Benjamin Poindexter. A veteran soldier. A former FBI agent. And most recently, your ex-boyfriend.

It had been a volatile breakup. Dex was intense, while you were breezy and happy-go-lucky. Where you were outgoing, Dex was a fortress of solitude, who put you on a pillar of excellence. He made you a deity. Something so spiritually powerful it scared you. In Dex’s eyes, you could do no wrong. He would follow you to the ends of the earth if it was what you wished. 

His expectations weren’t attainable. Dex spoke of you as though you belonged with the higher powers religion based their ideals upon. He treated you like a fallen angel, simply too beautiful for this world. 

Dex was fervent in his adoration of you, in making you a pinnacle of his life. It was in the way he catalogued your facial expressions as they flashed across your face, knowing how you felt before you did. Like he could read your mind. It was proven in the obsession of keeping you safe, making sure he knew where you were at all times. He’d spend any spare moments he had with you, because as he had put it so many times, he felt like he couldn’t breathe without you. 

That’s why you had ended it, you had told him.

For you, it became too much.

You had tried so delicately to end the relationship. With sweet words and appreciation of the time spent together. But Dex had taken it like a bullet to the heart no matter how honeyed your apologies poured out. His eyes had darkened, his breaths had become unsteady, his fists had tightened against the upholstery of your sofa. 

Dex was a storm, ready to wreak total

destruction. And you weren’t ready for it. 

Your first mistake was leaving your window open. 

Naive as you were, it worked out in Dex’s favour. Of course, he could’ve entered your apartment whether you took better care to lock up or not. Though, you made it a hell of a lot easier for him to gain access and for that, he was grateful. 

See, Dex told himself internally. She does care about you. She’s still thinking of you. She’s practically letting you in. 

It was simple enough for Dex to explain away the doubts lingering in his mind. His moral compass wasn’t broken, you just made it work better. You guided him. Just like you paved the way for him to enter your home while you were sleeping. 

The invitation was there. 

And how you looked so beautiful, chest slowly rising and falling. The silk of your camisole melted into your skin, the white material clinging to the curves of your breasts as your nipples stood to attention. It was a sight for sore eyes. 

Luckily, Dex’s eyes had seen too many horrors and you were the balm to heal his wounds. 

The day you left him, Dex felt not only his heart shatter, but also his mind. You were his buoy in an open endless sea, a beacon in the night calling him home to safety. And a man so reliant on his North Star, who was suddenly deprived of that shining light, was a dangerous one. 

Frayed nerves. Destructive tendencies. A whole lot to lose. 

It was unfair. An injustice of Dex’s love you’d so easily tossed aside. 

But it was okay. Dex wasn’t angry. You were just confused. Taken aback by the sincerity of his affections and how deeply they ran. You weren’t used to it, always settling for less than you deserved. 

Men hadn’t always been kind to you. He’d know of course. Dex had always watched over you. He couldn’t remember what life was like before you graced him with your presence. 

So it was time for Dex to prove that he knew what you needed. What was best for you. 

Your second mistake was your choice in nightwear. 

It wasn’t anything different to what you’d usually wear on a night where the breeze danced through the voils of your window, goosebumps echoing along your soft skin. 

But how silly of you to leave yourself so uncovered when Dex had warned you an inconsequential amount of times about the monsters that lurked in the night. 

Luckily, you needn’t worry. Dex would always be around to protect you.  

Stood in your bedroom, Dex inhaled. Honey and caramel incense, the lotion you lathered into your body after a shower. How he’d missed it dearly. How he could drown in your scent and drag you with him to keep you for eternity. 

It had been too long. A lifetime without you it felt. The muscle in his jaw ticked while he watched you rest so peacefully. Why weren’t you itching with unease in the middle of the night like he was? How could you be so content without him by your side? 

It wouldn’t do. Dex needed you to crave him as he did you. He needed you to feel the same raw ache that had created a hole in his chest. 

Footsteps light, Dex crept towards the edge of your bed, sheets wrapped around you lightly. You were a deep sleeper, your situational awareness on mute in the early hours. 

It was why the phantom touch of his fingers, ghosting over the inside of your upper thigh went unnoticed by you. 

Plump. Buttery. So damn delicate. A shudder ran down Dex’s spine. His first touch of you in a while. Like an addict finally reuniting with its downfall. 

Trails of constellations etched into your skin by Dex’s fingertips, each manoeuvre carefully crafted in his head. He swallowed roughly, his mind was finally starting to quieten. 

Becoming more comfortable, Dex’s hands grew more desperate, more inclined to grasp instead of trace. To squeeze rather than brush.

It was no surprise that he was quick to lift the sheets covering your form, hiding your beauty away from him. Your legs were already spread apart slightly and so resting his palms in the divot behind each of your knees, Dex opened you up further, revealing the absence of any underwear as the camisole rode up your body. 

They’re so uncomfortable, Ben. I need to feel free while I’m sleeping, you know? Dex could hear the sweet melody of your voice replaying back to him in his own head. He had appreciated it back then, how you so effortlessly bent to his will when his hand smoothed over your bare hip. How pliable you became when his cock found itself growing hard against the rump of your ass and begged for your tight, warm hole to accommodate him. 

And so how he appreciated it now, no barrier to keep him away; no unnecessary layer to stop him from reclaiming what was rightfully his. 

It was almost like you knew Dex would come back. 

Swallowing the saliva that was rapidly gathering over his tongue, Dex swallowed. The pretty sight of your soft folds, framed with the trimmed hair over your pubic bone overwhelmed him. He had gone without you for so long. 

Dex gently secured his hands in the crease between your thigh and crotch on each side of your legs, his thumbs naturally resting next to your hole. He couldn’t help but smile when you shifted, your pussy twitching as though to say welcome home. 

Your slumber wouldn’t last long, Dex knew that — not with what he came to do. But he was tired of holding back, riddled with restlessness the longer he held out. 

And he had reached the end of his tether. The band had snapped. 

Wasting no more time, Dex rested himself on his stomach between your legs, opening your pussy up to him, and finally burying his nose into your sex to breathe you in. 

“Fuck,” Dex’s voice was a growl in the calm night. “You smell just as good as I remember.” 

From then, Dex’s focus was infiltrated. No longer did the honking cars outside your apartment cause him to grind his teeth. No more did the harsh lights of the city billboards make his eyes sting with harshness. In that moment, Dex’s mind liquefied in the recesses of the heaven between your thighs. His alter. 

His arms tightened around your legs, hands rested against your stomach as his tongue rolled over your sex. Reunited at last. 

Dex groaned into you, the harsh sound no doubt vibrated against you. It didn’t matter that your muscles jumped in awareness or if your chest began to heave, nothing would stop him now. 

Even as he started to grind himself against the mattress without shame, Dex still held the immaculate precision of his tongue lathering over your folds, the tip flicking against what he knew was your sensitive clit. 

While his body may well be greedy, he was at least loyal to a fault — destined to always belong to you. 

“B-Ben?” Your voice trembled and oh, how Dex loved you all the more for it. “Is that you?” 

Dex sighed contentedly. You still knew his touch. “Yeah. It’s me, sweetheart.”

He felt the muscles in your legs become more stiff all of a sudden. “What—What are you doing—?” Though you tried to sound accusatory, your exclamations couldn’t help but be airy — light with what could only be pleasure. “H-How did you even get in?”

“Shh. Don’t worry about that. Just relax, you’re safe with me.” 

Dex continued his motions, beginning to suction his lips around your engorged clit while he held you tight when you began to squirm. 

Your breaths came out more panicked, more rushed. You tried to get away. “Ben, I don’t—This isn’t right, please stop—“ 

“You don’t want that.” Dex pressed kisses over the meat of your thighs. “You want me. You can’t hide it, just look how much you’re showing me you need this.” 

Because while you may have tried to run away, your body remembered Dex perfectly. You couldn’t shy away from the wetness leaking out of your pulsing hole. Couldn’t ignore how your juices had coated the skin of Dex’s chin. 

And as much as you tossed and turned, attempting to shake off the physical hold Dex had on you, you hadn’t even realised how you began to follow his mouth. How your hips gyrated in rhythm with each stroke of his tongue, purring for more. 

“No—,” tears rolled down your cheeks in rivulets, your head shaking from side to side against the pillow. “Ben, stop—“

“You thought you could just leave me, huh? Thought you could call it quits and end us?” Your cries went ignored as Dex became more cruel with each suck, his fingers beginning to circle your entrance. “That’s not the way this works, sweetheart. You're mine.” 

Your thighs began to shake just as Dex pushed two fingers in at once, merciless and brutal, until his knuckles sat against you. 

“Always have been.” 

Beginning to grind them, Dex curved his fingers against your walls, making sure to hit the spot he hadn’t forgotten. 

“Always will be.” 

He was ruthless, brutal with each undulation of his fingers, barely removing them from your pussy. You couldn’t even keep your whimpers down, each whine and moan like ecstasy to Dex. 

Maybe it was unorthodox to gift you enough pleasure that you would forget any previous hesitancy. To make you remember how good you had it with Dex. But he didn’t care enough to let it hold space in his mind. 

Dex would do whatever it took to get you back. 

He looked up at you, hair tousled, eyes wide with fear and yet a spark of something else. 

It was your third mistake to unveil the shy excitement in your eyes.  

Your body still shook, your nervous system rewiring itself as your walls contracted around his fingers with the upcoming gratification of an orgasm. But beneath the terror, the horror of Dex’s actions, he could see behind the fog, to the exhilaration and eager anticipation digging its talons into you. 

You were made for him. 

Benjamin Pointdexter may have haunted you. 

Benjamin Pointdexter’s love may have suffocated you. 

But in the midst of clawing your way back for breath, you enjoyed the feel of his scratches marking you. Dex knew it.

Dex knew you.

And as fire burned its way through your veins with your release, Dex’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. Drinking you in like he was dehydrated and you were the water he needed to survive. 

Your stomach caved in, barely able to inhale any air with how powerful your orgasm was. It was seconds after your muscles finally had a chance to relax before Dex crawled his way up your body, his clothes somehow already shedded and neatly folded upon the chair, and kissed away the tracks still staining your cheeks from your tears while his bare cock bobbed against your pussy. 

Eerily calm, Dex whispered, “You’re not leaving me again. Do you understand?” 

He watched intently as your throat constricted around the lump in your throat. “Yes, Ben. I-I promise. I’m sorry.” 

A successful grift was only as good as your best first impression.

The time of the day, the curve of a smile, the right inflection of the voice... It all played into whether the mark would be receptive to you. You believed in the power of it and made a career out of wielding that power for the greater good. Well, not exactly the greater good. You had pilfered priceless artifacts gleefully, embezzled corporations with pizzazz, and lifted confidential codes without a second thought. The good was how it benefited you, which was the greatest good in your eyes. You'd take the occasional job from some wealthy bigwig and cripple their opposition when you were bored. Earn a check by the end of the week. That felt too much like a real job though. Reporting to someone, adhering to rules... It felt limiting. More often than not, you'd find a mark, secure a bag, and spend a month anywhere else in the world but where you currently were.

What was that saying again?

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

You applied that quote to your life. The affectionate version, not the derogatory one. You weren't held down by silly things like mortgages or taxes or other people's feelings. You had one goal: To experience everything you wanted. Constant movement meant freedom and freedom meant no limits. So you learned the basics, perfected techniques. You researched, practiced, and performed until lying for a living became second nature. Until every alias you crafted felt like a second skin on your body. Like any artist, you'd start with a blank canvas. Whatever colors you used to create were entirely up to you. Some aliases were easy creations. Others required more careful considerations. Taking on a murderous vigilante-turned-government approved hitman was a different kind of gig. One you didn't step into lightly -- or willingly -- but fuck it. You were in it now and you were determined to make the best of it.

It helped that the job meant you had government funding.

It didn't help that your asset lacked the whimsy to truly enjoy your hard work.

"This is pointless."

You rolled your eyes at the third disparaging comment in the past ten minutes.

It had been a month since your first and second-first meeting with Benjamin Poindexter. You completed all of one assignment with the guy. A totally lame one too. It was your standard clean up job. No need for intel. No survivors. Just send Bullseye in and let him play. It was uninspiring and lacked charm. Dex loved it. What he didn't love was finding out the second assignment required subterfuge. Some upstart Russian gangsters were making big enough waves that the CIA needed them permanently silenced and wanted access to whatever records they possessed. Trouble was there were too many pieces on the board. A handful of brothers who were rarely in the same place at the same time.

That meant reconnaissance, which meant a shiny new alias.

Which meant shopping.

"It's not pointless," you called out, absentmindedly flipping through a fashion magazine as you sat outside of the dressing room, "I need you to help hook the mark. You can't show up dressed in a mask. You need a new look. It's part of the persona."

"I don't need a persona to kill people."

You were suddenly glad you paid off the whole store for an afternoon alone. Not having anyone around meant they could speak freely, even if it was about future murders. Closing the magazine in your hand, you tossed it onto the couch beside you. Take the guy to a knife store and you were certain he'd be more excited than the absolute torture of suit shopping you were apparently putting him through.

"Maybe not," you shot back, "But you need one this time to get into the hard to reach places so that you can kill people."

"No, I don't."

You bit back a smile at his instant resistance to... Well, most things. In the short time you've come to know him, you found Dex to be a bit intense. Particular. He liked what he liked and was very clear when something didn't resonate with him. The only thing that Dex seemed to truly enjoy was killing people. He didn't react to words and actions the way most people would. You supposed that was what made him good at what he does. He lacked basic empathy, which -- considering the whole he's a murderer thing didn't bother you much -- wasn't really a deal breaker. You had come across men just as prone to evildoing, if not more. Plus it wasn't like you were some shining beacon of virtue and integrity. You possessed the empathy Dex lacked, yet still your hands were far from being stainless. You knew right from wrong. Tried to do the right thing more than the wrong one. You didn't kill people and treated animals with respect. You just also happened to believe that a person should be allowed to dabble in the occasional white collar crime from time to time, especially if it meant being able to live the life you wanted. You believed in enjoying everything, whenever you wanted, and without having to check a price tag.

Sometimes that meant it resulted in other people taking a monetary loss.

Other times it meant forcing an assassin to try on clothes.

"That the sooner you humor me, the sooner we can leave."

A faint sigh came from behind the black curtain, followed by the sound of clothes shuffling. Impatience ate away at you as the minutes continued to pass. You sat up, padding across the room to linger by the dressing room curtain. There was no door to knock on. Not that Dex would answer if you tried. You hated the silence. Hated the waiting. Leaning closer, you tried to listen for any sign he was ready to come out.

"Do you need help?"

"No."

"If you needed help, you can totally tell me. I know for a fact you only grabbed one suit, because you refused to let me select a handful for you. It doesn't sound like you're even changing in there."

"I'm not."

A gasp of surprise. A betrayal of the deepest cut.

"You promised!"

"The fuck I did."

"I'm coming in--"

"Don't."

Too late.

Fingers curled into the fabric of the heavy black curtains, drawing them open with both hands. Just as he said, Dex wasn't in the middle of changing. He had already fully changed into a suit. It wasn't one you'd necessarily choose for him. The standard government official look. Drab gray suit, white button up, plain tie. It's too stiff, too stuffy. Mid-to-low grade cotton and wool. He filled it out well, but that had everything to do with his build than the suit itself.

"It's... a nice start," you smiled, leaning against the frame of the dressing room entrance. "But I think we can do better."

Dex looked absolutely miserable.

"I can get a few pieces," you kindly offered, "A few casual options for hotter nights, a couple suits. Some various color options and different fabrics. Quality matters. It shows in the stitching and how it falls on your body. Maybe a pocket square for style. You won't believe how many places I slipped into just because I dressed nice enough. There was one event in Italy where-- Hey."

You cut yourself off as Dex, seemingly unable to breathe, quickly turned from facing you. His hands shook as he reached to loosen his tie. There was an urgency in his movement that set off alarms in your head. He wasn't just moody over playing dress up. He was experiencing some sort of... fracture.

"This is... I-It's a mistake," Dex huffed out, breathlessly, "This won't work. I can't look like this. It doesn't work."

He untied the knot from the tie, stripping it quickly from his neck. His hands crumple the offending item immediately before throwing it at the mirrored wall in front of him. You watch as he reached for the button-up, bypassing getting out of the suit jacket completely. You surged forward, hands moving to his shoulders. He's taller than you and his shoulder were broad-broad, but you reach up from behind him and take hold of the lapels of the suit.

"Hold on," you softly commanded, "This first or you'll get tangled up."

Dex allows you to pull the thick fabric off his shoulders, arms dropping and allowing you to pull the jacket off completely. The minute his hands are clear, he's back to clawing at buttons. His hands were too unsteady, his mind racing too fast to do the task. You drop the jacket as you step around him. Squeezing between him and the mirrored wall, your hands find his. They still upon contact, forcing his hands to do the same.

"Dex, slow down."

His breathing still ragged, hands still trembling. Fingers squeeze his when he attempted to move from your grasp. You hold firm. Some part of his subconsciousness had welcomed the intrusion, as the fight in him began to surrender. His gaze -- usually so sure, so steady -- is aimed downward.

Avoidant.

Ashamed.

"Eyes on me, big guy," you urge, thumbs brushing against the back of his hands.

Slowly, his eyes met yours. Progress. You lock onto them, hold them with your own. Anchor them to you.

"Focus on your breathing," you instructed, "Breathing is super fun. It's so easy we do it without even thinking about it. It's even better when it's less shallow. Big steady one in, hold it, then slow steady out."

He doesn't at first, glossy eyes barely registering your words. You take a hand, guiding it to your chest. You demonstrated. Big breath in. Hold. Slow breath out. You keep at it until Dex catches on, does the same. He keeps this hand pressed where you guided it, even as your hands move away. His other hand dropped down, came to rest on your hip as you went to work on his shirt. You moved quickly and silently, not wanting to risk disrupting the slow return to calm.

Button after button, you make your way down the dress shirt. Every undone button was followed by more and more bare skin. You keep your eyes on the plastic buttons, unable to meet his eyes during the act. You release a breath you didn't know you were holding when you get to the last button. The danger button. The one just before the fabric of the shirt disappeared beneath the waist of his pants.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

You must have stared a beat too long down there, jolting slightly when Dex finally moved. He reached down to complete the last button, tugging at the fabric until it came loose from his pants. You help him push the shirt off, letting it fall to the ground without a care. Dex rests his hands on his hips, quietly breathing.

"So..." you slowly drew out the first word, "You must really hate wool-cotton blends, huh?"

The small laugh that came from you was all nerves and he knew it, earning a small look in your direction. Half-exhausted, half-amused. You'll take it.

"You don't have to explain," you offer. You desperately want to know though. It's all over your face. "But if you can provide a little insight, I can try to do better. To help. Or avoid. Whichever one works best. But, again, you don't have to explain... Unless you want to, of course."

The sound that slips from Dex is a blend of a strained huff and a lighthearted sigh. His eyes close for a beat, head dipping down. The movement has his forehead faintly touching the top of your head. You force yourself still until he raised his head back to look at you.

"I used to dress like that," he finally said, "Before. I don't... like that. That's not who I am now. I'm not that guy."

"You're not... the guy who wears suits?"

"That guy made decisions that weren't right," he confessed, "He had other people poking around his head, taking control. I'm not that guy."

Not anymore.

"Then who are you?"

"I'm..."

A good guy.

"I'm Bullseye," he finally said.

"Okay," you nodded in understanding, "Then be Bullseye, Dex. You can still be you. Bullseye gets the job done, right? By any means necessary?"

You wait for him to nod in confirmation before speaking again.

"Sometimes that means doing things differently than you originally intend, Dex."

A different perspective. An attempt at salvaging the day's outing.

"I can't get where I need to go without your help for this job," you confess, softly. "There needs to be a draw. Something that hooks the mark in. It sounds dumb, I know, but sometimes I'll need you to get to the target. That means wearing something like that suit. Not forever. Not you being that guy again. I promise. Just... until there's an opening and you can be who you really are. That's what we do, remember? I line 'em up, you take 'em out. We're a team, right?"

Dex remains silent. The quiet brings a touch of sadness to your eyes. Then, as if the sight of you stirs him, he nods. A small lift of the chin. A silent confirmation. You were a team. He was with you on this.

"We won't go with this kind of suit," you told him, smiling softly. Encouragingly. Hopefully. "I didn't like it anyway. I was lying about it being a nice start. I actually really hated it. It was so boring. I mean, you looked great in it. Don't get me wrong, but it was so plain and it made you look so stiff. Like, rip my eyes out kind of hated it on you. It was an awful start, Dex."

That draws a laugh out of him. Quiet, maybe a little breathless, but it was there. Emboldened, you reach out to poke your finger into his bicep. The smile on your lips grew as the tenseness in the air finally dispersed.

"We'll go a little more casual tonight," you tell him, "Still something a little more fashion-forward and probably out of your comfort zone, but..."

Dex watched as you took a half-step forward, eyes sparking as you moved closer. The hand that just poked his arm flattened as it came rest on his shoulder. A calmness sits in the small space between your bodies. You think you imagine the feeling of his fingertips grazing your hip.

"If you can be good with this for just a little longer, it'll make tonight go so much smoother. You'll help me hook the mark so I can get access to their records, then I promise you can do whatever you want with them after. This is a partnership. It should be mutually beneficial. So let me have my fun for a little bit, then I'll make sure you feel good too. Just help me get what I need first tonight, then you'll get to be Bullseye. You'll be back to being you in no time."

He holds your gaze, finds himself settling into the closeness.

Then, voice deep and heavy, he spoke.

"You're maneuvering me."

His eyes sharpen faintly. An attempt to read the answer in your eyes.

"I don't like having my mind messed with."

Well damn.

"Not a complete maneuver," you said. The closest thing to an admission as you'll get. "We're still a team. I don't use my abilities on you. It was just a little nudge. A little inspiration. No harm meant by it. Scout's honor. You can trust me on that too. I was a scout counselor once. Or, well, I pretended to be one for a job. Basically the same thing."

You wait a beat, unsure.

"You believe me, right?"

He stares as you for a moment, rolling your question around in his head.

"I do."

Dex reached up, fingers wrapping around your wrist. A firm vice. He doesn't move his hand. Not even when you try to pull back. Your laugh comes out nervously, fingertip tapping his shoulder. A small plea for release. After a moment, he releases you. You wasted no time tucking your hand behind your back.

"Don't do it again, grif."

"Grif?"

He smiled then. A little unsettling given just what passed a moment before, but somehow a welcomed change from a Dex void of emotion.

"Short for grifter," he admitted, "You said I could call you whatever I wanted."

"I mean, yeah, I did say that," you begrudgingly concede, "I was sorta hoping for something a little cuter. Not a shortened version of what I do for a living. You called me sweetheart once. That was nice. You... Well, you got the voice to pull it off. Maybe you can throw a couple of those in there sometimes instead."

Dex's smile deepened. A little warmer. A little friendlier. He took a step back from you, bending down at the waist to pick up the suit jacket and button-up that was discarded earlier. Straightening, he held them out for you to take.

"Stay out of my head and I'll consider it," he told you, as you took the clothes into your arms. "If you mess with me, I mess with you. If you play nice, so will I."

"Sounds fair to me," you said, instantly. "I pressed against a line, you made your boundaries clear. I've pretended to be therapist enough to know not to cross boundaries."

Thinly veiled threats aside, that was about as level-headed of a response as you could hope for while working with a guy who pierces people to death with knives for a living.

"Give me five minutes and I'll pull some better options for you," you tell him, brushing against him as you moved to leave the dressing room, "No stiff suits and ties. Something so comfortable and soft you'll be thanking me before the end of the night."

You don't wait for him to respond, instead opting to make haste towards the section you know the high-end fabrics and suits were. He called out orders as you made your way off. No gray, nothing too heavy, no overly bright colors. You don't turn back in his direction, but he hears your laughter loudly as you disappear around a row of racks. When you return no less than ten minutes later, you have several hangers worth of suits on your arm and a stack of shirts tucked into your side. He allows you to dress him with minimal stinging commentary, even noting the improvement in fabrics. You take a total of six suits with you by the end of the trip.

He holds each of the bags and the door open for you on the way out of the store.

You smile your brightest smile yet on the drive back to the safe house.

You reread the headline with a sense of detachment, only really noting that the caption says he used his teeth as projectiles to escape. You almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it, but the reality of the situation stifled any real amusement.

You put your phone away, rubbing your temples before attempting to move on with your day.

The keyword being “attempting.”

It feels as though it had been ages since you last saw him, mostly because it has been. While it was true that it had been years, and you should’ve moved on long ago, the reality was more complicated.

No matter how much you tried to differentiate them, Dex and Bullseye, you could never entirely let go of him, any version of him. You didn’t dare to scroll back too far in your photos, and you couldn’t bring yourself to delete them. It was a twisted longing you held for a time that was long gone.

So maybe saying you’ve “moved on” is a bit of a stretch, but you haven’t actively sought him out. Part of you fears that he may look at you like a stranger, and you don’t know if your heart can take that.

So, as a result, you've kept your distance.

You didn’t try to visit him, but you thought about it. After hearing of the incident with Fisk and Daredevil, the real Daredevil, you wanted to.

You wanted to check on him the second it happened. You wanted to ask him what he had been thinking.

However, you never got the opportunity.

Sure, you had loved him. You had loved him so much that somehow his name still lingers on your tongue despite the fact he no longer knows yours.

But he killed so many people, so many good people. You did not know all of the intricate details of his life; you still don’t. Sometimes you wonder if carries guilt for those he wronged, or if he can even remember them. You certainly did. You could barely bring yourself to look Seema in the eye after he killed Ray.

You mourned Dex, yes, but you felt awful about it. The people who knew your history with him never directly asked, but you could see the question in their eyes. How? How did you love somebody like that?

It was so easy back then, back when he loved you. You wanted to believe it wasn’t all fake. You aren’t sure if it’s possible for somebody to pretend to love a person the way he loved you.

Being realistic though? You have no idea. You never got that closure, and it’s too late to get it. You can’t delude yourself into thinking that Dex loved you without faults or even understand the true scope of his adoration.

It was painful, so, so painful. It was an agonizing ache that you could never find a remedy for. The only remedy was him, but he couldn’t be both the solution and the problem.

Years have gone by and you still haven’t seen him in person. Sometimes you catch yourself staring at the blurry photos that you so rarely get to see. Now, they’re more common, courtesy of his time as Bullseye. However back then, he wasn’t making headlines inside a prison cell.

You exhale, grabbing your keys before exiting your apartment. You lock the door behind you apathetically, staring blankly through the door knob.

Ever since he killed Foggy Nelson, he had been haunting you, metaphorically speaking, of course. You went from not hearing a peep from him (not that he’d contact you anyway) to hearing him kill at least a dozen people in a single night.

You miss the peace his silence brought.

Him killing Foggy reminded you of that pain his presence brings, and after his recent failed attempt on Fisk?

You might have to block the word “Bullseye” from your phone.

Sad thing is, for a split second you found yourself rooting for him. You loathe him for what he’s done, but if he had succeeded in killing Fisk?

Well, that death certainly wouldn’t be on your conscience.

You're thrown out of your thoughts by your phone vibrating. Checking the caller ID, you frown at the unfamiliar number. Clearing your throat, you answer the call.

“Hello?” You greet cautiously.

“Hi.” A woman responds, her voice is unfamiliar. She confirms your identity, simply asking your name.

Hesitantly you nod, “Yes.” You sound more confident than you feel, “May I ask who this is?”

She releases an exhale, “I… We haven’t met. I believe you met Matt recently, right?”

You nod slowly, “That's correct.” You shift uncomfortably. You weren’t sure if it was a good sign that one of Matt’s friends is calling you.

After all, the circumstances you met him were… less than ideal.

“I’m Karen. I’m a friend of his.” She introduces. You nod slowly, and the name sounds familiar. Matt talked about her briefly, back when explaining his history with Nelson, Murdock, and Page.

“He has mentioned you.” You stop walking. “Is everything okay?” You frown.

Karen is silent for a moment. “You see the news last night?”

You inhale sharply, not caring if it was audible. Would Matt tell her about your past relation with Bullseye? You don’t think he would with strangers, but you aren’t sure with Karen. “With Fisk?” Your mouth feels dry.

“Yeah,” she whispers, “yeah, did you hear about Matt?”

You get the sense that something is wrong. “No… I didn’t—” you swallow, “I never read the article. I just saw the headlines.” You grimace.

“Oh,” Karen doesn’t sound surprised, only fueling your theory that Matt told her your history with Bullseye. “Well, he was there that night, at the gala.” She begins, and you feel your stomach churn in anticipation.

“Shit, is he okay?” Just your luck for Matt and Bullseye to both be trouble.

“He’s alright now.” Karen reassured you, “But last night he was the one who took the bullet meant for Fisk.” She sounds (reasonably) upset about this.

Your jaw drops slightly, and you take a moment to recompose yourself before speaking again. You had assumed that something must have happened for Bullseye to miss his target. “He what? Why would he do that?”

There’s a few things you know about Matt. One of which is his longstanding history with Fisk, not to mention, his hatred of Bullseye. You two are similar in that regard. Thus, it begs the question of why the hell he’d not only let Bullseye shoot him, but save Fisk.

“I…” Karen seems to be thinking about the right thing to say. “You’d have to ask him that yourself. Part of me wants to ask him too.” She huffs softly.

You hum, “Yeah,” you reply lamely, “I can’t imagine why he’d do something like that.”

“It’s Matt.” She replies, as if that’s enough of an explanation.

The two of you are silent for a moment, and you wait for the inevitable change in topic. You know where this is going. You know Karen was friends with Foggy, so it makes sense she has questions about you.

“I was wondering if we could meet, later tonight maybe? If you’re available.” She asks, and she sounds friendly enough. You imagine the invasive questions will come later.

“Sure.” You reply dryly, “You have a place in mind?”

“Yeah, I can text you the address.” She sounds just as enthusiastic as you do. “I…” She starts slowly, “I’m sorry about all of this.”

You shake your head, offering a small smile she cannot see, “It isn’t your fault.”

She remains silent for a beat, “Well, I’ll see you later then,” she says your name. You bid her goodbye before hanging up. You slowly put your phone away, taking a deep breath.

Matt has always had an interest in your history with Bullseye. He never pushed you, but you could see that he wanted to. You don’t blame him, after all, Bullseye killed his best friend.

It only makes sense that Karen would share that curiosity. You don’t blame her either, but you are so tired of being tied to him.

You walk into the diner just across the street from your building. You weren’t planning on getting breakfast, but after the sequence of events of the past hour?

It’s probably a good idea to prepare for the day.

You frown, looking at the boarded up windows of the address Karen gave you. It reads "Josie’s" in bolded letters. You haven’t been there yourself, but you knew of it. It’s where Foggy died.

You never really knew much about Foggy. Matt doesn't like to talk about him much. The only time he ever talked about him, he told you that Foggy would've liked you. He didn't elaborate as to why, and you didn't want to push him. He never mentioned it again.

You look around the building to see if anybody is nearby, and jump slightly when the door swings open. You stare at the woman for a moment, and you recognize her. You look each other up and down appraisingly. Her stare is less judgmental, and more asserting, as if trying to see whether you’re a threat.

“Hello,” you smile disarmingly, “Karen, was it?”

She attempts to mirror your smile, “Yeah,” she steps aside for you to enter. You watch as she closes and locks the door behind you.

She goes to take a seat at the bar. You follow slowly, still standing. The two of you don’t talk for a moment. “I’m assuming you’ve talked with Matt?” You begin the conversation. You won’t be the one to bring him up.

She huffs, “Not as much.” She sounds bitter about it. You nod slowly, taking the seat next to her. You both stare blankly ahead. “I… I had a couple questions I was hoping you could answer.” She begins.

You look to her, and she seems apologetic, but not enough to stop. You nod slowly, “I figured.” You tap your fingers idly. “If it’s about Bullseye. I really don't know anything.”

She furrows her brows in disbelief, “Nothing?” She turns to face you, “Forgive me, but I find that hard to believe.” Her words weren’t unkind, just honest.

You look at her for a moment before taking a deep breath. “I haven’t known him for years.” You tell her. “Sometimes I wonder if I knew him at all.”

She is silent at that, and it almost feels pitiful. She waits a minute before asking her next question, “When was the last time you saw him?”

You scoff, “I… I don’t know. That night Fisk got married maybe?” You look to her, “I haven’t exactly wanted to see him.”

She seems to understand that, nodding slowly, “Well, I can’t say I blame you.”

You smile wryly, not having a response for that.

“Has he attempted to contact you in the past? After he went to prison?” She asks, leaning closer to you.

You chuckle, “No,” you shake your head, “he won’t.”

She narrows her eyes, frowning, “How can you be so sure?”

You blink at her, and her intrigue is obvious. You haven’t even told Matt why Bullseye will never contact you. He just knows that you are oddly certain that he never will. It’s not that you like hiding it. It’s simply not something you bring up or find joy in discussing. It hurts less that way.

“He doesn’t know who I am.” You reveal. Karen stares at you, silently prompting you to continue. “After that night, I think during their fight Fisk slammed his head into a wall… or something like that.” You shrug, crossing your arms.

“I was informed he had some type of amnesia. He doesn’t know who I am.” You lean against the counter, a spark of wry amusement shoots through you seeing Karen’s astonished expression. “It’s not the worst ending I could’ve gotten, I suppose. I could be dead.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Karen holds her hands up, “he forgot you? Everything about you?”

You purse your lips, “I guess. I think he forgot some others too. I’m not sure who. They didn’t really let me ask too many questions.” You clench your jaw.

“Do you think there’s a possibility he does remember you?” She asks hesitantly.

You chuckle, “I… I really don’t know. They said there was a possibility that he’d remember over time, but not to count on it. He hasn’t ever looked for me, so I’d say that the chances are pretty slim at this point.”

Karen takes time to process your answer, and you prop your elbow on the table to lean on. “I am sorry you went through that.” Her words are spoken carefully.

You give her a small smile, “It is what it is. It’s probably for the best. I’m not exactly his biggest fan, and I know you aren’t either.”

She lets out a humorless huff at your comment, “That’s one way to put it.”

Your smile falls, “I’m sorry too. I know he has caused… irreparable damage.”

She nods slowly, “It’s not your fault.” She gives you a grateful yet resolute smile.

You aren’t sure how to respond to that, so you settle for a nod. Neither of you are “okay” with anything that has occurred, but you have each learned to accept the circumstances.

“Did Matt tell you?” You ask.

She tilts her head slightly, “Which part?”

“My…” you nod to her slightly, “My history with...” You trail off. The words are barely audible, but you know she heard them.

She purses her lips, something akin to guilt filling her eyes, “Something like that…” She says, and she doesn’t elaborate.

You hum noncommittally, “I figured. I don’t blame him for that.” You swallow, “You think that he’d tell anybody else?” You look towards her dubiously.

She sits up straighter, “No, no. Matt wouldn’t do that.” She vehemently shakes her head. “I may not always understand the choices he makes, but I know he wouldn’t reveal something that personal with other people.”

You nod slowly.

As if sensing your disbelief, she tacks on another statement: “He wouldn’t reveal anything that could put you in danger.”

You give her a weak smile. “You talk to him yet?”

She shakes her head, “Not yet.” She pauses for a moment, “Probably later though. There’s a lot we need to discuss.”

You chuckle, “You and me both.”

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, and it’s less awkward than the initial introduction. You find yourself relaxing a bit. “Do you think he could remember?”

Karen frowns contemplatively at the question, “Maybe." She doesn’t sound hopeful at the prospect. “Do you want him to?”

You chuckle, “Maybe once.”

“But not anymore?” She prompts softly.

You shake your head, “No,” you match her softness, “not anymore.”

You felt lighter after talking with Karen.

It was… nice. Something about the way that she handled the whole ordeal made you think that, on some level, she understood. She didn’t hate Bullseye any less, but she understood your pain.

The two of you agreed to meet more often, and not due to your mutual friend getting shot by your ex-boyfriend.

The weeks continued on as expected, and slowly dragged into months. As time went on, Fisk began to take more drastic action to “help make New York safer.” You scoffed each time that man made a new headline.

The ones that truly interested you were the vigilante headlines. The Anti Vigilante Task Force continued to see a lot of push back from heroes like Daredevil. Occasionally, you saw that even the Punisher and Spider-Man would aid in the fight against them.

The vigilantes were a strange topic for you.

Working in Hell’s Kitchen for as long as you have, you’ve developed a fondness for its resident hero. You haven’t encountered him before, but Karen has told you about him.

You harbor substantial respect for him. You had followed him briefly in his earlier days, and held a passing interest. However, you never researched him thoroughly.

Not until Dex, at least.

You had only found out after the whole ordeal that he had been masquerading as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen himself.

Somebody who had followed more closely might’ve realized that something was wrong when “Daredevil” started murdering people. You thought your lifestyle to be so distant from the chaos back then that you hadn’t truly thought about it.

After all, it’s not like your (at the time) boyfriend going around killing people in Daredevil’s suit sounds like a reasonable conclusion. Absurd didn’t even begin to describe it.

After the whole Dex situation, you had done more research. Now, you’d even dare to say that you’re a fan of Daredevil, the real one.

So meeting him in person is both exciting and terrifying.

“Hi.” You greet lamely, frozen in your spot staring at Daredevil himself standing in your apartment. “Is… there something you need?” You feel your heart sink at the idea that he may think you are still connected to Dex. You desperately hope that’s not why he’s here.

“No,” his voice sounds rough, and you can’t tell if it’s intentional for his identity, or if he normally sounds like that. “I came to check on you.”

You furrow your eyebrows, “On… me.” You slowly point to yourself.

“Yeah,” Daredevil sounds vaguely amused, like he’s in on a joke you’re not. He doesn’t smile though.

“Is this something I should be worried about?” You sigh.

“Just keep an eye out.” Daredevil continues, not helping you at all.

“Are we talking police? Task force? General criminals?” You cross your arms, narrowing your eyes at Daredevil. You feel your heart start to speed up.

“The first two most likely.” He responds.

Your lips part, surprised, “I haven’t committed any crimes, and I’m not doing anything vigilante-like.”

“They don’t care about that.” Daredevil shakes his head.

“Then what about me do they care about?” You ask incredulously.

Daredevil is silent for a moment, “You know Murdock?”

Your blink, surprised, “I… Yeah, but I haven’t seen much of him recently.”

Daredevils looks at you expectantly, “They might come for you to get to him.”

“I don't know where he is though.”

“That doesn’t matter to them.”

You both stare at each other for a long moment, “Do you know where he is?” You ask, and you can tell Daredevil didn’t expect that question. “You— I don’t know if it would be better for me to know where he is, but if you know, could you tell me whether he is okay?”

Daredevil stares at you, and you see his sharp posture soften ever so slightly. “He’s alright.”

You give Daredevil a small smile, “That’s good… What about Karen too? I imagine you paid her a visit as well.”

Daredevil lips twitch minutely as if you said something humorous, “She’s doing well.”

“Good.” You nod, “If you see them again, could you tell them I’m available if they need help and wish them well?”

Daredevil nods slowly, pacing around your apartment. “I can’t be everywhere at once,” he stops before your window, “but if you ever feel that something is off, call Murdock, he can contact me.”

Good to know that Matt has Daredevil on speed dial, as crazy as that sounds.

“I will, thanks Daredevil.” You smile at the vigilante. He offers another nod to you.

“And for the future,” he grabs the sill, “you might want to lock your windows.” He smirks, lightly tapping the glass, and leaping out before you get the chance to respond.

You are left standing in your apartment excited, terrified, and confused in that order. It’s not every day a vigilante pays you a visit in your home, so the rush of excitement is expected.

Then comes the dread.

As cool as Daredevil is, him paying your apartment is a bad omen. What could you possibly do against the police? Call Daredevil and pray that he finds you before you get stuffed into one of their tanks and “vanish under mysterious circumstances?”

The confusion is more akin to general shock than anything. How does Daredevil know where you live? How does Matt know Daredevil? Did Matt tell Daredevil to go look for you?

All of these are questions won’t get answered, at least not anytime soon.

You debated contacting Matt to ask what just happened, but ultimately settled for a single text.

Please don’t die.

He doesn't instantly respond, but you don’t expect that from him. You walk over to the window Daredevil exited through, locking it.

Perhaps it’s best to listen to the vigilantes advice.

Outside of locking your window (thanks to Daredevil), your routine didn’t change. Sure, your paranoia may have spiked through the roof, but you’d rather be paranoid than dead.

It was only a few days later when you almost called Matt for the first time. In fact, you had half-hysterically wondered if Daredevil truly was a bad omen and you were cursed.

You had gone to your normal coffee shop before heading off to work. The same coffee shop you’ve gone to for nearly a decade now. You had changed nothing in that routine. Stepping inside, you smile at the barista who greeted you by name and confirmed your regular order.

It was, by all accounts, an average morning.

And right now with New York’s current condition? Average was perfect. You had stepped aside to wait for your order, scrolling to see the recent news. A few task force busts, nothing to write home about. When they called your name, you walked up, thanking the barista before turning around to leave, taking a slow sip of your drink.

Then you froze.

You wish time had frozen or slowed down like in the movies because you needed at least one minute to process what you are seeing. Your drink went forgotten in your hand as you openly stare at Bullseye walking into the coffee shop.

Against your will, you note his appearance. He looks good, something you begrudgingly admit. He isn’t in his suit, but you can practically see a danger warning over his head. Noting the scar on his face, you find yourself unable to look away for what feels like an eternity but what is realistically less than ten seconds.

Dex had always been observant though.

As if sensing your gaze, his eyes meets yours.

You think your heart may combust from the sheer speed it pounds against your ribcage. He doesn’t outwardly react when he looks at you. There’s no softening in his eyes. His posture remains casual, but not in a friendly way. His face remains unchanged.

In his eyes, you’re just another stranger who might’ve recognized him as Bullseye.

It’s that realization that allows you to tear your eyes away from him; the action feels long and laborious.

You don’t immediately fumble for your phone. Part of you wants the reassurance that somebody could protect you if Bullseye decided that you looked at him the wrong way. You can only imagine how he interpreted your stare.

With measured steps, you make your way to exit the shop. The glaring issue being that you need to pass him to do so. You make a deliberate point to not make eye contact.

As you get closer, you realize with a horrifying twist in your gut that he is still looking at you. Not directly, but in the same way you’re still looking at him. It’s more of an awareness of his surroundings rather than blatantly staring. He looks straight ahead, but you can tell his focus is on you.

You try not to relish the fact you can somewhat read him. You shouldn’t be surprised that his mannerisms never changed.

His awareness doesn’t necessarily feel dangerous in nature, but you aren’t willing to try and deduce exactly what he is thinking about.

As you get closer to him, your heart begin to thump in your ears, quick and frantic. You try not to seem too hasty to escape him, for the last thing you want is his attention. The chances he’d take notice of you in more than a passing interest are low, but you aren’t willing to give him material to work with.

You open the door, and it chimes on your way out. The sound doesn’t seem as friendly as it usually does. When it closes behind you, you let out a shaky exhale before walking to your job.

On the way there, you debate whether you should contact Daredevil via Matt. Is this beneath Daredevil’s focus? He has bigger things to focus on, not you panicking over seeing your killer ex-boyfriend who doesn’t remember you.

Additionally, Bullseye didn’t even do anything. Sure, he stared at you, but you had technically been staring first—not that you're defending him. He is certainly dangerous, that you would not dispute, but his eyes didn’t light up with recognition upon seeing you.

You still weren’t sure how to feel about that, but you won’t deny that it feels safer that way. As the day continued, you didn’t hear about Bullseye killing anybody in a coffee shop and took that as a good sign.

In the end, you don’t contact Matt.

Part of it is, ironically, fear. You don’t want to risk Matt being put in more danger by making him contact Daredevil, and you don’t want to contact Daredevil over you overthinking.

Besides, he’s bound to run into Bullseye eventually. They certainly know one another. You doubt asking Daredevil to harass Bullseye over coffee is a productive use of anybody’s time, so you don't.

You avoid your normal coffee shop for a few days after your anticlimactic reunion. However, you eventually cave and go back because you miss the coffee, and you tell yourself that’s definitely the only reason.

The first day you return there, you swing your head over your shoulder every five seconds. The barista making your drink gives you a mildly concerned glance when they hand it to you.

You attempt to reassure them with a smile, but it feels more similar to a grimace.

The following days start out similar, but you eventually settle back into your normal routine. It becomes evident about a week later that your chance encounter with Bullseye was simply that: a chance encounter.

Of course, after settling down, fate throws a curveball at you and sends you into a panic. That curveball is him showing up to the coffee shop again.

You’re caught off guard, but much more prepared than you were the intial encounter (if you could even call it that). You don’t stare at him, for one. In fact, you don’t dare to breath in his direction. And what do you do in order to avoid looking at the man who you once loved, the man who is now a killer, served time in prison, and no longer remembers your face?

You stare blankly at the barista making your drink, or more accurately, through them.

“Could I have a black coffee?” You pretend you don’t hear his words. He doesn’t sound different. He sounds relaxed—well, maybe relaxed isn’t the word, self-assured would be more accurate.

You don’t entirely listen to the rest of his order. You try not to feel bothered by additional evidence that parts of him haven’t changed. First the mannerisms, now his taste.

You kind of hate it.

You only start giving your attention to him again when he begins to head in your direction. You cross your arms and avoid his eyes, hoping your closed-off body languages discourages conversation. You pray that maybe he’d sit down and wait for his name to be called. Instead, he decides to wait for his coffee while standing, just like you.

Great.

You tell yourself not to make any sudden movements, and then toss the irrational thought aside. Just act normal. It shouldn’t be difficult, it’s not like he should mean anything to you anymore.

You notice him shift offhandedly in your peripherals. He changes his stance, taking his hands out of his pockets. You wait to see if he does anything else. He doesn’t.

It’s odd.

You don’t feel the weight of his stare on you, but you are feel the prickling sensation of being judged.

A minute of silence passes by before you can’t take it anymore. You pull out your phone, not to use, but to appear distracted. You debate opening Matt’s contact. Once was a coincidence, twice could be the start of a patten. You shift apprehensively on your feet.

Then you make the mistake of looking up.

Your eyes find him, and you take in how normal he looks for a moment. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was another stranger starting his day with a cup of coffee.

Of course, since he’s not a normal stranger, he turns his attention to meet your eyes. Instead of being across a room, this time you two are less ten feet apart.

Part of you wonders if he was waiting for you to make eye contact.

Once again, neither of you saying anything. However, unlike last time, you see his face shift minutely. Last time, he was indifferent.

This time, he is contemplative.

You don’t have to think about what he is pondering. Most likely, he’s trying to figure out how (or if) he recognizes you. You don’t expect him to remember you from all those years ago, but he could remember you from that initial encounter getting coffee.

The exchange could barely be called an exchange, but Dex had always been observant like that.

Then, as if finishing his assessment of you, he reacts. His head dips down slightly. It could be a nod of acknowledgement to test the waters, but it could simply be a shift in posture.

For your sanity, you choose to believe it’s the latter.

Also for your sanity, you pretend you don’t see the gesture.

Hearing your name called for your drink could truly be considered a blessing. You immediately break eye contact with him before grabbing your drink and leaving. You’re offhandedly note that you were moving fast, almost suspiciously so, but you can’t bring yourself to care too much.

Your encounter with him felt noticeably worse the second time around, and not just because he was physically closer.

You left with a sense of forboding that something about that second encounter was what sealed your fate. Why?

Because third time around, he spoke to you.

You had been more prepared the third time, but hearing his voice directed at you?

You wanted to yell at him for forgetting everything you went through. You wanted to stare so intensely at his face that he would be incapable of forgetting you ever again. You wanted to burden him with the same pain you endured for far too long. You wanted to discover every difference between him and the man you knew. You wanted to ignore him and pretend that you’ve never heard the name “Bullseye.”

“The coffee is good, isn’t it?”

You slowly turn to face him, only to find he is already looking at you. Once your eyes narrow on him, he turns his head to face you.

“Yep.” You keep your reply short, detached.

He nods, his lips twitching microscopically as if he found your monosyllabic response amusing. You frown slightly, and you find yourself theorizing what he could possibly be thinking about. He probably thinks that you know that he’s Bullseye and is enjoying tormenting you.

Technically, not wrong.

“Have you tried their pastries here?” He continues, and you take a deep breath.

“Once or twice.” With him.

He turns his body to face you, rather than just his head. “And? Find them any good?”

It’s nigh impossible to avoid looking at him now, “Yeah, passable.”

His smirk widens, “Such high praise.” He drawls sarcastically.

You give him an unimpressed look, not deigning to respond.

You can see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure out if you’re usually this standoffish or if you just really hate him.

Thankfully, before he could come to a conclusion, your name was called. Grabbing your drink, you turn around and face him. His face is frustratingly blank. You see his eyes flicker to the coffee cup in your hands before meeting your eyes again.

You’re the first one to break eye contact, not bothering with goodbyes. You suppress the desire to look at him when you exit.

At this point, you should’ve said something to Matt, even Karen. You also should’ve stopped going to that coffee shop. It’d solve all of your issues. Plus, you got what you wanted. You now have confirmation that Dex no longer remembers you. You know that he just sees you as an apprehensive stranger at the coffee shop you both frequent in early mornings. You have your answers.

But you don’t stop going to the coffee shop.

You justified it by telling yourself if he wanted to hurt you or anybody in that shop by now, he would’ve done so already. Bullseye showing up to the same coffee shop, while terrifying, changes nothing. It’s something normal, and you remember how much Dex craved normalcy.

Part of you wonders if he still unconsciously wants that, even after his life has gone to shit.

“Hello,” you smile at the barista. Usually you follow a script when it comes to this shop: greet each other, confirm your usual order, you pay, and you thank the barista. Occasionally there is some small talk thrown in there, but aside from that, there is little deviation.

“Oh, hey, your friend already ordered for you.” She smiles at you, and you can see a teasing glint in her eyes.

You blink, “What?”

She turns her head over to the pickup counter, and you follow her gaze.

You sigh, of course.

“We aren’t friends. I barely know the guy.” You tell the barista, pulling your card out.

She purses her lips, “Uh,” she looks between the two of you, “he already paid for you.”

“I don’t want anything from him.”

She nods slowly, “I can ‘forget his order’ if you want.” She winks at you, and you have never felt more grateful.

You smile at her, “That’d be great.” Your smile grows as an idea pops into your head, “Actually, today can I get the vanilla latte?”

She smiles, “Something different?”

You chuckle, “Yeah,” you pay for the drink, apologizing for your “friend” inconveniencing her, but she waves it off casually.

Standing in your normal spot, you can tell he is watching you. You can also tell that he is attempting to hide that fact.

“Was the order wrong?”

You look at him in the corner of your eye, “Yeah,” you lie, he got your order right, but telling him that would not help you.

He tilts his head slightly, as if trying to understand how he got it wrong. He releases a quiet huff, offering a fake smile. “I’ll remember for next time then.”

You give him a placating smile, “Don’t worry about it. I order differently based on how I’m feeling.”

He hums in understanding, slowly nodding. “Do you?”

“Yep.”

“So what mood is the vanilla latte?”

“My current one.” You reply dryly.

His eyes light up intrigued and mildly amused by your answer, and you get the distinct impression that your attempts at being aloof have had the opposite effect you desired. For a moment, you think he gets the hint and stops talking. It makes you wonder, was he always this talkative with new people?

When you met, he wasn’t exactly forward. There was never really one instance where either of you had to explicitly start conversations like this. It was continued exposure over time, and so it didn’t feel as forced when your relationship had progressed.

“Black coffee and a blueberry muffin for Tony.” The barista calls out.

You furrow your eyebrows as he walks to the counter to pick up the coffee. Who the hell is Tony?

When he turns around, he blinks twice at you, “Something wrong?” He feigns innocence.

“No.” You grumble, and he goes to grab a few napkins. It was wishful thinking for that to be the end of the conversation.

“If you say so,” he sounds way too pleased for your liking. He breaks a piece off the muffin, taking a bite. You see his eyebrows shoot up slightly, “You were right, their pastries are passable.” He mocks your words from your last encounter.

You nod slowly, watching cautiously as he breaks off another piece. Neither of you say anything, and you find yourself wishing, once again, that he’d leave.

He breaks a bigger chunk off the muffin, and you cross your arms, avoiding his eyes.

“Want some?” He offers.

Why? Why does this happen to you? You turn to him, and his hand is holding the piece of the muffin. It’s a good chunk of it too.

He must sense your hesitation because he gives you what he must interpret as an appeasing smile, “It’s not poisoned if that’s what you’re worried about.” He doesn’t move, still offering the piece to you.

“It’s not.” You reply honestly. Poison doesn’t seem to be Bullseye’s style. “I’m not hungry anyway.”

He doesn’t immediately retract the offer, “Hm, breakfast already?”

“Yeah,” you lie.

The two of you stare at each other, and you have a hunch that you each know the other is full of shit.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, and you watch as he opens the napkin and places the piece onto it. His eyes flicker up to you, and you raise an eyebrow.

“What are you doing?” You find yourself asking before considering whether it’s actually a good idea.

“If breakfast wasn’t enough.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee, tapping the counter the napkin rested on, pushing it closer to you. You furrow your eyebrows, watching as he simply leaves. You don’t hold back your dumbfounded stare as he exits the shop, and you catch the smug vestige of a smirk on his face.

What the hell?

It took three more visits before you caved and accepted his offerings. You still eyed it as if it would explode in your hands, but he didn’t seem to take offense to it.

The next time after that, he orders two muffins.

You aren’t fazed anymore, and that’s how you know you’re past the point of no return. Upon entering the shop, he offers the muffin to you like it’s routine. You raise an eyebrow, walking over and taking the proffered bag, looking inside, “Coffee cake?” You’re surprised he chose something different.

He shrugs, “It looked good.” You had to agree with him, it looked divine.

You pick off a small piece, and your eyebrows shoot up. It was good. You turn to him, not shocked to see him staring intently at your reaction. “Good pick.”

You can see him carry himself lighter at your comment, as if being told that he made a good pick satisfied him.

“Figured you would like it.” He comments casually.

You raise an eyebrow, “Why is that?”

He smiles conspiratorially, shrugging, “Just a hunch.”

Frowning at the vague answer, you take another piece of the muffin. You notice him staring at it. “Want a piece?” The words leave your mouth before you have a chance to reevaluate how smart of an idea they are.

His eyes crinkle in a way that makes you feel like he somehow planned this moment. Which is kind of insane, but it’s too late to rescind the offer.

It’s not like he could plan for you to specifically offer him food anyway.

“Sure,” He replies, and you break of a piece before looking for napkins. You frown when you notice that they’re out. Dex watches your eyes scan the shop for a minute before he interrupts, “I’ll survive without the napkin.” You can hear the smile in his tone.

You blink at him before looking down at his hand. Then, you reach over to place the piece onto it. Your hands inevitably meet with your fingers lightly grazing his palm, attempting to keep the crumbs from spilling all over the table.

When he takes a bite, he hums contently. “It’s good,” he declares, “just like you said.”

Your heart speeds up, “Right,” you reply, attempting to mask your breathlessness.

In order to escape the awkward silence, you tell him you’re going to order your coffee. He nods, and you make your way to the front, ordering your regular drink.

It was surprisingly empty this morning, so your drink was ready by the time you finished your quick conversation with the barista.

When you return to him, you grab the leftover muffin you didn’t finish. “Thanks for the muffin.” You don’t offer to pay him back, and you internally berate yourself for feeling slightly bad about that.

He smiles at you, and it looks like the most genuine smile he has given you in a long time. “Of course.”

You offer a tentative smile before walking out the shop. You don’t turn around, but you know he is watching you because despite everything it’s still him.

The routine becomes concerningly normal.

He would wait for you at the coffee shop, and would buy you some pastry because “he insists.”

You stopped declining that long ago, and you were beginning to appreciate having a meal before going to work, not that you would admit this to him.

You didn’t contact Matt or Karen, and at this point you can’t really make an excuse for not doing so. Bullseye is dangerous. Bullseye killed Foggy. These are all simply facts.

Yet you don’t contact Matt. You don’t tell Bullseye that you are aware of who he is. You don’t tell him to leave you alone either. At this point, you’re digging your own grave, and part of you wonders if it’s only a matter of time before you must lie in it.

Morbidly, you wonder who will the honor of putting you out of your misery: Bullseye or Fisk?

It’s a few weeks after this odd routine has begun where you start to realize just how much you fucked up by interacting with him again.

Your favorite diner was supposed to be something that was exclusively yours. You may have introduced it to Dex a few times in the past, but it was your favorite before him and your favorite after him. You weren’t going to let your abysmal relationship tarnish the sanctity of this place for you.

It wasn’t truly anything that special, another diner in New York. The food was satisfactory. Sometimes you convinced yourself that it was even good, but you suspected that was due to nostalgia more than anything. The prices were reasonable. The ambiance had nothing unique that made it shine above the rest.

So, just like the coffee shop, you’re left wondering why the hell Benjamin Poindexter was walking in here like it was a routine of his. You were sitting in one of the booths, and you held the menu up to your face to cover the fact that you were blatantly staring because what the fuck?

Either you have the worst luck in the universe and he keeps showing up in places that are supposed to be safe for you... or he is stalking you.

Both options are a nightmare for you.

You don’t hear what he orders, but you find yourself attempting to listen anyway. Usually, he has a sixth-sense for when you’re in the area. He would always find you first whenever you arrive at the coffee shop every morning.

The fact that he hasn’t turned once to see you leads you to believe that you might just have the worst luck in New York, and that’s saying a lot.

You watch him pull out a phone before bringing it up to his ear. You can barely hear the conversation, but you do catch two details.

One: he said the name “Frank Castle.”

Two: he said, in the most apathetic tone imaginable, that he “has a gun.”

This becomes an issue when you scan the restaurant and don’t see Frank Castle or a gun in sight.

Now, perhaps at this point you should’ve approached him. Maybe even left because perhaps Frank Castle is on his way, and while Karen has spoken somewhat fondly of him, you aren’t exactly frothing at the mouth to meet him.

You do none of that, and simply watch as Bullseye chugs a milkshake in a display that leaves you equally impressed and mortified. That’s when the sirens start to ring across the street. It appears he notices this too because you see him put his gloves on.

Yep, that is your sign to get out of here.

You didn’t get your finish your meal, but you also don’t want to get involved with any task force activity. You grab all your personal belongings before heading towards the door.

“Get back inside now!”

You narrow your eyes as the agent points his rifle at you, forcing you back into the building. You didn’t even step outside the doorframe yet.

You hold your hands up in surrender, but you don’t feel scared so much as frustrated.

You watch as one of the agents continues to point their rifle at you as the others search the building. Do they seriously think you’re part of the problem here?

“Clear…” The last agent echoes the sentiment the last five have said.

Then they make a mistake.

“Hey, Milkshake.” That agent calls Bullseye out. He doesn’t immediately turn to him, but when he does, his hands are held up, straw in mouth.

You didn’t even see him load the straw with anything, and you were watching him for a while. You watch in horror as he shoots a toothpick into the agent’s eye. He whips around, pulling his mask on, and grabs the utensils next to him and launching them to the three agents near you. For a split second—after the forks find their target—his eyes land on you.

Somehow, despite the fact that he is about to be shot at, his stare lingers on you. However, it’s not for long, and he takes two more forks before launching it toward a booth. The utensils (somehow) avoid the innocent bystander before situating themselves into the eye of one agent and the neck of another.

At this point, the task force agents recompose themself before shooting towards Bullseye. You wince at the sound of gunfire, ducking behind one of the booths as bullets fly over the counter he was at.

You don’t have a clear view of Bullseye anymore, but you hear the distant cry of another agent. You can hazard a guess as to what that means.

Eventually, the gunfire slows to a stop, but you don’t dare to stand up. You hear Bullseye talk to one of the customers, something about bringing his dog into the restaurant and how that is unsanitary.

You take this opportunity to open your phone, and you pull up Matt’s contact. Just as you are about to send a message to him telling him that Bullseye is at Bel Aire Diner, you realize the light above you becomes obscured. You look up, noting that he isn’t wearing his mask anymore.

“What are you doing?” He looms over you, raising an eyebrow. He seems genuinely confused.

“Trying not to get shot.” You retort, gradually standing up.

“I meant before that.” He grabs a ketchup bottle off the booth you hid behind.

“Eating?”

“Oh.”

The two of you stare at each other for a long moment.

“Did I ruin the meal?”

“What do you think?”

He has the decency to look chastised. It doesn’t last long, “I didn’t know you’d be here.” He sounds genuinely surprised, “Do you come here often?”

You cross your arms, “That's your first question?” You ask incredulously. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

He doesn’t appear deterred by your words, “I’ve never…” He muses to himself, and you can see him attempting to figure out how you managed to get here.

He frowns, furrowing his eyebrows at you, “You…” The emotion behind the words is indecipherable. He pauses for a long moment before abruptly turning to stare at the fallen agents he killed less than a minute ago. The bewilderment on his face is evident, and you doubt it's from the task force. You wait for him to finish his sentence, but he doesn’t, not immediately. He stares at the agents, the floor, the booth, and then you.

“What were you thinking?”

What?

He sounds upset, genuinely upset. The shift from from mild exasperation to fury has your head spinning. “What?” You say your question out loud.

“You— Why would—” He looks at your befuddled expression, and it's like he has so many questions that he can't figure out which one to ask first.

You raise an eyebrow, “Why what?” You ask nonplussed.

The sound of sirens catch both of your attention. You both look at each other, and you open your mouth to speak, but he bolts out on you.

Eyes wide, you turn to survey the scene before feeling sick at the sight of dead bodies and looking away. For once, you weren’t the only trying to avoid him. Bullseye walked out on you.

As if this day couldn't get any weirder.

I think I messed up.

You tap your finger idly against your phone, staring at the message before pressing the send button.

It has been a few days since Bullseye killed the task force agents at the diner. You hadn’t seen him since, and that in itself was unsettling. When you entered the coffee shop the day after the incident, he wasn’t there. Even the barista commented on it. You scoffed, as if you knew where he was.

Your phone starts ringing, startling you. You sit up straighter on your couch, answering it. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Matt greets, and you can hear the tension in his voice, “are you okay?”

You let out a huff of air, “I’m fine right now.”

“Good,” he pauses, “good… Did something happen?”

You hesitate, but it’s too late to tell Matt to ignore you. You swallow, “You know that diner? The one that Bullseye killed those task force guys in?”

Matt is silent for a moment, “Yes.” He sounds even more tense. “Did he recognize you?”

You smack your lips, “About that…”

Matt says your name, disgruntled.

“He doesn’t recognize me from then.” You assure him. “I— He recognizes me from somewhere else.”

Matt curses and you grimace, “Damn it. Why— Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

You shake your head, “I don’t know. I thought that—” you swallowed, “I didn’t think he’d notice me.”

“How’d you meet him?” Matt asks, ignoring your excuses.

You blink, “He began going to the coffee shop I go to every morning.”

Matt curses again, “This is the kind of stuff you tell me. You should’ve told me the second you saw him the first time.”

You know. “I know.” You whisper.

“He didn’t hurt you?”

“No.”

“Did he talk to you?”

You hesitate. Matt says your name again.

“Yes,” you shut your eyes.

“What did he say?”

You shrug, “I don’t know. We talked about coffee.”

“Coffee.” Matt scoffs. “You two talk about the weather too?” He comments sarcastically.

You narrow your eyes, “Want me to ask him next time?”

Matt says your name again, a warning. “Don’t. Don’t go back there to the diner or coffee shop or wherever you saw him for the first time.”

You pause, contemplative, “Okay…”

“I’m serious.”

“I know. I won’t.”

Matt is silent for a moment, deciding whether or not to believe you. “If you see him, let me know immediately.” He exhales. “I find it difficult to believe you seeing him is a coincidence.”

“Me too.” You reply honestly.

“I need your word that you’ll call me.”

You sigh, “Fine. I promise I won’t go looking for him, and if I see him I’ll call you.”

Matt exhales, “Thank you.” He doesn’t sound angry anymore, merely weary. “I’m sorry you had to get involved in this.”

You sigh, “It’s not your fault.” You reply sincerely, albeit slightly bitter. He doesn’t respond to that, so you continue. “Have a good night, Matt.”

“You too.” He says, and you hang up.

Groaning, you flop onto the armrest of your couch, flattening your face against the cushions. You try and ignore the emotion in your chest, the one you refuse to label as disappointment because you should be relieved. Matt knows your dilemma now, and Daredevil will know soon enough. You shouldn’t have to worry about a diner incident ever occurring again.

It apears that you’ll have to go back to your breakfast-less lifestyle once again it seems.

The following morning you forced yourself to walk past the coffee shop, and look away from their windows. He hadn’t been showing up at the shop either way, so no point in trying to search for someone who isn’t there.

Your life returned to something that that resembled a routine. You would wake up, go get coffee, go to work, eat, and come home. The routine should’ve been sufficient. However, something had undeniably shifted. No matter how resentful you were over Dex, seeing him—a version of him at least—stirred up feelings that you hadn’t had in years.

Part of you was angry at him because now those wounds feel fresh. All the progress you thought you made getting over him turned to dust in a couple weeks, regressing to a state of longing for something that you know you’ll never have again.

You grab your keys, giving your apartment one last look over before opening the door. Your eyes widen at the sight of a delivery guy at your doorstep.

He says your name and you furrow your brows.

“I didn’t order anything.” You look at the bag in his hands, it’s from a bagel place down the street that you used to go to for breakfast.

The guy shrugs, “Well, it has your name on it.” He turns the label for you to read.

You eye the bag dubiously, “I don’t have any cash.”

“Tipped through the app,” he responds, “so do you want it or not?”

Tentatively, you reach your hand out to grab the bag. You look inside, and it’s fresh. Your stomach rumbles at the sight. “Thanks?” You thank the man, but he doesn’t appear to care about your gratitude, seeing as he left the second you grabbed the bag.

You smell the bagels, and you have a suspicion who sent them.

It’s not like you have a way you have to contact Bullseye. What would you even say? “Sorry if I offended you at the diner after you killed a bunch of people, no idea what I did. Thanks for the bagel!”

You take the bag with you, exiting your building as you pull out your phone.

I think he sent me food.

You take a bite of the bagel, waiting for Matt’s response.

Matt calls you again.

“What did you do?” He sounds drained.

You make an offended noise, “What makes you think this is my fault?”

“Have you been in contact with him recently?” Matt wastes no time asking questions.

“No,” you scoff, “I told you I’d contact you if I saw him.”

“Right,” Matt replies, evidently skeptical. “Did you toss out the food?”

You look at the half-eaten bagel in your hands, “Yeah,” you lie. Now probably isn’t a good time to tell him about the muffins you’ve shared with Bullseye.

Matt sighs, “He might’ve tampered with it.”

“I figured if he wanted me dead he’d shoot me.” You respond wryly.

Matt huffs sardonically, “You’ll only encourage him.”

“Has Daredevil talked to him recently?”

Matt pauses, “Maybe, why?”

“Then can you tell Daredevil to tell Bullseye that while I appreciate the food, he has to knock it off. I can't exactly contact him and tell him to stop.”

Matt goes silent, not finding your request as humorous as you do. “Next time, toss out the food.” He pauses, and you hear some distant rustling on his side of the call. “You aren’t actively in danger right? I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“I’m alright. Go do what you need to do.” You smile, finishing the bagel.

You bid each other goodbye before hanging up, and you go to work as if nothing happened. Part of you wonders if Matt took you serious and will actually tell Daredevil to pass your message along. Matt was right telling you that you shouldn't accept the food Bullseye was “anonymously” ordering for you. You are aware that it’s a bad idea.

But it was nice to have someone who cared like that.

You hadn’t had that in a long time, and perhaps Bullseye was using that to his advantage to manipulate you. Because at the end of the day, you know he isn’t doing it out of the kindness of his heart. You aren’t that blind.

On your walk home, you pick up takeout from whatever is nearby, too tired to cook. You grimace at the sight of the task force across the street. Rushing into your building, you take the elevator up. You fumble for your keys, frustrated at the low lighting in the hallway. It’s been broken for years, and it makes it difficult to see where you’re looking at night with the constant flickering.

Entering your apartment, you take your shoes off before closing the door and locking it. You take a few steps into your apartment before releasing an undignified gasp and jolting.

“Shit,” you gasp, “what are you doing here?” You place the takeout onto the kitchen counter, never taking your eyes off of Bullseye. He has the mask off, but he is still wearing the costume. He is sitting on the corner of your couch as if this is normal.

“I wanted to see you.” His voice isn’t loud, yet it carries across the room.

“So you broke into my apartment?” You scoff, subtly reaching for your phone behind the counter.

“Yeah,” he replies, tone low and unbothered. Then, as if he knows what you're attempting to do, continues, “Without Daredevil, preferably.”

You pause, grip tightening around your phone, “Why would Daredevil be here?”

He turns to face you, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

You go silent at that, placing your phone atop of the counter for him to see, pushing it away. His eyes never leave your face. “What do you want then?”

He imperceptibly shakes his head, “I said I wanted to see you—”

“Bullshit.” You cut him off scathingly, “You’ve been seeing me at the coffee shop for weeks. You show up at the diner I go to. You have breakfast delivered—”

He raises an eyebrow, “—I thought you liked that place?”

“That’s not the point, Dex.” You raise your hands up wildly.

He readjusts in his seat, going silent at your words. “I wasn’t sure I was ever going to hear you say my name.” He says hoarsely.

You blink, taken aback. “How did you know I knew your name?” You narrow your eyes at him defensively.

“You made eye contact with me that… first time we met.” He rolls a coin over his knuckles casually.

You scowl at him, “Okay? Doesn’t mean I know your name.”

“You made a face when the barista said my name was ‘Tony.’” Dex tilts his head at you.

You shrug, “You don’t look like a ‘Tony.’ None of this is actual evidence.”

“You weren’t surprised to see me in the suit.” He looks down, a small smirk on his face.

You click your tongue, “Okay,” you admit, “fine. Maybe I recognized you online.”

He chuckles, “Online, huh?” He asks distantly.

You roll your eyes, “If this is what you came to talk to me about, then I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” You cross your arms.

Dex blinks, setting the coin down, “Come back to the coffee shop.”

You snort, “Absolutely not.”

“Please,” he doesn’t quite yell, but the volume startles you.

“Please,” he swallows, and you watch him attempt to get his breathing under control, “we can pretend this never happened. I’ll pretend that you don’t know who I am.” He clenches his jaw. “Just please come back there. I need—” he falters, “I want to see you again… in the mornings.” His eyes train on you, “Every morning.”

Oh, this is not healthy.

“Dex…” You shakily inhale. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He inhales sharply, eyes going towards you. “Did Daredevil tell you that too?”

You furrow your brows, “What does Daredevil have to do with this?”

His eyes narrow, “He did, didn’t he?” He laughs lowly, and you aren’t sure whether you’re supposed to answer that.

You grit your teeth, “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.” you shrug. Matt did tell you, multiple times, that this was a terrible idea, but that is not Dex’s business or problem. You take a deep breath, steeling yourself for what you’re about to do. It’s best that you end… whatever this is with Dex anyway. You’re getting too emotionally invested in something you shouldn’t, and you know you will get burned if you allow this to persist.

“And you’re just going to do what he says?” He scoffs.

“Again, I don’t see why that should matter to you.” You narrow your eyes, loosely gesturing to him.

“It shouldn’t, should it?”

“No, it shouldn’t.”

Dex’s jaw ticks, and for a moment you remember who you’re talking to. You take a step back, and he inhales deeply.

“Don’t— Don’t do that.” He sounds pained and aggravated.

“Do what?” You hold your hands up in mock surrender.

“Act like you’re afraid.” He spits out the word as if it disgusts him.

“You come into my apartment at night telling me to meet with you against my will all while wearing your suit.” You spit out the final word disdainfully.

He shakes his head, standing up, “I would never hurt you. You know this.”

“No,” you raise your hands up, “I don’t. Not anymore at least.”

He doesn’t have a response for that. He says your name quietly.

“You should leave, Dex. I’m going to call Daredevil.” You warn him, turning to face him.

He clasps his hands, his leg bouncing lightly as he turns to face the ground. You wait for him to make eye contact. When he does, he looks distraught.

He doesn’t say anything as he makes his way to the window Daredevil used. He stops before leisurely turning around, “You might want to lock your windows next time.”

“Don’t pretend like you weren’t happy that you could climb in.” You retort disapprovingly.

He tilts his head slightly, a wry expression on his face. He pulls the mask back on, and you turn around.

“I wouldn’t want other people climbing up to meet you too.” He replies, and when you turn to look at him, he is gone.

You rub your temples, unsure whether to cry or scream.

Your eyes burn, the low lighting combined with the vivid colors straining them. You aren’t even sure what’s happening on the TV anymore. You had played a series to distract yourself, but now your eyes hurt and you were stressed.

You weren’t bluffing when you warned Dex. You did call Daredevil—well, you called Matt who called Daredevil who…

Point is, Matt told you to expect Daredevil to check on you. Perhaps if you felt better, you’d make yourself look more presentable for the elusive vigilante. However, you couldn’t really bring yourself to care at this point. Matt hadn’t really given you a time, so you had settled yourself onto your couch with the intention of waiting until he popped in.

Half an hour passed, then an hour, then two hours, then three, and now it was two in the morning.

If this happens again, you’re asking Matt for a better time estimate.

You’re resting your eyes when you hear the faint knocking on your window. Blinking the sleepiness away, you watch as Daredevil lets himself in.

“Hey,” he greets, and you frown at him.

“It’s late.”

“I know.” He holds his hands up placatingly “I’m sorry.” He does sound apologetic.

You prop yourself onto the armrest, “How much did Matt tell you?”

“All of it.”

“All of it?” You repeat incredulously.

“The more I know, the better I can help you.” He justifies.

“So you know about…” You mimic a throwing motion with an airy whistle and eyebrows raised.

He doesn’t immediately respond, “Yeah,” he responds dryly, “I know about him.”

What the hell, Matt? First Karen, now Daredevil?

“Great.” You respond sarcastically.

Daredevil ignores you comment, looking you up and down, “You said Bullseye visited you?”

“Yeah,” you nod, crossing your arms, “climbed in through the window.” You gesture to the window he entered through

Daredevil frowns slightly, “He know I’m here?”

You shrug, rubbing your eyes, “I don’t know.”

Daredevil nods slowly, “Then it might be for the best that you don’t stay here, at least until the city is safer.”

That wakes you up, “What? Where would I go?”

Daredevil is silent for a moment, “You could stay with Murdock and Page.”

You frown, “Have you even asked them?”

“Yes, they’re alright with you staying.”

Your expression doesn’t change, and Daredevil notices this. “If you don’t leave, Bullseye will keep coming back.”

“What if he finds me and puts Karen and Matt in danger?” You rub your temples, shaking your head at the idea.

“He won’t—”

“How can you be certain?” You whisper, placing your hands on your lap and examining them.

Daredevil doesn’t say anything, and you feel uneasy by his silence. Then you hear his suit rustle lightly, and you look up to see what he is doing.

“You have to be kidding me…” You rub your eyes more intensely, maybe you’re still asleep?

“I’m afraid not.” He offers a remorseful smile, “And before you ask, yes, I am actually blind. I have a method that helps me see.”

Your wide eyes look him up and down, “This whole time…” You trail off, speechless.

He purses his lips, “I’m sorry about lying. I just need you to trust me when I say Bullseye is dangerous, and the safest thing you can do is stay somewhere else right now.”

You barely even process his words, still trying to connect the dots of Matt being Daredevil. Then you reach a sinking realization. “Wait,” you whip your head towards him.

“When we met… You bumped into me.” You recount the events, “This was after Foggy’s death…” You furrow your eyebrows, and now you don’t even know if he can see the action. “You did that intentionally, didn’t you?” You whisper.

Matt doesn’t interrupt.

“You… You befriended me because I knew Dex.” You narrow your eyes at Matt, betrayed. “How did you find out?” When Matt doesn’t immediately respond, you steel your tone, “How, Matt?”

He swallows, “Karen found out when we were… digging into his history.”

You scoff, “Unbelievable,” you mutter, standing up and pacing around your couch. “So all of this… Was this just a way to try and get me to talk about Dex?”

“No, God, no.” Matt interjects, holding his hands up as if the idea is preposterous. “At first, maybe we wanted information, but… but it became clear you were kept in the dark.”

You fight down the tears, “So it was pity?”

Matt places his hands on his hips, turning his gaze to face the ground, “It was understanding. We know what loss like that feels like.” He sighs. “I… I’m sorry for never telling you, but Karen and I, we didn’t befriend because of Dex. If that was the sole reason, then it wouldn’t have lasted. We befriended you because we liked you and thought you would like to know people who could understand what you were going through.” Matt gestures to himself.

Your heart pounds in your chest, and you bite your tongue to keep the tears from falling. “I… That doesn’t—” Matt suddenly tilts his head toward your window, “You lied to me—”

“Get down!”

Matt tackles you, and you both fall limply on the ground. You cover your head instinctively before looking up and seeing a knife where Matt’s shoulder would’ve been.

You and Matt, who already put his helmet back on, turn to your window. Bullseye narrows his eyes at the two of you on the ground. He lazily uses the window to hold his weight, one hand hidden from view and the other holding the bottom jamb to keep it open.

“Was I interrupting something?” Bullseye asks, looks between the two of you, eyes narrowing on Matt.

“Why are you here?” You mutter to yourself, using your couch as cover as Matt stands up, ready to fight. You take a peek to see where he is.

“Just needed to confirm something, that’s all.” He ignores Matt, focusing on you.

“Confirm what?” You ask, and Matt looms over you. Trying to shield you from Bullseye’s view.

“That you were talking to Daredevil.”

You straighten your posture against the back of the couch, “You’re attacking him because I’m talking to him?” You ask, befuddled.

“That among plenty of other reasons he has given.”

You look to Matt, who looks unfazed by this. He isn’t jumping to brawl with Bullseye, and you can see the uneasy combination of caution and restlessness in his stance.

“So why attack me too? Thought you said you wouldn't hurt me—” You scoff.

“—I wouldn’t.” Dex interrupts before you can finish the sentence.

“Then why are you throwing knives in my apartment?”

“They would never hit you.” He sounds offended that you even asked.

“How can you be sure?”

You sneak a glance, noting Dex’s bewildered expression. “I’m sure—”

“Are you two done yet?” Matt interrupts. You both turn your focuses to Daredevil.

Dex grimaces, disgruntled, as if only now remembering that Daredevil was witnessing this.

“No.” Both you and Dex chorus. You stand up, using the couch to push yourself off the ground. Matt moves to try and hide you again, and you glare at him. “I’m still mad at you.” You point a finger to his chest.

He tilts his head as if to say “Really, we’re doing this now?”

You rub your face, exasperated. “Fuck", you curse to yourself, but you know Dex and Matt heard you, “could you both just leave?” You gesture to the door, knowing full well that neither of them have ever used it.

Neither of them move. Matt vaguely looks in Dex’s direction, and Dex furrows his eyebrows, eyes flitting between Matt and you. The sentiment seems obvious on both ends: There’s no way I’m leaving you with that guy.

When it becomes clear that no progress will be made, you grab one of your jackets laying around, snatching your keys off the counter. Neither of them say anything, so you break the tense silence. “I would ask you don’t fight in here, but if you insist, then you both are paying for repairs and anything you break.” You slip your shoes on. “I’m heading out.”

“At this time?” Dex looks like he is about to follow, and he tilts his head slightly.

“Well, I’m clearly not sleeping tonight.” You pointedly glare at them both.

Matt calls your name, a final attempt to get you to return to him. Dex’s eyes don’t leave your own. You both stare at each other for a moment. You swallow, attempting to calm your racing heart. He doesn’t react, and you’re unable to read the expression in his eyes. Turning back to the door, you open it before slamming it shut.

You don’t break your stride as you make your way to the elevator. Once inside, you lean against the walls, closing your eyes and running a hand over your face.

You’re so tired of this. You should’ve just ignored Dex and never looked back. Now, Daredevil… Matt is involved.

Of course, Matt and Karen are a whole other issue.

You decide to make your way to the twenty-four hour diner across the street. You see a group people yelling at each other and try ignore them as you pass by. Thankfully, they don’t pay you any mind.

“Rough night?” The waitress at the counter asks as you sit down on one of the stools. You prop your elbow onto the table, resting your chin on your hand.

“You have no idea.” She snorts softly, sliding a menu to you. You take a moment to shut your eyes, the bright artificial light exacerbating the exhaustion you already feel.

You don’t feel hungry. You can’t feel hungry after everything that just happened, so you order some tea in an attempt to decompress.

You tap your finger idly against the counter, turning to the window. You frown, watching as a man is shoved against the glass, his hands pinned against it. Their yells are muffled from outside, and you turn away from them. The waitress brings the tea and you thank her.

You pull your phone out, and are slightly surprised to see zero notifications. Taking a slow sip of your tea, you search up the Bulletin’s recent headlines.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of them are about Fisk.

The remaining ones are about the task force or the vigilantes of New York. You scroll past them, and your thumb pauses when you see Bullseye mentioned.

You cannot escape him. You sigh, shutting your phone off and placing it on the counter.

“Everybody out.”

You whip your head around to see a line of task force agents entering the diner. You toss an alarmed look to the waitress, who looks just as confused as you do.

“We heard reports of vigilante activity in the area, so we're going door to door to see where they may be hiding.” He walks over to the waitress. Her eye twitches, but she doesn’t say anything.

Two other agents strut around the diner as if they own the place, and you bite your tongue to keep yourself from saying anything stupid. They make a couple rounds and just as you think they’re about to leave, the main one stops next to you. You make a point to sip your tea and avoid his eye.

“Do I recognize you from somewhere, ma’am?” He rests his hand on his pistol. You look at him from the corner of your eye.

“Don’t believe so.” You reply curtly, taking another sip.

He situates himself on the stool next to you to get a clearer view, “No… No I think I recognize ya from somewhere.”

Your hands clench around your mug, “You must be mistaken.” Your eyes flicker to your phone.

“Erickson!” The agent calls out without turning away from you. “Come take a look, doesn’t she look like one of the people we were informed Murdock runs with?”

Another agent walks over, Erickson you presume, narrowing his eyes at you. You casually rest your hand on your phone. “She does,” he notes thoughtfully. Your hands clench the mug so tightly that they shake.

Unceremoniously, you’re slammed onto the counter, and you gasp in pain. “Ma’am you’re under arrest for aiding a vigilante.” You stare at your phone on the counter as they cuff your hands behind your back.

They don’t read your rights as they grab your shirt, forcing you to stand up. One of the agents points their gun at you as the other two escort you to the truck outside.

Just as they’re about to shove you into the truck, they grab some goggles before roughly placing them on your head.

“I’d try catching some sleep on the ride there.” One of the agents whispers into your ear, you shiver in disgust. “The… others can get very noisy.”

You turn roughly towards where his voice was, glaring at him through the mask. “You guys won’t keep getting way with this.” You whisper back to him.

He chuckles lowly, pushing you into the back of the truck and slamming the door closed. You lurch forward as the armored tank starts to move.

Any attempts to figure out where you are going are lost. You are slammed against the walls of the tank more times than you’d prefer. You eventually find a corner, crouching down and remaining there for the rest of the ride.

Your only hope is that Matt finds you.

Your phone was left in the diner, and you don’t know if he’d ever track it—if he can track it. Hell, you don’t even know if the agents took it.

So you must have faith that Matt will realize something happened to you, and will come searching for you.

As the tank slows to a stop, you wobble slightly. You hear the back doors open, and blotches of color fill your vision.

“Out, let’s go.” A stern voice commands you, and you can’t tell if it’s the same guy who stuffed you in here. When you stand up, he clicks his tongue impatiently.

Firmly, he grabs your shoulder, squeezing it as he guides you. You remain quiet, attempting to focus on what little you can see. Distantly, you can hear the soft patter of rain outside.

He takes you through multiple twists and turns, giving no warning before roughly shoving you. Eventually, you slow to a stop and you feel the agent let up on your shoulder a little. You hear him search for something before a confirmation sound rings, and he squeezes your arm once again.

You hear sniffling, sobs, and yells echo across the new room you enter. Must be spacious. The agent guides you and you hear some people yell at him as you pass by. He stops, removing the goggles from your head. You wince at the bright light, and he shoves you into a cell.

Upon further examination, “cage” would be accurate.

“Don’t bother calling for help. Nobody can help you here.” He slams the gate closed and gestures for your hands. Begrudgingly, you stand up, turning your back to the gate. He grabs your wrist before removing the cuffs.

You grab the bars, pressing yourself against the cage to try and get a better view of your surroundings. There’s dozens of other cages identical to your own. Some are lined up in your row while others are on the opposite side.

You let out a long breath, slowly falling to the ground. Some of the other prisoners yell and attempt to spit at the task force agents, but they get ignored.

Judging by the states of some of them, they’ve been kept here for a while. You can only imagine how long you could be here for.

In fact, you realize morbidly, you could die here. Death seemed like such a distant concept mere hours ago, but now you aren’t so sure.

As hours passed, you didn’t see any new additions to the empty cell on your left, nor did you see any task force agents return after sticking you in your cell. Your hands clench around the cool metal of the bars.

Slowly, the other prisoners begin to fall asleep for the night. By this point, it's probably morning, but their sense of time is likely screwed up. The yells become less frequent, and the people pacing their cages began to settle down.

You examine the floor beneath you, leaning your head against the bars of the cage. It’s uncomfortable at best. For a while, you stare blankly at the floor beneath you. You aren’t sure how much time passed exactly, but it felt like hours before you fell asleep despite your prior exhaustion.

You jolted awake the next morning. Blinking rapidly as one of the agents banged his rifle against the bars of your cage.

“We have a few questions for you.” He holds up the goggles tauntingly.

Do you? You want to ask, but you settle for glaring at them instead. They gesture for you to put slot your hands through the bars, and you slowly comply.

When they unlock your cell, they situate the goggles over your face. You blink, adjusting to the disorienting view. “Move it,” one grunts, shoving you forward. One of the guards keeps an arm on you, guiding you around the vicinity.

The walk is shorter than yesterdays. Upon reaching your new destination, they open a door and push you in. You hear it close behind you, and they remove your blindfold.

Two of the agents make their way behind you, and you turn to watch them leave. If you had to guess, they’re standing watch in case you could escape.

“Sit.” A man across the table orders you. You turn to face him for the first time. You blink, looking him up and down. He is dressed professionally with a suit and tie, nothing like the task force guys. You narrow your eyes at him, and he looks unimpressed. “I won’t ask again.”

Hesitantly, you take a seat across him. “What do you want?” You ask, voice rough from disuse.

“I have been informed of your prior exposure to vigilantes.” He opens a manila folder, and you can see a file of yourself inside. He shifts, holding it out of your view. “Namely Daredevil.” He taps the pages lightly, “However, I did some more digging.”

He takes a photo out of the folder, “That’s you, isn’t it?” He slides it across the table. You don’t have to look at it to know what it is.

You clench your jaw, “How did you get this?”

The man shrugs, “It was easy enough.” He replies mildly, “Answer my question.”

You glare at him, refusing to look down at the photo of you and Dex. It was one of the first ones you had posted on social media long ago. You’d taken them down the night Dex went to prison the first time.

The man doesn’t appear deterred by your defiance, “That,” he points to a photo, “That is Benjamin Poindexter, otherwise known as 'Bullseye,' correct?”

You follow his hand to the photo before looking to him. What do you think? You don’t say anything.

“Your relations with Matthew Murdock and Benjamin Poindexter are well known by this point.” He continues. “When did you meet Poindexter?”

You glare at the man, not saying anything. He waits for an answer, hands folded on the table.

Then he slaps you.

He did not hold back, and you gasp at how it makes your head spin. You look towards him, aghast. “I will not ask again.”

You readjust yourself, “Go to hell.”

His eyes narrow slightly before slapping you again, even harder than last time. This time you can taste blood fill your mouth. You raised your cuffed hands to wipe it.

He adjusts his tie, waiting patiently, “I am not here to play games. Nobody will find you here, that is, if they’re even looking for you.” He sighs, “Answer my questions, it will make our lives easier.” He taps the photo again, “When did you meet?”

“… A few years ago.” You wipe the blood escaping your mouth, holding back a wince.

“How many exactly?”

“I don’t know.” You huff, “Like nine?”

He hums, “What was your relationship with Poindexter?”

“We were friends.” You lie.

The man pauses, giving you a long look. “And when did you meet Murdock?”

“A little over a year ago.” You still feel the sting of his hand against your skin.

“Did you aid Benjamin Poindexter in any of his crimes?” He leans forward, putting his weight on the table.

“No.” You reply truthfully.

He tilts his head, “When was the last time you two had communication?”

Yesterday. “Haven’t seen him since he went to prison after impersonating Daredevil.”

“So you knew him before that.” He muses. It’s not a question, so you don’t respond. “Tell me, did you suspect that he’d go down a path like this?”

You furrow your eyebrows, “How would I know? I’m not his psychiatrist.”

“Don’t get smart with me.” He shakes his head, unamused. “Now, about Murdock, did you ever aid his crimes?”

“What crimes?” You play dumb.

His lips twitch, and he leans back. “Don’t play dumb. We both know who he is.”

You place your hands onto the table, “I don’t, actually.”

The man narrows his eyes at you in disbelief, “Do you know where he or Daredevil is now?”

“No.” You wince.

“What about Bullseye?”

You scoff, “I said I haven’t seen him in years. How would I know where he is?”

“If you two were ‘friends,’” he does air quotes, “why had he never attempted to reestablish contact?”

You shrug, “I don’t know. He’s probably too busy being Bullseye to care.”

He narrows his eyes, “You see, I don’t believe you.”

Your mouth dries, “Well, then I don’t know what to tell you.” You shrug. “You’re better off asking him yourself.”

He looks at you before letting out a long sigh. “Let me be clear here when I say that you’re merely a piece in this puzzle. I truly do not care about your past relationship with Bullseye or Murdock.” He stands up, “All I care about is getting answers to their whereabouts.” You glare at him as he maneuvers himself around the table before grabbing your head and slamming it down onto the metal table.

You can’t hold back the cry of pain your release. He continues to pin your head down to the table, “With how many connections you have, you’re lucky that I want answers from you and not your death.” He releases your head, and you watch him knock on the door behind you out of the corner of your eye.

“Take her back. We got what we needed.” He tells the agent. He looks unmoved by your state, abruptly blindfolding you again and dragging you out.

When you make it back to your cell, you glare at him through the mask. His grip was so tight that you wouldn’t be surprised if he bruised your arm. Before he leaves, you meet his eyes. He seems amused by your suffering. “This is funny to you?” You whisper, sneering at him.

He sneers at your question, and you take a moment to memorize his face. He raises the keys in front of your face, outside the bars, jingling them. You keep your face purposefully blank, unwilling to give him the reaction he desires. When he leaves, you can hear his quiet chuckles.

Once alone, you slowly lay yourself on the ground, using your arm as a pillow. You attempt to keep your breathing steady as tears well up against your will. Your soft sobs go unheard, the cacophony of the other prisoners drowning out your sorrow.

You don’t think it would matter anyway. You wipe the tears, attempting to close your eyes once more.

Your lip trembles as you rub your eyes. It is freezing here. The sound of distant gunshots make you flinch, yet you aren’t surprised to hear them. The sounds of chaos had become normal in the past couple days.

At least you think it has been a couple days. It’s hard to gauge time without a clock or the sun.

You hadn’t been pulled out to be interrogated since the first morning. It was a small mercy, but one you were grateful for, nonetheless. Not that these monsters deserved your gratitude. However, the lack of action does make you a bit antsy.

Part of you hopes something… someone worse will come for them. You think if Frank Castle were to walk in you might just start cheering. After all, who knows how many victims the task force has unreasonably taken and killed?

You sigh, finishing the last of the water they provided. The gunshots haven’t quieted down yet, and you can only hope they aren't murdering an innocent prisoner.

Then, you realize with growing despair, that they are getting closer.

You turn to face the exit of this nightmare, expecting some task force guy to storm through angrily. Perhaps he would be yelling, dragging out some of the other prisoners, hopefully not you again. You move towards the back of your cell.

Then the door slams open, and every single prisoner, including you, turns their attention as a task force agent stumbles over himself. He raises his rifle to shoot the perpetrator, but before he can get a shot off he crumples to the ground, blood splattering from the wound directly on his forehead.

Well, that's not Matt.

You hear some prisoners cry out for help, and you move toward the front of your cell. Gripping the bars, you watch as the killer steps into view.

Your mouth parts in surprise, what is he doing here?

Bullseye looks to the cells on the left side first, evidently searching for something or someone. He ignores their pleas, and you see one of the prisoners reach out to him, begging him to set them free. He doesn’t linger on them. He strolls over to the right side, your side. He passes each cage leisurely, scanning left and right.

Then his gaze lands on you. You two stare at each other for a long moment before he approaches your cell.

“What are you doing here?” You rasp, narrowing your eyes at him. You clear your throat after speaking.

He tilts his head, “Helping you?”

You’re too tired to hide your startled expression, “I thought you were mad at me.” The words feel ridiculous the second they leave your mouth.

Despite the fact the mask covers most of his face, you can see the genuine befuddlement on his face. “And so you… you thought I’d leave you here?” His words are quieter.

You swallow, watching as he grabs the bars of your cell, testing their strength, “You seemed pretty upset when you saw me talking with Daredevil.”

He laughs, dumbfounded, never looking away from you. “So you thought I’d leave you to die?” His eyes are narrowed on you as if trying to figure out how you possibly conceived such an outrageous concept.

“I don’t know!” You whisper-yell, and the cell door swings open. “And I’m not dead yet.” You use the bars to help push yourself off the ground.

Bullseye watches as you slowly walk out of the cell. In the corner of your eye, you see the familiar task force vest. You open your mouth to warn him, “Dex—”

He throws a knife behind him without looking, and it bounces off another prisoner’s cell causing them to let out a scream before hitting the task force guard in the eye, knocking him to the ground. Your eyes widen, looking to Bullseye, lips parted in surprise.

“Is he even alive?” You ask, dismayed, looking toward the fallen guard.

“Does it really matter?” Bullseye responds, unperturbed.

You whip your head towards him, appalled. You hate the task force, but you aren’t sure if you can condone murder. Perhaps you were bluffing slightly earlier when you hoped for Frank Castle's appearance.

He crumbles under your stare slightly, “He’ll live.”

“You hit him in the eye.”

“Yeah?” He straightens himself, “He’ll live.” He loosely waves a hand in the guards direction.

You scoff, “What about the guy you shot when entering?”

Bullseye shrugs.

“Oh, so it’s like that?” You mock his shrug, pushing past him. He slowly trails behind you.

Dex chuckles lowly, “I can see why you and Daredevil get along.”

“Ah, you are still mad about that.” You can hear the strain in your voice.

“Hm,” he hums, not exactly disagreeing, “but I wasn’t going to leave you to die.” His voice turns more severe, catching your attention. You pause your stride.

Turning to face him, the retort dies on your tongue, not because of the words themself, but because of his delivery.

Despite the blood covering his suit, the countless weapons strewn across his body, and the many years that have passed, he still looks at you like Dex used to.

He looks like Dex. The words loop in your head. You stare at him, dazed. He looks like the Dex you once loved with all your heart. He is still looking at you like he holds the weight of the memories that you’ve solely beared for years.

“I…” You trail off, before shaking your head and dismissing the thoughts. “Thank you.” Your voice comes out smaller than intended. He continues to stare at you for a long moment before walking past you. “Where are you gonna go now?” You ask.

He pauses, looking towards you, then the exit, then back at you. “I thought we were leaving?” Dex sounds confused. You look towards the cells of the other prisoners, and you can see the imprint of a frown against his mask.

“We can’t just leave them here.” You gesture to them, and you hear a prisoner behind you frantically agree.

“I came here for you.” At your disapproving face, he hesitates. Neither of you seem to budge. Then, his shoulder fall slightly, and you know you’ve won.

You make your way over to him, and you grab his arm, catching him by surprise judging by the way his eyes widen faintly. “Come on, faster we do it, faster we leave.”

Dex looks between your hand and your face. Then, resigned, he allows you to pull him back to the cells. The two of you make your way around the room, breaking the locks off each cage. When you break the last one off, you turn to face him. You're unsurprised when you notice he’s already looking at you.

“We’re leaving.” He decides, grabbing your arm similar to the way you grabbed his earlier. It wasn’t rough, but it was firm in a way that told you he wasn’t going to be swayed anymore.

“How are they gonna escape?” You ask as he pulls you past the now empty cages. You note that some of the prisoners give him a wary look, and you don’t necessarily blame them.

Dex looks exasperated, but you can hear the hint of fondness in his voice. “We just broke them out. They can figure out the rest. I told you, I didn’t come here for them.”

“Yeah, but—”

You yelp in surprise as a billy club hits Dex in the chest, causing him to stumble and reach for his knives. Your eyes widen in recognition, “Daredevil?” You call out, watching as Matt emerges from the darkness shrouding the exit.

“Let her go.” Matt demands evenly.

Dex narrows his eyes at Matt, and you look between the two of them. “I didn’t take her.” He straightens himself, attempting to put himself between you and Matt, “I imagine the blame for that falls to you.” Dex grits out.

Matt scoffs, “Don’t try and act like you’re innocent.”

Dex clenches his fist, reaching into his belt, and you look between him and Matt. This was just what was needed. “Can we not do this here? There’s over a dozen hostages that don’t have a way out.” Matt doesn’t ease up, and Dex doesn’t either. “Do you have a way to help them?” You ask Matt.

He is silent for a moment, “We can figure a way out.”

“Alright,” you turn to Dex, “you said you came here for me. Does that mean you figured a way out?”

“Yeah,” he sneers, “for us.” He says slowly.

The conversation is interrupted as another guard comes running out, gun in hand. The three of you turn to face him. Instantly recognizing his face, you grimace, catching Dex’s attention.

“You know him?”

“Regrettably.” You absentmindedly rub the bruises he left behind, Dex’s eyes narrow on your arms before snapping towards the agent.

Matt, as if somehow sensing where this was about to go, extends his billy club, intercepting directly with one of Dex’s knives. You watch as it clatters to the ground, frowning. Then, you turn your attention back towards the agent.

Oh.

The agent collapses on the ground, one of Dex’s knives lodged into his temple. When you turn to Dex, there is not a single bit of remorse in his eyes. In fact, he turns to you as if waiting for approval. Matt curses on your left, and Dex’s posture loosens with a smugness that makes you wonder if he killed that agent for you, to aggravate Matt, or because he enjoyed it.

Probably all three.

“Back up is arriving.” Matt tilts his head slightly towards the door, and you wonder how he could possibly know that. He goes quiet for a moment, “We have to leave now if we want a chance.” He pointedly ignores Dex.

“Alright.” You nod, turning to Dex. He looks suspiciously apathetic to the development that has occurred. “Thanks for breaking me out.” You offer him a grateful smile. For once, it's genuine.

He stares at you for a moment, not giving a response before looking towards Daredevil. “Go.” Matt commands. Dex narrows his eyes at him.

“I’ll see you soon.” He mutters. He doesn’t move to leave, and you give him a confused look.

“C’mon,” Matt’s voice softens ever so slightly, grabbing your shoulder and turning you away from Dex. You give Dex one last look over your shoulder, and to your surprise he winks at you, a small smirk on his face.

You get a sinking feeling he is planning something, and not anything good.

Matt guides you to the rest of the prisoners, “Move!” He points to the exit, and the group scurries to follow his instructions. You turn to Matt before falling in line behind the last prisoner. They whisper to each other, and you can hear some people sobbing in relief that Daredevil has arrived.

Matt escorts them through the hallway, and you stay close to him the whole time. You turn around, frowning when you see an agent moving to get up, their radio seems to be on the fritz. You nudge Matt slightly, and he turns to face you. You nod your head over to the agent, and he returns the nod before making his way over to the floored man. He grabs the two-way radio, holding it up to speak.

“Fisk has people in here,” he puffs, “not just vigilantes. I’m bringing them out now.” He tells the radio before putting it down and raising his hand. “Follow me.” He orders. Matt guides you through another hallway before reaching a wooden door, he slides it open.

“Go,” he huffs repeatedly, and you can see that the door leads outside. He ushers them through, and you hear the familiar wail of sirens. Then, without warning, he freezes, “Down! Everybody, down!” He yells out, and all of you hit the deck.

You gasp as bullets rain over your head. You attempt to locate Matt, but between the low lighting and crowd of people, it’s a lost cause. You press your body against one of the crates that are shielding you from the bullets, heart pounding.

You hear Matt yell something inaudible before a knife lodges itself near your hand. You jolt, about to scream for Daredevil when you get a closer look at the knife. It reads the words: “OVER HERE.”

You try and retrace the trajectory of where it came from, and look up to see Bullseye waiting just inside the doorframe you exited. The way he has positioned himself makes it impossible for any of the task force agents to see him, or really, anybody who isn’t you. He tilts his head, giving a casual nod.

You scowl at him, grabbing the knife, and scanning the area. When you find a break in the gunfire, you crouch and run back inside. Upon reentering, you straighten yourself. “What are you doing? When you said ‘see you soon’ I didn’t think this is what you meant.”

He looks you up and down, “I did tell you that I was only here for you.” He shrugs, “Your fault you thought I’d actually leave.”

“Daredevil has it handled, I would’ve been fine.” You cross your arms, pushing him more in the building, paranoid that the task force or Matt would spot you two.

Dex nods slowly, “Yeah, being shot at sounds like he has it ‘handled’ to me.” You see his eyes narrow slightly. “We should go before he can stop us.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do you want to go back out there?”

You don’t have an answer for that, and he nods as if he knew you wouldn’t. “He’ll be fine.”

“He’s going to think I went missing.” You snap at him.

Dex says your name and you pause, “He probably already knows I’m here. If he wanted to stop us from leaving, he would try to.” His voice goes quieter, “I had to— I wanted to make sure you’re okay. All of the task force is focused on him right now. There are other exits we can take while they’re distracted.”

You cross your arms, feeling the exhaustion of the past two days catch up to you. “Fine,” you acquiesce, “but if anything goes wrong, you get to be the one to explain it to him.”

Dex huffs, but doesn’t disagree, “Yeah, I’ll be sure to mention it the next time we meet.” He starts walking down the hallway you came from, you follow him side-by-side.

Neither of you speak for a few minutes, but he, surprisingly, breaks the silence. “About the other night,” he begins, catching your attention, “I didn’t mean for it to go down like that.”

You raise an eyebrow, “Then how did you intend for it to go down?”

Dex doesn’t respond immediately, and you follow him up a set of stairs. “I… don’t know.” He replies measuredly. “I just…” he grunts, “I couldn’t stand seeing you with him.” He replies honestly, shaking his head. The two of you make it through another set of doors.

You process the information, grabbing the railing of another staircase. You descend downward, and when you reach the bottom you turn to him “You knew Daredevil was gonna show, didn’t you?” You ask, walking side-by-side with Dex.

He turns to face you, removing the mask off his face, and you catch yourself staring. “I suspected.” He shrugs.

You hum, “Is that why—”

“If you still want to talk about Daredevil, we can turn around.” Dex interjects sarcastically, tossing a glance behind you both.

Your eyebrows raise, and you let out a startled breath. “Huh,” you muse, pausing to turn around, causing Dex to stop too, “alright, well seeing as that was the original plan. I’ll see you later then, and not later as in five minutes—” You ramble, bluffing. You don’t get very far before Dex stops you, grabbing you by the waist and pulling you closer. You stagger over yourself, your hands falling to his shoulders.

You look at his eyes, scanning his face. Dex mimics the action, looking over your face. You can’t tell if he is examining you for injuries, or if he is trying to commit this moment to memory. Perhaps both. Your breath hitches at his intense gaze.

“I’m filthy.” You whisper, shivering as his hands come up hesitantly to touch your cheek, as if he is waiting for you to deny him the pleasure. Perhaps the nights spent caged made you delusional because you physically lean in, and he follows the motion.

He chuckles quietly, the sound for your ears alone, “And you think I’d care?” He whispers back.

You smirk softly, “Fair enough.” You laugh, and he leans closer to you, as if drawn in by the sound of your joy. Neither of you say anything before meeting each other halfway.

His shoulders drop instantly, and his hands pull you closer as if he physically cannot let go of you. You smile through the kiss, and you feel him mirror the action. His lips move with yours as if they can predict your every action and match it perfectly, as if he has done it a million times before. He kisses you with a desire that you haven’t felt in years. It is both the most heavenly and agonizing experience all at once, to be readily given what you’ve wanted for all this time. Slowly, you pull away to catch your breath. Dex doesn’t move, and when you open your eyes, his are still closed.

You let the moment linger before breaking the silence, it felt too familiar to not say anything. “You know who I am, don’t you?” You croak.

His eyes flutter open, flickering down to his lips before meeting your eyes again. “Hm?” He hums blissfully.

You chuckle softly to hide how exposed you feel at the question, lightly tapping your fingers across his chest, “You do, right?” You ask again.

He swallows, and you can see his throat move with the action. Then he says your name tenderly, reverently. “I’ve remembered for a while now.”

That surprises you, “Have you?” You ask, raising a hand up to his chin, gently brushing your fingers against the scarred skin.

He nods slowly, leaning into the touch. “Back at the diner.” Your lips part, and he blinks, patiently waiting your response.

“That’s when you remembered me?” You raise an eyebrow, and his hand idly rubs circles against your skin.

“You sound surprised.” He notes, clearly attempting (and failing) to bite back a smile.

“Forgive me, but you had walked into the diner, killed like ten task force agents, then asked if my meal was ruined.”

“Was it?” He sounds way more proud about murder than he has any right to. “You never did give a clear answer to my question.” He muses, thoughtful.

“Yeah,” you huff, “because I was upset at the crime scene I was witnessing.” You emphasize your point by pushing your index finger against his chest.

“Well, I gathered that.” Dex responds dryly. “I didn’t actually know you were there until it was too late.”

You raise an eyebrow, “I find that hard to believe. You just coincidentally visited the same diner I frequented?”

“I don’t know ‘bout a coincidence.” Dex shakes his head, “I… I think some part of me knew you liked that place.” His voice wavers a bit.

“So you visited it often because it reminded you of the life you couldn’t remember?” Your voice is solemn.

“…Yeah.” He whispers, almost vulnerable.

You frown, lip trembling, and your next question is filled years of pent up sorrow and fury, “You remember me, truly?” Your voice trembles, unable to meet his eyes as you ask him to reconfirm everything he just told you. “I don’t mean the coffee shop, the diner, or even the nights you visited me.” You feel the tears begin to well up in your eyes. Dex freezes the moment he notices them. “I mean before all of that.”

Dex waits for you to look up, and you blink the tears away. “I remember,” he begins slowly, “you told me that you didn’t like it when I vanished on those nights. You told me you were afraid that, with how Daredevil—how I—was acting back then, that I’d get killed.” He takes a deep breath, “I remember I told you that I’d make sure that you knew I was alive.” He smiles wistfully.

“If you forgot to eat dinner, I’d order Italian from that one place you liked down the street of our apartment.” You let out a quiet sob, “I remember that one time, you had a bad day coming home from work.” He inhales, “Fisk told me to go…” he shakes his head, “That part isn’t important, but all I remember is you telling me that you wanted me to come home that night.” He shakes his head slowly, “I remember you saying that so… so vividly. When I came home, you greeted me with the biggest smile, and for a moment I could forget everything else that wasn’t you.” Tears are openly running down your face, yet Dex doesn’t stop.

“I remember during the confrontation, before I forgot,” his eyes look from the ground up to yours, “before Fisk broke my spine, I thought back to what you said. That you wanted me to come home.” He blinks a few times, “All— All I could think about was the fact that I wouldn’t be coming home that night, and you wouldn’t know why. I would never be able to tell you myself.” You don’t bother holding back the sobs that wrack your body. “And I… I couldn’t help but hate myself in that moment. I hated him too. I was so upset that Fisk stole my chance to explain myself.”

You take in a deep breath, your chest shuddering, “And when I woke up, something was missing. I couldn’t remember you, but you haunted my life for years.” He admits, chuckling softly, but the sound is more troubled than anything. “Sometimes I could remember bits of what it felt like to be loved by you, but I could never remember your face. Not— Not until much later.”

“Dex…” You warble.

“Do you believe me?” You don’t get a chance to respond, “Please believe me. I…” His breathing begins to quicken, “I don’t know how else to…” he trails off, and you take the opportunity to pull him closer, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He falls into your chest, and you can feel his heartbeat fluttering underneath your fingertips. “I believe you, Dex.” You sniffle.

His glassy eyes meet your own, swollen and red from tears. “I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted—needed anybody as much as I need you.” He admits, and the words spill out. He licks his lips, meeting your eyes, desperation evident. “Finding you again was like taking a breath of air after drowning for so long.” He takes a deep breath, “I love you. I need you.”

You melt onto him, and Dex basks in your presence. Perhaps his words may be concerning, but part of you resonates with him. “I missed you so much.” You whisper. “Do you have any idea how much I missed you?” You ask. He blinks, and you continue: “All these years, I... hated that you left me with this burden where I remembered everything, but you lived on as if I didn’t exist.” Dex's eye twitches, but he doesn’t interrupt you.

“I was hoping that if I pretended you weren’t apart of my life, I could eventually convince myself that it was true.” You trace your fingers along his shoulders, and you watch him look down. “All these years, despite the fact that you had forgotten me, I could not erase my memory of you.” You laugh, wiping a few stray tears. “Life is cruel, isn't it?”

“Do you still wish you could forget?” He asks, meeting your eyes. His hands shake slightly in anticipation, and his breathing is unnaturally still.

“No,” you admit truthfully. “Not anymore, at least.” Dex exhales in relief at your words.

“I’m… I’m really sorry that you went through that.” The apology is clunky and pathetic—laughable even. You let out a tearful snort at it.

But it’s Dex, it’s so purely Dex that it hurts because you know he means it. He recounted memories of you as if they happened yesterday and told you he needs you.

He must see how unimpressed you are, “I know that doesn’t sound like much…”

“It doesn’t.” You quip coolly, and he winces slightly. “But I know you mean it.” You whisper softly. He exhales, and you feel his chest rise and fall. “I missed you.” You repeat the words, quiet, vulnerable, a confession in their own right.

He doesn’t say anything this time, as if afraid of saying something would mess everything up. Instead, he holds you tighter.

Neither of you let go and when you part, his eyes dilate upon looking at your face again, and no more words needed to be said.

A few days later, you were resting on the couch, his arm around you. You are scrolling through some articles before pausing and turning to Dex. He watches as you furrow your eyebrows at him.

“Did you ever tell Daredevil I was okay?” You ask.

He blinks once, “No,” he shakes his head slightly, “we don’t exactly talk if it can be helped.”

You frown, “So… You think he thinks I’m missing?”

Dex adjusts slightly as you lean closer to him, “I think he knows you left with me.”

You raise an eyebrow at Dex, “How could you possibly know that if you haven’t talked with him?”

“Call it intuition.” He smiles.

“Alright...” You blink at his cryptic response, “I’ll text him.”

Hey, just checking in, hope everyone is doing well. Wanted to let you know I got out of the whole Red Hook situation and am not missing.

“You think he’ll be mad?” You muse aloud. “Actually, he can’t be too mad at me. I’m still upset about how he went about meeting me.”

“If it was me, I would’ve just cut him off.” Dex comments helpfully.

“Of course you’d say that.” You deadpan before standing up, “You think he’ll be upset that we’re…” you gesture between you both.

Dex shrugs, frustratingly indifferent to the whole situation. “Probably.”

You hold your hand up to your mouth, contemplative. “How do I even tell him that?”

Dex is about to say something when your phone vibrates. Usually Matt prefers to talk on the phone rather than texting, so the fact that he texted you says a lot.

“What’d he say?” Dex asks, not bothering to hide his curiosity.

“Uh…” You trail off as you read his response.

Matt: I’m aware you left with Dex.

I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.

Matt: It’s fine. However, for future reference, you might want to wait until you’re home for conversations like that.

Like what?

Matt: Ask him.

“I think he’s mad.” You conclude. “He told me that I might ‘want to wait until I’m home for conversations like that.’” You turn to Dex, “He neglects to mention what ‘that’ is referring to.”

Dex slowly nods, his lips twitching in amusement, “Anything else?”

“He told me to ask you about it.” You put the phone down, “Do you know what he is talking about?”

Dex clicks his tongue, “He probably heard us.”

You blink slowly, “What do you mean?”

He raises an eyebrow, “Did he not tell you?”

You furrow your eyebrows, “Tell me what..?”

“He has super-hearing.” Dex explains slowly.

“What?” You stare at him blankly.

“He really didn’t tell you?”

“Clearly not.” You laugh, dazed. “…So you’re saying he heard our entire conversation?”

“Probably.” Dex doesn’t sound surprised by this world-shattering realization for you.

You stare at him for a long moment, and he watches as you silently settle yourself next to him. “I don’t think I can ever speak to him again.” You declare, appalled by this new information.

Dex’s eyes crinkle in amusement, “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

You chuckle, “Yep, it’s only us now.” You joke.

Dex nods solemnly, “Only us.”

You smile, snickering softly, and he smiles back at you. When you stop, you raise an eyebrow, “You aren’t joking, are you?” You ask astutely.

Dex’s smile grows in response.

: ̗̀➛ A/N: Matt being forced to listen when you and Dex finally reunite for real: “Please, God, make it stop.” Yayyy I finished a fic!!! Anywayyyy, "I’m back" is a bit of a stretch but guess who just finished DDBA? Seeing Dex on screen sparked some motivation for me. Yes, you can expect more of him from me in the future, so lmk if you’d want to be on a taglist for him/fill out the taglist form. In fact, I’d also be willing to write for Matt too… so there’s that. Also, don't mistake Matt and Karen's inital treatment/intentions toward us in this fic being me hating on them, I love them both dearly. Anyway, yes I will be actually answering asks again. I know I said on like four separate occasions I’d do that, but I MEAN it this time, look I even posted a fic :D! I’ll be trying to catch up on old asks for the next few days, but feel free to leave stuff in my inbox! I'd love to hear any of your thoughts on this :) I also know I said “here’s some fics I have planned or whatever” and this was NOT one of them. I am still going to write those fics, but uh… just accept that whatever gets posted is purely based on motivation lmao. So I guess shoutout to Dex for getting me through a couple month long fic slump and making me write for Marvel for the first time in ages? I hope he wasn’t too ooc. I know I wrote him to be pretty tame in comparison to some of the stuff I’ve seen, and I say that knowing he stalked us and killed people for us in this fic lol. I’ll try to crank some more fics out soon. They’ll probably be a mix of Dex and Batfam characters idk, maybe even a Bucky fic if I’m feeling it. Okay this is getting WAY too long, I hope you all enjoyed the fic :D, lmk if you guys liked it cause I am absolutely willing to write for Dex if that’s what the people want!

Dex sucked in a sharp breath when his arm brushed a brick wall. One of the personal security guards for his first target sliced his arm with a blade. It still bled now, an hour after he was done. He’d need to clean it up well and wrap it with some gauze. 

He drove home in silence, the energy he had was depleting but the satisfaction he got out of his work made a small smile appear on his lips. He pulled up to his complex and made sure no one was around before he removed the face cover he wore. He hauled out his bag and dragged himself to his apartment.

Dex drops the bag on the floor the second he makes it inside, then he’s searching under his kitchen sink for the emergency kit you got him. He had the basics, but you told him better safe than sorry and bought him a large supply of alcohol wipes, medical tape, tweezers, and all sorts of other useful things. He pulled out the brand new package of gauze and felt grateful that he had someone now that cared about him. That thought of his needs.

He sheds the long sleeve shirt he wore and throws it down on his bed. He cleans his arm up in the bathroom, inspecting the damage. Nothing too bad he thinks. He places some tape over the wrapping when he’s done to secure it in place. 

Dex takes out his second phone, sends one word.

Done

He can rest for the night now, but he always checks on you before he does. He knew you’d be asleep already given how early you rise, but he wants to see you.

You weren’t there. He checked all the live feeds from the bedroom, living room, and kitchen- but there was nothing. He stood up straighter and picked up his laptop to bring it to the dining table. There was no reason for him to freak out. Sometimes you go to that diner around the corner and pick up food late at night and that’s probably exactly what you did now. He pulls out his phone to check your tracker- it says you’re home. 

He rewinds the feed. He stops it and presses play after a couple minutes. He sees you enter, but you’re not alone. Trailing right behind you is a man, his hand pushing at your lower back. Dex stiffens in his seat. 

It was him. 

Wade was there with you- inside your apartment. And you were gone now. His entire body is tense, all of the exhaustion leaves his body in a second and it’s replaced with urgency. Dex makes a move to grab his shirt and bag, but he hears the start of your conversation with Wade and he needs to know where the two of you went. 

“This is a shit hole. It's good I’m here now, seems like you’ve been struggling.”

“Fuck you.” 

Dex’s heart rate spikes. Don’t provoke him, he wishes he could say to you. Instead his teeth grind as he listens to Wade interrogating you. He watches the way he threw out accusations, gripping the hat he left at your place. His head swarms with anger and confusion. How the fuck did he get here? And when?

“...Wade, you nearly killed me.”

“That was a mistake- I tried and tried but you were always lying to me-“

“I never lied to you!” 

“You did and you are.”

“Stop!” 

Dex takes a shaky breath as he watches Wade’s hands hold your face. The way you tried with all your strength to get away from him, but he was too strong. 

“Baby, baby- I’m not mad, I’m not mad just let me say what I need to!”

“God! Let me go!”

He sees you struggle more in his grasp, and then you slam a fist on his chest. A last ditch effort to push him away. 

Wade hits you. 

Something within Dex fully snaps. It was more than anger now. More than vengeance, even. There was a shift in his psyche, practically calming in the way it released the tension in his muscles. It was a certainty. He dies tonight. 

He barely hears the way Wade yells at you, something ringing in his ears. All his focus was on you and your reaction. He does take note of the way Wade has the audacity to say he loves you, how he’s begging you to calm down- but you don’t respond. There’s a distant look in your eye. Like this is what you’ve been waiting for. Dex wonders if you’ve been waiting for it every day since his arrest. Even during the moments he spent with you.

He sees Wade take you over to the couch. His hands never leave you and Dex isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep watching this, but he knows he has to. 

“Wade, look at me. I am not leaving here with you.”

“Baby I’m not asking.”

Dex has to fast forward a little bit to find out what happened after all of this. Where Wade could have taken you. Given how he showed up and spoke about therapy, counseling, coming back home, etc. he must be under some very strong delusion. Either he thought he could actually convince you to give him another chance, which made him truly insane, or the more likely scenario was that he knew you wouldn’t come willingly and he planned to kidnap you. 

“You won’t need to take everything, not that you have much…”

Dex sees you bolt out of the apartment. He stands from his seat and brings the laptop with him. Fuck, he thought. Wade was after you in a split second, looking pissed. Fuck, this was bad. Wade could’ve grabbed you outside. Thrown you into a car, for all he knows. Dex is frantic as he fast forwards some more. This must’ve been when he checked on you after getting home.

He catches up to only a few minutes ago- and he sees the two of you back. God damn it! He could’ve been on his way the entire fucking time… He sees you first, but he has a view of Wade behind you. His hand grips your hair and then he shoves you forward, hard. Dex watches in horrible disbelief when your head connects with the wall, the way your body drops to the floor. 

Dex throws his tattered shirt back on and grabs more weapons from the safe in his closet, keeping an eye on the screen as best he can. Blood gushes from the wound in your forehead. Wade is speaking to you sweetly and Dex’s skin crawls at the sound of it. 

He’s out the front door of his apartment and in his car within a minute. His laptop stays in the passenger seat, playing the audio of everything that happened.

“Shit. Shit baby, why the hell did you do that? Fuck.”

Dex’s jaw tenses at the way he blames you for what he just did. 

“Just get up. You’re fine, baby.”

“Please…” 

At the sound of your low voice, he glances at the screen. Wade is holding you up. He’s sick to his stomach at the way he cradled you to him. You looked like you were about to pass out. His foot is pressing down harder on the gas pedal, flying through lights regardless of their color. 

“Shh, sit down here… You always do this…”

A minute of silence.

“What do I need to do, huh? Do I need to force you? Hmm.” 

He pulls up to your complex, snatches his bag, and runs to your door. It was locked but he kicked at it with all his weight and it gave way. 

Dex sees you first. The way your eyes are closed, not fully comprehending what was going on. The cut on your head was bleeding again. He sees Wade on top of you, his hand keeping your mouth open so he could force himself on you… All Dex feels is rage. The buzzing in his head has never been so loud before- it compresses in on itself and forces him into action.

Dex made one long stride and Wade was instantly ripped away from your limp body. 

“What the hell!” He yelled in shock.

Dex doesn’t respond. His fist connects to his face with all his strength. Wade is stumbling back and he takes a nearby vase down with him. It shatters on the floor. He gathers himself and swings back, but Dex moves out of the way, then his knee juts upwards into Wade’s abdomen. He grunts loudly at the blow. Dex feels like he was watching himself from above. His whole body working on automatic- doing what needs to be done.

He unsheathes a knife from his belt, then throws it straight into Wade’s thigh. He’s careful to miss the artery. Can’t make this too quick for him. Wade drops to the floor with a sharp cry of pain.

“Hello, Wade.”

Wade groans. “Ughh- fuck… who the fuck are you…” He struggles to get the words out while he clutches his wound. He seemed to be unsure about whether he should take it out or not, hands hoving over the handle of the knife.

Dex stares down at him, the hard set of his mouth twitches, nearly pulling into a satisfied smirk at the position Wade was in. 

“Dex?” Your voice breaks the tension in the air. 

His head snaps back over to you and your eyes meet his for the first time tonight. He takes a quick look back to Wade, making sure he didn’t try to move, and then he rushes over to you. 

“Sweetheart…” His hand reaches out to graze the edge of your forehead. He tries to wipe away some of the blood, smearing it. It looked bad. You stare at him, confused. 

“What’re you-” You wince at his touch and he pulls away. The red on his fingers makes his anxiety spike. You might need a hospital, he thinks. He sees your eyes shift to where Wade was.

“Don’t worry.” He whispers. “I’m gonna handle this.”

Dex doesn’t wait for an answer from you. His hand squeezes yours for a half second, trying to be reassuring. He leans down to where his bag sat and pulls out his throwing knives. When he turns back around, he sees Wade standing. 

He’d removed the knife from his leg and was holding it now. It was stretched outwards in front of him and Dex couldn’t help but be slightly amused at how much he looked like a scared little boy. He was going to really enjoy this. 

Dex sucks in some air through his teeth and shrugs, “What do you plan to do with that?”

Wade lunges forward but doesn’t actually swing at him. Posturing. “I’ll fucking kill you.” He says.

Dex does smile now, the top row of his teeth revealed. He lets out a sharp exhale and nods, “Yeah…” Two of his knives are flipped in the air and he catches them. “Come try.”

Wade runs at him but Dex is already throwing both of his blades. They lodge into his shoulder and the hand that holds his knife. 

“Fuck!” Wade drops the weapon to the floor and clutches his hand. It shakes and he’s so preoccupied with the pain of it that he doesn’t register Dex coming closer. 

“How’s it feel, Wade?” Dex pulls the knife out of his hand and he cries out, angry. Then he twists the other knife that was in his shoulder. 

He makes some animalistic noises. His head drops slightly and Dex thinks maybe he was about to pass out- but he shoots back up and head butts him hard.

Dex stumbles back from the force of it. The next second he feels a punch to the left side of his face, making him spit blood.

He holds a hand against a nearby wall to steady himself then feels Wade trying to pull at his shoulders. He’s trying to force him down to the ground and get the advantage, but Dex throws an elbow, connecting to his ribs. Wade lets out a grunt and staggers back.

Dex licks at his lips, tasting blood. His nose and cheekbone were in pain, but he shakes his head to focus back on the task at hand. Wade was panting hard. He’s probably never been in a fair fight in his life, Dex thinks. 

“What’s wrong, Wade?” He sighs. Dex stoops down to pick up a sharp piece of the ceramic vase that fell. He maneuvers it through his fingers, playing with it like it were a coin. “Never punched up before?”

Wade’s nostrils flare in anger, then he laughs a little- short and wheezing. “What’re you- my replacement?” His eyebrows raise in disbelief. “She sure has a type.”

The insinuation that Dex was just like him was more than offensive. It pissed him off that he even had the gall to speak to him about you. They move around each other, waiting for the other to attack. 

Wade’s hand reaches up to dislodge the knife still in his shoulder and instead of threatening Dex with it like he expected, he darts over to where you were still slumped in the dining room. Dex scowls as he sees him slip behind you, the blade being placed lightly against the skin of your exposed throat. You were unconscious or just too tired to react, but your eyes were closed and you made no move to get away.

Dex takes a heavy step forward and swipes a hand at his bloodied nose. 

“Get. Away.” He says through clenched teeth. His face burned, the veins in his neck pulsed, and everything slowed. The buzzing is incessant. 

“Stop!” Wade shouts at him. “Stay right fucking there or I swear to god, she’s dead.”

Dex stills. He narrows his eyes onto the contact between the sharp metal and your neck. You moved, just slightly, but Dex noticed. Your fingers twitched- then your head tried to lift up. The edge of the knife slips against you, making a thin line of blood appear.

“Hi, baby.” Wade said, staring down at you.

Dex had to fight every urge not to lunge at him. He took deep breaths to stop himself from walking over there and strangling Wade with his own two hands right now. 

You groaned a little and Wade’s free hand pulled your hair back to keep you still. “Don’t move, honey. Wouldn’t wanna hurt you.” He had the boldness to actually smile at Dex as he said it. 

His muscles strain to keep himself still.

“Dex…” You mumble.

The sound of his name on your lips makes him restless. He needs to get Wade away from you by any means necessary.

Wade smiled wider and then glanced between you and him. “That you? Hm? Dex.” 

Dex feels his chest tighten. “If you don’t move away from her in the next ten seconds… I’m going to beat you to death.” His voice is deep, anger mixing with anxiety.

“I’ll slit her throat before you can take a step.”

He nods at Wade, then cracks his neck. “Five seconds.”

You were mewling a little in Wade’s grasp. Painful sounds from the way he tugged at your hair and kept the knife flush against your skin. Dex’s patience was running thin. You were straining to see Dex, eyes seeking him out but not quite reaching him in your position. 

Wade only shook his head, “You’re bluffing.”

“Time’s up.”

Dex hurls the piece of ceramic straight at Wade’s forearm. It lodges into muscle and bone- he yells out, dropping the knife into your lap.You gasp a little for air when he releases you. The moment he does, Dex is after him. 

He wraps an arm around Wade’s throat and drags him all the way across the apartment until he reaches the furthest corner he can away from you. Wade fights against him as best he can, but he doesn’t let go. 

Dex slams his body onto the floor, then brings a heavy boot down onto his knee. He hears the crunching, popping sound beneath his weight. He relishes in how loud he screams. Music to his fucking ears. 

“I told you what would happen,” Dex pants, “but can I tell you a secret?” He lowers his voice, menacingly close to Wade’s ear. “Would have happened anyway.”

“You fucking psycho!” Wade screams at him and Dex grins. 

Images flash through Dex’s mind. The pictures he saw in that album. Bruises on top of bruises, black eyes, cut lips, ruptured, damaged skin… so many pictures of you. All of it caused by this piece of shit. 

He recalls the police reports that he read. Detailed descriptions of what Wade did to you over the course of months. How he intimidated and manipulated you into staying with him. The scar on your back that you were ashamed of, even if you didn’t say it. 

Dex rolls his shoulders and does something then that he’s been fantasizing about for weeks, months even. He reaches out to grab one of Wade’s wrists, then twists it with all his strength, fracturing the bone. The way he screamed for him to stop, was that how you screamed? He wondered. Did Wade look down at you while you cried in agony, enjoying it the way he did right now? Wade’s outburst of pitiful howls made Dex cringe. 

“I thought you liked this?” Dex says. “Or do you only enjoy being the one on top?”

Wade was babbling something. Pleads or threats, unintelligible regardless. He became a bit more clear when he said your name. Wrong fucking move, Dex thinks. He drops Wade’s arm then stands up. He moves a leg back and then swings it towards Wade’s side. 

He was beaten and bloody, making a goddamn mess all over your nice floors. His foot connects with his ribs a few more times. It satisfied him that with each blow, Wade made another moan- each less loud than the last. He was close to being finished. 

“Look at that. Finally quiet.” 

Dex looks back towards the dining room and he sees that you’re more awake now. Your face was scrunched in pain- disoriented still, but you’re looking at him. He must be a sight to see. His blue and black tactical suit was still on, his face was a sweaty, bloody mess, and he was standing over the nearly-unconscious body of the man that just threatened to kill you. The man who’d been terrorizing your every waking and unwaking moment for the past two years.

You moved to get up, then propped your elbow onto your knee as your head fell into your hand. 

Dex looks down at Wade and sees his rasping breaths, the uncontrollable spasms in his limbs, and he drops down on top of him. Just one more minute, that’s all he needs. Then he could go to you. 

His hands wrap around his throat and starts squeezing. Wade coughs in his grip, then gurgles. He reaches out blindly, trying to push him off. He was too weak.

Dex thinks about the images of your neck. The imprint of Wade’s fingers that nearly strangled the life out of you. He recalls the night you told him about how he would choke you so hard you’d pass out. How many times? Dex thinks. He squeezes harder. How many times…

Wade spasms some more beneath him. His face slowly turns red, then blue. He gurgles some more, pathetic. 

It only takes another minute… and his eyes glaze over. 

Nothing left.

All of the noise in his mind ceases in an instant. No swarm. Nothing but the sounds of Dex’s labored breathing remained. 

Dex lets out a long exhale, eventually loosening his hold around Wade’s throat. He leans back, triumphant. His knees are placed on either side of Wade’s body and after another few moments of rest, he pushes himself up. 

Dex comes back over to you, calling your name softly. He didn’t want to startle you with a sudden touch so he lets you adjust first. You look up at him and he thinks you look… scared. He needs you to understand that it’s over now, that there was nothing left to be scared of. 

“Sweetheart, it’s alright.” Dex’s hand hovers over you. “He’s gone.”

You frown and look away from him- towards Wade. You shiver as you let out a noise and lean forward further, head between your knees now. Were you going to be sick? Dex smoothes a hand over your back, you flinch when he does. 

It was him you were scared of, he realizes. Dex could fix this. 

“Everything’s okay now. No one’s gonna hurt you ever again.”

It’s soft, but he can make out the words when you ask, “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“How did you know he was here?”

Dex squats down in front of you- trying to get you to meet his gaze. His hands seek yours out and he allows himself to be hopeful when you accept his touch.

“I got your calls… I came by to check on you.”

You skirt your eyes from his face to the door, the broken locks. You don’t believe him. 

You’re just in shock. He’ll explain more later and everything will be fine… Dex moves a little closer to you, his nose coming into contact with yours. He places a tender kiss to your cheek, praying you don’t pull away. You don’t.

He pulls you from the chair slowly, and your cold hand stays in his. You lean into his side, unsteady. Still dizzy. Dex doesn’t want you falling, so he leans down to scoop you up into his arms. Your head is tucked beneath his chin and his hands secure underneath your back and knees. 

“I’m taking you back to my place now, okay?” 

You don’t respond. Just curl into him further. 

Dex will come back later to deal with the body. He tries to shut the door behind him, but it stays open a crack due to the splintered frame. He takes your bag along with his and makes his way down to the street. He places you down in front of the passenger door, then opens it for you. You look at him once, not really meeting his eyes, and then duck your head to get in. 

Whatever you were thinking or feeling, it didn’t show on your face. You appeared nearly catatonic. This is how normal people reacted to death, he thinks. Even if the person who died deserved it a hundred times over.

Dex can’t help but look over at you every few seconds during the drive. Checking to see if you were about to break down, if he needed to pull over to calm you. But you remained still and silent, eyes forward. He reaches over for you and you let him thread his fingers through yours. There was some dried blood on his hands and you looked down at it, swallowing. 

When he pulls up to his complex he looks towards you one last time, says your name. “Come on. Let's get you cleaned up.”

You allow Dex to carry you up to his place. He doesn’t let you go until he reaches the bathroom. He sets you down gently onto the edge of the tub so he can collect his medical kit. When he returns, he sees you staring at the tile. 

He kneels in front of you, setting himself in your eyeline. “Look at me, sweetheart.” He’s begging. “Please.”

You lift your head slowly to look at him. Really look at him. 

It takes a moment but eventually you ask, “Are you hurt?” 

Dex lets out a quick relieved breath, lips curling up. You were asking him if he was hurt? You were scanning over his face, then body, eventually landing on his arm that was bandaged beneath the torn long sleeve he wore. 

“No, I'm not hurt.” He lied. “That looks like it hurts though.” He gestures to your head wound. As if you’d forgotten about it, you lift your fingers up to touch it. You wince and bite your lip. 

“Yeah…”

Dex places a hand at the underside of your jaw, moving you gently so he could get better access to it. He pours some peroxide on a cloth, then dabs at it. Dried blood was caked to your eyelid and he swipes at that too. Your cheek was a darkened shade from when Wade had hit you earlier. He feels a flash of his anger from earlier and then quickly tries to smother it. It’s over. You need it to be over.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” He asks. 

“Two.”

“Good.”

Dex thinks you’ll be okay without stitches. It was an ugly wound but not deep. He rummages through the kit to find some medical tape. He cuts three strips and places them lightly across the skin of your forehead. A bruise was already forming around it. A week or so of rest, you should be healed.

He inspects you for any more injuries, things he may not have seen happen. He checks your arms, wrists, and neck diligently. 

There was a slight cut, only a hairs width thick, that crossed your throat from when Wade held a knife there. It wasn’t bleeding, but Dex still disinfected it. To think how close he had been to actually killing you… his eyes close and he wills the thought away. You were here, in front of him, alive. 

You haven’t recoiled from his touch the whole time you’ve been here, so he thinks you may be over the initial shock of it all. When he doesn’t find anything bruised or broken, he still doesn’t let you go. 

Dex has one hand on your thigh while the other one rests behind your neck. He has so much he wants to say but doesn’t want to overwhelm you. 

He settles on, “Are you okay?”

You nod slightly. “I think so. I don’t know… Seeing him waiting for me outside my door-” You shake your head and close your eyes. “I thought he was going to-”

“That will never happen.” He cuts you off with a firm voice, knowing where that was headed.

You look over at his sink and counter tops. The bloody rag he used to clean up his arm earlier dirtied it. 

“What happened?”

“Suspect attacked me, I lived.” Dex says, trying to keep his tone light. 

“We need to call someone… the police, about Wade.”

“I will. I’ll handle all of it, don’t worry."

You nod and Dex pulls you into him, unable to take the separation any more. Your chin rests on his shoulder and the hand that was on your thigh moves up to your back. After a few seconds he feels you begin to tremble slightly against him. Your shoulders move up and down, silent sobs beginning to wrack through you. 

Dex lets you ride it out, hugging you tighter to him. He hears your sharp inhale of breath and the cries that escape you suddenly. Tears fall onto his shirt and the hand on your neck moves upwards to the back of your head, threading through the strands of your hair. 

“Shhh, I know sweetheart, I know…” Dex rocks you slightly, trying his best to soothe you. He’s never tried to comfort someone like this before and he wasn’t sure that he was doing it right. He didn’t know how much pressure he should be using right now, if he was hurting you. All he knew was that you were a wreck and it felt good to hold you again after everything. 

You were making sounds against him, your lips at his neck now. Small broken noises that made his stomach twist. The warmth of your breath sends a chill through his body. You sniffled and murmured something he couldn’t hear properly. 

“What’s that?” He asks, his fingers moving in patterns along your spine.

Your breaths were still coming in short stutters, but you were trying to calm yourself enough to speak. “Thank you.”

Dex pulls back to look at you. Your face was flushed and warm, eyes red-rimmed and watery and you wiped at your runny nose with your sleeve. Still so pretty, he thought. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” He sighs your name. His thumb brushes beneath your eye to catch a stray tear. He wanted to tell you that he’d have done it regardless. That he just didn’t mean for you to see it the way you did. 

Dex puts his forehead to yours. He kisses you softly. “Why don’t you shower? I’ll get you some clean clothes.”

You keep your hand on him, unwilling to let him leave. “Can you stay?”

He nods. “I’ll be right here.”

Whatever you thought of him now, however frightened you might’ve been at seeing Dex murder Wade only a few feet away from you, apparently it wasn’t enough to scare you off for good. If anything, now it seemed like you couldn’t let him go. Dex smiles at you, relieved. 

He turns on the water, then leaves you temporarily to undress. He rummages through his closet for a T-shirt and a pair of sweats for you. Too large but at least adjustable. 

When he gets back to the bathroom, he knocks twice. 

“Come in.”

You had removed everything but your underwear and bra and Dex had to make himself not stare too much. Now was the worst time for anything like that. He trains his eyes on your face, studying to make sure you are actually okay.

“Thanks.” You say, taking the clothes. 

“Theres some spare towels under the sink. I’ll be- I’m gonna be right outside the door, just call if you need anything.”

“Would you…” You reach a hand out.

Dex stills, waits for you to continue.

“Would you join me?”

He really wasn’t expecting that. He nodded, “Sure.” 

Your eyes move across his whole body. He doesn’t bother leaving the bathroom to shed his clothes. The bloody shirt was taken off first, followed by his shoes, belt, then pants. You go back and forth from looking at him and around the bathroom. Shy, even now. 

You take off your underwear at the same time he does. The two of you look over one another, uncertain. Then you hold a hand out for him to take. Dex gladly accepts it and then pulls you with him into the steaming shower.

Your back is to him when you get in and he watches the water cascade down your hair. He wonders how much he was allowed to touch you right now. He reaches a reluctant hand to your shoulder and you melt into it, exhaling. Dex turns you around so he can see your face. Your eyes are closed but you open them after a second to look at him.

“Hi.” He says.

“Hi.”

Dex leans down to kiss you again. He tries to control the way his body reacts but it’s nearly impossible. You’re warm and soft and god he was so pent up. You moan into him a bit and let him tilt your head back a little further so he can deepen it. 

He feels the water fall onto his head as he moves the two of you forward. It was getting heavier. Your hands explore his sides and then back, nails scratching lightly. He groans at the feeling of you pressed to him. His hands knead into you, grasping at the softness of your skin and you react by arching your back. 

There was always a taut thread that held Dex’s composure with you. The fact that you had been the victim of someone’s deranged power trip made him view you as fragile. That’s over now. Wade was just an obstacle- something that infected your life, made it difficult for Dex to fully have you, but not anymore.

He wasn’t willing to accept at first that what he felt for you was obsession, but now he thought why was that a bad thing? He was obsessed with you if that meant he needed to have you in every way a person could have another. Physically, mentally, whatever else there was… but it felt like even more than that now. He killed for you. It excited him.

Dex would do so much more.

What if you had reacted differently? He thinks. What if you were too scared of him to even look in his direction again? 

He would be broken. That thread would snap and he wasn’t sure where it would lead him. After Julie, everything was hollow. It did feel like he lost something important. A guide. But losing you- it would be like losing a part of himself. 

Dex pushes you into the wall. He can’t control his spiraling thoughts, but he could control you. You always let him do what he wanted and he loved it. Required it.

He thinks your life was too much to handle as it was and this one thing you could let go of. Giving up any semblance of authority, letting someone else make the decisions so you could just feel something good. 

His life consisted of rigid outside structure- a necessity since he was young so that he wouldn’t stray from the correct path. Everyone always told him how he was supposed to act. How he was supposed to feel. But not you. Not ever.

Dex holds you by either side of your head, lips consuming yours. His erection brushes against you and you groan. 

“You need to tell me if you need me to stop.” He says, desperate. 

“Don’t.”

—

You were starting to have some serious uncertainties about Dex. 

He wouldn’t tell you about how he knew Wade was at your apartment. And he had to have known. Right? Dex broke down your door and then beat Wade to a pulp in front of you. He had a bag of weapons. His outfit wasn’t anything like the FBI gear you’d seen him wear before…

You wanted to question him more, but the words never came. All you could think about was that Wade was gone. Officially, actually gone for good.

You’d never have to worry that he’d reappear and make your life a living hell all over again. You could go home if you wanted… That thought made you conflicted. You want to see your friends and family, to go back home and visit, but do you actually want to leave this new life you’ve made for yourself?

You liked New York. You liked Dex. 

Dex… his face was smeared in his own blood and his hands were covered in Wade’s. His dirty blond hair was messy and sweat dripped from his temple, but he was still Dex. Handsome and strong, gentle with you as he wrapped you up in his arms and carried you to his car.

You went along with whatever he said. It didn’t matter.

He wanted you to talk to him, you could tell. You wanted to let yourself but all you could do was think and think and think… You were so sure you were going to either die tonight or be taken away from here for good. Your head throbbed in pain and you thought to ask for pain medication but still you were quiet. 

Dex carried you up to his apartment. He placed you in his bathroom. He spoke to you like you were on the verge of total mental collapse. He was probably right.

He didn’t mind that you broke down on him. He was patient like he always was and you had such a hard time picturing him doing what he did less than an hour ago. You’d listened to the life leaving Wade’s body. The sickening sounds his throat made while Dex crushed his windpipe. You could’ve vomited if you were conscious enough.

But you felt something else then, too- not just fear and disgust, but something like reverence. You felt in awe that there could be someone out there like Dex that did what he just did for you. That fought for you the way he did tonight. It frightened you that you even felt that way. He frightened you. And then he didn’t.

He was back to being the Dex you’d known. Considerate. Kind. Attentive.

You wanted him closer. Afraid of what you would do or think when you were alone. You couldn’t be alone.

Dex slipped into the shower with you when you asked. He grabbed your shoulders, pressed his lips to yours, made you forget. Forced you to think about nothing but him. The weight of his strong hands replacing the uncertainty, replacing the fear.

“You need to tell me if you need me to stop.”

“Don’t.”

You let him flip you back around, push you forwards so your face was smushed against the wall. Your leg was hiked upwards and he entered you. Slow at first, careful. Then progressively faster. 

He said some things, stuff you could barely pay attention to between trying to keep your balance and the sounds of rushing water hitting the tub. You made out bits and pieces.

“Fuck… so good.” Dex’s voice is right at your ear. “Beautiful.”

He was grunting and you fell into him more. Your body felt like playdough and he was molding it to him, taking what he needed. He was big and it would’ve hurt but it felt so good to have this distraction. Your scattered mental state slipped away as you focused on only him. His hand under your knee, his chest on your back, his teeth skimming your cheek.

“So tight…” It was rough but he somehow kept you upright, secure. It was exactly what you wanted. Your eyes squeezed shut. 

“You need me…” Dex said at some point, his thrusts picking up. “Say you need me.” He demanded- his voice deep. Practically a growl. Your head swam. You were so disoriented, drunk off the feeling of him deep inside you. You would’ve said or done anything he wanted right now.

“I need you, Dex.” You meant it.

“Shit.” He curses your name, slams into you again. It was more possessive than you’d ever felt him before. Maybe he was afraid of what might’ve happened if he hadn’t shown up when he did. You know you were. 

“I love you.” Dex says. 

The words jar you, making you speechless. Dex doesn’t seem to notice. He’s settled into a rhythm that had you crying out in pleasure. His fingers reach in front of you, finding you clit. It’s too much- everything, all of it. It’s overstimulating and fast and so fucking good. 

“Ohhh…” You cry out, shuddering. His lips connect to your cheek and a ripple of heat courses throughout your body. It coils in your stomach and builds more and more. “Oh fuck… I’m going to…”

“Mhmm.” He breathes deeply. “Go on, sweetheart.”

He’s tightening his hold on you with every remaining thrust. He’s close. Everything is spinning… You feel the wave of ecstacy making you whimper. Dex is rolling his hips into you as he finds the height of his own orgasm. 

Then he releases and you feel him loosen his grip. He slows, still pumping in and out of you until he no longer can. He pants against you while you do the same against the wall. 

Dex has his chest still flush to your back when his cock slips from you. He places a kiss on your neck and then shoulder. He grabs a washcloth, wipes you down with care. You were adrift right now, lost in the bliss of the aftermath. His lips find the side of your hip. It trails up to your naval, between your breasts, finally to your mouth. 

“Okay?” He asks you. Just like he did that night in the car. Making sure you were good.

“Yeah.” You nod, breathless. 

Dex was doing that thing he does where his eyes track over every part of your face. It used to make you self conscious, but now it was sort of comforting. A mannerism of his that was consistent. He went from your jaw to your lips, nose, forehead. His eyes stayed there for a while, then he leaned in to kiss the edge of the cut. Careful not to put too much pressure. 

—

Dex would have to go back tonight to take care of Wade.

When the two of you finished with your shower, he watched you get dressed in his clothes. He could barely believe everything that’s happened in such a short amount of time. How well you seem to be handling it.

If this was how it would be now, Dex was mad he didn’t kill Wade sooner.

“Do you have a spare toothbrush?” You asked him.

“Yeah, let me grab it for you.” He goes through a couple drawers, unsure where he had it. When he finds it, he hands it over to you with a small smile. 

“Thanks.” You reciprocate it with one of your own. It was nice to see you smile again. 

He leaves the bathroom to find himself some clean clothes. He pulls on a T-shirt and pants, then makes his way back to you.

You see him in the mirror, then spit into the sink. “You’re going out?” You ask him, eyes wide. 

“I have to contact the police about what happened.” He lies.

You turn around to face him. “Well, shouldn’t I be there?”

“No- no I’ll handle everything.”

Your eyebrows scrunch together. “How? They’re gonna need my statement-”

“Just trust me, okay? I’ll pull some strings.”

You still seemed wary. Dex leans over to press his lips to yours. “I know how these crime scenes are. I can answer all their questions and if they need to speak with you, I’ll give you a call, huh?”

You seemed like you were just too tired to argue. “Alright.”

“Get some sleep. I have extra blankets on the bed, and a hoodie too just in case, I know it gets cold at night in here-”

You push upwards on your toes so you can kiss him again. “Thank you, Dex.”

He grins down at you. 

—

You turned off the lights and settled into Dex’s bed when he left. You turned on the TV in his room to find something to distract you. You wished he didn’t have to leave. Being here alone was weird even on the best night. Tonight was definitely not that.

Your eyes couldn’t close, too wired and on edge. You did try, for a good thirty minutes or so, but it wasn’t working. You got up to turn the lights back on. You found some tylenol for your migraine and drank a glass of water, but still couldn’t fall asleep. 

Dex was right, it was cold as hell in his bedroom right now. You put on the black hoodie that he mentioned but it wasn’t enough. There was a vent directly above his bed that shot air downwards. You got up and looked around for the control to turn it off, but all you found was his closet. 

The second you opened it, you frowned. Who has a giant safe nearly the size of a person inside their closet?

You guess maybe FBI agents. You try to ignore the curiosity that grabs you and continue searching for the AC thermostat. You went from the bedroom to the hallway and then back, eyes finding the safe once more.

It was slightly open.

No. No, you think. You can’t do that. Could you? What could actually be in there besides work stuff? It was probably tons of confidential files, stuff you wouldn’t even care about let alone know what it meant.

You reach for the handle. It swings open easily and inside were a lot of weapons. Like, a lot more than you would’ve thought any one person needed. But Dex was ex-army and a SWAT sniper. This shouldn’t be surprising. 

You almost close it back up, but then your eyes skirt over a box. It’s black, not labeled. You look back over towards the kitchen as if Dex were about to come in right as you were being nosey. The box has clasps on the side to secure it, but no lock. 

You hear the TV in the back playing an episode of some sitcom, the soft laughter of a live studio audience fills the room. You debate for another couple seconds and now the box is being pulled out onto the floor of his room.

Your hands find the clasps on either side to undo them. You remove the lid and discard it. The first thing you see is a pair of red gloves. The ones you lost forever ago? They definitely looked like the same pair. You pick them up and put one of them on. Yeah, these were yours.

“What the…”

You were confused but maybe Dex found them somewhere and meant to give them back to you and just forgot about it? You shake your head and put them to the side.

The next thing you see is your gold name tag from work. You’d gotten it replaced so many weeks ago because it had just disappeared from your bag one day. They deducted $7.00 from your paycheck for it too. 

Okay, so he had that as well… There was an explanation. Something innocuous- stupid, even in its simplicity.

Then you pull out another, smaller black box. It was sort of heavy for its size. You look up again, checking that you were still alone. Then you open the lid.

You see a photo of yourself. It had to have been sort of recent, you think. You weren’t looking at the camera. Instead your face was in profile, smiling widely. It was a close up so you really couldn’t make out anything of your surroundings. When was this? You wondered.

You pick up the next photograph and again it was of you. You were sitting at the front desk of the hotel. You must’ve been working when Dex took this, your face focused on whatever was on your screen at the time. How had you not seen him do it? This was candid, apparently. You know cause you always got camera-shy.

Your heart rate begins to spike as you shuffle through the next several photos. They’re all you.

You see yourself walking down the steps outside work. The path you took to get home. Unlocking your front door, checking behind your shoulder that no one was close by. A view through your blinds.

You begin to feel the start of something twisting inside your stomach. Deep and heavy. A vile sort of thing that weighed you down all of a sudden.

You swallow, shuffle through more of them. The stack was very large. Days, weeks or more worth of pictures. Going in and out of your gym. Ordering coffee from that place outside the hotel. Eating alone in a booth at that diner. Conversing with coworkers. 

Talking to Val at the bistro. 

Dex was there. He followed you all the way to Philadelphia… 

A hand begins to shake as you pull out more. A close up of your sleeping face, then the same image but pulled back so you can see your shoulders, another pulled further back that captured your full body. Inside your bed. 

You gasp involuntarily. Everything spins. You’re feeling light headed. The photos drop to the floor. They scatter around you now. You take in the sight of all of them, all of you. 

A noise escapes your throat, unlike anything you’d heard from yourself before. It was raw and terrible. A combination of a moan and cry, prolonged. You clutch at your stomach as if it’ll make that twisting feeling cease and you double over so your forehead meets the carpeted floor. 

“Mmmmm…nooo.” You mumble. This is not happening. “No, no, no…”

You try to think. Fucking think! It almost hurts how hard your eyes squeeze shut.

Dex has been stalking you for a very long while. At least since that night in the diner that he happened to run into you. It’s been months. It may have been even longer. Tears gather in your eyes and your whole body feels hot. High strung. 

How could you not have seen it? How did this happen again? Wade and then Dex. You really were a magnet for dangerous men. Could he have targeted you because of Wade? Because he knew that you would be vulnerable… 

No. You shake your head and then pull yourself back up to a sitting position. No- Dex, whatever the fuck he was, whatever kind of scary, it wasn’t the same as Wade. Wade was a god damn prick. He enjoyed making you feel small and he liked manipulating you into feeling like you deserved his abuse. Dex wasn’t the same way at all. 

But then what the hell did you actually know about him? You wonder. He always acted so understanding with you. Let you speak or not speak. Never screamed or threw things… Was that your personal standard? You scoff at yourself.

You gather up all the photos and wipe at your eyes to clear the blurriness. You didn’t know how long Dex was going to be gone for, but you were sure as shit not going to be here when he gets back.

You wish you could put them in the correct order, if there was one, but you were in a frenzy. Your chest felt tight and your throat was constricting. Will this hellish night ever fucking end? You think. 

Before you put everything back, you need to know what else he has. The larger black box held lots of other little objects. Chapstick, one of your rings, hairclips, so many things… Was that a mugshot of Wade?

You reach for it and the file that it was paperclipped to. When you open it, you see copies of all the police reports that you had. The documents provided to you during his sentencing. Dex even had all the pictures that were taken of you back when you were at the precinct being photographed as legal evidence. 

He knew fucking everything from the start. Your migraine comes back tenfold. All those times he tried to get you to open up to him- as if he was learning anything new. Was he just doing it to torture you?

Dex had to be a sociopath. You chose the only former army soldier, current FBI SWAT sniper, sociopath in all of New York. Your luck was unreal.

“Oh my god, oh my god…” You moaned some more. 

Suddenly you think about Danny. His story about how Dex had jumped him, that he was unhinged and you were just blind to it. You think about Hattley and how she described him as dangerous and controlling. 

All of the red flags were laid out for you a long time ago and you turned away from them, eyes wide shut. 

Dex’s voice rings in your ears. “You never have to be scared of me. I promise you.” How sincere he sounded when he walked you home that one night. “I would never let anything happen to you.”

Maybe he actually believed it. Maybe he was trying, in his own way, to protect you. Or maybe you were put on a list and this was all part of some intense surveillance FBI thing. That made no sense at all. You wanted it to be true, you realized. So that you could keep Dex. 

As horrifying as all of this was to you, the pictures, all the evidence that he’s been obsessively stalking you, you felt a sharp pain at the thought of losing him. Did you love him? You wondered. You couldn’t get the way he’s said it to you earlier out of your head. 

Dex. The dimples that appeared when he smiled at you. The warmth of his hands when they caressed your face, pulling you towards him. The security you felt when he walked you home from work time and again…

He was extremely dangerous. You were terrified of him after finding this box in his safe. 

And yes, you were in love with him.

He shifts to his back and falls weightlessly into dark blue. His hands grip your hips as you writhe on top of him, a vision of love as you drive him deeper into you. His eyes are wide, drinking in every detail of your face, how your mouth parts with breathless moans, how the buttery column of your neck arches as your head falls back. Your throat pulses as you ride him, heart racing, hips moving rhythmically, tits bouncing with every passionate roll of your body.

Your form wavers.

When they pull his head out of the basin by his hair, Dex sputters. He blinks away the water from his eyes. You're not here. You only reside in his dreams, when he's swimming in the depths of his subconscious.

“Where is she, Poindexter?”

Water, cold and dark, spills out of his mouth from his flooded lungs. He manages a smile.

“Again.” The voice sneers.

Dex closes his eyes, ready.

He could do this forever.

His nose brushes yours as his hips move, pushing into you slowly. He can taste your kiss, feel your sweat, your tears, on his lips. Your eyes plead for more of him.

You always want more.

He wraps his hands reverently around your neck.

He's never too much for you. You were made for one another. Every piece of him fits with you. If he could just hold you here in his hands forever, he'll know you're safe. Your legs wrap around him as his thrusts quicken, his hips snap, he pounds into you as you clutch onto him, nails digging into his back.

You scream as he splits you.

Maybe if he goes deep enough this time, you won't disappear again.

Whew, I think I'd like to write more yearning Dex 😍 What did you think? I have a few more Dex pieces on my master list (that list will be growing, I promise!)

Inspired by this song 👇

You catch his wrist before the blade clears his sleeve and twist. Dex pivots into it, because he was always slippery like that. You drive your knee into his side, hook your ankle behind his, and put him on the ground.

The knife skitters under a decorative table and Dex hits the carpet on his back.

You step over him and plant your heel in the middle of his chest.“Stay down.”

Dex looks up at you, pupils blown, mouth parted.

He should be calculating his next move, except Dex has always liked being overpowered by you.

He swallows. Your client makes a pathetic noise behind you.

You can see exactly how much Dex is enjoying himself.

For the next two hours, the gala becomes the most expensive foreplay you have ever been forced to participate in. Dex tries the balcony so you shove your client under some cover. Dex switches to the service corridor, and you’re already there. He tries to use a champagne flute off a waiter’s tray as a projectile, and you push your client behind a marble pillar.

Every time he gets close, you put your body between him and the target.

At midnight, your contract ends.

Your client checks his watch smugly, like surviving the evening means he won. You escort him to his car, already done, already thinking about getting out of the dress.

Dex kills him in his own home. Technically not interfering with your job. 

You find him in your hotel room twenty minutes later because he wants to be found. He is sitting on the edge of your desk, still in that black suit, bruising blooming at his throat where you grabbed him.

The bastard looks pleased with himself.

You sigh and take off your earrings. “Did you kill my client?”

Dex tilts his head. “Technically, he stopped being your client at midnight.”

You tilt your head. “You think that makes it better?”

“I think it makes it funny,” he says. 

You slap him, and then he looks back at you with a red mark on his cheek.

You grab his shirt and shove him further into the desk.

He lets you be rough with him like it’s a privilege. After all, your anger is still attention and attention from you is the only thing he has ever really wanted 

“You ruined my job,” you hiss.

His hands find your waist. “I’ll pay whatever they dock you.”

“You can’t.” It almost makes you laugh thinking he can afford you. It doesn’t matter anyway. The contract was done, you still get paid.

“No,” Dex says, and there he is, honest in the worst possible way. “But I can make it up to you.”

Dex flips this around and drops to his knees. He’s on the floor in front of you, hands sliding under your dress, mouth pressing against the inside of your thigh.

Your hand goes into his hair to shove him away, but it’s a weak attempt. Before you know it, you’re gripping him to drag him closer to your arousal. 

“I missed this.” His teeth scrape carefully over your thigh enough to remind you exactly what his mouth can do. “Missed when you were mad at me.”

You pull his hair hard enough to make his eyes lift. “Shut up and do your fucking job.”

For once, he does and puts his mouth where you need it.

After your first orgasm, he looks up with his mouth wet.

“You forgive me yet?” he asks.

You shove him back by the forehead.

He laughs, then stands because he knows you too well. He knows the limit of your patience, he knows that you’re two seconds from climbing him like a tree.

He turns you around and bends you over the desk, and for whatever reason, you let him. Papers scatter and  the lamp wobbles. Dex is behind you, one hand dragging your dress over your hips while the other works his belt open.

He fills you in one steady stroke.

“Sweetheart,” he breathes as he thrusts, pressing in close behind you. “Come on. ‘M sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the idea.”

You should hate that it makes you laugh.

Dex kisses the back of your shoulder, your spine, anywhere he can reach while he takes you apart like he used to in the New York FBI office, in the blindspot between the filing cabinets and the copy machine. He keeps saying please like it means something. Please forgive me. Please don’t throw me out yet. Please, sweetheart, I missed you, I missed you so much, you have no idea.

By morning, the desk has moved halfway across the room and your dress is ruined.

Dex is sitting on the edge of the bed, buttoning his shirt carefully as if he didn’t spend half the night on his knees and the other half making a mess of you.

You pick your gun up from the nightstand and point it at his chest.

Dex looks at the barrel. He knows you won’t pull the trigger. Worse, he knows you know he knows.

You cock your head toward the door. “You can fuck off now.”

For a second, he just stares at you, eyes sparkling with a hint of fondness.

Then the cocky bastard leans down and kisses you.

You should bite his fucking nose off. You kiss him back instead because you’re not entirely sure, anymore, if the gut feeling in your stomach is still hatred. It feels too familiar, like wanting him to come back so you can throw him out again.

When Dex pulls away, he smiles against your mouth. “See you soon, sweetheart.”

You should spit in his face, but Dex would like that too much.

A month later, you are at a different gala with a different dickhead, watching champagne bubbles rise, when you see Dex across the ballroom, already smiling at you. 

You roll your eyes because, unfortunately, you know exactly how this night is going to end.

Rinse and repeat.

—

the clip is maybe only about forty seconds long lolllll . it’s frm reader’s pov . . missionary — back camera is focused between your legs that have been pushed up , knees beside your ribs , leaving the lower half of your body suspended in the air which better showcases connie’s long , fat dick dropping in and out of your creamy cunt . listeners hear the cute , litl hiccups that get stuck in your throat , how you sniffle and whimper , “f-fuck, daddy, please.” it’s connie’s tattoos that are the dead giveaway . . your voice too, honestly .

the video catches how he pulls out to smack his tip on the bulging , pink bead of your clit , “god, look at that shit,” he mumbles , letting it tease the gooey hole of your pussy. the room is dark yet the flash is bright. it catches on every single little mole , freckle , and stretch mark that decorates your inner thighs . the diamonds dancing in his watch. “missed daddy that fuckin’ much, mama? look how you creamin’ on this motherfucka.”

“y . . . you w-were . . gone for s-so long.”

the phone shuffles in your hands as he leans closer and the view is blacked out as the soft smacking sounds of your lips meeting is what’s heard for a bit . there’s a few incoherent mumbles before the gushy sound of his cock pumping inside your cunt returns . “cum in me,” is what some can make out. “please, daddy.”

“you make me wanna never leave you again — keep sayin’ that shit.”

the video abruptly cuts .

You reached towards the clipped metal of an unfamiliar bed frame, not quite registering the scene. The edges of your vision are blurry, memories past your third margarita simply flashes of movement, a firm touch guiding you, hands fumbling with keys, a chill spreading up your arms.

Everything was upside down, you were peaking through spaces between the curved metal and trying to identify what you saw within them: green cabinets, a table that looked shaky with hanging pots and utensils in the background. 

Too minimalistic, too clean to be your own apartment. You were half to an explanation, almost there, groggy, still waking up and slow to register that this was your neighbors apartment. Something you only faintly recognized from when he had first moved in and you, being endlessly and abundantly curious about everything that didn’t concern you, leaned to the side to peak past him while your hands were full of sliced, carefully wrapped fruit for him. 

Really, you just wanted to see what your neighbors were talking about. How mean could he be? You found he wasn’t really mean at all. He just had that sort of stern, solemn look to him—perpetually anticipating the worst. He was off-putting, definitely, a little awkward and he greeted you quietly, eyes always averted. 

Your head was pounding, a consistent and aggressive force not dissimilar to the one threatening to split from your chest. You want to stand, wanted to communicate this to your legs that definitely should be, at minimum, working to stand. Then came the realization you were on your back—everything wasn’t upside, this wasn’t some demented tilt-a-whirl, you had been comfortably on your back, now you felt the bile begin to rise. You clamped your lips tightly shut, the mortification of potentially throwing up all over your too handsome neighbor’s apartment enough to make you feel the need to skip out on your lease. 

You couldn’t fathom why you were here. Your stomach was clenching, the weighted blanket draped half-over your lower half was too warm, almost burning. Who used a heated blanket in the summertime? You lowered your hand, searching for the fabric to toss it off but brushed against something very, very soft and too much like hair. Your hand stiffened, the weighted blanket moved, the weighed blanket let out a soft hum then looked up at you with eyes that were horrifically clear, aware.

The scene in front of you snapped into place. You were on your back, in a shirt that was too big, too soft, most definitely not the tiny minidress that you had left in. You were unbearably sore, and this was your neighbor laying on you—whose name you still didn’t know, something, something with a ’T’? Or was it a ‘D’? A ‘B’? though Mrs. Smithers had introduced the two of twice. You had once received mail for a ‘Benjamin’ that matched his address and he had taken it, though you swore you had heard another man call him something with a ‘D’’??

You hadn’t been sure when a good time to casually ask for his name was before and now, with him situated between your spread thighs wearing only his boxers and, your eye twitched, his socks, with his arms wrapped under your legs as he used your stomach as a pillow for his head you didn’t think that casual scenario would ever appear. 

You swore his muscles rippling with just his breathing. 

Even in your most depraved, filthiest imagining he had never been this built. You also hadn’t anticipated the excessive scars that covered him, especially the long, jagged surgical scar that went up the length of his spine. Your face heated at the sheer extent of the reddened marks from nails you assumed to be yours, immediately looking away. You needed to focus on the task at hand: find your underwear, find any article of clothes that belonged to you. 

You didn’t get a chance to, as he began to gently push the shirt that was most definitely his up, slowly, until if he had pushed up just slightly more, your pussy would’ve been exposed. “W-wa-wait!” Your hands went beside his, pushing down at the fabric. 

“We’re neighbors.” You reminded.

He tilted his head, a movement too innocent for the devious quirk of his mouth—a man satisfied, smug and still annoyingly endearing.

You couldn’t remember stumbling home, you couldn’t remember running into him and more importantly, couldn’t remember why you were so sore, but in that moment, you would’ve given anything to relieve it.

 “I—  Make me breakfast first, at least.” His chest rumbled with laughter, the sensation vibrating against your stomach, 

His studio was cast in the warmth of gentle sunlight, this was the type of moment that existed only in cheesy romcoms where your neighbor should’ve been looking up with a twinkle in his eyes, excitement should’ve been coursing through you--this should’ve been the beginning of the rest of your life. 

This should’ve been a whirlwind romance waiting to happen, this was how they began, after all: the startling attractive neighbor, the one-night stand, him draped over her with a lazy smile. It was something so casual, so perfect, something so cliche, something you innately felt to be practiced. 

None of that was happening. This wasn’t a romcom. You found the stillness in his eyes to be deeply unsettling. You felt yourself waiting for his mouth to split open, to stretch unnaturally into a gaping, toothy maw and for him to swallow your head whole, then bite it clean off your body. 

In this moment, your neighbor was less man and more unpredictable monster. This was the man who always looked like he was having the worst day of his life, this was the stern man you waved at and watched the three second delay as he tried to remember how to be a person and move his hand in a weak wave back after your cheery ‘good morning’s. 

Matt ignores the exchange or at least pretends to. “Did he say anything else that would explain why Luca’s men are taking orders from the Russian mafia?”

“Oh, didn’t you tell him?” Dex asks with the ego of someone who just found a sizable chink in his armor.

You try not to roll your eyes or change your breathing because Matt is much too observant for either. “Didn’t get around to it.”

“Tell me what?” He stops walking and it forces you to as well. Dex loiters nearby, watching.

“A while back I crashed a party of a few figure heads. One of them, some Russian named Isaak, said he put a bounty on me.” You try to explain it quickly just to get it over with. Matt tilts his head in a way that you know means he’s about to speak, but you cut him off. “It isn’t a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” He asks, voice disbelieving. 

“Tell him your theory.” Dex’s tone gets even more self-satisfied.

You sigh, “I think the Italians and the Russians are helping each other with ammunition, protection, maybe information. Without the Task Force around to gun people like us down it looks like they’re taking matters into their own hands.”

Dex scoffs lightly. “That’s a nice way to put it.”

Matt takes a step closer to you, the lower half of his face that’s exposed under his cowl tenses. “If they’re hunting you specifically, that’s a huge problem. Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“I don’t know that they’re only hunting me–” “Well, you are the only one Isaak seemed to care about–” Dex starts.

“Shut up.” 

Matt shakes his head, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Technically, none of us should be here.” You reply.

“I’m serious.”

“Me too.”

Dex strolls over and puts himself in front of Matt, facing you. You’re forced to pull your attention to him and you notice the wrinkles around his eyes intensify. “Maybe you two should save the domestic dispute for after.”

You think he sounds intentionally calm. He gets this way when something you do upsets him but he doesn’t want you to know that it does. You frown behind your mask and say, “Come on. There’s a maintenance entrance over there.”

“Where do you think a cocaine smuggling, arms dealing, Bugsy Malone would sleep?” Dex asks, following. 

“The entire ground floor level is unavailable for rent, under construction. All the units are empty–” You say as you reach the metal door, pulling out a tension wrench and pick. “Or they’re supposed to be.” The keyhole jolts under the pressure and then clinks. You hold the door open for them.

Matt steps inside right after Dex, then he moves his head like he hears something in the distance. “Definitely not empty.” 

As you catch up, your shoulder brushes Matt’s arm. “What is it?” You ask quietly while falling into step.

“Cigar smoke. Cash. They’re counting bills.”

“How many?”

A gloved hand wraps around your elbow and pulls you gently from your position in between the two men to Dex’s opposite side so that he’s in the middle now. He lets you go in the next second without speaking a word, eyes staying forward with his shoulders pulled back like he’s solely focused on the mission. 

“Seven… eight.” Matt says.

When the three of you near the end of the hallway, Matt stops and you stick your arm out to stop Dex too. The back of your hand is connected to Dex’s abdomen, but you drop it the moment he looks down at you.

“What is it?” You ask, voice hardly above a whisper.

Matt looks torn between turning left or right. “One of them’s leaving out the east corridor. He’s on the phone, sounds like he’s about to meet someone…”

You don’t hear or see anything besides the grossly dim fluorescent lights that wash the entire building in a sickly green color. The beige flooring holds track marks of dirty boot prints and you take a look back down the way you came just to make sure nobody was sneaking up behind you. Dex makes the decision to start walking left towards an emergency exit.

“Don’t.” Matt says in a stern voice. 

The command makes Dex turn back around to face him, but he continues to saunter away slowly, “Why not?”

“Don’t need you running off by yourself.”

“Actually I was planning on taking Raven with me.” His eyes move from Matt to you and then back.

“She’s staying with me.” 

You watch the subtle shift in Dex’s posture, how he straightens a fraction before catching himself. He makes no other move for half a second like he knows that if he acts on instinct it would lead somewhere bad for all of them. You take a step towards the emergency exit and pull Dex back over so you’re replacing his spot.

“Should’ve done this alone.” You mutter under your breath. “I’ll take the one outside, you two obviously need time to bond.”

“No—“ “Not gonna happen—“

“Wasn’t asking.” Your attention is diverted when a door swings open several feet down the hallway. You nod, “And we’re not alone anymore.”

The man that walks out holds a duffle bag and carries a lit cigarette between his lips. When he looks over to see the three of you, all suited up and staring him down like a pack of wolves, he instantly starts yelling. None of it is in English and it makes whoever else is in the room rush out with guns.

You can hear more shouting in Russian, hurried footfalls, clips being loaded— Bullseye and Daredevil are already running towards them as you slip outside. You aren’t very worried. One of them alone could handle it, so together it’s almost unfair.

The side of the building you’re on has a huge lot with only a handful of junk cars scattered around. You sweep over the entire area, looking for the man Matt had heard. The street lights glow faintly across the wet black pavement and your boots crush on gravel and trash. It takes a bit of walking around the perimeter of the complex, but then you hear low voices from behind a black van– you stop to listen, back pressed to a wall.

“Pickup’s moved to 41st.”

“We just moved the location last week—“

“And we’re moving it again.”

A new voice cuts in, “Because you can’t protect any of the properties.” 

The last guy sounds angry. You wonder how solid this allegiance is, whether it was fragile enough to break under your constant pressure. If you keep this up, interrupting their operations, maybe it’ll make the Italians rethink their position on working with the Russians.

“Because your men could not disarm a single woman.” 

You peek your head around the corner to see them. Your view is limited, but you can just make out all three men. There’s one bald white man with excessive tattoos stretching from his neck to his hands, a large spiderweb circling the crown of his head. The two men he’s with are bigger, both have tanned skin and dark hair. One has his longer hair pulled back in a pony tail and the other has a thick mustache, nicely groomed. 

They’re still arguing, going back and forth about whose fault it was that their numbers are shrinking. You can’t wait much longer but you also don’t want to leave without getting something on Luca. One of them mentions him after a minute and your muscles tense as you focus.

“Your boss doesn’t want any more attention. This will need to be handled soon.”

“Our boss, Yevgeny.”

Baldy straightens and shoves a duffle bag at the long-haired one. “Our boss,” he spits, “has yet to do as promised.”

“Isaak will be released by Monday.” Mustache says in a placating, tired tone.

Fuck. You thought that motherfucker was taken care of. This isn’t getting you anything, sitting and waiting, so you take careful steps— trying not to make any noise. As you approach the backside of the van, they stop talking. You freeze in your spot for a long moment. The conversation picks up again lightly but you can hardly make anything out. 

Just as you wrap your hand around a blade in your belt, you hear fast footsteps approaching and a bat is swinging at your head. You duck just in time, hearing the thwip sound of metal close to your ear before it crashes into the car.

“Fu—“ You throw a boot out to knock him off his balance and he drops to the floor. You shoot back up when the other two men circle around from opposite sides of the van.

“Don’t move!” One of them shouts at you, holding a gun in your direction.

Your eyes skirt from him to the Russian, then to the idiot stumbling back up onto his feet. Now you have three guns trained onto your head so you raise your hands slowly, making a show of it.

“Bold of you to come here alone.” Yevgeny says, shifting his weight. He almost looks afraid to approach. He must think you’re more dangerous up close… you can’t help the small smile under your mask at the thought.

“Well, given your track record I don’t have much reason to be scared, do I?”

He sneers at you, thin lips pulling away to reveal his teeth. “The only reason you are not dead yet is because Luca wishes to kill you himself.”

That’s interesting. 

“Kneel,” Rat-tail says.

“Rather not.”

“Kneel or I shoot you in the leg.”

“Can I ask first, how is Costello holding up with losing half a mil worth of assets?” You tilt your head in feigned thought. “Is he mad?”

Yevgeny tightens his grip on the pistol, shoving it an inch closer towards you. “What he is, is vengeful. After we take you to him it will only be the beginning, suka– your mother, your father, every one of your vigilante comrades will hang.”

You want to roll your eyes. Mother and father and friends, Christ he’s a predictable one. “Yeah I’ve heard the horror stories.” You drop your hands because the pretense is fading. Then you shrug and say, “When I beat you three senseless do you think he’ll just take your teeth and fingers? Or your family’s too?”

A shot fires next to your face and pierces the van’s window– shattering it. You don’t flinch. It makes Yevgeny angry enough to take a couple long strides towards you and it’s all you need. You jerk his arm to the side and hit him with his own weapon. He cries out in pain while his head flies back. Another shot rings out but you pull the man towards you so the bullet hits his shoulder instead of your head. 

“Aghh!” He screams.

“Fuckin’ bitch, shoot her!” Mustache yells.

You careen around Yevgeny as you let him drop to the floor. You’re able to knock both of the pistols out of the Italian’s hands, but now they’re both trying to grab at you simultaneously. One gets you by the shoulder and you kick rat-tail in the groin at the same time. As he’s doubled over, you throw your head back and knock into the other one. 

It takes several minutes of slamming your fists into their heads, their sides, breaking bones and cracking the cartilage of their noses, but you finally get down to just you and the Russian. He’s panting, in pain from the gunshot wound, and standing wobbly in front of you. Mustache and rat-tail are sprawled out on their backs, not even groaning anymore. 

You breathe hard in measured intervals, trying to keep your heart rate under control. “Give it up, Yev. All this shit is going under. You know it is.”

He’s licking his teeth to clear the blood. Then he smiles at you. “You are– you are persistent bitch.”

“Luca wants me, yeah? He can have me.” You seethe. That makes him stiffen up, muscles flexing as he scans you over. “You can tell him I said so.”

“You have a death wish?”

“Like you said, I have persistence.”

He chuckles lightly, dropping his head down and shaking it as if he’s too amused. “Yes.” When he looks back up he says, “I will ensure he knows how eager you are to meet him.”

“Could save you the trouble, tell me where he is now since it obviously ain’t here.” You gesture to the run down complex.

“It isn’t known. Not to me, not to most.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.” He takes a step closer and you unsheath a blade. His eyes land on it and then back up to you, but he’s still clutching his bleeding wound and looking too weak to even attempt to make a move. “But I tell my boss, he tells his, so on…”

You consider him and what he’s proposing, fingers tightening on the handle of your weapon. This could be exactly what you’ve been waiting for. The opportunity to arrange some type of meeting– or ambush. You’re sure that whatever Costello wanted to do to you would be much worse than his usual methods, but that’s only if he can actually get his hands on you in the first place… You crack your neck, already feeling sore from all the fighting. 

A loud bang off in the distance— the sound of a door colliding with a brick wall, snaps you out of your thoughts. Yevgeny launches himself at you the moment it happens, like he was just waiting for the split second your attention was diverted. He gets you by the arm and twists it hard enough to make you drop the blade. You try to reach for another one with your free hand, but the prick slams your head into the van before you can, dizzying you. You grunt from the impact– as you try to steady yourself, a gun clicks. 

You curse under your breath, “Are we seriously back to this?” It takes a moment to right yourself. When you do, you see the barrel is once again pointed at your forehead, his shaky hand is trying its best to stabilize itself. 

“Your worth has gone up, Raven. I get you alive, it is fifty thousand. Dead is half… I can do a lot with half.”

You nod, assessing the situation, blood pressure spiking now. You have few options and even less time. This son of a bitch is forcing your hand. Suddenly you feel a crack in your guise, something splits open in a millisecond that makes you want to drive your blade into his sternum and push it up up up right into his tattooed throat and then keep going until it reaches the soft under portion of his fucking jaw– you have to stop the train of thought. 

Reasses.

Just as his finger is about to squeeze the trigger, you run at him. The shot is loud but it doesn’t hit you and the next thing you know, you have him down on the cold, hard, ground. Soft sirens go off somewhere far away and a light drizzle of rain begins to coat everything in a shimmery layer of wetness. Your fists pound down on his face once, twice, three times, again, more– you can’t stop. 

“Ahhhh!” You scream in his face.

Your knuckles are getting soaked the longer you go on for. There are noisy, squelching, thwacks with every connection between your wrapped knuckles and his head. He can't speak anymore. The blood that sputters between his lips comes out in sharp nasty garbles and instead of it sickening you or slowing you down, you go faster, harder. 

The natural color of his face is no longer visible. He’s been unconscious for the last several punches now, so you begin to slow down. You can’t make yourself stop even as your fist aches and your arms burn from the constant movement. 

It keeps going until someone says your name behind you, making you freeze in your spot.

The frenzy ends in an instant and you look down on the carnage you wrought, one fist still pulled back. They say your name again, closer now, but it feels like your head is under water. All that exists is torn skin and the slick, hot, blood that coats your hand wraps and sinks past them– warming your skin. 

After a lengthy stretch of time that could have been seconds or minutes, you look up and to the right to see Daredevil– Matt– holding his hands out towards you as if he wasn’t sure what to do. How to act. You pull your mask down to heave out a breath, averting your gaze so you can avoid a question, or his worry, or whatever he might’ve said next. 

You’re still situated over Yevgeny, suspended there like any movement might make you snap. Then two gentle hands are grabbing you by your shoulders and pulling you upright. Your first instinct is that it’s another person trying to kill you, so you strike at them blindly.

“It’s just me.” Dex catches your wrist before you could cause any damage. His voice is controlled but his eyes aren’t– they’re scouring over all of you. His voice drops to something only you can hear, “Just me.”

His mask is off and his hair is tussled like he removed it hastily. There’s a small cut along the bridge of his nose and for some reason you focus on only that. Dex. His scarred face, his soft words, his blood… You pull yourself out of his hold and step back, but for once it isn’t harsh, only tired. 

“Fuck,” You mutter. Too many things course through you, shame and regret and the last vestiges of your adrenaline that keep your senses so sharp like the edge of a butcher's knife. The light rain pelts at your face like a stinging reminder of where you are.

“Are you okay?” Matt asks now, still apprehensive.

“I’m fine.” You say, too quickly.

“Your head is bleeding.”

You reach up to your temple and your fingers come away red. “It’s nothing.” 

You look over the two of them and while Matt looks mostly alright, you notice that Dex’s arm is torn up. “That looks bad.” You tell him, motioning to the wound that spans horizontally across his bicep. He’s standing closer to you now, not crowding, but near enough that you can reach out to him easily if you wanted to. 

“Moron was aiming for my head.” He smirks.

Matt cuts in once more, pulling your attention away from Dex. “Luca wasn’t in there.”

You clear your throat, pulling your head out of the clouds. “No… no, he’s hiding somewhere else.” You glance down at the near-lifeless body of the man you nearly beat to death a minute ago. “I almost got it.” You say quietly. 

Fuck, this was a god damn mess. What a complete failure of a mission, you think. Costello is still god knows where, you dragged Matt and Dex into a lion’s den full of trigger-happy mafia goons for no god damn reason, and you came a hairs breadth away from almost killing someone again. It doesn’t matter that he threatened you. It doesn’t matter that he would have killed you given the chance. What matters– what you can’t stop thinking about is that you wanted it. 

You wanted to watch him die. To see the moment he realized his life was over, that it was you– a vigilante whom he despised, that did him in. All that underestimation, all that vitriol, washing away with his final breath.

“We need to get out of here. Two of the tenants called 911 about the noise.” Matt says.

You nod even though your skull is pounding, old injuries are flaring up after new ones have been layered on top. “The ones inside, they didn’t give you anything?” 

“We’ll go over all of it. Later.” Matt responds.

You want to argue. To make him tell you what he knows, anything, a shred that would have made this night worth it. Instead you sigh and say, “Okay.”

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The second Dex got outside, his shoulder slamming against the exit because it hurt to move his arm properly, his eyes searched every inch of the space where he thought you’d be. Him and Matthew had spent far too much time fighting and interrogating those men inside, bloodying the floors and getting nowhere. Or close to nowhere. Every minute that you were out of his eyeline his movements got faster, more agile, trying to clear a path straight back to you. Murdock interfered more than once, pulling him back, blocking the shots that were aimed to kill and not maim. It riled him up further, made him punch harder.

He’d left Matthew inside dealing with the last mafia member while he trudged through the parking lot. It was dark and it felt like his balaclava was beginning to suffocate him so he removed it to prioritize finding you. 

He heard it before anything else. Relentless sounds of fists hitting flesh again and again. Then a scream. Your scream. He ran in the direction immediately, prepared to snuff the life out of whoever was pulling that from you, a loud horrible sound that made his teeth clench and body light up with fury. When he gets his hands on the person hurting you–  

Then Dex saw you.

From behind all he could make out was damp hair and a hunched spine. Then he saw the man beneath you. How his legs were splayed out, unmoving. You wailed on him mercilessly like someone possessed by a rage only few could even aspire to. He moved closer with light steps to get a better view.

You looked beautiful.

It stopped him in his tracks. A feeling that can only be described as enthrallment gripped him and all he could do was watch, could only allow the soft rain to fall between him and you while he stood there at a safe distance, capturing everything. He was transfixed. Unmovable.

Then Matthew caught up. His interruption made you stop and Dex swore that was the moment he really could’ve ended him. He ruined it is the only thought that repeated in his mind. He knew he was holding you back and now Dex saw for himself just how much. He did what Matthew couldn’t and pulled you back to reality. Your eyes were wild and your hands were covered in blood that wasn’t your own and if you’d have let him, he would have devoured your lips then and there.

Dex stayed close to you the entire way home. He didn’t touch you or say anything unless you spoke first, which wasn’t often. Your eyes stayed forward, shoulders pulled back, gait sure and steady as always, but still he could tell that you were off. No smart remarks. No instigating. Hardly any acknowledgement of what transpired. 

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” Murdock asks you as the three of you reach the block where your complex is.

“Yes.” You say in an even tone. 

The drizzling has stopped, replaced now by an eerie stillness as cold air seeps into Dex’s skin. You don’t look like you’re cold. You don’t look any particular way. He studies the up and down movement of your shoulders as you inhale and exhale. A nice calming pattern that his mind latches onto and his body mimics unknowingly. Then he examines the cut on your head that you’ve paid no mind to. He has an urge to reach out and push a loose strand of hair away so he can get a better look at it– make sure it wasn’t bad.

Then the three of you approach the backside of your building. There isn’t a sole out at this hour but none of you felt like taking the chance of being seen.

“Tell me what you learned.” You say to Murdock, arms crossed and a small crease between your eyebrows. He makes a noise as if he’s tired, then he removes his mask. 

“It can wait until the morning.”

“It can’t.” 

“There's nothing that you can do about it tonight, anyway.” Matthew says.

“It doesn’t–” You catch yourself before you get worked up. When you speak again, your voice has gone flat. “It doesn’t matter.” He watches you think of what to say next, how you can be more convincing. “If we don’t find him, more people are going to die. Innocent people.”

Murdock takes a step closer to you. “We’ll find him.”

“Dex.” You find his eyes and tilt your head like you’re pleading with him. It’s so foreign to him, the way you seek him out right now. He’s much more used to being ignored or fought with. 

He shouldn’t. You’ll get all mad and then you’ll probably refuse to sleep, too wired from thoughts and schemes once he tells you– but fuck you’re staring at him expectantly and it’s him that you’re asking, not Matthew. It feels like you’ve chosen him and he has to hold on to that for as long as he can before it disappears.

“They’re funneling the money from their drug operation into developing more properties along the Hudson.”

Matthew sighs and paces away from you two while you frown in thought. “For what?”

“Didn’t get that far, but it’s probably not for fun.”

Matthew’s voice is full of weariness, apparently resigned to the fact that you weren’t letting it go, “They said storage. Could be anything.”

You nod like you’re relieved that you got even a fragment of information. Then your gaze drifts some more, putting some pieces together that Dex wishes he could see. “When it was Michele in charge– when he controlled Atlas, all he cared about was making sure the money was clean. The whole firm was just a front, but maybe Luca’s turning it into something else.”

“A legitimate channel to bankroll future expansions.” Murdock says, feeding off your speculation.

Dex asks, “What does that mean?”

You shrug. “They could start dipping into more than drugs and munitions… if they get the space for it, maybe racketeering or human trafficking.”

Matthew straightens, his voice tenses, “I’ll look into it some more. Get in touch with some people that were involved with Michele’s defense, see if they know anything.”

“Thank you, Matt.”

“Don’t thank me yet. There’s a chance they won’t talk.”

“I mean– thanks for coming tonight. Both of you.”

Dex sees how your features soften even in the darkness. The tired way your eyes scan over him and he wants to be alone with you now. It’s a good thing that Matthew decides to leave shortly after so he wouldn’t have to make him. It took another few minutes of quiet conversation and lethargic discussions about what to do next, but now it’s just you and Dex. You make no move to walk away from him despite how exhausted he knows you must be.

There’s very faint music playing from someone’s unit high above them that he hadn’t noticed until now. Probably because you’ve been looking at him in a way that didn’t suggest you wanted him to leave for once and his arm has been thrumming with a dull pain the entire time.

“You’re…” You start and then trail off. “Do you want to come inside? I could take a look at your arm.”

Dex smiles at you. “You’re inviting me to stay?”

“I’m inviting some medical attention. Don’t want you blaming me for an infection.” You’re already making your way to a back entrance.

He follows behind quietly, deciding not to push his luck here. You’ve never offered your place to him like this. Either you’re starting to trust him or the night’s events have seriously messed with your psyche. Not that he’s complaining. 

When the two of you make it inside your apartment, he watches carefully while you flip on the lights and kick off your shoes. Then you take off your mask completely and loosen the braid in your hair as you make your way over to the kitchen sink. He watches you unwrap your hands and run your knuckles under some cold water to get rid of the blood. They’re torn up and brusied, but you don’t make a face at it. 

Dex is accustomed to being here in the way a stray cat would be, waiting for the moment he’ll be kicked out and left in the cold. This is new. You must sense his uncertainty because you look over at him from your spot and motion for him to come over.

“Take off your shirt.” You tell him as he approaches.

“Getting right to it, hm?” He smirks.

This time you don’t roll your eyes or say something caustic like he’s expecting. “Knife or bullet?”

He hums, “Bullet.” 

Then he removes the strap along his chest that holsters a gun he wasn’t allowed to use all night thanks to Saint Matthew. It’s discarded on top of the island counter. He watches you while he removes the dark blue and black long sleeve, taking his time because now his bicep burns from the sudden action. He hisses lightly and you move closer to get a better look. Your scent invades his space but he tries his best not to think about it, to not think about what he did with you on this same counter not too long ago.

Your eyes squint for a second while your fingers lightly trace against the underside of the wound, being careful not to touch it directly. “It isn’t bleeding anymore… but you should let me suture it so it doesn’t later.”

“As long as you’re gentle.”

That pulls a mild laugh from you, something breathy and warm that makes a genuine smile pull on Dex’s lips. You’re pretty when you laugh, he thinks. It’s not the first time he’s ever heard it but it is the first time it wasn’t laced with confusion or irritation and he wants more. He wants to smooth out those worry lines that warp your features into the hardened vigilante he’s come to know. Wants to kiss you again and have you kiss him back, zealous instead of angry.

You pull away from him and he forces himself not to clasp a hand around your wrist to keep you close. As you move around and gather supplies to fix him up you say, “I’ll be as gentle with you as you were with me.”

He nearly groans. “I’m not a trained medical professional.”

You scoff under your breath, “Got that right.”

You lay out everything you need on the counter and then pull over a stool for Dex to sit on. When he does, you get to work right away. Your face is close to his but all of your attention is on being efficient. His skin feels like it’s on fire but he knows that it isn’t due to the pain anymore. The rubbing alcohol stings as you swipe a cotton pad across the long gash. All the blood gets swabbed away after a minute. Then the needle slides beneath his skin and he clenches his teeth, trying not to make a sound. He can’t help the throaty groans as you keep going, your delicate touch clashing with the pinching sensation again and again. 

“Shut up.” You mutter.

He smiles and then winces. “No bedside manner.”

“Don’t remember you giving me any comfort.”

“Mmm… so this is payback?”

Your hair brushes his naked arm and goosebumps rise instantly. “No, honey. This isn’t payback.”

Dex sighs at the softness in your tone, tension draining from his muscles. His free hand comes around to rest at your waist. “You called me honey.”

You glance at him with a small smile, then go right back to work. “I guess I’m feeling sorry for you.”

“You should feel sorry for me more often.”

You tie the end of the thread and even though he should feel relief that it’s over, he doesn’t. He’d let you hurt him for a little bit longer if he could keep his hand on your waist and listen to your quiet laugh one more time.

“All done.” You say, about to move away.

“Wait.” He tightens his grip on you but not enough to hurt. You raise an eyebrow at him in question. “Your head needs to be cleaned, too.”

“Yeah, I’ll get to it–”

“Let me.” You shake your head a little like you might argue, so he cuts you off. “Please.”

He sees you swallow as you deliberate before you say a soft, “Alright.”

Dex pushes some of your hair out of the way and you close your eyes from the contact. He smiles at that while he takes a clean cotton pad and douses it with alcohol. You don’t make a sound while he runs it over the cut at your temple. He wonders who did it. If it was one of the men you’d knocked onto their backs or if it was the one you almost beat the life out of. When he thinks of that again a feeling grows in his chest. More than intrigue, more than excitement, even more than want.

It was admiration.

Your voice comes out close to a whisper, “Isaak’s going to be let out of jail.”

Dex stops his movements as he scans your face. Your eyes are still closed. You didn’t sound worried about the statement, it just seemed like you were letting him know. Sharing intel. “That’s a problem.”

“I know.” You say as you open your eyes. Dex drops his hand and sets the bloodied cotton on the counter, then grabs some medical tape. As he places small strips onto your head, you talk a bit more in a low voice. “I don’t know what to do about him… what to do in general.”

“What do you want to do?”

You stare at him unblinking, but don’t answer. He thinks he knows what you want to say. What you want to do, too. It’ll take a lot of persuading, possibly some interference between you and Matt, but he can get you to do it. It’s your nature, like it is his. 

“Done.”

The quiet permeates through your apartment as neither of you make a move. It feels less like a strained silence and more like a truce while you both look at one another.

There’s something strange that happens after you get to know the intricacies of someone. When you’ve breached that imaginary line that’s meant to separate two people– to keep a safe distance. Dex has crossed it at some point although he can’t exactly put his finger on when. Maybe it was that night in the file room. Maybe it was when he discovered that he shot you. Maybe it was only a couple hours ago as he witnessed you in your true state– but now your face has stopped being an amalgamation of features. Your eyes and nose and lips, once individual characteristics he studied and filed away, have become something else. Everything has gone from bits and pieces of a puzzle into a complete picture of you. 

Dex refuses to go one more second without having your lips on his, so he snakes a hand around the back of your neck and draws you closer. He makes himself stop when he’s a hair's breadth away so he can ask first, “Can I kiss you?” 

You place your hands on his sides and he feels your short breaths on him while you think. “Hm, I really like it when you say please.” You whisper.

A warmth spreads beneath his ribs that threatens to consume him. “Please, baby.”

You smirk at him and then pull him in the rest of the way. Your mouth concedes to his and he makes a noise into you that you take and give back. You’re warm and pliant, moving against him slowly. One hand reaches out to his arm and rests there lightly. He can tell you’re trying to avoid touching his wound and he almost breaks the kiss with his smile. You really can be sweet when you want to be and it’s getting to be more difficult to act like he doesn’t want more of that from you.

Dex realized a while ago that everything you’d allowed between you two was all physical. He could kiss you sometimes and fuck you if you allowed it after a long day, but the moment it became a real conversation or anything resembling personal you’d shut him down. Nothing seemed to get past those walls of yours. The thought makes him feverish– needy in a way that’s unrecognizable to him. 

He pulls you into him more with a flat hand at your lower back. The kiss gets deeper but not faster, both of your heads tilting in opposite directions so that you can taste each other better. He trails up your spine and feels you shiver a little. You break the contact first and he watches you with hungry eyes and parted lips as you take a deep breath. 

“Are you about to kick me out?” He asks, only half-joking.

You study his face with a pinched expression as if you were actually considering it and it twists something in his stomach. “Are you going to give me a reason to?”

He shakes his head and then gathers you into his arms, lifting you off the floor. “No.” 

Your legs wrap around him while he slowly carries you towards your bedroom. The press of your lips against his jaw and cheek nearly makes him moan. Your body is pressed flush against his bare chest and your fingers thread nicely through his hair. It creates a soft buzz under his skin, lighting up all of his senses. The way you nuzzle into him with each passing second opens something wider inside of him, a horrible craving that he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to fully satiate. Not if you continue to shut him out emotionally… he has to occupy more than your body, he thinks. He wants your mind and your sense of humor and your trust, too. It will take a lot, he knows, but Dex feels that he’s just committed himself to obtaining it. Obtaining all of you. 

He can bring your walls down. Chip away at it, little by little, day by day for a very long time because the fact of the matter is he isn’t going to leave. 

Not even if you beg him to.

Previous Chapter 12 · · ─ ·✶· ─ · · Next Chapter 14

─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─

The man waited outside.

Your stomach sank.

You pulled out your phone and called Dex. It rang once before going to voicemail, which meant he was either working or already packing his things and moving towards you. You left the line open anyway, slipping your phone into your coat pocket as you stepped back onto the pavement.

“I’m on Stanton,” you said, quiet as you could, knowing the microphone would catch it. “I’m going on the safe route, and there’s a man following me.”

You headed towards the twenty-four-hour diner two streets away. At least there were lights, cameras, and most importantly, people there.

You almost reached it, but the man caught you when you passed the narrow service road behind an apartment building. One moment his footsteps were behind you; the next, his hand gripped around the back of your coat and dragged you hard enough that the thicker collar choked into your throat.

Your keys fell from your fingers, and all you could manage was a pathetic little scream before he could cover your mouth.

His palm immediately struck your lips and teeth, crushing the sound back into your skull as he hauled you into the darkness of some random New York alley. Your heel scraped uselessly across the pavement as you bit down until you tasted blood that wasn’t yours. It worked! He swore, jerking his hand away.

Immediately, you drove your elbow backwards.

Dex had shown you where to aim for, and you were trying to retrieve it from the rolodex of information in your mind, not quite the ribs, but lower in the soft tissue. 

The man grunted, but he didn’t let go. His arm locked around your throat instead, squeezing until firework-white sparks burst across your vision.

“You stupid fucking—”

You stamped on his foot before he could finish his sentence and threw your weight forwards, turning beneath his arm, exactly as Dex had taught you.

Eventually, his hold broke.

You stumbled free and ran, but the man recovered faster than you initially expected. His hand found its way and tangled his fingers in your hair, snapping your head backwards so violently that your neck burned.

He slammed you face-first against the brick wall.

Oh. Fuck. 

A burst of pain exploded through your cheek, teeth unintentionally biting into the inside of your mouth. Warm, fresh blood flooded on your tongue, thick and metallic, while his body pinned you against the wall.

The panic bells ringing in your head turned everything white-hot. “S-stop!”

He didn’t.

No. No. You were better than this.

You reached behind blindly, clawing for his eyes, his throat, anything you could find. Your nails found skin, raking down as he cursed and drove you against the brick again.

Maybe your nose broke, you couldn’t really tell.

His hand slid beneath your coat, and that’s when your vision went red. Rage flared hot inside you, burning through every thought in your head. You threw your skull backwards and felt his cartilage collapse beneath it.

His grip loosened, howling in pain.

You spun and shoved him with both hands.

He stumbled off the curb at the edge of the service road. His ankle twisted beneath him, and he went down hard. The man managed to catch himself on one palm before his shoulder struck the pavement.

You could have run.

The diner was less than a hundred yards away. You could see its red sign glowing at the end of the road, bright as a fresh exit wound.

That was when the man looked up at you.

A sick, satisfied feeling churned in your stomach as red poured from his nose and over his mouth.

And… he was smiling.

Oh. 

He still believed he was going to win.

He pushed himself onto one knee. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Your hand found the loose brick beside the wall, and it was heavier than you expected. Its edges bit into your palm as you lifted it with both hands.

When the man saw it, his smile vanished in an instant.

You brought the brick down across his temple.

The sound that came off it was shockingly small. It sounded like a damp knock, followed by the scrape of his body collapsing onto the road.

He rolled onto his back, blinking rapidly. One side of his face had already begun to swell around the ripped skin as a blotch of blood ran into his ear and disappeared beneath his head.

You stood over him, panting.

He was still conscious. “Wait.”

You could’ve stopped. You could’ve shown mercy. 

Instead, you struck him again.

This time, the brick split the skin above his eyebrow. Blood sprayed across your coat and speckled your face in warm droplets.

He raised one arm to protect himself.

Huh. Cute. 

You hit that too.

His arm gave beneath the brick with a muffled crunch. His forearm bent where it shouldn’t have been bent, and he screamed, the sound travelling through the empty service road.

You dropped the brick.

For half a second, the sight of his ruined arm nearly pulled you back into your logical self.

Then, his good hand closed around your ankle.

You shrieked and kicked him in the face. Your heel connected with his mouth as teeth snapped together. One of them even skipped across the pavement and vanished beneath a parked car.

He released you, but you fell on top of him.

Your knees struck the ground on either side of his hips, and your hands seized the front of his jacket. His blood made the material slippery beneath your fingers.

Before you could think any better of it, you dragged his head upwards, then slammed it against the curb.

The back of his skull struck concrete with a thick, hollow crack.

His eyes rolled, and it horrified you how much you liked it, seeing the man who wanted to touch you fucking bleed out. 

So you did it again.

Blood spread beneath his hair.

Again.

The hard crack now sounded wetter as the skin split and bone began to cave in. His body jerked beneath you, heels scraping against the pavement, but there was no strength left in it.

He made a noise through his broken mouth. You didn’t know whether it was a plea or merely air left escaping.

“You followed me!” you sobbed. “You fucking touched me!”

You brought his head down again.

The edge of the curb disappeared beneath blood. It ran between your fingers, coating your palms each time you pulled him upwards.

“I did everything right.”

Again.

“I—”

Again.

“Have—”

Again.

“A—”

Again.

“Fucking—”

Again.

“Boyfriend—”

Again.

“You—”

Again.

“Asshole—”

Again.

“He’ll fucking kill you!”

The last word broke somewhere in your throat, ragged. You were crying now, maybe. You couldn’t really tell. Your face was wet, your hands were red, and the whole world had shrunk down to the most-likely-dead man in your grip and the curb beneath him and the memory of his hand on you where it never should have been.

The back of his skull was now the shape of the concrete underneath.

You felt the structure collapse beneath your hands where there should have been resistance. It didn’t feel dramatic or righteous. All you could think was how it felt gooey in the wrong places. 

You pulled him up again anyway.

“I told you,” you sobbed, or screamed, or whispered. You couldn’t tell anymore. “I told you to stop.”

But his eyes were open and empty, staring past you at nothing, and when you tried to lift him one more time, your hands slipped in all the blood and he dropped back against the curb with a sound that made your stomach sink

That was when the anger went out.

All at once, as if someone had blown out a candle inside your chest.

You stared down at your hands and the red beneath your nails. You saw a dark smear across your wrist where he had grabbed you. “I did everything right,” you said again, smaller this time.

His face had lost all expression. Blood bubbled faintly at his lips before spilling down his cheek.

He was dead.

You knew he was dead.

You screamed as you struck him again, though you no longer knew whether you were furious or terrified.

You remembered Dex telling you never to stop until you were safe.

Make sure they cannot get back up. 

You had done everything he told you to do.

The man’s head struck the concrete one final time and didn’t bounce.

You released him.

His ruined skull settled crookedly against the ground. The road beneath him shone black-red beneath the distant streetlights, and blood soaked through your tights at the knees and dripped from your hands in heavy threads.

The dead man’s head no longer looked human.

Your stomach heaved.

You tried to stand, but your legs folded beneath you. The world tilted violently, the brick walls stretching upwards as though the road had dropped away beneath your body.

Footsteps thundered behind you, but you couldn’t turn around.

Your vision narrowed until the alley became a tunnel.

Then a hand touched your face, but this time, the touch was gentle.

His thumb swept carefully beneath your eye, avoiding the swelling along your cheekbone, as an arm curved around your waist before you could collapse fully onto the body.

“There you are,” Dex whispered.

His voice sounded distant beneath the rushing in your ears.

You tried to tell him what you had done, but your lips would not let you.

Dex’s palm cradled the back of your head, carefully nudging your nose back into place. He pulled you into him, turning your face away from the ruin on the pavement.

“My smart girl,” he murmured, stroking your hair with bloodless fingers. “You remembered everything.”

The praise sank through your heart as he felt his lips press against your temple.

“You saved yourself.”

Eventually, dazed and overwhelmed by the adrenaline crash, your eyes closed.

The last thing you felt was Dex’s thumb moving across your cheek, wiping away a tear.

—

Dex knew you.

He knew you were nothing like him.

That much had been obvious almost from the beginning, though he hadn’t understood it properly. Dex’s first instinct had always been violence. Whenever a problem appeared, his mind found that the bloodiest way was often the fastest way to solve it. Even inconveniences made his skin crawl, from a jammed drawer, a car alarm that would not stop, to a man looking at you for half a second too long across a restaurant. 

You were different.

You were gentle in ways Dex had once found impractical.  

You apologised to furniture when you bumped into it. You cupped moths in your hands and carried them outside. You left sugar water out for bees in summer and lowered your voice around frightened dogs. You once stopped walking entirely because there was a snail on the pavement after rain, and you refused to let anyone step on it until Dex moved it safely into the grass with a leaf.

He had stood there watching you then, half-annoyed, half-fascinated.

“It’s just a snail,” he had said.

You had looked up at him like he had spouted bullshit from his mouth. “It’s alive.”

From then on, he realized alive mattered to you.

Even small alive. Even when it was inconvenient .

Dex hadn’t been raised with that as a natural instinct. As a boy, he had thrown stones at birds because he found that he liked the little burst of movement. He hadn’t thought of it as cruelty then. It was just aim, maybe boredom. 

Then you bought a bird feeder for your apartment.

You hung it outside the kitchen window with such bright delight that Dex hadn’t even known what to say. You filled it every morning, scattering seed with your bed hair falling over your face, then stood there with your coffee while sparrows and blue tits flickered down. You loved them. You loved their stupid little hopping, their bright feathers.

You loved listening to birdsong most of all.

You whistled back sometimes without realising it while you watered plants or folded laundry. At night, when you were deep enough asleep that your body forgot to be self-conscious, you made the same small breathy sounds in your dreams, sweet enough that Dex would lie awake beside you and listen as he calmed down.

So instead of throwing rocks at it like he used to, he learned how to imitate their songs.

At first, only because you smiled when he whistled them. Then, he did it because you looked at him like he had performed a miracle when a robin landed on the feeder while Dex stood still by the window, unknowingly calling them closer.

Without realising, he had learned to mimic their distinctive calls.

He even stopped exterminating annoying bugs because of you. 

You were afraid of spiders, yes, but when one of them showed up in the nightstand and you screamed, hiding behind him like a shield, you would make this horrified and pleading sound because he reached for a shoe instead of a cup. To you, being afraid of the little thing didn’t mean it deserved to die. 

“Dex, no. Outside. Alive.”

So for you, he learned to trap spiders beneath glasses and slide envelopes carefully underneath them. He learned to carry them to the windowsill instead of crushing them. 

Eventually, he learned not to flick beetles off the balcony, because you worried about whether the fall would hurt them. He learned to scoop flies out of half-open windows with hands while you hovered behind him whispering, “Careful, careful,” like he was defusing a bomb.

He learned to pretend he cared whether tiny, ugly things lived.

Eventually, he cared because you cared, and caring about what you cared about was the closest thing to general empathy Dex had ever understood.

And that was why Dex knew that you could not wake up knowing what you had done.

Because you had not even wanted him to kill spiders.

How the hell were you supposed to survive knowing you had killed a man?

Dex had known that the moment you went limp in his arms, your bloodied hands curled weakly against his shirt, your body giving up its adrenaline high only after it was finally safe to stop fighting. You had passed out before he could praise you properly, even before he could look you in the eye and tell you that you had done exactly what he taught you to do.

You had saved yourself.

Dex was proud of you in a way he knew he couldn’t show when you woke up.

Especially not with the body in the trunk of his car and your clothes stuffed into a sealed black bag hidden in the closet. His own clothes in there too, soaked with blood where he had held you, smeared bleach where he had poured it over the concrete. 

He would deal with it later, when you were properly asleep, because the body could wait and you could not.

So Dex got you, half-passed out and half mumbling nonsense, home. Perhaps it was simply your mind coping on a traumatic memory.

He stripped you carefully, cutting fabric where it stuck, easing sleeves down your arms, peeling everything off your skin piece by piece until there was nothing left between you and him. His clothes came off too, though nothing was ever sexual about that, but because his soaked shirt was evidence, too. 

He washed you in the shower while you leaned against him, barely conscious, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, your knees buckling every time the warm water hit another bruise. He did this all while murmuring sweet nonsense into your ear, words he knew your body understood even when your mind was tuned out. “You did so good, baby. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

He washed you until water at your feet ran pink, then red, then thin and clear.

Your hands took the longest as he held each finger between his own, washing beneath the nails, over the knuckles, around the raw places where the brick and pavement had scraped you open. You whimpered once, so quietly he almost missed it, and he kissed your wet temple before continuing.

He had to make them clean because you would look at your hands first.

When it was done, he carried you to bed and lay down naked beside you, pulling you onto his chest before the cold could bite.

The skin to skin was its own kind of intimacy, no barrier, but his body around yours.

By 2 a.m., he had not slept. He had tried, once or twice, mostly for the performance, because if you woke up and found him sitting upright in the dark watching you breathe, you would know something was wrong. 

So he lay with you until dawn, and every time your breathing hitched, Dex tightened his hold. Every time you made a frightened sound, he kissed your head and whispered until you settled. He kept one eye on the bedroom door, one ear tuned to the street.

But mostly he watched you.

You looked smaller when you slept after fear, lashes clumping from old tears. Your mouth was swollen and a bruise was blooming along your cheekbone where the man had slammed you against brick, and Dex had to look away from it more than once because all he felt was red-hot rage. 

But it wasn’t like he could do anything. The man was already dead.

You woke up sometime around 3 a.m.

Dex felt it when you choked on a breath, curled against him, cheek on his chest, one leg tangled with his. Your fingers twitched against his ribs, and he knew some part of you had surfaced too quickly.

Your eyes opened.

Almost immediately, panic tore through you.

You jerked upright so fast the sheet slipped from your chest. 

Your hands flew up in front of your face, fingers spread, as though blood might still be dripping from them. They were clean, but you stared anyway. 

You turned them over, looking at your palms, backs, nails, and wrist.

You seemed shocked to find them… clean. 

Dex sat up behind you. “Baby.”

You flinched at his voice, and that knee-jerk reaction hurt more than he expected.

You twisted towards him, naked and shaking, eyes wide with a terror that had no full memory attached to it yet. 

Dex could see your mind reaching and clawing through fog, finding only flashes of memories. Maybe you remembered a streetlight, maybe a hand on your throat. 

Your lips parted, but no sound came out.

Dex reached for you.

You scrambled back half an inch, and he frowned immediately. 

He tried to make himself look harmless, like there was nothing hidden near the closet, nothing dead cooling in the back of his car.

“There you are,” he murmured.

Your face fell, but the sob didn’t come out. It got trapped in your chest, making your whole body shake. You looked down at yourself then, at your bare skin, at his bare skin, at the tangled sheets, and your confusion quickly became fear. 

Dex moved carefully, scooting closer until his thigh touched yours.

“You were cold,” he said, pulling the duvet back up around you before you could ask. “ I had to get you warm.”

Your eyes darted around the room.

The bedroom looked normal. That made it worse. 

There was no proof of anything, no blood, no alley, no proof of anything but your body remembering what your mind could not grasp.

Dex placed one hand over your knee.

You stared at it.

He expected you to pull away, but instead your breath hitched and your whole body tilted towards him, helplessly, like a compass finding north. He gathered you before you could think better of it.

You collapsed into his lap.

Dex wrapped both arms around you and pulled you against his bare chest again, tucking your face beneath his chin. You were shaking so hard it passed into him. You pressed your hands flat to his shoulders, then curled, then opened again, like you could not stand the idea of grasping flesh too tightly.

“There,” he whispered. “That’s it. Come here, baby.”

Your breath hitched against his throat, and he felt the first wet tear hit his skin.

Then you were crying without sound, which was worse than sobbing. Violent tears shook you from the inside while your body stayed stiff with shock.

Dex rocked you slowly, enough to give your panic a rhythm to follow.

“You’re home,” he murmured into your hair. “You’re with me. No one’s gonna touch you.”

Your fingers dug into him. “I—I…,” you whispered, not quite coming out with words yet

Dex closed his eyes for half a second. “It’s okay, baby.”

Your eyes darted in a panic. “I don’t know what happened.”

He tried shushing you. “You don’t have to know all of it right now.”

“I-I don’t know, Dex.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Your breathing grew shallow, almost choking. You tried to pull back and look at your hands again, but Dex caught them between your bodies, folding them against his chest where you could feel his heartbeat beneath your palms.

Focus there.

You did.

“I-I remember him,” you managed to say.

Dex stroked the back of your head. “Okay.”

“I remember walking. I took the right way.”

“You did.”

“I did what you said.”

“You did everything right.”

The sentence seemed to be a trigger, ripping a sob out of you.

Dex held you tighter.

“I-I did everything right,” you repeated, smaller now. “I promise.”

“I know.”

“I went inside. I waited. I called you.”

“You were so smart.”

Your face pressed harder into his neck.

“So smart,” he whispered again. “My girl, you did so well.”

You shook your head, frantic, because praise did not fit beside the images cutting through you. 

You didn’t remember much, but you saw flashes of blood and concrete behind your eyelids. 

Your breathing stopped.

His hand slid up the back of your neck and held you close. “No,” he murmured, soft as velvet. “Stay with me.”

“I saw—”

“You saw too much.”

“I… did something.”

“You protected yourself.”

“No, I—”

“You protected yourself,” he repeated, more insistent this time. 

Your fingers twisted against his chest.

Dex let his voice warm up, like honey in warm water. “You were scared and hurt and you did what you had to do.”

He felt you take the information in, but your panic continued circling it like vultures on corpses.

Dex kissed the top of your head, then your temple, then the bruised corner of your brow. “You’re okay,” he breathed. “I promise.”

You made a wounded noise, and he knew exactly what he was doing.

The kindness was not accidental, it was architecture. He was building a room inside your memory, where the bloodier parts could be locked outside until you forgot where you held the key.

“Where is he?”

Oh. So you vaguely knew there was a he now. 

“He’s in the hospital.” He lied easily. 

Dex knew this was how it would happen. One lie was enough to sound like mercy, and you would hold on to it because you trusted him more than you trusted your own shattered memory. He was making you need his version of the truth because he truly believed it was the only one that would save you.

You froze in his arms, and Dex held you through it.

“The hospital?” you whispered.

“Mm.”

Your hands clutched him harder. “He looked...”

“I know what it looked like.”

You pulled back just enough to see his face.

Dex hated it, and not because he couldn’t lie to your face. He could, he had, and would again if it meant it would preserve and protect your sense of self. Instead, he hated it because you looked so desperate for him to make the world kinder than really it was, and he loved you so much it nearly made him crueler.

He cupped your cheeks.

“Head wounds bleed badly,” he said. “You know that, sweetheart.”

Your eyes blazed into his, and he knew he made a mistake then. You didn’t remember that part.

“H-head wounds?” You breathed out in disbelief, unable to claw the memory now. 

“He was breathing when I got there,” Dex lied again.

A strangled sob left you, but it didn’t sound like relief yet. For now, it was only the body realising it had been offered a way out.

“Head wounds a-are dangerous.”

“I know.”

You hiccuped. “I thought— I remember—”

“Pieces,” Dex murmured. “You remember pieces.”

“But I saw blood.”

“There was blood.”

“On me?”

“Yes.”

Your face fell, Dex pulling you back in before the horror could.

“That’s why I cleaned you up,” he whispered, and that part, at least, was not a lie. His thumb moved slowly along your cheek, careful in a way Dex was rarely careful with anything that wasn’t you. “That’s why we ended up like this. You were shaking so hard, and I couldn’t get you warm. I tried. I swear I tried.”

His mouth brushed your temple, barely a kiss.

“I kept trying to move,” he murmured. “I kept thinking I should get you a shirt, but every time I pulled away, you reached for me again like you thought I was leaving, and I couldn’t—” His voice snagged, just slightly. “I couldn’t make myself do it. Not when you looked at me like that.”

You stared at him, still heavy-limbed, your thoughts coming back to you in pieces. It sounded embarrassingly believable, because there was a warmth in your chest that remembered him. Your hands had always found him before the rest of you caught up.

“I did?” you asked quietly.

“Yes.”

Your eyes narrowed, weakly suspicious. “You’re lying.”

Dex leaned down and kissed your forehead, lingering there like the answer mattered more than the accusation. 

“About you needing me?” His voice dropped. “Never.”

You cried harder then, finally making messy little sobs that broke against his chest while Dex rocked you, He ran his hands up and down your back, whispering into your hair. He called you precious until the word stopped sounding like a word at all. 

You shook your head.

Dex closed his eyes and held you tighter.

“You’re my girl,” he whispered. “Nothing about you changed.”

His gaze drifted once, towards the closet.

The black bag waited.

Behind the wall, beyond the apartment, beneath the ordinary morning, the dead man waited too. 

Later, he would get rid of the body. Later, he would burn what needed burning. For now, you were shaking in his lap, believing him because you needed to.

“Dex,” you whispered.

“I’m here.”

“You promise?”

He knew what you were asking.

You promise I didn’t? You promise I’m still me? You promise whatever I don’t remember isn’t real?

Dex pressed his lips to your temple and held them there. “I promise you’re safe.”

It was not the answer you wanted, but it was the one he gave.

You sagged against him after that, emptied by tears, your body surrendering. Dex eased both of you down until he was lying on his back and you were draped over him, skin to skin beneath the sheet. Your cheek rested over his heart, hand curled weakly near his ribs.

He kept touching your scalp, your spine, and the back of your neck in gently repetitive strokes until your breathing evened out. 

Eventually, sleep took you again. Poor girl, still so tired after murdering an evil man. 

Every few minutes, you twitched. Every time, Dex whispered you back down.

My precious girl, he would praise. You did so well.

At last, your body grew heavy over his, your fingers stopped moving. Your mouth grew pliant against his chest.

Dex waited for five minutes, then ten, then twenty.

Only when he was certain you were properly asleep did he turn his head towards the closet again.

He had things that needed doing.

But you stirred faintly against him before he could move, and Dex froze. Your brow pinched, your hand tightening on his skin, some nightmare threatening to pull you under.

He settled back immediately.

Not yet.

The dead could wait a little longer.

Dex brushed his mouth over your hair and smiled.“My sweet girl,” he whispered.

His hand covered yours, pressing your clean palm flat over his heart.

“You did everything right.”

He adored you for last night, even if he could never let you know exactly what you had done.

He adored the shaking, furious thing you had become when there had been no one left to save you. He adored the fact that some part of you had remembered him, remembered every warning, every lesson, every instruction, just in case. 

He adored that you had survived. More than that, in some terrible private corner of himself, he adored that you had survived violently.

He adored that for a split second, you had become him. 

But he knew you best, and he knew you weren’t made for that. 

So he would take that truth to the grave, and you would wake up tomorrow with the love of your life beside you.

You would wake up believing you had done only enough to live.

And Dex loved you enough to make that true.

—end.

NOTE : I genuinely love seeing all your requests in my asks, but I do get a lot and I physically can’t write every single one. I usually write the ones that catch my eye, and it’s probably every 1 in 5. 

That’s why I have Ko-fi! If you request there, it’s pretty much guaranteed I’ll write it within a month of responding as a token of appreciation (keep this post in mind for July and August 2026). If I’m uncomfortable with the request or don’t think I can do it justice, I’ll let you know and we can brainstorm something else.

Please remember I run this blog for free, so any support means a lot, only if you’re able to give it! Love y’all and thank you for reading!!! <3

buy me a ko-fi here!

Dex taglist part 1:

Your shared apartment was always the quietest during the late afternoon, the sharp horizon of the Hell’s Kitchen skyline throwing long, stark shadows across the hardwood floor. For Dex, silence was usually a dangerous variable. It was the space where the static in his head grew too loud, where the meticulous, rigid architecture of his internal programming began to fray at the edges.

But lately, the silence had a different rhythm. It was punctuated by the soft, rhythmic click of your platform heels, the crinkle of cellophane, and the bright, unbothered melody of your voice.

Dex sat rigidly at the kitchen island, his long legs extended, his large, calloused hands resting flat on the clean counter space. His cold blue eyes were fixed entirely on you. Specifically, they were fixed on the bright pastel shopping bag you had dumped unceremoniously onto the table.

He didn't really understand your apparent attachment to inanimate objects. He himself never really got this overwhelming need to like something so much that you needed multiple versions of it. To Dex, an object possessed utility, or it was clutter. The closest comparable thing he had to such notions were his weapons. His pristine, balanced throwing knives and his standard-issue sidearm. But his constant need to replace or maintain them was born entirely out of lethal necessity, a calculation of survival and structural order. It wasn't born out of consumerism. It wasn't born out of... fun.

You had always known there was something a little off with your boyfriend beyond just his severe diagnosed obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Dex didn't just struggle to understand human emotions; he viewed them like a foreign dialect that required constant, exhausting translation. When feelings did pierce through his armor, they didn't come naturally or easily. They came like a flash flood. It was a hard, beautifully dangerous lesson you had learned early on in your relationship: when Dex loved, he loved hard, with his entire fractured being. You were the center of his world, his absolute everything, the singular gravity well keeping his violent impulses from spinning into total chaos.

So, whatever you liked, Dex tried to accept. He tried really, really hard to get it.

Even your insatiable hunger to keep collecting these stupid, overpriced little things.

"It's a collection, Dex," you had corrected him a few days prior, your lips pulling into a frown because he had worded your hobby far too seriously during a debrief of the apartment’s organization.

Dex reached out, his large fingers gingerly picking up one of the pastel boxes you had on the table. His sharp brows furrowed into a tight knot of absolute concentration, his gaze drilling into the cardboard as if the colorful text on the side held the answer to the universe's deepest, most classified secret. His eyes scanned the bright, cartoonish characters. He didn't understand the appeal of the molded plastic or the soft fabric, but he knew the sheer sight of the packaging made your eyes crinkle at the corners.

It's stupid, the first, rigid voice in his head screamed, a remnant of the sterile Bureau evaluations that dictated what a grown, lethal operative should care about. But he didn't voice it outright. Instead, he kept his jaw set, his large palm sinking back into the bag to pull out the remaining boxes. Four more, exactly. He lined them up in a flawless, perfectly symmetrical sequence, exactly one inch apart from one another.

"But you don't know what you're getting," he said, his gravelly voice carrying a trace of genuine, slight astonishment. The concept of a "blind box" genuinely offended his sense of structural logic. He did the math in his head instantly, the probabilities, the margins of error, the high likelihood of wasted capital. To willingly take your chances on losing was gambling. This was gambling. You were gambling.

"That's the fun part!" you gleamed, your face lighting up as you snatched the first box. "You cross your fingers and hope for the best!"

Dex blinked, his gaze tracing the soft curve of your cheek. Bless your heart. You were always so effortlessly optimistic about everything, moving through the grime of Hell’s Kitchen with a radiant, unbothered lightness that felt entirely unaligned with the dark realities he dealt in. Your light was one of the things he admired most about you; it was the exact gravity that had pulled him away from his old, suffocating scripts and to you.

But as his eyes dropped back down to the five boxes sitting on the kitchen table, his mind had already weighed out the bleak chances of getting one or two duplicates. Immediately, a heavy dread dropped in his chest and his heart tightened. You would be so disappointed. That brilliant, blinding smile he loved seeing on your face would falter, and he knew you would force it back on just to keep him from worrying. Dex took an involuntary step forward, his hand twitching slightly as your manicured fingers tore into the first cardboard flap. Part of him wanted to physically stop you, to intervene before the statistics failed you. Words of clumsy reassurance were already at the tip of his tongue.

But as you kept opening them, the expected disappointment never materialized. Instead, your excitement only got louder and louder, a bright, melodic laugh breaking free from your throat as your smile grew exponentially bigger.

And your eyes... oh, your beautiful eyes that he loved looking into when you were flushed and breathless beneath him in the dark, they just sparkled. They were brilliant, shining so bright under the kitchen lights as you held each tiny figurine up to his face in rapid succession. To his utter surprise, the math had defied itself. You hadn't gotten a single repeat. Not one duplicate of the plush and plastic crap you were currently cradling against your chest as if they were your own flesh and blood.

As you stood there in the middle of the dining room, fawning over your new things in your cutest, softest mini dress, something inside Dex’s brain clicked into place with a definitive snap.

He liked seeing you like that. He liked it with a fierce, possessive intensity that thrummed right beneath his skin. You looked so good-hearted, so completely light and positive, as if the outside world had never once touched you, or as if your own complicated past had never possessed the power to harden your edges. For the fleeting moment you spent opening up those useless boxes, the immense stress and the heavy burdens he knew you carried, the constant fear of the world taking him away from you, were entirely gone.

Dex’s posture straightened, his broad shoulders squaring as his eyes remained trained on you, tracking the way you carefully assessed each plush keychain. He decided then and there, with the absolute finality of a new directive, that he would do everything in his power to give you that gift again. That one small, unvarnished moment where you weren't worried about the government finding him, or the cops kicking down the door, or the bloody ledger he was constantly balancing. A moment where all you did was show him your new keychains.

Throughout the following week, Dex found your new companions absolutely everywhere.

His hyper-fixated eyes mapped them into the spatial layout of your shared life. One was hung carefully on your car keys, rattling against the ignition switch. Two were clipped to the straps of your favorite handbags. One was positioned on the nightstand by your shared bed, its glassy, unblinking stare oriented toward the pillows, while the fifth hung out in the living room, perched symmetrically on the edge of the bookshelf.

Every single time your eyes landed on them, Dex would catch the subtle, beautiful transformation of your features. The way your day got just a little bit brighter, your shoulders relaxing because you felt like you had a tiny, familiar companion with you everywhere you went.

And that was precisely where the thoughts started.

It happened late one Thursday evening. The city outside was a muted blur of rain and distant sirens, but inside the bedroom, the atmosphere was thick, warm, and entirely spent from lust. You were fast asleep, your soft bare frame curled tightly against the broad, heavily muscled expanse of Dex’s chest. Your breathing deep and even as you slumbered in content. Dex remained wide awake, his large arm anchored around your waist, holding you with a protective, unyielding grip. He was exhausted, his body thoroughly satiated, but his mind refused to slip into the quiet.

Instead, his eyes were locked onto the small plush keychain sitting on the nightstand.

He stared at it through the deep shadows of the room, his unblinking gaze drilling into the toy for minutes on end. It was a tiny, ridiculous creature with dead, empty eyes decorated with cheap glitter. In the silence of the night, the ideas began to organize themselves within his brain, assembling with the clean flawless precision of a blueprint.

And low, decisive, albeit highly amused scoff escaped his lips, vibrating faintly against your hair.

"Open it," he said the following evening, his voice a cool, steady register as he precisely slid a brand-new, sealed pastel box across the dinner table, presenting it to you like a trophy.

You immediately pushed aside your half-eaten plate of pasta, your eyes locking onto the packaging with a gasp. You instantly launched into a frantic, excited explanation about how this was a completely new series you hadn't even seen online yet, turning the cardboard over in your hands and excitedly pointing to the specific, rare character you wanted.

Dex watched you, a pleased, thoroughly satisfied smirk gracing his sharp features. He knew exactly which one you would pick, of course. He was profoundly satisfied with his own knowledge of your desires. What you didn't know was that he had spent over an hour at the specialty store that afternoon as he used his awareness and knowledge of manufacturing data to subtly weigh and measure the boxes, calculating the serial codes to fish out the exact plush you wanted.

Your face lit up as the wrapping tore away, and you began to preen over the stuffed keychain, gushing about how it was a "winter moth" and holding it up right next to your cheek to compare the size. Dex’s smile remained fixed, his blue eyes locking onto the toy's face as a sick, intoxicating sense of delight flooded through his chest.

He had spent hours meticulously replacing the plush's cheap glitter eyes with a high-definition pinhole camera.

You loved your little companions so much that you took them everywhere. They sat on your bags, they went to the market, they sat on the dashboard of your car. If you were going to carry them into the world, Dex reasoned, he might as well utilize them in his permanent, singular mission to keep you safe. If he couldn't be by your side every second of the day to neutralize any threat that dared look at you, his eyes would be there instead.

You stood up from your seat, completely oblivious to the surveillance matrix in your hands, and rushed over to his side of the table. You plopped down happily onto his lap, wrapping your arms around his large frame as a torrent of sweet, breathless thank-yous spilled from your lips.

"You're welcome. Anything for my girl," he muttered into your skin, his deep voice vibrating against your neck as he breathed in the scent of your perfume. His large hand moved to stroke your hair, though his cold, calculating gaze remained locked entirely on the plush in your hands, watching the tiny lens catch the light.

Over the next few weeks, the project became a quiet, methodical obsession. Dex worked tirelessly in the late hours while you slept, using his surgical precision to dismantle, modify, and re-stitch every single plush keychain you brought home. Some were significantly harder than others; certain characters had asymmetric eyes or mobile fabric features, but his hyper-focused mind always engineered a solution.

Every new box you brought home was no longer just clutter to him. It was a new soldier in his private, invisible army.

You had come to understand his sudden, intense interest in your collection in your own sweet way. You hadn't picked up on a single shred of the darker, deeply possessive intent behind his involvement, simply assuming it was just Dex being his supportive, loving self, learning to participate in the things that made you happy.

"I want this one because it looks like you in your suit," you murmured day, your finger tracing a tiny, brooding character on the back of a new box.

Dex froze for a fraction of a second, his jaw tightening as he stared at the little drawing. He had to physically force his hands to remain flat on the counter, actively restraining himself from reaching across the space, pulling you against his chest, and smothering you with the sheer, unadulterated weight of his affection.

That was by far the sweetest, most devastating thing you had ever said to him. You wanted to carry a miniature version of him around in your pocket.

Little did you know, you had already been carrying him everywhere you went.

Dex knew according to the scripts of normal society, that he should probably feel a semblance of guilt or shame for what he had done. He was monitoring your every movement, cataloging every street corner you turned, mapping every face that came within five feet of you through the dead eyes of your keychains. But truthfully, as he looked at you, all he felt was an absolute, pure sense of satisfaction.

You loved your messed-up killer boyfriend, that he had no doubt. But Dex had a very distinct feeling that you didn't truly know the terrifying extent of how far he would go to protect you. You didn't know how truly, beautifully ruined he actually was. He had been very, very careful to keep certain aspects of his obsessive nature hidden from you, having learned the hard way from Julie and the bloody disasters of his past.

So he held his breath, his blue eyes tracking your fingers as you eagerly tore the cardboard open in anticipation.

But as the plastic wrap came away, your face fell. The familiar, bright excitement dropped from your features. You hadn't gotten the one you wanted. You hadn't gotten him.

"Oh... that's okay," you said softly, your voice carrying a brave but disappointed little lilt as you lifted the plush up by its metal ring. "This one kinda looks like me! So it's okay."

Dex’s eyes hardened instantly, the blue in his irises turning to chips of ice as a brand-new, unyielding directive programmed itself into his brain. No other options. Not when you wanted him. And only him.

It took him exactly two days to correct the mistake.

The bedroom was bathed in the lazy, amber glow of the late afternoon sun, the heat thick and comforting. You were leaning back against the headboard, a blissful thoroughly fucked out smile on your face as you ran your fingers through Dex's short hair. He was resting heavily between your legs, his broad shoulder blades pressing against your thighs, his head pillowed softly on your bare stomach. His large, calloused hand was moving in a slow, lazy rhythm up and down the soft skin of your thigh, his touch possessing a quiet, grounded familiarity. Dex tilted his head up, his sharp jawline tracing against your skin as his eyes locked onto yours.

"Got a gift for you," he nodded, his gravelly voice dropping into a low, quiet register.

"You have a gift for me?" you asked, instantly sitting up. Your body was thoroughly sore and beautifully spent but your eyes were wide and eager.

Dex offered a single, precise nod. Reaching down with one long arm, his hand slid beneath the edge of the bedframe, where he had kept the thing hidden in the shadows for the past twelve hours. When his large palms unfurled, revealing the object within, your heart completely melted.

It was the exact plush you had wanted from the box. The one that looked like his suit.

Except, it wasn't standard factory issue anymore. Dex had spent hours straight meticulously altering the fabric with tools. A miniature, flawlessly stitched dark blue mask now covered the doll's entire face, the infamous Bullseye emblem embroidered perfectly over the forehead. Branding the little creature entirely as his. He had even crafted a ridiculously adorable, functional leather gun holster and a microscopic tactical knife belt, fastening them securely around the plush's waist.

You had to physically clamp a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from letting out a loud, embarrassing scream of pure adoration. Your six-foot, deadly, globally wanted assassin lover had just spent his free time customizing a tiny, soft doll to look exactly like his alter-ego, just to make you smile.

You were barely keeping your composure together, your eyes misting with affection, before Dex’s expression shifted, taking on a rigid, deeply serious alignment.

"There's more," he nodded, his voice entirely deadpan.

With a smooth, deliberate twist of his large fingers, Dex gripped the plush's head and popped it cleanly off the torso, exposing a gleaming, three-inch black metal dagger hidden inside the stuffed body.

Your jaw dropped half an inch, completely speechless as the tiny, lethal blade caught the sunlight.

"I need to know that you always have something to protect yourself with when I'm not with you," Dex nodded firmly, his tone carrying the absolute unyielding weight of a universal law.

He held the decapitated head of the plush, which now served as the textured handle for the hidden dagger, waiting for your reaction.

For a fraction of a second, the silence in the room stretched. Dex’s fingers tensed against the grip, an instinctual, raw anxiety flaring in his chest. Was it too much? Had he crossed a line? Did his unrefined, violent nature finally freak you out? His hand began to instinctively lower, preparing to hide the weapon away in the shadows again, his internal self scrambling to find a script to fix the mistake.

But before he could retreat, a loud, unbridled laugh broke free from your lips.

"This is the absolute cutest thing you have ever done!" you exclaimed, leaning forward to snatch the modified plush from his hands, cradling it as if it were a priceless, irreplaceable artifact.

Dex froze, his sharp brows furrowing slightly as he processed the reaction. "So... you like it?..." he asked, his voice cautious, parsing the data.

"I love it! It's so adorable, oh my god—" You covered your mouth to shield a genuine gasp, your fingers already tracing the tiny leather straps of the knife belt, completely enchanted by the detail.

Dex let out a slow, quiet breath, the tension leaving his broad shoulders as he leaned back against your legs. A dark, thoroughly proud and satisfied smile spread across his scarred face, his blue eyes crinkling with a deep, unsettling fondness as he watched you toy with the miniature version of his executioner suit.

You leaned down, pressing a sweet, lingering kiss against his lips, murmuring about how lucky you were to have such a supportive, protective boyfriend. Dex leaned into the touch, his large hand wrapping around your waist to pull you closer, his thumb stroking your skin in perfect, rhythmic intervals.

He didn't say a word about the micro-camera embedded into the center of the stitched target on the doll's forehead. He didn't mention the encrypted feed currently streaming directly to his private monitor, or the fact that the tiny soldiers on your other bags were currently capturing every angle of the room. You were completely blissful, entirely safe within the bright, happy parameters of your collection. You didn't know the terrifying depth of his sickness, and as Dex laid his head on you, listening to your soft laughter fill the quiet apartment, he knew he was never going to let you find out.

A/N:

To Dex, the physical topography of another human being had always been a calculus of vulnerability. His mind was a machine, capable of mapping the dimensions of an enclosed space within milliseconds and identifying the precise trajectory required to sever an artery. He understood the mechanics of the anatomy; he knew exactly how much pressure it took to snap a collarbone or drop a grown man to his knees. But touch and affection? Affection was a foreign, deeply distressing dialect. It was a sensory input that rendered his internal programming entirely mute. He knew every ligament in the body, where to assault to cause torment but God forbid he uses his hands for softness.

There was a profound, quiet irony in a man of his age and lethal competence being so utterly paralyzed by the simple proximity of soft skin. Hell, he almost pitied himself for it. For decades, the concept of a romantic relationship hadn’t been relegated in his mind. It had been buried beneath layers of institutional survival, psychological trauma, and the crushing weight of an existence spent entirely on the defensive. Dex was not a lover and he had never been, affection and care was unnatural to him.

He could still recall the sharp, sterile scent of the office belonging to his first therapist, the singular human anchor he had at the fragile age of sixteen. He had cared for her, though his developing mind lacked the emotional framework to define what care actually meant. To Dex, care was synonymous with structure. It was the methodical way she re-aligned his straying thoughts, the unnatural patience she extended far beyond the boundaries of her hourly compensation. That was the closest Dex ever got to care. And when death claimed her, his internal architecture had shattered into something feral and defensive. Standing beside her hospital bed, looking down at her failing form, he had chosen to weaponize his grief, hissing that he hated her. He didn’t hate her for who she was, but for the betrayal of leaving him entirely alone in a world without parameters. After that care became just another word without meaning to him.

Then came Julie.

Julie had been an exercise in aesthetic symmetry. She was safe, correct, and perfectly aligned with the script he desperately tried to perform. Dex had cared for her in the same detached, appreciative manner you might have for a beautiful painting in a museum. Admired from a calculated, safe distance, entirely devoid of genuine visceral heat or want. He never wanted Julie, despite how it might have looked, Dex wanted to be her. How easily life came to her was just so fascinating to a man like him. He remembered the exact moment she had offered him a farewell hug at the Suicide Hotline Center, just before he transitioned into the stark world of the Bureau.

The physical contact had been an absolute shock to his nervous system. And he remembers it even now years later. First came the ice, a sudden, freezing sensation that trickled down his spine the precise millisecond her palms pressed against his biceps, his body mistaking the gesture for an ambush. His muscles had coiled instantly like overwound springs, his vertebrae stiffening in a violent protest against the proximity. But then, right before he could pull away, the ice had thawed into an invasive, confusing warmth. Before his mind could categorize or fixate on the sensation, she had already retreated, leaving him standing in the corridor, thoroughly deregulated by a three-second interaction.

That brief, fleeting embrace had been the absolute zenith of his experience with physical intimacy. Dex didn't do hugs, or anything else for that matter… His subsequent, half-hearted attempts at dating in his early twenties had been a disastrous blur, locked away like radioactive material in the darker corridors of his subconscious. The entire experience had felt extremely uncomfortable, unfulfilling, and complicated in ways that insulted his intelligence.

The sheer volume of unwritten variables was maddening. He had to speak enough to demonstrate engagement, but not so much to appear self-absorbed. Connection required vulnerability, but a fraction too much was classified as forward or desperate. He couldn't request another date too quickly or too frequently without crossing into the territory of predatory. Touch was a minefield; it was deemed acceptable only if initiated by the woman, yet society dictated that a man should assert dominance and assume leadership. Hold her hand, the script said, but don't apply too much pressure to suggest control. Open the door for her, but don't infantilize her or imply incompetence.

By his third official date, Dex had quietly withdrawn from the field entirely. The sheer unpredictability of the social ritual was entirely too volatile for his psychology to parse. He vividly recalled sitting across a woman in a dimly lit restaurant, completely incapable of processing a single syllable falling from her lips because his entire focus had been hijacked by a fork. Her elbow had accidentally nudged the cutlery, leaving it misaligned by less than half an inch from the knife. The asymmetry had screamed in his mind like a siren, drowning out her voice, preventing him from formulating the carefully curated, charming responses necessary to foster romantic banter. He had stared at the silver, suffocated by the lack of order, and realized he was entirely unfit for the performance.

So, he surrendered the idea. He locked his focus onto the FBI, dedicating his life to a rigid, bureaucratic institution that allowed him to believe he was doing good for society while keeping his demons safely behind bars. Years had dissolved into the background of that singular pursuit, and the concept of dating became an obsolete idea of a past life.

Even more now that his world had been violently upended; he had broken out of the prisons meant to contain him, shed the skin of a government puppet, and stripped away the illusions of the system. He was older now, his features hardened by violence, but he was entirely free from the invisible snares that had once dictated his value. Standing in his late thirties, Dex felt a strange sense of selfhood that had completely eluded him in his twenties.

His daily routine remained his mandatory sanctuary, waking up exactly the same hour, executing a flawless military tuck on his bedsheets, consuming a balanced breakfast before physical regimen, and then work. But the internal shift was tectonic. He no longer walked through the streets of New York like a fraudulent actor trying to mimic human behavior and integrate himself into civilization. He knew the truth now: there was no grand order to life. There was only the winding, bloody path he had been carved out to walk. He no longer craved the external validation of a badge or a supervisor’s praise to consider himself a whole entity. He was fucking Bullseye.

And the concept of a "North Star", the desperate need for a perfect, external moral anchor to keep him sane, had been forcibly buried deep within a vault next to his most violent, unpacked trauma. Though sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, a phantom tension would ripple through his chest, an instinctual tug toward the comfort of connection, but he would quickly dismiss it as mere human biology. He didn't need a North Star. His life was already perfectly illuminated by his own design. Or so he continuously told himself.

Until he walked into your boutique.

The shop was situated a short distance down the asphalt stretch of Hell’s Kitchen, a stark, hyper-feminine building in an otherwise gritty neighborhood. The interior was an absolute assault of pastel pinks, a visual sensory overload that normally would have triggered his defense mechanisms, but the hand-painted sign outside promised custom tailoring services. And Dex needed his belongings fixed the moment he noticed imperfections.

He carried two specific items across the threshold that afternoon. His utilitarian jacket that had suffered a tear against a rusty fire escape during the previous night's "hero work," and a pair of heavy tactical gloves that needed the seams to be adjusted for a better grip.

You'd been seated behind the polished wooden counter, a needle held between your hand, your hair slightly disheveled as you worked. When you looked up and saw the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in your doorway, your face had broken into a smile so massive, so genuinely warm, that Dex had felt an involuntary, almost evolutionary impulse to mimic the expression. He stood perfectly rigid as your small, incredibly nimble hands took the damaged fabric from his grip, your fingers tracing the torn nylon of the jacket with a professional, practiced ease.

When you looked up and informed him that the repairs would only take sixty minutes, his sharp brows had risen in mild intrigue at your efficiency.

"I work fast," you had offered, your voice bright and entirely unbothered by his silent, imposing intensity.

Dex returned to the shop precisely the sixty-minute mark, not a second early, not a second late. You were already waiting for him at the counter, the jacket neatly pressed and the jagged tear now entirely imperceptible, executed with a level of craftsmanship that deeply satisfied his need for perfection. Then he slid his large hands into the resized tactical gloves, flexing his fingers to test the tension of the thread.

Whether you had recognized the subtle Bullseye emblem stamped into the leather, you made no verbal indication. Instead, you merely bit your lower lip, your gaze tracking the movement of his hands before you boldly, without an ounce of hesitation, reached out and gripped his gloved hand. Your fingers guide his, pointing down to the specific cross-stitch where you had loosened the seams to accommodate his knuckles.

The ice returned instantly. It danced down the length of his spine, a freezing jolt that made his chest tighten. But as your warm skin remained pressed against the heavy material of his glove, the sensation mutated into something remarkably pleasant. Dex let out an involuntary exhale from your touch as your index finger trailed a slow, deliberate line down the length of his hand. Was this flirting? No, this was her job….

"If you need it bigger I can make that possible," you offered softly, your eyes lifting to lock onto his with a quiet, grounded confidence. And Dex paused, taking in the intimacy of your closeness. Okay…. Yeah, this was flirting. He deduced at its baseline before he found himself engaging.

Dex couldn't understand the sequence of events that followed, birthed from that moment alone. His memory, usually so linear and mathematical, became a blur of transitions. And normally the haze would eat away at him till he lost his mind, if it weren't for the fact that the stages that followed were extremely enjoyable. All he knew was that the rigid wall of his isolation had suddenly breached, and he was taking you on a first date. Then a second. A third. A fourth. The unwritten variables that had paralyzed him in his youth seemed to dissolve in your presence; you didn't demand a script, and your effortless need to keep talking filled the awkward silences he usually created. Dex was thankful for it. He was thankful for all of you.

By the time the fifth date happened, you were both standing inside the threshold of your private home. And Dex was fucking ecstatic. The realizations hit him in waves during his nightly routines: life was simply greater, sharper, and infinitely better with your existence woven into it. Within the calculated grid of his mind, he had rapidly come to view you as an essential, non-negotiable component of his daily structure. A connection he needed desperately to maintain that he was fully prepared to execute any measure necessary to ensure you stayed. You were kind, sweet, and giving in a way that defied his understanding of human nature. How were you so willing to offer the world everything you had without demanding anything in return?

Because he couldn't comprehend it, he studied you. He watched you with a hyper-attentive, microscopic focus that would have terrified a normal civilian, tracking the micro-expressions of your face, the cadence of your breaths, and the specific pitch of your laughter. And you let him. To you, that intense, unblinking gaze didn't feel like surveillance; it made you feel entirely seen and warm.

Dex had learned you. He played every single card in his hand with absolute precision to ensure he kept your favor, but you made the act remarkably easy. He found himself wanting to give the world to you, a new directive that lingered constantly. While on missions, he's doing this to make the city better for you. He had to come home safe because you'd be so devastated if anything happened to him. You needed him in your life so he had to make sure no wounds took over his body. These thoughts progressed over time, though they were already brewing the minute he stepped out of your boutique. Dex brought you a perfectly curated bouquet of flowers on your very first date, quickly logging the fact that you flourished when things were done for you. From that moment on, his chivalry became non-negotiable. He opened doors before your hand could even approach the handle; he pulled out chairs to the exact angle required for your comfort; he even leaned across the console of his vehicle to buckle your seatbelt for you, his large frame momentarily shielding you from the world. A thought that appears constantly in his mind at night.

And now, those correctly executed actions had granted him entry into your sanctuary.

Walking through the door of your brownstone, his analytical eyes immediately deduced that you and your work were a singular entity. The space was less a traditional home and more an active studio. A heavy, vintage treadle sewing machine sat prominently in the center of the room, positioned directly in front of the television, while two antique, velvet-upholstered couches framed it on either side. Dex made a silent, permanent mental note of that specific layout: the tool of your labor received absolute priority over comfort.

As he looked around Dex noticed your affinity for older things immediately, your eyes lingering on aged, well-maintained pieces of history. A part of him wondered if that was why you liked him so much and despite himself, the thought amused him. His gaze drifted to the expansive dining room, noting how every single high-backed chair had been pushed flush against the perimeter of the walls, completely away from the central table to maximize workspace. A deep, quiet part of his psychology deeply admired the dedication. He understood the obsession with craft, the way you spoke about fabrics and patterns with radiant love. He was identical to you in that regard, though he remained hyper-vigilant about never revealing the bloodier details of his own craft to you.

Dex paced silently behind you, his broad shoulders squared as his eyes continuously darted around the rooms, absorbing the atmosphere of your home while you led him toward the kitchen by the hand. His frame was tense, his muscles vibrating with a low-grade current of electricity. He still wasn't accustomed to the physical touching. He liked it, he liked it with a terrifying intensity that scared him, but his brain lacked the programming required to properly receive it.

And bless your heart, you were so unbelievably touchy.

You were a creature of constant physical contact. There was always a soft arm looping around his rigid bicep, a gentle palm resting against his. A constant, natural inclination to latch onto his massive frame and cling to him as if he were the only solid object in a moving world. He reciprocated in the only ways he knew how, squeezing your hand back with a carefully measured amount of pressure, standing perfectly still to accept your weight. But Dex still hadn't learned how to articulate or manifest his own physical desires. He didn't know how to be the one to close the distance. He didn't know how to reach out his large, scarred hands, wrap them around your waist, and pull you against his chest without an explicit invitation. The script hadn't given him those lines yet.

So instead, he simply allowed himself to be a passive monument of muscle and bone, letting you pull him toward the kitchen island for wine and cheese after your date. The night got more enjoyable, but then again, every moment was enjoyable with you. But this is even more so. You trusted him enough to let him into your space, liked him so much that you paid attention whenever his glass was empty.

"I have a secret," you admitted suddenly, your face flushing a deep, radiant pink after you drained the remainder of your second glass.

Dex raised a single, sharp brow, holding his own glass perfectly steady as he waited for the disclosure. He ignored the sudden, rhythmic thumping of his own blood pumping violently in his ears. He couldn't quite determine if the sudden spike in his heart rate was the result of the alcohol or a sudden surge of anxiety. Given his high tolerance, it was likely the latter.

"I hate wine," you hiccuped, a small, breathless sound. You didn't feel that inebriated but Dex had a skill for making you feel drunk.

Dex’s cold blue eyes widened slightly in genuine surprise. Without a word, his large hand reached out and gently but firmly took the crystal glass directly from your fingers, a low, rumbling chuckle vibrating in his chest as the absurdity of the situation caused a bright laugh to break from your lips.

"Why didn't you say anything," he asked, his gravelly voice dropping an octave as he placed the glass down on the exact center of a stone coaster.

"Because it was a nice gift and also because I wanted to be with you longer," you reasoned smoothly.

You stepped away from the counter, your short frame moving into his immediate personal space. Slipping effortlessly between his extended legs as he sat perched on the high barstool, your body completely filling the void between his knees. Before he could process the proximity, your arms looped entirely around his broad shoulders, your hands resting against the nape of his neck.

Dex sat up just a fraction straighter, his entire spine locking into a protective line. A hesitant, unpracticed hand rose from his side, his large palm resting against the fabric of your dress to support your lower back, his fingers trembling slightly against your skin.

"I like having you around..." you admitted softly, your voice heavily laced with an intoxicated, sleepy haze as you looked up at him.

"I like being around," Dex nodded, his gaze boring into yours with an unblinking, absolute intensity.

It was the most fundamental truth his mouth had ever uttered. He liked being around you so much that the mere concept of physical separation had become an agonizing friction in his daily life. There were moments during his long, solitary hours on a rooftop or following a lethal assignment where the craving to see you grew so violent, so overwhelming, that he had seriously contemplated abandoning his operation just to stand outside your window. But the rational, highly defensive side of his mind, the piece of him that vividly remembered the trembling panic in Julie's eyes, always managed to reassert control. He wouldn't risk breaking what you two had.

"Will you be around forever?" you asked, your voice dropping into a soft, vulnerable register that sounded almost like a plea.

Dex felt a sudden, blinding flash behind his eyes, a sensation so sharp and radiant it felt as though stars had detonated within his skull. A terrifying wave of duty and existential purpose crashed through his mind, rewriting his internal directives in an instant. This was his calling. This was his permanent assignment.

"I'll be here forever," he nodded, his voice carrying the heavy, unyielding finality of a death warrant.

He barely had a single microsecond to process the violent rush of devotion flooding his veins before you leaned in, and your soft lips met his.

Dex froze.

He froze in a way he had never experienced in the heat of lethal gunfire. He hesitated with a sudden, paralyzing vulnerability that his mind was completely unequipped to handle. Bullseye did not hesitate; Bullseye was a creature of pure, instantaneous reaction. But Dex, Dex was entirely lost here in the quiet of your kitchen, his lips pressed flat against yours, his breath catching in the back of his throat as the delicate warmth of your mouth completely shattered his being.

His mind scrambled for data, for a past memory or a set of instructions to tell him what to do with his hands, how to move with you, how to breathe. The sheer sensation of your mouth against his was too vast, too unaligned with any grid he had ever mapped. He wanted to deepen the pressure, wanted to sink his fingers into your hips and drag you so close that the space between you ceased to exist, but the terrifying lack of instructions kept his body entirely locked in stone. He was a starving man paralyzed by the sudden appearance of a feast, terrified that a single incorrect movement would cause the illusion to vanish.

It was only a brief, agonizing second of contact. It was over far too quickly for his liking before you were gently pulling back, your eyelashes fluttering against your cheeks.

"You never got much love huh?" you hummed out, your voice dipping into a sad, incredibly tender melody.

Your small hands didn't retreat; instead, they began to preen over his tense shoulders, your fingers sliding upward until your nails began to slowly, methodically comb through the short hairs at the base of his scalp.

An involuntary, deeply guttural groan tore itself from the very bottom of Dex’s throat, the sound surprising even himself. His eyes rolled back, his lids fluttering shut as a wave of intense pleasure rippled through his nervous system. He liked that. He liked that with a feral, addictive desperation. Whatever you were doing with your hands, it was dismantling the static in his brain.

"No," he admitted, his voice a broken, raspy whisper in the quiet room, his head naturally sinking into the guiding pressure of your palms as you continued to adore him.

Your lips moved forward again, finding the hard, unyielding line of his cheekbone. You pressed a soft, lingering kiss directly over the jagged scar near his cheek, the exact spot you always claimed when you were saying goodbye, and Dex felt his entire body shudder under the impact. Then, your kisses migrated downward, tracing the sharp angle of his jaw before your mouth found the sensitive, hot skin of his neck.

Dex’s hands lost their hesitation, his fingers curling tightly into the fabric of your dress as he decided, with absolute certainty, that he liked this even more.

"Don't worry. I'll fix it," you murmured against his skin, your breath hot and reassuring even in your heavily tipsy state.

“Pretty girl like you gonna fix a man like me,” Dex mused out, exhaling in amusement as he welcomed your kisses by granting you more of his neck. You hummed in delight and he noted that was the correct response.

“I'd do everything for you, Dex,” you admitted into his neck and that seemed to do it. Every rigid order he told himself to act like a gentleman broke as he pulled you into his chest, turning his face as if begging for you to grant him another kiss.

And you do.

This time he reciprocated the contact eagerly, fuck it, thoughts can be damned, Dex let his body lead now. His kisses were harsh and demanding, desperate in its undercurrent but you enjoyed it. You tasted faintly like wine and something minty and he finds himself deepening the kiss. His large calloused hand found the thin straps of your bias-cut dress, hastily pushing it down the slope of your shoulder before he froze. He was being too forward, too much, too–

Before he could spiral, you whined into his mouth at the lack of movement. A harmonious plea that he's never had the privilege of hearing before. And Dex's eyes fluttered, that sound went straight to his straining cock evoking a groan against your skin. Emboldened hands pushing the dress down only to pull back momentarily, breaking the kiss despite not wanting to. He'd rather shoot himself than stop kissing you, but he needed to know that what he was doing was okay. And by the blissful state of your eyes, you were more than okay with this, with him. And so he allowed his gaze to wander, darting down to the exposed skin of your soft breast.

His gaze locked onto your hardened nipple before his hand slowly moved, not giving himself time to overthink. His thumb grazed the sensitive peak in experimentation, Blue eyes watching as your chest stuttered, his gaze darting up to meet yours in calculation on how to proceed. You were waiting for him, letting him take the lead and explore, and God did he want to map out every shape of you. He wanted to know what made you arch and squirm, what made you sing his name in praise. But Dex was a man rendered stupid in the unfamiliar vastness of your body, so hands stayed motionless as they had done nothing but take and punish all his life. He'd do it slow, he decided, after all, his hands were not meant for this. For worship and caress.

But his mouth would be.

Not breaking eye contact with you, his lips found home on your skin, latching onto your nipple. Humming as you arched your back, your pliant body gravitating into him. You liked that, he learned, so he did it harder. Teeth grazing the sensitive peak before sucking it into his mouth hard.

His free hand wanders to your other breast, thumb circling the clothed nipple there while he devotes himself to the first with his tongue. It’s messy, uncoordinated, Dex isn’t a gentle lover, he learned as the need progresses. His brave hand slips under your dress, pushing fabric up further to expose more of your body as his kisses migrated down your sternum.

“D-Dex.”

The breathy sound made him freeze and he recoiled immediately as if burned. He waits for the storm only for you to eagerly pat him on his shoulder, signaling you wanted him up.

“Room, please…. I-i don't want it here…” you say almost shy and he obeys immediately, standing up and holding you dear.

“Yeah? Sweet girl,” the term endearment escaping his lips catches him by surprise just as much as him kissing your forehead does. But he doesn't dwell on it long as he grabs hold of your hand and leads you upstairs where he already knows where your room is.

The silence of the space was only intensified once you both entered your bedroom. Dex pauses, taking a moment to appreciate the image of you standing there, waiting with earnest eyes and swollen lips. You looked so vulnerable, your dress wrinkled and breathing heavy as you let him assess. He welcomes your softness and realizes that he owes it to you to be vulnerable as well.

With a firm, certain, grip, he turns your body around, your stomach flutters in expectation as lust filled eyes land on the made bed. Only the inevitable force never came, you weren't shoved face down into the mattress in pure heat, instead Dex is moving your hair aside to fall on one shoulder. And that impacted your core more than any barge ever could. So you remained standing there, ignoring the heat in your stomach as the brooding man you'd come to know gently unzipped the back of your dress. Pushing the fabric down your hips, a hum escapes the claimant as he turns you back around with even kinder hands and you melted.

Sure in your intentions, you begin to unbutton his shirt and he watches you in the moment. Sometimes you often wonder what goes on in Dex's mind, but here you're certain that whatever thoughts that hammered in his head were anything but pure. When the fabric of his shirt meets your dress on the floor, a barely suppressed smile threatens to take over your face and his features silently requested for context, amused in your glow.

“You're so big,” appreciation dripped from your words, reinforced by your hands steady on his chest. Pride and something smug consumes Dex’s internal framework as he reaches for your bare waist, pulling you into him. Fuck. He liked how that felt, loved the feeling of you two skin to skin.

“That why you're always so touchy,” he huffed. It was a poor attempt to regulate himself from these overwhelming emotions. Still riding the dopamine high from your appraisal.

“Yes,” you nodded shamelessly.

At that a raw exhale breaks free from his mouth, falling in ardor before he's guiding you down to the bed. Dex’s gaze is locked on yours, at your body barely covered in cotton underwear as he prowls towards you on the duvet. Your presence was the single grounding planet in the uncharted stars of his nebula, an innate need to keep his focus on you and solely you to avoid getting lost in the orbit of his thoughts. Waiting patiently as exploratory hands trailed over your body, thumbs brushed over your nipples just once, before migrating down to your torso, eventually finding home on your hips.

Lips parted but nothing fell from them as words failed him. Instead blue eyes darted up to meet yours as his fingers deliberately tugged your underwear, not fully, not even an inch down, just enough to get your attention and silently ask for permission.

Your body moved on its own, hastily squirming under his broad stature and pushing the thin fabric down your legs. The man over you had been the only thing plaguing the recesses of your brain for the past few weeks, consuming you with such unbidden thoughts. Anything would be done for him at this point. You barely got to kick the drenched cotton off before Dex's palm landed flat on one thigh, pushing it down hard against the bed and spreading you open for him. With a fluttering stomach so intense, your body fell back as you took in his state. Half dressed and tightly coiled, muscles pulling in restrain as he remained pinning your thigh down. His attention was locked onto you, or more so, your dripping cunt and an involuntary need to shut your legs was met with even more resistance from him.

He didn't appreciate you trying to hide from him, evident in his warning gaze. Without a word, his palm trailed up, the desire and craving to touch you won out in him. And suddenly hands that had only known violence was caressing you so softly and attentively, figuring out the definition of what it meant to be a lover.

God you were so wet and warm and soft and all the good things in the world…

Dex noticed your breathing growing more labored beneath him and instinctively he leaned back to watch you more, away from the disadvantage of being tucked into your neck. Your pupils were blown out, starry eyed as your brows creased and a pout settled on your lips. His fingers moved on their own as he watched, a new desire to pull more of those darling expressions from you forming. And as he sunk two cruel digits into your slopping wet heat, satisfaction invaded his senses as he took in your reaction. Your mouth parts in ecstasy, a sound Dex immediately knew he loved fell from your lips as your body arched up into him. And then that begging pout graced your features again, looking down at where his fingers fucked you.

So perhaps intimacy was everything people made it out to be, and so much more when it's with you. Dex was beginning to understand it now, the insatiable need to constantly be touching your person. Fuck, he doesn’t think he could ever go back to the way he was before. So fucking hesitant, unsure with anxiety that dibilitated him. He refused to be so rigid again, not when the sounds of your desire and need were music to his ears. He loved this, loved it in a way that was beginning to align with his new idea of normal. He could get used to this, to touching you, to fucking you.

Whining in protest as his fingers pulled away, your hands gripped at his chest in agony. Complains at the tip of your tongue before halting completely as you hear him begin to take his jeans off. Humming in delight as he strips. And fucking hell…. You were well aware of Dex’s large frame, it was one of the first things you noticed about him, second to the attractive scar on his cheek. But seeing him like this was something different entirely and you couldn't help yourself as you preened over his naked form again. Palms gliding the expansive plains of his back, brushing down his abs and strong chest as you sucked on his neck. Though judging by the expression on Dex's face, he didn't mind you playing. He let you have your fun until eventually pulling your lips off of him with a gentle hand at the back of your neck. A protest happened beneath him as you tried to chase after his body before stopping, noticing his hand on his member. And that shut you up real good.

Dex gently guides his hardened cock onto your dripping core. Rubbing his swollen head up and down your drenched skin before slowly sinking into you. A gasp falls from your lips followed by a desperate cry of want. His breath comes in rough bursts through his nose, focused entirely on you beneath him. How you take it, how you sound, how tight you feel with every drag out and push back in. The plains of his anatomy strained with tension as he exhaled in contentment. Dex thought he had come to know comfort, in the way you'd lean onto him during walks, how you raked your nails through his hair earlier. But this exceeded that in every capacity, comfort was a juvenile word to express how this felt like home. He's barely halfway through and already has to stop and compose himself. He let out a hiss, halting all movements as you clenched around him.

The sudden, full stretch makes you mewl out a sharp, startled sound And Dex freezes instantly, his entire body locking up. Has he hurt you? Was something wrong? He’s buried to the hilt now. It’s a lot. Too much all at once. A wave of something almost like guilt hits him, he hadn’t meant to scare you, but the sensation is… God.

"Shhh," he soothes automatically, instinctively brushing your cheek with his thumb despite how wrecked he feels right now.

You leaned into his touch, seeking for more and he's relieved. Needy palms finding a place on his biceps as you squirmed, looking down at where you both meet. Dex follows your gaze, watching his hardened cock buried deep in you. Yeah… that’s a lot.

"Tell me what you need," he murmurs, thumb brushing away another stray tear. "We can stop. Or go stupid slow.”

You let out a laugh that bled dangerously too close to a moan and Dex makes the decision of the latter for you. The first thrust is deliberate, deep and controlled, testing your reaction. The second follows, then a third, each one creating a filthy rhythm that fills the quiet room. He slowly fucks into you in a sedate, gentle manner. But gentleness is short-lived. His movements quickly grow faster till he was fucking you in a steady eager pace. Skin slaps against skin, joining the song of moans that you sing. The bed creaks under the weight, every movement is amplified in the hushed space. Rapture floods through you as any other thoughts that weren't Dex quickly subsides, giving way for your focal. Everything felt right in the world as he molded your body to his.

It was almost too much, his body caging yours in as his hips moved relentlessly. You knew you wouldn't last much longer if he kept going like this. But Dex was a man of intention, he took you like it was the only thing worth doing in his life.

The press of your hand against his pelvis, pushing, cunt trying to get him closer yet you were pulling away at the same time, sends conflicting signals straight to his dick. Your thighs around him squirmed, a telltale sign you're overwhelmed. Dex groans but doesn’t let up; if anything, he presses down harder on you with his hips, pinning yours in place.

"Take it," he rasps no room for argument. His skilled thumb lands on your clit, relentless despite the overstimulation threatening both of your bodies. The sound that left you was obscene and filthy as your head lulls back and Dex is quick to grab hold of your thigh and pull you closer towards him.

The new angle hits perfectly, your entire body jerks, a broken moan escaping as you tense around Dex’s hips. He learned you almost immediately from the very first second his fingers were inside you, he found where to target instantly. And now he abused that information.

He feels it, the way you clenched around him, and his own control wavers. But he holds on, focused solely on your pleasure, chasing every twitch and whimper with relentless precision. His lips find yours again in a messy, open-mouthed kiss as he pounded into you with controlled hits. A sound so similar to bullets in the air echoed at the impact, the wet sound, obscene, unfiltered, hitting him like a lightning bolt. Every thrust is accompanied by that slick, squelching noise: your arousal mixing with his movements. Dex learns that he loved that sound, it satisfied a part of his brain in a notion he couldn't understand but he knew that it fueled him even more. Dex's hips stutter for half a second at the realization of just how drenched you are for him.

A groan rumbles from his chest as he picks up speed, fucking you till you saw stars. A melody of moans and gasps filled the room with a symphony of skin heard with it. The walls welcome the sound with open arms as the atmosphere feels too hot and too heavy. You try to grab at the bed sheets despite Dex's tight grip on one of your wrists, you need something to ground you as you neared. Too much. It was all too much. Seamlessly, he laced his fingers with yours, still holding you down onto the bed but his grip softened.

You reciprocate the touch, tightly squeezing his hand as you feel the pressure capsize and your thighs shake in hot waves. You cry his name out, your back arching off the bed from the pleasure. His cock still sliding in and out of your dripping cunt, desperate to join you in your release, ignoring the coil of his muscles. He loves the way you say his name, so breathy and blinded by ecstasy. Dex breathes into your neck, the sensations becoming too much before a loud groan breaks his focus and he spills ropes of his cum into you. Immediately you primp under him, satiated and spoiled but your accord for touch remains ever present as you gently brush your nails up and down his back. And that sends him collapsing down onto you. Not that you seemed to mind as he heard a loud gleeful laugh beneath his large frame.

Dex exhales, long and slow, moving to stare at you. He’s not used to aftercare. Not with anyone. But here he is gently moving off you and tucking a throw blanket around your shoulders like you're something fragile. A calloused finger brushes a stray hair from your forehead, an absurdly tender gesture for someone who just fucked you into oblivion but you welcomed it.

He learned an entirely new vocabulary that night, and the education continued to expand exponentially in the weeks that followed.

He discovered, through application and obsessive cataloging, that he liked touch. He liked it an immeasurable, terrifying amount. He grew to absolutely love the specific jolt that occurred when you wake him up in the morning by lazily raking your nails across the broad, scarred expanse of his bare back. He loved the domestic weight of you playing with his hair while he sat on the living room floor, or the frantic, heavy way you would cling onto him when the city noise rattled the brownstone windows.

Methodically, his analytical mind began to solve the puzzle of how to return the same favor. He'd mapped your body with the same precision he applied to his targets, but with an entirely different objective.

He learned how to execute a kiss without needing an explicit verbal invitation, his large hands learning the exact amount of pressure required to tilt your chin upward to meet his mouth. He figured out how to use the immense, terrifying strength in his palms to gently massage the deep knots out of your shoulders after you spent a twelve-hour day hunched over the antique sewing machine. He studied the micro-movements of your muscles, tracking the specific shivers that rippled through your frame when his thumbs traced your collarbones, logging every sigh and hitch in your breath as data.

He figured out, with a profound, quiet sense of internal victory, that you loved every single form of physical touch imaginable, so long as it came entirely from him.

And he decided then, he loved intimacy.

To die in the house of a surgeon seemed to Y/N like a cushion to a hard fall. And from the patient’s perspective, perhaps it was. For the doctor, it was slow, agonizing torture.

It had been a steady build up to the state of bedriddency she’d found herself in now. Troubles with her heart, that much was certain. Small, skipped beats at first. Then longer between each pump of blood. Patrick was well familiar with it. And in these moments, her marriage to a surgeon was a wonderful blessing. A diagnosis at the ready. Care without setting foot in a disease ridden hospital. For Patrick, this was the most mortifying task of his career.

When it came to his work, it was easy to detach person from body. To view his patients as mere legs, arms, torsos. To maintain a sense of professionalism and indifference rather than allow his work to be squandered by emotion and compassion.

But this was his dear fucking Y/N. And the separation between professional indifference and overwhelming grief was one he could not find in himself.

After she had collapsed in his office one day, unable to even gasp for air in Patrick's arms until her heart awoke again like a stuttering engine, he had her confined to the bed. Which naturally meant Patrick practically abandoning his work to be at her side. He had tried to continue on, at first, but the sight of the empty chair in his office and the only sound in the room the tickling grandfather clock, he felt the great immensity of her absence and found himself crumpling at his desk, a sob straining against his throat.

So he stayed at her side, hunched on a chair pulled next to the bed. He'd check her vitals in 10 minute intervals as a form of self-soothing, adjusting pillows and straightening blankets. All the while Y/N, who was in an upsettingly calm mood about this all, allowed him to poke and prod at her to his heart’s content.

She watched her husband with quiet affection. Here he was, a surgeon who had performed countless operations without so much as a blink of distress, a doctor who often left the compassionate bedside care to the far more qualified nurses, fumbling over her comfortability in the bed that had once been shared by the both of them. (Patrick had taken up sleeping in the chair.)

He pulled the thermometer from between Y/N’s lips, scrutinizing the reading. “Any pain?”

Y/N hums. “My elbow’s rather sore.”

The look Patrick levels her is deeply unamused. “Y/N,” he sighs, lips pressing into a thin line.

He grabs for her wrist, not only to check her pulse, which he’d already done thrice in the past hour, but because touching her was becoming an obsessive compulsion. He traced his thumb over the delicate bones of her hand like she might dissolve beneath his fingers. They’d begun to poke through her skin.

She exhales deeply and theatrically. “You’ll forgive me, I’m dreadfully bored.”

Patrick's brows pinch tighter. He clutches her hand like an anchor. “Your heart is failing,” he strains. “This is not some trifling fever or cold, Y/N.”

“Now when had I said that?”

Patrick’s nostrils flare. “Your tone,” he says, “I am beginning to grow weary of the way you speak, as if this is nothing more than a mild inconvenience to you.” There was an undeniable quake in his voice.

Her tone is even when she speaks, holding a composure Patrick lacks. “Because I am not wallowing in fear and self pity, I have no respect for my life? That is what you mean to imply?”

“I—... God,” he breathes out sharply, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He swallows hard and lifts her hand to his lips to press a desperate kiss to her knuckles.

She squeezes his hand in response, and he nearly breaks at the weak shudder he feels in her grip. Her gaze is distant when she speaks again. “Death is a natural part of life, my love.” She inhales deeply, letting the air wash over her and through her body. Patrick can focus only on watching the slow rise and fall behind her ribcage. She offers him the slightest smile. “I am glad to have you here with me, bored as I am.”

He has no interest in hearing this. About the inevitable. He is a surgeon, and surgeons fix things, they don't just sit by bedsides waiting for the inevitable. But here he was, watching every breath she took like each one could be her last.

Natural part of life, she says. He had spent years cutting open bodies, peeling back skin to expose the mechanics beneath. He knew death intimately. But it wasn't fair to assume she didn't know it just the same. That her philosophy held no water. Maybe the truth of it wasn’t the issue. After all, in a better frame of mind, he would agree. It was only the fact that it was so suddenly hard for him to accept when it came to her.

He doesn't want to hear philosophy about death. He wants her alive. He wants the years ahead they had planned, not this slow descent into silence.

Restless, he busies himself with checking her vitals again, refusing to meet the eyes that bore holes into him. “You are quiet now,” she observes.

“I have nothing to say.” His fingers press to the pulse point at the base of her throat. He counts silently in his head.

“Well… speak to me, why don’t you? Your voice always soothes me.”

Patrick exhales sharply through his nose.

His lips part. He wants to tell her about the new medical journal he’d ordered last week she would love to skim through, about how they were going to redecorate the library together in spring. He wants to complain about that insufferable maid who keeps bringing his tea too strong.

But he cannot. He opens his mouth, but nothing follows.

Y/N sees the war within him and frowns. “My request for the funeral, then, does it upset you?”

Her wish for what would become of her deceased body, it wasn't deeply unexpected of her. But with the swirling emotions within Patrick at the moment, the familiar entombing would've been a small comfort much preferred.

He wants to argue, to beg her not to speak of it at all, but he knows better than that. Y/N had always been forthright about these things. He closes his eyes briefly. “...I suppose not,” he finally murmurs hoarsely after a long pause. “If that is what you wish.”

She already knows his true feelings. She addresses them directly, metaphorically skewering this elephant in the room he took his sweet time dancing around. “You would rather me caged in a box in the ground until the end of days.”

The facade breaks instantly. “I want to remember you where I can see you.”

If Patrick had the say, he would have her in a coffin, sealed away neatly, where he could visit whenever the grief overwhelmed him. Where he could bring fresh flowers every Sunday like a proper mourning husband. Though saying that aloud felt morbid, it was the truth of the matter.

Y/N considers him. “I’m charmed,” she says finally, “that you are so particular about where my corpse lie after it’s gone cold.”

“It is not about the corpse, Y/N,” he grits. “It's about having a place to go when— when you are gone. Somewhere tangible that holds your body still. A grave with flowers and your name etched into stone would certainly bring about more comfort than an empty patch of earth where nothing marks your existence.”

“The life sprouting where I rest would surely tell you more about my existence than some cold rock with my name on it," she replies automatically.

Life. She wanted a tree to sprout from her decomposing body. Something living and growing where she once laid, before being reclaimed by earth herself. It was poetic and beautiful in the way Y/N always saw things. But he didn't want poetry or symbolism. He just wanted somewhere to visit where he could fool himself she hadn’t truly left him entirely.

He exhales sharply through his nose, teeth clamping down on his tongue. “…A tree is fine.”

She grasps for his hand again, which he takes eagerly, as though searching to feel the warmth of life still within her. “You cannot blame me for wanting control over my ending, can you?”

His thumb traces over her knuckles, slow and reverent. “Of course not,” he mutters. “You've always been in control of everything else— your household, your opinions... Why should death be any different?” The irony isn’t lost on him. She being the one staring death in the eye at the foot of her bed, yet so entirely composed, while he sits there unraveling like a poor stitch.

Patrick lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to each finger, one by one, before resting his forehead against the back of it. He doesn't speak. There is nothing left to say that hasn't already been argued or decided.

She watches his display with quiet unhappiness. “I will not die tomorrow, Patrick, nor the next day, so do not grieve me as though I am not here and alive with you now. Do not mourn me yet.”

But the grief had long taken root. “Then what should I do?” He raises his head, his expression bordering on fury. “Laugh with you? Read to you? Pretend this isn't happening?” His eyes are glassy, furious at himself for being so weak when she needed strength from him most. After all, she was likely far more fearful than she was letting on, rather just pulling herself in the opposite direction emotionally for the sake of balancing out the both of them.

He scoffs. A bitter, humorless sound. “Yes, I suppose is the answer. Because the alternative is sitting here like a fool waiting for you to stop breathing. To watch you waste away while I— I do nothing. All my time as a surgeon means nothing because the one person I cannot fix is you. Every other patient I’ve had was a stranger. A body on a table. But you… you are mine. As I am yours. And I can't— God, I can't even fucking save you.”

“You are not meant to save me, Patrick.”

That was of course the most painful truth of all. That medicine had limits, and his wife’s heart was beyond them. But the helplessness was nearly unbearable.

When he speaks again, his voice is small, lost. “...Then what am I supposed to do?” His ever-steady hands tremble violently where they clutch hers. “I can't go back to before,” he chokes out. “I was nothing before you. A hollow shell of a man who didn’t feel anything. Not love, not grief… nothing. And now you're leaving me and I'll be just that again.” The terror in his voice is raw and unguarded for the first time since her diagnosis.

Y/N’s eyes are suddenly filled with conviction. “You will never lose me, Patrick. We have changed each other too irreversibly. You, a part of me. I, a part of you.”

His breath steadies slightly as she holds his gaze. He commits to memory the exact shade of her eyes, the flecks of color near her pupils. He’s not one for grand philosophies, preferring the rationality of the present. But he’s so tired of the pain, of the ache in his heart, he’d agree to any philosophical conclusion if it meant a balm to his wounded soul.

He nods slowly, hanging on her every word. “…Yes.”

“Do you understand? There is nowhere you can go where I will not follow you. I have changed you, yes, and that change will remain within you until you join me. It is not something death will undo.”

Patrick's lip quivers like a child’s. He wants to believe her so badly, and it terrifies him how much he clings to those words like a lifeline. “Yes,” he whispers again, stiff and broken before pressing his forehead against hers, eyes shut tight as if that could keep this moment from ending.

She does the same, sitting for a moment in the presence of him, their breaths mingling. Her frail hand comes to rest on his cheek. “You have loved me fiercely, and you will grieve me fiercely. The ache will say you’ve loved me well, a love which has no longer a place to rest. But the world will not stop to let you mourn.” She pulls back enough to capture his eyes again, studying him. “You allowed me to open this heart of yours,” She trails her hand down to his breast, flattening her palm over his rapidly beating heart, “now do not let fear seal it shut once I am gone. Do not let my absence turn your heart back into stone. There will be love and joy and beauty after me, Patrick. Find it, and you will find me again.”

Patrick’s throat tightens at her words, devastating to him as they were lovely.

He had spent his life analyzing and dissecting emotions like specimens under glass, never allowing them to truly touch him. But Y/N had cracked him open without even trying.

Tears spill over before he can stop them, silent and hot as they roll down his cheeks. “God,” is all he manages to say between shuddering breaths. Her fingertips brush away the tears with a tenderness that makes his heart ache.

She had taught him so much. And now here she was, teaching him how to grieve, and before the loss had even come.

He allows himself to float his head down into her lap, trembling hands coming to hold the waist buried in the cover of the blankets. In response, Y/N cards her fingers through his hair, the same way she had done when he first fell asleep in her arms some years ago. She hums softly, an old lullaby. From where, he does not know, but the comfort of the melody engulfs him.

Patrick clings to the sensation of it all, the weight of her hand, the warmth beneath his cheek, memorizing it before it would slip through his fingers like sand. And he suddenly sobs, shuddering cries wracking his entire body, the kind of pain that comes from deep within a man’s soul.

Still, she holds him as he releases weeks of repressed anguish.

Her eyes fall to the window, watching through the glass as the great cluster of leaves from the tree above ripple with the wind. The blossoms were budding, soon to bloom, vibrant and alive.

It’s only when he quiets again does she muse, “…Perhaps a marker, at the very least, would not be dreadful.”

A/N: if anyone saw my post about my trick or tease series, yes—this title and this trope were originally meant for steve rogers. but I wanted dex to be part of it as well + the stalker dynamic suits him better, for obvious reasons ofc lol. ngl, this time I unsettled myself a little but that’s exactly what I was going for with his character. hope you’ll enjoy 🤍 trick or tease masterlist

Benjamin Poindexter wanders through the city without any particular destination in mind. The caution that has kept him alive during the first weeks after his escape now faded into the kind of resignation that started wearing him down after too many nights spent hungry and cold. He still avoids police officers when he spots them on the street and keeps his head lowered whenever he passes security cameras, but survival no longer feels like an objective he is actively pursuing. It feels more like a habit his body has not yet forgotten.

Days in the city are no different from the ones in prison: they all just end up blurring into one another. He wakes wherever he happened to fall asleep the night before, gathers the few things he has managed to keep, and disappears back into the endless flow of people moving through the busy streets. Sometimes he follows crowded avenues lined with storefronts and restaurants. Other times he finds himself in quieter neighborhoods where the sidewalks are cracked and the aging buildings weathered—a reflection of his own exhaustion.

It rarely matters where he goes. Every street eventually begins to resemble the next.

People brush past him constantly without sparing him a second glance. They have places to be, friends waiting for them somewhere. They are too busy looking at their phones and thinking about their own problems to notice the gaunt, unshaven man standing a few feet away. Even when their eyes distractedly land on him, there is no recognition. He is just another stranger occupying space.

Dex has spent his entire life studying human beings, as therapists taught him how to mimic emotional responses and superiors evaluated every aspect of his behavior. Observation has always been easier than participation, because people just make more sense when watched from a safe distance.

That didn’t really change. Nowadays he just watches them from bus stops and park benches, from the corners of coffee shops and train stations. Couples walking hand in hand while discussing what they should make for dinner; coworkers complaining about their bosses during lunch breaks; friends gathering outside bars and spending hours chatting and giggling...

The conversations are rarely important, because there is something far more interesting about them that catches his attention.

The ease.

The casual certainty with which they move through one another’s lives.

No hesitation. No calculation. No fear that a wrong word might cause everything to collapse.

They belong somewhere.

Everyone belongs somewhere except him.

There was a time when Dex convinced himself that structure could replace belonging with the help of therapy sessions and missions. Structure could free him.

Every hour of his life was accounted for by somebody else. Every success was measured, every failure documented. He spent so many years molding himself into whatever other people needed him to be that somewhere along the way he lost track of who Benjamin really was underneath all of it.

And now? Well, that same freedom feels too similar to being abandoned.

At night, when the city grows quieter and the streets empty, the loneliness becomes impossible to ignore. It follows him into abandoned buildings and dark street corners like a mourning ghost. It settles beside him in bus stations and laundromats and every other place he occasionally uses to escape the cold like a silent companion.

It’s in those moments that Dex finds himself wondering what would happen if he simply disappeared.

Not in the dramatic sense, like a shootout or an arrest.

Just... if he stopped moving altogether. If he died somewhere beneath an overpass or in one of the countless empty alleys he drifts through.

How long would it take before anyone noticed?

Longer than it should, probably.

Eventually some commuter would find him on their way to work and call 911. A local reporter would spend thirty seconds talking about the unidentified body discovered downtown before moving on to the weather forecast and traffic updates. By the next morning, nobody would remember the segment had aired.

Maybe somebody at the FBI would hear about it. An old colleague would recognize the name and mention it over coffee. There would be a moment of surprise, a few awkward jokes, a shake of the head.

The prison guards who kept him locked in solitary would probably celebrate. The administrators who spent years trying to keep him contained would finally get to close the file for good. One less monster on the loose.

And that would be it.

No funeral worth attending, no grieving family. Just a life reduced to paperwork and a body bag.

That thought clings onto the edges of his mind more than he likes to admit, because he knows the same thing would happen to countless other people around him. Every day he passes individuals carrying loneliness so obvious it might as well be written across their faces. Like the blonde woman who spends her entire lunch break sitting alone in the park, staring emptily at the ducks in the lake. Or the elderly man who goes grocery shopping every day just to talk to cashiers for a few minutes, because there is nobody waiting for him at home. And the exhausted employee at the bank who smiles politely at customers despite looking as though she has not slept properly in weeks.

Everyone is far lonelier than they pretend to be.

They hide it beneath routines and obligations and practiced smiles, but Dex sees it as clear as day.

Perhaps that’s why he notices you.

At first you are simply another face among thousands. Another stranger crossing his path who should have disappeared from his memory the moment you walked away.

Instead he finds himself lingering.

The first time he spotted you was outside the grocery store close by one afternoon, standing in the rain while helping an elderly man load bags into the trunk of his car. He remembers watching you crouch beside a stray cat behind a café two days later. And then seeing you again one evening while you came back from work looking exhausted enough to collapse, only to stop and smile at a little girl who waved at you from across the street.

And yet there are moments, between your kind smiles offered so freely, that are fleeting enough to disappear with a simple fluttering of lashes. Moments when your expression slips.

That fascinates him the most, because it reminds him of all the people who spend their lives pretending they are happy with what they have.

It reminds him of himself.

Most people look at you and see a nice, pretty woman going on with her day.

Dex looks at you and sees pain strategically buried beneath kindness.

The temperature has dropped well below freezing by the time evening settles over the city.

Dex has spent most of the day walking in an attempt to keep warm, but exhaustion catches up to him soon. The wind has grown sharper as the sun disappeared, slicing through layers of clothing that were never designed for nights like this. Every exposed inch of skin burns, his fingers having long since gone numb.

He eventually finds shelter in the recessed entrance of a shuttered storefront. It isn’t much, but it protects him from the worst of the wind. Lowering himself onto the cold concrete, he draws his knees toward his chest.

The city is still alive around him.

Cars pass, people hurry home. A group of friends laugh as they disappear into a restaurant across the street.

Some glance in his direction before quickly looking away. Most don’t bother looking at all, and he can’t even blame them.

See, most people have perfected the art of ignoring things that make them uncomfortable. They avert their eyes from anyone who serves as an unpleasant reminder of how quickly a life can unravel.

That’s when he sees you.

Stepping out of the grocery store with two paper bags pressed against your side, you adjust your grip halfway down the block, shifting the weight of them against your hip before continuing on.

Dex squints, trying to keep hold of the sight.

Well, it looks like you but the sight feels more like his mind offering him a gentle memory than accepting it as reality. You’re not here, you’re somewhere warm, a place that makes sense for someone as beautiful as you.

But when he blinks, the shape is still there. The same pace in your walk, the same slight forward lean, as if you’re only trying to get home without lingering in this horrible weather.

No, no, it can’t be you. And yet the image doesn’t disappear. His mind keeps it there, softening the edges, refusing to let it go.

You turn slightly as you walk, and the angle breaks whatever fragile certainty had been forming.

Still, he watches until you disappear between buildings, until the next gust of wind reminds him of the cold seeping cruelly into his bones.

At some point his eyes flutter close, tired in a way that has nothing to do with physical exhaustion.

Tired of moving.

Tired of hiding.

Tired of waking up every morning only to repeat the exact same meaningless cycle.

The thought that he might not survive the night this time arrives with surprising indifference.

Maybe that was really a trick of his mind then, Dex thinks distantly. A pleasant feeling to hold onto as everything stops altogether, a last thing to look at that doesn’t hurt.

Until the sound of approaching footsteps abruptly pulls him from the sweet memory.

They are too slow to belong to someone just walking by.

Dex’s eyes snap open.

You are in front of him, still in your work clothes. Looking as pretty and composed as ever. His ears burn in shame at the contrast.

You hesitate when you notice him looking at you, as though debating whether approaching him would be intrusive.

It lasts only a moment, though, before you make up your mind and walk over with a tiny, determined wrinkle between your brows.

Dex follows you cautiously with his eyes, slowly straightening up. People don’t approach him anymore, especially carrying a stack of folded blankets and a cup releasing visible wisps of steam into the freezing air.

“You looked like you needed it.” You offer quietly.

The explanation is so simple that for a moment he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Not you are dangerous. Not I am calling the police. Not I know who you are.

Just cold. And that’s enough to deserve your concern.

His eyes fall on the blankets after you place them beside him. They look new, like something purchased deliberately rather than discarded.

Nobody has bought something for him in a very long time.

When Dex finally reaches for the cup, his fingers brush yours accidentally. The contact lasts less than a second, but he shivers anyway, electricity pumping through his veins.

You don’t recoil, nor grimace. Instead, you smile at him—a genuine, warm curve of your lips that transforms your entire face. And Dex allows himself to shamelessly bask in the sight. Not only because he thinks you’re possibly the prettiest woman he has ever seen, but because he can’t remember the last time somebody looked at him with something even close to kindness.

He has been pitied, feared… used. But this? Kindness offered so freely, without expectation and obligation? It knocks the breath out of his lungs.

By the time he realizes he should say something, you’re already standing.

“I hope things get better for you.” You give him another small smile, adjusting the strap of your bag.

The words are painfully ordinary, something many people probably say every day without giving them much weight. Just leisure pleasantries. Yet after you disappear into the crowd, Dex finds himself replaying them over and over again, your soft voice a pleasant touch that quiets his chaotic mind for the first time in weeks.

He sits there for what feels like an endless amount of time after you’ve gone, shakily cradling the cup between his hands while the coffee gradually cools. The blankets remain folded beside him, the cold just as bitter as before, but the possibility of this being his last night on Earth is now a distant memory.

Out of the hundreds of people who walked past him that night, you were the only one who stopped. The only one who seemed to notice that he existed, and was not any less deserving of compassion just because of what his life had become.

The only one who looked at him and saw a person instead of a problem.

When Dex eventually rises to his feet and starts absently following the route you took through the city, he tells himself it’s simple curiosity. Why someone like you would concern yourself with someone like him.

The explanation sounds reasonable enough in his head, enough that he almost manages to ignore the fact that he is still thinking of your smile as he stares up at your silhouette moving through your apartment.

If somebody told you five months ago that your life was about to improve, you probably would have laughed in their face and walked away.

There is only so much disappointment a person can absorb before they stop expecting good things altogether, and somewhere along the way you have crossed that threshold without even noticing.

The thing is, your life hasn’t changed all that much since then.

Your landlord is still useless. Your paycheck still disappears almost as soon as it arrives. You still spend most evenings alone in an apartment that feels a little too quiet and a little too small. However, over the past few months a handful of odd little incidents have begun accumulating in the back of your mind.

One evening you spent nearly half an hour searching for your keys after becoming absolutely convinced you had left them on the kitchen table before work. By the time you found them sitting inside your handbag, exactly where they should have been, you laughed at yourself for being so forgetful. Exhaustion does strange things to memory, after all.

A couple of weeks later you came home to discover that the smoke detector that had been tormenting you with intermittent chirping for days had finally fallen silent. You fully intended to replace the battery yourself, but somehow the problem solved itself before you got around to it. You remember standing on a chair and frowning at the device for a solid minute, trying unsuccessfully to figure out whether the battery compartment looked different than before.

Then there was the leak beneath your bathroom sink.

That one bothered you more than the others because you knew for a fact that it was getting worse. Every few days you had to shove another towel beneath the cabinet to soak up the water, constantly reminding yourself with gritted teeth that you would deal with it properly when you had enough money. Then one evening you came home from work and discovered the leak just... stopped. The better part of the next hour saw you crouched on the bathroom floor inspecting pipes you barely understood before eventually convincing yourself that perhaps the problem had never been as serious as you thought.

Long story short, life carried on.

You continued waking up too early and going to bed too late. Work consumed you, money remained tight. Most days you were so tired that once you got home you refused to make dinner and just collapsed in your bed with the same clothes, grimacing in the morning at the idea of having to change the sheets again.

Occasionally, however, more strange things started to happen.

Like that package that disappeared from the building lobby and mysteriously reappeared outside your apartment two days later, looking like it had been opened and then taped back together. The bedroom window that refused to close properly for nearly a year suddenly functioned perfectly. The lost pair of baby blue panties that you had worn to a disastrous date with a colleague who apparently resigned the morning after, only to disappear into thin air. The man who spent months making you dread every shift with his lewd stares and inappropriate requests found behind a dumpster with his face unrecognizable and his tongue cut off.

None of it made sense, but you weren’t that worried.

If anything, the incidents feel morbidly helpful, which is probably why you never examine them too closely. They simply make difficult days a little more bearable, and so you accept them for what they appear to be: coincidences.

That explanation satisfies you right up until the moment you unlock your apartment door one rainy evening in May.

The day has been particularly draining, even by your standards. Your feet ache, your shoulders are tense, up to the point that halfway up the stairs you briefly consider sitting down and just falling asleep there for the night. By the time you finally reach your floor, all you can think about is taking a shower and collapsing onto the couch until the sound of your alarm wakes you the next morning.

You are already reaching for the light switch when you sense something different in the air.

You stand on the entryway for a moment longer than necessary, your hand resting on the doorknob as your eyes jump from the blanket on the back of the couch to the dishes left to dry beside the sink. The apartment looks normal, nothing broken nor missing.

But something still feels off.

Perhaps you are more tired than you thought.

You shake your head with a sigh, locking the front door before making your way to the couch to remove your shoes. Your arms are already halfway up for a big stretch, when your eyes accidentally fall on the book on the coffee table, and your body freezes.

You clearly remember throwing it carelessly the night before, annoyed that it was late and you couldn’t keep reading, or else you would have been a zombie in the morning. Now it’s placed in the middle of the coffee table, right beside the decorative vinyl tray where you use to store any knick knack that doesn’t really have a place in your small apartment.

Even that is carefully arranged: the remote control on the right side, your partially burned candle on the other, and right in the middle, the kitsch party favor you got from your colleague’s wedding last year.

With a slow turn, you look at the kitchen, still dark. Even from here you can see that one of the cabinets—the one where you keep your stash of snacks—is not completely closed. 

And then… the smell.

At first it’s faint enough to dismiss as something carried in from the hallway when you opened the door, but the longer you focus on it the more certain you are that it’s coming from the inside. Your apartment has always smelled of the jasmine candle you occasionally burn in the evenings, with traces of whatever shower gel happens to be sitting in your shower at the time. 

This scent is musky. A presence still clinging stubbornly to the air long after it has left. 

But you live alone...

From the moment you were old enough to go out alone, you started to imagine what you would do if you ever found yourself in danger, because every woman does at some point, and you had prepared yourself in all the ways that seemed sensible at the time. By now, walking home with your keys threaded between your fingers whenever a street is too dark and empty has turned into a habit you follow unconsciously.

That’s why you always believed that if the moment ever came, fear would sharpen rather than paralyze you, and you would at least be able to defend yourself long enough to get away.

Nobody tells you that the body doesn’t always choose between fighting and fleeing. Sometimes, the mind is simply trapped somewhere between disbelief and terror while precious seconds slip away.

There is no warning in the traditional sense, no footsteps or violence. Only the unbearable certainty that you are no longer alone in your own home.

One arm locks around your middle with a controlled firmness that prevents you from stumbling, while a cloth settles over your mouth before a scream can fully form. The terror manifests in your eyes widening, in panic turning your blood into ice as you struggle against someone that feels impossibly solid. 

A strange, sweet chemical smell fills your lungs before you can turn away. You try to fight, to twist and push and reach for anything that might help you break free. To hold your breath, at least… but even that becomes increasingly difficult as your body starts to quickly lose its reliability, strength draining out of your limbs in a way that feels unnatural and deeply wrong.

A warm breath brushes briefly against your neck—the touch so light you might later convince yourself you imagined it. And as darkness hugs your pliant body, you can’t help but notice the way the arm around your waist is supporting your weight rather than restraining it.

You try to force your eyes open when something tenderly brushes the apple of your cheek, lingering there for longer than it should.

Your lips part slightly—or you think they do—but the attempt to speak dissolves as you succumb to the void once again. It’s the worst feeling ever: your brain being awake, screaming at you to open your eyes and run, while your joints are heavy, lying vulnerable at the mercy of a stranger.

But you keep slipping in and out of consciousness in a room you don’t recognize and a presence you can’t fully see.

The voice is always there, low and close and impossibly calm, because the person speaking knows they have all the time in the world and no fear of being interrupted. 

“You don’t have to fight it.” You hear the first time, composed.

“I didn’t want it to be like this.” He murmurs at some point, his voice now on the brink of misery. 

There are other phrases too, ones that barely hold together when you try to catch them: something about you being safe now, something about not being alone anymore. But they never fully resolve into clarity before dissolving again.

“Pretty,” he says that a lot, as if he is thinking out loud rather than speaking to you directly. “So pretty and so sweet, my angel.”

Sometimes it’s a slow, controlled touch that caresses your forehead and then moves to your hair, as though he is making sure you are still there, still real and present in the way he imagined all along.

Your body reacts sluggishly, sinking further into whatever is holding you up.

“You’re going to be alright, I’ll make sure of it.” He whispers against your knuckles.

The last thing you register is not fear in its sharpest form, but the confusing contradiction of being held with such reverence while your mind insists that nothing about this should feel safe.

When you finally manage to pull yourself out of the heavy fog weighing down your mind, you immediately become aware of how your mouth feels like sandpaper. The simple act of swallowing is painful, your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth uncomfortably. Every part of your body aches, the disorientation reminding you of that meagre time off you are allowed once a year that you promptly spend sleeping for days.

The sunlight filtering through the curtains definitely doesn’t help.

The rays spill across the room in warm golden strips, forcing you to squint against the brightness. Your head throbs in protest, and when you shift slightly against the mattress, a wave of dizziness rolls through you hard enough to make your stomach turn.

Another thing that you notice with furrowed brows is that this room is too quiet to be your apartment—no matter where you settle, the loud chaos of traffic and the sound of sirens blaring somewhere in the distance are always following you.

There is also a faint smell of vanilla lingering in the air, mixed with the scent of coffee that has long since gone cold. But nothing about your surroundings feels threatening. If anything, the room is painfully ordinary in its muted colors and minimal furniture.

Yet an uncomfortable feeling weighs behind your ribs.

A feeling that grows stronger the longer you lie there.

Your mattress isn’t this soft. Your sheets aren’t made of silk.

You force your eyes open completely. Staring upward, you blink lazily.

Your ceiling is full of cracks and dark spots. This one is clean and smooth.

And your bedroom window isn’t supposed to be there. You don’t even own curtains—you can’t because of some stupid policy your creepy landlord put in place.

You push yourself upright then, but the room tilts at once. A sharp wave of nausea crashes through your chest again, forcing you to grab the edge of the mattress while dark spots dance across your vision.

The movement is enough for you to acknowledge the man sitting on the armchair near the window.

A book is resting open in his lap, although judging by the way his eyes are already fixed on you, it wasn’t doing a good job at holding his attention.

The first thing that draws you in is his handsome face and broad shoulders. The second is his stare. It’s not the same as that of men watching women on the subway or across bars. Neither that of customers occasionally studying you when they think you’re too distracted to notice.

He looks at you like he’s been dying for this moment to happen.

A mug sits abandoned on the small table beside him, and despite his oddly tense posture, his voice comes out surprisingly gentle.

“There you are.” Relief spreads across his face so openly that it catches you completely off guard.

“Easy,” he takes a small step toward the bed, carefully placing the book near the mug. He frowns. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

You don’t even realize you have been slowly shuffling away until he says that.

You stop immediately. Behind you, your shoulders bump against the headboard.

There is nowhere else to go.

His eyes flick briefly toward the distance between you and the edge of the mattress, the wrinkle between his eyebrows deepening for a fleeting moment before returning to your face.

“I was starting to think you’d sleep through another day.”

You continue staring at him, convinced for a moment that you must have misheard.

Another day.

Your thoughts feel like they are desperately trying to push through mud, because every attempt to make sense of this bizzare situation only seems to leave you more confused than before.

“You need to drink some water.”

There is a bottle on the nightstand beside the bed, and next to it a glass, a packet of crackers and a folded hand towel. The arrangement is uncomfortably scrupulous, too symmetric to have been the result of some mindless afterthought.

The man reaches for the bottle, and your eyes follow his large hands as he unscrews the cap and starts pouring water into the clean glass.

“Take slow sips, your throat’s probably going to hurt. You’ve been out for almost forty-eight hours.”

The room tilts again.

Forty-eight hours.

Your gaze snaps back to his face.

“What?” The word comes out rough and barely audible.

His expression immediately changes. A faint smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, small enough that for a moment you are certain it must have been your mind tricking you.

“Here, drink it.” He completely ignores your question, handing you the half-full glass that you unconsciously take with trembling fingers.

“You had me worried for a while.”

You had him worried.

As though he has any right to be worried about you.

As though this stranger belongs anywhere near you.

It’s in that moment that the memory crashes into your mind like a wrecking ball smashing concrete.

Your apartment.

The smell that didn’t belong.

The certainty that somebody had been inside your home.

The feeling of arms wrapping around you from behind.

The overwhelming heaviness that followed.

Darkness.

Your pulse spikes so violently that it hurts your chest.

The glass slips from your numb fingers and lands on the mattress between you, messily spilling water on the sheets. For the first time since waking up, genuine fear breaks through the haze still clouding your thoughts.

You try to move away from him instinctively, but your body is still uncooperative. The effort is clumsy, leaving you dizzy as you brace a hand against the mattress to stop yourself from falling sideways.

The moment he notices the change in your breathing, his features harden for a mere second. Until then he looked elated to see you awake after spending the last two days drilling a hole through the floor of this damn apartment with his feet. But whatever he sees in your expression sweeps that relief away at once.

His eyes dart across your face, taking in every ragged breath and every failed attempt to back away. 

“Oh.”

The sound leaves him softly, almost regretful.

It’s the expression of somebody realizing they have made a mistake.

“Sweetheart.” The pet name sounds horribly familiar despite the fact that you have never seen this man before in your life.

“I know,” he slowly takes the glass and places it back on the nightstand. “I know this isn’t ideal.”

Not ideal. Of course, waking up in an unfamiliar room after being drugged and abducted is a rather unfortunate inconvenience. Surely not the worst experience of your life.

He takes a step forward before apparently thinking better of it. The hesitation lasts only a second, but it’s enough to suggest that he is trying to not overwhelm you and failing miserably.

For a man who somehow managed to break into your apartment, transport you somewhere else without being noticed, and keep you unconscious for two days, he suddenly looks too uncertain of himself.

“You’ve been asleep longer than I expected,” he continues carefully, as if you are some injured animal to coax out its hiding place. “I’m not going to lie, I was starting to worry. I checked your pulse every two hours, but you were breathing fine and your temperature stayed normal. I knew you were alright. Maybe you just needed to sleep a little bit more to properly gain back your energy.”

Does he really think that’s what you are worried about? Can’t he see the pure terror written across your face? Is he ignoring it voluntarily?

And the fact that he knows how often he checked your pulse, that he apparently spent two days probably watching you breath, touching you to take your body temperature while you lay unconscious, only reinforces the dreadful realization that this unknown man has devoted an unhealthy amount of attention to you.

When your breathing grows even more uneven, his expression tightens.

“Hey, don’t do that.” There is genuine concern in his voice. “You’ve got to slow down a little for me.”

The request is absurd enough that you almost burst out laughing.

Instead, it feels like the walls are gradually pressing down on you.

Dex recognizes it immediately. Something about the way he watches you suggests familiarity, as though he knows what it feels like when your own body turns against you.

Without asking permission, he frantically crouches beside the bed and reaches for your hand, carefully pressing it against the center of his chest.

The gesture is so unexpected that your eyes go wide.

His heartbeat is steady beneath your palm, your fingers weakly twitching in the fabric of his shirt.

“Just focus on my heartbeat,” he says softly. “You don’t have to talk to me, you don’t even have to look at me if you don’t want to. But you need to calm down. Try to match my breathing, okay?”

For the first time since waking up, he stops talking entirely and simply demonstrates, drawing in a slow breath before letting it out again, the movement measured and controlled. He repeats it again, and then a third time, never taking his alarmed eyes off you.

Little by little, against your own better judgment and under his patient movements, your breathing begins to follow the rhythm he sets.

You are still trapped. Still want to throw up from the residual drug mixed with fear. Still sitting too close to the man who kidnapped you. But the sharp edges dull enough to not make you feel like you are drowning. 

The visible satisfaction that spreads across his face is unsettling.

“Good. That’s good,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing lightly across your knuckles. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” You mumble before you can stop yourself.

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, before his quiet, startled laugh fills the small room. He briefly looks down, shaking his head as if conceding the point.

“Yeah,” he hums, far from defensive. “Maybe it is.”

His lips briefly press in a thin line pensively. “I’m sorry it happened like this.”

You don’t believe, even for a second, that this man is sorry for what he did. What he seems sorry about is the fact that you’re afraid, and that’s disturbing enough to make your skin crawl.

“I promise I’m not going to hurt you.” He adds quickly.

There’s a softness in his expression that would almost pass for affection if the situation itself weren’t so wrong. Yes, he’s not looking at you like he’s enjoying your fear, but that makes it worse in a way you can’t quite explain. Anger, sadism would have been more logical. But this quiet conviction that nothing bad is happening—not in his version of events—leaves you speechless.

The moment his hand squeezes yours, you flinch, having completely forgotten that he’s still keeping your palm pressed to his chest. His thumb starts moving again over your knuckles in a repetitive, absent motion.

“Who are you?” You manage out feebly.

Your throat is still raw, the words coming out rougher than you intend. The moment you speak, he’s already reaching for the nightstand, this time pressing the bottle of water into your free hand.

“You should drink this first.” He repeats. “Please.”

The water is cold enough that it makes your throat ache on the way down. Only when you look back at him do you realize he hasn’t stopped watching you, his lips slightly parted as he takes in the way your throat bobs with every eager gulp.

“Who are you?” You repeat, pushing down the urge to hide from his intense eyes.

Your question seems to be bouncing off the walls of his mind as he ruminates over it... Like he’s deciding which version of the answer would bring less trouble.

“My name is Benjamin.” He says eventually.

The name sits there between you, formal and unfamiliar in a way that doesn’t fit him at all. Then he exhales lightly, reluctant.

“Dex,” he adds with strain. “People call me Dex.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

You are sitting in a room with a man you don’t know, having a conversation that shouldn’t be happening at all, and yet your body hasn’t fully caught up to the fact that you should be screaming, trying to kick him away and claw your way out of this prison.

The thing is, you’ve never been good with confrontation. You avoid conflict when you can, letting things go too easily and apologizing when you dare to speak up for yourself. It has never felt like a flaw before as much as a way of keeping life manageable. And look where it has led you... right to your condemnation.

Your eyes flick briefly around the room without meaning to. It’s not large, but everything in it feels intentional. There’s no obvious sign of chaos, nothing that suggests the filth and improvisation of an insane gesture. 

Dex is still observing you, his hazel eyes completely soaking in your presence.

“We’ve met before.”

Your lips part uselessly, confused.

“Back in November,” he clears his throat awkwardly, readjusting his weight slightly. “The grocery store two blocks from your place. The one with the broken automatic doors that always stuck open halfway.”

Cold night. A man sitting too still against the wall. You debating for ten minutes whether it was a good decision to go back.

“But—but it was months ago...” You squeak out, recoiling. “You remember that?”

His face brightens, pleased that you do.

“Of course!” He nods. “You were still wearing your work clothes and had two bags with you because you’d stopped for groceries.” He swallows, eyes emptily staring at some random spot on your shirt as if he was reliving the moment.

“You walked right past me at first.”

Your throat tightens at his quiet comment. 

“But then you came back,” he finally looks up, his expression open again. “You brought blankets, coffee... You didn’t have to do that, but you did anyway.”

You allow your eyes to study him, trying to reconcile the man in front of you with the one he’s describing. He looks different now—cleaner, more put together, but there’s something underneath that practiced calm that feels like the same person from that alley… the same empty eyes. 

“You are kind to everyone,” he comments shyly. “Even when they walk right over you.”

The air changes with his expression.

“You think I didn’t notice?” He scoffs lightly at your clear surprise, his head momentarily tipping forward. “You hated your job. You came home exhausted every day, and yet you still kept going back. And your friends…” His mouth twists.

“Half of them only remember you exist when they need something. The others stopped calling altogether. You’re always the one reaching out first, always the one asking how they’re doing, always the one trying to keep those friendships alive. Then your birthday comes around and suddenly everyone’s busy. You spend holidays staring at your phone waiting for messages that never come, and they still expect you to be there whenever it’s convenient for them.”

A lonely tear trails down your cheek and his gaze holds yours for a moment longer than you can comfortably handle.

“I saw you cry.” His words are nothing short of a whisper but they hit you like a punch in the guts.

“In bed. In the shower. In the kitchen.” He swallows. “You were always so sad.” He whispers.

“I know what it’s like,” he adds after a pause. “Being alone.”

His free hand tentatively lifts, until it cups your cheek. The touch is far too careful, it makes you feel like an ethereal creature being worshipped rather than a woman kidnapped to satisfy some sick fantasy.

“But you’re not alone anymore.”

Your breath catches at the inevitability coloring his voice.

“Dex—”

“You’ve got me now.” He smiles, and for the first time you notice a missing tooth.

You don’t even realize you’ve stopped breathing properly until he is standing up, the bed dipping slightly under his weight.

Your first instinct is to back away, but it’s useless. The mattress gives under you in every direction, your body betraying you by freezing under his big frame.

“Hey,” he mumbles. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

The words make no sense coming out of his mouth, in your situation, in anything you understand, yet they don’t sound like a lie to him. That’s what makes it worse. He believes them. Completely.

You try to speak again, but all it comes out is a broken whimper, tangled in breath and panic, earning a small sound of frustration from Dex. The situation keeps slipping out of his control.

“I didn’t mean for it to go this way,” there’s a faint edge of strain in his voice now, actively struggling with your fear. “I just—I couldn’t keep watching you living like that anymore.”

The moment he moves closer, your muscles lock as the space between you starts to disappear. You try to shift away fruitlessly, already suffocating in the warmth that radiates off his body.

To your absolute horror, he doesn’t stop in front of your distress.

Each small movement forward strengthens the grip around your lungs—the oxygen around you is not enough.

Your fingers curl into the blanket beneath you without you meaning them to.

“I couldn’t leave you there.” 

His hand comes down near your hip, close enough that it brushes your covered skin, but still not touching you. You stiffen at the proximity alone.

Then the bed dips more as he lowers himself further, causing you to press harder into the headboard until the metal is digging uncomfortably into your bones. Your ears are ringing, your heartbeat so fast you feel like you are going to pass out, yet you are forced to live every second of it as Dex fully settles between your thighs.

His presence looms over you, before leaning in slowly. You flinch hard, an involuntary movement of your torso that causes the headboard to hit the wall with a deafening clank.

But Dex doesn’t stop, not until his head is resting on your chest.

Right over your heartbeat.

The contact sucks the fight out of you at once. Even your breathing stalls for a painful second before restarting in short, uneven pulls out of your control.

He doesn’t speak anymore.

He just stays there, still, listening.

“You’re really worked up,” he murmurs to himself. There’s something almost analytical in his voice. “I can fix that.”

Your fingers twitch into the sheets, until you finally gather enough strength to lift your arms and push at his shoulders, your neck desperately straining back to keep the contact to the bare minimum. It barely registers, your hands trembling as they make contact with a wall of steel. The effort leaves your limbs weak and unsteady, though, falling back against the mattress dejectedly.

“I’m not hurting you,” he recovers immediately, the words sounding more like he’s trying to convince himself. “I swear I’m not.”

You force your throat to work, and when your voice finally comes out, it’s in a thin, pathetic whimper.

“Get off me.”

Everything comes to a halt. Dex lifts his head from your chest with terrifying calm, just enough to face you. For a moment he doesn’t respond at all, his eyes just fixed on you, unblinking and so clear you can almost see the way he replays your words over and over again.

“Oh.”

He shifts back gradually, pulling his weight away from you as he settles on his knees. His hands go flat on his own thighs, open and visible, like he is deliberately trying to remove any sense of threat.

The movement is controlled, but there is a stiffness to his joints now, clearly responding to something he did not account for.

“I didn’t—” He begins, then stops mid-sentence, his jaw tightening slightly. “Okay. I won’t do that.”

He remains sitting close, his posture unnaturally still.

“I thought it would help,” he mumbles after a moment, his attention dropping briefly to the sad space between your bodies before returning to your face. “When people are overwhelmed like that… physical contact usually helps them settle.”

Again that detached tone.

You swallow thickly, genuinely scared at the speed your heart races inside your ribcage.

His eyes jump from your blown pupils to your heaving chest, then back up again.

“You’re still afraid.”

A pause follows in which you simply stare at him with tears threatening to spill.

“I don’t want you to be scared of me.”

Is Dex repeating that an attempt to convince you, or himself?

His breathing changes before he even finishes speaking, the rhythm of it losing its steadiness as if the thread keeping it all together just snapped under the inconvenience that is your reaction.

His hands keep lifting from his thighs before settling again, the small, restless movements never quite resolving into anything concrete.

“I have a job now,” he blurts out, eyes locked with yours, wide and intense. “A real one. I get paid regularly and I’ve saved money. I can take care of things—of you.”

Dex leans forward as words collide into themselves.

“You don’t have to go back to that life,” he swallows. “I can make it better. I—I already know how, I’ve planned it all! I got us a place out of the city, somewhere quiet where—where there is no traffic and no perverts scaring you at night.” His jaw clenches, knuckles turning white briefly as his hands close into two fists. 

“You talked about it, I remember, you wrote it down in your journal,” you wince. He even read your journal? “About—about the cottage in the middle of nowhere, and the garden with a place for the birds to rest and eat, and—and a porch where you can sit with your tea in the morning. No nosy neighbors and no greedy landlords.”

His voice keeps rising and shaking around the edges.

“I can keep you safe,” he whispers like a secret, his nose merely a few inches from yours. “You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. I’ve been handling things already, you just didn’t see it happening.”

That last part slips out before he seems to catch it, and Dex’s mouth snaps shut.

“No!” You flinch at the sudden rise in volume, witnessing first-hand how regret washes over his features.

“Sorry, sorry! I mean,” he exhales sharply, tone dropping again. “I mean I’ve been trying to make it right. For you.”

The lump in your throat is suffocating you.

“But I—I never asked for any of this. I don’t even know you.” You manage eventually, even if the sentence breaks apart halfway through, collapsing into tears before you can swallow them down. “Please just let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear, I won’t—just, please... please.”

Your hands come up to your face but they do a poor job at hiding your despair, because your body folds forward as the sobs take over, loud and agonizing.

Dex simply lets his body sit back on his heels, watching you cry with an unreadable expression.

After a long stretch of silence, it appears slowly—a faint curve of his lips that successfully slips past the control he had been so careful to piece together for you.

“What do you want from me?” You sob out, increasingly unsettled by his calm demeanor. “I can’t—” You choke on your next breath.

“I just want you.” He answers without hesitation.

Dex leans forward again, then stops himself mid-motion, catching his own impulse and forcing it back down. His hands hover for a second over your shoulders before returning to his sides.

“We’re going to be okay,” he hurries out. “You know that you were stuck. You want something different.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“Anything you want,” his words tighten again with urgency. “I’ll make it happen.”

His voice lowers.

“Just...” His voice quivers faintly. “Don’t leave me.”

Your body is still shaking with every hiccup, but the words don’t bounce off you the way they should. They settle like a boulder on your chest, pressing against the exhaustion, the slow collapse of a life you were pretending was fine.

And before you can fully comprehend the mess you got yourself into because of a stupid good deed you decided to do on a whim, you flinch again as Dex moves, decisively enough that there’s no time to escape.

He pulls you into a hug, your body instantly going rigid as his muscled arms wrap around your waist. Whimpering, you lift your hands to push at his chest, but his hold tightens in response, your palms now forced flat between you two.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” His voice is low against the side of your head. “Don’t cry, please, angel. You’re breaking my heart.”

He starts to rock slightly, the motion unhurried and consistent, but your crying doesn’t subdue right away.

When he lowers you back onto the pillows, your body tightens again at the change in position, but he follows the movement instead of pushing it. He stays close, his hands still wrapped around your body but careful to not press his weight into you the way he did before.

“I don’t want you to shake like that around me.” He mumbles in your ear after a while, stripped of the earlier urgency. “Why won’t you believe me? I said I’m not going to hurt you.”

You swallow at the hurt pouring from his voice, but you turn your head away anyway in a last, futile attempt to set a boundary. 

“I—” He cuts himself off, his next breath shaky. “I didn’t know how else to make you stop running in your head like that. You were—you were going to break yourself apart.” His arms squeeze once.

“But you don’t have to do that anymore,” he adds happily. “Not when you have me now.”

You don’t remember the last time someone stayed this close to you without an ulterior motive. Even friends and ex-boyfriends who touched you in the past did it like contact had an expiration date you were supposed to respect.

Most days you try to ignore it, because it’s work, home, work again, and then fill the spaces in between with loud music and books so you don’t notice how quiet everything is when no one is there to witness your life unfolding. You’re used to eating alone, shopping alone, coming back to an empty apartment without expecting anything different. 

But here, with someone actually holding you with such devoted desperation, something lodged deep inside you gives up before your mind can stop it. Your shoulders drop first, only now giving you the time to properly register the sharp sting caused by your constant rigidity. Your hands, which have been tense against his chest, loosen without your consent, fingers uncurling slowly instead of pushing.

Dex is still above you, braced between your legs and still surprisingly careful as he clings onto your body. Your arms move next. At first it’s only a mere jerk that you have the chance to stop, but then they are hovering over his back. And when they finally settle around his shoulders, his muscles lock in shock for a long moment.

Keeping still throughout it all, he is scared the faintest movement could drag you back into that dark conviction that paints him as the bad guy. Which should probably be the sensible thing to believe, because this is wrong—you are betraying your own sense of safety by embracing the same man who forcefully carved a place into your life and took control of it.

But you stay there anyway, even when Dex slowly lifts his head from where it has been tucked against your chest. The movement is timid as his hands remain exactly where they are: one gripping your side, the other resting between your shoulder blades.

For a few seconds neither of you speaks.

His face is close enough now that you can make out details you hadn’t noticed before, too blinded by panic. Like the faint shadows beneath his eyes, and the scar on his right cheek. The hesitation that keeps flickering in his hazel eyes.

From the way his gaze keeps dropping to your mouth before returning to your eyes, you know what is about to happen.

You should turn your head.

You should push him away and hold onto whatever common sense you have left.

Instead, you remain perfectly still.

When he finally leans forward, it’s so tentative that you almost don’t register it at first. His nose brushes yours, the small contact making his breath hitch.

For a moment it genuinely feels like he’s giving you one final opportunity to stop him. But you don’t.

The kiss lasts barely a second before he’s already pulling back again, watching you with an intensity that makes your stomach twist.

You don’t know what to make of any of this.

The fear is still there, intertwined with confusion. Nothing about the situation has become less alarming, yet beneath all of it sits a quieter realization that is much harder to confront.

You can’t remember the last time someone looked at you as though your existence alone mattered to them.

You truly are pathetic.

Dex studies your face frantically, searching for a reaction. When you don’t immediately recoil, some of the tension visibly leaves his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, sounding embarrassed. “Haven’t done this in a long time.”

After the stalking and the break-in, you somehow expected him to be smoother than this. Certainly not to apologize for his kissing techniques.

Taking your silence as encouragement, he locks your mouths more forcefully than before. It’s eager, clumsy in the way his tongue pushes between your parted lips as the hand on your hip quickly flies behind your head to keep you nice and still for him.

“Wait—” You gasp when his big hands are suddenly everywhere. They squeeze your asscheeks, play with your covered breasts and palm your thighs as he keeps pressing wet kisses down your throat. 

A loud whine falls from your lips, and it feels downright mortifying, your body completely on fire under his desperate touch. Dex muffles a growl against the swell of your tits once his hand sinks into your ruined panties, basking in the sharp tang that invades his nostrils and that he only had the chance to smell from stolen underwear.

With his other hand, he lowers your tank top, leaving the fabric hanging hopelessly from your torso to admire your beautiful tits.

It’s nothing that Dex hasn’t seen before—he did have to install cameras inside your apartment to make sure that fucking asshole of your landlord wouldn’t break in while you were gone.

These fucking creeps never learn their lesson…

Fortunately you wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. Not when you are finally with Dex, while he is somewhere in the depth of some big lake on the other side of the state. 

Your first orgasm of the night hits you with two of his fingers slowly fucking inside your pussy, and his lips delicately suckling your clit.

Your hands were desperately clutching his shoulders, his groan deep and animalistic around your nipple when your nails sank into the fabric of his t-shirt, causing a pleasant sting to travel down his back. 

“Yes, sweetheart. Mark me, ‘m all yours.”

When Dex finally looked at you with a pretty blush across his cheeks, mumbling that he needs to taste you.

You fought him at first, frantically shaking your head and squeezing your shaky thighs close to keep his mouth as far as possible from your core. But again, you must be so pathetic to cave in for a pair of glossy hazel eyes looking up at you as if you just told him to keep his disgusting hands to himself and let you go. 

Dex panted, chin gently propped on your belly. “Please, please my angel. Just a little taste, I promise.”

Now, a shiver runs down your back at the primal sound clawing out of his chest when he finally gets his mouth on your slick folds.

Your eyes turn wet, breathy whimpers reluctantly falling from your parted lips when you come, wave after wave of electrifying pleasure running through your veins as Dex watches mesmerized, tongue still working on your pussy and his free hand on your hip to help you hump his face. 

“That’s it. That was a strong one, hm lovely?” You flinch in shame at the sight of your wetness shining on his smirk, but Dex is already discarding his pants and boxers, blanketing your body with his as he drags his hard cock between your sensitive folds.

He moans in your mouth, ignoring the way your palms keep pushing at his shoulders.

“Dex.” You wail, overstimulated.

“Yes, angel. Say my name, wanna hear you scream it. Wanna show everyone how good I make my pretty girl feel, and then I’m gonna cut their fucking ears off.” He groans against your lips, completely missing your flinch.

“You’re beautiful everywhere. Pretty face, pretty lips, pretty tits, pretty pussy…” He blabbers, eyes squeezed shut as the tip of his length slips inside.

A loud moan claws out of your throat. “Stop talking.” You mewl, the stimulation causing your hips to buck uncontrollably as another climax draws impossibly close again.

Your face is on fire, not used to praises, much less coming from a man.

“Can’t, sweetheart.” His answer is strained, the control he spent months building just for you slipping miserably once the realization of finally having you on his cock, naked and moaning, fully hits him.

“You’re my good girl now.” His hips gain speed, the stretch burning a little until he finally finds that spongy spot that makes your eyes roll back. “Taking me so well, look at you.”

“Dex.” He shudders helplessly when you call for him. Never has his name sounded so sweet.

His head tips back all of a sudden. “Fuck, are you coming, my love?” He growls out, indulging in the way your pussy clamps desperately around him. 

Your climax is stronger and messier, slick steadily pouring out around his length as your back arches and you find yourself shamelessly moaning and convulsing, trapped in an endless circle of bliss with his cock abusing your sweet spot and the trimmed hair at the base rubbing your puffy clit raw.

“Gonna fill you up, baby. Mark you forever as mine.” He mumbles urgently, surging down to suck on the skin of your neck. “Shit, shit—” Dex grunts, his balls tight as thick ropes of cum stuff you full. 

You are now lying pliant on the mattress, his body still looming over yours as his cock weakly twitches inside you.

For a brief moment, a dangerous thought flashes across your tired mind.

He is spent and trembling, mumbling incoherently into your breasts... would it really be that hard to push him away? He is a broad, muscled man, but Dex would never expect it. Not after you surrendered so viscerally to his touch. You could shove him off and make a run to the door. Or reach for the glass on the nightstand and smash it against his temple hard enough to buy yourself a few precious minutes.

Instead, when his mouth frantically finds yours with a low whine, you allow Dex to steal the oxygen from your lungs as your hands slowly cradle his cheeks. 

Maybe it’s the beginning of something terrible. Maybe one day you’ll regret not even trying. But as this broken man holds you like letting go would kill him, you find that you can’t bring yourself to care.

— ⟢ END NOTES: thank you so much for reading 🤍 my masterlist → winteryn's masterlist