred compared to the rest of the world.

He came home like he had not been part of the makeshift siege at court.

Like he had not shot the Mayor’s aide.

Like the whole city had not been tearing itself apart on the news for hours while you sat on the bed with your phone in your hand, refreshing headlines you didn’t want to read and listening for footsteps in the hallway.

When he looked at you, his pupils tracked your face. Before he let you touch him, before he let you ask questions, before he decided whether his own body was allowed to matter, his eyes went over you like a security sweep to make sure you were safe.

Then they landed on your arm and saw a bruise.

It was nothing, really. You had caught yourself badly against the fire escape earlier when you’d climbed out for air because the apartment had felt too small with sirens in the distance and Dex not answering his phone. It was a mean little scar, blue and purple, but shallow enough not to hurt you permanently. It was annoying, more than anything. You had almost forgotten about it.

But Dex looked at it like it was evidence.

So now you were sitting beside him on the bed with a towel, a bottle of peroxide, cotton pads, and the sad frozen bag of peas you had pulled from the freezer because neither of you owned a real ice pack. You were trying to clean blood from his face. He was trying to ice your bruise.

It would have been funny if it did not make you want to cry.

“Give me your arm,” he said.

“There’s literally blood on you,” you sighed.

“Not mine,” he said dismissively, confirming your suspicions, “give me your arm.”

“Benjamin.”

His hazel eyes flicked up, mostly because you only called him that when you were annoyed at him. 

You stared at each other for one stubborn second, but he didn’t seem like he was going to let up. 

Then you sighed and gave him your arm.

He took it carefully, his fingers gentle around your wrist despite the split skin across his knuckles. He pressed the frozen peas to the bruise like he was handling precious and breakable gemstones, his mouth set in a hard line, his focus absolute.

That was the thing about loving Dex: it wasn’t sensible. It had never been sensible.

You’d always had a practical head on your shoulders. You were getting your third degree in forensic psychology because you liked patterns, motive, broken systems, and the strange little hinges inside people that made them choose one door instead of another. You were both a student and a research assistant at the university, which sounded better on paper than it felt in your bank account. You were technically employed, technically building experience, technically lucky to have the position at all. In reality, you were paid in a way that felt insulting once, tuition costs, books, and subway fare had finished carving you hollow.

Still, you were smart. Academically, you understood obsession. You had annotated articles on attachment trauma, violent conditioning, hypervigilance, and maladaptive devotion. You had spent whole nights highlighting phrases that described people like Dex in clinical and sterile language. 

You knew the warning signs and studied the red flags. You knew the vocabulary you were supposed to use. You knew what you were supposed to do when someone like Bullseye looked at you like you were the last fixed point in the universe: run.

But when Dex saved your life during an Anti-Vigilante Task Force raid on the lab you were visiting, all that practical knowledge had become extremely inconvenient.

It had been chaos: glass breaking, alarm screaming. Your supervisor shouted for everyone to get down. The AVTF had come in hard, looking for records, samples, names, anything connected to vigilante research and enhanced activity. You had hidden beneath a workstation with one hand clamped over your mouth and your heartbeat so loud you thought it might give you away.

Then Dex had arrived.

He had been hunting that day. You later found out because he told you. 

He had moved through your lab with a purpose, turning the room itself into a weapon. A glass beaker found its way into a man’s throat. He had thrown a ruler with such perfect force, it split skin and cartilage. A metal clipboard managed to dislocate a man’s jaw, even through the helmet. Pens, scalpels, broken glass, a heavy ceramic mug from your professor’s desk were all used. Ordinary things became fatal in his hands, as if the universe had been waiting for him to point at something and decide what it was for.

He killed twelve men with office supplies and lab equipment, and then he crouched in front of you, breathing hard, blood on his cheek, and asked you if you were okay. 

You should have been horrified. You were horrified.

Part of you had been shaking with terror. Another part, the part you did like to examine too closely, had understood with awful clarity that some monsters were safer when they were loved than when they were not.

You should have run from him.

Instead, you had fallen in love.

Worse, he had fallen, too.

The love that grew between the two of you wasn't sweet, nor safe. Not in the way people with normal jobs and normal apartments and normal dinner plans fell in love. Dex loved wholly. He loved like if he took his eyes off you, the world would immediately try to take you from him. He loved like affection and violence had gotten tangled in him so early that he no longer knew how to separate protection from possession.

And you, for whatever reason, loved him right back.

You loved him in the studio apartment with the too-small kitchen and the desk in the corner. You loved him when he stood behind you while you brushed your teeth, chin resting against your shoulder, silent and half-asleep and watchful even then. You loved him when he checked the locks twice before bed. You loved him when he pretended not to care about your old Greek and Roman mythology books and then remembered every story you had ever told him. You loved him when he came home with blood under his nails, but looked at your scraped arm like the city owed him an explanation.

“Hold still,” he said, pressing the frozen peas more carefully against your skin.

You stared at him, at the slight bruise under his jaw and the split knuckles he was ignoring because your shallow scrape had somehow hurt him more.

“I should get a job,” you said, almost offhandedly.

His hand stopped.

You hadn’t meant for it to come out like that: flat and sudden. Not while he was sitting on your shared bed after a long day. But there it was anyway sitting between you and the ruined silence of the apartment.

Dex looked up slowly. “You have a job.”

“I have half a job.” You laughed without much humor. “I have a professor who thinks payment is optional because experience is apparently a currency. Because PhD students clearly don’t need to eat, right?”

He huffed. A few months ago, he did offer to dispose of your professor and you just waved him off, saying the person who would take his job would be worse. He offered to dispose of him, too, but stopped offering half-measured solutions when you kissed his forehead and said the department would probably just shut down because they can’t afford two murders. “But you’re in school,” he said.

“So?” You shrugged, “Lots of people are in school and have extra jobs.”

“You babysit Mrs. Smithers’ cat,” he frowned.

You snorted before you could stop yourself. “She pays us in lasagnas.”

“She makes good lasagna,” he insisted.

“That is not an income stream, Dex.”

“No,” he shook his head, knowing how hard you actually worked for your spot in the institution. “But you’re always busy anyway. I can take care of you”

“You’re wanted, baby,” you reminded him. 

That hurt. 

Dex’s eyes barely changed, but you knew him too well now. You saw the tiny shift in his eyes. His fingers adjusted around your wrist. He looked down at your arm again, focusing too intently on the ice pack, as if his obsession to keep you safe could be used to cover a wound in the conversation.

“I can provide,” he said.

You sighed immediately, because of course he would say it like that. Like a vow, like a reflex, like a wound of his own.

“I know.”

“I pay rent,” he reminded you, though he said it like it was a responsibility. He didn’t use it against you; it was just a fact. 

“I know.”

“I pay groceries,” he said.

“Yes, Dex,” you huffed, “I know.”

His teeth clenched, more disappointed in himself than at you. “Then what?”

You looked around the apartment because it was easier than looking at him.

Yes, Dex paid rent. Dex bought groceries. Dex came home with cash sometimes, folded tight and tucked away in envelopes. He made sure there was good coffee in the cabinet because you hated your mornings without it. He bought the brand of cereal you liked and pretended it was because it had been on sale. He fixed the loose leg on your desk chair. He remembered bills before you did.

He provided, but it was not stable.

Dex didn’t clock into shifts. Dex didn’t have a payroll department, a predictable deposit, a pension, or a neat little tax form with an employer’s name printed at the top. His work came in fragments and dangerous calls from powerful people who knew what he could do. 

Odd jobs, if you wanted to be generous. Assassination, if you wanted to be honest. 

He did it because he was good at it.

But mostly, lately, he did it because of you.

Because rent was due. Because the fridge needed filling. Because your textbooks cost you too much. Because he liked watching you eat takeout on the bed with your legs folded beneath you, he liked seeing you safe and warm and full in his room. Because every dollar he brought home became proof that he could keep you satisfied, that he could build a life, that he could be more than the worst thing he knew how to do.

And that terrified you almost as much as it touched you, because there was no stability in that kind of work.

Sometimes, Dex wished he had known you when he was still with the FBI.

Before prison. Before Fisk. Before his face was plastered on the news. Before every job application in the world became a joke. He imagined it sometimes in a way that felt masochistic. 

He imagined coming home to you in a suit and taking you to dinner with a paycheck that had his name on it. He imagined you flowers, buying you pretty things and whatever else you asked for. 

He could have been a man for you. As outdated as he knew that sounded, he still wished he could be that man again. 

“It’s not about whether you do,” you said carefully. “It’s just that… it’s not steady.”

His teeth tightened further.

“I’m not insulting you,” you reassured.

“You think I can’t take care of you.”

“No.” You leaned closer, your voice softening the impact. “I think you take care of me so much that you forget I should be allowed to take care of you, too.”

He didn’t answer.

Outside, a siren wailed below, then faded into traffic and distance. The studio felt very small around you, too warm and intimate.

Dex looked down at your arm again and pressed the melting bag of peas more gently against your skin.

“I’ll find something steady,” he said.

Your heart clenched. “Dex.”

“I will,” he promised. 

“Where?”

His eyes lifted to yours. You tried to smile, but it came out tired and fond and sad all the same. “You shot Buck Cashman in front of half the city. I’m not saying that like I’m mad. I’m saying maybe LinkedIn is not going to work out this month.”

“I’ll find something,” he said.

It came out too quickly, too flatly, like he was sealing a wound before you could see how deep it went.

You looked at him where he sat on the edge of the bed, one knee pressed against yours, the frozen bag of peas melting slowly in his hand. You saw the bruise smudged high beneath his cheekbone, the split in his lower lip that he kept worrying with his tongue like he had forgotten it was there. He looked awful. Beautiful, too. The world had tried, again and again, to make him unlovable, and your stupid heart had taken one look at him and said, mine.

“What, a desk job?” you asked.

Dex gave you a look.

He wasn’t offended exactly. More like you had asked him to picture himself, in his Bullseye suit that you loved so much, sitting under fluorescent lights, wearing a lanyard, filling out forms, and smiling politely at coworkers named Brad from HR.

The idea was so absurd that, despite everything, your mouth twitched upward.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you said, leaning in a little. “Did I insult your very promising administrative career?”

He frowned unwillingly, and for a second you hated yourself for accidentally being a little too mean. 

Still, you couldn’t help yourself. You leaned closer and kissed the scar near his cheekbone so gently it was barely anything at all. Dex closed his eyes for half a second. When you pulled back, he still kept his eyes closed for one breath longer.

“Baby,” you whispered, voice gentler now, nearly breaking with fondness, “you cannot put ‘excellent with projectiles’ on a résumé.”

His eyes opened and found you immediately. “I could.”

You shook your head, “You really, really shouldn’t.”

“I have skills.” He pouted. It was cute.

“You have criminal charges.”

“Transferable skills,” he said, with such dry seriousness that you chuckled before you could stop yourself.

His posture changed, like he always did when you laughed. Not dramatically, though. He didn’t transform all at once. He softened by millimeters, as if your happiness had reached into some fortified part of him and loosened one bolt at a time. The hard line of his shoulders eased. His teeth unclenched. His thumb, which had been pressing the peas too carefully to your bruise, shifted a little.

For a moment, he looked less like a weapon that was left loaded in your apartment and more like a man who had come home to you because there was nowhere else in the world he could bear to be, because he was yours. Because he wanted so badly to be good for you that it almost broke your heart.

He adjusted the ice pack again. “You shouldn’t have to worry about money.”

“We live in New York, Dex.” You tried to sound light but it just came out tired. “Worrying about money is basically a civic duty.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he said again.

He didn’t say it like a boyfriend trying to be useful. He said it like a soldier stating a mission objective. Like he had identified the enemy— rent, groceries, tuition, your professor underpaying you, the whole grinding machine of the city— and had decided that he would kill it if he could. “Not you,” he added, quieter.

And Dex didn’t feel this way for you because he had learned to be a sympathetic person. He wasn’t.

He didn’t suddenly feel tender toward the whole world because he learned how to love. He didn’t look at strangers and imagine their mothers. He didn’t hesitate before hurting people who had put themselves on the wrong side of his line. He could kill a room full of people and sleep like a baby afterward. He didn’t ask himself if the Anti-Vigilante Task Force agents had families who were waiting for them. Their blood did not weigh on his conscience in any meaningful way.

He hasn’t learned to be secretly good and noble under all the damage in some easy, redeemable way. He was only tender with you, and even that was not because you were an exception to his nature.

It was because somewhere along the way, Dex had thought of you and him as the same person.

You weren’t some separate innocent woman he loved from afar. You were not a moral compass he worshipped because you made him better. You were his life. His home. 

Your body was his body outside his body. Your exhaustion was his exhaustion. Your money was his money, and his money was yours, not because he felt entitled to it, but because the two of you had stopped existing as separate organisms somewhere around the first month he slept in your bed and woke up with your hand on his chest. You were one system now. One thing. One fused unit pretending to be two people for legal convenience.

So watching you work long hours in a lecture hall that barely paid felt like self-harm. That was the clearest way his mind could understand it. Like the two of you shared one nervous system, and every hour you worked yourself past exhaustion was pain traveling down the same wire until it reached him, too.

“Come on, Dex,” you frowned. “You think I want you running yourself into the ground because you decided you have to pay every bill?”

His eyes lifted to yours, and all you saw was terrible sincerity. It was desperate enough to frighten you because it didn’t know how to ask for love without offering blood in return.

“I should take care of you,” he said.

Not I want to. Not I’d like to. Not even let me.

I should.

You swallowed. “Dex…”

“I should.” His voice roughened, and it was absolute, like he had said this to himself before. Like maybe he had been saying it for months, in his head, every time he bought groceries, every time he counted cash, every time he watched you fall asleep over your notes with your cheek pressed to an open textbook. “You shouldn’t have to think about it. Rent, food, school, any of it. You should just—” He stopped, eyes darting away. “You should just sit there and be pretty.”

That ruined you a little.

There were things you could have said: Things about partnership, equality, how love was not supposed to turn into duty, how his need to provide came from some wounded place in him that still believed usefulness was the same as worth. You knew those things. You believed them, mostly.

But then he looked at you like taking care of you wasn’t a burden but a privilege. Like the idea of failing at it scared him more than the city hunting him. Like every terrible thing he had ever been made into could be balanced, somehow, if he could use it to keep you warm, fed, safe, untouched by the worst parts of the world.

He sat there, bruised and exhausted, dried blood at his temple, your scraped arm cradled in one hand as if it mattered more than every wound on his own body.

So you kissed him.

You didn’t mean to make it deep. You meant it to be reassurance, just a little press of your mouth to his, a way of telling him you were not leaving, not angry, not disappointed in how his love manifested even when it frightened you.

But Dex never received you halfway.

He leaned in, immediate and helpless, his free hamd coming to your waist with that familiar, possessive spread of his fingers. It was not rough, because he was never rough with you unless you asked him to be. But it was intense, as if the second your lips touched his, his body decided the only thing that made sense was pulling you closer.

You kissed him until the frozen peas slipped slightly against your arm and neither of you cared. Until his muscles relaxed under yours. Until he made a small sound in the back of his throat that made you hum, pleased with yourself.

When you pulled away, his eyes stayed on your lips, looking at your mouth like it had betrayed him by leaving.

You brushed your thumb over his chin. “You cannot just decide to provide by sheer force of will.”

Dex blinked, still dazed enough from the kiss that it took him half a second to find the conversation again.

Then his eyes sharpened in that almost boyish, almost hopeful way. “What if I got work?”

You exhaled through your nose. “Again. Where?”

His thumb moved once against your waist in small strokes that were barely there. 

“I heard that the CIA director is looking for someone to take over a contract,” he said.

You blinked.

It sounded clean on the surface and filthy underneath.

He said them carefully, like he was testing whether they could pass as normal if he used the right tone. 

“You mean black ops,” you said blankly.

“I mean work.”

“Benjamin,” you tilted your head.

“It’s steady enough.” His eyes did not leave yours. 

“That is not the same as safe.”

His eyes looked like guilt passing quickly through the devotion. “I can handle that.”

“I know you can.” You touched his cheek again, achingly gentle. “That’s what scares me.”

He looked at your face, taking inventory of every emotion there. His hand tightened at your waist.

“I’d come home,” he said.

Your heart ached. “You can’t promise that.”

“I’d make it true.”

“That’s not how promises work.”

“It is for me.”

And there he was. Your Dex. Your impossible, obsessive man, sitting in your too-small studio with blood on his face, telling you with complete sincerity that he could bend fate into obedience if the reward was coming home to you.

You wanted to argue, but he cut you off before you could even finish forming thoughts. 

“If I got a job,” he said carefully, “I could buy you a ring.”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

For a second, you forgot how to breathe.

He had said it so quietly, so carefully, like the word itself was fragile. Like  if he had manifested it into the room too hard, it might shatter before you could touch it. 

A ring.

Dex watched you like he was waiting to see if he had ruined everything.

He didn’t look casual. He was never casual about you. He didn’t toss out precious things like the future just to see if they landed. He offered them like they had been a piece of his flesh cut out of him.

And you realized, in that second, that this had not been a stray thought.

Dex hadn’t just imagined it. Dex had been living with it.

You could see it now, in the way he held himself in the way his fingers had tightened just slightly at your waist, in the way his eyes kept flicking down to your mouth like he wanted to kiss the answer out of you and was forcing himself not to. 

He had carried this around. Maybe for weeks. Maybe for months. 

Maybe he had been thinking about marrying you while listening to your rant about your professor. He had been thinking about it while fixing the wobbly leg on your desk chair. He had been thinking about it while watching you laugh at Mrs. Smithers’ cat through the cracked door.

Maybe he had been thinking about it while buying groceries. Maybe he even stood in the pasta aisle with blood still under his sleeves, picking the brand you liked better because you once said the cheaper one tasted “dusty.” 

“Mm,” you managed.

It was barely a sound. Your throat had gone tight. You were trying very hard not to break apart, trying not to let the whole sweetness of it take you down completely, but your hand was already lifting to his face. Your thumb brushed the corner of his mouth, careful of the split in his lip.

“You sure you wanna marry me?” you asked.

Dex looked genuinely offended. “Yes.”

It came so fast you almost laughed. You did, a little, but it cracked around the edges. “Really?”

His brow furrowed, as if the question itself made no sense. “Yes.”

“You’ve thought about it?”

Dex stared at you, and the answer was so obvious then. 

He had probably thought about it too much. Dex didn’t daydream. He planned. He mapped. He calculated. Even his fantasies came with exit routes and contingency plans.

“Okay,” you whispered. “What would that life even look like?”

You saw this glint in his eyes, the way they widened by a fraction. You had asked the one question he had been dying to answer.

His hand stayed at your waist. His thumb moved once, almost unconsciously, a small stroking motion through the fabric of your shirt.

“I’d get us a house,” he said.

Your heart gave a helpless little kick.

His gaze drifted past you, not away in dismissal, but as if the apartment disappeared from his eyes. 

“Not in the city,” he said. “Close enough if you still wanted it, for work or whatever you wanted, not right in it. Not sirens under the window all night, not this building where you can hear every footstep in the hall and know which ones don’t belong.”

His thumb moved once against your waist, like even with his head in the clouds he needed one hand on you to make sure the dream had a center.

“We’d look at the suburbs,” he continued. “I’d want roads I could learn. I want neighbors so you can bake them pie, but I don’t want them too close. We need a neighborhood with space between houses. We need streetlights that work. A sidewalk, maybe, where you could walk in the morning if you wanted and I wouldn’t spend the whole time looking over your shoulder.”

You stayed quiet.

You didn’t want to interrupt him. There was something too precious about the way he was speaking, like he had cracked open a safe inside himself and all these impossibly domestic things were spilling out. 

“It would have a yard,” he said, smaller now. “Not huge. We don’t need huge, but we need enough. We would need a fence. A good one. Tall, but not ugly. I’d make sure it looked nice. You’d care about that.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’d make sure I have good sightlines in there,” he continued, “no blind spots.”

There he is. 

“And I’d plant flowers,” he added.

You blinked. Dex glanced at you, then looked down again as if the admission embarrassed him more than the blood on his face.

“You like flowers. The wild-looking ones. The ones outside delis in buckets, or growing through fences. You slow down when you see them.” His mouth twitched faintly, affectionate. “You pretend you don’t, but you do.”

He… noticed?

“I’d plant those,” he said. “I don’t know anything about gardening, but I could learn.”

He kept going before you could answer 

“There’d be a porch, or a back deck. I’d put a chair there for you.” A little warmth moved through his eyes, as if imagining it. “You’d probably bring a blanket out even if it wasn’t cold.”

You smiled, and it seemed to give him more courage.

“And you’d have an office,” he said. “A real one, not a desk shoved into a corner with your papers stacked on the floor.”

Your eyes stung.

“Built-in shelves if we could, for your research books,” he continued. “Your fiction books, all of them. You wouldn’t have to pile them on the windowsill or keep the heavy ones under the desk. Your desk would face a window, but no one should be able to see into it from the street.”

You let out the smallest laugh, but he kept drifting deeper now.

“There’d be a couch in there,” he said. “So I could sit with you while you worked. I’d be quiet.”

The confession was so completely him that something inside you melted. He said it without shame, without trying to make it sound less obsessive than it was. Of course he would watch you. Of course he had already imagined sitting in a room built for your mind, staring at you while you read and wrote and thought, content just to be near the machinery of you.

“I like when you’re focused,” he murmured. “You make that face.”

You did not ask what face. You wanted him to keep talking.

“The kitchen would be big,” he said next, and there was certainty in that, like he had stood in it a thousand times. “Big enough for that island you like.”

Your mouth parted.

“We’d have one with those ugly pendant lights,” he added, with the resigned tone of a man making a grave sacrifice. 

You smiled fully now. “They’re not ugly,” was all you could manage under your breath.

He heard it and very quickly added, “They are. But you like them, so we’d have it.”

That nearly did you in.

“There’d be storage,” he said. “Pans would be in the cabinets, not in the oven. I’d build you a spice drawer and I’ll organise them.”

You pressed your lips together, smiling harder.

“I’d make coffee before you woke up,” he continued. “Yours first. I’d make breakfast and I’d make more than eggs. Pancakes, maybe. You like pancakes when you’re sad.”

Your smile trembled.

“I’d make dinners, too,” he said. “You could sit at the counter and read to me while I cooked.” He looked almost shy at that. “Or talk. I don’t care. I just like your voice.”

The room felt too small for him then. Too small for the size of what he wanted. 

“And a dining table,” he said, his thumb stilled against you. “With more than two chairs.”

He swallowed once and kept going.

“The bathroom would have that shower,” he said. “Like the hotel you wouldn’t stop talking about.”

You almost laughed. “A rain shower?” You asked 

“Yes,” he said seriously. “With a glass door, a bench, and heated floors, because you hate cold tile.”

His eyes flicked to your face.

“I’d spoil you,” he said, like a vow. His eyesight  lowered to your hand, then back to your face.

You couldn’t speak, but he went on anyway, because now that he had started, the dream seemed to pull him forward by the heart.

“There’d be security,” he said. Of course there would be. But from Dex, even that sounded like love.

“I’ll get good locks with reinforced doors. I’d install cameras.” he said immediately, almost gently. “I’ll get motion lights and window sensors.”

He breathed out slowly.

“You wouldn’t have to check anything,” he said. “I’d do it.”

What he was saying was wouldn’t have to listen at night, or wonder, or brace, or be scared just because the world was dangerous. Dex would take the ritual of fear and make it his. He would check the doors, the windows, the shadows, so you could go upstairs and sleep.

“I’d check the locks before bed,” he said. “You could just go up and get in bed. Read or sleep with the light on if you want. I’d turn it off.”

He said it with such certainty that tears gathered before you could stop them.

He didn’t notice yet. He had gone too far into the house.

“There’d be a gun cabinet,” he continued, practical now. “Locked, of course, and separate from ammunition. I’ll get biometric locks and a backup key hidden somewhere only we knew.”

His focus sharpened slightly as he pictured it.

“And a weapons cabinet too, with knives, anything tactical, anything I wouldn’t want left out. It would be hidden or built into the wall somewhere no one would look. Not near the kitchen. Not near the bedrooms.” He said it like he had already rejected three possible locations. “Everything would be secured,” he continued. “No exceptions. Nothing lying around.”

Then, still looking into that future house, still seeing the walls and the locks and the rooms and all the dangerous love he wanted to put inside them, he added, almost absently, “at least until the kids are old enough.”

Oh.

“The kids?” you asked.

Dex blinked. For a second, he looked almost confused that you had stopped him there, like the kids had been so naturally integrated into the architecture of his fantasy that he had forgotten you were only just now seeing the floor plan. In his head, apparently, they already existed. 

“Yes,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Kids.”

He said it as if this were already settled. As if the universe had filed the paperwork. As if somewhere, in some future suburb with a fenced yard, your children were already waiting for him to come home.

“You just assumed?” you asked, your voice dazed.

Dex’s brows pulled together like he was only now realizing assumption was supposed to be a problem.

Then his eyes searched yours, suddenly cautious.

“I—” He paused, his fingers tightening slightly at your waist. “I assumed you’d want them,” he finished. “I assumed I’d give you anything you wanted. And I assumed…” His eyes dropped, then lifted again. “I assumed if there was any way the world let me have you like that, I’d take it.”

There it was.

Dex didn’t want a family because he had always dreamed of domestic happiness. He wanted it like conquest. He wanted children because they would be yours, because they would be his, because they would be the physical evidence of a future he had no right to expect. Benjamin Poindexter didn’t want in half measures. He consumed possibility whole. If he loved you, he loved the future of you and the shape of you extended forward. The house that held you. The children that might come from you. 

That was deranged. That wasn’t normal. But to you, that was also, for reasons you could not explain without sounding like you needed professional intervention, romantic.

Dex watched your mouth part. “I’d love them,” he said. “I would. I know I would. Because they’d be yours.”

There it was, not the socially acceptable version. Not I love children or I always wanted a family. Dex didn’t know how to make love sound normal when it came from him.

He would love them because they would carry your eyes, maybe, or your mouth, or your stubbornness. Because he would look at them and see you continued into another body. 

“They’d be mine too,” he added, like that part was harder for him to trust. “And maybe that part could be good because it came through you.”

Dex looked down at his hands that had done terrible things and could still hold you  like it was made of light.

So you only sat there letting him talk, letting him show you the things he had apparently been thinking around for months.

“Have you thought about names?” you asked.

Dex nodded slightly. 

Your lips parted.

“You have,” you whispered.

He looked almost offended again, but not at you this time. At the idea that he could have built this whole imaginary house, this whole impossible future, and not named the children already running through it. “Of course I have.”

“Tell me,” you said.

Dex watched you carefully. You could tell that there was still that small, frightened part of him, the part waiting for the insult, the laugh, the moment where your wonder hardened into common sense. But you just looked… patient. 

“For a boy,” he said, “Jason.”

Jason.

Dex’s voice lowered. “Because you loved Jason and the Argonauts when you were little. The way everyone went after something impossible.”

You remembered telling him that, barely. It had been one of those late-night conversations with your cheek on his chest. His fingers moved through your hair as you rambled about mythology books you used to check out of the library, about heroes who were never as perfect as people wanted them to be.

Dex had listened.

“And for a girl?” you asked, already knowing he had one.

“Callie,” he said then immediately added, “Short for Calliope. Callie at school. Calliope if she liked it. Whatever you liked.”

Your eyes stung. “Callie,” you whispered.

Dex nodded. “You said she was the muse of epic poetry. You liked that she belonged to stories.”

You pressed your fingers to your mouth. He remembered that too.

“Jason and Callie,” you said with a sigh.

You realized then, that Dex had not chosen names because he liked them. He had chosen names because he thought you would.

Because even in his most private fantasies, the children were not abstract. They were not trophies. They were not little versions of him he could shape into whatever he wanted. They were pieces of you carried forward into the world, proof that some part of you could exist outside your own body and still belong to him, too.

“You like them,” he realised.

“I love them.”

His hand tightened around yours. Then, as if the names had opened a door he could no longer close, he kept going.

“Jason would have your eyes,” he said, voice distant again, head fully in the clouds now. “He’d be quiet, I think, the kind of kid who watches first. He’d notice everything.”

Your throat tightened.

“And Callie,” he said, and a faint helplessness moved through his face. “She’d be trouble.”

You laughed a little. 

“She’d climb things,” he continued. “She’d argue. She’d look right at me while doing exactly what I told her not to do.”

You could see it.

Worse, you could see how much he loved it.

This imaginary little girl, stubborn and wild, already had him wrapped around her tiny, nonexistent finger.

“She’d have your mouth,” he said, almost to himself. “Your attitude.”

“My attitude?”

His eyes flicked to yours, and there was something wickedly fond in them. “Your attitude.”

He looked down at your joined hands again, thumb moving over your knuckles, and his voice changed.

“They’d need to be ready.”

For what?

But you knew what for. This part that should’ve made you want to retreat, but it only made you want to lean in more, because this was Dex’s love too. The same root, grown through darker soil.

“Ready?” you asked.

“For the world,” he clarified. 

Dex’s eyes were calm now, focused and devoted. There was nothing theatrical in him, nothing performative. He was not fantasizing about violence for the sake of it. He was imagining two children made from you and him, and his first instinct was to make sure nothing could ever make them helpless.

He wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He was in the woods with Jason and Callie when they were older and taller.

“I know what I am,” he said with finality. “I know what I’m good for.”

Your heart pinched. “Dex…” 

“No,” he said, because he knew you. Because he could hear the protest forming before you even opened your mouth. “Don’t do that.”

You tilted your head. 

“I know what I’m good for,” he repeated, gentler this time, but no less certain. “And if I’m good for anything, I will make sure they have every tool in their disposal to survive.”

There was no self-pity in it. He didn’t sound like a man condemning himself. He sounded like a man who had finally found a use for the worst parts of him and decided that they would serve you.

“They won’t be helpless,” he said. “Not our kids.”

Our kids.

“Jason and Callie won’t be fragile and easy to hurt. I won’t do that to them.”

His jaw tightened, and pride flickered through his face.

“They’ll be smart. They’ll be aware. They’ll know when a room feels wrong. They’ll know what a threat looks like before it reaches them.”

You listened, heart thudding.

“And they’ll be skilled,” he said.

It mattered to him. You could hear it.

Skilled.

Not broken. Not molded. Not made into little copies of him. He wanted them skilled, accurate, and alive.

“I’d start small,” he continued. “I’ll teach them hand-to-hand, teach them how to use their reflexes. I’ll teach them how to move without panicking, how to get up when they fall, how to breathe when they’re scared. Jason would overthink it at first. He’ll want every movement perfect before he tries. Callie would rush in and get mad when I made her slow down.” His mouth curved up faintly. “She’ll hate slowing down.”

You almost smiled through the ache in your chest.

“But she’ll learn,” he said. “They both will.”

His eyes darkened around the imagination.

“When they’re older, I'll teach them how to aim.”

Aim was not violence to him, not really. It was discipline. It was proof that the body could obey the mind. 

“They better have their old man’s aim,” he murmured.

It should have sounded awful.

And it did, a little.

But it also sounded like him imagining a son and daughter with pieces of himself; His focus, his loyalty, his ability to lock onto a target and not shake.

“They’ll know how to throw,” he said. “How to hit what they mean to hit. I’ll get them knives, when they’re old enough. Take them to the range to shoot guns when they're older. No one fucking picks on my kids and lives to see another day.” He looked at you then, and the obsession in his face had turned holy. “I’ll make sure they understand that.”

You swallowed.

“If they find themselves in a bad situation, I’ll make sure they’re better than lucky. Lucky runs out. Lucky gets them killed. I want them trained. I want them calm. I want them to be able to look at danger and know they’re more dangerous.”

His hand tightened around yours.

“I want Jason to know how to get Callie out if something happens. I want Callie to know how to get Jason out. I want both of them to know how to get back to their mother.”

Your breath caught. 

Their mother.

Dex said it as if it were the center of the whole plan. 

“I’ll make sure they come home in one piece,” he said, voice rough now. “Ready for dinner. That’s the point.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’ll make damn sure they can leave this house and come back to it. I’ll make sure you’re not sitting at that kitchen table wondering if they’re safe.” His eyes dropped to your mouth, then back up. “I don’t want you afraid.”

Fuck.

The whole deranged, violent, tender fantasy had always curved back to that. Dex teaching your future children to fight, to aim, to survive, not because he wanted war in the home, but because he wanted peace for you. Because his idea of fatherhood was Jason and Callie walking through the front door with backpacks tossed on the floor, cheeks flushed, while you stood at the stove or sat at the island with your coffee and didn’t have to imagine every terrible thing that might have happened to them.

“I’d kill for them, you know this,” he said, rubbing a slow circle on your skin, “I’d burn the whole world down for them.” Dex did not look away. “But if I know they can take care of themselves, then my eyes can stay where they belong.”

His hand cupped your face fully now.

“On you.”

He said it like it was obvious. Like the whole future had a single center of gravity and he had been circling it the entire time, pretending he was talking about houses and kitchens and gun cabinets and kids, when really he had only ever been talking about you.

“Because all of this,” Dex whispered, “would happen because of you.”

His thumb moved beneath your eye, catching the tear before it could fall properly. He looked at you like the city and the sirens and the blood on his knuckles were temporary, like the whole world outside the window was an environment he could outlast if it meant getting you somewhere safe.

“You understand that, right?” he asked, but his voice made it sound less like a question and more like a confession he needed you to survive hearing. 

Dex leaned closer, his hand cupping your cheek now, holding you with that possession that never felt casual. 

“I’d make sure the kids knew that,” he said. “I’d make sure they knew anything good in me came from you.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came out.

“The warmth in the house, the fairytales they would hear before bed, the flowers they pick from the garden.” His thumb brushed slowly along your cheekbone. “They’d know that was you. That all of it was you.”

Your eyes burned.

“They’d love you,” Dex whispered. “because you’re perfect.”

“Dex…”

“And they’d love me because I’d earn it.” he said.

Oh, Benjamin.

Your heart broke a little at that.

He said it simply, like love was not something he had ever expected to be given for free if it was him. 

His hand slid a little lower, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth, parting your lips.

“You wouldn’t have to learn how to shoot,” he reassured. “Because you’d have me.”

His voice dropped lower, intimate and possessive all the same.

“I’d take care of you,” he continued, “because that’s the only thing I was made wrong enough to do right.”

It should have sounded suffocating. Maybe from anyone else, it would have. But from Dex, it felt less like a cage and more like a shelter.

A small, broken laugh caught in your throat.

His mouth curved faintly, almost shy and almost wicked. “You can just sit there and be pretty, huh, baby?”

Your heart gave in completely.

He said it like a promise, like he would happily make a fortress of his own body if it meant you never had to lift a finger. 

Your tears started falling quicker before you could stop them.

They started coming too quickly, gathering along your lashes and breaking loose before you could blink them back. One rolled down the side of your nose. Another slipped along your cheek toward his thumb. Suddenly you were crying in front of him over a house that didn’t exist, children who hadn’t been born, a ring he hadn’t even given you yet, and the sincerity of Benjamin fuckin’ Poindexter imagining a life precious enough for you to be loved.

Dex noticed and his whole face changed. His hand, still cupping your cheek, squeezed slightly. His eyes moved over your face, searching for the wound, the mistake, the exact word that had hurt you.

“What?” he asked, his voice wound tight. “What did I say?”

You shook your head, but that only made another tear fall.

He frowned. “I upset you.”

“No.” Your voice cracked. You hated how small it sounded. “No, Dex.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

There was a panick-y edge beneath the flatness of his voice. Dex could handle blood and anger Dex could handle fear if it had a direction, if it could be aimed back at something. But your tears did something awful to him. They made him look helpless in the one way he could never tolerate: like he had caused pain he couldn’t kill.

You caught his wrist before he could pull his hand away from your face.

“Baby,” you whispered, “no.”

You pressed your cheek harder into his palm, making him understand that you were not resisting his grand plan. “These are not bad tears.”

Still, you could tell he didn’t believe you yet.

“They’re not,” you promised, laughing weakly even though your throat hurt. “You just… fuck, Dex. You just said all of that like it was real.”

His mouth parted slightly.

“You really want all of that?” You asked, though it sounded more squeaky than you’d like 

Dex stared at you, looking almost offended again, as if he was wounded by the possibility that you could still doubt the size of what he wanted when he had just laid it open in front of you.

“Yes,” he said.

You breathed in shakily. “The house?”

“Yes.”

“The kitchen?”

“Yes.”

“The flowers?”

His thumb moved under your eye, wiping away another tear. “Yes.”

“Jason and Callie?”

His eyebrows relaxed immediately at the mention of the names. “Yes.”

You shut your eyes.

And for one second, because he had given you permission by wanting it so badly, you let yourself imagine it.

Dex driving with one hand on the wheel, the other reaching back at a red light because Calliope had dropped her stuffed animal and immediately made it everyone’s emergency. You could see it his eyes flicking from the mirror to the road to her little outstretched hand, his mouth set in that serious line like recovering a plush rabbit from the floorboard was a tactical operation. Callie would kick her feet in the car seat, impatient and bossy, already certain her father would retrieve anything she dropped because Dex had never once been normal about anyone he cared for needing something.

Dex in a school parking lot, terrifying every other father by accident. He’d stand there in a dark jacket and smart-ish trousers, trying to look approachable and while still planning thirteen ways to neutralize a PTA committee just in case someone tried to speak wrongly about his kids. Jason walking beside him with a too-big backpack and the solemn concentration of his father. Callie skipping ahead, fearless because her father was behind her and therefore the world hadn’t yet invented anything that could touch her.

Dex teaching Jason how to throw a ball in the backyard. His son would squinting with concentration, little shoulders tense, trying too hard because he had inherited that from you. Dex crouched in front of him, adjusting his grip, telling him to breathe. Then he’d step back, watching Jason throw too hard and too wide, and smiling anyway. He’d be proud anyway, because it was a start. He’d make his way to the knives eventually. 

Dex standing behind you in the kitchen, arms around your waist, chin tucked against your shoulder while your children ran through the yard beyond the window.

He’d kiss your temple and ask for another one, and you’d say, “We’ll think about it,” because you two were a unit. You were two parts of the same whole. 

You opened your eyes, and he just looked terrified of how much he wanted it.

Your hand tightened around his wrist.

“When you eventually ask me,” you said, voice shaking, “know that I’ll say yes.”

For a moment, Dex didn’t move.

He didn’t even seem to breathe.

His eyes searched yours once, twice, desperately, like he had to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. 

“You will?” he asked.

You smiled through the tears. “Of course.”

Joy did not sit easily on Dex, but you knew this was what it looked like. 

You let out a watery little laugh, because if you did not laugh you were going to sob properly.

That seemed to bring him back to himself.

Dex leaned in and kissed your neck once, then your cheeks, then the damp place beneath your eye where a tear had slipped down.

Each kiss was careful and possessive in the best way. He wasn’t trying to stop you from crying. Instead, he wanted to claim every tear. 

Dex kissed your jaw again, then tucked his face into your neck, and for a long time he just held you.

What you did not know was that the ring was already more than a fantasy to him.

What you did not know was that earlier that evening, before the Supreme Court had gone to hell, he shot Buck Cashman, before he came home, Dex had received confirmation of an advance from Mr. Charles.

He had a government contract. He had a stable job.

Dex had read the confirmation once.

Then twice.

Then, because he was Dex, he had memorized the number. The second he saw the advance, his mind had gone to you.

Rent. Groceries. Your tuition. The overdue utility bill you had tried to hide under a stack of journal articles like paper could make debt disappear. The textbooks you kept putting off buying because you said you could “probably survive with library copies,” even though he had seen the way you frowned when you said it.

And then the ring.

He’d already planned the ring.

And no, he hadn’t told you any of this yet. 

Maybe he will after the first payment cleared. Maybe after the first job was done and he knew the money was steady. Maybe after he had washed the blood off well enough to convince himself he was allowed to touch something as clean as your hand.

He’d find the right jeweler, though he already had one in mind: a shop in the Upper East Side that did custom pieces. He’d get one commissioned specifically for you. Nothing too delicate, because he wanted people to notice it. Nothing too flashy, because you would wrinkle your nose and tell him he had lost his mind.

He’d get something that looked right on your hand when you reached for your coffee in the morning. A gem that would catch the kitchen light when you turned pages in your office. Something Jason might touch curiously as a child, asking if Dad gave you that, and Dex would hear you say yes from the doorway. Something Callie would one day ask to try on, and you would laugh and tell her when she could when was older. Something that said you belonged to him.

And more importantly, that he belonged to you.

For now, he said none of that.

For now, he only held you tighter on the bed, making sure you were okay.

“You’re going to be so spoiled,” he whispered against your skin.

You smiled, eyes closing, tears still drying on your face. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“By a wanted man with frozen peas?”

That got the smallest laugh out of him. 

“By your future husband,” he said.

Your heart did a helpless little flip.

Little did you know, with this contract, the future wasn’t just a fantasy to him anymore.

He just needed to ask.

—end.

-

He only knew how to aim, how to follow through, how to kill. So he told himself that if he pointed all of that in the right direction, it would count. It had to count. 

Bad people existed. That much was obvious. And if bad people were gone, then… that had to count for something, right?

The Anti-Vigilante Task Force were easy enough to categorize as bad. They hunted vigilantes, tried to shut down the kind of people Dex had convinced himself were doing something close to good. And vigilantes were good. They had to be. 

So if he removed the ones hunting them, if he cut those threads before they tightened around someone else’s throat, then that meant he was helping. It meant he was balancing something, somewhere, even if no one was there to see it. Even if no one thanked him. Even if the city didn’t change at all.

That was how he justified it. The only problem was that no one paid him for being good.

His rent didn’t care about intention. His bills didn’t pause because he was trying. The notice on his counter sat there, the very proof that the world moved even as he was laying down the foundations of whatever moral framework he was trying to build. Dex had been ignoring it for days, like it might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it. 

He was staring at it when his phone buzzed.

The sound was unsettling, mostly because Dex knew that people only messaged him for one of two reasons nowadays: to threaten him (best possible outcome, he could handle it) or to give him a job. When he looked at the notification, he knew it was going to be the latter. 

The text came from an unknown sender. It was encrypted, of course. Dex picked it up slowly, thumb hovering for just a second. He frowned. He really shouldn’t. This was the part of his life he was supposed to be moving away from. He opened it anyway. 

The file loaded quickly. As he suspected, it was an anonymous contract labeled high priority, with a bounty of… oh. 

2.5 million dollars.

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose as that figure settled into place. It was much more than rent or bills. This kind of money would give him… breathing room. It would fund his good deeds for years. It would help his progress, right?

His eyes moved down to the target profile: a Former Red Room Widow. 

Objective: extract intel regarding active Red Room operatives. 

Secondary objective: termination upon completion.

Dex’s knuckles shifted slightly as he kept reading, attention narrowing the deeper he went. This wasn't a surface-level hit, like the usual contracts pushed into his number. He usually got the odd job of eliminating a business man’s biggest competitor (he never took those anymore) or a mother giving most of her life savings to him to kill her abusive husband (he did those ones more often than not), but this wasn’t it. Whoever had put this together knew what they were doing. They layered intel, cross-referenced sightings, stitched fragments of reports into something coherent enough to act on.

And then there was the ledger. Not labeled that way, but Dex knew what he was looking at.

Target Activity Log (Condensed): Kiev — 12 confirmed targets, political dissidents turned assets. Execution, no witnesses. Istanbul — Arms broker extraction turned termination. 7 additional casualties during exfiltration. Lagos — Undercover infiltration of rival weapons trafficking ring. Operation successful. Entire network eliminated. Collateral: high. Madripoor — Unverified mission overlap with Yelena Belova. Outcome classified. Buenos Aires — Diplomatic attaché poisoning. Death delayed 48 hours to avoid suspicion. Moscow — Internal Red Room purge survivor. Multiple handlers eliminated. 

Dex’s thumb paused against the screen as he read through it again. The pattern was obvious to him in a way it wouldn’t be to anyone else. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t someone losing control. On the contrary, this was someone who was terrifyingly in control.

This target was a dangerous killer, and Dex didn't arrive at the conclusion lightly.

He liked patterns, needed them. They made the world more predictable to the point where he could sort through without it splintering into noise. And this file was full of patterns.

He scrolled back up, then down again, slower this time, eyes catching on the details most people would skip over: the timings, the methods. 

The target made clean exits where possible and didn’t care much about collateral. Every action fed into the next like it had been mapped out long before the target ever stepped into the room.

Dex’s jaw tightened slightly as he read through the Kiev entry again. Twelve victims. It was not a firefight. It was twelve decisions. Twelve moments where the target could have stopped and didn’t. Istanbul, seven more added during exfiltration. They were not part of the objective, but handled anyway. 

He understood that, and that meant he also understood what it took to do it.

You didn’t rack up a body count like that by accident. You didn’t walk away from operations like Madripoor, with entire networks wiped out and “high collateral” written off like a footnote, unless something in you had already accepted the outcome before it happened.

Dex leaned back slightly, phone still in his hand, thumb hovering but unmoving now.

People liked to pretend there was a line. A moment where someone chose to be good or bad and stuck to it. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was smaller than that. It was in the repetition. And this file read like repetition, over and over. It might happen in different cities and to different victims, but it always had the same result.

Dex couldn’t find signs of deviation or hesitation. There was no indication that the target ever stopped to question it.

His eyes flicked back to the ledger, this time reading the latest additions, entries that hadn’t had time to settle into history yet.

Recent Activity: Prague — Corporate intermediary tied to OXE shell accounts. Interrogation lasted 18 minutes. Target terminated. Two security casualties. No witnesses. DODC Supermax Prison — Perimeter sweep. Three armed contacts neutralized before engagement escalated. Surveillance equipment disabled. Exit undetected. New York — Intelligence courier intercepted en route to New Avengers safehouse. Package recovered. Courier terminated. Civilian exposure: none.

Right. 

The target was still active. 

“Yeah,” Dex muttered, more to himself than anything else.

That was what tipped it for him.

Because even now, even with everything he’d done, Dex felt the resistance. The part of him that tried, however poorly, to redirect what he was into a force for good.  The file didn’t show that.

It showed someone who had been made into a weapon and never really tried to put it down. That meant the target wasn’t in the same place he was. This target wasn’t trying to balance the scales like he was. 

And that made this person not a good person in a way he could act on.

His eyes looked to the image of the target, like he was trying to reconcile the almost fragile and delicate-looking features with everything he’d just read. It didn’t match. It never did. Faces rarely carried the weight of what they’d done. But the file didn’t lie. The patterns didn’t lie.

Dex exhaled slowly, and decided this person was bad.

Not because of one mission. Not because of one mistake. But because of all of it stacked together.

And at this point, in order to preserve what precious progress he had made, he’d rather kill a killer for rent than his landlord. That would be inconvenient.

His thumb moved, tapping the file open fully, letting the image expand across the screen.

And for the first time, Dex really looked at you.

—

Dex expected you to be harder to find.

Most people with a body count like yours didn’t settle. They didn’t usually stay anywhere long enough to be known, didn’t leave behind anything that could be traced twice in the same way. He expected burner phones, rotating safehouses, and multiple fake ids that dissolved the second they were used.

But you hadn’t done that.

You were… easy. He found your address almost immediately. He found your number, your card details, and your passport quite quickly. 

It took him a couple of hours to accept that it wasn’t an error in the data. Financial records were always messy, layered under shells and proxies, but not impossible. He followed the money the same way he followed anything else— patiently, methodically, letting the inconsistencies stand out instead of forcing them to make sense too quickly. One payment turned into a trail, then into repetition.

But still, he found nothing out of the ordinary. You were just a regular person living in New York, paying rent on time. Unlike him this month. 

He stared at the screen longer than he needed today. The more he followed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t temporary, wasn’t a waypoint or a cover that would disappear in a week. You weren’t passing through. You weren’t hiding. You were living here.

The rest of the records only reinforced it. He found your utility bills, with groceries spaced out in a way that suggested routine. He found nothing excessive, nothing careless. It was almost jarring, how normal it looked on paper, for someone with a history soaked in blood.

Next, Dex visited your building and expected that to be where the illusion broke, maybe an indication that this was all a front.

There wasn’t anything.

It was just a building. Unremarkable, forgettable in the way most of the city was. There were no visible security upgrades, no controlled access beyond the standard high rise. There was nothing that suggested someone with your file should be walking in and out of it every day.

He watched long enough to be sure. You came and went at predictable times, no visible countersurveillance, no adjustments to your movements that suggested you thought you were being watched. You carried your own groceries up the steps. You held the door open for someone once, an older man who thanked you without hesitation, like you were just another tenant, just another face he recognized in passing.

Dex didn’t like that it didn’t fit the rest of you. So he kept digging, because if there was going to be a crack, it would be in the routine and… you had one.

It took him three days to map it out in full, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn’t. You woke early. You jogged through Central Park along the same route almost every morning at the same pace, like it was muscle memory. You didn’t scan constantly, didn’t treat every passerby like a potential threat. You just ran.

After that, you hadcoffee at the same place every time, the same order. 

Dex watched all of it from a distance, writing it down in his little notebook. He told himself it was for this job, that he needed to remember things accurately if he was going to finish the job. 

By the fourth day, he knew watching wasn’t enough. It never had been. Patterns only got you so far before they started turning into assumptions, and assumptions got people wrong. 

The problem was, he didn’t have a plan for that. He wasn’t a spy. He didn’t build relationships, didn’t ease his way into proximity. 

But standing across the street, watching you disappear into the crown like you’d done every morning that week, he understood one thing clearly enough: He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He just knew he had to get closer.

—

The next day, he “accidentally” ran into you on that jogging trail in Central Park.

He already knew the exact time your foot would hit the gravel. All he had to do was figure which way you were going: was it the route you’d take when you wanted to clear your head, or the one you’d take when you wanted a challenge?

He waited outside your apartment today and…. You were taking the hard route.

He followed, and his plan of taking you until you got to the cafè, where he would sit next to you, would’ve been perfect until… Dex timed it wrong.

He knew he did the second he adjusted his pace to match yours and felt the rhythm slip. He was too fast for a clean pass, too close for it to look incidental. 

This wasn’t what he was good at. There was no distance. Only proximity and the vague, uncomfortable awareness that if you were anything like the file said you were, you’d clock him immediately.

You didn’t. You just kept running.

He tried to correct it, cutting slightly across your path like he meant to pass you, like he belonged in your space. The movement was off by half a second, just enough to turn clumsy. His shoulder clipped yours, momentum carrying him forward a step too far. You caught before you could trip and looked at him like, what the hell, man?

“—shit, sorry,” Dex said quickly, breathing unevenly. He turned back, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I didn’t… are you okay?”

Up close, everything went a little sideways.

He’d seen your photo. But a still image didn’t account for the way you actually were when you looked at him. You were focused, yes, but there was no immediate suspicion or recalculation behind your eyes. He could tell you were doing a quick assessment and—

“You’re fine,” you huffed, brushing it off like it really had been nothing.

Dex blinked once, recalibrating, trying to drag himself back to the whole point of this endeavour: Intel. 

Simple, right? 

Except now you were standing there, waiting just long enough that it demanded a response.

Right. Say something. Anything.

“Uh… there’s a coffee place just up ahead,” he heard himself say, the words coming out before he could fully filter them. “I can make it up to you. Buy you one or something.”

There was a lull of silence where even he registered what he’d just done.

That wasn’t part of any plan. That was stupid.

Dex forced himself not to react to it outwardly, even as his chest tightened in irritation. This wasn’t how he should’ve handled a target like you. He shouldn’t’ve improvised like this. What was he thinking, basically asking you out like some idiot who didn’t know what he was doing?

But you were still just looking at him.

And up close, all he could think about was how… disarming you were.

That was the word his brain landed on, unhelpfully. You made him lower their guard without realizing he was doing it. 

Dex swallowed, keeping his expression neutral, like this was intentional, like this was just another step in a plan he actually had control over.

This is for intel, he told himself, firmly. Just intel via proximity. That’s all this is.

You tilted your head slightly, considering him in a way that made him feel, for a split second, like he was the one being assessed.

“Coffee?” you repeated. 

“Yeah,” he said, a little more steady now. “Least I can do.”

“For what?” you managed an amused chuckle, and Dex could’ve sworn that hearing you make that noise lit up the world around him. “bumping into me? Is this a line?”

“I just…” he stammered, and bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”

I’ve seen you around??? He mentally slapped himself. What kind of fucking stupid explanation is that? What does that have to do with anything?

Surprisingly, though, all you did was tilt your head and said, “Okay.”

Oh?

Dex forced himself to nod once, like he’d expected it, like this hadn’t just gone completely off-script.

“Okay,” he echoed, turning slightly to fall into step beside you as you started moving again.

He kept his focus forward, matching your pace, already running through what he needed to ask, what he could realistically get without pushing too hard, how to steer the conversation where he needed it to go.

And still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something felt off. Dex ignored it, because this was a job. You were a target.

And this was just the easiest way to get what he needed. Nothing more.

—

The café was small, tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat.

On the way there, you exchanged your names— he said he was “Tony,” and you, surprisingly, had given him your real name. You were easy to talk to, and you talked about the weather, the park, the surprisingly little snow last winter.

When you got to the café, Dex was relieved to see that it wasn’t too crowded, just a couple of people on laptops, a murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine every so often. Fewer variables, Fewer eyes.

You ordered first: iced latte, like you’d done it a hundred times. He followed with an Americano, mostly because he panicked and it sounded normal enough.

Now he sat across from you, fingers loosely wrapped around the glass cup, watching the condensation bead along the outside of your glass as you stirred your drink with your straw. You looked… relaxed.

You took a sip, then glanced at him over the rim, and there was mischief in your expression. A second later, you let out a giggle, tapping the straw lightly against the lid.

“So,” you said, dragging the word out just a little. “Why does Bullseye want to take me out to coffee?”

Dex choked.

It wasn’t subtle. The coffee went down the wrong way, and he had to turn his head slightly, coughing into his fist. For a split second, he thought he might actually spit it out all over you, which—thank fuck—the café being mostly empty made slightly less of a disaster.

His eyes snapped back to you.

“…You knew?” he asked.

You blinked at him like that was the stupidest question you’d heard all day, then shrugged, taking another sip like this was a casual conversation. “Of course,” you said. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”

There was no accusation in it. You said it as if it was a fact.

Dex just stared at you. His brain tried to catch up, running through possibilities, angles, trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. Had you clocked him earlier? On the run? Before that? Had he missed an obvious tell?

You didn’t look alarmed. You didn’t look like you were about to bolt or reach for a weapon. If anything, you looked… curious.

“Oh,” he said, because that was all that came out at first.

Great. Perfect. Real smooth.

He forced himself to take another sip of his coffee, buying a second to gather his thoughts, to shove everything back into place where it belonged.

She’s a target. This is a job.

“Yeah,” he added, steadier now, nodding once like this hadn’t just blindsided him. “I mean—yeah. I just…” His teeth tightened for half a second before he settled on the first thing that felt even remotely usable. “I’m a fan of your work.”

You didn’t react immediately. You watched him over your drink, eyes narrowing slightly.

Dex held your eyes, forcing himself not to overcorrect, to let it breathe. Let it land.

“Right,” you said finally. You didn’t sound entirely convinced, but you let it go.

The silence stretched, but not too uncomfortably. It was just charged. You knew there was no chance of going back to a civilian conversation as you leaned back slightly, exhaling.

“Alright. No, we’re not doing this version,” you decided, more to yourself than him. Then you straightened again, meeting his eyes properly. “Can we start over?”

Dex blinked, thrown just enough to answer honestly. “I… yeah.”

You nodded once, resetting playfully. 

“Hi. You already know my name, so I’m skipping that part,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your cup. “I’m a former Red Room Widow. I live in New York now.”

You said it like a random woman introducing themself as an accountant.

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it to filter through the responses. “Hi,” he tried again, because apparently that was all he had today.

You waited.

“Hi,” he repeated, then dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. “I’m Dex. Not—” he made a vague, frustrated gesture, “not Tony, I don’t…”

Your lips twitched. “I got that.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nodded once, a bit too quickly. Then, as if he was forcing the words out his throat. “I’m… a good guy.”

The second it left his mouth, he knew how weird it sounded. You blinked at him. Then, to his surprise, you chuckled, and it was not unkind.

“Hi, Dex Not Tony,” you said, teasing him. “That’s a strong introduction.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line, but his shoulder reluctantly eased a fraction. “It’s… yeah,” he muttered. “Workshopping it.”

That earned him a small huff of laughter, and just like that, the tension changed. It was not gone completely, but it loosened enough to breathe around.

“Mm,” you hummed, tapping your straw against the rim of the glass. “Maybe workshop faster.”

That earned you the smallest exhale that might’ve been a laugh.

“So,” you went on, glancing at his drink. “Americano?” 

He looked down at it like he’d forgotten it existed. “Mmm.”

“Do you actually like that,” you took a sip of your own drink, “or did you panic-order?”

Dex hesitated, but decided against lying. “Panic-order.”

You grinned. “Thought so.”

“Yours?” he asked, nodding toward your cup.

“Iced latte. Always.”

He nodded once, filing it away without thinking. “Predictable,” he said.

“Consistent,” you corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.” Your smile tugged a little wider, and for a second, it made your whole face look gentle in a way that didn’t match anything he’d read.

The conversation after that was not awkward, even as it came in uneven starts. You both drifted out half-finished sentences, small corrections, circling around what you weren’t saying more than what you were. But eventually, it found a rhythm. 

You talked about nothing, mostly. The weather again, somehow. The park. The café. You made an offhand comment about the coffee being great here but the pastries were better two blocks over, and Dex filed that away without meaning to. He asked a question that sounded almost normal, and you answered it like it was. 

For some reason, he could not bring himself to ask about intel. Still, neither of you got up as time stretched right before your eyes. 

“Okay,” you said after a moment, glancing at your drink, then back at him. “For the record, this is the weirdest coffee I’ve had in a while.”

“Same,” he said.

“And I’ve had coffee in worse places.”

“Same.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, amused. “You’re just copying me now.”

There was that pause again. This time, neither of you rushed to fill it. 

You checked your phone briefly, then sighed, like you didn’t actually want to say what came next. “I should probably…” you started, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “…go.”

Dex nodded immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

You stood, grabbing your jacket, then hesitated just slightly. You looked at him, like you were weighing your options, then reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. “Give me your number.”

Dex tilted his head. “…What?”

You held it out, unfazed. “In case you decide to bump into me again,” you said. “Might as well schedule it next time.”

He stared at you for a second, like he was trying to find an explanation, a reason not to… 

Then he took the phone.

“Right,” he nodded. “Yeah.”

He put it in and handed it back. After all, he had convinced himself that it was just so he could get the intel he was supposed to do today.

“See you around, Dex Not Tony.” 

“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “See you.”

You turned, heading for the door. The bell chimed again as you left.

Dex stayed where he was for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space you’d just occupied, the echo of your laugh still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.

Something about that had gone very, very wrong. Or very right

—

That night, Dex had trouble sleeping.

The apartment was too quiet, the city noise bleeding faintly through the windows, the weight of the day sitting wrong in his chest. He laid there for a while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in fragments: your voice, your eyes, the way none of it lined up with the file. Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep at all. 

He sat up, reached for the notebook on his nightstand, and flipped it open. The logs he had on you were already there: Times, routes, and observations.

He stared at it for a moment, pen hovering. Then he added a new line, pressing just slightly harder than necessary: 

Likes iced lattes

—

Two days later, Dex’s phone buzzed.

He didn’t get messages he wanted to open. He didn’t need another contract— he got his hands full as is. So for a second, he just stared at it from across the room, letting it vibrate once. Unknown number.

His jaw tightened before he picked it up and unlocked it.

There was a photo of a newspaper, slightly crumpled, held down by what looked like your hand. The headline was clear enough:

THREE ANTI-VIGANTE TASK FORCE AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY

Below it, you had texted: 

is this you?

Dex stared at the screen, figuring out exactly who it was. He read it again, trying to wrap his mind around this. His thumb hovered over the keyboard.

You knew. Or you suspected. Or you were testing him. All three were problems.

Dex exhaled slowly through his nose and typed.

Dex: no. Why would you think that?

He was lying, but then again, he was the one who’s supposed to do the interrogation here. It would be stupid to give anything away. 

He hit send before he could overthink it. Three dots appeared almost immediately.

You: just thought I’d ask

Dex frowned. That was it? No pushback? No follow-up? Did you not think he was interesting enough? 

Dex: You just ask people that? “hey did you kill three people”?

There was a pause this time. Dex found himself watching the screen, shoulders slightly tense without realizing it.

You: not usually, but you don’t usually “accidentally” run into me either so

Dex’s grip on the phone tightened just a fraction.

Right. You weren’t letting that go. Dex: I said I’ve seen you around.

He only had to wait a few seconds 

You: sure

He could hear the tone in it. That same almost-amused voice from the café. Not hostile, but curious. Dex leaned back against the wall, phone still in his hand, mind already thinking about what you knew, what you were pretending not to know.

You sent another message before he could respond.

You: also for the record, if it was you, I know you’d say no anyway

Dex managed a smile.

Dex: Probably.

You texted back just as quickly

You: so I’m choosing to believe you 🙂 You: congrats

He huffed, a dry laugh catching in his throat. This was… strange.

You weren’t pushing. You weren’t backing off either. You were just… there, talking to him like this was normal.

Dex stared at the screen for a moment longer, then typed again. 

Dex: Why’d you actually text me?

The typing bubble came and went once. Then, it stayed.

You: because I wanted to You: ??? You: do I need a better reason than that

Dex frowned slightly. That answer didn’t fit neatly anywhere that his brain could  categorize, 

Dex: People usually have reasons.

This time your reply took longer. Long enough that Dex caught himself rereading the earlier messages, analyzing tone, punctuation, timing, looking for something he might’ve missed.

You: okay, fine You: I was bored You: and you’re interesting You: better?

Dex froze.

Interesting. Was that what you thought of him?

Dex: You don’t seem like you get bored.

He could almost picture you rolling your eyes 

You: wow. you are a fan

He stared at the screen for a second, then forced himself to snap back into place. 

You were a target, he had to remind himself. Nothing more. He needed intel to pay rent, and he could only get that after he eliminated you, so… 

Dex: if you’re bored, we could go on another date

He hit send and immediately had what did you just do moment. This wasn’t part of the job. This wasn’t… date wasn’t the word he should’ve used. 

The typing bubble popped up, disappeared, and came back within three seconds. 

You: is that what that was the first time? a date??

Dex blinked.

“…No,” he muttered under his breath, already typing.

No. It was—

He stopped. What was it?

Dex: maybe?

That was all he could send. Oh, he was never playing spy after this job was done. Not ever again.

You: right You: with a guy who “sees me around”  You: very normal

Dex pressed his lips together.

Dex: Do you want to go or not?

During the wait, Dex felt something unfamiliar settle in his stomach. It was something he could only describe as butterflies. 

You: yeah sure 

His grip on the phone loosened slightly.

You: same place? or are you gonna “accidentally” run into me again?

Dex huffed.

Dex: how about the pastry place you were talking about? 

Oh so now he was paying attention to your recommendations?

You: okay. Friday?

The only thing he had on his calendar was killing task force, and that could wait, so… 

Dex: Friday works.

He tapped on his phone screen, anxiously waiting for confirmation.

You: cool You: try not to kill anyone before then. It ruins the vibe

Dex stared at that one for a second.

Dex: No promises.

There was no reply after that.

That night, in his notebook, he wrote another thing about you:

Initiates contact.

—

The second date felt different before it even started.

You were standing at the counter of the bakery when he saw you, pointing at something in the display case, smiling at the cashier like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Hey, Dex.” 

You ended up at a small table by the window, a couple of plates between you. A flaky and golden croissant, a banana-flavoured donut-like dessert dusted in powdered sugar (his choice), a molten-in-the-middle pain au chocolate, and one with custard that looked like it might fall apart if you breathed too hard near it.

Adorably, he knew you had picked too many things. Dex didn’t comment on it, but he noticed then, how you pointed without overthinking, how you changed your mind halfway through, how you added one more at the last second “just in case.”

It felt indulgent in a small, contained way. Like this was the only thing you let yourself have. 

The plate between you looked excessive now, but you nudged it toward him anyway.

“Try that one,” you said, already reaching for another.

Dex picked it up without arguing. It was… good, but he didn’t say that out loud.

You watched his face anyway, like you were waiting for the reaction.

“It’s fine,” he said.

You snorted. “Liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Don’t pretend it’s just fine,” you rolled your eyes, though you had said it with your mouth full, so it sounded more like downt pwetend it's jusft fwine.

“I’m not pretending.”

“You are.”

He hesitated, then let you win this one. “It is good,” he admitted begrudgingly.

“There it is.”

The conversation slipped into place easily after that. It was not smooth, but it didn’t catch as often. You didn’t circle each other as much. You just… talked.

You even went on for a good fifteen minutes about watching a squirrel in the park yesterday. You said something about how it would grab something, run halfway up the tree, stop, look around like it forgot what it was doing, then go back down and start over. You went on saying, it did this, like, five times, I think it lost the nut at some point but just committed to the bit.

Dex was surprised a former Red Room operative would even concern herself with things as trivial as a little rodent. He was even more surprised that he let you go on and on about it. It was as if he liked listening to you, no matter what you said. 

You reached for the sweeter pastry next, taking a bite, and Dex’s eyes automatically tracking the movement. A small smear of custard caught at the corner of your lip.

You didn’t notice. You kept talking, mid-sentence about the squirrel again, something about it being “committed to chaos, like hoarding random park objects were its hobby,” and—

Dex raised his hand before he could stop it.  “Hold on,” he said, almost a whisper.

You paused. “what…”

His thumb brushied lightly at the corner of your mouth, wiping the custard away, before licking the liquid off on his own tongue. The contact was brief and altogether too gentle for a man like him. For a second, neither of you moved.

His hand dropped back to the table. “You had…” he gestured vaguely. “Custard.”

“Oh.” You blinked once, then let out a small, surprised laugh. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Dex looked down at his hands. That felt… Unfamiliar.

He didn’t know when the last time he’d done something like that was. He didn’t know when the last time he’d wanted to.

There was this strange warmth sitting in his chest now, almost weightless. He didn’t even have a name for it.

And while he wasn’t sure he liked that, he definitely didn’t hate it.

You were the one to break the silence, coughing awkwardly like you couldn’t stand another second of silence. 

“Ummm speaking of hobbies?” you echoed, wiping your mouth just in case. “You… don’t strike me as a hobbies person.”

“I had some,” he said, easing back into the chair. Thank fuck you could carry the conversation for the both of them, because his brain had just fully stalled. 

“Past tense is concerning.” You leaned forward just a little. “What, like, knitting?”

“No.”

“Scrapbooking?”

“No.”

“Be honest,” you taunted, “I can see it.”

He almost smiled, and looked down when he said it. “Baseball.”

You paused, then nodded, like that made perfect sense.

“Yeah, I can see that,” you said, then added casually, “I used to do ballet.”

Dex blinked. He looked at you differently now. like he was trying to fit that into everything else he knew. “Oh,” he managed to say.

You shrugged. “Standard Red Room stuff.”

Dex’s posture shifted slightly, attention narrowing. 

Oh, this was it. This was what he came for. This was the thread he needed. This was the confirmation that you had been trained in HQ, right? If you had survived it, then there were doors inside you that led back to places he couldn’t access any other way. 

These were not guesses, not patterns he had to infer from distance, but direct proximity to the Red Room itself, to its methods, its remnants, its current reach. He just needed to keep you talking, keep you close, long enough to pull it apart piece by piece. So he asked, “What does that mean?”

You froze, as if a flash of memories ran through the back of your eyes. Then shook your head once. “Mm—nope.”

“What?”

“Not here,” you said lightly, but there was an immovable conviction underneath it now. “I’m not getting into that here.”

Dex watched you as held his hazel eyes. Then, just as quickly, you leaned forward, resting your chin lightly against your hand, expression shifting back from dark to a lighter tone. “Come by my place on Saturday,” you said, like it had just occurred to you. “We’ll call it our third date.”

Dex blinked. “What?”

You shrugged, completely unfazed. “If you’re really curious,” you added, a small tilt to your head. “There’s… fewer people.”

He stared at you, his eyes empty and calculating at the saw time, fingers anxiously tapping the underside of the table. This was… this was not in the plan. This was not one of his controlled outcomes. This was not…

“Okay,” he said anyway. The answer seemed to have left his mouth before he fully processed it.

“Okay,” you echoed.

And somewhere between the pastries, coffee, and conversation, he realized, a little too late… 

This doesn’t feel like a job.

—

Dex had expected a decoy. A secondary location, maybe a shell apartment. He was expecting something stripped down and impersonal, designed to be burned the second it was compromised.

Not this. Not the exact place he had already mapped out in his notebook.

So yeah, you had given him your real address.

For just a second, he wondered if this was the play. If you knew how much he knew. If this was some test he hadn’t caught onto yet.

The building was exactly what he expected. It was a high-end high rise. The doorman glanced at him once, then nodded like he’d already been cleared.

“You’re expected,” he said simply.

Dex didn’t respond, already moving past him. The elevator took him straight up.

By the time he reached your door, he had an uneasy feeling in his chest. Was this… a trap? 

He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.

“Hi,” you said.

Dex opened his mouth to respond, but you interrupted his train of thoughts by pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, right at the scar.

Dex froze. By the time you pulled back, his brain still hadn’t caught up.

You smiled like nothing had happened, stepping aside to let him in. “Come in.”

He couldn’t find words to say, because apparently, his brain was on pause now.

Still, Dex stayed half a step behind you as you pushed the door open, his eyes already scanning past your shoulder and realised…

The place was… expensive.

Not in a loud, gaudy way. You had no gold fixtures or ridiculous statement pieces. It was intentional. It had floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far wall with a view that swallowed half the city. It had two bedrooms, if he researched it right.

“How…” he started, then cut himself off. What he meant to say was, how can you afford this? But decided against it. 

You didn’t seem to notice. “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, already shrugging off your jacket and tossing it onto a chair like it wasn’t worth more than half the furniture in his apartment. “I just need the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

And just like that, you disappeared.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, processing everything. 

You lived here. And not as a cover, not temporarily. There were no signs of rotation, no packed bags, no readiness to leave at a moment’s notice.

“That’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Or reckless. Or you were just arrogant to a fault. Maybe you just didn’t think anyone could touch you.

Dex stood still for a second, listening to the water running. He heard the slightly delayed pipes and realised you weren’t rushing. Good.

His eyes tracked the room the way they always did, scanning for inconsistencies. He didn’t try to look for what was there, but what didn’t belong. Because people like you didn’t leave things out.

Which meant if anything existed, it would be hidden. His gaze slowed down and shifted… There. A section of the wall paneling near the shelving was barely misaligned. It was not enough for anyone else to clock, but Dex didn’t miss patterns like that.

He stepped closer, fingers brushing lightly over the seam. There must be a pressure point. Eventually the panel gave just enough of a click to confirm it. Dex didn’t hesitate before easing it open.

Inside was a compact hidden compartment.

The first thing he saw was a keycard, worn at the edges. The insignia was barely visible, but he didn’t need it to be clear. He knew what it was the second he saw it: Hydra.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

Red Room had a historical overlap with Hydra. Old, but not irrelevant.

It surely was a small enough thing that you wouldn’t miss it, right?

He pocketed it and moved on to the only other thing hidden in the panel: Documents. It wasn’t exactly a full archive, but it was enough.

He flipped through them, scanning fast. Inside were names of Red Room operatives. The dead ones were labeled. He assumed the ones who didn’t have a red Xs on their files were still active. 

You had annotated them too, with locations, partial intel, and movement patterns.

This was the kind of access people killed for.

His thumb moved, grabbing his phone. He flipped through quickly, taking a picture of each page, each note, each annotation. He made sure, of course, that it was legible.

This was high-level access, closer than anything he’d gotten from a distance. This… This was the job.

Then he heard the sound of water shutting off.

Shit. Dex froze. Then, he moved. He closed the folder immediately, sliding it back in.

Everything went back exactly as it was, the panel sealed until the seam disappeared into the wall again like it had never existed. By the time you stepped back into the room, he was already on the couch.

“Sorry,” you said, drying your hands casually, completely unbothered. “That took longer than I thought.”

Dex looked up at you. There was a split second, where something in his expression didn’t line up. The. it was gone.

“You’re fine,” he said evenly.

You nodded, like that settled it, and stepped closer. You dropped down onto the couch beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his, as if this was normal. As if he wasn’t here to dismantle you piece by piece. He didn’t even realise that you had a bottle of wine and two glasses on your hand. 

You leaned back slightly, turning your head toward him, “…So,” you said, more direct. “What do you want to know?”

—

It can’t be this easy right? Dex thought. 

Turns out, it was. 

Which was weird, because people like you didn’t just… hand things over. So either this was the cleanest setup he’d ever walked into, or you really didn’t think he was a threat. Neither option sat right with him. 

His fingers flexed slightly against his knee as he watched you pour two glasses of red. You handed one to him, and Dex took it quickly. “Thanks,” he said, smaller than usual.

He didn’t even usually drink anymore. He turned the stem slightly between his fingers, watching the liquid catch the light. For a brief second, his mind did what it always did: it ran through possibilities. 

It might be a sedative. It could be poison. He could handle most of that, maybe. And if he couldn’t…  Well.

He huffed quietly to himself. What the hell.

Dex took a sip. It burned a little on the way down. Not unusual, just normal wine. 

The first sign that it wasn’t poison was that you were drinking it, too. The second sign was that you didn’t react; you didn’t watch him like you were waiting for something to happen. You just leaned back into the couch and tucked your leg under yourself.

It was cute, Dex thought. You looked like a bird, nesting. He liked it.

Then, he took a deep breath and started asking questions. At first, it was light, like where did you grow up? Where were you trained?

You answered, and you sounded detached for the first couple of sentences. It was as if you were testing the limits and throwing pieces out to see what stuck.

But when the alcohol kicked in and your cheeks turned rosy pink, you spoke more candidly. About the Red Room. About being taken. About being trained.

Even Dex, who was starting to feel more bubbly, didn’t interrupt.

At first, he listened like he always did. He filtered, sorted, and pulled out what mattered. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Because you started giving less intel and more… context.

“You don’t really realize it when you’re in it,” you said, staring into your glass like the answer might be somewhere at the bottom. “It just feels normal. Like this is what life is supposed to be. You don’t question it because there’s nothing else to compare it to.”

Dex’s grip tightened slightly, and you kept going.

“They don’t just train you. They… build you. Strip everything out first. Then put back only what they need.” You gave him a small laugh.“Honestly? It’s basically a cult. You have no idea what it’s like to be manipulated like that.”

Dex looked down, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

You glanced at him then, and your eyes shifted. You were not shocked at all, but you recognised it as well as you would recognise kin. “Oh,” you looked down. “Right.”

Dex poured himself another glass without thinking. You kept talking, but slower now. It was less like you were explaining, more like you were… unloading. Like you didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

That’s when it clicked: This must not be a trap or a strategy, he concluded, because the reason you were telling him all of this on a third date was… because, like him, you had no one else.

You might have neighbors, maybe even actual friends. But surely, you had no one else who could possibly understand you the way he did, because who else could you possibly know in this line of work? 

That was why you decided that he was the safest place to put it.

Dex stared at the rim of his glass for a second too long. That was stupid of you. And dangerous. And—

“…And you?” you said suddenly, nudging his knee lightly with yours. “C’mon.”

He blinked, pulled back into the moment.

“If we’re trauma dumping,” you added, a crooked smile pulling at your mouth, “we might as well commit. This is probably our only chance to say it out like.” You took another sip, then shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly look like either of us go to therapy.”

Dex huffed. “Yeah,” he muttered. His brain caught up half a second later.

He shouldn’t, though, right? He shouldn’t tell you anything about him that could possibly be compromising but… The booze was getting to him. 

And, besides, what harm could trauma dumping to you be? The job ends one way: with you dead after he got all the intel. So did it really matter what you knew about him?

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling a little. 

And then, before he could stop himself, the extra bit of liquid courage bypassed his brain, and he told you everything. 

The words came out flat at first. But the more he drank, the less he cared about what he gave away and what he did not. 

You didn’t interrupt him. You just listened. And that, more than anything, kept him talking. 

At some point, the wine started to blur the edges for you, too. Your shoulders leaned closer. Your knee stayed pressed against his. Your laughter came easier as he cynically explained being in prison, and because you felt bad when you did, you gasped and covered your mouth. 

Dex didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled, the corner of his mouth warping the pronounced scar on his cheek. At one point, you tilted your head slightly, watching him with an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

“God,” you said, almost to yourself. “We’re so fucked up.”

Then, unexpectedly, you giggled. Dex, for once, cannot help but chuckle himself. 

“Yeah.” He took another sip, “You more than me,” he added, almost immediately.

Your head snapped toward him immediately. “Excuse me?”

A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Y’know,” he said, “Child soldier and all.”

You stared at him for a second, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Really?” you shot back, leaning closer, eyes narrowing in mock offense. “I’m more fucked up?”

He lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug.

You pointed at him with your glass. “Your boss broke your spine and you lived.”

Dex managed to roll his eyes. 

“You got thrown off a roof and you lived,” you continued, leaning in further now, your voice picking up energy. “Sounds like you’re pretty far from normal.”

Dex huffed again. “Didn’t say I was normal.”

“Mm,” you hummed, satisfied. You sipped again. 

The space between you closed without either of you noticing when it happened. Your knee pressed against his. Your shoulder brushed his arm. Neither of you moved away.

The wine kept going. Half a glass. Then another.Words came easier after that, less filtered, less controlled.

You interrupted each other more. You laughed more. You even talked over the ends of sentences like it didn’t matter who finished them. At some point, you were both smiling for no reason.

Dex didn’t realize when the room started to feel warmer. He didn’t realize when your voice started to blur slightly at the edges. He didn’t even realize when he stopped thinking about the job entirely. He just knew, at this point, that you were close. Really close.

And you looked… Pretty.

That was a stupid word. It was too simple. It didn’t cover the gnawing claws that were starting to take over his heart.  

But it was the only word his brain gave him. You were smiling at something (he didn’t even remember what) and it made you look… harmless. 

Dex felt a warmth shift in his chest. As unfamiliar as it was, he didn’t pull away from it. For a second, you looked at him, too.

Dex swallowed the last of the wine, mostly because it was the only distraction that could possibly take up all the space you had started to occupy in his mind.

The room had dimmed at the edges in that deceptive way alcohol always did. The lights seemed warmer. 

Dex didn’t usually get to this point. He knew that with uncomfortable clarity. He also knew he should stop.

You were sitting too close, closer than before, closer than necessary, your shoulder pressed lightly into his as if neither of you had noticed the distance shrinking over time.

Your voice had gone gentler, words starting to come in slower waves instead of quick exchanges. There was less explanation, more confession disguised as conversation. And he was doing the same, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.

Parts of him he usually kept locked down were just… loosening, one by one, without permission.

You laughed at something he said, he didn’t even remember what it was, and the sound stuck in his head longer than it should have. 

“You’re smiling,” you observed suddenly, tilting your head slightly like it was a fossil discovery.

“I’m not,” he said automatically.

You hummed, unconvinced. “You are.”

He should’ve corrected you. Instead, his eyes drifted without meaning to, down to your mouth when you spoke again. The way your words drooped at the edges when you were tired, or tipsy, or both. For the love of god, he could not get over you the way you kept licking your lip absentmindedly, like you weren’t even aware of it.

It made something in his brain go pop.

You noticed. “…What?” you asked, pouting adorably.

Dex didn’t answer right away. Because, really, there was no tactical reason for him to be looking at you like this. There was no intel angle. No extraction logic. No job framework he could hide behind.

It was just you. And him. And the space between you that didn’t feel like space anymore.

He leaned in before he could reassemble himself. He hadn’t planned on doing it. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made, really. 

It was, for lack of better word, gravity. As if he was a meteor falling into your orbit. 

For a while, you didn’t move away. 

Your breath caught in your throat, but you stayed there, watching him come closer instead of stopping it. Your eyes flicked down once, like you were considering it too.

Dex stopped just short of you. He wanted, no needed— to know you wanted it, too. 

Still, he was close enough that he could feel your breath now. Close enough that if either of you moved even a fraction—

That would be it. The line would be crossed.

You lifted your hand slowly, but you were not pushing him away. You weren’t pulling him closer, either. Your palm was hovering for a moment against his chest like you were testing whether this was real.

Dex didn’t move. Neither did you.

You exhaled. It was a small, almost reluctant sound. “…Dex,” you murmured, and his name sounded different like that. His eyes flicked to yours again.

Too close. This was way too close.

Your eyes dropped again to his mouth again, and stayed there. For a second, he could clearly see that fraction of hesitation where neither of you could pretend anymore that you weren’t thinking the same thing.

Dex leaned in that final inch… but you didn’t meet him halfway. Gently, your hand pressed into his chest.

“Mm,” you murmured softly, almost like you were trying to convince yourself this was wrong. Then you pushed him back.

“No,” you said, breath hitching slightly, but your smile was still there, playful, light. “It’s only our third date.”

Dex blinked, still a little too close, like he hadn’t fully processed the words.

You laughed under your breath, giving him a small shove to create space.

“Besides,” you added, eyes flicking down to his mouth for just a second before meeting his again, “I want you to kiss me when you’re sober.”

Oh.

He leaned back this time, letting out a deep breath. There was only one way he could describe how he felt, and that was disappointment. 

Oh, well. What else can he do?

“Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”

Still, he didn’t move far, and neither did you.

And of course, his thoughts, intrusive as they always are, decided to ruin the only tender moment he had in years.  

You have enough. Kill her. 

Honestly, he had more than enough intel on the Red Room. Even the old Hydra keycard was a welcome addition to his anonymous employer’s request. It would most definitely make up for anything else they could have possibly wanted. 

What are you waiting for? Kill her. 

It was definitely more than what that had bargained for. So yeah, he could do it now. 

He had clocked many sharp objects he could throw at you— from your vase to a cheese knife you left out on the island kitchen. He didn’t even need a gun. 

Kill her.

And no, you wouldn’t even see it coming. His fingers flexed slightly against his leg.

Kill her.

But then he made the mistake of looking at you. And from there on out, all he could think was… 

I want another date.

No. He shouldn’t want that, right?

Kill her.

He didn’t want that either. 

But… he needed the money, and you had a body count higher than the Empire State Building. Killing you would make sense right? It would help balance the scales, right?

Right? 

Would it still make sense, even after you laid your heart and soul to him? Would it still make sense, even after he realised you were brought up as an enslaved child soldier? 

Kill her. 

No, he told himself, Not yet.

I want just one more date. 

And to Dex, that was reason enough not to kill you. Yet. 

—

Dex didn’t go to rest when he got home.

The second the door shut behind him, he frowned, burying his head in his hands before pulling himself together. He had called forth the part of him that knew what to do, what this was, what it had to be.

He pulled the notebook out before he’d even taken his jacket off.

He sat down, pen moving across paper. It started the way it always did: Structured and efficient. Intel, in detail.

He wrote of the interior of your apartment; top floor, two-bedroom, open sightlines, minimal obstruction points. Entry points limited. Windows large but not easily accessible from exterior. Security: building-controlled, doorman compliant, prior clearance confirmed.

He flipped the page. He wrote about the hidden compartment: wall panel, right side of shelving unit. Pressure point activation. Contents: Hydra-era keycard, confirmed overlap with Red Room operations. Documents: active survivor list, partial intel, movement logs. Photographic evidence captured.

Another page. This was where he started writing about your routine vulnerabilities, your Behavioral patterns. Trust threshold: high. Counter-surveillance: minimal to non-existent. Open, disarming, prone to disclosure under informal conditions.

His handwriting stayed tight. 

2.5 million dollars would only come after you were dead. That would fund his makeshift crusade for years to come. It was important work he was doing, balancing the scales. 

Dex paused, just for a second. Then he kept going.

Timeline: Saturday meeting. Entry granted without resistance. Physical proximity established quickly. Target displays—

His pen slowed to a stop. It hovered there, a warmth blooming in his chest. Dex frowned slightly, staring at the page like it had changed on him.

Then, almost absentmindedly, he wrote… she kissed me on the cheek, right on the scar.

The pen froze again.

That wasn’t— He exhaled, teeth clenching. —this wasn’t important. 

But still, he crossed nothing out. He just moved on.

Target displays lowered threat perception in close proximity. Conversational drift toward—

His handwriting had changed. Not messy, just less rigid.

… her past. She smells like vanilla. not perfume. Most likely clean laundry and sugar from baking.

Dex blinked. He looked at the lines then at the rest of the page.

What the fuck.

He flipped to the next page like that would fix it.

Red wine is her favourite.

His grip on the pen tightened slightly.

He should stop. This wasn’t relevant. None of the last couple sentences was relevant. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, staring at the notebook in his lap.

He had everything he needed. He didn’t need to write anything else.

Dex scoffed quietly under his breath. Had he gone soft? 

Then, without really deciding to, he added one more line underneath it…

She laughed when she said “we’re so fucked up.”

He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Then he snapped the notebook shut.

—

The restaurant for the fourth date was nicer than most places he even bothered to go to nowadays. But if this was going to be your last meal, he might as well make it memorable.

It had soft blue lights, a low hum of voices, the whoosh of knives behind the counter. Dex noticed all of it the second he stepped in, cataloguing angles and exits, the reflective panel behind the chef that gave him a partial view of the room without turning his head.

You need to kill her today.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and followed the host to the table.

When you sat down across from him, smiling like you hadn’t just walked straight into the middle of your own funeral, the room blurred at the edges for Dex.

“Hi,” you said with a smile

Kiss her.

He blinked once, forcing his brain back into place. “Hi.”

You tilted your head slightly, studying him like you always did, like you were trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”

“I haven’t.”

“You definitely have.”

“Maybe five minutes.” That was a lie. He had been there for more than ten, cataloging what he could possibly use to finish the job.

You smiled, pleased. “Knew it.”

She’s faking it. She actually likes me. Kill her.

Dex picked up the menu just to give his hands something to do. “You’re late.”

“I’m two minutes late,” you corrected, leaning forward slightly to peek at what he was looking at instead of opening your own. “And I brought personality, so it cancels out.”

He huffed, hiding a smile. “That’s not how that works.”

“It is.” You insisted, tapping the menu. “Also, you picked sushi? I didn’t think you were a sushi person.”

“I’m not.” He immediately said. 

You blinked. “Then why…”

“Seemed efficient.” What he meant was; it’s a nice meal. You deserve a nice meal for the last day of your life. It’s efficient for him, who had an array of ceramic and silverware to kill you with.

You stared at him for a second, then broke into a grin. “You picked it based on efficiency.”

“Yes.”

“That is the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

He didn’t do either.

“You’re still here,” he pointed out instead.

“Yeah,” you said easily, settling back in your seat. “Because I actually like you.”

Liar. Kill her.

Somewhere between you stealing sushi off his plate and laughing at how aggressively he held chopsticks, you asked, almost casually, “You know anything about the ports here?” Dex paused slightly at that, eyes flicking up to yours over his glass. 

The question should’ve put him more on edge than it did, but you just looked curious, relaxed, like this was normal conversation. “Not much,” he admitted after a second. “Fisk uses them to move things through there sometimes.” 

You hummed thoughtfully, listening closely, and Dex found himself talking a little more than he probably should’ve just because you kept looking at him like that.

After a while, though, he managed to change the topic. Work was getting a little old. He found himself wanting to talk about you. “You always order too much.”

You lit up like he’d just handed you a piece of chocolate. “Oh, we’re judging now?”

“I’m observing.”

“Rude,” you said, already scanning the menu. “Also, it’s not too much, it’s strategic.”

“Strategic how?” He tilted his head, genuinely curious.

You shrugged, but there was a stillness underneath it. “You ever go hungry enough that your brain just… rewires? Like you don’t trust ‘enough’ anymore?”

Dex had never felt that way before. He wondered if you were indulgent because you had gone through missions with little food. Would you have gotten days without it, a week maybe? Your Buenos Aires mission was six days, your Lagos mission was seven days. Was it those missions?

How did you even survive? 

She’s a widow. She’s a weapon. She’s a person.

“…Yeah,” he said anyway.

Your eyes flicked up to his, and recognition passed between you. “Yeah,” you echoed. Then you nudged the menu toward him. “So I’ll over-order. It’s fine. We deserve it.”

We’re so fucked up. Kill her. Kiss her.

He nodded once. “Okay.”

You spent the next ten minutes ordering together, leaning over the table, arguing quietly over rolls like it mattered.

“Okay, this one,” you said, pointing. “We’re getting this.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It has too much…. whatever that is.”

“That is eel,” you squinted.

“Exactly,” he shrugged.

“It’s just eel,” you pointed out. “You’ve eaten weirder things.”

He paused. “That’s not the point.”

You grinned. “I have enough of an appetite for the both of us.”

Kill her. Kiss her.

“…Fine,” he said, pushing his intrusive thoughts away.

You beamed. 

By the time the food arrived, the conversation had settled. You didn’t hold back when you ate, and you never did. You leaned forward, talking between bites, pointed things out like it mattered that he experienced them properly.

“Try this,” you said, holding your chopsticks out toward him without thinking.

Dex looked at it, then at you. You didn’t even realize what he was going to do to you.

Kiss her. Kill her.

He leaned forward and took the bite. Your eyes stayed on his face, waiting.

“It’s good,” he admitted.

“I know,” you said immediately, all too pleased with yourself.

He shook his head slightly.

She’s dangerous. She could kill you. Kill her first.

You wiped a bit of sauce off your thumb absentmindedly and kept talking. “We used to have this thing—training-wise—where they’d reward you with food if you hit certain targets.”

Dex’s attention shifted immediately.

There it is. Focus.

“Targets?” he repeated.

You winced slightly. “Okay, that sounded worse out loud.”

He didn’t respond.

You laughed, a little self-aware. “I mean—it was worse. But at the time it felt like a game, you know? Like ‘hit this, get that.’ Pavlov, but with putting bullets between your classmates' eyes.”

You popped another piece into your mouth like you hadn’t just said that.

She’s a monster. She’s a victim. She’s both. Kill her.

“Do you ever miss that?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You tilted your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the question. “The food or the brainwashing?”

“Either.”

You smiled faintly. “Sometimes I miss knowing exactly what I was supposed to be.”

That…. He understood.

Kill her. Ask her about OXE. Ask her about the DODC. Kiss her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

You didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, you just nudged his foot under the table. “Hey,” you said, lighter now. “At least now we get sushi instead of, like… boiled cabbage or whatever.”

His lips formed the ghost of a smile. “I didn’t get cabbage.”

“Oh, sorry,” you deadpanned. “Did your government program have better catering?”

“No.”

You grinned. “Then you get it.”

He did. He really, really did.

You started talking about stupid things again—bad takeout, a guy you saw trying to fight a pigeon, the way you animated everything just enough to make it feel real.

Dex found himself watching your mouth when you talked.

Kiss her. Kill her. She’s faking it. She actually likes me.

He picked up his chopsticks again, turning them slightly between his fingers. These would be a good weapon to finish you off. He had calculated the angle, trajectory, and distance. He could do it from across the table. It would be clean, straight through the throat.

You wouldn’t even—

You laughed suddenly, bright and unguarded, and it snapped the thought clean in half.

“Earth to Dex?”

He blinked, refocusing on the world around him. 

You were looking at him like you’d caught his mind somewhere far away.

“What?” he said.

“You spaced out,” you said, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That was intense. Should I be concerned?”

Kill her. Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

“No,” he said, coughing a little

You leaned forward slightly, studying him. “You do that a lot. Go somewhere else.”

He held your stare, feeling like an utter fucking coward. “I’m here,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.

Your eyes softened. After that, you kept talking, and he kept listening, but the thoughts didn’t stop.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed for corrupt governments. She’s taken down entire networks. She could kill you. Kill her. Kiss her.

He watched the way your fingers curled around your glass, the way you leaned closer when you got excited about a topic, the way your voice softened when you cared. 

He imagined reaching across the table, but this time not to put a piece of cutlery through your windpipe.

Instead, he imagined reaching out with his hand, touching your wrist. He imagined pulling you closer, kissing you.

—

When the bill landed between you, Dex felt his chest pulled tight, like a thread being yanked too hard. 

His hand moved first, grabbing it before you could even look properly. “I’ve got it,” he said, but it came out quieter than he meant, like the words had to push past thorns  lodged in his throat. You started to protest, but he cut in, “I want to.” 

That part slipped out, honest in a way he didn’t like. His fingers fumbled just slightly as he pulled his card out, a barely-there tremor that shouldn’t exist in a man like him, and he focused hard on the motion—insert, wait, sign—because that was simple, and that was something he understood. 

Kill her.

He could do it after this. He would. After all, that was the plan. But when he glanced up, you were watching him. and it threw everything off balance in a way that made his chest feel too full.

His thoughts only sped up after that. 

Kill her. She needs to go. She’s a monster. She’s a widow. She’s a fucking Black Widow. She could kill you. Kill her. She’s faking it. She’s dangerous.

He signed the receipt, but his grip was wrong. It was too tight, the paper crinkling under his thumb. When he set the pen down, his eyes betrayed him. They dropped to your mouth without permission. 

It wasn't strategic. It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct, human and stupid all the same.  

He imagined leaning forward instead of walking away, closing the distance instead of planning your doom, your lips against his instead of blood on his hands.

Focus.

His breath caught, and he looked away like that would fix it, like he could force himself back into the job he was supposed to do. 

He needed to do it. Now. Outside. 

He slipped a metal chopstick into his pocket. 

But the idea of ending it before he knew what your lips taste like made him recoil.

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Kill her. She’s a bad person. She’s dangerous. She’s so fucking pretty. She actually likes you. Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

He stood too quickly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor, and reached for his jacket like movement might help ground him. It didn’t. You stood too, close enough that your arm brushed his.

He could still do it but his eyes betrayed him again, flicking to your lips like he was starving for something he didn’t deserve.

The realization hit all at once: he didn’t want to kill you before he kissed you. 

He needed that first. Just once. 

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. You looked up at him, surprised. When you said “Okay,” it didn’t make anything easier. It just gave him more time to ruin himself, one step at a time, chasing something he shouldn’t want before he did what he came here to do.

Kiss her. Then kill her.

—

The street outside your building felt eerily quiet, like the world had thinned down to just the two of you and the glow of the lobby lights behind glass. The doorman had the day off, you mentioned. There were no footsteps. No interruptions. 

Good. No witnesses.

Dex barely registered the thought this time. It flickered and passed, swallowed immediately by the thundering anxiety brewing in his mind.

Kill her.

“Hey,” you said. It was absurd, really, how shy you sounded.

He gulped. “Hey.”

His heart melted when a smile tugged at your mouth.

“I think,” you started, stepping just a little closer, your voice lowering like it was meant only for him, “you earned it.”

Dex didn’t get to ask what that meant, because you stepped in, closing that last inch of space like it meant nothing, and your lips met his…and everything in him just gave way.

His hand dropped from his pocket instantly, the weapon forgotten as his fingers caught your waist instead, pulling you closer like he was afraid you’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was only warm for half a second before it deepened, before he leaned into it with a careful urgency that didn’t belong to him.

Kiss her like you mean it.  

When you pulled back slightly, just to breathe, just to smile that pleased smile that made your whole face light up, he followed. He actually chased your lips, closing the distance again before you could get far, like he couldn’t stand the idea of it ending already. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing your jaw, tilting your face just enough to kiss you again. It was slower this time but no less hungry, like he was trying to memorize it.

You tasted… fuck! Sweet.

His brain latched onto it immediately, irrational and completely useless: Strawberries and cream. Probably lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to Dex. 

Kiss her like you fucking mean it. 

He smiled into it. It felt wrong on him, but he couldn’t stop it, not when you leaned into him like that, not when your fingers curled into his jacket like you wanted him just as much.

Kill her.

The thought slammed back in hard enough to almost make him flinch. His hand paused at your side. He knew the metal chopstick was still in his pocket.

Do it now.

He could, theoretically.  You were right there. You were more than close enough. More importantly, you were trusting enough.

One movement, and you would be dead. He would cradle your lifeless body in your arms and the last thing you would ever do was… kiss him. 

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hazily when you finally pulled back, your voice carrying the echo of the kiss.

Dex froze.

You were smiling at him. You were not suspicious or guarded. You were just…  hopeful. And all he could think about was the way you’d kissed him. The way you’d let him.

Kill her.

His fingers curled in his pocket, brushing the metal again. He imagined it: a quick thrust, handled efficiently…

No. Not like that. I can’t kill her like that.

It was too slow, too messy. You’d bleed. You’d feel it. You’d die a slow, painful death…

She didn’t deserve that.

That was it. That was his excuse this time.

You deserved to die a quick, painless death. Maybe a shot in the back of the head when you weren’t looking. Just… bang! 

His chest ached at the thought. He was still leaning toward you, like part of him hadn’t caught up yet, like he might kiss you again if you gave him half a second more.

“I—yeah,” he said, voice, rougher around the edges. “You will.”

You smiled like that was enough. Like he hadn’t just made a decision that should’ve gone the other way.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to memorize you again. He thought about your mouth, your eyes. the way you were still a little flushed… Then he stepped back, because if he didn’t—

Kiss her.

He almost did.

Instead, he let you go. And when he got home, all he wrote in the notebook was:

She tastes like strawberries and cream. 

—

The park on a Sunday felt too bright for what Dex had come to do.

Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, the grass warm and uneven beneath the blanket he had brought.

It was your idea, “a picnic!” said so casually over the phone, like it was something people like you did, like it didn’t involve him sitting across from you with a gun tucked under his shirt, pressed against his side like a second heartbeat.

He’d decided before he even got there, that today, he was going to kill you.

It ends today. Kill her.

Then you showed up. And the world tilted for him.

You were wearing a sundress that moved with you when you walked. It wasn’t tactical, it wasn’t anything like the person he’d read about in that file. You looked… beautiful.

Kill her.

He swallowed it down. “You look…” he started, then stopped, like the word wouldn’t come out right.

You tilted your head, smiling. “What?”

His eyes dragged over you again before he could stop himself. “Nice,” he settled on.

It was insufficient. He knew it.

You laughed anyway, pleased, like you hadn’t just undone him.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a weapon.

He swallowed, hard, forcing himself to look away, to move, to do something before he stood there staring like an idiot. He dropped down onto the blanket he’d set up, hands already busy unpacking what he’d brought.

You noticed immediately. “You brought strawberries and cream?” You asked in disbelief. 

Dex shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t thought about it too much. “You like sweet things.”

You went quiet for a second. “I…” you started, “I do.”

He didn’t look at you. If he did, he’d…

Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

You sat across from him, smoothing your dress under your legs, and that was so normal it made his chest ache.

For a while it was just conversation, the kind that didn’t feel like work. You started with small things, normal things. Then, maybe out of morbid curiosity, you asked him about Fisk, almost casually, like it was something you were only half-remembering. Dex hesitated before answering, more out of instinct than suspicion.

Red Hook came up next, and that made him pause longer, because it wasn’t the kind of thing people usually asked about in passing. Still, he gave you what he had, watching you the whole time for a reaction that never really came. You just nodded along like it made sense to be talking about it like this, and that made him talk more than he should have.

But how could he focus on any of that when his mind…

Shoot her in the head.

“I’ve never done this before,” you said after a moment, glancing around. “A picnic, I mean.”

That caught Dex off guard. “What?”

You huffed a small laugh, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Not like this, anyway.” You picked at the edge of the blanket. “We used to pretend, though. In the Red Room.”

You said it so lightly. Like it wasn’t something that should gut him. “In the basement of the facility I was raised in,” you went on. “Some of the girls would lay out scraps of cloth, call it grass.” You smiled, but it was fragile. “We’d share whatever we could steal from the kitchen and pretend it was… nice.”

Dex stared at you.

Kill her. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed people. She’s—

“You deserved better,” he said.

You looked up at him, surprised. Then you smiled. “Yeah,” you said, after a second of consideration. “I think so too.”

Make it quick, coward.

He grabbed a strawberry just to have something to do with his hands, dipped it into the cream, and held it out toward you. It was an imitation of what you had done with sushi the other night. 

You chuckled, then leaned forward, taking it gently, your lips brushing his fingers just slightly.

Kiss her.

He watched you bite into it, watched the way your mouth curved, the way your eyes closed like you were enjoying it. Cream caught at the edge of your lips, but you didn’t notice. And that was it.

Kiss her. Indulge.

He leaned in because he couldn’t help it. He did it slowly, like he was giving you time to stop him.

You didn’t.

Your lips met his, and it was not rushed, not desperate like before. His hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he tilted your face slightly, deepening it just enough to feel you respond, just enough to feel you lean into him.

You don’t deserve her. Kill her. Get it over with. 

His chest tightened painfully as he pulled back, breathing uneven, forehead almost brushing yours.

You smiled at him, a little dazed, and he knew. He couldn’t do it here. Not like this.

He leaned back fully, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to put himself back together. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.

You tilted your head. “What?”

He looked at you again, and felt his heart break in real time. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said.

You were now confused and a little unsure. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said immediately, more panicked than he meant to. “No. It’s not that.”

Kill her. Do it right.

He let out a deep breath. “Come back to mine,” he said.

Fucking coward. What are you waiting for?  She’s a terrible person. She’s killed more people than you. 

Your brows lifted slightly. “Your place?”

He nodded once.

If he did it there, it would be quiet. He would still make it quick and painless. And afterwards… he could mourn you in peace. He could hold your body as he cried into your neck. And maybe, some part of you would stay with him forever. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice smaller now. “I just… want more time with you.”

That part wasn’t a lie.

You studied him for a second, then you smiled the same trusting smile. “Okay,” you said.

And just like that, you followed him home.

—

The walk should have been simple. It was a straight line, a familiar route, nothing Dex hadn’t done a hundred times before without thinking. 

But inside his head, his thoughts were deafening.

Kill her.

It wasn’t a thought anymore. It was a command, pressing in from all sides until it felt like it might split him open from the inside.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s lying. She’s done this before. You know what she is.

His jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he kept walking, forcing his steps to stay even. You were beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his every few strides, like you hadn’t noticed the tension winding tighter and tighter in him.

Kill her. Do it before she does it first.

The words didn’t fade after they came anymore. They repeated, layered and stacked on top of each other until they stopped sounding like language and started sounding like pressure.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

But then, another voice cut through.

Kiss her.

It didn’t argue. It pulled.

Kiss her again. Don’t let this end. She chose you. She’s still here.

His breath hitched slightly, chest tightening as the two sides collided, over and over, faster now, louder now, until there was no space between them.

Kill her. Kiss her. KILL HER. KISS HER.

It built and built, escalating into unbearable noise. They clawed and scraped and demanded all at once. His fingers twitched at his side, curling slightly like they were reaching for an answer, like his body was trying to decide for him.

One pull of the trigger. That’s all it would take, that’s—

Then, he felt your hand slip into his.

And for the first time in a long time, his brain was… quiet. 

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t forceful. It was almost tentative at first, how your fingers trace his thumb lightly before settling into his palm like you’d done it a thousand times before. Like you hadn’t even considered that you shouldn’t.

Dex stopped breathing. His step faltered, just slightly, like his body didn’t quite know how to move without the noise driving it forward.

The commands that had been screaming seconds ago, the overlapping voices, the relentless pressure…they just ceased. As if you had reached inside his head and flipped a switch.

Dex stood there for half a second too long. His mind, which had been a constant storm of instruction and contradiction, felt… clear.

His fingers closed around yours slowly, almost cautiously, like he was afraid the moment would shatter.

You didn’t pull away. You didn’t even hesitate. You just… walked with him. 

And the quiet stayed. Step after step, it stayed.

By the time you reached his building, a fact had already settled into place inside his chest. He didn’t have to argue with himself about it. There was no internal debate, no weighing of outcomes or consequences.

He just knew he wasn’t going to kill you anymore.

Not tonight. Not later. Not at all.

Good person be damned. Bad person be damned. Rent be fucking damned. Whatever fragile system he’d built to justify what he did, none of it held any weight here, not anymore.

He wasn’t looking for redemption, and he wasn’t chasing some shallow kind of bliss that killing you might give him. That had never really been the point, no matter how many times he told himself it was. He just wanted you.

And it was a primal, wild want. 

He wanted your mouth on his again. He just wanted you to kiss him deeply and show him everything he’d missed, everything he’d never been given.

Dex slowed as he reached his door, keys already in his hand, but he didn’t unlock it right away. Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your fingers were still threaded with his. Then he looked at you. And there was nothing in his head telling him what to do anymore.

His thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles, a small, almost absent motion, before he finally unlocked the door. “Come in.”

—

His apartment was nothing like yours. In was just one open space, a bed pushed too close to the wall, a kitchen that barely separated itself from the rest of the room. No personality, no indulgence other than you. 

You didn’t say anything, though. No teasing comment, no subtle comparison, just that same acceptance you always gave him, like this was enough. Like he was enough.

Dex barely gave you time to take it in. The second the door shut behind you, he lost any semblance of restraint. 

His hand caught your waist and pulled you into him, his mouth crashing against yours with a kind of hunger that didn’t belong to a man who was ever in control. The kiss was messy, as if he was trying to take something he didn’t know how to ask for.

You gasped against him, your hands coming up to his chest, then his shoulders, leveling him and undoing him all at once. 

He walked you backward without breaking contact. One step, then another, until the back of your knees hit the bed and you fell onto it with. He followed instantly, like space between you was unbearable.

His hands were everywhere, your neck, your sides, your thigh, like he needed to confirm you were real, that you were still here, that you hadn’t disappeared the second he let himself want you this much. And then you felt him shudder just a bit, shoulder shaking. 

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your breath uneven, your hands coming up to his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones.

“Dex?” you whispered, concern threading through everything. “What’s wrong? ”

“Nothing,” he insisted, almost defensive. “Nothing.”

But his eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard, like he was trying to force it down, trying to push it away before you could see it. After all, he didn’t know how to explain it.

How would he even begin to explain that you made his head quiet? That just being near you feels like something he’s never had before? That he doesn’t know what this is, but it’s too much and not enough at the same time?

“I’m fine,” he added, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.

You said his name again, gentler this time. 

And that was it. That was the last thing holding him together.

“I wanna taste you,” he said honestly, almost reverently. 

You were caught slightly off guard. A small, breathy laugh escaped you. “You’ve kissed me before.”

But he shook his head, his big hands already frantically bunching the fabric of your sundress with an urgency that didn’t feel casual anymore. It felt like a need. Like an instinct he couldn’t hold back even if he tried. One hand gripped on your ass as the other hooked on the waistband of your panties, tugging it down desperately.

“No,” he said, voice deeper now. “I want to taste you.”

Oh.

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop him. You didn’t pull away. You let him move closer, let him guide you, let him fall on his knees like he was praying to a goddess in the altar of an ancient temple. You let him take that space between your legs as he wondered how much sweeter you could get. 

Here, he could at least pretend that he hadn’t been thinking about killing you not that long ago.

Dex sank lower, slower now, like he was trying to learn you, not take from you. His hands steadied himself against your thighs, his forehead dipping for just a second like he needed to breathe you in. He felt… wrecked.

His breath hitched softly as he leaned closer, the space between your heat and him shrinking until there was almost nothing left and then—

click.

It was quiet, but unmistakably the sound of safety coming off. 

Every instinct he had lit up at once, snapping back into place so violently it almost hurt. His body froze, breath catching.

He lifted his head slowly. And there you were, with a gun pointed at his head.

It was small, and easy to hide, the red room insignia etched to the side. You probably pulled from that little purse you always carried like it was just an accessory.

Of course.

Dex didn’t reach for anything. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to put space between you. He just… looked at you.

And instead of anger, his chest folded in on itself. What he felt was closer to heartbreak than it was rage. Because for one stupid, moment he had naively believed you felt safe with him.

“…Oh,” he said softly.

The gun wasn’t the most horrifying part. It was the fact that even now, even with the metallic click of the safety still ringing in his ears, even with death staring him directly in the face, Dex could not stop looking at you.

You were sprawled beneath him on his bed, dress dragged up your thighs by his own hands, your breathing still uneven from the way he had kissed you seconds earlier. Your lips were swollen and puffy. Your chest rose and fell too quickly. One of your sandal straps hung loose around your ankle where he’d nearly pulled you apart getting you onto the mattress. And somehow… he still wanted you so badly it physically hurt.

How could he be this fucking stupid?

He should’ve known. Especially with questions about Red Hook. The ports. Fisk. That was why you kept asking.

Every little question over food and coffee and pastries. Every casual mention between laughter. Every moment he thought you were trying to know him better—

No. You were working. Just like him.

Your employer wanted information, and you had been sent to pull it out of him piece by piece while he sat there completely fucking mesmerized by you.

And now you had what they needed. Or maybe they realised he didn’t know enough to be valuable. That was worse, because it meant that he was just another loose end.

His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Not because you’d played him, because some pathetic, starving part of him had genuinely believed this had stopped being a job somewhere along the way. That maybe the way you kissed him outside your building had been real. That maybe when you held his hand and silenced every screaming voice in his head, it had meant something to you too.

Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

It you had looked cold, detached, amused, even cruel, this would have been easier. He would have known where to put it. Would have known how to hate you properly. But you looked devastated.

Your hand trembled slightly around the weapon pointed at him, and your eyes kept betraying you, flicking down to his mouth before snapping back up again. You looked like you hated this.

“I…” You swallowed. “You’re not useful to OXE anymore.”

He had known something felt off. He just hadn’t cared enough to stop. He just wanted you more than he wanted to survive.

Dex let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like laughter. “Fuck,” he murmured softly, and you twitched, feeling his breath on your naked core. 

You flinched immediately. “No. Don’t do that.”

His eyes flicked back to yours.

“Don’t act like this was just me manipulating you,” you said, and your voice cracked slightly now. “I know there was a contract on me. I know you got sent it. I know about the gun under your shirt. Don’t you dare pretend like you weren’t planning to kill me too.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Because what could he even say? You were right.

The notebook was sitting in his apartment right now, pages and pages documenting your routines, your apartment, your vulnerabilities.

He had memorized the ways to kill you before he ever memorized the sound of your laugh.

And all this time, you had let him follow you, let him think he was in control in that “accidental run in” in Central Park, when you were planning to eliminate him, too. 

And somehow, the two of you still ended up tangled together on his bed, half-dressed and breathing hard from kissing each other like starving people.

Dex’s gaze dropped involuntarily to your thighs, to the skin exposed beneath the ruined hem of your dress. To the way your body was still open for him despite the gun in your hand.

Fuck.

His fingers tightened unconsciously where they still gripped the fabric pooled around your hips.

You looked vulnerable.

And the absolute worst fucking part was that he still wanted to bury himself between your legs so badly he could barely think straight. Even now. Even knowing this was the end.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“You know what’s pathetic?” he asked quietly.

Your brows pulled together slightly.

Dex looked up at you from between your thighs, eyes dark and wet and unbearably earnest. “I still want to taste you.”

Your breath caught audibly.

“There’s a gun pointed at my head,” he whispered in disbelief. “and all I can think about is that I never got to know what you taste like.”

“Dex…” you breathed shakily.

But he shook his head immediately. “No, listen,” he said quickly. “I know what this is. I know what happens next.”

You looked away for half a second. That almost destroyed him, because he realized then that you didn’t actually want to kill him either. And that made him want you even more.

God, I’m so sick.

“I know you’re gonna kill me because it’s the job,” he continued. “Fine. I get it.” His eyes dropped again helplessly to the way your thighs trembled around him, then back up. “But Christ…” His voice cracked. “Just let me have this first.”

Dex looked humiliated and ruined all the same. And still completely sincere.

“I could die happy,” he admitted. “Just… let me taste you first, sweetheart.”

Your hand trembled. Not enough to miss, but just enough that Dex noticed.

The barrel of the gun was pressed against the center of his forehead now, cool metal against flushed skin, and still he didn’t move away from you. 

“Do it, then,” you whispered.

You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself, trying to force your hand not to shake while he knelt there between your thighs looking at you like this was the closest thing to worship he had ever known. Amazed that even like this, you were soaked for him.

“Fucking do it,” you said again, almost pleading now. “Before I…”

Before you what? Changed your mind? Cried? Dropped the gun?

Dex could see every possibility running through your brain all at once.

His hands slid down your thighs reverently.  “You’re shaking,” he murmured quietly.

“So are you.”

That almost made him smile.

The apartment felt impossibly small around the two of you. The warm yellow light above the kitchen sink made you look divine, coupled by the sound of your uneven breathing. The mattress dipped beneath your weight every time you shifted. Dex tilted his head slightly against the gun like he was accepting his fate. Accepting you.

That should have terrified him. Instead, all he could think about was how beautiful you looked above him— dress ruined, eyes glossy with tears you clearly didn’t want him seeing.

He had wanted you from the beginning, even if he hadn’t admitted it. But this was something else entirely. This hurt.

Dex tilted his head just enough to press a slow kiss against the inside of your thigh, and the sound you made nearly destroyed him. 

His eyes flicked up immediately, watching your reaction with awe. He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you like this. Like he couldn’t believe you were reacting to him this way.

Dex kissed higher, and your hand flew to his hair immediately, fingers tangling there hard enough to pull a rough sound from his throat in return. He moaned against you.

The vibration of it shot through you so suddenly your back arched off the mattress, breath breaking apart, embarrassingly needy.

Dex's eyes kept fluttering shut every time you touched his hair, every time your thighs trembled around him, every time another helpless sound escaped you. He looked less like a man in control and more like a vampire feeding on his first prey. It was overwhelming.

Every time you twitched or gasped or tried to pull away from how intense it felt, he noticed immediately. He adjusted immediately, making you feel good mattered more than breathing. Like your pleasure mattered more to him than the gun pressed to his skull.

And fuck, did his tongue feel so fucking good. You could barely think straight. The room blurred at the edges, your thoughts dissolving one by one. Every nerve in your body felt lit raw, burning hotter and hotter every time he moaned pathetically against you again like he couldn’t help himself.

Dex sounded addicted to you already. He was too consumed by you and the sounds you were making now. They were small broken noises you clearly hated letting out but couldn’t stop anymore. Too consumed by the way your body kept reacting stronger and stronger beneath him despite your obvious attempts to stay composed.

Your hands tightened helplessly in his hair as another wave hit you, harder this time, your thighs trembling violently around his shoulders. “Dex—” you gasped brokenly.

He looked up instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes were blown wide. His lips swollen from kissing your skin. Hair ruined beneath your fingers. 

Then he sank back down, a man eating his last meal. He needed it to be a feast. 

Too much. It was too much.

Your body tightened all at once, every nerve pulling taut as pleasure crashed through you so hard it hurt. A sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, your entire body shaking as you finally came apart beneath him. Dex held onto you through all of it.

Your fingers slipped from his hair eventually, weak now, trembling as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Tears blurred your vision completely by the time the waves finally started easing enough for you to think again.

Dex pulled back immediately the second he realized you were crying harder.

“Hey,” he whispered instantly, breathing unevenly as he came back up toward you. His hands slid shakily to your waist, then higher, like he didn’t know where to touch to make sure you were okay. “Hey— look at me.”

You were still trembling beneath him, chest heaving as you struggled to come down from the drug-like high of the orgasm he gave you, the barrel of your gun on his temple now.

His thumb brushed shakily beneath your eye, catching tears against the pad of his finger. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, like the idea genuinely horrified him.

“Fuck—no,” you sputtered immediately, breath still wrecked as you stared at him through blurred vision. “Dex, fuck! How could you even say that?”

The concern on his face was so raw it physically ached to look at.

You were still shaking, your body trembling, your thighs dripping with spit and arousal like neither of you knew how to stop this anymore. 

You could trace every conversation backward now, see all the moments you carefully guided him toward the information you needed while he sat across from you like some fucking idiot who came to the conclusion you actually liked him. Except… 

You had fallen utterly in love with him.

Somewhere between the pastries and the wine and him writing down your coffee order in that stupid little notebook of his, the job had become real. Somewhere between him kissing you and him looking at you like your body wasn’t shameful or weaponized or ruined… you had stopped wanting this to end. 

And now here he was. Kneeling between your thighs with your gun to his head and your taste still on his mouth, looking at you like he’d die grateful if you asked him to.

It was as if, somewhere deep down, Benjamin Poindexter truly believed that if loving you ended in death, then maybe that was simply the closest thing he would ever get to being loved at all. That thought almost made you vomit from grief.

Your breathing broke unevenly as you stared down at him.

He still had one hand on your thigh, so fucking gentle.

“I don’t understand you,” you admitted shakily.

A sad smile ghosted across his mouth at that. He was exhausted. “I don’t either.”

You let out this awful sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as tears spilled harder down your face. “Fuck, Dex,” you choked out, “you were supposed to be a job.”

“So were you.”

You swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I should kill you,” you whispered suddenly. The sentence sounded wrong coming out now, like it was collapsing under its own weight before it even reached his ears.

Dex lowered his forehead slightly more firmly against the barrel of the gun, offering himself to you. He readjusted it, making sure that if you shot him now, it would be painless, like he was going to do to you. 

“Do it,” he whispered. “It’s what you were sent to do.” He sounded like he genuinely believed his life was worth less than your mission.

Your vision blurred hard. “I can’t,” you whispered.

He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, you can.”

“No!” You shouted out, panicked. “Don’t fucking… don’t even try to make this easier!”

When your finger jerked against the trigger, Dex still wouldn’t move. Fuck, he really trusted you to end it quick, did he? Even with doom pressed cold against his skin.

Your eyes squeezed shut hard enough to ache. You tried to force yourself back into training, back into discipline, back into the little girl who would get extra pieces of scrap food if she finished her mission well enough. 

But all you could feel was him. His mouth on your skin. The way he’d looked at you while you fell apart beneath him. The way he kept loving you despite knowing exactly what you were. “I’m gonna…” you whispered shakily, but you couldn’t finish the sentence.

You didn’t want to kill him. And that was the first truly selfish thing you had ever wanted.

You pulled the trigger anyway, and the gun went off.

The sound exploded through the apartment violently enough to shake the walls, but the bullet slammed into the floor behind him instead. You had missed a point blank shot intentionally. 

Your hand dropped. You stared at the damage of the splintering wood, breathing hard, horror rushing through your body all at once like ice water. “Oh my god,” you choked.

Dex thought he was dead.

For one longs excruciating second. He truly thought you had killed him. When he realised he wasn’t, he said your name immediately, climbing up the bed toward you “Hey, look at me.”

You genuinely couldn’t. Your entire body started shaking harder now, all the adrenaline and terror and grief finally catching up at once. “I can’t fucking do this,” you sobbed. “I can’t… I can’t—”

Dex cradled your face in both hands immediately.

“I’m a monster,” you whispered brokenly. “Dex, I’m a fucking monster.”

Dex said nothing. He only leaned forward slowly and kissed the tears from your cheeks one by one, like guilt itself had become holy.

And suddenly you understood something terrible about him: He does not love cautiously, nor rationally.

Every ounce of affection he gave came directly from the part of him that had been hurt the most. His soul had been beaten bloody and kept reaching anyway. The heart is a muscle, and his had torn itself apart trying to hold both of you afloat.

“You don’t get to say that like you’re different from me,” he whimpered against your skin.

Your breath hitched and that was when he kissed you like he was trying to pour every shattered piece of himself into your mouth before the world took it away again.

When his mouth parted against yours, you could still taste yourself on him. That made it more devastating. This ruined, trembling man was still carrying evidence of your pleasure on his tongue while he kissed you like you were worth saving.

Dex made a small sound against your mouth when you started crying harder, and suddenly his hands were everywhere, trying to hold you together physically because he didn’t know how else to do it.

His forehead dropped against yours when he pulled away. “We’re both monsters,” he whispered.

But it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded heartbreakingly close to love.

Tim seemed to share your frustration, “It’s a shame.”

You scoffed, leaning lazily on the edge of the rooftop as you watch the drones circle the streets below you. “I don’t know what Bruce expects from us. We could be out helping him, but instead he sticks you in lab duty, and me on surveillance duty.” You sat yourself on the edge of the rooftop, feet dangling over the side of the building. “I haven’t surveyed anything we haven’t already been seeing. Bombs, drones, more bombs, even more drones. It’s an endless cycle.”

Tim chuckled lowly, as if saying “You’re telling me.” The two of you sat in silence for a long moment before you stood up. “I’m done with this.” You step off the ledge and back to the rooftop. “If there’s an emergency feel free to contact me, but otherwise I’m going to actually try and get some sleep for once.”

Tim hummed, “Wow, sleep? Hardly know her.” He drawled teasingly, knowing neither of you have slept at all for the past day. It’d been a long night. Ever since he showed up, none of you have truly relaxed. “Got more important things to do then survey the city?”

You pursed your lips, “Yeah, sleep.” You fidgeted with your grapnel gun before launching it, “I don’t understand him sometimes. We’re of no use to anyone like this.” The wind whips past your ears as you moved.

He huffed, “Tell Bruce that. He’s insistent that I work on figuring out this cure when we have bigger issues currently out there.”

You frowned, “If you want, when I wake up we can switch shifts?” You offered hesitantly, landing onto the balcony of your apartment. You didn't hear anybody inside, and you took this as your cue to go inside and quickly change out of your suit.

Jason has always worked late nights for as long as you knew him. It was, frankly, a miracle considering you weren’t sure how you’d explain your nightly escapades. It wasn’t a conversation you were ever going to look forward to, so you delayed it for as long as possible.

“I’ll be alright.” Tim sighed, “I’ll probably just nap on the computer or something.”

You sighed, “Tim.”

“Don’t.” He started, dry amusement evident in his tone despite the snappy words. “I will not hear the ‘Sleep is important’ lecture from you when you’re just as bad as I am.”

You chuckled, “Yeah, yeah, touché." You tone became more serious, “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself, okay?”

He hummed noncommittally, but you know he’s listening. “Of course, have a good night.”

You smiled, “You too.” You took out your comm, putting it in its case before stashing it away with your suit.

Based on Jason’s usual schedule, he’ll be home in a couple hours, which gave you plenty of time to prepare for his arrival.

While you could've just hoped that Jason would never come home early while you were still out, you had decided against that early on. It was too risky, and it was better to just provide and potential explanation why. You had told him that you also worked late nights, and would be out at around the same times he was.

As you go through your post-patrol routine, prepping for bed, you find yourself conflicted. Every night you look at Jason’s side of the bed and wonder if this is the night you tell him. You’ve rehearsed the conversation dozens, if not hundreds of times.

Not once have you taken action to tell him though. A mixture of apprehension and fear of judgment always win, leading to you telling yourself the same lie every night: “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell him.”

You never have, and it’s been long enough where you question if you ever will. The longer you wait, the worse it gets, and not just because it’s a big secret. How does it somehow get worse?

You have concluded that Jason does not like Batman. Hell, you would go so far as to say he loathes the vigilante. While you may not always work with Batman, you do it often enough to the point where it's well known that you have some sort of association with him. It was apart of the (many) excuses you used in order to stall your inevitable confession. You needed to get him “open” to the idea of you working with the hero he detests. Every time you “innocently” inquired why he hates the Bat, Jason would get this far off look, his eyes narrowing in what looked like inner turmoil.

You stopped asking after he snapped at you about it.

In his defense, you had asked the question multiple times in the past (all with no success). You figured that if you kept prying at it, he’d eventually relent. However, you had clearly underestimated how personal his hatred was for Batman. He had left angry that night, fists clenched and whitened at his sides as he threw the door open. You had watched him leave regretfully.

It was a bad night.

That was the night that Scarecrow had first leaked his new Fear Gas to the diner. Millions of people fled the city, and you had felt a sense of dread settle into your chest. You knew, at that moment, that it was going to be a long few nights. That initial night was when you had first heard his name: the “Arkham Knight.”

You only recently started operating in Gotham, so you were accustomed to being unfamiliar with some of the household names in this business. Bruce had (very) reluctantly allowed you to operate in Gotham on your own. He let you do your own thing as long as you agreed to keep him in the loop if anything major happened. This whole Scarecrow and Arkham Knight mess fell into that category, and so the two of you came to an agreement to work with one another for the time being. You had hoped that, with how long Bruce has been doing this, he’d recognize the Arkham Knight. It turned out that not a single one of you had previously heard the name, and if Bruce didn’t know it, that didn’t bode well for the rest of you.

It didn’t take long for you to commit his name to memory. Soon it became the one thing that you focused on. Figuring out who he is. You and Alfred worked on it the most, sifting through files upon files of patients at Arkham who may have a vendetta against Batman (no small number), yet none fit the profile.

“You’re still here?”

You— the trained vigilante you are— jumped as Jason walks into your shared bedroom. He looked worn, just like every night he had left previously. However, he looked considerably more unkempt this time, and he had a stiffness about him. “Why wouldn’t I be? I do live here, you know.” You grinned at him as you made your way into your shared bed.

His mouth parted, and then he frowned. “I just… You know with all the shit that’s going on—” he tilted his head lazily to the window, “—I thought you’d leave.”

You chuckled, more out of surprise than amusement, “You thought I’d leave without telling you?”

He offered a strained smile, silently walking to the bathroom.

You blinked, frowning. Jason was never the most talkative person, and you were content to be the one that carried the conversation between the two in the beginning. As time went on, he opened up more, and more. It felt strange to have him be quiet again, and you did not like it one bit.

“Jay?” You called out his name, standing up from the bed. You knocked gently on the open bathroom door and find him looking at his reflection on the mirror. His eyes snap up on the reflective surface, meeting your own. “You know I wouldn’t leave you, right?” Steadily, you walked up behind him, adjusting your position before leaning your head onto his shoulder and wrapping your arms around him. You don’t squeeze tightly, giving him the opportunity to push you off if he doesn’t want you touching him. He relaxed faintly under your touch, and you basked in his warmth. He’s always warm when he returns from his nights out.

The two of you were silent for a moment, and you looked down at his hands, rough and scarred. Gently, you caressed the skin, and he shuddered lightly. “I…” His sounded conflicted, and you turned your gaze to face him. He didn't return the look. “I think you should leave.”

You froze, staring unblinkingly at his face. “Leave?” You tested the words in your mouth, they felt unfamiliar. You’re used to never leaving this city, even in times of crisis. Back before you started dating Jason, you had no reason not to stay. You were more useful aiding Gotham. You never had somebody to prioritize over the city, not until Jason. And if this is what Jason wanted, then you’ll figure out a way to apologize to Bruce later. You haven't even told him you have a boyfriend. “If that makes you feel better we can leave.”

Jason slowly maneuvered his way out of your grasp. “No,” he shook his head, brows downturned, “I have to stay.”

Your lips parted in surprise, “Jason,” you began slowly, “it’s not worth your life to stay in this city.”

He didn't react to that comment, “I can’t risk you being here when it all goes to shit.” His voice is stronger, colder, calculating. It’s not a tone you hear from him often. Sure, he’s gets mad or frustrated, but this?

You shook your head, “Batman will figure—”

“—Batman,” the words were spat with such venom that your eyes widened, taken aback, "won’t be able to stop this. This is beyond him.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, “How can you be so sure?”

He turned his gaze to you, his eyes set and narrowed. His next words were low, quiet, not out of uncertainty, but more akin to a promise to himself: “He won’t be walking away unscathed after this.”

You took a deep breath, “That…” you swallow, unsure how to proceed, “sounds like a threat to him.”

His expression was unreadable, “He should take it as one. This isn’t a battle he will win.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but he cut you off again. “Leaving is your best option. It’s the safest option.” His eyes softened slightly as he raised a hand to your face, brushing your skin.

You grabbed his hand, “Then let’s leave together. I don’t understand why you feel obligated to stay here.”

He exhaled, shaking his head, “No, no. Don’t you get it? I can’t stay. I have…” He looked into your eyes, trying desperately to get you to understand him. It pained him to look at you, knowing he couldn't ever share his reason why he must stay. “…I have unfinished business here.”

You scoff, “Jason, whatever it is can wait. With all that’s going on with Scarecrow and the Arkha—”

“—You can’t be here for it.” He grounded out, “Please,” he tone turned into a imploring whisper. He shifted his grasp from your hands to your entire forearm. Supporting the weight with his own arms, he met your gaze, “I know— I’m aware I’m giving shitty reasoning, but I cannot do what I have to do if I know you’re in the city and could be in danger. I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I heard you got caught in some crossfire.”

You shook your head at him, “Jason— I— How can I know you won’t get caught in the crossfire?”

His gaze turned steely, “I won’t.” He must have sensed your uncertainty, “I will— fuck— I can call you every night. I can give you my location. I will personally find you once I’ve done what I need to do. We can go wherever you want after this. Just please,” he gently raised a hand back up to your face, “please get out while you still can.”

You stared into his eyes, his despair nearly appearing manic. You shifted your focus to his hand cradling your chin, then to him. “I don’t want— I can’t abandon you Jay.”

He vehemently shook his head, “And you won’t. I know you aren’t. I’m asking you to. It’s all I’m asking of you, get yourself out of this mess before it gets worse.”

Your heart settled, and you take a deep breath. Slowly, you remove yourself from his hold, crossing your arms. “You’ll call?”

He nodded emphatically, “Every morning, every night— I’ll— hell— I’ll even answer during work.”

You slowly nodded, “If anything happens—” he opened his mouth to cut you off, but you glared at him, “—do not cut me off again." He swallowed before nodding. “If anything happens. I want you to leave the city at that very moment. I don’t care if your ‘business is unfinished.’ I don’t want you here.”

He was silent for a long moment.

“Jason.” You narrowed your eyes at him, “Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is.”

Hesitantly, he nodded, “Yeah,” he sounded breathless, “yeah, that’s… fair.”

You sighed, “You better mean that. Otherwise I’ll come back to the city just to drag you out.”

He looked immensely concerned by your words, “…You won’t do that.” At your unwavering expression he coughed lightly, “Please don’t do that.” He amended his statement.

You smiled humorlessly, “Then don’t give me a reason to.” You turned to walk out of the bathroom. Just as you were about to get past the threshold, you placed your hand on the doorframe, turning to face him again.

“Promise me you’ll be careful, Jay.”

His eyes lifted from the ground to meet your own. Still conflicted, but lighter than they were when he entered.

“I promise.” He vowed.

“Wait, you’ve been staying where?”

You lean back in your seat at the Batcomputer, looking at Tim projected on the monitor. “Well, Bruce is out right now. He hasn’t been home for days.” You shrug, “I do not understand what keeps that man going.” You mutter to yourself, shaking your head. “Anyway, I thought I'd just camp in the cave for the next few nights. It’s not like I could actually leave the city.” You sigh, reclining back in the chair.

“Remind me why you even considered doing that? We’re already stretched thin as it is.” Tim frowns.

You look up to Tim, his frown clearly projected on the screen. “Uh…” You cough, “Reasons.”

He walks off screen. “Ah, yes, reasons, very descriptive.” You can hear him rolling his eyes. “You know, it’s really none of my business—”

“—it really isn’t—”

“but it might feel better if you get it off your chest?” Tim returns, offering a small smile. You can vaguely see him working with some blood samples on the left side of the screen.

You twist in your chair, shifting your position to get a better look at him. You lazily rest one leg over the other. “I…” The problem with Tim’s offer is that you do want to talk about it. There’s not many people who could understand your inner conflict, and Tim would be one of the few.

“Don’t feel pressured. It’s just…” he sighs, “Don’t stress yourself too much. That’s Bruce’s job, we don’t need to do it to ourselves too.”

You chuckle, tapping a finger on the armrest of your chair contemplatively. “If… If I tell you—” you scoot closer to the screen, “you gotta swear not to tell Bruce.” You pause for a moment before continuing, “And you can’t look into it.”

Tim raises an eyebrow, but he eventually nods. “If that makes you feel better, then I suppose I can keep a secret.”

You brace yourself, looking around the cave for any third party listeners. Hesitantly, you clear your throat, “I… Hypothetically… have a boyfriend.”

Tim doesn’t outwardly react other than switching his focus from the samples to you. “How hypothetical are we talking?”

“…Not very hypothetical,” you smile sheepishly.

Tim gives you a sympathetic look, and slowly nods. “How long?”

You grimace, “About a year and a half?” You do a so-so motion.

His mouth parts, “Oh,” he blinks, dumbfounded, “so this has been a while.”

“Yeah…” You trail off.

“And Bruce has no idea?”

“No…” You trail off. “Probably not? I think I’ve done a pretty good job hiding it.”

He nods, “Alright, wow. You know the boyfriend thing? Kinda expected that.” He holds his hands up in surrender at your slightly offended look. “It’s not a bad thing. I’m just surprised you haven’t… you know.” He vaguely gestures.

You blink slowly, “No, I don’t. Elaborate, Tim, please.”

He purses his lips, “Uh— Actually forget I said anything.” He pretends to busy himself with the samples. “So, uh, boyfriend huh? Got a name?”

“Most people do, yeah.” You nod, grabbing a pen on the desk and loosely spinning it.

His shoulders sag, and he places the blood samples down. “Oh come on, I already said I won’t tell, and I won’t look into it.”

You stare at him for a moment, assessing him for any lying tells. “You will not say a word or look it up.”

He groans, “Yes, otherwise you’ll kill me or something I don’t know. Honestly, you might have to wait to see if we survive these next few nights in order to do that.” He gives you his full attention, blood sample forgotten.

You snort humorlessly, that's a bit too realistic for you right now. “Alright,” you sigh, “his name is Jason.”

Tim blinks at you, and neither of you say anything for a bit. "Hello?” You hesitantly wave at him. Did the connection go out?

He shakes his head, “No— sorry— yeah, I’m here.” He nods carefully.

You raise an eyebrow, “Something… wrong with that?” You never really heard of Tim having something against the name “Jason,” but you’ve heard stranger things.

“No. I just—” he scratches his neck, “I know somebody by that name… Well—” he frowns, looking off into the distance before shaking his head, “technically I never knew him. I just heard nearly everything about him.”

You raise an eyebrow, a silent inquiry.

He looks down at the table in front of him before looking up again. “He was the— uh— previous Robin.”

You tilt your head, furrowing your eyebrows, “I thought that was Dick?”

He nods, “Dick was the first, but he wasn’t my predecessor.” He crosses his arms, leaning onto the table. “You know that one Robin suit in the cave?”

“Oh,” your eyes flickering over to the Robin suit displayed on instinct. “I… never knew.”

Tim shrugs, “He doesn’t talk about it much. I only know so much cause he kept calling me ‘Jason’ in the beginning.” You wince. You couldn’t help but feel sympathy for everybody involved. Losing Robin, losing a kid like that. It must have been hard on anybody. Then to constantly be compared to him.

“I’m sorry, Tim.” You apologize, voice quiet.

He shakes his head, “I never knew him… Not really anyway. It can't mourn him the same way Bruce, Alfred, or even Dick did. It just wasn’t the same.”

You nod, “Yeah.” You mumble, eyeing the costume.

He exhales, grabbing the blood samples, “Didn’t meant to dampen the mood.” He smiles apologetically at you. “The name just reminded me of him, that’s all.” His begins to work offscreen. “He treat you well?”

You nod, “He… He loves me. I know that,” you fidget with your fingers.

Tim leans back into frame, “But..?”

You exhale, feeling exhausted just remembering the argument. “He… He’s being a fucking idiot.”

Tim snorts, “How so?”

“He’s the one who told me to evacuate the city.” You prop an arm up on the desk, “At first I had actually considered the idea— don’t give me that look.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Tim grumbles.

“I wasn’t actually going to vanish, Tim. Why do you think I’m here and not at my apartment with him?” You rub your temples. “I would’ve figured something out. I just— I thought,” you exhale, frustrated that the words aren’t coming out as intended, “I thought that if he cared about me so much, he’d understand that I care about him just as much.”

“Does he not?” Tim asks, frowning as he sets the blood sample to spin in a centrifuge.

“He was insistent that he stay in the city. Said he has ‘unfinished business.’” You do air quotes, “Apparently, that is more important than his safety.”

“Did you ask him what it was?” Tim asks, mirroring your pose, propping his face onto his hand.

You slowly shake your head. “He… I don’t know.” You groan. “He knew it sounded stupid, and he told me that, but he never actually told me what it was.”

“Hm,” Tim hums disapprovingly. “I know you may not want to hear it, but that sounds—“

“—Suspicious as hell.” You nod, “I know, Tim. I’m not stupid.”

He holds his hands up in a surrender, “I’m just saying. ‘Unfinished business’ could be a way of saying he works for Scarecrow or just maybe he works for—”

“—the Arkham Knight.” You both chorus. You mouth parts as you feel your heart begin to pound against your chest.

Tim nods, “Look at us,” he chuckles, “teamwork at its finest. Finishing each other’s sentences.” He gestures between you both.

You don’t share his joy at coming to the same conclusion, “I don’t— Tim, it’s not fair of me to accuse him of something that drastic just because he won’t leave the city.”

Tim leans forward, hands propped up, “I don’t want to bash your boyfriend, but can you truly come up with another reason why he’d want to stay here with everything that’s going on.”

You remained silent.

“I’m sure he’s a great guy,” Tim tries, voice artificially optimistic. At your distressed sound, he panics slightly, “I can’t imagine you’d have subjected yourself with a relationship with an asshole for that long, so I genuinely don’t think he is a bad guy. He’s likely in a similar situation to many other criminals: forced into an awful situation, and forced to make it work.”

“I could help him though!” You groan.

“Have you told him about…” he gestures around loosely, “all of this?”

You purse your lips, shaking your head, “No…” you sigh. “I know it’s hypocritical, but it’s just—” you huff, laying your head into the crooks of your elbow on the desk. “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s my issue to solve. I’ll probably tell him after all of this.” Your voice is muffled from speaking into your own arm. “I… I’ll just make sure to keep tabs on him while he’s here.” You sit up straight. “We got bigger issues to solve than my relationship issues.”

Tim removes the blood sample from the centrifuge, “Any updates on who the Arkham Knight could be?”

You shake your head, “Nope,” you pop the ‘p,’ “Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if this guy materialized out of thin air just to mess with us, or Bruce I guess.”

Tim raises his eyebrows, huffing as if considering the probability of that. “I wouldn’t even be surprised at this point.”

You chuckle humorlessly. “I’ve checked everything. Past Arkham patients, inmates at Blackgate, hell— I’ve begun to widen the search outside of Gotham and Blüdhaven. There’s nothing on this guy. He’s a ghost.”

Tim frowns, “You’re telling me somebody capable of leading the militia has just been hiding out in public then?”

You rest your head on your hand, rubbing your temples. The stress of figuring out who the Arkham Knight is has really been getting to you. “Seems like it." You admit. “I think I’ve just accepted that we’re not going to know who this guy is unless he reveals himself to us.”

Tim sighs, “Then let’s hope that it’s sooner rather than later.”

You can hear your heart beating.

It pounds in your ears as you watch the militia henchman walk over the grate your hiding under. The Arkham Knight had been setting up these bases across the city, and Bruce had tasked you with dismantling as many of them as you could.

Easier said than done.

“Have you heard about the calls the Knight has been taking?” One of the henchman asks his friend.

You crawl as close as you can to them in order to hear them better. “The Knight? Hell, I barely see the guy. Only times I’ve seen ‘im are when the Bat is involved.”

The first henchman huffs, “Well,” he looks around, checking to see if anybody is listening, “rumor has it, that he’s spent the past few nights callin’ someone. He doesn’t go out on jobs ‘til after the call.”

You watch as the second guy lowers his gun, “Eh, it’s probably ‘bout a job. You guys are looking into it too much.”

The first guy shakes his head, “Nah, man. We thought that too. Then one of the lieutenants accidentally walked in during one of these calls.” He huffs, “The Knight calmly ended the call, then absolutely lost it.”

“Did the guy knock? Manners are important.” The second guy asks dryly.

“I dunno,” the first guy shrugs, “but apparently what he heard? The Knight was talking to some woman.”

The second guy snickers, “Oooh,” he mockingly coos, “the Knight got a fuckin’ girlfriend? You sure we’re talkin’ about the same guy?”

The first guy huffs, as if offended. “Whatever, man. I’m just tellin’ you what I heard. Now, don’t go blabbing your mouth to everyone alright? Apparently, the Knight threatened the lieutenant, saying he’d kill the guy if he said anything about the call.”

It’s silent for a moment.

“So why the fuck would you tell me? I don’t wanna die!” The second guy whisper-yells.

“I just said don’t blab. If ya don’t blab then you’re fine.” The first guy waves him off.

“Yeah, but what if somebody is listening?” The second guy continues to whisper, eyes flickering around apprehensively.

Yeah, it’d be crazy if somebody was listening.

“It’s just us, buddy. Batman’s busy trying to get Ivy’s aid or some shit. It’s just us tonight.” The first guy pats his friend’s shoulder.

“Don’t he have those sidekicks of his running around?” The second guy gestures loosely.

“Eh, what’re the chances they’ll show up? The Bat is the only one we really need to worry about.” You quietly exit the grate, crouching behind a concrete wall.

“Yeah, I guess,” the second guy responds, unconvinced. You carefully sneak behind the two of them. “I suppose you’re right. What’re are the chances that one of the Bats will decide that we’re worth— OH SHI—”

You slam their heads together before knocking them both unconscious. You wipe imaginary dust off your hand, grabbing the controller from the pockets of the left guy and smashing it beneath your feet. The second you destroy it, the walls around you come down.

You open your comms, raising your wrist as Alfred's projection appears, “Another base dismantled.”

“Copy that, Madame.” Alfred gives a resolute nod.

“Also, I may have gotten more info on the Knight.” You lightly kick the militia goon, checking if he’s fully unconscious.

“Oh?” Alfred prompts.

You can’t help the grin on your face, “Apparently, the Arkham Knight has a girlfriend.”

Alfred is silent for a moment, “A… girlfriend?” He sounds baffled.

“Yeah, so I was listening to these militia guys talk, and apparently he has a girlfriend.” You sit on the ledge of the rooftop, looking down on the tanks patrolling the streets. “So now we’re dealing with a masked rogue working with Scarecrow, that has a grudge against Batman, that has no prior incidents actually recorded at Arkham, AND has a girlfriend.” You huff. “Gotta admit, the guy is one hell of a multitasker.”

“We can attempt to narrow the search, but I regret to inform you that I find it unlikely that any results with turn up with a real answer.” Alfred informs you, frowning.

“Yeah, I know, I’m just… I guess I was surprised. It’s the first piece of information we’ve caught on the Arkham Knight’s personal life.” You sigh, standing up. Alfred hums in acknowledgement. “Anyway, I’ll be heading to another base. I’ll keep you updated, Alfred.” You nod at him.

“Please remember to be careful.” Alfred nods at you in return.

You smile, “When am I not?” At his exasperated sigh, you chuckle. “I won’t get killed, Alfred. You needn’t worry.”

He sighs, “I always do.” The two of you sit in silence before he hangs up.

You slowly lower your wrist, staring over the city. The neon red lights of the drones shine through the alleys below, searching. Searching for Batman in particular, but willing to take any target that dares to venture into their line of sight. Occasionally, you’ll see a criminal duck into an alley, attempting to get out of the militia’s path. For once, you cannot blame them for trying to run.

It’s been one night since you “left” Gotham.

You had called Jason last night, standing on the balcony of Wayne Tower. Staring down at the city as it’s overrun by more militia and rogues than you’ve seen in a while.

“Hey,” You spoke softly into the phone. The rain attempted to drown out the sound of your voice, but Jason could hear it clear as day.

“Hey,” Jason started, “you got out of the city okay?”

You smile sadly, “I texted you the second I got out.” You had texted him six hours after you had reached the Manor. You made sure to scramble your location so that he couldn’t track you to Bruce’s.

“Yeah, I know.” He hummed “I wanted to hear it from you.”

You chuckled, “I’m alright, Jay. How about you?”

He’s silent for a moment, “I’m managing.”

You sighed, leaning against the railing, “Do you think that you’ll finish up soon?” You asked quietly.

He sighed, “No… Not for a couple of days at least.” You heard the creak of a door open in the background. Jason inhales so sharply that it was actually audible. “Hey, sweetheart,” he started slowly, and you can hear the sound of a chair squeak in the background, “somethin’ just came up. I can call you in a minute, you mind if I deal with this real quick?” Well, that wasn’t a very long call.

“It’s okay, Jay. Go and deal with it. We can always call tomorrow. I know you’re busy.” You smiled ruefully.

“Are you sure?” His voice became rougher, and you could tell somebody is in the room with him.

“It’s okay, Jay.” You chuckled, “The quicker you get this done, the quicker we can see each other again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” his words were a whisper meant for you. “Alright, I’ll call you tomorrow." He paused, and his next words were somehow softer than the last. “I love you more than anything. You know that, right?”

You bite your tongue to keep from grinning into the phone, “I love you more, Jay.”

He chuckles humorlessly, “Doubt it.”

You roll your eyes, “Alright, alright. I’ll let you think that.” You pushed yourself off the railing, walking into Lucius’ office with a nod of acknowledgement for the man. “Good luck with whatever you’re dealing with.”

“He’s gonna need it.” Jason hung up the call, and you put your phone away.

You had called him for a quick check up in the morning, but he seemed even more busy than last night. You didn’t want to bother him too much, and accepted the quick phone call, not questioning any of the oddities that came with it. You were just glad to hear he was okay.

You pull your phone out, opening Jason’s contact, thumb hovering over the call button. The rain patters onto the screen, causing the pixels to warp slightly underneath the liquid. You wipe it, gloves smearing the droplets off the screen.

Is it too late to call him? Is he busy again? What if he’s out working? What if he’s working for them?

You shiver from the cold, raising your knees to your chest to conserve warmth. Your about to lower your thumb to press that button, when you hear the militia begin to speak into your comms. Bruce had given you the frequency they were on, and you had been listening to them all night.

“Got her located in sight, Boss.”

You whip around, narrowing your eyes as you notice a helicopter in the distance approach you. What the hell?

Narrowing your eyes, you stand your ground as the helicopter closes in on you. It turns to open the doors that are now facing you. Half a dozen militia henchmen jump out, landing in front of you. You ready yourself for a fight, fists raised, “Oh, now you decide I’m worth the effort?”

“Take her out!” The medic yells from the back, and you maneuver your way around the other members in order to take him out first. Bruce has mentioned once or twice how annoying they could be, and you didn’t want to find out.

Standing up from the now unconscious body, you use your peripherals to catalog the other members of the group. They’ve got training, but they’re not nearly as good as some of the simulations Bruce has made you fight for practice. You focus on one at a time, incapacitating them one-by-one. Attack when you can, but focus on keeping yourself safe first. By the time you finish. You look back up to the helicopter, gesturing your hands out as if asking “Got anymore than that?” Was it smart to taunt the heavily armed military group occupying your city? Probably not, but to be fair...

You didn’t expect the Arkham Knight to jump out of the helicopter next.

You immediately crouch into a fighting position, narrowing your eyes at him. This is the first time you’ve seen the man up close in person and not just from Bruce’s recordings. “You aren’t who I was expecting.” You keep your tone steady, quips dying as you realize the severity of your circumstances

“I could say the same about you.” He strolls casually to the left, and you begin to circle one another. “I knew that the Bat had gotten a new sidekick.” He pauses, lazily pointing his gun at you, as if you aren’t a threat, “I didn’t expect him to get two new sidekicks.”

Now, you haven’t been doing this for as long as Bruce, but you wouldn’t consider yourself “new” to this anymore. Even if you were “new,” the Knight said that there were two new sidekicks. The newest after you is Tim, and he is certainly not new to this.

“New?” You ask cautiously.

The Arkham Knight laughs, the robotic sound sending an uneasy shiver down your spine. “Still can’t figure it out?” He slowly approaches you, and you reach your hand back to your utility belt, ready to attack. “All of these allies and nothing to show for them, huh?” He continues to laugh, and instead of being scared, the sound begins to grate on your nerves.

“Don’t pretend to know anything about us.” You glare at him.

“Oh, I don’t have to pretend. I know how he thinks. I know how he operates. I’ve known longer than you have, and longer than you ever will.” The Knight stops in front of you, the lights on his mask pulse as you stare at it.

“Is that a threat?” Your words are quiet, stiff.

The Knight shrugs, “Take it how you will. I don’t care. Either way, I won’t hesitate to stop you if you attempt to meddle with my operations any more.” He points his gun beneath your chin, and you swallow nervously. The metal doesn't touch you, though. You don’t break eye contact with him.

“Then why hesitate now?” You grit your teeth.

He chuckles quietly, “Don’t mistake this for hesitation.” He presses the barrel of the gun up against your chin, causing you to jerk back instinctively, “This is your warning, your only warning. I don’t care what your partnership with him is like. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll stop interfering with my plans.”

“You’re hurting innocent people—”

“Innocent?!” You wince at the sudden change in volume. “You think these people on the streets— these criminals that walk around— are innocent? They’re just as guilty as me, y’know?” He lightly nudges the gun against your chin, and you avoid looking into the barrel of it. “Do you wanna know somethin’?”

You don’t respond, and you don’t think he’d care what your response is.

“Well, the Bat? The guy you hold in such high regard?” He waves the gun away from you. “He doesn’t give a fuck about you. He doesn’t hold your life in any higher regard than any of those low-lives running amok in the street.”

“You don’t know that.” You push the gun away with your hand, and the Knight lets you.

“I know that better than anybody.” He spits the words out, waving the gun around. “Perhaps you will learn that someday, but really— it's not my problem.” He holsters his gun, turning around as he walks back beneath the helicopter. “This is beyond you. Stay out of this fight. This is your only warning, and you’re very lucky I’m giving it to you.”

You slowly trail behind him, keeping your distance, but curious what more he has to say. “No, no, wait—” six more militia members drop to the Knight’s sides, “—I don’t understand, how do you know—”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” The Knight cuts you off. “Let’s make this our final meeting. If you’re smart, you’ll stop aiding the Bat,” he pauses for a moment, reaching for his grapnel gun, “but something tells me you won’t listen to me.” He launches himself away, back into the helicopter, before you even get a chance to respond.

“Damn it.” You mutter to yourself, looking up at the helicopter hovering above you. The Knight grabs the edge of the door for support, looking down at you. “Do what you can against her.” He commands before walking out of your sight. You glare up at the helicopter as it begins to depart.

A quick jab comes your way, but (luckily) you raised your elbow to block the blow. Wincing, you huff at the goon; you know you’ll be feeling that tomorrow. You parry the goon’s next jab before sweeping him off his feet, and punching him in the jaw. He grunts as you hit him once more, knocking him unconscious. You look back up to the helicopter fleeing the scene as the remaining henchmen surround you.

That wasn’t what you expected.

“Did he give any tells as to who he may be.” Bruce asks over the comms.

“I… No? I don’t think so. He seemed to believe that he knows you better than Tim and I do.” You look over the rooftop you’re standing on, surveying the militia base below. There’s a drone stationed in there, damn. It looks like you’ll have to dismantle that first before taking on the rest of the henchmen.

Bruce says your name, “Think.” He prompts. “Was there anything he said that you think could clue us into who he is?”

Frustrated, you shake your head, “Bruce, I don’t know who this guy is. I’ve looked. I uploaded the footage of our encounter to the Batcomputer. You can view it if you want, but there’s nothing we didn’t already know. He acts like he knows you better than Tim or I do, then goes on about having a grudge against you.”

Bruce grunts, and you sigh. “I’m sorry, I wish I had more to say, but I don’t know who he could be.” You frown, grabbing your disruptor. “I can keep looking—”

“Don’t.” Bruce interrupts you (apparently everybody feels the need to cut you off).

You straighten your posture, “But you said that you wanted me to try and figure out his identity.”

“It’s too risky right now. If that was his only warning, I don’t want you getting hurt on the field.” You can hear Bruce’s cape in the background of the audio.

You furrow your eyebrows, “That’s never stopped you before.”

He remains silent for a moment.

You sigh, “Fine… Fine, I’ll stop looking into his identity.”

“And the bases.” Bruce adds.

You stand up, turning away from the base below you, “What? Are you serious, Bruce? You want to bench me now?” You scoff, “We finally make progress, and you decide that sending me away from this is the best option?”

“You have a target on your back now.” He responds stoically.

“Oh,” you chuckle humorlessly, “so now I’m an obstacle? A person to babysit on field? I’m an adult, Bruce. You don’t need to baby me. I've had a target on my back since my first day out.” You cross your arms as you turn you back to the base below you.

Bruce is silent for moment before he says your name, “Help Tim if you must, but it’s safer for you if you aren’t out here.”

You inhale slowly, attempting to control your breathing. You let out a long exhale, “Fine.” Fuck you too, Bruce.

You stare blankly ahead for a moment before you hear Bruce switch channels. You take the opportunity to turn around, looking down at the base again.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, I suppose.” You mumble to yourself, before switching the comm channel. “Hey, Tim?”

“What’s up?” You can hear his voice off in the distance.

“So, Bruce tried benching me,” you trail off, pulling your disruptor back out.

Tim snorts, “Welcome to the club. I’m like ninety-nine percent sure he wants me working on this cure just so I’m not out on the field.”

You huff, “I can’t imagine why he’s so set on working alone, but I’m going to keep trying to dismantle as many bases as I can.”

“Hm,” Tim hums, “well, if you need help—”

“—then I’ll let you know. I just wanted to make sure somebody knows what I’m doing.” You hold down the button on the disruptor, connecting it to the drone.

Tim snorts, “You’re better than Bruce at least.”

You roll your eyes, “I’d hope so.” You click the button to turn it off for thirty seconds. “Anyway, I’m at a base right now, I gotta go, bye!” You quickly hang up, ignoring Tim’s baffled “Huh?”

You take the opportunity to sneak behind the drone before making quick work of it. Obviously, dismantling such a big weapon wouldn’t go unnoticed, so you quickly throw a Batarang at the one gunman in the corner. You roll before grabbing your Batclaw and disarming him.

You narrow your eyes, a smirk forming on your face as you watch one of the goons run toward the crate of guns. Grinning, you decide to taunt the guy, knowing he won’t listen, “Uh, I wouldn’t touch that—”

The second he touches the crate, he gets electrocuted, crumbling to the ground. You wince in sympathy, that’ll leave a mark. You shoot the Batclaw out again before yanking one of the militia members to you; you use the momentum combined with your punch to instantly knock him to the ground.

“Thought we’d only be worrying about the Bat tonight?” One of the guys yells out.

“Well obviously not. Last I checked she wasn’t the Bat!” The other one grabs a club before attempting to hit you with it.

“Can confirm: I am not the Bat.” You block the club, yanking it from his grasp before whacking it back on him. “Kinda more like a subcategory. Bat-adjacent, if you will.”

“So like a sidekick?” Another goon asks.

“Eh, yes but no?” You respond, using the wall to jump off of and knock him out. “Sidekick feels a little demeaning. Like do you want me to call you guys sidekicks to the Arkham Knight?”

One of the other goons slowly lowers his hands, sharing a look with his buddy, “Well, no—”

“So you see my point!” You offer him finger guns, before grabbing his elbow. You twist it to an unnatural angle before snapping it. He cries out in pain, “Sorry, it ain’t personal.” You sheepishly shrug.

“The hell is she doing here? The Knight told us we wouldn’t have to worry about anybody else!” One of the goons cries out.

“He fuckin’ lied that’s what!” You knee him in the face, ouch.

“So like— since you guys are feeling chatty— Have you heard anything about the Knight’s girlfriend?” You pin one guy to the ground, using your weight to keep him stationary.

“How—” He coughs, “How do you know about that?” His voice is raspy. You smile, putting a finger up to your lips.

“Don’t worry about that. I was just curious cause like— no offense to him— but I did not imagine him to be the romantic type.” You wave a hand casually.

“That’s— That’s what I said!” The goon beneath you cries out.

You nod sagely, noticing a guy sneak up behind you. You move out of the way in the nick of time, and he slams his arms down onto his friend’s body— right where you previously were. The grounded goon cries out in pain, and you frown.

“So you guys got any info on that matter?” You grab a Batarang, throwing it at one of the guys attempting to pick up a gun off the ground.

“Like we’d tell you anything!” He yells back, cradling his hand as if you smacked it (the Batarang didn’t even hit him).

“Okay, fair, I can respect the loyalty…” You raise your hands up in mock-surrender. “But like— does he get all gushy when he talks about her?” You snicker to yourself, you can’t imagine the Arkham Knight being a loving boyfriend.

One of the guys snorts, “He like fully changed into another person. Like I heard from outside the door he was like ‘you get out of the city okay?’ or somethin’—”

“Hey, you never told me that!” One of the other goons whips to face his friend, offended.

The first guy shrugs, “You didn’t seem like you cared.”

“Are you kidding me, dude?” He grumbles under his breath.

“Yeah, yeah, so did his girlfriend leave the city?” You pry, putting your hands on your hips. At this point the fight has been long forgotten.

The two remaining goons shrugged, “I dunno? I think so. I left soon after the other guy walked in on his conversation with her.” The second guy winces, raising a fist to his mouth with a hissing sound.

“Yeah, I could hear his yelling down the hall.” The second guy adds on.

You nod solemnly, “Damn, so have any of you guys asked about her since?”

While getting information about the Arkham Knight be difficult, getting information from his girlfriend?

Now that is a much easier mission.

Based on what they’ve told you, the Knight told his girlfriend to evacuate the city. This means that she’s likely a civilian, a lot easier to interrogate than the Knight himself.

“You kiddin’? Last guy who said anything about it was made an example of.” The first guy cries out, shaking his head. The other guy frantically nods his head.

You frown, “Does he make an example of you guys often?”

“Nah, he’s not abusive. Tough and maybe a bit too vengeful, yeah, but the guy has done a good job training us for this.” He shrugs, “Well, other than the guy who said something nasty about his girl.”

You raise an eyebrow, “What’d he say?”

The two guys shrug in unison, and your hold back your chuckle at how innocent they look. “We don’t know. All we know is that the guy hasn’t been seen since.”

You nod slowly, “Huh, alright… Thanks.”

“Yeah— Wait, you think we gave her too much info?” The first guy turns to face his friend. The second guy slowly looks between his friend and you.

“Probably,” his voice sounds, understandably, worried.

“It’s fine. I’m not really happy with Batman right now. Rest assured that that info won’t reach him.” You pull out your detonator.

The two guys exhale, relieved.

You hold the detonator up, “Still gotta knock you both out though,” you offer a pitiful smile, “sorry?”

“What—”

You press the button, and both of them fly a few feet before laying limp on the ground. You frown, checking their heartbeat: unconscious, but alive.

You raise a hand up to your comm, turning it on. “Tim, you will not believe what these guys just told me, oh my goodness.” You hold your wrist up, looking at Tim on the projection as you locate the signal for the controller for the base’s walls.

“Good news I hope? We’re kinda running low on that.” He mumbles the last part to himself. You grab the controller from the goon beneath you.

“Eh, interesting news, that’s for sure.” You crush the signal, watching as the walls around you fold onto itself.

Tim raises an eyebrow, “Alright, I’m listening.”

“You remember how the Knight has a girlfriend? Well, I was just chatting with some of the militia guys, and—”

“The Arkham Knight has a girlfriend?” Tim slams his arms down onto the desk in surprise.

You pause, frowning, “Did… Did I not tell you that?”

“No! I think I’d remember!”

“Huh,” you pause, contemplative. “Oh! Right, I told Alfred first.”

Tim’s mouth drops open, “You told Alfred before me?”

You purse your lips, “Sorry, Tim, kinda forgot. Alfred has been the one helping me identify the guy.”

“No worries, I’m just surprised— we are talking about the Arkham Knight, right? The ‘Look at me while you die, Batman’ guy?”

“Yep,” you release a dry chuckle.

“He has a girlfriend?” Tim asks again.

“Yep,” you grin.

“Who’d date the guy? Wait, do you think he practices his lines for when he attempts to kill Bruce? You think his girlfriend hypes him up?” Tim chuckles at the idea.

You cover your mouth to keep yourself from laughing, “Tim.” You lightly scold.

“Okay, sorry, but like— he’s gotta bounce the ideas off somebody.” Tim smirks, shrugging. You ponder the question for a moment.

“You think his girlfriend gets tired of it?” You eventually ask, smirking back at him. “Babe, it’s three in the morning, please stop threatening Batman.”

Tim lets out a long exhale that sounds like a wheeze. “He— He wakes her up like: ‘Babe, wake up, I came up with a new Batman threat.’”

The two of you continue to cackle on call, your volume garnering attention from criminals roaming the street. When they go to investigate, they see you, and immediately turn the other direction which only spurs your laughter even more.

“Okay, okay—” you continue to laugh, “seriously though. I was talking to some of his guys about it. Apparently he like likes her.”

“Oh?” Tim coughs, attempting to catch his breath from the laughter.

“Yeah, and I quote from one of the guys: ‘he fully changed into another person.’ Which leads me to think she isn’t involved in his business.” You theorize.

Tim nods along, “You think you can find her?”

You deflate, “Well, uh, no.” His shoulder sag, and you rush to add another comment. “But,” you hold up your index finger in a “Wait” motion. “But, I do know she left the city.”

Tim frowns at you, “I think that’s the opposite of helpful.”

“Yeah, well. It’s something. We know she’s a civilian, and she is currently not in the city.”

Tim chuckles, tired, “Wow, with that much information, we might as well consider it a case closed.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. His goons talk easily. I didn’t even have to threaten them. I’ll just wait til some of them talk about the girlfriend again.” You smile at Tim.

“Well, that sounds enjoyable. I hope you have fun with that.” Tim responds dryly.

“Don’t act like testing blood samples is any more fun.” You deadpan.

“What?” Tim gasps, “What’re you talking about? This is a blast.” He set the blood sample in his hand back into the centrifuge to spin.

“Mhm,” you hum, “yeah that’s what I thought.”

“Don’t you have goons to be eavesdropping on?” Tim’s lip twitches, betraying his smile.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep you and Alfred updated.” You lower your wrist and dismiss the projection of Tim.

“In that order, or will I be the second to hear about any new info you gathered?” Tim’s voice echoes in your comms.

You chuckle, “Bye-bye, Tim.” You hang up the call, checking the time. It’s nearly four in the morning, and upon seeing the time, you feel the exhaustion deep into your bones. You should call Jason. It’s what you were going to do before the Arkham Knight oh-so kindly interrupted you.

Heyy, sorry, I fell asleep on accident

do you still wanna call or is it too early?

or I guess late

idk depends on perspective

Not even a minute goes by.

Jason: I can call if you’d like

Jason: but if you were asleep, then you should go back to sleep

Jason: we can always call in the morning

Jason: or now

You smile, pursing your lips as you consider your options. On the other hand, you are tired. Calls with Jason can last two minutes (given his mystery job), but also the possibility of spending the next two hours on the phone with your boyfriend is very real.

it’s okay, we can call in the morning

sorry I didn’t mean to fall asleep lol

Jason: Don’t worry about it

Jason: I should’ve texted you earlier

Jason: It’s been a long night

Don’t you know it.

I get that, just make sure you rest

Jason: Only if you do

Damn fair enough 💀

Jason: Joking, joking

Jason: Not really

Jason: Seriously get some rest

No need to tell you twice.

Whatever you say 🫡

He pauses for a moment, bubble reappearing and disappearing.

Jason: That felt a bit too easy

Wow okay so you wanna argue about it?? :(

For a beat, there is no bubble or message.

Jason: Good night, I love you

You snort.

That’s what I thought

Good night, I love you too Jay :)

The two of you like each other’s messages, and you put your phone away. Time to trek back to the Manor. You look up to the city above you, Ivy’s plants wrapped around bridges, smoke in the distance puffing up into a smoky gray cloud— probably Firefly’s fault.

Sighing, you grab your grapnel gun and head back to the Manor.

“I know that better than anybody.”

You press the space bar, looping the audio.

“I know that better than anybody.”

Once again.

“I know that better than anybody.”

“Madame, I don’t believe looping your encounter with the Knight will be beneficial for you.” Alfred walks up to the Batcomputer beside you.

“Well, it’s the best we got.” You sigh as Alfred places a mug beside you. You smile at him gratefully. “Thanks.”

He nods, “Forgive me for prying, but I was under the impression that Master Bruce was going to be the only one out in action for the next few days.”

You scoff, “Yeah, well, he is insane if he thinks that tackling on the city with no field back up is smart.”

Alfred hums, “I suppose you make a good point.”

You turn toward Alfred, eyes pleading, “Don’t tell him please. I already told Tim that I’d call him for help if I mess up.”

Alfred remains silent for a moment before slowly nodding, “As long as you aren’t mortally injured, then I suppose I can omit this bit of information from him.”

You smile, exhaling in relief, “Thanks, Alfred.”

He nods, “Thank me by not making me have to resort to that.” He walks off, leaving you alone at the computer once again.

You watch him leave before slowly returning your attention to the screen. You zoom in on the Arkham Knight’s appearance. He looks the same as he has every time Bruce showed his footage of him. Screen-like mask, a military style suit, the “A” in the center of his suit. Upon closer examination, you notice that his suit has similar patterns in some parts that match some of the militia’s, only difference being that his is more vibrantly colored with a red. You hadn’t noticed it when you first met him. All you could focus on was his eyes. Bright and unyielding and betraying no emotion. The only way you were able to discern his thoughts was when he spoke. You click on a different time stamp in the audio.

“Innocent?! You think these people on the streets— these criminals that walk around— are innocent? They’re just as guilty as me, y’know?”

His body language seemed frantic yet controlled. His wide gestures aren’t out of any lapses into mania, but out of anger. You frown as you watch him hold the gun underneath you chin. At the time, you had been focused on not dying. Now, you notice the slightly tremble in his hands. You aren’t so naive to think that it’s out of fear of killing. A man like the Arkham Knight— a man who has taken lives without remorse— wouldn’t feel scared of killing you. You recognize it for what it is: fury.

Whatever his grudge against Batman is. It’s personal. It feels too personal for Batman not to have met the guy at least once.

Stretching, you stand up from your chair before grabbing your utility belt laid out on the desk. Alfred was right. This isn’t helping. If anything, you just feel crazy listening to the same modulated voice lines over and over and over, analyzing fabric just for a hint on who this guy may be.

You might as well go to the city, make use of yourself.

Journeying from the Manor to the main part of the city isn’t an unfamiliar trip. The trip back is automatic, and you barely even process the fact that you’ve made it back onto the main road. The only reason you do is that the drones patrolling the sky nearly blind you with their unforgiving beams of light waiting to claim their next victim.

The night started out slow, at least relative to the other ones.

You didn’t want to draw too much attention to yourself— with Bruce not knowing you’re still patrolling— so you focused on the more minor crimes… for the most part. You didn’t actively go looking for any rogues or militia bases to dismantle, but if you stumbled onto them?

You might as well.

Some of them were evidently made with the intention of taking on the Batmobile (something you did not have access to), so you had to settle for taking on the ones without a dozen turrets scanning for a hint of movement. While not ideal, it still left plenty for you to take down.

By the time you had taken down two bases and two watchtowers, you had eased yourself comfortably into the night’s routine. The watchtowers required a bit more stealth than the bases, but if anything, you were grateful for the change in pace. It kept you on your toes.

You heave a sigh, detonating your third security console of the night. Another watchtower gone. You linger for a moment, grateful for the heating your suit provided. With how cold it is, and with the constant on-and-off rain, you imagine you’d get sick very fast without it. Frowning, you look over the unconscious bodies scattered at your feet.

Despite all your work tonight, not a single base has provided useful information. Frustrating? Absolutely. However, you aren’t too surprised. You kneel down to examine the armor the militia is wearing. “Hm,” you hum to yourself. It's the first time you've actually considered analying their attire. It appears to be standard military wear. Perhaps it has extra padding, but you note that it isn’t bulletproof, which is a bit surprising. You narrow your eyes at the scuffed up pieces of armor.

You suppose that makes sense, Bruce doesn’t use guns. It makes no sense to prepare for bullets when your biggest target doesn’t use them. You are about to reach into their pockets when you still.

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

You pause, but don’t look around. You don’t want to alert anybody that may be watching that you are aware they’re watching. Taking a deep breath, you urge your heart to calm down. Biting your tongue, you slowly proceed with your original intention: looking through the militia’s pockets.

Then you see it. The flicker of a red dot flickers onto your arm before trailing up to your head. You heart spikes as you instantly raise an arm up, diving to the side to avoid the bullet. You scramble to push yourself against the now destroyed control console, smoke still piling up from your earlier explosion. You reach for smoke bombs in your utility belt, before quickly realizing your grasping at air. You mutter a soft curse, attempting to look for any other cover in the environment around you.

The control console was placed on the center of a long bridge walkway. The nearest crates for cover are at least thirty feet away. A distance you can’t cover, lest your sniper attempts to shoot you again. You attempt to raise your head over the top of the console, using the smoke to mask yourself. Upon seeing a figure on a rooftop above you, you feel your heart drop.

Of course, it’s the Arkham Knight. Why wouldn’t it be? You had blatantly disregarded every warning he gave you.

You tap your comms, “Tim— Alfred— Somebody— Arkham Knight is attempting to kill me. He’s sniping me just south of Kingston on Miagani.” You flinch as a bullet hits the console. “I could use some backup, as soon as possible!”

You hear Tim curse in the background, “I’m at least five minutes out. Think you can hold him off for that long?”

You attempt to steel yourself, “I’ll try my best. Please hurry.”

“Not so confident are you now?” The Arkham Knight’s voice echoes between the two buildings you’re between.

You scoff, not deigning to respond to his taunt.

“You can’t hide there forever.” He continues, his casual arrogance leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It’s like he already considers you dead.

“I’m assuming we can’t talk about this?” You yell out, wondering if he’ll even be able to hear you.

“Oh, we’re long past talking.” For a second, the red light of his rifle vanishes. You narrow his eyes, what is he planning?

Then you hear the faint familiar clatter of a grenade. Your eyes widen as you launch yourself out of the blast radius. However, you weren’t able to escape it completely, and it sends you skidding near the ledge of the walkway. Forced out of your cover, your eyes flicker to the Arkham Knight. He is propping the rifle against his shoulder, and he tilts his head at you.

“I gave you a warning.” He slower lowers the rifle, preparing to shoot it. Your muscles tense, and you run towards a shield an unconscious militia member left on the floor, raising it at the last second as the Knight sends a bullet straight into the shield, a resounding “CLANG!” nearly making you flinch.

“I remember!” You sneer, raising your shield up again as he sends another bullet your way. Reaching for your Batclaw, you hide it behind the shield. Keep him talking, not shooting. “In case it wasn’t obvious, your threat—” you emphasize the last word, “wasn’t appreciated.”

He chuckles, the sound distorted and wrong. “A shame.” He shoots your shield again, and the second the bullet impacts the metal, you shoot the Batclaw out, yanking the rifle out of his hands. You both watch as it falls to the ground, about fifty feet in front of you.

The two of you stare at each other for another moment, before you lunge for the rifle. He quickly follows suit, jumping onto the walkway with you. You reach the rifle first, but that doesn’t deter him. He lunges toward you, and you side-step to your left. He pivots, grabbing a gun out of its holster before shooting it mere feet away from you. The bullet hits your shield again, and you take the opportunity to unload the rifle, throwing it off the walkway— hundreds of feet below.

The second you release the rifle, he tackles you. The two of you tumble, and you let out a surprised yelp. You attempt to secure your spot on top of him, but he presses his weight into your elbow, nearly snapping it. You wince, hissing in pain. You use your other hand to attempt to maneuver yourself out from underneath him.

He shifts his position, using his knee to pin your neck to the ground. You attempt to push him off, but he only puts more force into your neck.

“Think of this as sparing you even more pain down the line.” He begins slowly, raising his gun to your sternum. “If it makes you feel better, it’s really not personal. Not with you.” He lazily gestures, gun in hand, and all you can focus on is the barrel boring into your soul. You're unable to move underneath him, and it is then that you realize the true gravity of the situation.

You attempt to kick him off of you, but your efforts are futile. The Arkham Knight barely moves at your attempts of escape. “Sure feels personal.” You grit out, coughing again as he presses more weight into his knee.

He shakes his head slowly, “My issue is with him, and I thought that maybe you were smart enough to take my warnings.” The gun pointing at your head doesn’t waver. “However, you’ve gone and taken down dozens of my men tonight single-handedly.” His voice is low, telling you that he is fuming behind that mask. Good.

“You almost sound impressed.” You chuckle sardonically, and he matches the sound.

“At your audacity, perhaps. I didn’t think you had it in you.” He shakes his head thinking about it.

“Clearly, you thought wrong.” You retort.

He hums, “A mistake I will not make again.” You watch as his hand tightens its grasp on the gun. His index finger, slowly putting more pressure on the trigger. You watch as his finger remains frozen on the trigger, unmoving.

You don’t bother to hide your stilted exhale. For a moment, you’re glad that he can’t see the fear in your eyes as he shoots you, your mask conceals the terror that would no doubt be reflected upon its removal.

You watch as he slowly raises the gun to point at your head, and you shut your eyes. You don't want to look at your demise. You don't want to give him the satisfaction.

You feel the Knight shift slightly, and you take a deep breath— likely your final breath. You don't count the seconds, but you get the distinct feeling he is drawing this out.

At the deafening sound of the gun, the weight is thrown off of you, and your vision spins as you immediately open your eyes in shock.

You're not dead.

Frantically, you look around, searching for who saved you. You attempt to stand up, but quickly stumble over yourself, your shoulder crying out in pain. You resign yourself to the ground and watch as Tim uses his staff to shove the Knight off the walkway. You make eye contact with the Knight once last time, and you’re surprised to see him watching you until the very end.

You inhale sharply, attempting to catch your breath as you slowly crawl over to the edge looking over it to see—

Nothing.

He got away, again. Even the rifle you threw below has vanished.

Still scanning the streets below for the Knight, you don’t realize that Tim snuck up behind you. You jump as he kneels down, gently hoisting you up. It’s only at that moment, when he looks down at you in horror that you realize what the strange sensation in your shoulder was.

The Arkham Knight shot you.

The observation is apparent to anybody with eyes, but all you can do is stare at the growing red stain spreading over your suit— staining the material. The pain feel distant, and you tell yourself you can walk it off. You barely register Tim calling out for help over comms. He presses his hands onto your shoulder, and you feel light-headed. All you want to do is lay down and close your eyes, perhaps it’ll make the dizziness go away.

You aren’t sure how many minutes go by, but next thing you know, you’re wince as Bruce slowly sits you up. You somehow have enough energy to realize that you will be getting chewed out for this later on for disobeying him. Given your current circumstances, you can't truly bring yourself to care. It’s not long before you are being put into the backseat of the Batmobile. Tim is still sitting next to you, and you feel a bit more clear, and only one thought enters your mind:

You want Jason.

You want to see Jason.

You don’t want to be out fighting the Knight. You don't want to think about him

You want to see your boyfriend.

You don’t have any tears to cry, and you look up at Tim as a dry sob escapes your mouth. You’re so tired. You hear him mutter some empty promises. Promising it’ll be okay, and that you’re almost there.

“I’m sorry— I’m sorry, I thought that— I just…” You lean your head against the back. “I didn’t know he’d be there tonight.” You slowly open your eyes to look at Bruce. He doesn’t turn to look at you, nor does he meet your gaze in the rear view mirror.

You shift uncomfortably, Tim still putting pressure on your wound. “You shouldn’t have kept going out on patrol without me knowing. Not without backup ready on the field,” he breaks the silence, “but that’s not my priority right now.”

You nod solemnly, part of you wants to argue with him, but you’re in too much pain to fight back on it. Perhaps when you have more energy. “He…” you swallow, “…was going to shoot me in the head.” Your mouth feels dry.

Tim stiffens next to you, and he can’t meet your eyes. “I… I saw. I’m sorry I wasn’t there sooner.”

You shake your head, offering him a pained smile. “You made it. That’s what matters.” He attempts to mirror you smile, but it looks wrong.

You laugh softly, “You know—” you wince as a burning pain pierces your shoulder, sending burning waves of pain up your next, “It wasn’t even worth the bullet. I still don’t have an idea who this guy is.”

Nobody else laughs with you, not that you were expecting them to.

“You will not be investigating the Knight any longer.” Bruce declares.

You huff, feeling your stomach turn, “Mm…” You think you see him narrow his eyes at you in the rear view mirror. The familiar sign of Leslie’s clinic comes into view, and you exhale in relief. Even if every move you make is painful, you feel better knowing that you’re in safe hands.

You will worry about the consequences of this night later.

The fogginess from your eyes slowly dissipates as you blink.

You hear the soft squeaks of the bats above, the electronic hum of the technology in the cave, and yet there’s no sign of anybody in the cave with you. Frowning, you sit up, wincing as a sharp pain shoots through the wound. “Hello?” You call out, and your voice echoes around the empty cave.

Carefully, you maneuver yourself off the bed, making your way over to the Batcomputer. You hold your shoulder as you slowly walk over. Sitting down, you're about to message Tim or Bruce when dread hits you full force.

You got shot, and you haven’t told Jason.

More accurately: You got shot, and you can’t tell Jason.

Eyes falling on your phone, you hesitantly reach for it. You navigate your phone to his contact.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring—

“Was beginning to worry you forgot about me.” Jason’s voice breaks through all the ambience of the cave. Despite the teasing tone, you can hear the relief in it.

You smack your lips, “I could never.” You swallow, feeling emotional just hearing him. “It’s been a rough night.” Your voice is quiet, and you wince at how small you sound. Your goal is to avoid alerting Jason to your injury.

He’s silent for a beat, “Rough, hm?” He hums. “I’m sorry.” He does sound genuinely apologetic.

You stare through the ground with a strained smile; it’s not like he can see. “It’s not your fault.” You settle into the chair at the Batcomputer.

Jason exhales, “I’m sorry nevertheless.” You can almost hear him trying to figure out what words to say, “I’m sorry that we had to do this.” He adds on.

Heaving a sigh, you slowly lean against the back of the seat. You want to say it’s okay, but really it’s anything but. You never wanted to leave the city, and if Jason found out you stayed despite agreeing otherwise?

You fear the look of betrayal more than his ire.

“…How’s your thing going?” Your attempt at changing the topic doesn’t go unnoticed by him, and you hope he won't comment on it.

“Slower than expected,” you hear him set something metallic down. “I… I’m not sure when I’ll be done.”

You hum, nodding slowly. That was the answer you expected, but it wasn’t the answer you wanted. “You’re safe though?”

There’s an unusually long pause. Your shoulders sag at the lack of response, and you bite back the hiss of pain it sends through the bullet wound. The silence speaks more than any words could.

“Yes.” Jason’s voice is unwavering, but you don’t believe him. Your heart aches to not believe him, but you cannot deny the suspicion that arises from hearing how obstinately he refuses to leave the city.

“You’d tell me if something happened, right?” You ask, and you make sure to keep your tone skepticism free.

You hear him inhale, “Of course.” His words are low. The silence that ensues makes you wonder if he is able to differentiate his own truths from lies.

“Alright,” you relent, and you see a notification pop up on the Batcomputer. Tim must have noticed you are awake now. “I have to go, but be safe, okay?”

“I’ll try my best.” His attempt at humor doesn’t land as he likely intended, but you muster up a soft chuckle in spite of it. “I love you.” He continues.

Your smile turns more genuine, “I love you too.” When you look at your screen again, the call has already ended. Setting the phone down, you pull up Tim’s messages on the Batcomputer.

He’s already frowning at the screen the moment you accept the video call. “Hello to you too.” You comment dryly.

“Are you okay? Since when did you get up?” He asks, and you notice he’s back at Panessa Studios. Damn, Bruce is still making him do those blood tests?

You frown, “If you didn’t know when I got up, why did you spam the Batcomputer?”

He waves you off, “I noticed that there was some activity on the network there. I’ve been monitoring it since I left.” Oops.

“Oh,” you nod, “yeah that was me.”

“I sure hope so. I’m not anywhere near the Batcave right now.” Tim crosses his arms, but then his glare softens. “How bad is it?”

You experimentally rotate your shoulder in a circular motion, “Could be worse. Not great, but it’ll have to do. Pain meds are helping.”

Tim sighs, and you hate the wounded look he’s giving you. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there faster—”

“Tim, it’s not your fault. I went out there knowing what I could encounter— who I could encounter.” You don’t break eye contact with him. “If you weren’t there, I can only imagine how things could’ve gone.” He winces at your words, and you soften. “I am not upset, Tim. I’m just grateful that you showed up when you could.”

Tim purses his lips into a thin line, and you wish you could reassure him in person. “I… Logically I know that, but—”

Static cuts him off, and both you and Tim turn your attention to the other monitors of your respective computers. “Arkham Knight and militia just south of Bristol! Requesting backup!” The chatter in the background makes it hard to identify what’s going on, but you didn’t need to hear anything else.

Your blood boils hearing his name.

Tim, as if sensing your thoughts, eyes you cautiously. “I can handle it. I’m pretty sure Bruce is handling Two-Face right now.”

You shake your head, attempting to seem casual, “No, no, it’s fine. I got it. You’re busy as it is. I’d feel bad if Bruce was working you to the bone and I made you handle this.”

Tim narrows his eyes at you, “Are you sure? Weren’t you just shot?”

You make a show of rotating your shoulder, ignoring the dull ache that accompanies it. “See? All fine.” You grin at him.

He frowns, “Alright,” he begins reluctantly, “but if anything happens.”

“I will contact you and Bruce, how about that?” You are already moving off camera to go grab your suit. “I’m glad we agree, Tim. Thanks for the back up, bye!” You make a move to hang up before Tim can change his mind. You hold your laugh back as Tim’s astonished expression is the last thing you see before the call ends.

Now, is this a smart move to make? Going after the Arkham Knight fresh off a bullet wound? No. Even you are self aware enough to know that this is an incredibly foolish move, but that doesn’t stop the burning fury and questions you have. Perhaps your curiosity will truly get you killed someday. Putting on your mask, you shut off the Batcomputer.

You can almost hear Bruce’s voice echoing in your head: “This isn’t an investigation, this is an attempt to avenge yourself.” Perhaps the voice has a point because this isn’t just professional interest. It’s personal now. The Knight made it personal. The sound of his name grates against your nerves in a way that leaves you out of breath. With how spread out you all have been, you have no doubt that the Arkham Knight took advantage of that. He probably chose this time to act knowing that you’d all be busy.

He probably didn’t account for you impulsively searching for him, but at this point he should’ve with how many times you’ve met.

Upon arriving at the scene, you frown. It’s practically the same setup as when his men are stationed in those towers, and it feels a bit too predictable. You attempt to look for the Knight, but there’s so many goons that you aren’t sure where to look first. You stay up above them as you continue surveying the ground below, searching for any signs of him.

Instead, you find a shipping container hidden around a corner (courtesy of the goon you followed). Upon reaching it, you narrow your eyes down below. His mask is quite distinct. You imagine that even from a distance, you’d always recognize it.

You use your grapnel gun to get slightly closer, making sure to minimize your movement, lest they hear you.

“—ready for Scarecrow by tonight.” One of the militia henchmen informs the Knight, clipboard in hand.

The Arkham Knight slowly nods, “Excellent. Have the trucks move them.” He gestures off.

The guy looks back between the Knight and the shipment container, “..Are— Is that a good idea? What about the Bat or any of his sidekicks—” You frown, leaning closer to try listen better.

“—The Bat won’t be an issue.” The Arkham Knight sounds really sure of that. “As for his sidekicks?” He slowly turns around before turning his attention up to the ceiling above him. Your heart drops into your stomach. “I would’ve hoped they wouldn’t be foolish to come here alone.” He raises something in his hand, and you realize all too late that it’s a detonator.