-Wallflower-

It was approaching six-thirty in the morning when he’d last glanced at his watch, which meant that at any minute now, you’d be making your way out of the door to start your day. Dex already knew you'd stop first at The Little Crow for a coffee before continuing on to The Bulletin. That was always your morning routine during the work week.

Ever since he’d dealt with your ex just over three weeks ago, Dex learned to adjust his own morning routine to fit yours. He’d started waking up just a bit earlier to accommodate his own needs, still managing to feed his landlady’s cat the single fried egg in the mornings before he left. Except every time he saw it now, he thought of you. Of how you’d said you wished you could have a cat at your apartment but your lease wouldn’t allow for it. While Dex didn’t personally see the draw in having a pet, particularly one that shit and pissed inside of your apartment, he understood that you were lonely. Probably even more after you’d ended your relationship with your ex–not that Dex deemed him worthwhile company to begin with. 

You had your ridiculous plants, though. Five of them on the back of your kitchen sink, perched in their pots on the little lip of a windowsill. A basil you’d named quite simply Basil, a cilantro you’d called Fergus, parsley you’d referred to as Presley, a cactus–specifically an astrophytum, he’d researched it–dubbed Cuddles, and a little aloe you’d named Chloe. You’d pointed out each one as you’d given him their names that night you’d let him stay for pizza and beer, a lopsided smile on your swollen face as the single beer buzzed through your veins.

They seemed to bring you joy when you watered them in the mornings before you got ready for work. He’d watched you do it a handful of times now from a vacant apartment in the building across the street that he’d recently discovered. He found himself smiling at the way you animatedly talked to them as you did, and while he hated to admit it, not quite fully understanding it himself, it was kind of cute to watch.

When one of the doors to your apartment building opened again, Dex easily spotted you slipping out and into the bustling morning foot traffic. He’d glimpsed you long enough to notice that you’d dressed in one of his favorite outfits today–a blue sundress with white flowers. The corner of his lips drew upwards as he pushed off the wall of the building, pocketing the coin he’d been rolling between his knuckles. He’d come to learn that when you wore a sundress, it meant that you were in a good mood. And Dex liked when you were in a good mood. 

Moving effortlessly through the throng of people on the sidewalk, the summer sun inched its way ever higher into the sky. He could feel the temperature beginning to increase as he kept a reasonably good distance behind you, making sure to never lose sight of you among the crowd. 

He followed you down to the end of your block, and just as he suspected, you’d gone straight into The Little Crow. Ducking inside the small cafe, you immediately took your place in line as Dex eased his way through the foot traffic. He took his usual place against the brick siding of the shop, lowering his head and watching you through the windows as he blended in with the rest of Hell’s Kitchen. It was a few minutes before the line gradually shuffled forward inside of the cafe and you were at the front of it, ordering your coffee before moving to the side to wait for your drink. 

For the slightly more than three weeks that he’d been watching you now, Dex had come to learn that you were an avid coffee drinker. Typically, you drank three coffees in a day–one before work, one in the middle of the morning, and one just after lunch. It was the only true vice he’d noticed you had besides the occasional beer after work.

The moment you’d received your iced coffee from the barista, offering them a friendly smile that lit up your whole face, Dex had slipped back into the crowd just in time to continue walking you to work. But now he found himself standing closer than he usually preferred when he followed you, with only three people separating you from him. At this distance, he could see the way the cotton fabric of your dress swished along your thighs with each of your purposeful steps as you contentedly sipped on your iced latte. 

He wouldn’t leave you until he made sure you’d gotten safely to work, and then he’d go about the rest of his day for a while. But he’d be back, checking in on you around noon. He wondered where you’d order lunch from today.

TUESDAY - 7:43 AM   

You’d forgotten to water your plants before you’d gotten dressed for work this morning. In fact, your entire routine had been completely thrown off because you’d somehow managed to oversleep. Dex wasn’t sure if your alarm just hadn’t gone off, or if your phone hadn’t been entirely plugged in to charge at night and died on you, or if you’d somehow accidentally turned off your alarm altogether. But when he’d been watching you from across the street this morning, he’d seen you throwing your curtains open in a frenzy far later than he was used to seeing you open them. 

You hadn’t taken the time to shower this morning. You hadn’t neatly tucked your blouse into your skirt when you’d been getting ready. He’d watched you barely apply the usual makeup and skincare that you generally religiously applied every morning, and you hadn’t taken that final look at yourself in the mirror before you left for the day like you always did. 

But you’d forgotten to water your plants. The plants that you’d told him weeks ago were very important to you, which in turn made them very important to him. He knew you'd never remember when you returned home from work later tonight because you always fell back into the same routine you had before going to bed. And that routine didn’t incorporate watering your plants.

Which was why Dex had come back to your apartment after he’d walked you to work. He’d picked the lock on your door and let himself inside, making his way straight towards your kitchen. With how often he'd watched you water the plants in the mornings from his vantage point across the street, he knew exactly which cabinet you kept the little black watering can in. 

Pulling it out, he’d filled it up in the kitchen sink while eyeing the little plants sitting innocently on the windowsill behind it. Afterwards, he appropriately watered each plant with the precise amount of water. Except for Cuddles, because you never watered the cactus on Tuesdays. 

After he'd finished with the task that had initially led him to break into your place, he'd considered just leaving and continuing on with his own day. He wanted to go check on Murdock and Page in their “hideout,” curious to learn what they would get involved in today. But as he glanced around your apartment, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to leave quite yet. He couldn't resist the growing urge to see everything of yours up close instead of through his scope. You'd never given him a tour that night he'd stayed for pizza, but since he was already here, he figured he’d give himself one.

Your kitchen was small and clean, just like your living room beside it. There was no clutter on the counters, and you never let dishes remain dirty in your sink. But you did have a coffee maker on the counter next to your toaster, and two bags of coffee currently sat beside it. Medium roast blends from the same roastery–some local place in Hell’s Kitchen. 

Dex walked over towards the coffee maker and reached out to pick up one of the bags. Lifting it up to his nose, he took a deep inhale. The aromatic scent caused his eyes to briefly flutter closed as he appreciated the warm, fragrant smell. You certainly knew how to pick out a bag of coffee. And now that he knew what it smelled like, he could better imagine how your apartment would fill with the scent of it every time he watched you brew a cup from across the street. 

He carefully placed the bag back down onto your kitchen counter, nestling it in the exact place where it once sat before reaching up to the cabinet above your coffee maker. He hooked a finger around the handle and flicked it open, and all of your colorful coffee mugs suddenly glistened in the morning light. 

You certainly liked coffee mugs. There were at least ten of them all perfectly lined up on the shelf, each of them with different patterns, designs, or quotes on them. One of his fingers delicately ran along the rim of a pale green mug with a floral pattern on it. You chose that one to drink out of more often than not, and he assumed it was your favorite. 

Losing interest in examining your kitchen, Dex closed the cabinet before making his way towards your small living room. There wasn’t much in it, just a little, gray sofa with a navy blue blanket folded on the back of it, a coffee table situated in front of it, and a television on a stand across the room. In the corner was a walnut bookshelf filled with books and candles that’d always drawn his eye. Crossing the room towards it, Dex came to stand just in front of it, his eyes sweeping over everything neatly tucked away on each shelf. He’d always been curious to know what you read, but he’d never been able to make out all of the titles from across the street through his scope. 

His head slowly tilted to the side as he took in the way you’d organized the bookshelf–by color and not alphabetically. The corner of his lip twitched before his eyes ran over the spine of each book, darting from title to title as he read them internally to himself. Romance novels, all of them. Except for a small handful of things that seemed…darker, suspenseful. 

Interesting.

Turning away from your bookshelf, Dex started to make his way to the short hallway that led to both your bathroom and bedroom. The sound of his whistling filled your apartment as he contentedly showed himself around the rest of your place. He figured he’d inspect your bathroom next, finding himself suddenly interested to know the scent of your shampoo and body wash.

WEDNESDAY - 8:03 PM 

You were back at it again.

Dex sat with his legs crossed on the wood laminate floor, positioned in front of the window in the apartment across the street from yours. Lingering in the shadows of the uninhabited space, he watched you through his scope as he often did in the evenings. It was relaxing to see you go through your usual routines, and it’d even begun to feel as if Dex himself had become a part of it with you. Not that you were aware of his presence.

You’d gotten home from work tonight around five-thirty–as you usually did. He’d watched you make some sort of pasta for dinner. Afterwards, you’d unloaded and reloaded your dishwasher with the dirty dishes from your dinner preparations before scrubbing down your stovetop, the kitchen counters, and your table. But he knew what was coming the second he recognized that decisively blank look on your face.

You’d cleaned up the mess from dinner before you’d started cleaning your entire kitchen, including washing the sink so thoroughly that it’d even left Dex impressed. Afterwards, you’d emptied out your fridge to clean the shelves and drawers before organizing your pantry. He’d watched you disappear from your apartment with a basket of dirty laundry to what he assumed was the laundry facility in your building for almost ten minutes. When you’d returned, you’d immediately armed yourself with a mop and began aggressively mopping your floor.

Dex noticed that you’d occasionally get into a cleaning frenzy sometimes, but they were generally on the weekends when you didn’t have much else to do. In the times he’d seen you get like this, you’d get this unsettling emptiness on your face as you worked, and it was paired with a haunting hollowness that lingered in your eyes. 

You were somewhere deep inside of your own mind now. Somewhere he couldn’t hope to ever step foot. But you’d never been this intensely focused on cleaning. What drove you to this point? You’d told him you preferred cleanliness the night you’d invited him in, that it kept you from being in a bad headspace. He understood that all too well. He needed order and organization. Clutter and mess made the buzzing inside his head unbearable, it made him itch like the filth was on his skin. 

But what had caused this particular shift in you tonight? Had something happened at work today? Were you reliving some past trauma inside of your mind? Remembering the night your ex had tried to kill you? Or had you somehow discovered that your ex was no longer breathing?

Dex genuinely doubted it was the latter. Your ex’s death hadn’t even made it to the news, probably deemed yet another home invasion among countless others. Nothing worth reporting. Not that he could fathom how you could care about that asshole’s fate. He’d tried to kill you that night, and from your account of things, you’d barely managed to escape him. It sounded like you genuinely believed he’d have come to finish the job, so the outcome seemed rather black and white to Dex–it was you or him.

And if you asked Dex, he thought you were more deserving of continuing to draw breath.

But that did leave Dex wondering something as he watched you mopping the same spot on your floor over and over. Would you ever discover that your ex was dead? What would happen if you did find out? Would you know that Dex had done it? Would you feel grateful to him, or terrified of him?

It was his fear of you being scared of him that made him keep his distance. He didn’t want to risk losing you.

THURSDAY - 9:37 PM    

Dex had no idea how he’d found himself in this situation. Sex and pleasure were things that rarely ever crossed his mind in his day to day. It was a burden of flesh that he was always far too content to never feel shackled and controlled by. Lust wasn’t exactly something he experienced. He’d certainly had a few hookups in his time, something to relieve his pent up frustrations that desperately needed an outlet, but it’d never quite truly scratched the particular itch that caused the internal buzzing within his mind. It’d never been exactly what he’d been craving as a release. Sex had always felt pointless.

So why the fuck was watching you masturbate having such an effect on him tonight?

You’d forgotten to fully close your curtains when you’d gone into your bedroom a short time ago, and Dex had assumed you were just getting ready to sleep. That’s what you generally did around this time. That was also usually when Dex left his place across the street from yours–shortly after he knew you’d gotten into bed. Except you’d forgotten to turn off your bedroom lights, too. So he’d kept watching you from what he could see through the sliver of curtains in his scope, even if his view initially hadn't been much.

Until he’d caught you laying naked on your bed, holding what was clearly a purple vibrator in your hand. He could only see the lower half of your body, just a section from beneath your navel and to the tops of your thighs, but it was plenty to know what you were doing in your room. He could see the way you were moving the vibrator between your thighs, your hips squirming along the sheets the longer you did. 

Dex wondered if you were watching porn on your phone, or if you were thinking about something in particular. Which made Dex curious to know what was currently running through your mind, a place he could never manage to go no matter how desperately he wished he could. Particularly right now.

But the more he watched and wondered, the more he felt his cock twitching inside of his jeans. The more he tried to figure out what you were thinking about, curious as to what you liked when it came to the inane need for pleasure, the more and more impossible it became to ignore his own erection. Because after merely five minutes of tracking the way your hips danced along the bed as he attempted to imagine what sounds you were making over there in your room, he’d found himself painfully hard. 

With his teeth grit together, he struggled with this unfamiliar, confusing feeling twisting inside of his gut, the one that currently sat beside his increasing agitation at this entire situation. What in the hell were you doing to him? Dex had never been stuck in a position like this before, not even when he’d followed Julie around in the past. Nothing had ever come close to this. He didn’t care about desire. Sexual gratification barely ever crossed his damn mind, but it was becoming so incredibly uncomfortable to keep sitting on the floor watching you while pretending that he wasn’t in need of a release himself. He knew that he’d inevitably have to deal with his own problem.

“Goddamit,” he cursed under his breath.

With one hand he frustratedly tore open the button of his jeans before roughly unzipping them, continuing to watch you through his scope. His only free hand slipped down beneath the fabric of his boxer briefs before he grasped onto the base of his cock. A deep, throaty growl of annoyance vibrated in his throat at what he was about to do, but his irritation began to fade into something else as he began reluctantly stroking himself.  

Exhaling a sharp breath through flared nostrils, Dex continued to watch you through his scope as his hips began to twitch up into his hand. His fingers were wrapped around his length, his hand awkwardly working inside of the confines of his boxers as he tried to get himself off. It wasn’t until he saw your other hand come into his limited view across the street that he started to lose it. Your fingers trailed teasingly along your stomach before dipping lower until they disappeared between your thighs.

So now you were touching yourself, too. 

The sounds of his own ragged breaths filled the empty apartment around him, his hand stroking himself faster. He’d never felt more like a dumb animal than he did at this moment. That would’ve bothered him more if it wasn’t for the fact that this actually felt good for once. He didn’t understand how. He didn’t understand why. But soon he felt his cock throbbing in his hand before his cum came spurting out from the tip of it, landing in warm, thick droplets along his abdomen as a choked groan fell past his lips.

Panting heavily when he’d fully spent himself, he drew the scope away from his eye and glanced down at his lap. His own semen was soaking into the bottom of his dark gray shirt, the giant mess impossible to miss. He hadn’t brought a change of clothing with him, so now he’d have to walk home to his own place with the aftermath of his actions smeared over him. 

Sliding his hand out from his pants, his lips curled back in distaste. He’d rather be covered in someone’s blood–or even his own–instead of proof that he’d found himself no better than the rest of the human population tonight.

FRIDAY - 6:38 PM     

Resting an arm along the bar counter, Dex’s fingers absently tapped a rhythm against the wooden surface. A half-finished beer sat on a wet napkin beside his hand, but it wasn’t the alcohol that’d drawn him out to this bar.

You hadn’t followed your usual routine tonight after you’d finished work. Instead of going home, getting changed into something comfortable, and making dinner, you’d changed into less professional attire, touched up your makeup, and then gone back out.

So Dex had followed you. 

At first, he’d wondered if maybe you’d had a date tonight. Had you already found another asshole to replace the last one? But then he’d realized you were just meeting up with some of your friends for after work drinks. Not that your friends seemed much better than the prospect of watching you go on a date, because they were certainly annoying. The brunette on your left had a particularly grating, high pitched laugh that made him wince every time she let it loose. He imagined throwing countless items in the bar at her throat to shut her up a few times, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He figured you wouldn’t be pleased, and that wasn’t what good guys did.

So he’d done his best to ignore your stupid friend’s laugh and the occasional chatter he overheard from your table. Instead, he sipped at his beer while sitting in the far corner of the bar and watched you. He had the perfect view of where you and your three friends sat at your table, and with how crowded the place was with everyone trying to blow off steam before Fisk’s curfew came into effect for the evening, he was well hidden where he sat. 

Which also meant that you couldn’t see the way his left hand curled into a fist in his lap, his teeth grinding together when he first saw the tall blonde guy interrupt the conversation at your table. He’d gone straight over to you, leaning down towards your chair and invading your personal space. Dex caught the way you’d instinctively shrank away from him at the proximity, clearly uncomfortable with it, but the asshole didn’t seem to notice. 

Dex didn’t like him. This guy clearly couldn’t take a hint. He’d been standing beside your chair for almost five minutes now, and with each minute that passed he kept getting closer and closer to you. When his hand had landed on the back of your chair, Dex had considered throwing his half-empty beer bottle across the room with such force that it would lodge in his temple. He envisioned just how fast it would shut him up, but he could also unfortunately envision the chaos that would ensue. 

Besides, you probably wouldn’t approve of that, either. And he was trying to be a good guy now. Good guys didn’t just kill random men in bars because they were pissing them off. 

“You ready for another, sweetheart?”

Teeth still gnashing together in annoyance, the bartender’s voice unwelcomely cut straight through his thoughts. Keeping his head still trained forward, Dex’s eyes shifted over towards the woman in her mid-forties who looked rather bored herself, then he followed the direction of where her hand had gestured. To his beer that he was considering using as a weapon instead of a drink.

“No,” he answered flatly. “I’m good.”

Her head turned in the direction Dex was looking before it tipped to the side, her gaze studying you and the blonde. “If you’re that interested,” she began, pointing a finger at you, “you should go talk to her before that douchebag kills your chances, hun.”

When her attention returned to Dex, she stiffened at the hard glare that met her. She held up her hands in a gesture of defeat before turning around and heading back down the length of the bar, moving on to serve another patron. Dex’s frustrated gaze slowly returned to where you sat across the bar from him, his rage churning inside of his chest like a surging storm as he saw that bastard still standing there talking to you.

You would not date another piece of shit. Dex would not allow it. Because nothing was allowed to happen to you, not on his watch. He needed to keep you safe, protect you from your horrible choice in men and the ones who you seemed to attract. Including the ones that couldn’t take a fucking hint. That was his purpose now.

The corner of Dex’s lips curled back into a dangerous sneer. He couldn’t kill the dumbass while he was here in the bar completely out in the open. Technically, the guy hadn’t done anything yet, either. But Dex had certainly begun weighing the pros and cons of following him home and dealing with him in private if that asshole’s hand left the back of your chair and managed to touch any part of you. 

Was that your ex at your door? Had he come back to finish what he'd tried to do earlier tonight? Had the man you'd run into on the street, the one who’d only given you the name “Dex,” not actually handled the situation like he'd promised?

Gaze sweeping back to your damaged face in the mirror, your own fear reflected back at you, the panic clear in your eyes. Feeling your breath starting to come in shallower, your now trembling hand slowly lowered down to the countertop of the bathroom vanity before you pushed yourself away from it. 

Padding barefoot and wary across the tiled floor, you stepped out of your bathroom and back into the main living area of your apartment, pausing beside your television sitting on the stand against the wall. Your mind started racing, your thoughts spinning just as fast as your heart hammering inside of your chest. For the third time tonight, you could feel your adrenaline spiking.

But if that was your ex outside of your door, he was being uncharacteristically quiet. Usually when he showed up–even in a good mood–he was shouting through the door at you inside without a care for your neighbors, not standing wordlessly in your hallway. He also didn’t knock politely just a couple of times and stop, he generally pounded his fist against your door impatiently until you answered. Considering what’d happened between you both tonight, you doubted he’d be this calm standing out there.

But who else would be visiting your apartment this late at night if it wasn’t him?

Your tongue slipped out between your dry lips, nervously wetting them as you carefully began making your way through your small living room and towards the door. When you finally reached it, you leaned forward, pressing your palms flat against it as you squinted through the peephole. To your utter surprise, it wasn’t your ex who’d knocked at your door. It was Dex.

Pulling back away from it, you stared at the deadbolt in stunned silence. Why had he come back to your place? What did he want with you? He’d seemed friendly enough when he’d walked you all the way back here a bit ago, and he’d made you feel safer as he searched the apartment building for any trace of your ex on your way up to the third floor. Surely you could trust him, couldn’t you? He’d told you he was one of those vigilantes fighting the task force, that he’d previously been a federal agent, and he had offered to help you out tonight. Maybe he’d just come back because your ex wasn't home. Maybe he'd wanted to make sure that he hadn’t showed up at your door instead, worried over your safety.

Finally coming to a decision, you began undoing the deadbolt before unlocking your door the rest of the way. Swinging it open, you came face to face with Dex standing innocently in your hallway. One of his hands rose, moving almost mechanically in a short, stiff wave.

“Hello again,” he greeted.

You stared at him for a few seconds, still dumbfounded over the fact that he'd returned. Part of you was beginning to fear that something had gone wrong when he'd confronted your ex, that maybe he'd only upset him further and now you were really in for it.

“Hi,” you finally managed, one hand still gripping your door. “I–I didn’t think you would come back. Did something happen?”

A small, tight smile spread over his lips, but you noticed how it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Those same eyes which still held that same, strange calculative look in them from when you’d first met him on the street. But maybe you were reading far too much into it, because you’d certainly endured plenty tonight. You were probably just on edge, trying to see things that weren't really there.

“I just came by to let you know that your ex won’t be a problem anymore,” Dex informed you. “I thought telling you was the right thing to do. So you wouldn’t have to worry.”

Brows rising up marginally onto your forehead, you were shocked at how fast he seemed to have dealt with the situation. It hadn’t taken him very long to leave your place and stop at your ex's. You’d only been back at your apartment for a half an hour, and all you’d managed to do since you’d returned home was change out of your damp clothes and wash the blood from your face before he’d knocked on your door. 

“So he–he got the message?” you cautiously questioned.

Fingers tightening around the door, you held your breath as you watched his smile gradually widen. If he'd really gotten your ex-boyfriend to leave you alone, he'd done more than any NYPD officer ever had for you. You were teetering on the verge of relief waiting for confirmation.

“I don’t think I could’ve made the message any more clear than I did,” he stated proudly. 

There it was again. That weird way in which he spoke that had something itching in the back of your mind, feeling as if there was something not quite being said. But you couldn’t put your finger on exactly what it was or why you felt that way.

“I thought I’d check on you, too,” he added.

His right hand began to raise and your attention immediately snapped down to focus on it, fear shooting through you in a knee-jerk reaction. But the panic that’d been flooding your system quickly started to dissipate when you saw what he’d brought. A first aid kit. Brand new, as if he’d stopped somewhere on his way back to your apartment just to buy it for you. Swallowing hard, you stared at the bright red canvas with the little white cross positioned in the center of it. It looked like one of those really well-stocked ones, not the cheap little plastic ones you’d bought in the past that contained the bare minimum. 

“You–you came back just to check on me?” you awkwardly stammered, staring at the bag in his hand.

Slowly lowering the first aid kit back to his side, you caught the way his expression faltered from your peripheral. Looking back up at him, your brows furrowed faintly together again at the uncertainty that’d suddenly made its way onto his face. His lips had thinned into a straight line, his eyes partially narrowing at a space just over your shoulder as if in thought.

“Should I not have?” he asked. 

“Oh–no,” you answered quickly, shaking your head a few times. “No, I just–just wasn’t expecting another visit. I didn’t think you’d be concerned about my, you know, well-being enough to come back with medical supplies. That was very…thoughtful of you.”

And his thoughtfulness had certainly thrown you. Never had someone paid you that much consideration before. You were used to patching yourself up after one of your exes had gotten upset with you, and you were used to hiding behind lies and makeup to cover up what had actually happened. Having someone go out of their way to make sure that you were alright was completely foreign to you. While he’d still never asked how you were doing, maybe this was his way of showing his concern? 

Dex shrugged a shoulder nonchalantly as he stood in your hallway, and you couldn’t tell if he was downplaying the gesture, or if he truly seemed that indifferent. He was easily the most difficult person to read out of anyone you’d ever met before.

“Seemed like it was part of the process,” he replied. “Do you mind if I–?”

He gestured his free hand in the direction of your face, implying that he’d wanted to come in and tend to your injuries. A sheepish smile slid onto your lips, but your expression immediately shifted into a faint grimace as the gesture caused a sharp stint of pain to erupt in the left side of your face. Gently placing the back of your hand against your swollen cheek, you stepped to the side of your open door and tried to relax the muscles in your face.

“Sure, come in,” you invited him. Blinking rapidly a few times, you attempted to push back the tears now stinging at your eyes from that burst of pain. “I uh, I actually was rather low on things in my own first aid kit.”

Dex made a deep noise in the back of his throat in acknowledgement as he crossed the threshold and sauntered into your apartment. You closed the door after him and turned around, your hand lowering from your cheek as you watched him. He’d taken a few steps into the open living space of your place, standing behind your couch as he openly scanned over the living room and the small kitchen with the little dining table. You felt heat flush in your cheeks, suddenly growing embarrassed at how small and simple the place appeared. 

“It’s not much,” you muttered, almost apologetically.

With his back facing you, you couldn’t quite see his expression as he took everything in. He remained silent for a few seconds longer, still staring at your apartment like he was trying to absorb every detail. But you could feel your unease increasing, as if maybe he was quietly judging you for what he saw.

“It’s very organized and clean,” he commented, sounding almost surprised.  

“Yeah, well I don’t like clutter,” you awkwardly replied, hands fidgeting in front of yourself. “It uh, it puts me in a bad headspace, you know? Seeing things messy and out of place. I don’t like it because–”

Teeth clamping down onto the tip of your tongue, you caught yourself before you could overshare. Like about how you often found yourself in cleaning episodes, scrubbing down every inch of your apartment because of stress and depression. But he didn’t need to know that. He didn't need to know how you maniacally cleaned in order to feel some semblance of order and control in your life.

Slowly turning his head over his shoulder, Dex’s stare met yours again. A muscle jumped in his cheek, feathering a couple of times as he took you in. You shifted uncomfortably on your bare feet, feeling a little more seen than you had in a long time, as if he was somehow peeling back your layers and poking at something deeper.

“I understand,” he stated. “I don't like disorder, either.”

Awkwardly clearing your throat, your gaze drifted back down to the first aid kit in his hand and you remembered why he’d returned to your apartment in the first place. His own eyes followed yours, something flickering across his face as if he’d temporarily forgotten why he was standing in the middle of your apartment, too.

“Should we sit?” you suggested.

You gestured a hand nervously towards the small, square dining table in your kitchen. There were only two chairs tucked beneath it because there wasn’t much room for anything bigger. In answer to your question, Dex nodded once before striding over to one of the chairs, setting the first aid kit down onto the table before taking a seat. You followed quietly after him and awkwardly slid out the other chair, scooting it a bit closer to him so you wouldn’t be on the opposite side of the table.

Dex’s gaze darted over your shoulder as he began to unzip the canvas bag, examining your little kitchen behind you. “You have a lot of plants,” he observed.

His attention returned to the first aid kit when he'd opened it, and you turned your head over your shoulder, glancing back at the kitchen. Behind your kitchen sink sat a handful of potted plants in front of a window. A couple of them were fresh herbs you used in your cooking, but the others were just regular house plants. The corner of your lips twitched into a small smile at them.

“They’re my babies,” you confessed. 

Shifting your attention back to Dex, you felt your cheeks heat even further at the way he was now staring at you. His hands had stopped midway between pulling out bandages and antiseptic wipes, his head canting somewhat to the side as if in confusion.

“Not literally, obviously,” you fumbled to explain. “They're plants. It’s just that they keep me company. My lease doesn’t allow me to have a cat, so I settle for them instead.” 

Another deep, throaty noise of acknowledgement met your explanation, and his eyes flicked back over to glance at your plants one more time before he refocused on his task. He’d gone quiet after that, and you’d fallen silent yourself as you watched him meticulously organize all of the supplies he’d need to clean up the damage your ex had done to your face earlier.

You’d eventually fixated on one of the abstract paintings hanging on the wall behind him once he'd started to tend to your injuries, trying to ignore the tender way his rough fingers held your chin carefully in place as he worked. There was something about his touch that felt like cautious restraint, as if he wasn't used to being this gentle. Strength pulled taut on a leash–not something you were familiar with yourself.

A somewhat comfortable silence had settled between you both as he cleaned out your wounds with the antiseptic wipes before gingerly applying ointment to the various cuts littered across your skin. When he’d finished, he’d started to work on fastidiously bandaging a few of the cuts on your face with butterfly bandages, taking his time as if he'd done this more than once before. 

“How’d you even end up with that asshole?”

His question sliced through the air like a knife, leaving you tense in its wake. Your eyes slowly drifted back towards his face, mouth abruptly growing dry. He was leaning a bit towards you in his chair, his face mere inches from yours as he continued to apply the bandages. But he seemed far more unbothered by the proximity than you were, his focus entirely on his hands.

The question had caught you off guard, not expecting him to ask something so personal, and certainly not so bluntly. Your initial reaction was to deflect it with humor and change the subject, but considering he already knew what’d happened to you tonight, and he’d personally met your ex, there was no point in hiding anything.

“He wasn’t like that at first,” you answered quietly. “They never are. It isn't like you can just…recognize men like him.” Pausing for a moment, your gaze fixed on a spot along his cheek, unable to maintain eye contact as you spoke. “By the time I realized what he was really like, I was already sort of trapped. Fear and manipulation kind of do that to you.”

His fingers stopped where they’d been smoothing a bandage gently over your swollen cheek, his eyes lingering on yours. His brows twitched briefly together, the slightest crease forming and unforming between them as you refused to meet his stare.

“You say that like he’s not the first abuser you’ve dated,” he commented. “Or the first who lost it and tried to kill you.”

His blunt way of speaking caused you to swallow hard, and you fought the urge to squirm in the chair with how quickly he'd read you. You probably should’ve expected him to say something like that, because it seemed as if his straightforwardness was just a part of the way he spoke. He significantly lacked tact.

“He isn’t,” you murmured.

Eyes darting back over his shoulder, you returned to staring at the abstract painting on the wall behind him. It always reminded you of rain on the city streets at night. You scanned over the blues and greens and bits of yellow, attempting to ignore the way he was staring at you like he was trying to pick you apart. 

“That must be hard,” he replied, slow and stiff. “That must be really hard having gone through that more than once.”

Shrugging a shoulder, you tried to brush it off. Just like you always did. Because you kept your actual feelings about all of your horrible exes locked up in a box inside of your mind, and it wasn't a box you ever wanted to rummage around inside. Tonight's experience would also land itself in there, and you'd try to pretend it had never happened just like all the other times you forced yourself to forget.

“My friends say I'm a magnet for guys like that,” you admitted, slightly abashed. “It's a running joke, actually. I've never dated a nice guy. It's always the dangerous ones who find me.”

Dex finished applying the last bandage to your cheek before he slowly sat back, the wooden chair creaking beneath him as his hands finally left your chin and cheek to rest in his lap. Forcing your attention away from the painting, you nervously chanced a glance at him. That calculating and confusing look in his eyes greeted you once more. It had disappeared for the duration that he'd been tending to your cuts, but it was back now. Like he was mulling something over in his mind, and you wondered exactly what that was.

Eventually, you found yourself growing uncomfortable beneath his silent scrutiny, almost like you could feel him inside of your mind digging around in it with his fingers. Not wanting to discuss the topic of your cursed dating life any further, you blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“I was about to reheat up some leftover pizza in the oven,” you said, throwing a thumb over your shoulder towards the kitchen. “I didn't have a chance to eat yet. Do you want some? As like…a thank you for helping me tonight? It's from Vinny's, that place by the laundromat? I have beer, too,” you continued, rambling even more at the sight of the increasingly puzzled look on his face. “Unless you're not done with the good guy thing tonight? I mean, I get it, maybe you need to go do something else. Or, you know, remain sober to fight the bad guys.”

Dex blinked back at you slowly three times, growing very still in his chair. A few seconds dragged by before a smile gradually crawled its way across his face. The sight of it eased the tightness in your chest that you hadn't even noticed was there. It wasn't quite a warm smile, but it reached his eyes along with the hint of amusement now gleaming back at you among the green of them.

“You know,” he began almost smugly, “I'm actually off the clock from being a good guy for the rest of the evening. Guess you could say I met my quota for the night. I wouldn't mind some pizza.”

Going back to your apartment that night hadn’t been out of kindness or thoughtfulness. Dex just thought it was the last step in resolving your problem. In doing the right thing. All he'd intended to do was tell you that you were safe from your ex, and tend to the injuries on your face. He hadn't cared about anything else. 

But then he'd started talking to you. He'd started to notice the little similarities between you both, things that he could find himself relating to, which was unusual for him. He thought he’d gotten a better picture of who you were as you both talked over the pizza and beer afterwards. He’d been stunned that you’d even asked him to stay in the first place, because no one had ever really invited Dex to stay for something so friendly before. But you had. 

You reminded Dex of a flower. Specifically a tulip, he decided. Like the ones during springtime in the park he frequented for his morning runs, the ones he often saw trampled on by the irritating dogs and children stomping through them, not giving a single shit that something was trying to grow there. 

You were far more resilient than you appeared. Apparently you'd also been crushed under the foot of numerous assholes, smashed repeatedly into the dirt over and over just like those flowers in the park. And while you certainly bore the marks and the stains, you hadn’t wilted and withered. You'd endured, just like those damn tulips did every spring.

That was admirable. He liked that about you. You weren't as weak as you'd initially appeared, even if you were a little timid. But that was expected considering your history with abusive ex-boyfriends. He understood how they worked. How they used fear, how they manipulated and twisted your mind, tricking you into believing their lies. Dex could certainly relate to that after what the Fisks had done to him.

It was that history you'd barely touched on that night over a week ago which had led him once more to The Little Crow this Sunday morning. It was a small cafe in Hell’s Kitchen, one located just at the end of the block where your apartment building sat. The black baseball hat on Dex’s head was pulled low, the visor meant to conceal his face where he sat at a small table in the back of the place. He held an issue of The Bulletin in front of himself, opened to one of the articles you’d written in it–and he found it ironic that you were a journalist there. But he was barely reading the paper, his gaze repeatedly flicking over the top of it as his attention remained solely fixed on you.

Sitting alone in the same booth he'd seen you in yesterday morning, your head was ducked low as you read the same book, your face bathed in the honeyed morning glow of sunlight seeping in through the window at your left. Your fingers picked absently at another chocolate croissant in between turning the pages of your book, and you sipped at the same coffee order you'd had every morning that you'd stopped here before work–a cinnamon latte with oat milk and light ice.

You were a creature of habit. Predictable. Following a pattern that Dex had already started to learn. He liked that you were easy to track. 

Dex had begun watching you in those days that had passed since he'd helped you, finding himself struggling with something ever since he left your apartment once you'd both finished the pizza and beer. If his One Good Deed to balance out his past transgressions was to keep you safe, he assumed that would've been accomplished when he'd killed your stupid ex-boyfriend. That should have been the end of it.

But was it? Was that really the extent of it?

You claimed to have a long history of dating pieces of shit just like the dumbass he'd killed. You said that you'd dated other abusive men who'd also hurt you, and that the one he'd killed the other night hadn't been the only one who'd come close to killing you. He could see the truth of your words in your skittish nature and nervous fidgets. Even your friends claimed that you were a magnet for dangerous men, which he admittedly found amusing considering you'd gotten Dex’s interest.

So what happened if you dated another loser? Considering the types of men he'd seen noticing you while you were out over these past almost two weeks–looks you were completely oblivious to–he assumed there was some merit to what your friends had said. You did seem to attract the attention of a certain type of man.

What if you dated another one and they actually killed you this time? Dex had felt a part of himself bristling at the idea the more he watched you, the more he got to know you. He didn't like the thought of someone so kind and sweet falling victim to another scumbag like that. But if you did, would that somehow negate his One Good Deed? 

Would the scales become unbalanced again if you died? Was keeping you alive the only way to keep them balanced? Would saving you the other week have been in vain if someone else killed you in a few months? Two years?

One of his fingers tapped in agitation against the newspaper, his eyes lingering on you from across the cafe. Your fingers delicately tore off another piece of the chocolate croissant, your attention still completely absorbed in your book as you sat entirely unaware of his eyes on you. He watched as you brought the piece of pastry to your lips before popping it into your mouth and chewing.

No, he decided. He couldn't let you date another asshole. You, the kind woman who made the incessant buzzing in his head dull and stop, who ridiculously named her houseplants, who'd told him horrible jokes over pizza and couldn't handle a single beer without getting a buzz. You’d treated him as if he was good. You'd given him a chance. 

You were different. Like Julie had once been.

That's when he'd slowly begun to make sense of it all. You were his One Good Deed. Keeping you safe would have to become his priority now. It didn't matter what he had to do, he'd found his purpose for what was left of his life while he tried to help Murdock take down the Fisks.

It’d stopped raining before you’d found yourself wandering the streets tonight, well aware that you were out past the mandated curfew Fisk had put into place. The fear of being thrown into the back of one of AVTF’s vans and disappearing kept you from paying much attention to the cold, wet material now clinging to your ankles. So did the throbbing in your right shoulder and the stinging cuts scattered across your cheek and chin, the pain of them only made worse by the salty tears trailing quietly down your face.

Keeping your head lowered and your chin tucked to your chest, you hurried down the sidewalk without a destination as you attempted to avoid the police checkpoints. The few others still out on the street passed you by without a care as to whether you were alright, no one bothered by the sight of a lone woman walking the streets while bleeding and crying at nearly ten in the evening. The state of you didn’t even cause a single head to turn in your direction, as if you were entirely invisible to the rest of the city. Just another woman in trouble, no one else’s problem.

Taking another turn when you’d reached the corner, you continued down the sidewalk without any idea of where you were headed. Your apartment wasn’t a safe option tonight because he knew where you lived. Would he be waiting there for you if you returned home? Or would he show up shortly after you’d locked yourself inside of your place, wanting to finish what he’d almost accomplished earlier tonight when you’d tried to finally end the relationship?

You could still feel his hands around your throat, the memory of him crushing your windpipe causing your left hand to absently raise to your neck, fingers gently brushing over the tender spots where his own fingers had dug in and squeezed. He’d meant to kill you this time. To show you that you’d never be allowed to leave him. When your vision had blurred white, your mind sluggish and hazy as you struggled for a breath, you really thought he’d succeed. 

It was only by sheer luck that you’d managed a swift kick right between his thighs with your last vestiges of strength–a cheap shot straight to the balls. But it’d worked, causing him to double over in pain long enough for you to stumble through his kitchen and towards the door of his apartment. Gasping for air and still struggling to see straight, you’d flung the door open and bolted straight for the stairwell. You’d half-tripped, half-sprinted down the two flights of stairs and ran through his apartment building’s lobby without him managing to catch up with you.

But now you were left with another problem. You had nowhere to go where he couldn’t find you, and you couldn’t realistically stay on the streets all night. Not only were you not safe from Fisk’s task force out here, but it wasn’t safe for a woman alone in general to be wandering Hell’s Kitchen at night. Anyone just as bad as your ex could stumble upon you, and who knew how much further of a deep nosedive your night could still take if they did.

With trembling fingers, you gingerly brushed away a few of the tears still slipping down your cheeks, but a sharp hiss of pain passed between your lips. Despite how careful you’d been with your touch, your swollen cheek stung horribly from where his fist had collided with it a few times tonight. 

He hadn’t liked you trying to stand up for yourself for once.

Drawing your hand away from your face, you glanced down at your dampened fingers just as you passed beneath the bright sign of a still open bodega. The gleaming yellow lights overhead illuminated the tinge of red on your fingertips–blood, not tears. You winced at the sight only to feel a sharp jolt of pain sear its way through the left side of your face at the gesture. 

Even if you could get back to your apartment tonight, did you have enough supplies left in your first aid kit to properly clean yourself up? What were you even supposed to tell everyone when you went into work this time? The cuts wouldn’t be entirely healed by Monday morning, and you felt as if you’d run out of excuses to explain away all of the injuries you'd sustained over the past year. You wished you could’ve trusted the police to do something, maybe things wouldn’t have escalated to the point they had tonight if the world worked differently. But they'd proven useless, only exacerbating the tension within your relationship.

Entirely caught up in your thoughts as you continued down the sidewalk, you hadn’t been paying much attention to the rest of the foot traffic braving curfew around you. Just as you’d started to lower your bloodied hand back to your side, someone roughly slammed into your right shoulder. With a startled gasp at the sharp pain lancing itself up your injured arm, you lost your footing and stumbled a few steps towards the street, your shoes accidentally splashing into another puddle. 

More tears bloomed along your waterline in response, your teeth sinking down onto the tip of your tongue in an attempt to quell a cry of pain threatening to burst out of you. Your gaze nervously darted over to the person you’d just ran into, your pulse thundering in your ears. You were terrified that you’d just pissed off the wrong person tonight with your inattentiveness, and your fear felt validated when you locked eyes with the man who’d also stopped dead in his tracks.

He was standing completely still in front of the bodega’s windows, the bright lights behind him casting a harsh glow that accentuated the sharpness of his cheekbones and lit a few cuts along his own face. At first glance you would have found him attractive with his cropped blonde hair and muscular build, but you noticed something a little off in the way his eyes stared back at you. An intimidating, calculative look held you captive like an animal trapped in a snare, your left hand now cradling your injured right arm carefully to your chest.

“I–I’m sorry,” you blurted out the apology. “I–I didn’t mean to run into you.”

It was a knee-jerk reaction by now, apologizing whenever you did just about anything that could've been deemed offensive, so the words easily rolled off your tongue as they had so often in the past. But the stranger remained quiet, his eyes slowly scanning over your tear-streaked face. You imagined your visibly swollen left cheek and the blood smeared on your face wasn’t helping your appearance, but you weren’t certain whether he was staring at you because he was concerned about you, or because you looked like easy prey.

“I’ll pay better attention to where I’m going,” you promised him, the words coming in a rush.

Turning swiftly on your heel, you ducked your head once more and started back off down the sidewalk, your arm still cradled to your chest as you tried to put distance between yourself and him. But you could feel the weight of his stare on your back like the tip of a knife dragging down the column of your spine, and the hair along your forearms prickled. You’d only managed a few steps before he called out, the tone of his voice causing your feet to halt on the pavement.

“What happened to you?”

With your back still facing the stranger, each of your muscles pulled taut at the question while fear and apprehension flooded your system. He was the first one to actually notice you tonight, but he hadn’t hit you with an “are you alright?” or “do you need help?” The edge in his tone didn’t sound much like concern, but rather something strangely close to curiosity. 

Pulling your injured arm closer to your chest, your eyes focused on a particularly deep puddle farther down the street as you struggled to find a response to give him. The green lights of the nearby traffic light reflected off of the water on the road, but with the curfew in effect, there wasn't much traffic at this hour. 

“Were you attacked?” he called out from behind you. “Was it the task force?”

Inhaling a quivering breath, you accepted defeat and gradually turned back around to face the stranger. You noticed with interest that he hadn’t moved any closer to you after you’d walked away, remaining exactly where he’d been standing in front of the bodega. But the second your eyes met, his expression shifted oddly fast. One second he was looking at you with a flat, hard to read stare, and the next, a friendly smile spread over his face as he held up both of his hands in a placating gesture.

The strange look in his eyes hadn’t changed, though.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he assured you. “I’ll even stay right here if that makes you comfortable. But you’re bleeding and crying, and it’s clear someone did something to you. Now, if the task force is nearby–” 

He broke off mid-sentence, his hands gradually lowering back to his sides as his gaze swept down both sides of the street. Quietly watching him, you noticed that he didn’t seem to have the normal reaction to the threat of the task force nearby. Most people spoke about them with clear disdain or fear, but he almost seemed to be searching for them. Like he wanted to find them.

“It wasn’t them,” you told him, the words slipping out before you could stop them. 

His attention fixed back on you and you stiffened, still a bit uncertain about who he was and what he wanted from you. While you highly doubted that he’d believe you if you said you’d fallen down some stairs and obtained your injuries that way, you also weren’t interested in someone trying to force you to a hospital, either. You didn’t have the money to cover what your insurance wouldn’t from an emergency room visit, but if he was going to press the question, telling him the truth was beginning to feel like the only logical option you had here.

His eyes narrowed speculatively at you, his head tipping just a fraction to the side. “Who was it then?”

Still clutching your arm to your chest, your fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt sleeve as you internally debated on how much to share with him. You’d never openly admitted what your ex had done to anyone before, but here you were being put on the spot to tell a stranger. Mouth opening and closing a few times, you struggled to find something to say, but with no believable lie coming to you in the moment, the truth fell right out.

“It was my ex,” you answered awkwardly. “I–I tried to end things, but he…didn’t like that.”

“So he attacked you because he didn’t want you to leave him,” the man clarified.

You hesitated at his completely blunt, straightforward response. Here you were visibly bleeding and shaken up, telling him that you’d tried to end a relationship and gotten attacked over it, yet he still hadn’t even asked if you were alright. He'd offered no words of comfort or sympathy. If anything, he seemed more focused on the situation than your well-being, which was…odd. 

If he had stopped and taken an interest in you because he intended to mug you or assault you, why would he continue to stand here wasting his time talking to you? Because if he genuinely was concerned about you, he certainly wasn't acting in the typical manner of someone showing sympathy. Which left you wondering if there was another reason as to why he was still asking questions, a third reason you couldn't quite grasp.

“And you're out past curfew because you just left him?” he pushed.

“Well, I–I can’t exactly go home,” you sheepishly admitted. When he only stared at you, waiting for more of an explanation, you continued weakly. “Because he knows where I live. And I’m–I’m afraid he’s going to show up if he isn’t already at my apartment. So I can’t go home.”

There was a brief silence after you’d finished where he continued to study you, and you swallowed thickly under the uncomfortable weight of his attention. After a moment the man took two steps in your direction, but when you instantly took a hesitant step backwards on the sidewalk, he abruptly stopped his approach. Both of his hands raised up in the air again in that gesture meant to remind you he meant no harm. The bodega’s sign behind him cast half his face in heavy shadows now, and a part of your brain screamed danger even though he kept trying to assure you that he wouldn’t hurt you. You weren't entirely certain what to make of him, but fear seemed the most reasonable reaction to his presence, especially after the way your night had already gone.

“So are you on your way to a police station then?” he pried, not moving any closer. “Or one of those women’s shelters?”

Lip curling back in distaste, you shook your head as a bitter huff met his questions. You weren’t entirely sure what it was about him that seemed to be drawing forth such extreme candor from you tonight. Maybe it was just the adrenaline still coursing through you after everything you’d already endured with your ex, or maybe you were just sick of hiding the truth now that it was finally out.

“The police don’t do shit to help. Everyone knows that,” you spat, eyes dropping down to your shoes. They were both drenched from all the puddles you’d stepped in while walking the streets, your socks inside of them squishing uncomfortably as you shifted your weight. “And I don’t even have any idea of where one of those shelters is located.”

Your phone had also died about twenty minutes ago, making it impossible for you to even search up the phone number to contact a place like that and find their location. But you had the good sense not to share that information with him. Whoever he was, you didn’t need him to think you were even more defenseless than you already looked as you tried to figure out what he wanted with you.

“I just…wanted to go home,” you quietly finished.

“Maybe I can help.”

The offer took you by surprise, your eyes slowly drifting up from beneath your lashes and landing on his face. That friendly smile had returned to his features again, the one you assumed was meant to be disarming to a lone woman roaming the streets at night. Your stomach gave a nervous twist at the sight of it, but the prospect of help was too hard to entirely ignore. It wasn't as if you had any other options. You couldn’t keep walking the streets.

“Help how?” you cautiously questioned.

His shoulders rose and fell in an easy shrug, his face still half hidden in shadow while the other half was washed in bright yellow. “Sometimes I help people.”

Something seemed left unspoken in that simple sentence and it made you wonder what exactly he meant by it. Whatever it was hung in the air between you both like the evening humidity. With another silence temporarily stretching around you on the nearly empty street, you stood there processing his offer and what it could mean.

Awkwardly shifting your weight between your feet again, you suddenly remembered how he’d almost seemed to be purposely looking for the AVTF after you'd run into him. Something clicked in your mind and you audibly gasped, eyes widening slightly in shock as your head raised to fully meet his stare.

“Are you–” you whispered, voice lowering so that you wouldn’t be overheard as you were struck with understanding, “–are you one of those vigilantes?” You took a few cautious steps towards him, closing a bit of the distance between the pair of you on the sidewalk. “The ones who are fighting against the task force?”

The corner of his lips slowly drew higher at the awestruck question, the smile on his face turning more amused than friendly. For the first time since you’d quite literally run into him tonight, the expression on his features looked genuine, and that helped to ease some of the nerves that'd been churning in your stomach. 

Maybe you were in luck for the first time in your life. None of the vigilantes had ever come to your rescue in all of the time that you'd lived in Hell’s Kitchen. But whoever this man was, he was offering you assistance at a time when you could desperately use it. 

“You could say that,” he answered smoothly. “And I’m going to make things right. I’m going to help you.”

What luck Dex had running into you while he’d been out tonight. 

For the months that’d passed after he’d killed Murdock’s friend and escaped from prison, Dex had been needled by this voice inside of his head telling him that something felt off. He thought he’d have gotten his mind back now that he was finally free, no longer being fed copious amounts of pills to keep him sedated and stupid, and no longer trapped in solitary confinement, but he hadn’t accounted for all of the damn noise inside of his head that’d returned with it.

It wasn’t his conscience, no. Dex didn’t exactly have a fully functioning one of those. He figured it was the ghost of Mercer’s voice still lingering in his mind, his therapist telling him that he needed to find balance again. To try to fix all the shit that the Fisks’ had twisted up inside of his head when they convinced him to do all the awful things they had. 

If only he could've just died in peace when Murdock had tossed him those four stories down. There’d been a handful of times now that Dex should’ve just died in the past, but he hadn’t. He’d spent countless nights stalking the city trying to find a purpose, to make sense of why it seemed like he kept surviving when he knew he shouldn’t still be alive. 

Eventually he’d figured it out.

He knew he needed to right the scales of his life, balance them out a little more to make up for all the things he'd done. Dex initially thought that helping Murdock fight the AVTF and Fisk would be enough, but the noise was still drilling a hole inside of his head. What he was doing hadn’t quieted it down, so he'd begun to think that maybe he needed to find another good deed. Something seemingly more selfless somehow–because killing Fisk was also about exacting his own revenge.

Which was where you had come in.

He honestly hadn’t been paying any attention to you earlier before you’d both collided on the sidewalk, but the abrupt hiss of pain you’d loosed at the impact had caught his attention. People didn’t generally react like that from a rough shoulder bump on the street. But when he’d taken one good look at you, he’d seen a terrified woman staring back at him, one with bloodshot eyes, a swollen, bloodied face, and panic written beneath the tear tracks. He didn’t need his years of experience in the FBI to know that you were in need of help, which was the only reason why he’d even stopped to talk to you. 

And while he’d been talking to you, that's when he realized what he needed to do. Killing your ex-boyfriend to keep you safe would be Dex’s One Good Deed. That would keep you–a stranger he absolutely did not fucking care about, which to him screamed selfless–entirely safe from your ex. You would be able return to your apartment with no more fear of retaliation from the real winner you’d chosen to date.

He would be saving your life. Surely saving the life of a complete stranger would even the scales. That's what Murdock would've done, right? That was what a good vigilante did. Save people.

So Dex had personally walked you back to your apartment, continuing to let you ignorantly think that he was one of the vigilantes being hunted in the city for fighting back–because in a way, he was. But he wasn’t going to correct your thoughts about who he really was since there was no need. Telling you the truth didn’t fit into his plans because the situation was straightforward–he just needed to make sure you were safe. That was all he had to do. That was his One Good Deed. Keep you safe.

After he’d walked you home and checked to make certain that no abusive ex was lurking in the hallway outside of your apartment, you’d willingly given him the asshole’s address. Dex had left you with a promise to help and a charming smile, and whatever you’d made of what he was going to do, he'd left that up to you to imagine.

Now he was slowly ascending the second flight of stairs in your ex-boyfriend’s apartment building stairwell, taking each step one at a time in the dingy, cramped quarters. Having decided to come straight here after walking you home, he figured that he’d take care of the task before something could happen to you and you wound up dead. Because that would ruin everything. He could easily take a half an hour of his evening to walk a few blocks and kill your ex and complete his task.

That was what a good vigilante did.

When he’d reached the top of the stairwell, Dex pushed open the metal door and slipped into the hallway. His eyes scanned over the multiple apartment doors on either side of it, searching for apartment number fourteen. Padding quietly down the outdated tiled floor in his boots, one of the overhead lights blinked in and out, flickering repeatedly as he walked. Outside of the building, the sound of rain beginning to fall once more came muffled through the walls.

Eventually, Dex found apartment fourteen at the far end of the hall on his right–your ex’s place. He turned and stopped in front of it, extending a hand forward and letting it hover over the doorknob. He paused for just a moment, wondering if your ex would be stupid enough to leave his door unlocked, or if he would have to find a way to break the lock to get inside. Grasping the knob, he gave it a firm twist. The door easily gave way and inched right open for him.

So he was an idiot. Just like Dex thought.

Pushing the door open the rest of the way, he casually stepped inside the apartment as if he'd been invited. Dex could hear the faint shuffling of footsteps moving in a room nearby, so he quietly closed the door after himself. It wasn’t like he intended to be here long, but he still had no interest in drawing the attention of the other tenants in the building to what was about to happen here. 

Silently moving through the little entryway towards the kitchen, Dex wasn’t surprised to find a mess. Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink, mail and garbage cluttered the countertops, and a handful of empty beer bottles were scattered about whatever other available surface was left. Papers and bits of food were spread out over the tiled floor, and Dex’s nose scrunched in distaste at the chaotic disorder.

How did men like these attract women in the first place?

“Who the fuck are you?”

Realizing that your ex had finally noticed that he wasn’t alone in his apartment anymore, Dex’s attention turned away from a precariously stacked pile of overdue bills and focused on the asshole he’d been looking for. Upon a quick once over, he noted the man was tall and carried some strength in his build, and he supposed he held some semblance of society’s conventional idea of attractiveness, but he looked so much like the stereotypical abuser with his messy hair, stained white wife-beater tank top, and the pungent reek of beer that he wanted to roll his eyes.

“I think the better question is, what the hell did your ex ever see in you?” Dex countered. He gestured a mocking hand at the man who swayed on the spot as he added, “Who the hell looks at you and thinks ‘that’s the guy I want to be with’? I don’t get it.”

A myriad of amusing emotions passed over his face right before Dex’s eyes. Initially, the man's expression briefly went blank, but then he became momentarily confused as he tried to process Dex’s insult in his inebriated mind. Afterwards, as if it had taken his few brain cells a minute to finally rub together and start working, his features eventually twisted into something furious. 

“So the slut is fuckin’ you, you little shit?” he snapped, jabbing a finger in Dex’s direction. His voice rose a few octaves as a vein grew visible in his neck. “That’s what’s goin’ on? The stupid fuckin’ bitch was sleepin’ with you, wasn’t she?! That’s why she was saying all that shit tonight ‘bout ending things. ‘Cause you’ve been fuckin’ my girl, is that it?”

Standing by the kitchen sink, Dex found himself already tired of this entire confrontation. He hadn't come here to talk, he'd come here to solve your problem. 

From across the kitchen, your ex let out a bitter, humorless laugh as he stumbled a few steps towards Dex, and the scent of his sour, rank breath crossed the small distance between them before hitting Dex right in the nose. Unable to find the patience to deal with him any further, Dex reached onto the kitchen counter and grabbed one of the beer bottle caps discarded on it. He couldn’t stand here in this filthy apartment smelling this asshole’s breath for longer than necessary.

“After I’m done with you,” your ex continued in a rage, his finger still jabbing the air in Dex’s direction, “I’m gonna go to her place and–”

He broke off mid-threat, swaying once more unsteadily on his feet beside his refrigerator. His mouth went slack and his brows drew faintly together, right beneath the cap-sized hole now situated in the center of his forehead. A trickle of blood trailed down from the wound as his eyelids fluttered faintly, then he toppled forward with a heavy thunk, falling face first onto the dirty, paper strewn floor of his kitchen right at Dex’s feet.

Looking down at the now lifeless body, Dex let out a long, apathetic sigh. “Did you have to be such a fucking cliche?”

With a shake of his head, Dex casually stepped around the man's dead form that lay limp on the kitchen floor and headed back out the way he'd come in. He didn’t need to waste another second in this dirty apartment. 

His task was almost finished now. With your ex dealt with, he figured he would need to return to your apartment and share the good news that he would no longer be bothering you. Maybe he'd even grab a first aid kit on his way back to your place and check on your injuries, just for an extra measure of doing the right thing. 

Irritated at the waste of time and frustrating loss of sleep, especially since you had work in the morning, you shoved your phone away from yourself along the nightstand in annoyance. With an exasperated huff, you grabbed the sheets and finally flung them off of yourself before sitting upright in bed. As a resigned breath passed from between your lips into the darkness, you turned and placed your feet along the floor. Maybe if you gave up on quieting your mind and gave into the odd craving you currently had for orange juice, you might have more luck falling asleep afterwards.

Padding barefoot out of your bedroom, you shuffled down the hall and towards your kitchen while rubbing a hand against your tired eyes. You wore nothing but an oversized shirt and a pair of panties beneath it since today had been an unseasonably warm day for mid-spring, making it far too warm to sleep dressed in multiple layers. You’d wondered if it was the heat in your apartment causing you to struggle to fall asleep tonight, rolling back and forth in an attempt to get comfortable. Though you knew that if you were being honest with yourself, that wasn’t really the reason.

Flipping on the lightswitch as you stepped into your kitchen, you squinted at the abrupt harsh light that flooded your apartment. Dragging your tired feet over the worn wood floor, you walked over to your fridge as thoughts of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen began to flood your mind again.

You were certain your offer to become friends with benefits had been the cause of the sudden ending to your unexpected friendship with the Devil. Nearly three weeks had passed since that night you’d suggested the idea and you still hadn’t seen him since. You continued filling the Devil’s Pantry for him every single night with snacks, bottles of water, and simple medical supplies, faithfully intending to keep him fed, hydrated, and safe. Yet every morning when you pulled the container back inside, it was clear that he hadn’t stopped by your place. Nothing had been touched. 

It’d been over a month and you'd only had that single encounter with him, the one in which you’d opened your big mouth and permanently sent your favorite stray back out into the night. There was no mistaking what his absence meant–whatever had been going on was over. You’d gotten too close to him, pushed too hard for something he’d made clear that he wasn’t going to give, and now he was gone. Your life had returned to being the same boring, monotonous thing that it’d always been, and you cursed the snowstorm which had brought the Devil into your world in the first place.

You grabbed the jug of orange juice out of your fridge and closed the door before turning and taking a few steps further into your small kitchen. Reaching your free hand up, you opened a cabinet and pulled out a black coffee mug, too tired to care about grabbing an actual glass. You set it down on the counter and untwisted the cap on the jug. Tipping the container over the cup, you filled it about halfway with orange liquid before screwing the lid back on. 

After returning the orange juice back to the fridge, you picked up the ceramic cup and brought it to your lips, sipping at the sweet, tangy juice. Your aching, tired eyes slowly lowered shut as you leaned forward, resting your forearms along the kitchen counter and stretching your back. Your mind temporarily went blissfully blank amidst the quiet of your apartment and the relative calm of the city so early in the morning, but you were still left with that heaviness lingering in your chest.

This was your life again. Working Monday through Friday at a boring, thankless office job and staring at a computer screen all day every day. Coming home to change into comfortable clothes before making dinner and eating it while having no one to share the details of your day with. You spent your nights watching television shows and movies cuddling pillows on the couch before eventually crawling into your big bed only to fall asleep alone. Then you woke up to do it all over again. Sometimes on the weekends you’d meet up with friends for a bit, or go out to run errands, or curl up with a book on your couch, but otherwise your life was just a string of the same things repeating themselves over and over. 

You’d been content with the way things were until you’d met the Devil. Now everything seemed so bleak and mundane, and you'd come to realize exactly how lonely you'd been beneath all that routine. The thrill of getting an unexpected visit while you were cooking dinner or beginning to fall asleep on the couch always had you rushing to get home after work, trying to put yourself together just for the Devil. And whenever he did visit, you replayed that brief encounter over and over in your head until he slipped back through your window again another night. 

You had inevitably fallen into like with the Devil. Not love, certainly not that. But feelings definitely placed themselves into the equation against any level of reason. Which was strange considering you technically didn’t know much about him. Though you supposed that while you didn’t know his name, his career, or what he looked like beneath the mask, you had gotten to know the deeper parts of him. 

You knew the Devil had a big heart which encompassed the entirety of Hell’s Kitchen, and you knew that he was fearless and headstrong, still running out into the night to protect the city even with the possibility of multiple broken ribs. He was selfless to the point that he never properly took care of himself, and you were positive that he spent his nights with only the company of criminals. You knew he could throw himself off your fire escape and be just fine, and you knew beneath all that grit was a witty, charming man who made you laugh. 

During his last visit, he’d made it clear that he didn’t harbor any feelings for you and that all he felt was purely attraction. But at this point, you’d take whatever you could get if it meant he'd return to your fire escape. You’d find a way to be content with only his battered body and a few random nights of pleasure if that’s all he’d share with you, because there was no denying the intense attraction that drew you to him. He plagued your thoughts all day at work before haunting your dreams most nights.

You missed him.

With your eyes still closed, you continued sipping at the juice in your mug, still hunched over your kitchen counter. Running your other hand across your forehead, the tips of your fingers pressed firm circles into the space between your eyes. You really hoped the orange juice would somehow magically quiet your thoughts, otherwise you’d be miserably exhausted at work all day tomorrow from not getting any sleep. 

“I don’t know how many times I've said this, but you really should keep your window locked.”

Your entire body tensed at the deep, familiar voice suddenly behind you, your fingers pausing their circles against your forehead. The saliva in your mouth dried instantly, leaving your tongue parched and heavy where it sat. You were too afraid to open your eyes and turn to look behind you, not entirely certain if you’d reached a new low and begun hallucinating the Devil or if he was actually here after weeks of his continued painful absence. 

A long, weighted silence engulfed your apartment as you stood half-slouched against the counter, so uncertain whether he was real that you were barely breathing. The longer the quiet stretched on, the more you’d started to convince yourself that you hadn’t actually heard him, your mind beginning to play tricks on you. Until he spoke again and your fingers tightened around the handle of your mug.

“Suppose I deserve the lack of greeting,” he mused, his voice sounding closer now. “I haven’t exactly checked in with you in awhile.”

Sucking a deep breath into your lungs and holding it, you opened your eyes and braced yourself. But as you stared at the dark tile backsplash on the wall in front of you, you weren’t entirely certain what you were bracing yourself for. A fight? Him returning only to officially end the friendship? To turn around and realize you were hallucinating disembodied voices now? Or to brace yourself against the hope that you felt tickling its way through you because he’d returned, and that meant maybe you might not have scared him away as permanently as you'd believed.

“Angel?” he hesitantly called out. “You're uncharacteristically silent tonight. Usually when I stop by you have plenty more to say.”

Exhaling the breath you’d been holding, you let go of the black ceramic mug and turned around to face him. But seeing him actually standing there merely three feet away had you stumbling backwards into the counter behind you. The Devil was not only really here, but he was standing so very, very close to you. You attempted to swallow the lump forming in the back of your throat, but your mouth was far too dry to accomplish the task.

Your eyes began roving over him in a rush as if you were taking stock of him, committing him to memory after the weeks that’d gone by without him. His face was still mostly covered with that ridiculous black fabric which was always pulled down to just past the tip of his nose, leaving his beautiful full lips and that angular jaw covered in delicious dark stubble visible. You had forgotten exactly how tight his black shirts were, clinging to him in a way which further accentuated each of his muscles beneath the dark fabric. While you had never forgotten just how well he filled out those black pants from that time you'd pulled him out of them, you had forgotten the way they seemed to strain at the seams on the sides because of how thick his thighs were. Noticing that little detail again had your heart thundering in your own ears. 

But besides all of that, he looked entirely fine. There was no sign of limping or bleeding, no reason as to why he might’ve disappeared for weeks. Not that you hadn’t already heard him featured in multiple news stories in the days that'd passed since you'd last spoken with him. You knew he was still venturing out into the city at night, he just hadn't ventured to see you.

The Devil’s covered head tipped to the side, his lips curving downwards at the corners. You realized you’d just been standing there staring at him in your kitchen for a long, drawn out minute without having said anything yet. But instead of feeling embarrassed or uncomfortable, the question that had been scratching at your mind ever since that last time he’d flung himself over the railing of your fire escape flew off your tongue.

“You disappeared for weeks. Why?” you demanded.

His lips pursed in response, a few of his fingers twitching at his sides inside of his black gloves. Another silence dragged itself out between you both, and you continued to grow increasingly aware of just how close he stood to you in the kitchen. Leaning further back against the counter behind you, feeling the edge of it press into your lower back, you tried to maintain your distance as if that would somehow help contain the tumultuous onslaught of emotions now coursing through you just from seeing him again. 

“I thought it was for the best,” he finally answered. “I was afraid you might be getting attached, and I can’t exactly have attachments. Not doing all of this.” He raised a gloved hand, gesturing it at his chest and implying his nightly vigilante activities. “I’m not the guy you should be interested in, angel. So I thought it would be better if I stopped intruding on your evenings and gave you space, but–.”

“It wasn’t better,” you shot back, cutting him off. 

The words had come out a bit harsher than you'd intended, so you paused, pressing your lips firmly together while you took a second to rein in your emotions. Telling him off would probably just send him back out onto your fire escape, and that was the opposite of what you wanted.

“I thought we’d become friends after all those times I helped you,” you tried again, managing to keep your tone even. “I thought you would have at least given me some sort of an actual goodbye instead of just ghosting me if you weren’t planning to come back.”

The corner of his lip twitched, guiltily tugging to the side. “You're right, we did become friends over these past few months,” he agreed softly. “And I’m sorry for my absence. I shouldn’t have just disappeared on you like that, but I wasn't necessarily intending to never come back.”

It wasn’t much of an apology, especially considering this wasn't the first time he'd disappeared on you after your strange friendship had begun, yet you couldn’t deny the way the frustration and hurt began to ease its way out of you. He was acknowledging his actions at least, and maybe he was truly sorry. He certainly sounded like it. While it still upset you that he’d just ignored you for weeks, not even leaving you a note or stopping by to take something from the Devil’s Pantry which you dutifully set outside solely for him every single night, you couldn’t deny how elated you were that he’d simply returned to you.

But that begged the question as to why he was here tonight.

“So what brought you back then?” you asked, brows furrowing together. “I thought what I said last time freaked you out after you stopped visiting. It's been weeks since I've seen you, why show up now?”

The Devil took a half step closer to you, shrinking the already small distance between you both, and your reaction was immediate. Your pulse sped up, your heart thudding like a drum inside your chest as he drew even closer. The remaining space between your bodies grew thick and heated as something settled in it, something that had your stomach dipping anxiously as if you’d just jumped over the railing of your fire escape yourself. 

The Devil's heavy boots came to an abrupt halt along the floor, his lips twisting into a grimace as his hands curled into fists at his sides. You wondered what that was about, curious to know if he could somehow feel that same tension in the air that you did.

“I came because of what you said last time,” he admitted, sounding oddly pained. “I've been…wanting to know if you really meant it.”

Your heart gave a sharp, unexpected jolt as if it could somehow fling itself from your chest at him, so you grabbed onto the counter behind you to steady yourself. Had he really just spent all this time thinking about your offer of sleeping together? Conflicted over it for weeks instead of being completely put off by the idea? Was that why he'd disappeared for so long? Because he’d actually been considering making that sort of arrangement with you?

“You mean about being friends who are sometimes more than that?” you hesitantly clarified.

“Yes,” the Devil answered. 

He took another half-step closer to you, and you swore every nerve-ending in your body sparked to life. His tongue slipped out between his lips, making you acutely aware of how you were currently dressed right now–in just the oversized shirt and panties. Panties which were quite honestly growing a bit damp with the way you could feel him staring at you beneath that mask.

“Do you truly think that's something you could do?” he questioned huskily. “The physical without anything more than friendship? Especially with someone you know so little about?”

“I told you I already know enough about you,” you replied. You’d caught the breathlessness of your own voice, his proximity having a strong effect on you considering the topic of conversation. “I know enough about your character even without your name. I imagine you could say the same about me.”

He shook his masked head from side to side slowly, taking another step closer as he did. There was less than a foot of space left between your bodies now, and you could smell the sweat and the city on him. Your hands curled tighter around the kitchen counter behind you, nails digging into the stone as you leaned against it, fighting the growing lightheadedness as your breaths came in sharper.

“That wasn’t what I asked,” the Devil pointed out. “I asked if you could do the physical and only accept my friendship in return.”

It was impossible not to stare at his lips with him standing as close as he was, your eyes drawn to them when he'd spoken, watching the way they formed each word. Your breathing was coming in short and embarrassingly ragged, and you were certain he could hear the way it’d changed.

Something about the Devil had you constantly wanting more from him. More nighttime visits, more conversations, more touches with or without the gloves, more personal facts accidentally slipping out of his beautiful mouth. You wanted more than friendship because you'd certainly gone and developed feelings for him, but that wasn't what he was offering. 

If it was a choice between friends who fucked or nothing at all, you knew the answer. You'd shove down every scrap of feelings you felt for him if it meant he kept climbing through your window at night. And if you got to have just a fraction more of him in the process, you were willing to deal with the emotional fallout later. Maybe all it was between you two was sexual attraction in the end, just like he'd said before.

“Yes,” you told him. “I can handle it.”

Which was true, because you knew that was the only way you'd ever keep the Devil. And right now, you’d have agreed to anything to make that happen.

His head tipped to the side as he fell into quiet contemplation, apparently mulling over your response. You remembered once that he’d mentioned he could tell when people were lying, and you wondered if he was somehow using that ability on you now, however the hell it worked.

While he stood silent, your eyes dropped to the line of his jaw. It was even more exposed beneath the overhead light in your kitchen with the way he’d tipped his head to the side, and you desperately wanted to run your tongue along the length of it. You wanted to taste his skin, to feel the sharp rasp of his stubble, and to hear what sounds he might make. You wanted to twist your fingers into the little brown hairs that peeked out beneath the back of his mask and kiss him until you couldn't breathe.

Having grown so absorbed in the fantasy playing out in your head, your stupid mind only making you more aroused than you already were seconds ago, you were taken by surprise when the Devil abruptly moved. A startled gasp slipped out of you the moment he lunged forward, his rough gloves grabbing onto either side of your face. He closed the remaining distance without warning, and his impossibly soft and warm lips crashed onto yours before your brain had a second to comprehend what was happening. 

It took you a moment to register that he was kissing you, that after months of fantasizing about this exact scenario, the Devil was finally kissing you. Your hands released the counter and grabbed onto the thin fabric of his shirt along his chest, your fingers twisting into the dark material. Moving your lips against his, you kissed him back with the hungry determination you’d been holding back for months. Every part of you became hyper-aware of the Devil, because for once you were touching him and it wasn't with the sole intention of helping him. 

You could feel the hard planes of muscle beneath your palms, the muscle you’d known was there because you'd seen it before, but now you didn't have to hide how incredibly attracted you’d always been to him. So when he took another step forward and pressed himself against you, trapping you between him and the counter, all of the blood in your veins rushed to a singular point between your thighs. His solid chest brushed against your peaked nipples poking through the thin cotton of your shirt, and you audibly moaned at the sensation. Seizing the opportunity, the Devil’s tongue slid right into your mouth, his gloved hands still firmly holding your face steady in his grip. 

With each sensual lap of his tongue against yours, you could feel a bulge straining against the front of his pants. Fingers still tangled in the fabric of his shirt, you reacted without thinking as his erection pushed into your thigh. Your hips bucked forward against his, desperate for more contact–for more of him. But instead he abruptly broke away from your lips with a long, deep groan of pleasure as if somehow it was all too much, and you swore the sound lit your body on fire. 

You stared at his kiss swollen lips beneath the harsh lighting of your kitchen, your breath coming in ragged, harsh bursts. Not quite ready to have ended such a heated moment, you inched forward towards him, eager to continue what had been easily the hottest kiss of your life, but you were stopped as the Devil’s hands fell away from your face and he took a partial step backwards.

“Wait,” he hoarsely ordered. His own chest rapidly rose and fell as if he was struggling to catch his breath, one of his hands raising in the space between you. “We should–should discuss things first. Boundaries.”

Still utterly breathless from the kiss, the air rushed in and out between your parted lips. You felt as disheveled and undone as the Devil currently looked, his shirt rumpled and his cheeks flushed. Your panties were noticeably wet, something that was impossible to ignore now. So was the throbbing between your legs that was beating in sync with your pulse. 

He huffed out a breathy laugh while nodding his head. But as the grin lingered on his lips, you caught the hard swallow with the bob of his throat before he turned, moving with barely a sound in his heavy boots as he navigated through your kitchen and headed straight towards your couch. Disappointment crept through you, his retreat the equivalent of someone spraying you with a garden hose. Talking was the last thing you were in the mood for after that frenzied kiss you'd both just shared, but you followed after him anyway. Somewhere in your lust-filled mind you knew he had a point, there were details to discuss if this were to work. 

“Boundaries,” you repeated. “That–that makes sense. If we’re, you know, doing this.”

“If we are doing this,” the Devil began, voice still tight as he settled onto the couch, “then I need to set some rules.”

“Rules, right,” you agreed breathlessly, making your way through your kitchen. The abrupt switch from wanting to tear through his clothes with your nails to needing to discuss boundaries for this ‘relationship’ had your head spinning. “I can do rules.”

“Even if that means my mask can never come off?” the Devil questioned.

“Maybe I’ll develop a mask kink,” you teased back, bare feet padding towards him. “Or maybe I already have one.”

As you stepped around the side of the couch, about to make your way to sit down beside him, you were caught off guard when he leaned forward. His hand shot out and latched onto your wrist, gently yet firmly tugging you towards him. You stumbled forward a step, letting him guide you down onto what you assumed would be his lap, but instead he settled you down to straddle one of his thighs. 

You became exceedingly aware of the length of thick muscle along the top of it, the thin layer of your damp panties not creating much of a barrier between your aching cunt and that heavenly muscle. Your traitorous pussy clenched around nothing as you sat there, silently begging for you both to shut up already and give into the desire burning through you. As if the Devil could feel your impatience, his hands roughly landed on your hips as a throaty hum rumbled in his chest, the sound vibrating through your entire body before heading straight to your cunt.

“You know I can’t ever give you my name, either,” he continued in a lower, huskier tone. “I need to remain anonymous.”

Placing your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself, you felt his gloved fingers digging into the flesh of your hips through your shirt. He nudged you slightly forward along his thigh, dragging your cunt over him just enough. The sweet, delicious friction that resulted elicited the softest whine from your lips and you visibly quivered. The Devil’s grip tightened even further on your hips, his nostrils flaring sharply beneath his mask.

“We don’t–dont need names,” you whispered.

Another low, pleased noise vibrated deep in the back of his throat. He tipped his head back against the back of your couch, staring up at you from beneath the mask as one of his hands released your hip, gliding up the top of your thigh before disappearing beneath your shirt. The coarse material of his glove dragging its way tantalizingly slowly over your ribs caused the muscles in your stomach to twitch. 

“This can only ever be sex,” he stated.

Your eyelids fluttered as his hand continued moving further upwards, teasing you with its unhurried pace until it inevitably came to palm your breast. He cupped the weight of it in his hand, the corner of his lips curving upwards as you involuntarily shifted along his leg. The hand on your hip urged you to move against him again, causing sparks of heat to dance under your skin as he encouraged you to grind along his exceptionally solid thigh.

“I have a feeling tending injuries and–and feeding you might also be involved in this arrangement,” you murmured, half-distracted from the conversation by pleasure. 

The softest chuckle tumbled past his lips as he looked up at you, a cocky smirk playing along them. “Then I suppose you should get your fair share out of this arrangement too, angel.”

His voice was a low purr that had your eyelids falling shut and your nails digging into his shoulders. Your body started moving in a rhythm all on its own, your hips rocking back and forth along his thigh as the hem of your shirt rode higher up your legs with the movement. The ridge of his thick quad was perfectly slotted between your thighs, allowing you to grind yourself along him at the exact angle that already had your stomach knotting up in pleasure. 

Everything else melted away as you straddled his thigh chasing after something to soothe the ache you felt for him between your own. It no longer mattered that he’d been gone for weeks, or how hurt you’d been over his silence, or that it was incredibly late and you were absolutely exhausted and needed to sleep. You’d never felt so good before and you weren’t even fucking him yet. Because there was something there between you both, something that made your pulse pound and your brain go hazy, something that you’d never experienced before.

“Is this what you think about when I'm not around?” he asked.

As your eyes gradually fluttered back open, you were met with the view of the Devil still casually watching you. His lips were parted as his hand beneath your shirt continued kneading your breast. Beneath the black mask, his cheeks were still somewhat flushed, and you could feel the tension in his shoulders beneath your palms, as if all that dangerous power was being held back while he let you ride his thigh.

“Yes,” you breathed out. “This and…other things…”

Releasing your grip on his shoulder, you dragged your nails softly down his chest, letting them skip over his belt buckle. But the second you palmed the tented fabric of his pants, the Devil’s teeth clamped together and a sharp hiss of air passed through them as he arched against the couch. Your tongue slid out, wetting your lips in delight at his reaction to simply being touched. You wanted more of it, so your hand inched upwards towards his belt buckle with every intention of freeing him from the confines of his pants so that you could take care of him.

But when his hand left your hip to abruptly grasp your neck, you froze in place beneath his grip. Your hips stuttered to a stop along his thigh as your hand lingered on his belt buckle, wondering if somehow undressing him was crossing one of his boundaries. While he wasn’t gripping you hard enough to choke, he'd certainly grabbed you with enough pressure to feel his gloved hand pressing against your windpipe. 

The Devil gave a single shake of his head. “No. Not tonight,” he said. “Only this.”

There was something laced in those few words that felt like a warning. Apparently sex wasn’t on the table tonight, and while you were moderately disappointed that you’d have to wait even longer for that, you could hardly remain disappointed when his hand beneath your shirt pinched your nipple, rolling it between his fingers.

“Keep going,” he ordered. “You’re not finished until you come on my thigh, angel.”

You needed no further encouragement, your body once more resuming its motion along his leg. His hand remained wrapped around your throat though. The pressure was not enough to restrict your airflow, but it caused little white spots to appear in the corner of your vision. 

Being choked by the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had a thrill tingling its way up your spine. How many men had been strangled by these exact hands? And now here he was holding himself back with you. He could squeeze just a little more, press his fingers into the delicate skin of your neck hard enough to block your breath until you passed out like he’d no doubt done countless times with so many others, but you trusted him completely. Because you knew the Devil wouldn’t cross that line with you.

And the thought of that had you panting and whimpering on him in a matter of minutes, your slick panties leaving wet stains along the top of his dark pants. You could feel yourself inching closer to a release, your stomach tightening with each roll of your hips as you rutted against him like a pathetic, single-minded animal. 

“That’s it, angel,” he husked. “You’re turning into such a mess for me.”

With one hand braced against his shoulder, nails digging into him so firmly that you were surprised you hadn’t torn his shirt, your other hand was curled over the top of his pants, palm flat against his belt buckle that he'd stopped you from undoing. Your thighs were trembling around his as pleasure surged its way through your body like a wave cresting against the shore, and you ground against him until finally reaching your breaking point. 

Your head tipped back over your shoulders, your eyes clamping shut as a low moan barreled straight out of your mouth, the sound vibrating against his palm. His fingers tightened around your neck as you came on his thigh, your entire body quaking with pleasure. You thought you heard a throaty groan rumble out of him, but your brain was too muddied to know for certain.

Shuddering against him, your hips eventually slowed to a stop, your panties significantly damper than earlier. You were breathing hard, your heart pounding in your chest like a battering ram. Eventually the Devil released your neck from his hold, his hand finding its way back to your hip to steady you on his leg as his other reluctantly ceased toying with your nipple beneath your shirt. Still loudly gasping for air, your head rolled forward and your gaze landed back on him, catching the rather smug smile beneath the hard line of his mask.

“What’s–what’s that look for?” you breathed out.

“You have absolutely no idea how beautiful you sound to me, angel,” he murmured.

His hand lightly patted your hip, the smug smile remaining drawn across his lips. Your brows dipped together in confusion as you stared down at him, heat creeping its way up your neck. Was he talking about the sounds you’d just been making when you’d come? You’d never been complimented on that before. What another odd thing for him to say. But you were far too tired now to question much about his strangeness as your body began to slump forward against his.

“Think I should get you to bed,” the Devil teased. “Seems like you’re up well past your bedtime, angel. I don’t think my visit helped with your energy levels.”

“Mmm,” you hummed back, leaning forward towards him and wrapping your arms loosely around his neck. “On the contrary, Devil, I think your visit helped tire me out so that I can finally fall asleep.”

Simply because you could–and because once wasn’t enough tonight–you leaned in the rest of the way and pressed a kiss to his lips. He returned it, though this time it wasn’t as heated as when he’d cornered you in your kitchen. This kiss was softer and slower, with something almost sweet and hesitant about it. When you pulled back, you smiled down at where you thought his eyes were hidden beneath his mask.

“You sure you’re good tonight?” you asked. “So far this arrangement seems a bit uneven.”

His lips quirked into a mischievous grin, and you fought the urge to lean back down and keep kissing him. That was going to be difficult to stop doing now that you’d been allowed to start.

“I’ll collect what I want next time,” he promised you. “But you sound far too exhausted and I’m sure you have work in the morning, so I think this is where I see myself out and let you get to bed.”

Reluctantly disentangling yourself from his thigh, you maneuvered yourself off his lap and stood back onto your feet, readjusting the oversized shirt that had ridden up. The Devil pushed himself up from the couch after you, and while you weren’t certain in the dim lighting that reached the living room from your kitchen, you thought you saw a damp patch not just on his thigh but also near his zipper. Maybe the Devil had enjoyed himself more than you’d realized.

“So is this how it’s going to be now?” you asked curiously, watching him readjust his pants as he headed towards your window. “We fuck and then you disappear from the fifth floor?”

The Devil slid open your window before he paused, his masked face turning over his shoulder towards you. “Tehcnically we haven’t done that yet,” he pointed out. “But sometimes I suppose that’ll be the case. I’m usually on the go. Things are always happening in the city. And since this isn’t anything more than just two friends who’re attracted to each other, we shouldn’t make it anymore complicated than that.”

“Right,” you agreed, nodding your head. “Just…two friends who want to fuck each other. Really badly.”

His grin grew wider before he tipped his head at you. “Goodnight, angel.”

Before you could say more than a goodnight in return, he turned and slipped out onto your fire escape through the open window. He closed it after himself before walking over to the railing, grabbing it in both of his hands and then gracefully flinging himself over it just like he’d done so many times before.

“I can definitely do uncomplicated,” you told yourself, staring at the place he’d just been standing outside, fingers toying with the hem of your shirt. “That absolutely will not be a problem.”

Livia hadn’t planned on going out. She didn’t feel quite herself so she didn’t believe herself to be part of her friend group, at least not in the way she used to be.

She’d only been back from the Blip for a few months. In that time, both her and Matt had been in and out of the social circle, what with her running off to help Yelena and sending him off to California. Neither seemed able to sit and talk to the other, which was just fine by Livia. She didn’t want to address the new skeleton in her closet anymore than the next person.

But then there was Foggy…

Foggy did everything in his power to keep Livia’s head out of the sand. He looped her into conversations, sent June to relay a message when she didn’t answer, dragged her chair away from her desk when he wanted her input. Franklin Nelson refused to be shut out during Livia’s spiral.

It was nice.

So when he insisted they all go to Josie’s after work, how could she say no?

Foggy took up a seat at the bar with June. Livia still had a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that June was an adult and now legally able to drink. She kept wanting to snatch the glass of liquor out of her hands and replace it with soda or apple juice, but it made her laugh to see her wince and cough as she drank it.

Livia was seated at the table with Matt and Karen. She had one leg propped up on Matt’s lap as she swirled her drink. Matt had a hand on her knee, tapping some beat only he knew. She still wanted to reach out, to lace their fingers together, but she refrained.

She still wasn’t sure where they stood. He was keeping something from her, same as June. The two seemed to be getting along better since they got back from California, despite June’s tantrum, but there was still a rift. Whatever was between them, however, paled in comparison to the chasm Livia felt between her and Matt.

It was just enough like old times, which should’ve been a comfort to Livia. Instead it was salt in the wound.

Karen and Matt didn’t seem to miss a beat. Livia would have to be blind to miss it. It was moments like that where she wished she was, wished she didn’t have to be so privy to everyone’s emotions. She wanted to trade her mindwork for any other kind some days, or even trade it away in its entirety.

Accepting it wasn’t possible, she downed the rest of her drink. Maybe a buzz would take her out of it enough to stop thinking.

At some point in the conversation, Matt realized she was stuck in her head. He leaned in, squeezing her knee lightly for her attention.

“Yes?” Livia tilted her head towards him. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“I could tell.” He gave half a smile. “What are you thinking about?”

She gave a tight, forced smile. “Nothing.” She adjusted in her chair, withdrawing her leg. “I’m gonna get a refill. You guys need one?”

“No need.” June announced and came over Livia’s shoulder with four glasses. She plopped into the open chair between Livia and Karen. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Well hello.” Karen laughed.

“Got so bad I had to leave.” June pulled a face. “Foggy does not have the game for Kirsten McDuffie.”

Livia laughed as she picked up her refill.

Matt gasped dramatically. “Don’t you dare!” He feigned offense. “Don’t underestimate our Foggy.”

“I don’t know.” Livia agreed. “Didn’t he try the moves on you way back when?” Livia pointed to Karen.

She tilted her back to laugh. “Oh, I forgot about that!” Karen grinned.

“I wonder where he learned it from.” June gave Matt a teasingly pointed look.

Matt only offered a shit-eating grin, which got a laugh from June.

Maybe those two were okay after all. Livia’s ability wasn’t exactly fine-tuned anymore so it was likely that she had misread it. Maybe she was projecting her own issues onto them. She decided at that moment to put that on the back burner for now.

“Don’t you think so, Livia?” Karen’s question brought Livia out of her thoughts.

She had been withdrawing into her own head so much lately. Who had noticed? Judging by the worry she felt thumping beside her, June at the very least did.

“Sorry, just-“

“Thinking.” Karen nodded, a furrow to her brows that Livia recognized as concern. She hated that it was so obvious she was out of it. “Is everything-“

“Do you think he needs new glasses?” June cut in. The girl knew Livia wasn’t herself, even if she didn’t know why, so she saved Livia from the question.

Livia looked over at Matt, who was already looking at her. He smiled softly in anticipation, brows raised with interest. She cocked her head as she took her time examining him. Livia wasn’t even looking at the glasses. Those made little difference to her. She just wanted a quiet moment to look at him.

June lightly kicked at Livia’s shin under the table and she realized yet another silence had stretched too long.

She had opened her mouth to answer when something outside snagged on her ability. She looked around and noticed Foggy was nowhere to be seen. She patted Matt’s arm but didn’t wait for him to say anything. She was on her feet and headed towards the door.

They met Foggy outside to find out there was an issue with one of Foggy’s clients, Benny. Apparently he had been getting threats so he was ‘stashed’, but something had gone wrong. He was calling Foggy in an absolute panic. Matt said he would take care of it but there was something else about it that didn’t sit right.

Something was knocking against her ability, someone achingly familiar. Who would go after Benny that she had that kind of tether to, she couldn’t say. It didn’t make sense.

As she was trying to piece it together, Foggy tried calling his client again and June was studying Livia’s reaction. Livia looked over her shoulder to where her car was parked, just at the end of the block. In the trunk was her bag of gear.

“Give me two seconds, okay?” Livia began back away.

“No, Liv.” June reached for the woman’s arm. “I don’t like this.”

“Just be ready.”

“What is going on?”

“I don’t know…” Livia’s eyes flicked to June’s covered hands and back. “But be ready for anything.”

June nodded and Livia all but ran down the street. She grabbed the materials out of her trunk and ducked into the closest alley. She kicked off her shoes, hopefully they’d still be there after, and stepped into her boots. She had already left her jacket at the office so she was only in the plain long sleeve. She shoved her arms into the bulletproof top easily and clipped her belt around her hips, wondering if her pants were loose enough not to rip during the action. She could handle a lot of things but a story about Exodus flashing half her neighborhood during a fight was not one of them. Her mask was around her neck as she took a quick inventory.

No guns, four knives, a pouch with shock disks (five or six, it felt like), and a grappling wire. As she was sliding her mask into place, she heard it.

The distinct sound of a silencer.

Then came June’s scream, the slam of panic that rattled Livia to her bones. It was nearly enough to double her over or make her fall to her knees.

Livia almost tripped over her own feet running back. More shots came as she got close and she shoved June and Karen behind her.

Livia couldn’t ignore how bad June was shaking. She spared a second to put her hands on either side of the younger one’s face.

“Hey.” Livia spoke quickly. She tried to ignore that damned presence now clawing at her back. She wouldn’t have been surprised if there were true marks on her skin from it. “I need you to focus right now. Okay? Are you with me?”

June nodded quickly but her eyes were blown wide with panic. Livia groaned in frustration before she shook June slightly. The small action seemed to snap June back to the moment and Livia could almost see the training take over. June glanced around before trying to drop to her knees.

Livia caught June by her arm and righted her.

“No, I need you to help evacuate.” Livia said firmly.

“But Fo-“

“No. Get people out. I will handle this.”

“Let me help!”

“You stay out here, you’ll go down too. That’s not happening. Now get in there and do what I asked. Keep your head down because you’re not bulletproof. Understand? Perchatki snyat'.” (Gloves off.)

June looked down at the fallen person and back. She swallowed hard, blinked away tears, and nodded. As she headed back into Josie’s, she tucked the leather into her back pocket.

That’s not just a person. A voice in Livia’s head scolded. It’s Foggy.

The smoke can that sailed past her head made her shove the voice to the back of her mind. If she dwelled on that, she’d be hit too. Livia whirled around to where it came from and her stomach dropped.

No wonder they felt so goddamned familiar.

“Hello, Karen.” He said smoothly, confidently and unbothered, as if he didn’t just shoot down your best friend.

“Dex?” Livia squinted. The smoke wasn’t bothering her but the mask he hid behind did.

Even with his face covered, she’d recognize him anywhere. His steps never faltered but his emotions wavered. Surprise. He didn’t plan for Livia to be there.

She could use that.

Livia had no choice but to engage first.

She couldn’t risk losing a knife (or giving Dex any more weaponry) so she slid a shock disk between her fingers. She toyed with it for a moment, letting him get just a few steps closer.

Livia had to ignore the tug in the back of her mind, the pull of someone familiar. She blocked it out, imagining a pair of scissors severing the old connection.

It didn’t quite sever but it was weaker now.

As soon as Dex was within her range, she snapped her wrist and sent the small disk flying. There was hardly any bare skin unless she wanted to take his eye out so she simply sent it for his neck. Even through the fabric, he jerked with the shock and his steps faltered. Before Livia could run at him and maybe get him to chase her down, lead him away from Josie’s, away from June, another figure came swinging in to tackle him through the front window of Josie’s. She only saw a blur of a figure, but she was willing to bet money that it was Matt.

Chaos raged inside but her feet were stuck.

Fear. Unbridled, unrelenting fear froze her in her place now that she didn’t have Dex to focus on. Livia forced her eyes closed, tried to find her bubble of silence, but she couldn’t. Not when she knew that her friend was on the ground with a bullet wound.

“Livia.” Karen’s shaky voice penetrated her thoughts.

With a shudder, she forced herself to kneel at their sides. Livia’s lower lip was trembling as she willed herself to keep looking at Karen. She didn’t want to see Foggy covered in his own blood. She didn’t want to have another body burned into her memory.

After the way Elektra’s and Sam’s death followed her, she couldn’t add Foggy to that.

“I don’t-“ Karen tried. Livia could tell the woman was trying not to hyperventilate. “I can’t- What am I supposed to do?”

“Keep pressure.” Livia’s voice was detached. If the Red Room was good for anything, at least it taught her how to pretend death didn’t matter in the moment. She’d fall apart later. “Someone will have called EMS by now…”

“Liv.” She thought she heard Foggy whisper.

Livia didn’t look - she couldn’t - but she did reach out and squeeze his hand.

It felt colder than it should’ve.

“Don’t you fucking die on me.” Livia whispered. The tears threatened under her mask.

Another figure slid to their knees on the opposite side. Livia glanced and saw June, eyes blown wide with tears streaming down her cheeks and her bare hands holding tightly to Foggy’s. She was mumbling something, something Livia couldn’t pick up. Everything was muffled, drowned out by the blood rushing through her, but her resolve was firm.

If there was ever any God that was on her side, Dex wouldn’t survive the night.

Livia pushed to her feet and drew one of her knives. She ignored Karen’s protests, walked straight through the smoke, and found Dex preoccupied with his fight.

He didn’t see her coming till it was nearly too late.

Nearly.

Matt had kicked Dex into the bar top and stepped back to catch his breath. Once Dex turned, Livia was there swinging her blade across what would’ve been both of his eyes. He dropped to his knees and went directly

for her rib.

With a nimble side step, she avoided the blow. Her knee was driving upwards before Dex could react and it slammed straight into his nose. She held her knife between her teeth as she reached down and grabbed his shirtfront to slam him to the floor. She put her knee to his throat and leaned her weight down as she reclaimed her blade.

There was a lot she could’ve said, curses and hateful  and cruel things, but he didn’t deserve to hear them. All he deserved was the pain, the suffering he’d inflicted onto her.

She angled to drive her knife through the side of his neck when he yanked her aside by a fistful of hair. Her knife clattered away and she cursed when her back hit the bar. She slammed a fist against the heavy wood as the men continued the fight through the sliding doors to the pool tables.

She was on her hands and knees, trying to regulate her hitching breaths, when a debilitating wave of panic hit her. It churned her stomach, made her head spin, blurred her focus.

Her head turned towards the open front door. All she could see was Foggy’s legs and who she thought was June kneeling. If she pushed her power, she could tell who it was, but she couldn’t afford the distraction. The sensation of wanting to puke was bad enough.

“Help, Cherry!” Matt called out.

Livia turned to see a few people who had been caught in the crossfire. She shook as much of the sensations away as she could while she pushed to her feet. She stumbled past the civilians, past Matt’s reaching hand and Cherry’s hustling frame.

As cruel as it may have sounded, the bat’s patrons weren’t her problem. Livia wasn’t going to stop until she choked the life out of Dex herself.

She followed him up the backstairs with three knives left. Her steps were light, any sound swallowed by the soles of her boots. Like a predator, she stalked intently until Dex paused to catch his breath.

Livia practically tackled him.

She slammed her body against his to knock him off balance. Her knife was drawn in one swift movement and she jammed it forward, piercing deep into his shoulder. He groaned loudly as the blood began to flow.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

She yanked it out and jabbed it forward again, aiming to slice him open so his guts would spill out. He jumped back and earned a shallow wound instead. Livia kicked out and her foot connected with his sternum.

He stumbled back, coughing and rubbing the area. She flicked the blade and watched it bury itself into his leg.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

Livia was moving in for another attack when one of Dex’s knives flew at her. It embedded itself between her ribs, though the top took most of the impact. She still felt the blade puncture skin, only a couple inches at most. She smiled at him as she pulled it out, ignoring the burning pain and steady flow of blood.

Livia flipped it in her grip and threw it right back. His eyes went wide before he ducked. The blade buried into the wall, level with where Dex’s adam’s apple would’ve been.

By the time Dex righted himself, Livia was there.

She grabbed the front strap of his holster and yanked him close. Without her usual padded gloves, her bare knuckles slammed into his hidden face. Cheekbone. Jaw. Nose. Eye socket. Livia didn’t care. She was throwing the entirety of her weight in the punches, watching his head snap to the side with every shot. She didn’t even care about the pain it brought upon her own hand, how it shot in her arm and triggered the old pain of damaged nerves.

She wanted him broken. She wanted him bloodied. She wanted him bruised and swollen and unrecognizable, pleading for her to either kill him or spare him. She wanted the coroner to have to identify him through dental records, that was if he had any teeth left in his mouth by the end of it.

Livia was so consumed by her rage, a mania she hadn’t truly felt in so long, that she didn’t give a reaction when Dex laughed.

Only when her knuckles were raw and bloody did she ease up.

Livia threw Dex to the floor and wrapped both of her hands around his throat. She had her knees pinning his arms down and her nails were digging into the side of the tender flesh.

Not. Enough.

She reveled in the way his eyes bulged in panic, the way he jerked under her weight, the way he clawed desperately at her legs.

Livia was going to watch him die and she was going to enjoy it.

Her focus only broke when Matt’s baton came flying in to break the lightbulb above her. She looked up for a second but it was enough. Her hands loosened by only a fraction but Dex capitalized on the distraction. He slammed his forehead against her nose and she fell off.

Livia could taste the blood trickling from her nose and across her lips. She almost laughed too.

Dex went clambering up the next flight of stairs and Matt was right behind him. He stopped for a moment to haul Livia to her feet. She pushed him slightly away. The blood gushing from her nose was a bit more important than his presence.

Livia pinched the bridge of her nose and braced her other hand against the closest banister. She closed her eyes as the familiar taste of blood settled on her tongue. Her mouth was open enough to allow her to breathe.

She had to remind herself how to do that.

Downstairs, on the sidewalk just outside Josie’s, one of her best friends was bleeding out. Livia had no idea how much time he had left, if the paramedics had arrived, if June was still calm. Her adrenaline had reinforced those shaky walls quite nicely but it was only a matter of time until that was gone.

She had to take advantage.

It took a few minutes but the bleeding finally stopped. She could taste it in her mouth still but it wasn’t leaking down her face anymore. There was still the vague warm sensation in the back of her throat, the pressure in her sinuses, but she’d gone through missions with worse.

That’s what it was now anyways. A mission, with Ben Poindexter as her target.

Livia’s feet dragged slightly as she made her way up to the rooftop, the wire pack in her hand. She shifted it around for her finger to find the trigger.

It was only her and Dex.

She watched his shoulders move with a heavy sigh before he turned and threw a knife. She dropped to a knee and clicked the button, sending the wire to wrap around Dex’s ankles.

Once it wrapped, she yanked with all her strength. Dex crashed to the floor but she continued to pull, spinning the slack around and around until he was at her feet.

Livia showed Dex mercy last time. She spared him years ago.

What a mistake.

She spit on the floor near him, a mix of saliva and blood. Dex’s eyes were wide and she cocked her head. For a brief moment, she wondered what she looked like from his perspective.

She smiled, likely showcasing bloodied teeth, and stepped aside. Matt immediately took her place and began beating on Dex again.

The tug in Livia’s chest brought her to the ledge. She leaned over and saw the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. Bodies were being wheeled out of the bar beneath white sheets. That sight made her wonder what had she ignored on her way through the place.

She noted the top of two blonde heads, both kneeling over a third person.

Karen and June were still with Foggy. It gave Livia some hope that he’d make it, but not enough to silence the voice in her head.

He’ll die. Dex made sure of that… A life for a life.

A thud from behind Livia drew her attention. There was Dex, weak and beaten and breathing heavy.

She grabbed his shirtfront and dragged him to stand on the ledge with her. One hand stayed fisted in the material while the other drew a knife to place the tip specifically in the space between his ribs.

Dex had the audacity to laugh again.

She pressed the blade enough for the tip to break skin.

“Why?” She whispered. She had no voice for anything else. “What do you gain?”

He simply grinned and Livia couldn’t stop herself. She buried her knife to the handle.

Matt grabbed Dex, screamed in his face, and the grief slammed her so hard she had to step back just to ensure she didn’t go over the edge.

Foggy was gone.

Livia fell to her knees immediately. The second she did, the walls seemed to fall with her and she was hit by not just Matt’s pain, but June’s and Karen’s. Her stomach rolled with the sudden feelings. Her body was ice cold.

She couldn’t move even when Matt shoved Dex over the ledge.

Matt stumbled over to her side, his helmet discarded. With shaky hands, she reached for Matt and he didn’t hesitate to pull her close. His arms were around her so tight she thought he might crack a new rib.

She squeezed her eyes shut, mask digging against her skin. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything other than Matt’s embrace.

Livia took a massive step away from her social life after that. Karen left. June shut herself in her room for a long time. Livia could hear her voice at night, on phone calls and video chats with the boy she was sweet on. Livia wanted to ask about him, find out some more about him, but she couldn’t find it in herself to try and face June.

On some level, Livia carried the guilt of Foggy’s death. Poindexter was the one who took the shot, she understood that. However, Livia was the one who spared the man’s life years ago. She consented for his spinal repair, albeit in hopes he’d be paralyzed.

It had been years. Why hadn’t Dex moved on?

Why was he still so much the same?

The process of the trial took a year. Livia had testified against Dex, of course. He had stared her down the entire time except there wasn’t any malice in his stare. It was more like he was studying her, memorizing her, admiring her almost.

It left her feeling strange.

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure she should testify when it was brought to her. She thought to deny the subpoena, but the only reason she had was that it would incriminate her in regards to her vigilante involvement. Yet if she was caught lying on the stand, she’d be in trouble anyways.

Reluctantly, she had agreed but only after Matt told her if she didn’t, the next request would likely go to June and she wasn’t going to ask that of her.

When it finally came time for Livia’s statement, she felt relatively numb walking up to the stand. Matt still had

to give his after so she knew most of the heaviness would come from him. The emotion and grief and pain would come from his words. She would only provide facts.

“There is no other way to say this.” Livia began, meeting Dex’s scrutinizing stare with a blank one of her own. His head cocked slightly as he tried to puzzle her out. “The man on trial here today is capable of atrocious violence.”

Dex scoffed to himself.

“He is a man I thought I knew… Even the best of us can be wrong. The man before me today is a man who gunned down a friend of mine, a beloved member of his community, because of a grudge. I’ve seen heinous acts in my life but what happened that night overshadows them all… And it’s because of him. I trust this court will dole out equal punishment today.”

Dex raised his eyebrows in quiet question. He nodded to himself, as if accepting her words as part of a punishment.

He still felt so damned familiar she wanted to jump off the stand and tear his throat out with her bare hands just so it would end.

When Livia returned to the gallery, June laced their fingers. Livia patted June’s hand but didn’t let go. In fact, she squeezed her friend’s hand a little tighter.

Livia didn’t listen to Matt’s statement. She was too busy keeping her emotions in check.

Anger, grief, loneliness, sadness, anticipation. Everything swelled in her chest and she just wanted to scream. She wanted to be alone. She didn’t really know what she wanted.

Dex was sentenced to life without parole. That should’ve made her happy. She should’ve reveled in the fact that he’d never have a life again, that by taking Foggy’s and ten others’ he had his freedom taken away.

She wasn’t.

Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

Livia still wanted him dead.

After the trial and after Matt spoke to Karen, he convinced June and Livia to come to his apartment for dinner. He stated that he wanted their company and June agreed on behalf of both women. Livia hadn’t found her voice again anyways, which also meant Karen left without a conversation.

At least they still kept in touch via texts.

After eating and chatting, June fell asleep on the couch. Livia didn’t blame her. The lights were low, the room was warm, and her belly was full. Matt was cleaning up while Livia sat in one of the stools by the counter.

“Thank you…” Livia said, her eyes on June. “She hasn’t slept soundly in a long time.”

“You’re both welcome here anytime. You know that.” Matt answered. “Maybe she just needed more background noise so she doesn’t think she’s alone.”

“She stays in her room a lot, talking to her boyfriend.”

“Joaquin, right?”

“You know him?” Livia’s brows raised. “June told you about him?”

Matt chuckled as he nodded. “Yeah, we talked about it when we went to California.”

“I can’t believe she told you more than she’s told me.”

“You and me both.”

“She never even said his name!” Livia threw her hands forward. “It’s always just ‘this guy’ or ‘my friend’.” Livia threw air quotes around to match.

“It took some coaxing to get it out of her, if it helps. I had to tell her something first.” Matt gave her a smile as he faced her. “He seems like a good guy, Air Force I think he said.”

“He said? You talked to him?”

“I interrupted a phone call.” He waved a dismissive hand. “He makes her happy.”

“Yeah…” Livia looked over at June, fast asleep across the sofa cushions. Her gloves were discarded on the coffee table and her hands were tucked under her head.

“Hey…” Matt’s hand landed on Livia’s, which made her look back at him. 

“She used to have this jitteriness, like an anxious buzzing. I would feel it coming off her like a phone vibrating or something… It’s part of why I started calling her Junebug.”

“Does she know she reminded you of a beetle?” He chuckled.

“No.” She flashed a guilty smile. “But I came back and it’s basically gone. I assume it’s partly cause of him. Which is fine, of course. I want her to be happy… I don’t know, Matt. I don’t know if I’m angry I missed her growing up or just sad about it.”

“It’s okay to be upset about it. She is, too.” Matt was on his way around the counter.

“But-“

“Livvy.” His hands landed on either cheek. “You’re allowed to have your own feelings about everything.”

“It isn’t selfish to be upset because I missed it? I should just be proud of how she’s started to figure her life out.”

“You’re one of the least selfish people I know. You give so much to the people you care about.”

Livia hung her hands on his forearms, tracing his initials with her thumb. She tilted her head back slightly as Matt took a step closer. He bumped her knees so she shifted the way she was sitting, adjusting her legs to give him a little more room.

Matt didn’t need more than that to come closer.

I love you.

The words were on her tongue. She could taste the syllables. It’d be so easy to say it. Maybe he felt it too, Maybe he was just waiting for her to say it. She just couldn’t find the voice to say them. Saying felt both perfect and out of place.

Instead, she sighed to herself and squeezed his arms slightly. Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath, her lungs filling with the familiar scent of his cologne. Her declaration of love could wait for another time.

“It’s been so heavy.” Her already quiet voice broke.

His hands slid to the side of her neck, his thumbs gently pressing under her chin to keep her head angled towards him.

Silently, she thanked his God she had fair control of her abilities. There was a faint pink sneaking across her vision but she blinked it away.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Matt said softly.

“You’d think I would’ve figured out this whole grief thing by now.” Livia joked weakly. “I’m sorry I’ve been so out of it.”

“I don’t blame you… I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

Livia knew the resolve she had was breaking. She knew putting space was the smarter choice. If she started down the road she was thinking, she’d never make it back. She let go of his arms and gently pulled on his shirtfront.

“I still don’t understand. It had been so long. Why would he-“ Livia began ranting about Poindexter. She hoped complaining about the man she hated would distract from the man in front of her.

“Liv?” Matt cut in gently.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

Before she could offer an argument, he pulled her lips to his.

The kiss was gentle at first, triggering sparks under Livia’s skin. Acting on nothing but habit, she slid a hand up his chest till her fingers found the nape of his neck. Her other hand remained gripping his shirt.

Matt pushed a hand into her hair, almost desperate to bring her closer. Any sounds she could’ve made were muffled with the kiss but the sensations through her body and mind made up for it, especially when Matt’s other hand hooked behind her knee to hold her leg at his hip.

Her skin was alive. Every inch was lit with a fire she hadn’t anticipated. Her heart was beating fast, pushing blood through her veins at a pace that rivaled an Olympic sprinter. She let the feelings live, let them thrive and grow just so she could revel in the way only he could bring her to such a state with hardly anything.

Her lips were tingling Her were flushed. Her hands were possessively holding onto him but Livia didn’t care.

She felt alive under his touch.

She loved him. She loved him with everything she had, in every way she could. She never wanted to lose him again.

After what felt entirely too short, Matt pulled away first.

He let out a breathy laugh and Livia smiled widely.

“Maybe we should…” He jerked his head towards the bedroom.

“With her sleeping on your couch?” Livia teased.

“TV and stereo are probably loud enough.” He shrugged innocently.

Livia shook her head fondly and glanced over at the TV. Once she saw what was on the screen, she immediately regretted looking. Her shoulders dropped before gently

pushing Matt back so she had room to stand. He reached for her hand as she passed but she kept moving. With the music off, she could hear his words more clearly.

“…declaring my candidacy for Mayor of New York.” Fisk’s voice confidently stated.

Matt was at her side, a hand lightly on her back. She put a hand on his arm and her fingers were digging in slightly. Her stomach dropped to her feet, making her feel sick.

“He can’t be serious.” Livia whispered. As much as she wanted to scream and shout, maybe even panic, she was hyper aware of the sleeping figure on the couch.

How would she keep June safe from that?

“Tell me he can’t do this. There’s gotta be something, right?” She faced Matt.

“I don’t know, Livia.” Matt confessed quietly.

“She’s going to flip out.” Livia put her other hand on the back of the couch. “If he’s Mayor, how can I keep her safe from him?”

“Hey.” He rubbed her back. “I’m right here with you. We’ll figure this out.”

Livia couldn’t stop the scoff as she stepped away from his touch. “Matt, you packed it up. What do you really think the system is gonna do against the Mayor? Against a Mayor who was able to abuse and manipulate the fucking FBI?” She hissed, mindful to keep her anger to a simmer instead of a meltdown. June needed good sleep more than she needed to scream. “If he gets that office, he’ll abuse that too.”

“You think you need to be Exodus for this?”

“I never stopped.” She let out a strangled laugh. “I couldn’t stop. It didn’t make sense for me to hang it up like you did. That’s part of why I hardly came around. I didn’t want to hear you saying how we owed it to Foggy or how we should leave that behind.”

“It’s not just about him, Livia. You know what that life does to us.”

“I know it kept me alive.”

“And I know it killed you.” Matt said sharply as he jabbed. a finger against her sternum. “Twice.”

“Exodus had nothing to do with that.” She defended, smacking his hand away. She could almost hear every single wall of protection locking into place. “It was collateral damage against Russo and the Blip was random.”

Livia hated that term. Collateral damage. Too many people used it to justify hurting those around them. Just because it’s written off as unintended doesn’t mean there wasn’t suffering.

Intent doesn’t justify the results. Livia learned that lesson the hard way on more than one occasion.

“We can figure something out in the morning. Alright? All three of us.” Matt tried. She didn’t miss the desperation laced in his words.

“I don’t trust him.” She shook her head. “I don’t trust he wants to help the city… Do you?”

“What if…” He licked his lips, trying to buy time to come up with something. “I’ll ask Cherry to do some digging, see if there’s any red flags. Let me at least do this before you go running off.”

Livia sighed and rubbed her eyes. She was just so tired. She just wanted her old life back.

“There’s no way to keep this from her.” Livia’s hand fell away from her face and hit her leg with a light smack. “You know that right?”

“She can handle it.” Matt nodded.

“That's not what I’m worried about.” Livia mumbled.

“Liv?”

“I’m just gonna sleep on it.” Livia finally answered. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He patted her arm. “I’ll get you some-“

“No, I’m gonna head out.” She cut him off. “Thanks for dinner.”

Livia tried to step around him. As much as her heart wanted to stay, her head was telling her better. Matt was always going to be her safe space. There was never any denying that. No matter who or what was in her life, she’d find a way back to Matthew Murdock.

But in those moments, she just had to think. She had to look at the facts, advantages, disadvantages. She had to consider every angle Fisk could be playing at. She couldn’t do that if she stayed the night.

She was barely two steps when he caught her arm.

“And what do I tell June when she wakes up and you’re gone?” Matt challenged.

“It’s not that serious.” Livia weakly tried to argue. She was just so tired.

“Tell that to the girl who woke up in cold sweats looking for you, the girl who had nightmares because you weren’t there.”

“That wasn’t my fault.”

“No, you’re right. Those five years weren’t on you.” He shook his head and let Livia’s arm go. “But this? Everything since? Alivia,-“

“Alivia?” She whispered, though Matt didn’t stop.

“-you came back almost three years ago and this is probably the most words you’ve said to me. This is the most I’ve been able to touch you without you running off.”

“What do you want me to say, Matt?” Her shoulders dropped. She had to pay very specific attention to the

volume of her voice. “My cousin is dead. My other cousin is a walking suicide risk but she won’t acknowledge it. One of my best friends is dead and another moved across the country, not to mention the one that’s off grid for who the fuck knows how long. And you…”

“What about me?” He asked quietly.

Livia swallowed whatever response she had. What could she say anyway?

“I’ll text her so she sees it when she wakes up.” Livia said instead.

“Don’t bother.” June mumbled from the couch. “I heard enough. If you two wanna argue, can you do it in another room?”

Livia looked down and noticed June hadn’t even opened her eyes. She shooed them away with a lazy wave before readjusting and falling back asleep.

Livia had nothing else to say. She simply squeezed June’s arm lightly and left.

Work the next day was no better. Her trio worked in the conference room on some case notes. June was tapping away on her ipad, glancing between her and Matt every so often. Livia caught her eye occasionally and she’d jerk her head towards Matt with a pointed look.

It didn’t take a genius to know she wanted Livia to say something. Livia simply shook her head.

Nothing outside of work was mentioned.

After Kirsten came in to remind Matt about a meeting, June smacked her hands on the table. Livia sighed before meeting her friend’s aggressive blinks. It was like she was sending a morse code message.

“Did you, um-“ Matt cleared his throat. “Did you wanna come, Livia?”

“No, thanks. June?”

June stared at Livia and kicked her shin, relatively hard.

“Ow.” Livia deadpanned.

“Stop it.” June hissed.

“I’ll see you both later.” Livia closed her laptop.

“Wait.” Matt tried. “We should talk about last night.”

Livia collected her computer and her bag. “Everything was pretty clear for me.”

“Liv!” June stood quickly.

“I’ll see you at home.” Livia told her. “Tell Kirsten I’m taking a flex day. I’ll be logged in if she needs me.”

June huffed in loud frustration as Livia left. The rest of the day was quiet. Kirsten texted to check in, which alivia didn’t answer. June came home ranting about the client meeting which wasn’t a client meeting at all but a blind date. She immediately decided she didn’t like the woman and it was time for Livia to “swallow her pride and get right with Matt”. Livia tried to remind June that it wasn’t just up to her but June kept talking through her plan to get them back together. It all seemed very elaborate and well-thought out. Livia could only guess how long June had been working on that.

At that point, Livia had to stop listening. The debate was on and Fisk had taken all of her attention. The topic was now vigilantes.

“That’s why you guys were fighting last night…” June realized.

“He’s running for mayor but Matt and I can’t agree on what to do.”

“What is there to do?”

“Matt thinks we should wait and let Cherry do some digging first.”

“And you don’t?”

“I’d rather just confront him but I doubt he’d be honest.”

“He might not lie to me.” June offered carefully.

Livia looked over and saw the determined set of her jaw as she watched the debate. Vigilantes were now being comparable to cancer. June’s eyes were stuck to the TV but Livia could see the war raging behind them. This wasn’t something Livia could face for June.

“I’ll go with you.” June nodded.

“Okay.” Livia said simply. “But you pull the plug if you need to. At any point, okay?”

June finally looked at Livia. “I know. As long as you’re there, I think I’ll be alright… We should do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Livia raised a brow.

“The sooner the better, right? We can lay that to rest and work on operation romance.” June did a little dance with her shoulders that made Livia laugh.

By the next afternoon, Livia and June had found where to catch Fisk. They waited at the end of the block, avoiding the crowd surrounding the door. June was glancing around, rocking nervously on her heels, patting a beat against her legs. The buzzing seemed to return in that moment.

“June.” Livia put a hand on her friend’s arm. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you.”

“I know.” She nodded quickly. “I just… I haven’t faced him in years. What if I just turn into that scared little girl again?”

“You’re nowhere near that same girl.” Livia smiled softly. “We both know that.”

The noise from the crowd grew and Livia didn’t need to look to see that Fisk was coming. She gave June’s arm a small squeeze.

“Now or never, my dear.” Livia raised her brows. “Still gods?”

June blew out a sigh. “I think so.”

“Okay.” She smiled softly.

After June looped their arms together, they moved a few steps closer. She could see Fisk’s bald head over the commotion. A younger man, maybe around her age, was pushing through. He was clearing a path for Fisk, some sort of bodyguard or personal security.

Now that was something she could work with.

“Step aside, ladies.” He was a few feet away.

June was looking past him, fiddling with her gloves. Livia let the man’s unamused stare with a charming smile.

“We’re old associates of Mr. Fisk. We’d like a word.” Livia said smoothly.

“Not gonna happen.”

June pulled a glove off quickly but Livia covered the girl’s hand with her own. The movement made the man glance down but he gave no reaction other than a slight brow furrow. He met Livia’s gaze again but she maintained an innocent, soft smile.

“Just ask him. You may be surprised. Mister.?”

“Step aside. I won’t ask again.” He said flatly.

“I see.” Livia nodded slightly. “Well, if you try to touch either of us, I will break all twenty seven bones in your hand. It’ll be quick, though. I’m quite good at it.”

“Is that a threat?” He took a step forward.

Livia took one of her own, unfortunately dragging June with her.

“Not at all.” Livia shrugged a shoulder. “Just a statement.”

“It’s alright, Buck.” Fisk called from a few feet back.

Livia felt June shrink behind her. She turned her head and caught June’s wide eyes in her peripherals.

“I can’t do this.” She whispered, slipping into perfect Russian. “I can’t face him.”

“That’s okay.” Livia said in the same low tone, matching her choice of language. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to go home.”

Livia guided June a few steps away as Fisk got closer. On seeing June’s retreat, he froze. Livia thought she felt disappointment from Fisk, maybe even sadness, but she didn’t believe that. Wilson Fisk wasn’t a man capable of such feelings.

When she focused on June, Matt appeared at their sides.

“What’s wrong? You two okay?” Matt asked, a hand on either of their arms.

June nodded quickly, though she didn’t look his way. Her eyes were angled downwards towards their feet. Livia reached forward, pointedly ignoring Matt’s question, and lifted June’s face to meet her eyes.

“He can’t get to you.” Livia promised. “I won’t let him.”

“I know.” She sniffled. How had Livia not noticed the tears in her eyes? “I know…”

“She needs to get home.” Livia told Matt.

He immediately flagged her a taxi and Livia turned to see Fisk watching June go. There was an unmissable longing there and it made Livia want to claw his eyes out so he could never look at June again.

Livia looked over at Matt and June, the two engaging in a hushed conversation. He kissed her forehead before guiding her to the taxi. Livia smiled despite herself. When the door shut, she cleared her throat and faced Fisk.

“If you have the time, we’d love a word.” Livia spoke firmly. Matt was at her side then, taking a gentle hold of her arm. “Just a quick chat...”

Five years.

When Alivia Yersova took the trip to Wakanda after Nat and Steve convinced her, she wasn’t so sure she’d make it back to Hell’s Kitchen. She knew she could only cheat death so many times. Surely, He would come to collect after nearly taking her after the carousel incident.

So when she collapsed at her cousin’s feet, it was no real surprise to her.

“Tell them.” Was all she managed to say.

It was strange that it didn’t hurt. It was as simple as existing and then not. It took all of maybe two seconds for a higher power to rid the world of her, but those two seconds were a replayed lifetime for Livia.

A lifetime of fighting, bleeding and bruising, screaming and crying. A lifetime of love, laughter, happiness and family.

Foggy Nelson. Karen Page. Frank Castle. Dinah Madani and Amy.

Nat and Yelena.

Marc Spector and Steven Grant.

She even thought of crazy old Ben Poindexter and Billy Russo.

But it all came down to two names. Two faces etched into her memory.

Matt Murdock and June.

For the briefest of time, she wondered how she couldn’t think of June’s last name.

What would happen to her little Junebug? Surely, Matt would take care of her… Right?

Coming back was the strange part.

The terrain seemed the same and everyone around her was just as confused so that made her feel less out of place - if that was possible in a foreign country with no one she knew around her. Glancing down, she saw her suit was still covered in blood, dirt, and alien fluids. Her bodily aches were still there. She recognized the others around her only as people she fought with but Livia couldn’t really name any of them other than the Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes.

Livia quickly realized she couldn’t hear herself think. All she could feel was everyone else. It brought a panic to her bones to think of what that meant. Livia’s built up control, the means of survival she spent years fine tuning, was gone. Her chest was growing painfully tight and she had to unzip her top just to try and breathe.

“Alivia?” Barnes’ voice was muffled, drowning in the sea of panic she was surrounded by. He gently held onto her arm and she flinched away from the sudden contact. “You’re alright.”

“No, I-“ She shook her head, aggravating the spinning sensation. “I can’t breathe. It’s too much. It’s-“

Was she even speaking? Her voice sounded so weak, so small and confused.

She looked over at his expression and found a surprisingly compassionate set of eyes staring at her. She yanked her mask to hang around her neck, ignoring the shakiness in her hands. He was scared, too. He didn’t understand what was happening either, yet he was there trying to comfort Livia. She broke into a small smile and he returned the gesture.

“I’m alright.” Livia forced herself to say. She sure as hell didn’t believe it, but she could lie through her teeth. “Confused but alright… I just need to get home.”

“Come on.” He nodded, offering her a hand. “Let get you home then.”

Livia followed Barnes without hesitation. She looked around in part awe, part confusion. How did everyone come back? She was dead, wasn’t she? Weren’t all of them?

She tried to write it off as the power of the Stones. Maybe they were faulty. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe the idea of uniting the Stones was a pipe dream, never really possible. That meant she was only gone for a few moments.

As quickly as the thought came, it left. Livia noticed the changes of the shrubbery, what had formerly been bright green was now a faded shade of orange. Flowers were wilting, branches drooping.

Livia and countless others were gone for a good chunk of time.

Livia startled when an orange ring of sparks ignited in front of her. She jumped back, flexed a hand to activate her Bite and reached for a blade with the other. She had one left and she’d sure as hell make it count.

“Good, you’re all here.” The man that stepped through said, surveying the various reappearances.

“What the hell happened?” Livia couldn’t stop the question from tumbling out.

“It’s been five years.” He rushed the explanation. “Now you’re all needed at Aveng-“

Five years. The thought made her head spin again.

“No.” She said firmly as a new determination lit her bones. “I’m going home. Send me home.”

“I’m sorry, but we cannot do that.”

Livia’s fingers found the handle of her knife.

“I wasn’t asking.”

“One person isn’t gonna change what’s gonna happen.” Barnes tried. “She’s done her part.”

“We need everyone.”

“I won’t go.” Livia shook her head.

All she could think was seeing Matt and June again. Reuniting with her friends, being in her own home and her own bed. Getting that stupid suit off. Screaming at Natasha for dragging her out there.

Come to think of it, Livia noticed she hadn’t seen Natasha since she returned. She must not have disappeared when Livia did.

“I don’t think I was really meant to be here.” Livia changed tactics, considering going as far as begging. “Please.”

The man sighed heavily. “Where is home?”

“Hell’s Kitchen in New York.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

Livia’s stomach dropped.

“Did something happen?” She asked in a new panic.

“No.” He turned, swinging his hand in a wide circle for a new ring of sparks. “Just sorry it’s Hell’s Kitchen.”

She made a face to herself then faced Barnes.

“Thanks.” She felt strangely awkward having to thank or directly address the former ghost story. “I owe you.”

“I’d say this makes us even.” He smiled.

Absently, she snuck a hand into her hair for the scar hiding near her ear. It was that failed mission that resulted in the implant… But none of that was directly Barnes’ fault.

Livia smiled slightly and offered a hand to shake.

“You ever come through Hell’s Kitchen, we should talk some more.” Livia offered as Barnes shook her outstretched hand. “Always helps to have a friend that gets it.”

“I’d like that.” He nodded. “Take care, Alivia.”

“Call me Liv.” She slipped her mask back over her eyes and stepped through the portal.

Her feet landed on the New York streets she knew. There was a slight wobble in her step at the sudden appearance but it faded quickly. She looked around, grateful to be in a familiar setting through the chaos.

Livia ducked down the closest alley and sucked in a deep breath. Unfortunately, not even the scent of stagnant garbage water could distract from that tightness in her chest and head.

What was happening to her?

Livia tried her best to shove the thought away. She could figure that out later. Instead, she needed to focus. She needed her bearings so she could get to Matt’s apartment. She couldn’t go to the office because… Well, she didn’t know where it would be or if they even had one. Were they still working out of the deli?

It didn’t matter. Not yet, at least.

Matt’s place first. Everything else could wait.

She balled a hand into a fist, letting her first finger sit up a little higher. She clenched her jaw and shoved the knuckle against her rib. The pain flared almost immediately and that seemed to shove every other emotion out of her head. For a second, she thought she heard them rattling to the ground as she doubled over.

Her entire body faded and was rebuilt, but that damned rib was still the bane of her existence.

It took a few minutes on the nearest rooftop and the help of her mask, but Livia soon had a path. She was moving quickly, with as much agility as her excited state could manage. She scrounged up enough control and focus to exist in a bubble, to block out every other emotion around her and just feel her own. It was still foreign but not as unusual as the other option.

She’d need to work on rebuilding her mental walls soon.

Her feet had landed on Matt’s rooftop when her phone rang. It pinged in her head and the sudden sound made her wince.

Livia had forgotten she had a phone. Hearing the familiar point echo in her skull, she felt a little silly.

“Hello?” She answered quickly.

“Liv?” It was June’s voice, but not the June she remembered. Her voice was mature now, confident. She had grown into who she was supposed to be and Livia had missed it. Tears welled in her eyes when June spoke again. “Is it really you?”

It almost brought Livia to her knees.

“It’s me.” Livia managed. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath before continuing. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

She heard a small chaos on the other end of the line. Vaguely, there was another voice there but it was too quiet for her to make out.

“I’m at your apartment… I kinda moved in while you were gone.” She laughed nervously. “I have so much to tell you.”

Livia smiled and her feet moved automatically. “I’m on my way. Who’s with you?”

Silence. The phone was exchanging hands. Livia could hear the small thud of it being pushed into another palm. Hushed encouragement came as well then a sigh, a hesitation, and finally a voice.

“Hey, Livvy.” Matt said softly and she stumbled over her own feet. She would’ve welcomed the crash just to confirm that she was real, that the moment was real. Matt wasn’t sure it was real either. Livia didn’t need her abilities to know that much.

She was struck again by how long it really was. Five years is enough to take hope from even the most optimistic. It made the weight of her disappearance all the more heavy on her shoulders.

“Hi, Matty.” Livia answered with the same tone, a swell in her chest at hearing the voices of her most beloved. If she wasn’t already off balance from the return and the portal home, she was dizzy then.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, blood rushing through her veins, heat flaring throughout her body. So many emotions raged war in her head, abused her via sensations. Her eyes were growing blurry and she couldn’t tell if it was from tears or just a loss of control. She was too overwhelmed to care either.

She trusted her feet and her body to get her where she needed to be. She knew the paths to her apartment like the back of her hand, always aware of how to get home.

One of the many rules of the Red Room that remained etched into her mind.

“God, is this real?” He sighed. His voice served as Livia’s tether to reality and kept her from spiraling into the abyss of emotions nipping at her heels, a dangerously strong riptide threatening to drag her under.

“I really hope so.” She laughed slightly.

She wanted to keep talking but she was at a loss for words. She had so many questions.

What had she missed? How was Karen and Foggy? Was Frank okay? Who else had disappeared? Did anyone explain what had happened?

She had no idea where to start.

“I have so many questions.” She settled on.

“We’ll answer all of them.” He answered. “As soon as you’re here, okay?”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Livia tapped her scar and picked up the pace. Her heart upped gears in her chest, not just from the sprints across rooftops. It was at the prospect of reuniting with her family. She felt a heat on her cheeks just from Matt’s voice.

He would know, she realized as she dropped onto her fire escape. He’d hear her heart, feel the heat of her skin, know her breath was fast and shallow. Livia had no defenses at the moment and maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want them. Maybe it was only right that she be laid bare before Matt in a way she almost never was before. Maybe it would be a relief to both of them or at the very least, remind them they’re both alive.

She pulled her mask to hang around her throat before she shimmied the window up. Her feet barely landed on the floor when a body collided with her. The impact was so sudden she worried she’d fall back through the window.

Livia was hit with a thundering wave of emotions. Disbelief, gratitude, relief, love. So much love. All the colored hazes and sensations mixed into a cacophony of an experience. It all made Livia sway slightly on her feet but the arms around her were like a vice. Hands were balled into the material of her top and the girl hugging her was shaking slightly.

“You’re here.” June mumbled against Livia’s shoulder. “You’re really here.”

Livia hugged her back with the same tightness. “I promised, didn’t I?” She answered, fighting back tears.

“Took you long enough.”

“You’re so grown now.” She laughed sadly.

June laughed and squeezed Livia tighter.

A hand landed on Livia’s shoulder and she looked over. There was Matt.

She was both thrilled and crushed. Both emotions mixed and brought tears to her eyes. She let them freely fall.

It was a relief to see him, to see the soft expression on his face. To have his tentative touch, like he wasn’t sure she was really there. She reached for his shirtfront and pulled him towards her without a word. The three stayed in that tight sandwich of an embrace for God knew how long.

The thing that made Livia’s stomach drop was the sudden understanding.

Neither June nor Matt felt the way she knew.

If there was any way for her to tell that time had passed, it was that.

Livia kept that to herself. She never mentioned it. Not when she was catching up with them, not even when she saw the rest of her friends again.

Foggy and Karen and Frank. All of them the same, all of them completely different people.

She never mentioned it while they worked to help Spiderman.

Livia and Matt were seated with the young vigilante at his aunt’s kitchen table while June lounged on the couch. She was giggling at her phone and typing furiously. Livia had made a face and meant to question it when Matt came back from his phone call with Foggy regarding the case.

“Well, I have some good news, Peter.” Matt announced, which drew her attention away from June. The girl didn’t even look up.

Who was she so interested in? Was the air around her pink or was it just the way the papers on the windows filtered the light?

“I don’t believe any of the charges against you are gonna stick.”

“Wait, seriously?” The boy smiled, sighing in relief. His aunt had a similar reaction and she couldn’t help but smile too. “Mr. and Mrs. Murdock, thank you. That’s amazing.”

“Oh, I’m not-“ Livia tried to argue. Matt decided she wouldn’t get a chance, simply giving her knee a small squeeze under the table.

“However, Mr. Hogan, the feds are actively investigating that missing technology.” Matt nodded.

Peter’s head cocked and his brows furrowed. He didn’t know about the missing tech or at least that the man across the table from him was potentially involved.

“We understand your loyalty to Mr. Stark and his legacy.” Livia began carefully. “My cousin spoke his praises from time to time.”

“Cousin?” Peter asked.

“Natasha.” She answered without looking.

“Cool.”

“If you are involved, I recommend securing a lawyer.” You finished.

“If- If I was involved?” Hogan began and she had to refrain from rolling her eyes.

His guilt was practically pouring out of him as he rambled on. Livia bit the inside of her cheek to keep any expression off and she felt Matt pat her leg under the table. She lightly kicked at his foot in response, a quiet signal that she was fine.

Briefly, she wondered if there were some signs her body was offering that he could pick up on. If he had noticed how vulnerable she was, Matt hadn’t addressed it.

“Regardless, Mr. Hogan.” Livia finally cut off the nonsensical babbling. “You’re going to need a really good lawyer.”

“You may have dodged your legal troubles but things will get much worse.” Matt explained to the younger boy. “There’s still the court of public opinion.”

Peter looked to his aunt and Livia felt Matt shift beside her. She looked over and noticed his head tilt, focusing in on something else. She leaned a little closer, intending to ask, but Matt spoke first.

“Don’t move.” He said lowly.

Livia didn’t, her eyes still on him. She traced the shape of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the length of his throat. She didn’t even flinch when the glass of the window broke and Matt’s hand shot out to catch whatever projectile came through. If there was one thing that hadn’t changed, it was Livia’s unwavering trust in Matt Murdock.

Livia could only laugh to herself. Matt flashed her a crooked smile.

“Show off.” She said quietly.

“Well.” He flashed her a full grin. “What can I say?”

After a moment, she looked back to the table and saw Peter had his hand out too, ready to catch the same thing. Based on where they were, it would’ve hit somewhere around the base of Livia’s skull.

“Woah.” June said from the couch. “Nice catch, Matt.”

“How did you do that?” Peter asked carefully. There was something in his voice. Not quite an accusation but a sense of knowing Matt was something more. His expression shifted to confusion and suspicion and Livia tried not to laugh.

“I’m a really good lawyer.” Matt reasoned, handing the brick to the younger boy. Livia elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

“Clearly, this isn’t something you can hide from.” Livia explained, hoping to divert attention away from Matt’s inability to maintain the secret of secret identity. “Popular opinion isn’t something that will change overnight. It may take a long time.”

“So what should he do?” Peter’s aunt, May, asked. Her eyes were full of worry for her nephew. Livia saw something of herself in the woman, a burning need to protect those she felt responsible for.

“Live his life.” June offered. Livia looked over her shoulder and saw June leaning her elbows on the arm of the couch with her knees on the cushion. “He’s still a teenager so he’s got his whole life to make vigilante fuck-ups.”

“June.” Livia warned.

“It’s true!” She defended. “I’d bet every vigilante fucks up, especially young ones.” Livia didn’t miss the way June tugged on her glove. “The point is that he can’t let this break him. So what if people don’t like him? It doesn’t change who he is. Right?”

“She may have a point.” Matt tried.

“Do not start with me.” Livia pointed a finger at him. With a smile, he gently grabbed hold of that finger and pushed her hand down.

The simple touch sent her into a manageable tizzy. His smile grew a bit and Livia knew her body had betrayed her. She reeled in her emotions as best she could, quietly cursed the Blip and its unraveling of her defenses, and returned focus to the conversation at hand.

All of it was doing nothing to counter Peter’s earlier misidentification of  ‘Mrs. Murdock’.

“Regardless, it could benefit you to find some allies among local heroes.” Livia suggested.

“He has the Avengers.” May offered.

“Right, but I think people closer to home may be better. There’s a trio in Hell’s Kitchen that might be a good start.”

“Hell’s Kitchen?” June parroted.

“There’s a girl relatively close to his age, calls herself Alter.” Livia continued, ignoring June’s addition. “She hangs around with Daredevil and his friend, Exodus.”

“Friend…” Matt mumbled with a slight nod. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “I think Livia is onto something. It’s not a bad idea.”

“Assuming you’re going to keep your spider persona going that is.”

The boy blew out a long sigh. “I’m not sure right now.”

Livia offered a kind smile. “Do what you think is best, kid. Everyone will have advice for you but ultimately, it’s your decision, okay? And hey, you know where to find us if you need a different perspective.”

The boy met her eyes for a moment and she shot him a wink. His eyes went wide with understanding and his gaze darted between Livia, Matt, and June. He smiled then, as if he was seeing who they moonlit as.

“Thanks.” His smile was so genuine it made Livia’s heart twist. “That means a lot.”

That was the last time she saw the boy without his mask. It wasn’t long until she forgot his name and his face. All she knew was that she had been Spider-man’s lawyer.

At least once a day since then, she looked over the New York skyline and hoped he was doing okay.

She still couldn’t tell Matt what was wrong when she told the office she’d be unavailable for a few days, maybe longer.

“What’s going on?” Foggy asked carefully as he came to join everyone. “Liv?”

“I was trying to tell Matt that I’ve gotta deal with something for my cousin starting tomorrow morning.” Livia explained. “It could be a while.”

“Your cousin?” Karen asked. “For Natasha?”

Livia titled her head side to side. Hearing her late cousin’s name was still a knife in the chest. Processing that kind of grief was a terrifying idea. For the time being, she was avoiding it like the plague.

“Yes and no. Yelena called… She wants my help.”

“Well, what with? I can come, too.” June offered. She had been suspiciously quiet while she sat at Matt’s desk, her feet kicked up on the surface.

“No, she said just me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Take it up with Yellie, June.” Livia pinched the bridge of her nose. “The point is that I’m just gonna be offline for a week, maybe more.”

“Offline?” Foggy’s brows furrowed. “But you’ll be in town, yeah?”

“Yes, but-“

“Then why can’t I come?” June argued and jumped to her feet.

“Because it’s not up to me!” Livia snapped.

Matt sighed, rubbed a hand along his jaw. Foggy shared a worried glance with Karen. June glared at Livia like she wanted the woman’s hair to catch on fire.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Matt finally spoke. Livia didn’t miss the accusation layered in the question.

Everything.

“Nothing.” Livia answered.

“Liar.” June accused.

“Shut it.”

“Livvy?” Foggy tried. “We know something’s wrong… Talk to us.”

“I don’t want to.” Livia shrugged slightly. “I don’t want to talk about my dead cousin, how I wasn’t here when she died, how she sacrificed her life to bring me and so many others back. I don’t want to talk about losing five years while the rest of you were fine. I don’t want to-“

Her words stopped when she felt a tight grip on her hand. June had quietly made her way over and cut off Matt in getting to her. Livia saw the way Matt stood now, a few steps closer and pulling his hand back. She watched him press his lips into a line and step away, one single step that felt like a mile.

Livia wondered if that was intentional, if June put herself there on purpose. June would never do it maliciously. Livia knew that. Sometimes June was just so zoned in on one thing, she had no spatial awareness.

But there was something off with them. She realized it a few days after her return. They were shorter with each other, not snippy but just reluctant, as if they didn’t know how to talk to each other anymore. Livia had meaning to ask what happened but she also wanted them to tell her of their own accord.

They were hiding something, some sort of fight or argument that was sitting unresolved. It grated on her subconscious, lingering in her thoughts when they were all together, but she had no idea how to ask. Could she just come out and say “What’s going on between you two?” and expect the truth?

Matt was regretful, apologetic even. June was upset, bordering betrayal. Whatever happened was likely Matt’s fault.

Regardless, deep down Livia still yearned for Matt’s comfort.

It would’ve been so nice for him to have gotten to her, to hold her hand with the gentleness only he ever seemed to give her, to just be at her side. She wanted that more than anything. She wanted to go back to what they had before, for things to be normal again.

Maybe that was the new normal. Maybe the want and the yearn was all she’d be able to have where Matt was concerned.

She’d have to learn to accept it.

“Just be careful.” Matt said. Livia noticed something in his voice, not quite concern but something like it. Something that made her skin flush. “You have a habit of getting in over your head.”

Livia couldn’t help but laugh a little. Matt smiled at her response.

She could learn to accept it later… Right?

“When have I ever done that?” She said innocently.

Matt shook his head affectionately and came back over. Livia felt her heart stutter and she forced the emotion down. She tried to lock it in a neat little box but it fought back. She had to settle for the flush on her cheeks when he got to her. June nudged her with her elbow and Livia gently pushed the girl woman away. June giggled but went with it.

Matt gently took Livia’s hand and pushed her sleeve up enough that he could run a thumb over the circular scar of a bullet wound.

“That wasn’t my fault.” Livia reasoned.

“No.” Matt cracked half a smile. “Of course not. Not this one either, right?”

His hand landed on her stomach, fingertips pressing gently into where the scar from Dex’s knife sat.

“No, sir.” She shook her head.

“And these?” Without releasing her hand, he used the other to trail his fingers over the scar on her face, following the shape of her mask.

“Absolutely not.” She spoke, more breathless than she would’ve liked to sound.

It made Matt smile to himself.

“Should we give them some privacy?” Foggy asked, not bothering to whisper.

“Get a room!” June called out while laughing.

“Well hang on.” Karen said. “One of them is bound to do something stupid and ruin it.”

Livia peaked over Matt’s shoulder and saw the three huddled together, smiling as if they were plotting. Livia tried to frown but it didn’t quite work. She broke into giggles almost immediately. Matt didn’t bother to look. His focus stayed on Livia, almost as if she was the only other person in the room. As if he wanted to memorize something about who she was now.

“What do you think?” She faced Matt, who had leaned in a little closer. One hand had stopped to rest at the side of her face, his thumb gently moving against the hinge of her jaw. His other still held on to her hand. “Are they right?”

“It’s usually me.” He confessed. Again, she had to laugh. “I know you have to do this for Yelena.” He spoke quietly.

“That’s not all.” Livia tried to argue in the same quiet tone.

“I just need you to be careful, Livvy. Okay? We just got you back…”

Her heart twisted at the nickname and a new flush climbed her cheeks. She carefully pulled Matt’s hand off her cheek before he could piece anything together.

“I know, Matt.” She nodded, squeezing both his hands slightly. “Yel wouldn’t call if she didn’t think we could handle it. If you don’t trust her, trust me.”

“I do.”

“Good.” She smiled slightly. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Matt hesitated. He opened his mouth to say something else then decided against it. He pressed his lips together, gave a quick nod, then stepped back. Livia’s friends came up after that and June was focusing a bit too hard. She could feel that familiar sensation of June’s power reaching out, like a ghost of fingertips on her forehead. She always wondered if anyone else ever felt it the way she did. Did they feel Livia’s power?

Livia glanced over, flicked her former shadow’s forehead, then laughed.

June was stunned, eyes wide as she dropped her power. Clearly, no one had thought to do that before. After a few seconds, she laughed about it.

“Take care of them.” Livia told June. “It’s like managing a bunch of toddlers but you’ll be alright.”

“I resent that.” Foggy commented. “I deeply, deeply resent that.”

“Love you, Fog.” She threw her friend a wink.

“Love you too, Liv.” He shook his head fondly before firmly pointing a finger at her. “But you’ve gotta come back in one piece. Nothing more than bruises or else I’m kicking your ass myself.”

“Oof.” June sucked a breath between her teeth. “He sounds serious, Liv.”

“I know.” Livia nodded.

“Okay, guys.” Karen said with a small laugh. “Foggy just worries. He’s a very concerned citizen.”

“Exactly!” Foggy announced, throwing his arms wide. “I’m gonna have to invest in backpack leashes for the both of you.”

“At least we’ll match.” Livia said to June.

Matt chuckled and June elbowed him in the ribs.

“I actually meant you two.” Foggy pointed to you and Matt.

June grinned in triumph and Matt scoffed in offense. Livia hid her laugh behind her hand.

It was as close to normal as she had gotten since her return. With everything in her, she wanted to stay in that moment, when everyone felt that the people she knew. People she’d lay down her life for. She still would, but that didn’t mean things weren’t different.

Generally, she felt like an outsider amongst her friends. It was like she showed up to a party late and everyone was well into conversations. She was on the outskirts. Usually, it wouldn’t bother her, but not with these people. Not with her people.

She still couldn’t tell them when she returned from Yelena’s mission. That was a flurry of emotion in its own right. Facing the grief of losing Natasha, the anger at Clint Barton for not doing more, the yearning to take her place, the regret of not being there, the frustration of Fisk lingering in her peripherals. She wanted to scream but she didn’t. She maintained her facade throughout, if only for Yelena’s sake, and screamed inside her head.

She forced those shaky walls to hold, to keep emotion away. She had to be strong for her little cousin, even if it was only a two year difference. At least since they both blipped, she didn’t have to lose that too. Seeing Yelena in that type of pain hurt Livia more than almost anything.

It didn’t feel right to leave Yelena after that. Her little cousin insisted that she was okay, that she just needed to be alone for a while. Livia, as stubborn as she was, knew better than to press her lethal family. Instead, she took Yelena’s phone and changed her lock screen to a photo of the two of them.

She held her cousin’s face in her hands.

“I want to take this pain away from you.” Livia said softly, her own eyes brimming with tears. Yelena’s expression was a mirror of her own and it made her heart hurt even more. “I so badly want to fix this.”

“Please.” Yelena’s voice broke.

“A friend of mine once said if we don’t feel this pain, we’ll never learn how to live through it.” She sniffled, repeating Matt’s words from so long ago. “You’re stronger than you know, Cousin. I can feel it… I love you, Yelena. I love you so much.”

“I miss her.” She whispered.

“I do too. But I’m only a phone call away. If you need anything, I promise I will come running.” Livia promised, hugging her cousin so tightly her own rib shifted beneath her skin. Thanks to a well-placed swing of Clint Barton’s bow, her bone was likely broken yet again.  Livia was too wrapped up in emotion to care.

She still didn’t tell anyone anything when Matt was slated to go to California.

“Just send June.” Livia shrugged when Foggy offered. She wasn’t looking at him, focusing on some papers on her own desk. “I’m fairly sure I’m on the TSA’s no fly list by now.” She tried to joke.

“You don’t like California?” Foggy asked instead.

“Never been, but it makes more sense for June. She’s his disability assistant sometimes, remember? And I think they’ve got something they need to work out.”

“Okay, sure, but I’m asking you to go.”

Livia didn’t miss the way Foggy purposefully changed the subject. It made her wonder what he knew about it.

“And I’m saying no.” She looked over at her friend working at his desk, though his work was seemingly abandoned. “What difference does it make?”

“Fine.” He dramatically sighed in defeat. “I didn’t wanna have to pull this card.”

Livia raised her brows in question. “Oh, it’s serious now. Hit me.”

“The guy Matt’s gonna defend, Luke Jacobson, he makes super suits. In addition to the firm’s fee-“

“We needed a case to pay the bills I take it.”

“Hundred percent. Anyways, he’s offered to make something for all of you guys.”

“All?”

“Daredevil, Exodus, and Alter.” 

“You made a deal for new suits for everyone? Even June?” She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “That’s interesting considering you’re always the one saying that it’s irresponsible to let June come and the three of us together is too risky for our identities.”

“I wasn’t going to!” He defended. “Dealing with you two is stressful enough but I knew she’d know and then she’d be mad at me for not getting her something. I wasn’t gonna deal with her icing me out for a month!” 

“At least.” She nodded. “June’s so petty for someone so small.”

“Exactly!”

“You should’ve seen how bad she hated Billy Russo. The guy called her an ankle biter once and she never forgave him.”

“Can you blame her? That’s offensive.”

“Eh.” Livia shrugged. “I’m pretty sure June threatened to castrate him if he said it again.”

“Jeez…”

“Yeah, takes after her Uncle Frank I guess.”

“Oh yeah. Frank’s to blame for that.” He rolled his eyes.

Livia nodded innocently. “I’d never threaten a man with that. I’d just do it.”

“Okay, can we-“ He gestured vaguely. “Can we get back to the topic of LA? The suits were supposed to be a surprise, by the way. Thank you for that.”

“You chose to tell me!” Livia defended. “Still, I don’t know. I don’t think I can be alone with him like that.”

His head cocked and he pushed his chair all the way across the office to be beside her. She looked on with wide eyes and a laugh as he scooted closer.

“What did he do this time?” Foggy asked when he got to her side.

She smiled slightly. “He didn’t do anything.” She said honestly. “It’s just… me.”

“Oh… Well, what did you do this time?”

“I just need to work through some stuff.” Livia shrugged it off. She couldn’t bring herself to unload everything onto Foggy. Even though he had shown on more than one occasion that he’d support her through anything, it still felt too heavy a burden to put on him. “Maybe sending him across the country will be good for us.”

“So there’s still an ‘us’ with you guys, huh?” He joked, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Matthew and I are very complicated people, Franklin. Our situation is very fluid. It changes almost everyday.” She confessed. “But it’ll work out as it needs to. Fate and the universe and all that.”

“Hey.” He said softly, a gentle seriousness in his words. He took her hand and she made no move to refuse the touch. “You know he still loves you, right?”

“I know.” She nodded, even if she wasn’t quite sure in what way. “But you can’t tell me things aren’t different.”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon, Foggy. Five years is a long time, especially when someone’s supposed to be dead.”

“Yeah but you were in and out for a few years back in college.” He shrugged.

“But I wasn’t dead.”

“You weren’t really dead this time either.”

“You’re not listening.” She pulled her hand away. “It’s fine, just… Just send June with Matt. I’ll cover his cases here while he’s gone.”

“Livia, I didn’t mean to-“

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Foggy. Drop it.” She said with a gentle firmness as she turned back to papers. She hesitated, sighed, and spoke once more. “Please.”

“Yeah, okay…” He patted her back. “You know we’re all here for you, right? No matter what’s bothering you, we’re here. None of us are going anywhere.”

“I know.” She didn’t look up. She wasn’t even sure she believed it. “Thanks, Fog.”

“I’m serious, Livvy. You’re not alone.”

“Yeah…”

Wasn’t she?

He shuffled his chair a few feet away before spinning towards Livia once more.

“What if I told you you’d be arguing against Jennifer Walters?” Foggy tried.

“I’d say ‘who the hell cares?’ because I don’t know who that is.” Livia answered easily.

“I would then tell you she's a UCLA graduate.”

“Not impressed.”

“And if I said she’s She-Hulk?”

“I’d answer that with the fact that a bigger head doesn’t automatically make you smarter or better competition. The answer’s still no.”

“Worth a shot.” He shrugged.

Livia’s mind soon drifted back to the thought of not being alone.

To anyone else, her life seemed so full. A steady job at a locally successful law firm, a tight knit group of friends, allies across the globe, experience in various fields, a prodigé that’s become more like family. She was charming, smart, strong. She was kind and honest. All the best qualities a person could be.

But if anyone were to actually be inside of Alivia Yersova’s head, they’d find more comfort in a jail cell.

She felt hollow, like anything that could matter to her was scooped out or just wasn’t returned after the Blip.

She had unique abilities of pathokinesis, the power to manipulate the emotions, yet she couldn’t even register or control her own. The walls she had worked tirelessly at for years under Dreykov’s tutelage had shifted. Instead of protecting her from her own emotions and the feelings of others, it was as if she was trapped with them. She couldn’t keep her own feelings in check or away. She was supposed to blend, to remain a blank, unreadable slate to the outside world.

That was her armor.

No matter what she was going through, no matter who was beating her or taking from her or breaking her, the outside world saw nothing but composure. Nothing but control, nothing but power.

Yet, since she came back from the Blip, she had little control. She fell victim to the blushes and tears and panic. She could barely keep herself composed around Matt, someone who would flirt with a stop sign if he thought it’d make a difference. She had listened to the man talk his way out of problems and into beds since they were in college, and now one stupid smile had her cheeks rosy and her stomach in knots.

Livia hadn’t felt that disadvantaged with her powers since she was a child. It made her feel normal, like she was just a woman in love with the one idiot in New York every woman swooned for. She hated that feeling.

And her friends… Her friends would never understand. They wouldn’t see anything wrong with feeling, with being happy or sad or angry. They wouldn’t understand that it wasn’t about the feelings. Just because she controlled them didn’t mean she didn’t have them. Livia knew what it felt like to love, to fear, to loathe, to despair. She knew what every possible emotion felt like. She’d always known, but she had grown so accustomed to them being at her will. Not the other way around.

At least with June out of the apartment for a bit, Livia was able to sit within herself. She found that her walls weren’t necessarily gone but there were cracks, some deep and fissuring while others were spiderwebs. Enough were threatening to widen every day. She spent almost the entirety of each day when she wasn’t at the office mending the cracks, hoping to stabilize enough to not worry about a full on collapse.

It wasn’t done by the time June and Matt came back, but it was progress. 

When June got back from California, she made her annoyance very well known.

“Why would you do that?” June slammed the apartment door shut behind her.

Livia sighed to herself, paused her movie, and turned towards the younger woman storming into their shared living space. June made a point to throw down her bags and stand with hands on her hips and an expectant expression on her face. Livia swallowed the remark of how much she looked like Matt in that instance.

“Welcome home.” Livia said instead. “How was LA?”

“Don’t ’welcome home’ me!” June mocked. “Why would you do that?!”

“Do what?”

“Why make me go with him!”

“I’m sorry.” Livia innocently furrowed her brows. “Are you two going through something?”

June opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it. She stared at Livia intently, that ghost of a sensation coming again. June was trying to subtly find out what Livia knew or what she suspected.

“Don’t go in my head, Bug.” Livia warned carefully.

“Sorry.” June muttered and the feeling instantly vanished. June crossed her arms if only to hide her hands. “Matt and I are just fine...”

“Then what are you mad about?” Livia prodded, knowing June was lying. “I thought you’d enjoy the sunshine and maybe find a cute boy, experience life outside the Kitchen.”

June’s cheeks immediately flushed bright pink. Livia suddenly had a new topic to fixate on.

“Unless you already have a cute boy?” Livia raised her brows with a teasing smirk. “Is that who you’re always texting?”

“I may be talking to someone, yes.” June said carefully but with a proud lift of her head. “He’s very cute, very sweet… I like him. I think? Maybe? I don’t know. It’s new.”

“Who is he?”

“No one you’d know.”

“That’s how we’re gonna do this?” Livia laughed slightly. “I’ve told you about every guy and you’re gonna hide your first crush?”

“I’m not hiding him!” June defended. “I just-“

“Don’t want to tell me.”

“Don’t know if it’s anything.”

“I can see the pink all around you.” Livia gestured. “Your eyes are basically little hearts.”

“Oh god.” June rolled her eyes. She came over and plopped beside Livia with a huff. “I’m scared he’ll be like Russo.”

Livia shifted to face June, a gentle hand on her leg.

“Why do you think that?”

June shrugged a shoulder. “He’s charming and pretty… What if there’s something demented about him?”

“Seems a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Livia tried.

“Or if we end up like you and Matt…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You guys are always falling over each other then at each other’s throats then crying your eyes out then screaming at each other. You’re in love with each other on Sunday and by Wednesday you’ve broken the other’s heart…”

Livia frowned at the observation. She knew her and Matt had no real stability but she hadn’t considered how obvious it could be for everyone else.

“I’m sorry.” Livia managed. “I know I haven’t given you the best examples of love and relationships.”

“No kidding.”

“But it’s a learning curve.” Livia continued. “Some parts of it you have to learn on your own. It’s scary and vulnerable to give so much of yourself to another person, not knowing what secrets they might hide. I had to learn that lesson the hard way… But I can promise you, if your guy was anything like Billy Russo, you’d know. If anyone would know, it’d be you.”

“I really try not to use that on him.” June fiddled with a seam of her glove. “It feels wrong.”

“I thought the same of mine at first, too.” Livia agreed. “Now I’m not saying to do a full deep dive for all of his deepest darkest secrets, if he has any. What I'm saying is that a little focus on what he’s already offering up to you isn’t all that bad.”

“Do you do that with Matt?”

“Matt wears his heart on his sleeve a good portion of the time. It doesn’t take mindwork to know what he’s feeling.”

“Can you tell?” June asked carefully. “When I’m trying to use it on you.”

“Sort of.” Livia nodded. “I’m guessing it has to do with my own stuff because I’ve never known Matt or anyone else to really acknowledge when I’m using mine on them unless it’s a drastic shift. It just feels like a really light, really faint touch.”

“What if I try it and he can tell and he freaks out?” June quietly panicked.

“You could try telling him. Lay all of this out for him and see what he says.”

“That doesn’t sound any better.”

“Yes, but it’s honest.”

“It’s terrifying.”

“That’s love, my dear.” Livia patted June’s leg. “Love is embarrassing and messy and fun and terrifying, but if it’s the right person, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

“But how do I know he’s the right person?”

“You just do.” Livia shrugged, immediately thinking of Matt.

She remembered when he implied she was the right person for him. With a pang in her chest, she wondered if he still thought that after five years.

When tensions seemed to have leveled, Foggy managed to wrangle everyone up at Josie’s. The night seemed to be a step towards normalcy and Livia was almost convinced things would work out.

June was laughing. Matt was poking fun at Foggy, who was across the bar flirting with Kirsten McDuffie. Karen was smiling and joining in. Livia sipped her drink with a small smile, hoping that it was the first real step towards finding her way back to her friends.

The Professional is what you’re known as in their world. Every job you’ve ever pulled is seamless, a complete work of art Pope can’t help but admire. You’re consulting fee shows it too, you know your value and you won’t settle for less. As much as Smurf begrudges it, they need you otherwise the work and the money they’ve already put into this job, it’ll be completely wasted.

When you step through the door every single one of them is taken back because what they didn’t expect was a woman, a damn fine one.

Craig hones on that almost immediately but you shut him down by holding up your hand as if he were a dog, stopping him in his tracks. “Oh honey, you are so far from my type it isn’t even funny.”

His mother’s jaw tenses as she watches you because already you’re commanding the room and she doesn’t like the competition.

“She’s gotta be a dyke.” Craig says later when you and Smurf step outside to discuss bringing you onto the crew for the job because they’ve just realised how momentously fucked they are. “It’s the only explanation.”

“Or she just doesn’t like cokeheads.” Deran supplies, sipping from his beer. “If Smurf can convince her to get on board that’s probably gonna mean you’re gonna have to quit powdering your nose for a couple of hours while we get shit done.”

“Fuck that.” Craig says as the sliding door opens and you and Smurf step back into the kitchen.

“Alright.” You address the group as you stand there with your hands on your hips. “You wanna get into that safe it’s gonna take two of us. My partner in crime needs to be someone meticulous with attention to detail and steady hands. Who isn’t going to flake out going over the same thing over and over and over again so they can get the muscle memory boxed off.”

The last comment is directed at Craig, they can tell from the forceful look you give him.

“I guess that’s me.” Pope says raising to his feet. “Since I’m the only one with an attention span longer that the time it takes to do a line.”

He feels your gaze on him, calm and analytical, taking in his shirt buttoned all the way up to the throat, his stillness as he stands before you.

“You’ll do.” You say before jerking your head towards the front gate. “Come on, we’re going for a ride to my workshop.”

And that’s how it starts. Hours and days spent in close proximity as you teach him the delicate art of safecracking. He’s used to a more brute force approach. Tearing the shit out of concrete, blowtorching the mother fucker but the way you work, it’s like magic. Thorough, mediative. He comes out of your workshop at the end of each session feeling calmer, like some sort of balance has been restored inside him.

“I don’t like how much time you’re spending with that girl.” Smurf tells him, one morning on the way out the door.

“It’s for the job, you know it is.” He tells her before leaving.

But it’s not, not really because the two of you have started getting close. A couple of beers on your back porch overlooking the beach, dinner from a food truck before you kick off your shoes and take a walk along the shoreline, the water cascading over your ankles.

“I want to learn more.” He tells you once the job is over. It’s true, he does but he also doesn’t want this to end. You’re the first woman he’s felt an interest in in a long time, the first one that might actually see him.

You step outside onto the porch instead of letting him in the way you usually do. He knows it’s because of Smurf, that she warned you off him, told you his secrets. You know the truth now about how fucked up he is.

This is what she does when he starts trying to build something outside of the family, she cuts off his life lines, leaves him twisting in the wind until he realises the only place he can go is back to the house he grew up in, the family that steal away little pieces of his sanity until the darkness eats him up.

“Look…” He begins but you’re already wrapping your arms around his neck, gathering him up into a hug. He stiffens at first because he can’t remember the last time someone held him. His muscles relax and he draws you closer, his cheek coming to rest against yours as he breathes in the scent of the ocean clinging to your skin.

“You’re not the only one that’s fucked up.” You whisper, your breath ghosting in his ear. “I killed my father when I was fifteen because he was creeping into my bed at night.”

His grip on you tightens as he buries his face into the curve of your throat. 

“Don’t let her use that shit to control you. You’re not the person she’s trying to turn you into, you’re more than that.”

“How do you know?” He murmurs, his forehead coming to rest upon yours so he can look into your eyes. “How do you know I’m not the monster she wants me to be?”

“Because I see your sadness.” You tell him, your fingertips trailing over the copper stubble that mars his cheek. “You do it for the love and all you get back is this feeling in your chest, this emptiness that feels like it eats up your entire soul.”

“I don’t wanna be like this anymore.” He tells you, his voice breaking. “I don’t want to keep losing myself.”

“You don’t have to.” You tell him, your palm coming to rest upon his heart. He can feel it thudding underneath the pads of your fingers as he clasps it there, his connection, his way back to humanity. “The two of us, we’ll figure it out, I promise.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

Chapter 6: Paperwork as a Weapon. “Throw it down (The caution blocks you from the wind), Hold it up (To the rays) You wait and see when the smoke clears…” You Learn-Alanis Moresette.

Andrew Cody had held a lot of weapons in his life.

Guns, mostly.

Pistols small enough to disappear beneath a shirt. Revolvers that sat heavy in his palm and kicked up through his wrist when he fired them. Shotguns that bruised his shoulder even when he held them correctly. Rifles with cold metal pressed against his cheek while he watched a target through the sights and waited for someone else to give the signal.

He knew how every one of them felt.

He knew the difference between a gun that had been cleaned recently and one that hadn’t. He knew the smell of oil, metal and powder. He knew how ammunition clicked into place and how the weight changed when the magazine was full. He knew how a weapon could make a frightened man brave and a stupid man dangerous.

Knives were different.

Quieter.

More personal.

You had to get close enough to smell someone’s breath when you used a knife. Close enough to feel their body move. Close enough that there was no pretending you hadn’t meant it.

He’d held hunting knives, kitchen knives, switchblades and box cutters. Anything with an edge could become something else when it was put in the right hand—or the wrong one.

Pope had used things that had never been designed to hurt anyone.

A sledgehammer, a crowbar, a tyre iron. A length of electrical cable wrapped around his fist because it was what he had within reach. Chains. Rope. Broken glass. Heavy flashlights. Pieces of wood torn from whatever was close enough to grab. A brick once, rough against his palm, the corners biting into his skin as he lifted it.

He’d used doors as weapons, slamming them into bodies. Walls, too, if someone stood close enough to one. Floors. Countertops. Car bonnets. His own weight.

His hands.

His hands were the weapon he trusted most. They couldn’t be knocked away and forgotten in the grass. They didn’t jam. They didn’t need loading. They were always there at the ends of his arms, scarred across the knuckles and strong enough to turn fear into something physical.

Weapons made sense to Pope.

You held them.

You aimed them.

You used them.

Afterward, there was blood or damage or silence. Something you could see. Something you could understand. He had never realised how easily a few sheets of white paper could become a weapon.

Not until that Saturday afternoon.

Henry was sitting on the rug in the middle of your living room when Pope walked in, his legs folded underneath him and an alphabet puzzle spread across the floor. The wooden pieces were painted in bright colours, some of them chipped along the edges from being dropped or chewed or forced into the wrong places.

Henry held the letter R in one hand, turning it over and over while he stared at the empty spaces in the board.

“R,” he murmured through the lego tyre between his teeth.

“R,” you answered automatically from somewhere near the kitchen counter.

Your voice sounded wrong.

Not obviously wrong. You weren’t crying. You weren’t shouting. You weren’t doing anything that would’ve made most people stop and look.

But Pope knew you now. Not entirely, not in the way he wanted to.

Enough.

He knew the normal rhythm of your voice when you were tired. Knew the brighter, forced version you used around strangers and the quiet version you used when Henry was close to being overwhelmed. He knew your dry little laugh when you realised you’d said too much. He knew how you said his name when you were surprised to see him and how you stretched out okay when you were trying to convince yourself something really was.

This voice was too flat.

Too carefully held.

Pope shut the door behind him and checked the lock without thinking, turning it until he heard the deadbolt settle. The extra latch was already in place above it. You had added another one after your husband showed up.

You were standing at the kitchen counter with your back half-turned to him. One hand was pressed against the edge hard enough that the tendons stood out beneath your skin. The other held a piece of paper you weren’t reading anymore.

There were more pages spread across the counter.

White paper, black ink. A yellow legal envelope lying open beside it; You tried to hide the tears before you faced him.

He saw you lift your fingers to the corner of one eye. Saw the quick swipe, the irritated blink. Like you were angry at your own face for showing what you were feeling. But your nose was red. Your cheeks were flushed unevenly. Your breathing had that faint catch in it, barely there, the way it did when you’d been trying not to cry for too long.

Pope stopped near the edge of the living room.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, the question rose immediately, blunt and hard in his throat.

He wanted to ask who had done it; more than that, he wanted to ask how to fix it but you were moving too much. From the counter to the sink. From the sink to the fridge. Opening the fridge without taking anything out, then shutting it again. Picking up a dishcloth and folding it, unfolding it, folding it again.

You couldn’t stay still for more than five seconds.

Pope waited.

He’d learned that about you, too. If he pushed while you were moving, you’d make a joke. You’d offer him coffee. You’d ask about Craig or the weather or whether the gate was still holding properly.

You’d do anything except tell the truth before you were ready.

So Pope stood silently while Henry worked the R into the wrong space, pulled it back out and tried again.

Finally, you placed both palms flat against the counter and stayed there.

Pope looked at the paperwork, “What happened?”

You flinched as if you’d forgotten he was in the room, then you looked at him and attempted a smile, “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t even a convincing lie.

Pope’s gaze dropped to the pages again. You saw it and shifted slightly, not enough to block them. He wondered whether you were too exhausted to stop him or whether this was something else.

Trust, maybe.

The thought landed uncomfortably inside his chest; You trusted him enough not to hide the weapon.

“It doesn’t—” Your voice caught. You cleared your throat, pressing your lips together until the break disappeared. “It doesn’t matter.”

Pope walked toward the counter and you didn’t move to stop him.

That mattered. Months ago, you would’ve gathered the pages up. You would’ve laughed too loudly and shoved them into a drawer. You would’ve created distance between him and anything that might make you vulnerable.

Now you let him come close.

Not touching close.

Close enough to read.

The heading was formal. A petition. Temporary custody. Proposed arrangements. Statements written in the kind of bloodless language people used when they wanted cruelty to look reasonable.

Pope read slowly.

He wasn’t stupid, regardless of what people thought when they heard the pauses in his speech or watched him struggle to fit a thought into words. He understood paperwork. He understood contracts, police reports, court records and the way an official sentence could hide a threat behind neutral language. Your husband wanted primary custody.

Not twenty percent.

Not weekends.

Not even the twenty-eighty agreement you had mentioned over breakfast.

Almost everything.

The pages described you as unstable. Financially insecure. Unable to provide consistent care without support. They mentioned your reduced work hours. The late bills. The move to Oceanside. Every difficult thing you had ever survived had been rearranged into evidence that Henry should be taken from you.

Pope felt his jaw lock.

Henry placed the R into its correct slot, “R,” he said again, pleased.

“Good words, buddy,” you replied, your voice cracking around the edges.

The contrast made something vicious move through Pope.

Henry was sitting five feet away, safe and calm because of you because you knew the jam had to go over butter. Because you understood that Oh no, little baby, what happened? meant he’d hurt himself. Because you kept tyres in your pockets for him to chew and installed locks high enough that he couldn’t reach them. Because you worked less so that he had someone who understood him when the rest of the world became too loud.

The man who had lasted one night alone with his own son was telling a court that you were incapable.

Pope could picture him still. Maroon Henley. Dark hair. Boot wedged in your door.

Pope’s fingers curled against the counter.

He could make this stop.

The thought came with the same cold clarity as a plan.

He could find out where the man lived. It wouldn’t take long. Follow him for a few days. Learn when he left for work, where he parked, whether he lived alone. Pope could put him in a room and make him understand that Henry wasn’t a bargaining chip and you weren’t property he could keep through signatures and court dates.

He could put divorce papers in front of the man and hold his hand steady until every page was signed.

Simple.

Clean.

Effective.

The anger wasn’t wild, that was what made it dangerous. It settled into Pope’s muscles with purpose, drawing his shoulders tight and slowing his breathing.

Then you looked at him.

Your eyes were still wet, and there was something open in them that stopped the plan before it could fully form.

You trusted him.

Not with everything. Not yet; But with this.

You had let him read the papers. Let him see your face when you couldn’t hold it together. Let him stand in your home while Henry played on the rug and you had nothing polished left to give. The feelings Pope had for you had been growing so quietly he hadn’t known when it became something he couldn’t ignore.

With you, Pope didn’t imagine becoming clean.

He imagined becoming honest, that was worse.

That was more dangerous.

Because when he looked at you now—red nose, flushed cheeks, hands shaking over custody papers—he didn’t want you to save him. He didn’t want you to make him normal.

He wanted to stay.

He wanted to be someone you could fall apart in front of without regretting it afterward. He wanted to take the papers out of your hands and carry some of the weight, even though he didn’t know how.

And the fact that he wanted anything that badly terrified him.

You wiped beneath your eye again and gave him another strained smile, “What brings you over anyway?” you asked, as though the answer mattered. As though you weren’t standing beside documents designed to take your entire life apart. “Did you need something?”

Pope stared at you.

You were doing it again. Redirecting. Making yourself useful. Giving him an escape from your pain so he wouldn’t have to be uncomfortable.

He looked back down at the petition, “It matters,” he said.

Your smile faltered.

Pope tapped one finger against the page. Not hard, but enough that the paper shifted, “This.”

You swallowed. “Andrew—”

“He wants Henry.”

The words came out low and flat.

You folded your arms tightly across your chest, a barrier built too late; “He wants to punish me,” you corrected quietly. “Henry’s just how he’s doing it.”

Pope already knew that.

Hearing you say it still made his anger sharpen. He thought again about asking where the man lived. The question sat ready behind his teeth.

Instead, Pope forced his hands open, “You got a good lawyer?”

You gave a tired laugh that contained no humour, “I have a lawyer.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Your eyes met his.

For one second, Pope thought you might snap at him. A spark of irritation moved across your face, and he welcomed it. Anger looked better on you than shame. Anger meant there was still fight left.

Then the fight sagged beneath exhaustion.

“But, you know, family court is slow,” you said. “And expensive. And apparently everyone involved gets paid by the hour, so there’s no real incentive for anyone to stop sending twelve-page letters saying the exact same thing in increasingly creative legal language.”

You gestured toward the pages.

Pope glanced at the envelope. The name of the law firm sat printed in the corner.

He memorised it without trying.

“And he has money,” you continued. “Not unlimited money, but enough. Enough to keep going longer than I can.”

Your voice went quieter on the final sentence.

There it was.

The weapon beneath the paperwork.

Not that your husband had a stronger case, that he could afford to exhaust you.

Pope understood endurance as violence. Not the loud kind. Not the kind that left blood on the floor or bruises blooming beneath skin. This was quieter. Cleaner. The kind of violence people could commit while wearing suits, speaking politely and sending letters on expensive stationery.

Smurf had used it against all of them.

She knew pressure didn’t have to break a person immediately. Sometimes it worked better if it didn’t. You applied it slowly. Consistently. You made every day slightly harder than the one before it. You withheld affection, money, safety—whatever someone needed most—and then waited.

Eventually resistance became more painful than surrender.

Eventually people stopped fighting because they were too tired to remember what they had been fighting for.

Smurf had built an entire family that way. She could make Craig crawl back with money, Deran with guilt, Baz with power. With Pope, it had always been love—or whatever warped, conditional imitation of it she had taught him to recognise as love. She would pull him close, call him her baby, make him feel useful, then withdraw everything the second he stepped beyond the limits she had drawn for him.

A leash didn’t need to be visible to work.

Your husband understood that too.

Different house. Different weapon. Same strategy.

“He thinks you’ll give up,” Pope said.

His voice came out low and certain. He was still staring at the papers on your counter, at the neat blocks of legal language that tried to make cruelty sound reasonable.

You looked down at Henry instead of answering immediately.

Henry had moved on to the letter S, running his thumb slowly over the painted curve. The puzzle piece was bright yellow, worn along one edge where his teeth had found it more than once before you’d redirected him to the little black lego tyre. He turned it around in his hand, studying it from every angle as if the shape might change if he looked long enough.

“S,” Henry murmured.

You watched him with an expression Pope had come to understand over the last few months.

Love first.

Fear underneath it.

Always fear underneath it.

“No,” you said at last, your eyes still on your son, “He thinks I’ll run out of money.”

There was no self-pity in your voice. That made it worse.

You said it like a fact. Like gravity. Like the inevitable conclusion to an equation you had worked through too many times to pretend the answer might change.

Pope’s gaze shifted to the pile of unopened mail near the fruit bowl.

It wasn’t even hidden anymore.

When he’d first started coming inside, you used to turn the envelopes face down or sweep them into a drawer when you caught him looking. Now they sat in plain view: electricity, water, insurance, something from your lawyer, something from a debt collector. White envelopes with red ink. Final notices. Amount overdue. Late fees added to late fees, the quiet accumulation of punishments for not having enough money in the first place.

The world liked to charge poor people extra for being poor.

Pope understood that kind of logic. The Cody jobs had started in places like that—rent due, food running low, Smurf saying there was money out there and only cowards waited for permission to take it. Eventually they had stopped pretending they stole because they needed to. But the beginning had mattered.

Need could make almost anything seem reasonable.

He looked back at you, “How much?”

Your head lifted. “What?”

“The lawyer.”

The question changed your face immediately.

Not dramatically. You didn’t recoil or tell him to mind his business. But suspicion tightened the corners of your eyes. Your shoulders drew back from the counter. Your arms folded loosely across your stomach, as if your body had decided to guard itself before your mind caught up.

Pope regretted the question as soon as he saw it because he knew what it sounded like.

Money offered with a hand already reaching for ownership.

Smurf had never paid for anything without buying part of the person along with it. Rent, cars, legal trouble, jobs—she called it taking care of family, but the bill always arrived eventually. Sometimes months later. Sometimes years. She would drag up every dollar she had ever spent and lay it at your feet like evidence that your life belonged to her.

Pope didn’t want you looking at him and seeing that.

He didn’t want you hearing How much? and thinking, What will he want from me afterward?

His eyes dropped back to the custody petition and for a moment, he thought about Lena.

He had done everything backward with Lena.

He had wanted to keep her close because closeness felt like protection. He had wanted to surround her with money, walls, people who would make sure she never understood what it was to go without. Every job, every risk, every envelope of cash could be turned into a justification if he looked at it the right way.

College. Rent. Food. A life where Lena didn’t have to stand at a kitchen counter staring at bills and deciding which one could survive being ignored for another week.

He had continued working jobs after prison because criminal work was the only kind of work the Codys had ever properly taught him. And when Lena was still close enough for him to pretend he could build her a future, he had told himself the money could become something clean once it reached her.

That was the lie men like Pope lived on.

The money was dirty. The reason didn’t have to be.

He had imagined Lena older without really knowing what older looked like. A place of her own. Tuition paid. A fridge with food inside it. A car that started every morning. No one using money to tell her where she belonged. He had wanted to give her the kind of safety cash could buy because he hadn’t known how to give her the kind it couldn’t.

In the end, the safest thing he had ever given Lena was distance from him.

He had let her go.

Now, looking at you, Pope wondered whether anyone had ever been willing to take risks for you like that.

Not own you. Not rescue you so they could remind you later, just take some of the weight off your shoulders.

Had anyone ever looked at the impossible numbers in front of you and thought, Fine. Then they’re mine too?

Your husband clearly hadn’t. He had money, or at least enough of it to keep paying someone to frighten you. Enough to make family court into a waiting game he believed he could win. Enough to turn time into another weapon.

Pope had money.

Cody money.

Cash that never looked quite right in a bank account and couldn’t be explained without questions. Money made from safes and heists and fear. Money that could pay your lawyer but might poison everything between you the second he placed it in your hands.

He could solve the cost; He didn’t know how to solve what the offer would mean.

“It doesn’t matter,” you told him. “I’ve got it sorted.”

Pope stared at you.

You absolutely did not have it sorted.

He could tell by the unopened envelopes. By the way you had started buying the cheaper coffee even though you complained it tasted like burnt dirt. By the small repair in the knee of Henry’s trousers. By the fact that you hadn’t replaced the microwave even though it only worked if you slammed the door twice.

You were winging it.

Moving money from one bill to another. Paying enough to stop one company from calling while another sent a final notice. Hoping the lawyer wouldn’t ask for another retainer before you found a way to scrape it together. Hoping for the best because hope was currently cheaper than a court application.

You turned away from him and leaned back against the sink. Your palms pressed into the edge behind you, your shoulders hunching as if you needed the counter to hold up part of your weight.

“I just…” Your eyes lowered to the floor.

Pope waited.

He had learned not to fill the gaps when you were trying to talk. If he interrupted, you used the interruption as an exit. You would smile, make some dry comment and retreat before the truth could finish leaving your mouth.

“Every time I think it’s done,” you began, “every time I think we’ve come to an agreement, he comes at me with something else.” Your fingers tightened around the edge of the sink, “First he said he’d sign if I didn’t ask for anything. So I didn’t. I didn’t ask for the house. I didn’t ask for money. I didn’t ask for half of anything because I just wanted out.”

Pope felt his jaw tighten.

You had been trying to purchase freedom by leaving everything behind.

Your husband had taken the payment and kept the cage locked anyway.

“Then it was visitation,” you continued. “Then it was the custody split. Then it was that I’d moved without consulting him, even though he knew I was moving. Then it was that Henry needs consistency and apparently that means staying near a father who has seen him three times in the last year.”

The bitterness in your voice sharpened with every sentence.

Good, Pope thought. He preferred your anger to your shame. Anger meant you still understood this wasn’t your fault.

You rubbed at your forehead, pressing two fingers between your eyebrows, “And I’m so tired.”

The anger vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.

That frightened Pope more.

“I’m tired of not being able to relax,” you said. “I’m tired of not sleeping. I’m tired of checking my phone and wondering what new thing he’s decided I’ve done wrong.”

Pope’s eyes flicked toward the front door, the additional bolt sat high above the handle. The chain was drawn across even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Your phone was face down on the table, but Pope had noticed it vibrating twice since he arrived.

You continued, quieter now, “I’m tired of thinking about what’s going to happen to Henry if he gets sent to his father.” Your voice caught, you swallowed hard and stared at your son.

Henry was still occupied with the puzzle. The S hovered over the board as he searched for its place, unaware that two adults were standing ten feet away discussing where a court might decide he belonged.

“He doesn’t know him,” you said. “Not really. He doesn’t know what the different sounds mean. He doesn’t know that Henry saying ‘oh no, little baby’ means he’s hurt himself. He doesn’t know he’ll only eat the toast if the butter is underneath the jam, or that if you cut it into triangles instead of squares he sometimes won’t touch it.”

Pope listened.

“He doesn’t know the difference between Henry being upset and Henry being overloaded. He thinks every meltdown is bad behaviour. He thinks if Henry doesn’t respond, he’s ignoring him on purpose,” Your eyes filled again, but this time you didn’t turn away quickly enough to hide it, “What happens when Henry’s screaming and he can’t make it stop?” you asked, your voice almost breaking. “What happens when he bites or hits because he can’t communicate and his father decides he needs discipline?”

Pope’s hand curled against the counter.

He knew exactly what could happen when an adult treated distress like disobedience. Smurf had built whole punishments out of that misunderstanding.

“What happens when Henry runs?” you continued. “He doesn’t check locks. He doesn’t think he should have to. He used to get angry at me for putting latches up because he said they made the house look ridiculous.”

Pope glanced again at the bolt. The locks weren’t ridiculous, they were the reason Henry was still inside the house.

You dragged in a breath that shook on the way down, “I keep thinking about him waking up somewhere that isn’t here. Looking for me. Not understanding why I’m gone.” Your mouth twisted, trying and failing to contain the grief of a thing that hadn’t happened yet, “He’ll think I left him.”

Pope’s chest tightened so quickly it felt like impact.

For one second he saw Lena—not as she had been when he last watched her from a distance, safe and settled, but younger. Confused. Waiting for adults who kept disappearing. Wondering whether she had done something wrong.

He saw Julia, too.

People always thought abandonment was about the person who left. It wasn’t. Not to a kid. A kid turned it inward. A kid built explanations out of themselves because that was easier than accepting the adults around them had failed.

Pope couldn’t let Henry believe you had left him.

The thought arrived without qualification.

Not he didn’t want it.

He couldn’t let it happen.

He could plan robberies.

He could study a building until he knew where every camera pointed, how long a guard took to walk his route, what street would be clear at a certain time. He could account for vehicles, weapons, witnesses and mistakes. He could create contingencies for contingencies until the thing in front of him felt small enough to control.

He could plan violence down to the second; But he couldn’t work out how to help you without making you feel like you owed him.

Money would solve part of it.

Money would also look like a chain if he handled it wrong.

He wanted to say, I’ll pay.

He wanted to place enough cash on the counter that you never had to look at another red notice again. He wanted to make the lawyer answer every letter, file every motion and keep fighting until your husband ran out of spite or breath.

But Pope knew you. You would refuse.

Not because you didn’t need it, but because you would rather drown than discover the lifeboat had a rope tied around your ankle.

He needed another route.

A way to help that didn’t require you to take anything directly from him. A way to understand what was happening before he acted. Information first. Plan second.

“Who’s your lawyer?”

You blinked at him.

“What?”

“Your lawyer,” Pope repeated, slower this time. “Who is it?”

Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Why?”

Pope looked back down at the petition.

The law firm’s name was already printed on the letterhead, but he wanted to hear you say it. He wanted to know whether you trusted this person. Whether they returned calls. Whether they were any good or simply the only one you could afford.

“Because you said you had one,” Pope replied.

“I do,” Your mouth tightened.

Pope could see the wall going up again. The instinct to protect what little control you had left.

He softened his voice—not by much, but enough, “Are they good?”

You hesitated slightly, “They’re… fine,” you said at last.

Pope stared at you and stayed quiet.

“Andrew.”

“Fine doesn’t keep him from taking Henry.”

Your face went pale.

Pope regretted the bluntness immediately, but he couldn’t take the words back. He didn’t know how to wrap danger in softer language. He only knew how to point at it.

You looked down at the floor, “No,” you said quietly. “It doesn’t.”

Pope’s anger shifted,  he took the lawyer’s letter from the counter and read the name printed beneath the signature for a second time.

Marianne Keller. Keller Family Law.

Pope fixed it into his memory.

The address too.

He didn’t need to write things down when they mattered. His brain held onto details differently when there was a threat attached to them—the name on a security uniform, a licence plate, the timing of a camera sweep, the exact position of a lock. Once something became part of a problem he intended to solve, it stayed.

He placed the letter back on the counter in precisely the same spot, “I’m not giving you money,” he said.

Your head lifted sharply.

The movement was so immediate Pope knew he had guessed correctly. Whatever you had expected him to say, it had involved money. An offer. An argument. Another person deciding what was best for you and demanding you be grateful for it.

Pope forced himself to meet your eyes.

It was harder than facing a gun. Guns were simple. A gun pointed at him meant danger. A finger moving toward the trigger meant act first. There were only so many outcomes, and Pope understood every one of them.

Your expression wasn’t simple.

There was suspicion there, but not only suspicion. Fear. Pride. Exhaustion. The faint embarrassment of someone who hated being seen when they were struggling. The guarded look of a woman who had learned that help was rarely free and that generosity could become evidence against you later.

Pope understood that look because Smurf had put it on all her children eventually.

“I know you won’t take it,” he continued. “And I’m not gonna make you.”

Some of the tension left your shoulders, but not all of it. Your arms remained folded over your stomach. Not defensive enough to be obvious, but Pope noticed the way your fingers curled into the fabric at your sides.

“Then why do you want to know who my lawyer is?”

Pope looked down at the letter again; He thought about telling you he wanted to check the lawyer out.

That sounded like he didn’t trust your judgement.

He thought about saying he knew people who could find out whether Marianne Keller was competent, whether she had ever been disciplined, whether she won cases or simply kept sending bills until her clients could no longer afford to answer the phone.

That sounded like what it was: surveillance.

He wanted to tell you the truth; Because if you won’t take the money, I can bypass you and give it directly to the lawyer.

But he knew how that sounded too.

It sounded like your answer didn’t matter. Like no was merely an obstacle and Pope was already searching for a quieter way around it.

It sounded like Smurf.

The comparison turned his stomach.

Smurf never accepted a boundary she didn’t like. She smiled, changed direction and found another point of entry. If one of her boys wouldn’t take money from her hand, she paid a debt behind his back and waited until the favour became useful. She called it love because the word control wasn’t warm enough.

Pope didn’t want to control you.

He didn’t want to buy a place in your house or make you feel as though every cup of coffee, every conversation over the fence and every moment with Henry existed because he had paid for the privilege.

But he did want the problem gone.

That was the part of himself he couldn’t make gentle.

Pope saw a threat and removed it. He found a weak point and reinforced it. He saw someone he cared about drowning and couldn’t understand why he should remain on the shore merely because they were too frightened to take his hand.

Cared about.

The words passed through his mind before he could stop them.

His eyes shifted to you.

You were standing against the sink in an old shirt, your hair pulled back badly, your face still blotched from tears you had tried to hide. There was nothing polished about the moment. Nothing romantic in the way people usually imagined romance.

There were dirty breakfast plates beside you. A stack of legal papers on the counter. Henry’s abandoned chew near the fruit bowl. A damp patch on your sleeve where you had wiped your face too quickly.

Still, Pope felt something draw tight beneath his ribs.

He had started noticing too much.

The tiny line between your eyebrows when you were calculating money in your head. The way you checked Henry’s location every few seconds even when he was sitting safely within sight. The different versions of your laugh—the real one that escaped before you could control it and the thinner one you used when you were trying to make something painful sound funny.

He knew which mug you reached for first in the morning. He knew you forgot to drink your coffee while it was hot. He knew you touched the lock after closing the door, even when you had watched it click.

He knew you said I’ve got it sorted when what you meant was I don’t have another option.

Pope didn’t know when learning those things had stopped being observation and become affection.

Maybe it had happened slowly enough that he hadn’t recognised the danger.

A gate fixed here. A conversation there. Henry’s hand in his, pulling him toward a missing puzzle piece as though Pope’s presence required no explanation. You looking over the fence and smiling when you saw him, not because you needed something but because you were glad he was there.

Nobody had ever made Pope feel wanted in such an ordinary way.

There had always been a function attached to him. Smurf wanted what he could do. The family wanted him when something needed force, planning or cleaning up. Even affection had usually come wrapped around usefulness.

You asked him inside for breakfast.

You gave him coffee; You talked too much when you were nervous and then looked embarrassed, as though he might resent being trusted with the details of your day.

Pope didn’t resent it. In fact, he collected every detail.

He carried them home with him.

“Because I want to make sure they know what they’re doing,” he said finally.

Your mouth tightened slightly, “You’re going to investigate my lawyer?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly.

Your eyebrows lifted.

Pope corrected himself. “Maybe.”

Despite everything, a breath of laughter escaped you. It was quiet and damp around the edges, but it was real.

The sound went through him like warmth. Pope’s face remained mostly still, but something softened behind his eyes. He would have done more than investigate a lawyer to hear that sound again without the exhaustion beneath it.

“Andrew,” you said, his name carrying a warning that wasn’t particularly convincing.

“What?”

“You can’t intimidate my lawyer.”

“I didn’t say I was gonna intimidate anyone.”

“You didn’t say you weren’t.”

Pope glanced at the letter, “I won’t intimidate your lawyer.”

The pause before lawyer was small.

You noticed it. Your eyes narrowed. “Or anyone else involved in my custody case.”

Pope looked back at you.

That was harder to promise.

Your husband had put his boot in your doorway. He had used Henry to keep you frightened and legal paperwork to make the fear look respectable. Pope could picture several effective ways of removing him from the situation. None of them involved family court.

You held his gaze, waiting.

Pope’s jaw shifted, “I’m not gonna do anything that hurts your case,” he said.

It was not the promise you had requested.

You knew it.

Pope knew you knew it.

But after a long moment, you let out a tired breath and looked toward Henry, who had started lining the puzzle pieces along the edge of the rug instead of putting them into the board, “That is disturbingly specific.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Not necessarily comforting.”

Pope’s mouth pulled faintly at one corner. He watched your shoulders loosen another fraction, and the feeling inside him deepened—quiet, possessive only in the sense that he wanted to protect this moment from whatever came next.

Not possessive of you.

He was becoming careful about that distinction.

You belonged to yourself. That was the whole point.

Your husband treated you like something he could keep by refusing to sign his name. Smurf treated people like extensions of herself. Pope had spent too much of his life confusing love with ownership to pretend he didn’t recognise the danger.

Whatever was growing inside him could not be that.

He would not make you another thing caught in a Cody grip.

He looked down at the letter one last time.

Marianne Keller.

“I’m just gonna check,” he said.

“Check what?”

“That she’s good.”

“And what happens if she isn’t?”

Pope’s eyes moved back to yours, “I find someone who is.”

You stared at him as though trying to decide whether his certainty made you feel safer or more nervous. Probably both. That was usually what Pope did to people.

You rubbed your palms against your arms. “I can’t afford someone better.”

Chapter 5: Smurfs Smile. “But I was built from special pieces that I learned how to unscrew And I can always reassemble to fit perfectly for you Or anybody that decides that I'm of use…” Lonely Is The Muse- Halsey.

Andrew had never really known safety the way he felt it in that small kitchen that morning.

Not the way normal people meant it—soft, unconscious, something you lived inside without thinking about it. Pope’s version of safe had always been temporary. Conditional. Built out of things you could check and control. Locks. Guns. Plans. Escape routes. The weight of cash in a drawer. The knowledge that if something went wrong, he could make it stop.

Safe was a something he could hold.

Safe was Smurf’s house when Smurf was in a good mood—because her approval meant you weren’t in trouble, and in the Cody world not in trouble was the closest thing to peace you got. Safe was being useful. Being chosen. Being needed. Safe was doing what you were told and not asking questions that made her eyes go cold.

Safe was never kind.

Safe was never warm.

It was just… the moment before the next thing happened.

Even in prison, safe had meant learning the rules fast enough not to get eaten. It had meant keeping your head down, your mouth shut, your back to a wall when you could. Safe was vigilance until it became muscle memory.

So when Pope stepped into your kitchen that morning—shirt on now, hair still damp from a quick rinse—his body braced automatically for the familiar: tension, judgement, performance, a price tag.

But your kitchen didn’t ask anything of him.

It was small. A little cluttered in a way that said life happened here constantly. A drying rack full of mismatched cups. The butter container open on the bench.  A jam jar open, knife sticking out because you’d been interrupted mid-task. A grocery list stuck to the fridge with a magnet—half scribbles, half reminders, all necessity. The table had a scuffed corner like it had been bumped a thousand times. There were childproof latches on the cabinets, and Pope clocked them immediately—his brain couldn’t help it—but the sight didn’t tighten him like it usually did.

It made his chest loosen.

Because those locks weren’t about paranoia or control.

They were about the care of a little boy who would climb the counters to get into them.

Henry was there in tracksuit pants and a jumper, hair sticking up, tyre in his mouth, orbiting the room in quick loops. He wasn’t quiet, but he wasn’t dangerous either—just movement and sound and little happy noises as he hovered near you, drawn by routine like gravity. He was mimicking the same sentence over and over again, gibberish at first, and then what Pope could pick up, “Anyway, lets go.”

You were at the stove, moving with that tired competence Pope had come to recognise. Not pretty domestic, not curated. Real. A woman cracking eggs with one hand while keeping the other half-lifted like a guardrail, ready to block Henry from the stove if he drifted too close. You talked as you cooked—not for Pope, mostly for Henry—narrating the world in calm, predictable pieces.

“Toast first. Butter. Jam. Not on the floor, buddy. Plate. We’re gonna have a good day.”

Henry echoed fragments, satisfied by the structure, “Good day.”

“Good words,” you murmured, voice warm.

Pope stood near the doorway at first, instinctively unwilling to place himself in the middle of someone else’s space. His shoulders stayed tight. His hands stayed loose. His eyes tracked everything—windows, back door, where knives were, where Henry was, where you were, where the street noise would come in.

Then something strange happened.

Nothing happened. No one yelled. No one tested him. No one tried to make him prove himself. No one made a joke at his expense, no one poked at him to see if he’d snap.

The warmth wasn’t just from the stove or the morning sun through the window. It was in the way you moved around Henry without resentment. In the way Henry laughed high pitched after he tried to tickle your side and it turned into more like a sharp pinch and you didn’t flinch. In the way you gave Pope a mug of coffee and didn’t hover for gratitude. You just set it down with a smile like it was normal to offer someone something and not demand a piece of them in return.

It hit Pope like a hand around his ribs.

Warm. Firm.

Breathe.

As if someone had wrapped him up and told his body it could unclench after being suffocated his entire life.

Pope didn’t know what to do with it, he kept expecting the hook.

The Cody house taught you that warmth always came with a price. Smurf’s affection was never free. Even tenderness in that place was transactional—earned and revoked however she seemed fit. But here, the only price was… being present; and Pope realised, with a sharp little jolt, that this was what he’d been starving for without knowing it.

Not comfort. Not romance.

Normal.A sink full of dishes. A kid who threw toast twice before finally eating it. A woman who rolled her eyes at the universe and still made breakfast anyway. A house where the locks existed because someone loved someone enough to prevent disaster—not because someone wanted to keep you trapped.

Pope’s version of safety had always been built to keep violence out.

This safety wasn’t built against violence.

It was built despite it.

Despite overdue bills and sleep debt and the way your ex had shown up at 7:32am with entitlement and anger. Despite the world being heavy and unfair and constantly asking for more than you had to give. You still buttered toast. You still narrated the morning like you were laying down something for Henry to follow. You still found a laugh—even if it came out tired, even if it was the kind of laugh that was more breath than sound.

Pope stood near the edge of your kitchen like he didn’t trust himself to take up too much space; but his body still held that early-morning tension like it hadn’t realised it was allowed to stand down yet. His eyes were doing what they always did: tracking, counting, checking.

But the things he was checking here weren’t threats.

They were… life.

The countertop clutter: A pile of letters near the fruit bowl—some unopened, some opened and stacked neatly as if neatness could make the numbers less real. A school note. A therapy appointment card. A folded grocery list with bread and juice added in messy scrawl.

Pope’s gaze caught that list and he felt that familiar squeeze—late fees, overdue notices, the quiet violence of money. He didn’t say anything. He just filed it away like he had found himself doing to all of the other small things in your life lately.

Henry wandered over to the table and climbed up with the confidence of a kid who believed the world would catch him. His feet slid a little on the chair seat. He steadied himself with one sticky hand and left a smear of jam on the tabletop like proof of his existence.

You didn’t scold. You didn’t snap; You just reached for a wet wipe—already on the counter, already prepared, because you lived in preparation—and said, “Hands,” like it was routine.

Henry offered his hands immediately, palms out like a tiny presentation.

You took them gently and wiped—firm, careful, practiced. Your fingers moved over his knuckles and the undersides of his nails like you were cleaning away more than sugar.

Henry watched you while you did it, eyes bright, chewing slow on his tyre, “Clean,” he said, and his whole face lit up with pride.

“Clean,” you echoed simply, like the word mattered, like the concept mattered.

Henry grinned wider, satisfied, and immediately pressed his now-clean hands flat on the table again just to feel the surface, as if testing whether clean changed anything.

You turned back to the stove, spatula in hand, eggs hissing quietly in the pan. Pope watched the line of your shoulders as you moved—still tired, still tense, but steady. Capable. The kind of capable that wasn’t loud. The kind that didn’t need an audience.

Then you glanced at Pope, and there it was again—that automatic, apologetic politeness like you were bracing for judgement just because your house was lived-in.

“Sorry,” you started, “it’s not usually this chaotic—”You paused, eyes drifting toward Henry, then back to the pan, like you heard your own lie before it fully formed. Then you let out a small huff and corrected yourself with that deadpan honesty Pope was starting to recognise as your version of bravery, “Actually, that’s a lie,” you said simply. “It is always this chaotic.”

Your mouth twitched, like you were sharing a joke at your own expense, “Usually it’s worse,” you added, flipping eggs with practiced precision, “but he’s being suspiciously well behaved this morning.”

Henry, as if to prove you wrong, made a delighted little sound and started tapping his clean hands on the table in a quick rhythm—tap tap tap—while humming under his breath.

Pope’s mouth twitched again. Because you were standing there in the middle of a morning that should’ve crushed you—overdue bills and broken sleep and a man at your door—and you still found space to joke.

Pope looked at Henry—happy, humming, alive—and then back at you, and the thought landed in his chest with a steady weight:

This is what safety looks like when it’s made out of love instead of fear.

And Pope didn’t know how to live inside it; But for the first time in his life, he wanted to try. Not in the big, dramatic way—Pope wasn’t built for vows or speeches or promises that sounded pretty. He wanted to try in the only way his body understood: show up again tomorrow.

He stood in your kitchen with a mug of coffee he’d now picked up like it was a normal thing to do—dark, too strong, the kind he liked. The ceramic was warm against his palm. The house smelled like eggs and toast and the cheap strawberry jam Henry insisted on. It was so ordinary it made Pope’s ribs ache.

Henry sat on the table swinging his legs, tyre in his mouth, humming to himself as he watched you move between stove and counter.

Pope took a long sip of coffee, eyes tracking automatically—Henry’s hands, the chair, the edge of the table, the front door locks even from here. Habit. Safety. Then, because his brain wouldn’t let it go, because the image of that maroon-shirted man’s boot in your doorframe kept replaying like a threat loop, Pope asked the question that had been sitting in his throat since he’d stepped off his grass:

“Does your ex-husband knock on your door like that often?”

His voice was low. Flat. Like he didn’t care. But he did.

You froze for half a second—barely noticeable—then resumed spreading butter on Henry’s toast like the act required your full attention. Like looking at Pope while answering would make it too real. You hesitated.

Pope watched the pause with the same focus he once watched a bank teller when he couldn’t decide whether she had pressed the alarm or not.

“Well… not really,” you said finally, careful. “But I haven’t been answering his messages. Or his calls.” Your mouth twisted, then you added, quieter, “Or his lawyer’s letters.” You looked away toward the sink—toward the dishes, toward the window, anywhere but Pope’s eyes. Like you were bracing for judgement. Like you expected him to think you were stupid for ignoring legal letters, when really you just sounded tired. Like the words lawyer and custody and papers had become a kind of noise you couldn’t bear hearing anymore.

Pope didn’t say anything. He waited.

You exhaled through your nose, shoulders lifting slightly. “He keeps talking about custody,” you continued, voice flattening into something exhausted. “Says he’ll sign the papers once I agree to… twenty/eighty.”

Pope’s jaw tightened.

Twenty/eighty.

Custody as a bargain chip. Divorce papers used like a leash. Smurf would’ve respected the strategy in a sick way. Pope just felt his stomach turn.

You shrugged like you were trying to make it sound casual, like it wasn’t a knife in your ribs. “But—” you said, offhand, “he can’t cope with Henry,” You glanced at Henry as if to make sure he hadn’t heard. Henry was humming, blissfully unconcerned, fingers tapping the table in a little rhythm while he waited for the toast. “I’m not saying that to sound like an asshole,” you added quickly, apologetic already. Like you were used to smoothing everything down. “It’s just—he spent one weekend alone with Henry when we were still married.” You laughed once, short and humourless. “I had a work thing.”

Your hands moved faster with the toast, as if speed could outrun the memory.

“And by the end of the first night,” you continued, voice tight, “he was calling me asking me to come home because Henry had another meltdown and he was stressed.” You paused, swallowing. “Like—stressed because… parenting was hard? For one night?”

Your mouth pressed into a line, the anger flashing and then being smothered immediately.

You stopped for a long moment, staring down at the plate like it might tell you what to do next, “Anyway—” you tried, the word coming out like a door you were trying to shut.

Pope saw it. That pattern.

You opened up, then you flinched from your own honesty and tried to take it back. You apologised without saying “sorry,” the apology baked into the way you swallowed words and redirected them into jokes.

Like you’d been taught your whole life to shrink. To make yourself palatable. To make sure your anger didn’t make you difficult. To make sure your pain didn’t make you dramatic. To make sure your needs didn’t take up too much oxygen.

And Pope—who knew what it was to be moulded by a mother’s hands into whatever she wanted—felt something hit him hard in the gut.

A punch of recognition.

He wanted to tell you you were allowed.

Allowed to take up space. Allowed to say he scares me without adding a joke. Allowed to be angry at a man who couldn’t keep you in a marriage so he was trying to keep you in every other way. Allowed to ignore his letters if reading them felt like swallowing glass.

Pope wanted to say it out loud. Wanted to put it in simple words, the way you spoke to Henry—clear, steady, no judgement.

But Pope didn’t have the language for tenderness. Not cleanly.

What he did have was anger.

It coiled under his skin as he listened to you talk, hot and tight, turning his muscles into wire. Anger that told him to find the man again—follow him to his car, follow him to wherever he lived, learn his routines the way Pope learned perimeters.

Anger that said: He doesn’t get to treat her like property.

Anger that said: Henry is not a bargaining piece.

Pope took another sip of coffee, slower this time, because if he didn’t anchor himself in something mundane he’d stand up and go do something irreversible.

Still on the table, Henry made a happy little noise and reached for the toast when you set it down. He smeared jam with the back of his finger like a tiny menace, then licked his finger and giggled at himself.

You watched him with that soft, tired love again, like it was the only thing keeping you upright.

Pope’s eyes lingered on your face. The shadows. The stubbornness. The way you were holding it together.

He cleared his throat, the sound rough; “He’s using the papers,” Pope said quietly.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t advice. It was just… naming it. Pulling the thing out of the dark so it couldn’t pretend it was normal.

You looked up at him, startled. Like you hadn’t expected him to understand the game.

Pope’s gaze flicked to Henry, then back to you, “He’s not here for custody,” Pope added, voice low. “He’s here to keep you… stuck.”

The word came out harsh because Pope hated it.

He hated men who needed control to feel big. Hated the kind of coercion that didn’t leave bruises but left you exhausted anyway. Smurf did that kind of violence every day—paperwork violence, money violence, emotional violence.

Pope recognised it instantly.

Your throat worked as you swallowed. You didn’t deny it.

You just looked tired, “I know,” you whispered, and it sounded like admitting defeat.

Pope felt that anger twist again, but underneath it was something else—something steadier, something that scared him more because it wasn’t violent.

It was protective.

The kind that wanted to stand beside you, not over you. The kind that wanted to make your kitchen feel safe again, even with overdue bills on the counter and the memory of boots in your doorway.

Pope’s hand tightened around the mug, “If he comes back,” he reminded you, voice still calm, still low, “you don’t open it.”

You let out a small laugh that wasn’t humour. “I said that, too, once.”

Pope’s eyes didn’t leave yours. “Yeah,” he said. “And then you got tired.”

It wasn’t judgement. It was recognition.

He watched your face shift—anger flaring first, bright and sharp like a match strike… then shame trying to swallow it whole, smothering it down into something quieter. Something you could carry without anyone calling you dramatic.

Pope hated that shame.

Not in an abstract way. In a physical way. Like it scraped the inside of his ribs. Because shame was a tool. Smurf used it like a knife. Pope recognised it instantly when he saw it on other people—especially on you—because he’d spent half his life choking on it.

He didn’t know how to take it away, he didn’t have the right words. He wasn’t built for gentle reassurance. He’d never learned how to sit inside someone else’s pain without trying to control it, fix it, shut it down.

So he offered the only thing he could: “I’m here,” Pope said simply.

Two words that didn’t sound like much.

But in Pope’s mouth, it was a promise. Not a pretty promise. Not a movie one. A perimeter promise. A show up promise. The kind he could actually keep.

You stared at him for a long moment like you didn’t know what to do with that. Like you were waiting for the hook. Like you were bracing for him to take it back and laugh and call you stupid for needing anyone.

Instead, Pope just stood there with the coffee mug in his hand, eyes steady.

And then you broke.

Not loudly. Not in a way meant to make anyone feel guilty. You broke the way exhausted people broke—quietly, all at once, like a seam giving out.

“I’m not…” you started, and your voice wobbled. You swallowed and tried again. “You don’t need to.”

Your hands fluttered uselessly near the counter like you didn’t know where to put them. Like your body wanted to fold in on itself but you refused. Like you were trying to keep your spine.

“I’m—I’m a big girl,” you said, and Pope saw how hard you worked to make it sound like a joke. “I—I knew what he was like.” Your laugh was thin. “Well, more like I was warned what he was like and I didn’t listen.”

You took a breath that shook, “And now I’m stuck in a town where I don’t know anyone, with my ex banging on my door, and bills up to my eyeballs, and I can barely work because of Henry and—and my family is across the other side of the country, and I just—” Your voice broke on the last word like it physically couldn’t carry any more weight.

Your eyes watered. You looked down fast, blinking hard like you could deny tears by refusing to look at anyone while they existed, “Sorry,” you whispered.

Pope felt it like a punch.

Not the tears. The sorry.

You apologised like breathing. Like taking up space required permission. Something inside him snapped—not violent, not loud, but sudden and absolute; “Stop saying sorry,” Pope said, too fast, too sharp.

Your head lifted, startled.

Pope’s jaw flexed, then he forced his voice lower, steadier, because he didn’t want to scare you. He just… couldn’t stand the idea of you swallowing yourself down to make the world more comfortable; “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said, blunt as truth.

He meant it with his whole body. He meant it like a rule.

And it wasn’t just about this moment. It was about every time he’d heard you say sorry over the months for things you didn’t need to apologise for—Henry stimming, Henry making noise, your yard being messy, your life being hard.

Pope didn’t know how to say you’re allowed without it sounding like he was giving you permission.

But he wanted to. God, he wanted to. Because watching you apologise for surviving made something ugly coil in his gut.

It wasn’t just anger. It was… attachment.

And that scared him because it felt different than Amy.

With Amy, it had been this careful, awkward reaching toward normal. Church air and polite smiles and the idea that if he did the right things—showed up, sat still, tried—he could become a version of himself that wasn’t soaked in blood. Amy had felt like a door to another life. A life where Pope could pretend the Cody darkness was something he could leave at the curb like shoes.

But it had always been fragile. Like glass. Like one wrong truth would crack it.

And it did because Amy had wanted him to be safe in a way that required him to become someone else. She’d looked at him like he was a damaged thing she could soften. Like love was supposed to wash him clean.

Pope didn’t blame her for leaving. He understood it. Love didn’t survive the Cody world. It got eaten.

But you… you weren’t asking him to be clean.

You weren’t romanticising him, either.

You suspected his mother was dangerous. You didn’t pretend Smurf’s smile was harmless. You didn’t look at Pope like he was a project. You looked at him like he was a man standing in your kitchen, offering help, and you didn’t make him pay for it with pity.

With you, the pull wasn’t about becoming normal, it was about being real.

Standing in the mess. Standing in the hard. Standing in the part of life that didn’t get pretty endings… and staying anyway. That kind of closeness terrified him more than church ever did.

Because it wasn’t a fantasy.

It was something he could actually lose.

You opened your mouth to say something—probably another apology—when Henry came barreling into the kitchen like a small storm.

“T-Rex,” he announced, urgent, grabbing your hand and tugging hard toward the hallway. “T-rex. T-rex.”

Your entire body shifted instantly—tears contained, pain locked away—because Henry needed you and you always answered; “No, baby, not yet.” You tried to keep your voice warm even as he pulled. “Mama’s cooking.”

Henry tugged harder, frustration building in his posture, feet stamping once. “T-rex.”

Pope watched the way your arm tensed under Henry’s grip, watched you try to negotiate calmly while your eyes still shone with unshed tears.

Something in Pope’s chest tightened.

He didn’t like seeing you stretched thin.

He didn’t like watching you carry everything alone.

Pope set his coffee down on the counter carefully, like he didn’t trust his hands to be casual; “T-Rex?” Pope asked Henry, voice low, curious rather than commanding.

Henry stopped tugging your arm for a beat and looked up at Pope like he’d just noticed him properly. His eyes flicked over Pope’s face, then down to Pope’s hands, then back up again.

Then, without hesitation, Henry released you and walked over to Pope and grabbed Pope’s hand, “T-Rex,” Henry said again, as if this explained everything.

And then he started pulling Pope toward the hallway like Pope was furniture he’d decided belonged in another room. Pope let himself be pulled, he didn’t even think about it.

You blinked, surprised by how easily Henry accepted him, by how willingly Pope went.

“He—um,” you said quickly, wiping at your cheek with the back of your hand like you hadn’t just almost cried. “He has a puzzle. He must have lost a piece.” You pointed down the hall. “I’ll grab it.”

Pope didn’t look back at you as he spoke—because if he looked at you, he’d see the wet shine in your eyes again and it would wreck him, “I can do it,” Pope offered instead.

Simple. Practical. Safe.

Henry tugged his hand again. “T-rex.”

Pope followed.

Your voice came out smaller than before, and Pope heard how close you still were to breaking, “Thank you.”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic, but it landed in Pope’s chest like weight.

And as he let Henry drag him down the hall toward whatever T-Rex crisis awaited, Pope realised something with a quiet, startling clarity:

He didn’t just want you to be okay because it was the right thing.

He wanted you to be okay because he cared. And Henry’s small hand in his was warm, insistent, trusting—as if Henry had decided Pope belonged in their orbit now.

Pope didn’t know if he deserved that; But he followed anyway. <><><><> Smurf was waiting for him when he got home.

Not in the kitchen with a cigarette and a casual comment. Not in the backyard pretending to tan. Waiting the way she waited when she wanted something—still, centered, set up like a trap you stepped into the moment you walked through the door.

She was sitting in the living room with her legs crossed, posture relaxed like she hadn’t been watching the clock. Like she hadn’t been listening for the sound of the gate. Like she hadn’t placed herself right in the middle of the house where no one could avoid her without making a statement.

The house was quiet in that bone-deep way it got when the boys were gone or asleep. No Craig laughing at his own jokes. No Deran’s footsteps pacing. No J’s quiet presence moving like a shadow. Just the low hum of the fridge, the soft tick of a wall clock, and Smurf’s perfume sitting in the air like it owned the oxygen.

Her smile was there, bright and practiced.

But it wasn’t a smile.

Smurf didn’t smile. Not really.

Smurf showed teeth.

“Did you have a nice morning?” she asked brightly.

Pope stopped just inside the doorway, keys still in his hand, shirt still smelling faintly of your kitchen—coffee, toast, soap. Ordinary smells that didn’t belong on him. For a second he had the stupid, irrational thought that Smurf could smell it too. That she could smell warmth on him like smoke.

He considered turning around.

He almost did.

He almost ignored her and walked away because he had a feeling—cold, familiar—about what was about to happen. He could feel it in the way the room was arranged, in the way Smurf’s voice held that light tone that meant she’d already sharpened the knife.

But Smurf had perfected making him freeze without raising her voice.

Pope didn’t answer. He didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

Smurf’s smile widened anyway, because she didn’t need permission to continue.

“Did you have a nice morning,” she repeated, voice sweetening, “playing family with the neighbour?”

The words landed like a slap dressed up as a joke.

Family.

Smurf said it like it was filthy. Like it was pretend. Like Pope had been caught doing something pathetic.

Pope’s jaw tightened. He set his keys down too carefully on the counter, the clink too loud in the silence. His shoulders were stiff, but his face stayed blank. He’d learned that blank was safer—blank gave her less to grab.

Smurf stood slowly, unhurried, as if she had all the time in the world to take him apart. She moved closer with that soft, confident glide, like a woman crossing her own house. Like a queen approaching her loyal dog.

“You think I didn’t notice?” she said, still bright. Still casual. “All those little chats at the fence. You fixing things for her. Watching the kid like he’s—what—your responsibility?”

Pope’s throat worked once.

It wasn’t responsibility.

It was… instinct. It was the way his eyes moved automatically to weak points. Gates. Streets. Water. The way his body reacted before his brain finished the thought.

It was the way Henry’s laughter had done something to him he didn’t understand.

It was the way your voice had sounded when you said I’m not great at having people in my space and Pope had felt like he understood it in his bones.

Smurf stepped closer until she was in his space. Not touching him yet. She didn’t need to touch to control. She could control with proximity alone, with tone alone, with the history between them alone.

Her smile softened. Her eyes didn’t.

“Andrew,” she said, like she was being gentle. Like she was being reasonable. “Do you really think someone like her is going to what?”

A pause. A tilt of her head. The question sharpening.

“Choose you?”

Pope didn’t move. But something inside him flinched.

Smurf’s gaze slid over his face like she was searching for a crack, “Save you?” she added, voice even lighter, as if the idea was funny. “Honey… you can’t run from who you are.”

There it was.

The hook.

Not an argument. Not a threat.

An identity.

Smurf always did that—reminded him who he was until it felt impossible to be anything else.

Pope felt his hands curl into fists at his sides, nails pressing crescents into his palms. He forced them open again. Forced his breathing slow.

Smurf took another step, close enough that Pope could smell her perfume properly, sharp and expensive, “She knows rumours,” Smurf continued, voice turning almost tender, “but she doesn’t know you.”

Pope’s stomach tightened.

Because you didn’t know him, not really.

You knew the neighbour-version. The man who fixed fences. The man who stood between a kid and water. The man who spoke quietly and didn’t judge you for the chaos in your home.

You didn’t know the version Smurf kept on a leash.

The one who had done what he was told. The one whose hands had done things that couldn’t be undone.

Smurf watched the thought land. She always knew when something hit; =

Her smile sharpened again, “What do you think would happen,” she asked, “if she saw who you were?”

Pope’s jaw ticked. Once. Twice.

Smurf leaned in just slightly, voice dropping, not loud but heavier—like she was speaking truth into him.

“You think she’s going to let you around sweet little Henry then?” Smurf murmured. “You think she’s going to invite you in for breakfast if she knows what you’ve done?”

The living room felt smaller. The air felt thicker. Pope felt the walls of his own skin like a cage.

Smurf didn’t have to list it. She didn’t have to say names. She didn’t have to remind him with specifics. The worst parts of Pope’s life lived in him already, sharp and permanent. Smurf only had to touch the bruise and he’d feel the whole injury.

And she did. Over and over.

“Look at you,” she said softly, and it sounded like affection until you heard the contempt under it. “Standing in some little kitchen like you belong there.”

Pope’s chest tightened, hot and sick.

He thought of you buttering toast while keeping your body between Henry and the stove. Thought of Henry’s small hand grabbing his and pulling him down the hall like it made sense. Thought of the way you’d looked at Pope like he wasn’t a threat.

Like he was safe. He thought of the way he watched Henry put together his dinosaur puzzle while you both ate breakfast and called yourself overdramatic before switching to a story involving you, an aeroplane and your fear of heights. He thought of the way he realised how easily he could breathe around you, around your son, around your chaos.

Smurf’s voice cut through it.

“You don’t get to be safe,” she said, not unkindly. Like it was just fact. “People like you don’t get happy little families.”

Pope’s eyes snapped to hers then, and something feral flashed in him—anger, humiliation, a deep, ugly refusal.

Smurf smiled wider, pleased she’d found the nerve.

“You think you can keep that part of you hidden forever?” she asked. “You think you can wear your nice neighbour face and no one will notice what’s underneath?”

Pope’s throat burned.

Because part of him—stupid, dangerous—wanted to say she already notices me. Wanted to say she sees me, even if she didn’t know everything.

But Smurf had raised him. Smurf had trained him.

And she knew exactly how to make hope feel like a liability.

Pope forced his voice out, low and flat, “Leave her out of it.”

Smurf blinked—slowly—like she was amused by his attempt at a boundary, “Oh, Andrew,” she sighed. “I’m already in it.”

She took a step back, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her shirt like this was all casual. Like she hadn’t just reached inside him and twisted; “Just remember,” she said lightly, smile back in place, “when she finds out—when she gets scared—she’ll run.”

Smurf’s eyes held his for a beat, gleaming, “And you’ll come back here,” she finished, sweet as poison. “Where you belong.”

Pope stood there in the quiet after she walked away, chest tight, fists opening and closing like his body didn’t know what to do with the feeling.

Because the worst part was: Smurf wasn’t wrong about the world.

She was just wrong about what Pope wanted.

He didn’t want you to save him.

He didn’t want to be forgiven.

He just wanted—once, for a few minutes in a small kitchen— to breathe like he wasn’t suffocating.

Chapter 4: Quiet Men Don’t Stay Quiet.  “Oh, I know that I can't live without you But this world will keep turning if you do Would you even want me looking like a zombie? Would you even want me, want me, want me?” Zombie- Yungblud.

Andrew Cody knew violence.

He knew it as routine before he knew it as choice — a language spoken in the Cody house as naturally as dinner plans. Smurf didn’t raise sons, not like every other Mother in the neighbourhood. She raised assets. And Pope, the oldest, the one with the sharpest edges, grew up learning that force solved problems faster than words ever did.

He knew violence in the weight of a gun that felt normal in his hand, like the balance of it belonged there. In the way your palm remembers recoil long after you set the weapon down. In the way your eyes start measuring rooms by exits and not in the spaces where the furniture sat in case the violence found you before you found it.

He knew it in the ache that comes after — muscles tight from adrenaline, jaw sore from clenching, knuckles split and raw because sometimes you don’t have a weapon and your body becomes one anyway. He knew the metallic taste that shows up in your mouth when your heart won’t slow down. He knew how quiet everything sounds right after, like the world is holding its breath until it turned blue.

He knew it as work — the Codys’ jobs weren’t jobs in the conventional way, they were heists, robberies, the kind of criminal work that demanded you be ready to hurt someone or be hurt yourself. And he knew it as consequence, too: Prison after a bank robbery went wrong. Prison wasn’t just punishment; it was just another type of violence with rules.

He knew violence as obedience — because Smurf’s requests were never requests. When Smurf wanted a problem handled, Pope was the one she leaned on. That’s the kind of violence that lives in you longest: the kind you do because your mother tells you it’s necessary, and you don’t know how to say no without losing whatever little bit of love you’re allowed to have.

And he knew it as guilt, too — the kind that doesn’t wash off.

Catherine was a name that sat in Pope’s throat like a swallowed nail.

He knew violence as control — not always loud, not always explosive, sometimes surgical. The kind that’s just a hand on someone’s arm a second too tight. A look that makes a person back up. A presence that says don’t test me without needing to raise his voice.

Pope knew violence the way some men knew prayer.

Not as a thing you did sometimes—as a thing that lived in your bones, threaded through your routines, tucked under your tongue like a second language you could speak fluently even when you didn’t want to.

People in Oceanside said it like a warning label: Pope Cody. The most dangerous one. Not a compliment. Just shorthand for don’t corner him, don’t surprise him, don’t make him choose between you and his family.

Then there was the violence that didn’t look like violence until you understood him: the compulsion.

Pope’s brain didn’t let go of danger once it found it. It didn’t file it away nicely. It circled. It checked. It re-checked. The feeling that if he kept everything tight and precise, maybe nothing terrible would happen on his watch.

And then—because the universe had a nasty sense of humour—he saw a different kind of it when he met you.

Henry’s violence wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t power.

It was overload.

Pope saw it in the way Henry’s body changed when something got too loud or too fast or too wrong: shoulders going up like armour, hands flapping or tapping or smacking at his own legs like he was trying to shake the feeling out of his skin. He saw the bite—sometimes on a sleeve, sometimes on a toy tyre, sometimes the edge of his own hand when the sensation inside him had nowhere else to go. He saw the hitting, too—hands striking the floor, the wall, sometimes his own head in a sharp, frantic rhythm that wasn’t anger the way adults did anger.

It looked like violence if you didn’t know what you were seeing.

Pope knew violence. This wasn’t it.

This was a kid trying to survive his own nervous system when words wouldn’t come out.

And what fucked Pope up—quietly, deeply—was the way you handled it.

You didn’t flinch like Henry was doing something wrong. You didn’t punish him for being overwhelmed. You didn’t take it personally, even when it was loud enough to scrape your nerves raw.

You got low. You made your body smaller. You didn’t grab unless you had to, and when you did, it wasn’t anger in your hands. It was containment. Safety. You’d use your voice like a railing—steady, predictable, repeating the same simple phrases until the moment stopped spinning.

Sometimes you’d guide him to a quieter space without making it a big deal. Sometimes you’d offer something for him to chew on before his teeth found his skin. Sometimes you’d press your palm to his back—firm, soothing pressure—like you were reminding him that he was okay, that he was safe. That yes, the world was too loud, but you were there protecting him from it.

And Pope—who had spent his life being the weapon—stood in doorways and yards watching you do it and felt something hot and unfamiliar twist in his gut.

Because he’d been told his whole life that control meant fear.

You proved control could look like love. It made him think things he didn’t want to think.

It made him look at Henry’s meltdowns and feel that old, brutal reflex rise—stop it, end it, shut it down—and then watch you not do that, watch you wait it out, ride it out, help Henry come back to himself without shaming him for leaving.

It made Pope realise how often his own version of control was just what Smurf had taught him to keep him on a leash. And it made him see you, really see you, in the ugliest hours, not the polite ones.

Not the “hi neighbour” smile you used like a shield when your own brain was over worked and over tired. Not the jokes you threw out to keep strangers from asking questions you didn’t have the energy to answer. Pope saw you when the mask slipped—when the house was dim and your hair was scraped back and your voice was quiet and flat because if you let it rise you’d crack.

He saw you at 2:11am on his side of the fence, back door open just enough for air, standing on your porch with Henry pressed to your chest like you were trying to put your body between him and the entire world. Henry was stimming hard—hands fluttering, jaw working on that Lego tyre, little sounds vibrating in his throat. He would hear you whisper-counting. Not prayers. Numbers. Something to give him to keep him from drowning in his own head.

“Ten… nine… eight…” Not because counting fixed anything. Because counting was predictable, and predictable was safety in your household.

Pope didn’t announce himself. He didn’t cross the line. He just stood in his own dark yard, hands in his pockets, watching the angle of your porch light, listening for the moment Henry started counting back, listened for the way the smile climbed into your voice.

He saw you the first time you left a stack of mail on the kitchen counter where it could be seen from the kitchen doorway—envelopes with red stamps, the kind that made your stomach drop. FINAL NOTICE. PAST DUE. LATE FEE. He saw you flip one over fast when you realised he’d noticed, as if debt was something you could hide by turning paper face down.

He watched you install another latch on the front door when you asked to borrow a drill from him. Then another. Then the chain. Then a second deadbolt. Not because you were dramatic or scared of anything—because Henry was fast, and you weren’t always fast enough.

He saw the moments that didn’t look like romance but felt like closeness anyway. You’d started waving at him without hesitation. Not every day. Not something really noticeable. Just a small lift of fingers when you saw him outside. A mutual acknowledgment that you existed on the same street, in the same air, under the same sun. That was how it began—in small, stupid, tiny ways.

Then it became routine in the way routine was nothing until it became everything.

You would tell him things he never asked for, because silence made you itch and you couldn’t help filling it.

“Henry’s on a Paw Patrol ban again. ACAB and all that.” “Henry discovered he can open the pantry if he uses the chair and one of his toy tubs.” “I got charged a late fee because I forgot to pay the water bill and I swear the universe is personally targeting me this month.”

And Pope—who didn’t do conversation—would just stand there, head tipped slightly, absorbing it like information, like a perimeter map. He’d grunt sometimes. Nod. Offer something small and helpful that never looked small and helpful unless you were listening.

And somewhere inside the months, you stopped looking at him like he might bite. Started looking at him like he was… there. Like he was part of the scenery now—quiet, watchful, inconveniently decent.

Which was what ended up bringing him to the front fence line at 7:32am on a Thursday; shirtless, in dark tracksuit pants, sleep still sticky on his brain. He’d had the kitchen window open, trying to find the coffee filters, when the sound hit—fist on wood, hard and loud and angry.

Not a neighbour knock. Not a “hey, sorry” knock.

A let me in knock.

Pope’s head lifted.

Your porch.

A man stood there—dark hair, maroon henley, jeans, stance wide like the world owed him room. He was banging on your front door with the confidence of someone who’d done this before. Like your house was still his to enter. Like your locks were just delays for the inevitable.

Pope felt the cold drop in his gut, the same one he’d felt by the pool the day he first met you.

Not because he cared about the noise—though he did, because noise woke the house and waking the house meant Craig’s mouth running and Deran’s suspicion and Smurf’s interest sharpening again.

But because the knock wasn’t random.

It was familiar in a way Pope didn’t like.

He walked to the fence line fast, bare feet on grass. He didn’t bother putting a shirt on. Didn’t bother making himself look polite.

He stopped at the edge of his yard where he could see your porch clearly and called out, voice low and flat: “Is there a problem?”

The man turned like he’d been interrupted, looking Pope up and down like Pope was a stray dog on the sidewalk; “Yeah,” the man said, all irritation and entitlement. “And you can mind it.”

Pope didn’t move. Didn’t rise to it. Just watched.

The man’s face had that look Pope had seen on hundreds of men. The kind of guy who thought showing up was the same as doing the work. The kind of guy who treated other people’s boundaries like they were just merely suggestions. Suddenly, he found himself thinking of all the small things you’d said over the fence, months ago, in that deadpan tone you used when you didn’t want to sound like a victim.

He won’t sign. He likes the control. He likes to make sure my lawyer can afford his third holiday house.

Pope hadn’t asked for details. He didn’t need them. He’d been raised by Smurf—he understood coercive control the way other people understood weather. It wasn’t always fists. Sometimes it was paperwork. Sometimes it was money. Sometimes it was showing up and forcing your presence into someone’s day until they folded out of exhaustion. Another type of violence that didn’t look like violence until it was buried deep under your skin.

The man banged again.

Hard.

Pope’s jaw tightened.

Then your door finally opened. Not wide. Just enough for your face to appear—tired, hair pulled back, eyes shadowed like you’d been up too early or not slept at all. You squinted at the porch light like it was an insult.

You poked your head out and your gaze flicked instantly to Pope across the way—like you’d felt him there before you saw him, “It’s fine, really,” you called, rubbing your forehead like you were already done with today, but your voice was tight. Careful. Pope heard what you weren’t saying: Don’t make it worse.

Then you turned your attention back to the man, your expression sharpening into something controlled.

“What are you doing here?”

The man planted his hands on his hips like he was posing for a photo of an Asshole; “I’m here to see my son.”

Pope watched you go still for half a second—just a flicker. Like your body remembered a thousand arguments and chose not to replay them; then you deadpanned, dry as sand, “Hard pass. Thanks for stopping by.”

You started to close the door.

The man stepped forward and shoved his boot into the gap—not enough to break anything, just enough to prevent you from shutting it. The movement was casual, practiced, like he’d done it before and enjoyed the tiny power of it.

Pope felt something old and black flex inside him.

That wasn’t a negotiation. That was a threat dressed up as persistence.

You didn’t jump back. You didn’t scream. You just stared at his boot like you wanted to bite it off, “You can’t do that,” you said, voice still even.

The man smiled. Not friendly, “Watch me. He’s my son too.”

Pope’s hands curled into fists before he consciously decided to. He recognised the violence in this man—not as a punch thrown, but as a boundary ignored. As a body used to take space. As the confidence of someone who believed you’d eventually cave because you always had before.

He knew this man still had legal power because the divorce wasn’t final. He knew this man used that fact as a leash. He knew that he wanted custody not for his son, but because he knew it would hurt you. He knew your ex husband kept fighting because he knew it would financially hurt you the longer it went on.

Pope stepped off his grass and onto the sidewalk. Not with speed, just walking with that calm, predatory steadiness that made people’s instincts start screaming before their brains caught up.

The man glanced over, annoyed again.

Pope didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to, “Move your foot,” Pope said.

The man scoffed. “Or what?”

Pope stopped at the bottom of your steps. He could smell the man now—cologne and cigarette smoke. He could see the tension in your shoulders in the doorway, the way you held yourself between the man and the inside of your home, like you were blocking a flood with your body.

Pope’s voice stayed low, “This isn’t your house,” he said. “You’re not invited.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “And who the hell are you?”

Pope didn’t answer with his name. Names didn’t matter. Not really.

He just looked at the boot in your doorway, then at the man’s face, and something in Pope’s stare made the man’s swagger hesitate—just a fraction—like his nervous system had finally realised there were consequences in this neighbourhood that didn’t involve polite conversations.

You looked at Pope then, and your expression did something complicated: relief, anger, shame, gratitude, fear. All stacked together like overdue bills.

“Andrew,” you said quietly, like a warning and a plea.

Pope didn’t take his eyes off the man, “I’m handling it,” he said.

Not to make you small.

To make you safe. Because if he couldn’t physically keep Smurf away from you, he sure as hell would make sure your ex-husband could stay away from you.

The man tried to laugh it off, but his laugh didn’t land right. It came out thin, “You think you can tell me—”

Pope cut him off with a few steps closer, up one step, up on the porch. Not touching. Never touching in front of you. Not threatening with hands; just closing the distance until the man had to look up slightly to meet his eyes. Pope spoke softly, which was always worse.

It wasn’t a shout you could argue with. It wasn’t rage you could ride out until it burned off. Pope’s quiet was the kind that made men listen, because it sounded like he’d already decided what he could do—what he would do—if you kept pushing.

“You don’t bang on her door again,” Pope said, voice low. “You don’t block it. You don’t come here like you own anything.”

The guy—maroon henley, jeans, that smug, inconvenienced face—stared back like he couldn’t believe anyone had the nerve to interrupt him. Like your porch was still his stage.

His jaw worked, chewing on a comeback.

Pope tilted his head a fraction, calm in the way only dangerous people were calm. “And you’re gonna leave,” he added. “If you have any issues, you go through her lawyer.”

It would’ve been easy to take it further. Pope knew exactly how.

He could step in close enough to make the guy’s throat tighten, could drop his voice even lower, could paint a picture of consequences that would follow him all the way back to his car. Pope could make sure this man never came back to your door. Pope could force the divorce papers to appear signed like magic, could push hard and fast until the whole problem stopped existing.

But Pope didn’t.

Not because he couldn’t.

Because you were standing behind that door, eyes tired and sharp, fingers white around the edge of the frame—holding your ground with nothing but sheer will—and Pope couldn’t survive the look you’d give him if he let the worst part of himself out in front of you.

He knew how people looked when they realised what he was.

He’d seen it all his life.

And for months now, you hadn’t looked at him like that.

You’d looked at him like a man who fixed fences. Like a quiet neighbour. Like someone you could talk to over the front fence while Henry spun in circles in the grass. Like someone who noticed the locks and the latches and didn’t call you crazy for needing them.

If you saw the other side—the part Smurf used, the part the street whispered about—Pope didn’t think he’d get you back.

The man’s gaze flicked between Pope and you, recalculating. Pope saw the exact second the guy decided you weren’t alone in the way he liked you to be. The exact second his confidence hit a wall and started looking for a different door.

You kept your face blank—controlled—but Pope caught the tension in your knuckles. The way your shoulders held tight like you were bracing for the boot to shove forward again. The way your chin stayed lifted anyway.

Finally, the man pulled his boot back.

The air shifted instantly, like your whole house exhaled.

The guy backed down the steps with a glare that promised he wasn’t done. Men like him always needed the last word, even when they were losing.

“You’ll hear from my lawyer,” he snapped, like lawyers were weapons and not just paperwork.

You smiled without humour. “Can’t wait.”

The man turned and stalked away down the path, still muttering, still angry—still convinced the world owed him access.

Pope watched him go until he was out of sight.

Only then did Pope look at you.

You were still in the doorway, eyes tired, face tight, that particular calm that came from living with this too long. Like you’d had this argument a hundred times and it never got easier, it just got more exhausting.

You rubbed your forehead, voice low. “I told you it was fine.”

It didn’t sound like you believed it. It sounded like you were trying to convince your own nervous system to stand down.

Pope didn’t answer that. If he answered it, he’d say something too honest. Something that would make this bigger than you wanted it to be at 7:32am.

Instead, his gaze dropped—automatically—to your locks. Your latches. The chain. The deadbolt. The extra bolt lower down. All the tiny pieces of hardware you’d installed like prayers.

“You should add another bolt,” he said simply.

You blinked at him, surprised, like you expected comfort and got a practical fix instead. Like you weren’t used to someone meeting fear with solutions instead of opinions.

Pope’s voice went rougher, quieter, like admitting this cost him something, “He’s not here for the kid,” Pope said. “He’s here for you.”

Your throat worked—swallowing something back. Anger. Shame. Exhaustion. All of it, “Yeah I know. Henry was an inconvenience for him when we were married but now we’re going through court he’s dad of the fucking year,” You swallow. Pope stood on the porch in bare feet and tracksuit pants and felt something that wasn’t just anger. It was protective in a way that scared him—because it wasn’t about territory or ego or Smurf’s house.

It was about you.

About the way you held your life together with stubborn love and still had to deal with a man who treated your boundaries like a game.

Pope’s eyes flicked once down the street where the guy had disappeared, then back to you; He kept his voice even, because he didn’t want to scare you with how much he meant it; “If he comes back,” Pope said, “you don’t open it.”

You gave a small, exhausted laugh that didn’t reach your eyes. “I have too sometimes.”

Pope’s jaw tightened. “No,” he corrected, softer. “You think you have to.”

He saw your fingers tighten again on the door edge. White knuckles. The cost of holding firm.

Pope didn’t step closer. He didn’t touch you. He didn’t try to take your space—he respected it, because he understood it. But his eyes held yours, steady and unblinking.

“You need me,” he said quietly, “you yell. You come knock. I’ll give you my number and call me. I’m right there.”

Not like Smurf.

Not a hook.

Just a fact. Because Pope didn’t know how to offer tenderness the normal way, he offered it like a perimeter.

Like standing between you and the thing trying to break in. Like being the wall so you didn’t have to be. That was what he knew—angles, distance, keeping danger one step further away than it wanted to be.

And somehow, over the months, you’d become part of his map. Not like Smurf’s possessions. Not like a job. Not like a problem to solve.

More like… a place his eyes went automatically; A porch light at night. A gate latch he checked without thinking when he walked past. The sound of Henry’s voice through the fence, bright and looping, and the way it made Pope’s chest do something complicated—tight and warm at the same time.

He saw you more than he wanted to admit.

He saw the locks you added one by one, and how your shoulders eased when the deadbolt clicked. He saw you counting out change at your mailbox once, Henry bouncing on his feet repeating “Candy,” over and over again before you smiled down at the smaller boy; reassuring him that yes, you were going to the corner store for candy, that he had a good day and it’s a treat for after dinner.

He saw the way you looked at Henry like he was your whole heart walking around outside your body. He saw how you’d go soft for him and then snap the softness back into a shield when the world looked at you too long.

And he saw your ex-husband this morning, banging on your door like it was his, and something inside Pope had gone rigid and cold.

He’d wanted to hurt him.

He’d wanted to so badly his stomach knotted and his chest tightened.

But he’d stayed calm because you were watching. Because your kid was inside. Because Pope had learned the hard way that violence was easy, and living with what it cost was the part that ruined you.

So he kept it clean. Kept it simple.

He offered you the perimeter instead.

You stared at him for a beat, like you didn’t know what to do with help that didn’t come with a price tag. Like you were waiting for the hook.

Then you nodded once—small, reluctant, real; “Okay,” you said.

Pope exhaled slow. Like that was all he needed. He should’ve walked back to his yard right then. Should’ve ended it. Should’ve let the moment close like a door, latch clicking shut, back to normal.

But you hesitated.

And Pope, despite himself, felt himself stay.

Your hand was still on the edge of the door, fingers curled around it like you were holding the world back. You glanced toward the street—checking, always checking—then back at Pope. You looked tired, and under the tired there was something like… decision.

You opened your mouth, closed it again. Then finally: “Did you want to come in?” you asked.

The words were careful, as if you were testing them. As if you didn’t fully trust yourself to offer, and didn’t fully trust him to accept.

“I’m—uh—making breakfast for Henry,” you added quickly, offhand like this was nothing, like you weren’t inviting a Cody into your house for something other than borrowed tools and broken beds. “And, you know… thank you. And all that.”

Pope didn’t move; he did, however, feel his body go very still. The way it always did when something important happened. His brain immediately did what it always did: scanned for threats, for what accepting would mean. And Pope was not a safe thing to let into soft places.

You seemed to realise that the second it left your mouth, because you barreled forward, words tumbling like you were trying to laugh your way out of your own bravery, “I mean—” you gestured vaguely, then winced like you were annoyed with yourself for gesturing at all. “After you put on clothes, obviously. Because you’re not wearing a shirt.”

You said it like it was a joke, like you weren’t aware of his bare chest, like you weren’t aware of the way his skin looked in the morning light—sleep-warm and tan and marked by old scars you didn’t ask about.

You made a point not to look down.

Pope noticed anyway, because Pope noticed everything.

You didn’t stare, but your eyes flicked—quick, involuntary—once… twice… like your brain was doing a stupid human inventory and then immediately slapping itself for it.

Pope felt heat prickle at the back of his neck.

Unfamiliar. Annoying.

He didn’t get looked at like that. Not gently. Not with that quick, embarrassed respect that wasn’t predatory.

It made something in him soften that shouldn’t soften.

He cleared his throat, rough sound, eyes dropping briefly to the cigarette between his fingers because it was easier than holding your gaze while your cheeks were faintly pink.

“You don’t gotta,” he said first, reflexively—because Pope didn’t like being owed anything. Because invitations in his world usually came with strings. Because Smurf’s “come in” always meant I own you.

But then he looked at your face again. The tired lines. The stubborn set of your mouth. The way you were trying to act casual about something that clearly wasn’t casual for you.

Pope’s chest tightened. He thought about Henry inside, about the way you’d said your ex was still technically your husband, about how your locks weren’t paranoia—they were necessity.

Pope swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said finally, voice low. “Okay.”

It felt like stepping over a line. Not a fence line—those he understood. This was different. This was you letting him past your door on purpose without there something needing to be fixed on the other side. This was you letting him into your morning.

Your shoulders dropped like you’d been holding them up around your ears the whole time, bracing for him to laugh or refuse or—worse—say yes in a way that made you feel stupid for offering.

“Okay,” you repeated, relieved and awkward at the same time. “Cool. Great.”

You stepped back to make room, still keeping one hand on the door like you were anchoring yourself to it, like the wood and metal under your palm could remind your body you’re in control here; “I’ll—uh—” you pointed toward your kitchen like you had to announce every movement, like you were giving yourself permission to exist. “I’m making eggs? And toast? If Henry lets me?”

Then, because you couldn’t help yourself, because silence was a place you didn’t trust, you barrelled on—words tumbling fast, half-confessional, half-defensive:

“He usually only eats jam toast, and it has to have butter on it. Sorry in advance because he will throw it at least twice before he eats it.” You dragged in a breath and kept going anyway. “And he’s doing this new thing at the moment where he’s licking everything—people included.” Your eyes flicked away like you were embarrassed by the sentence. “His OT says it’s sensory seeking but he laughs when he does it so I’m not convinced.”

You let out a breath, then cleared your throat like you’d said too much and wanted to vacuum the words back into your mouth.

Pope’s mouth twitched.

Almost a smile.

Not because he thought it was funny—though the image of Henry licking someone and giggling hit him with a strange, sharp flash of kid logic. But mostly because he could picture it already: the rules, the negotiations, the mission disguised as breakfast. The way your life wasn’t making toast, it was managing the world so Henry could live in it without getting hurt.

Pope knew routines. He knew rigid. He knew needing the world to behave. The difference was Henry’s didn’t come with guilt.

Pope shifted his weight, suddenly aware again that he was standing on your porch shirtless, the Cody house behind him like a shadow that never fully left.

He glanced down at his bare chest like he’d forgotten it existed until you’d said it out loud.

“I’ll grab a shirt,” he said, voice flat, as if that solved everything.

You nodded quickly, grateful for anything that made the moment less weird. “Yep. Please. That would be—great. For everyone involved.”

Pope turned to go, then paused, looking back at you in the doorway.

The morning was quiet again, the street still sleepy, the air cool enough that the ocean smell carried further. Behind him, he could feel the Cody house even without looking at it—the way it loomed, the way it trained him to anticipate noise, conflict, Smurf’s interest. Smurf’s hold over him wasn’t a chain you could see. It was a reflex in his spine.

You stood there watching him with that unsure look on your face, your hands finally loosening on the doorframe and Pope felt the strangest, simplest affection settle in his chest—heavy and steady.

Not lust. Not fantasy.

Just the fierce kind of I want you to be okay that scared him more than any gun, or violence or Smurf ever had.

Because wanting you okay meant wanting something that wasn’t his to control.

Pope didn’t do want without it turning into fear.

He nodded once anyway, like a promise he couldn’t say out loud.

Then he walked back across the yard to get a shirt—because that’s what you’d asked—and because Pope was already learning that when you asked, it mattered in a way Smurf never did.

Smurf’s asks were orders. Smurf’s help always came with a blade and a catch. Smurf built dependence and called it love.

But you?

You asked like you hated needing anything at all.

And that—more than the invitation, more than breakfast, more than the awkward jokes—was what got under Pope’s skin.

Because he knew how to be useful.

Chapter 3:  Locks, Latches, and Late Fees.

“I am nothing now, And it's been so long, Since I've heard a sound The sound of my only hope…” My Heart- Paramore.

Andrew Cody hated the way Smurf looked at you.

It wasn’t obvious to anyone who didn’t know her—didn’t know the difference between a smile and a snare. From the outside, she could pass for any other middle-aged woman who refused to age quietly. Hair done, face on, teeth bright, tan like she’d been kissed by the sun instead of cooked by it. She moved through the house like it belonged to her in the normal way, not the way it actually belonged to her—paid for in cash and fear and men who didn’t ask too many questions.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think Smurf was the kind of woman who saw a struggling single mum and went soft. The kind who offered babysitting the way other women offered sugar. The kind who showed up at your door with a casserole and a smile and a Honey, you look exhausted, like Martha fucking Stewart with better jewellery.

But Pope knew better.

Smurf didn’t help. She invested.

Smurf didn’t give anything away unless she got to own the gratitude afterward—unless she got to use it as some sort of leverage later when you were tired or desperate or scared enough to say yes to something you’d normally run the other way from. He’d watched her do it to everyone. Not just strangers. Not just men she slept with. To her own kids. To people who should’ve been safe from her.

Smurf’s love was never love. It was a business model. A condition.

She started with softness because softness was easy. Softness was what made people let their usually guarded walls crack—touch, praise, a hand on your arm like she was steadying you from yourself. And if softness didn’t work the first few times, she switched to hunger. To punishment. To that cold withdrawal that made you feel like the world would swallow you without her. She’d cut you off—money, affection, the illusion of family—until you crawled back for a crumb of whatever lifeline she took. She did it to all of them when they pushed her too hard: shut them out, made them panic, then opened the door again just enough that they’d rush back in like starving dogs called to eat.

She pitted them against each other like it was her own personal entertainment. Baz got special treatment. Craig got indulged. Deran got watched. Pope got used. And J—J got groomed, pulled in close, taught the books and the guns and the rules, because Smurf didn’t just want loyalty. She wanted a successor she could shape.

And Julia… Smurf couldn’t stand Julia being good for anyone. Couldn’t stand Julia being gentle, being kind, being a light that didn’t come from her. So she did what she always did to anything she couldn’t control: she broke it. She shoved Julia out, let her rot, and forced Pope to choose. That was the kind of mother Smurf was—making love a knife and acting surprised when everyone bled.

She did it to Pope more than anyone, because Pope was the easiest to bend when you pressed on the right bruises.

Smurf knew exactly where they were.

She’d spent his whole life mapping him—cataloguing every flaw, every fear, every soft spot he tried to bury. She knew how to make him feel like a good son and a monster in the same breath, and he’d still come running when she snapped her fingers because that was the trick: she made sure the only way to feel good again was to come back to her.

Praise from Smurf wasn’t affection. It was a leash. Disappointment from Smurf wasn’t anger. It was exile. And Pope—raised on the idea that love meant obedience—always chose the leash over the wilderness.

So when he stood there that morning, watching her move through the kitchen like she was some normal mother on a cooking show, he felt it in his bones before he even saw it clearly: Smurf was doing it again.

Different target. Same method.

Smurf had spent the morning in the kitchen with an apron tied neat at her waist, hair pinned just right, humming under her breath like she wasn’t a criminal queen with blood on her hands. The radio was on low—some bright old song that belonged in a grocery store aisle, not in a house where guns lived in drawers and cash lived in walls and men bled out on tile floors when business went wrong.

She measured and stirred and tasted with calm confidence, like nothing in her life had ever been frantic. Like she didn’t have a list of names in her head at all times. Like she didn’t know exactly who owed her and how much.

Pope watched from the doorway, arms crossed, shoulder against the frame. He stayed there because he couldn’t leave. Leaving meant giving her space to do whatever she wanted without his eyes on it. And watching Smurf do anything normal made his skin crawl.

It was a performance. Always a performance.

“I heard her last night,” Smurf said casually as she scraped batter into a pan, smoothing it down. Her tone was light. Amused. “With her son,” she continued, eyes still on the pan. “Poor thing. Can’t be easy having a kid that won’t sleep.”

Pope didn’t answer.

He didn’t trust his mouth around her when she was like this—soft voice, domestic hands, predator brain. If he spoke, he’d give something away. A reaction. A tell. Smurf collected tells the way she collected jewellery: quietly, greedily, for later.

Her eyes flicked to him—quick and sharp, a blade of a glance.

Pope felt it like a hook catching the inside of his ribs.

She wasn’t checking if he heard her.

She was checking him.

Checking whether he cared. Checking whether he’d noticed you. Checking whether you mattered enough to him for her to use.

Because Smurf didn’t just meddle for fun. Smurf meddled for leverage. And Pope was leverage she’d been using since he was a kid.

She’d noticed everything.

The way you waved at him when you saw him out front, small and polite like you were trying to be normal about living next door to the Cody house. The way you talked over fences when you crossed paths, updates he never asked for: Henry’s sleep being sporadic, Henry’s new Lego obsession, the neighbour’s cat that kept coming into your yard and meowing like you were planning to feed it. You talked because nervous silence felt like a blade, and Pope didn’t stop you because he didn’t know how to stop people without being cruel.

Smurf had noticed that too—the way he listened.

Pope didn’t listen to people. Not like that. Not the way he listened to you. He tolerated them. He endured them. But you somehow got more than tolerance, and Smurf’s instincts snapped toward it like a shark tasting blood in the water.

She’d noticed the way Pope’s eyes tracked Henry in the front yard. Not in a creepy way. In a way an adult tracks a child that could cause harm to himself given half a chance. Henry’s small body moving in quick bursts, unpredictable, drawn to openings. Pope’s gaze followed automatically—street, gate, driveway, street. He caught himself doing it once and suddenly he couldn’t stop. He’d watched Henry like he watched the ocean: like something pretty that could kill you if you got careless.

Smurf had watched Pope do it from behind her curtains, sipping coffee like she was watching television.

And later she’d tossed out the proof like a joke; Look at you,” she’d murmured, eyes glittering. “All protective.”

That was Smurf’s favourite kind of cruelty—making your softness sound like stupidity.

This morning, as chocolate scent thickened the air, Smurf’s attention stayed light on the surface. Neighbour. Concerned mother. Woman-to-woman kindness. But underneath, Pope could feel the machinery turning.

She wasn’t building brownies.

She was building a bridge.

A reason to cross into your life that looked harmless enough you couldn’t refuse without feeling like an asshole. A way to insert herself without asking permission. A way to make you accept her presence one small, sweet bite at a time until you forgot you had a choice.

When the brownies cooled, Smurf cut perfect squares—precise, even, no crumbs out of place. Slice, lift, slide. Slice, lift, slide. Like she was carving out a plan.

She packed them into a cheap plastic container with a bright lid. The kind normal people used for bake sales and school lunches.

She snapped the lid shut and suddenly the whole thing looked innocent.

Domestic. Sweet. Neighbourly.

A middle-aged woman bringing brownies over at 11am because she heard a kid crying in the night.

Like Martha fucking Stewart.

Pope stared at the container and felt his stomach drop, because he knew exactly what came next.

“You coming?” Smurf asked, light and easy, already moving.

Pope followed because if he didn’t, she’d ask why. And if she asked why, she’d already know the answer.

Resistance in small ways meant punishment in bigger ones later. Smurf took whatever you needed most and held it just out of reach until you crawled back. So Pope stayed close because close meant he could watch. Close meant he could track her tone, her angles, her hands. Close meant he could see where she was aiming her claws instead of guessing after the damage was done.

They crossed the yard past the pool and the patio furniture lined up too neatly, through the side gate towards the front yard where the cars were lined up neatly, towards the front side fence line, Pope’s eyes flicked automatically to the short wooden fence. Built on your side, which meant Henry had little steps to climb up if no one was careful.

Then he looked up and saw you.

You were out the front  with Henry—kid in his own world—moving with that restless, purposeful energy. Hands busy. Mouth busy. Eyes scanning like he was mapping the yard in real time. He hopped up onto one of your steps, then jumped down again like gravity was a game. His voice rose and fell in a sing-song rhythm, but the words weren’t quite right. His own version of a story, stitched together from memory and sound.

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a… wall,” Henry sang, paused, then started again, looped, determined. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…”

You tracked him with practiced vigilance that never left your body even when you tried to look relaxed. Your shoulders stayed a fraction too tight. Your hands hovered in that ready position—close enough to catch, far enough not to crowd. Your gaze kept bouncing: Henry, steps, gate, Henry, steps, fence, Henry.

Pope recognised it immediately.

Hypervigilance wasn’t just for criminals.

It lived in parents, too, when their kid could disappear in a heartbeat.

And you looked tired.

Not rough-night tired. Not unpacking tired.

Deep tired. The kind that lived in the slump of your shoulders and the shadows under your eyes. The kind that said you were running on broken sleep and adrenaline and love.

Smurf saw it too. Of course she did.

Her smile brightened—warm and friendly and just a little too wide—like she’d stepped into a role she liked. The Helper. The Neighbour. The Mother.

“Morning!” Smurf called, voice sweet as sugar. “Hope we’re not interrupting.”

Pope didn’t speak. He stood half a step behind her, a silent shadow, watching you watch her. Watching the polite mask slide into place on your face. Watching the caution settle in your posture—someone who’d learned people didn’t offer things without wanting something.

Smurf lifted the container like she was presenting evidence, “I heard you last night,” she said again, softer now, sympathetic. “With your little one. Honey… you must be exhausted.”

She said it like she cared.

But Pope heard the truth underneath it:

I heard you. I’m close enough to hear you. Your walls are thin. I know your weakness now.

You hesitated, eyes flicking briefly to Pope, like you were checking whether he was part of this or just… there.

Smurf leaned forward, lowering her voice like she was sharing a secret between women, “So I made you something,” she said, holding the container out over the fence like a peace offering. “Brownies. Fresh this morning.”

Pope watched your hands. Watched your fingers twitch like you didn’t know whether to accept.

Refusing felt rude.

Accepting felt dangerous.

That was Smurf’s favourite corner to back people into—make no feel impolite, make yes feel inevitable.

You tried to dodge it at first with a joke, voice light, polite smile strapped tight; “Oh— that’s really lovely,” you said, glancing back at Henry, who was still singing and bouncing. “But Henry only eats like three things and all of them come frozen from the supermarket.” You laughed—small, self-deprecating. “And I’m not really a sweet tooth. But the gesture is lovely. I really, really appreciate it.”

Pope saw the lie in the way your body held itself. Not because you were a bad liar.

Because you were tired. Your words were perfect, but your shoulders were tight, chin lifted just a fraction too high. You were trying to protect yourself without making Smurf feel challenged.

Pope felt something sharp and dangerous in his chest—approval that came too fast, too instinctive.

Good.

Good for making it harder.

Good for not letting Smurf insert herself just yet.

But Smurf adjusted immediately, pivoting like she always did when the first hook didn’t land.

“Well,” she said brightly, like she hadn’t just been refused. “No worries at all, honey. I’ll just leave them here then, and if you feel like a nibble later…” She lifted the container again, hovering it like she might set it down somewhere—on the top rail, on the post—anywhere that forced you to accept it without directly taking it.

Pope’s stomach dropped, he could see the next move forming on Smurf’s tongue.

I’ll bring it over anyway. You’ll owe me anyway. I’ll make you swallow kindness until you choke on it.

You swallowed. Pope watched your throat move. Watched the moment you did the math—conflict costs energy, and you didn’t have energy to spare. Not with Henry bouncing and singing and one wrong second turning into a disaster.

You nodded once, reached out, and took the container.

“Thank you,” you said low, like you hated yourself for not knowing how to say no. Like you hated yourself more for not being able to keep boundaries.

Smurf’s smile widened, satisfied in a way only Pope would catch.

“It’s really not a problem,” Smurf said smoothly. “We’re all neighbours.”

Neighbours, like it meant obligation; “And in this day and age,” Smurf continued, voice turning almost earnest, “we need all the community we can get.”

She reached back and placed her hand on Pope’s arm, fingers rubbing slow, casual ownership. A light squeeze. A leash tug disguised as affection.

“Isn’t that right, Andrew?” she offered.

The question was sugar-coated. The command underneath wasn’t.

Agree. Smile. Be good. Don’t ruin this.

Pope stared at your hands wrapped around the container—the bright lid, the cheap plastic, the absurd normalcy of it in a yard that felt like a trap. He wanted to tell you to give it back. Wanted to tell Smurf to get her claws off you. Wanted to take the container himself and throw it in the trash like it was poison.

But Smurf’s hand was on his arm, and that pressure carried years of training.

So Pope kept his face blank and said, “Yeah.”

Smurf’s smile brightened like he’d given her a gift.

Your eyes flicked to Pope for half a second, like you were checking him. Wondering if he believed what his mother was selling.

Pope held your gaze. He didn’t shake his head. Didn’t warn you outright. He didn’t know how without making it worse. But his eyes stayed hard. Watchful. Unamused.

This isn’t free. Be careful. Don’t let her in.

Henry’s voice rose again, off-key and determined: “Humpty Dumpty—sat on a—wall…”

You shifted the container in your hand like you needed to reclaim control of something.

“I um,” you started, polite smile back on. “I should go back inside— Henry decided to cannonball through his bed last night so I need to go spend my afternoon fixing it—”

Smurf cut in immediately, “Oh, no. Don’t be silly,” she said, laughing softly. “Andrew here is great at fixing things.”

Pope felt his jaw lock.

You tried to push back, quick and firm. “I can do it. He’ll just do it again by tomorrow so—”

Smurf turned to Pope like you weren’t part of the conversation anymore, “Andrew,” she said, voice sweet as frosting, “why don’t you go get the tools and go help fix Henry’s bed?”

It wasn’t a question.

It was an order wrapped in perfume.

Pope felt the old reflex—the flinch toward obedience before his brain could argue. Go. Fix. Be useful. Make me look good.

Your eyes met Pope’s and you gave him an out, trying to be kind, trying to keep control without making anyone angry.

“It’s fine, really,” you told him, glancing back at Henry as he bounced again. “I’m sure you have better things to do—”

Pope watched you swallow the discomfort. Watched you try to sound light when your body said I don’t want a strange man in my house and I don’t want to owe your mother anything.

Smurf’s smile sharpened a fraction. She’d found the lever—your exhaustion, your politeness, the way your attention was always split between Henry and the world.

Pope’s gaze locked onto Henry again.

He saw it, the thing Smurf didn’t see because she didn’t care about kids unless they were leverage: how fast Henry moved toward openings. How drawn he was to gates, latches, gaps. How your entire life was locks and latches and routines and still—still the danger found a way in.

Pope looked back at you.

He couldn’t stop Smurf from ordering him without making it worse, but he could offer you one small thing Smurf never offered anyone.

A choice.

“I can fix it fast,” Pope said, voice low, blunt, then he added, “If you want.”

You looked at Henry, then at Pope, then at Smurf—caught in the triangle of it.

Pope waited, jaw tight, hands still, trying not to look like a threat while his mother stood beside him smiling like a saint.

“Sure,” you said finally, and Pope heard the resignation under it. Not defeat—just the exhausted kind of fine that came from choosing the fight you could win later. “Okay. I’ll go unlock the gate.”

Smurf’s smile brightened, satisfied.

Pope didn’t look at her, instead he watched you.

And as you turned toward your gate—brownies tucked against your hip like a bribe you hadn’t wanted—Henry moved like he’d been waiting for it. Like the click of a latch was the loudest sound in his world. The moment your fingers touched the lock, Henry appeared in front of you, ready to slip through first.

Pope’s whole body tightened in reflex.

Because this—this was your life. You intercepted him fast, crouched, voice calm-firm. “Henry. Mum goes first.”

Henry chewed, blinked, echoed the key word. “First.”

“Yes,” you praised immediately. “First. Great job. Wait.”

Henry rocked on his heels, the stillness hard in his body, but he tried.

Pope watched your technique the way he watched a job—angles, timing, intercept points. You opened the gate just enough to slip through first, body making a barrier. Henry tried to dart past your hip; you redirected him gently, guiding him behind you.

“Behind me,” you instructed.

“Woah,” He screeched as he took a step back before going to move forward again.

“Behind,” you corrected softly, still smiling even though your eyes were tired.

Pope registered it all with the same seriousness he gave fence lines and exits. Because he’d seen what one gap could do.

You held the gate open for Pope.

He stepped into your yard and immediately felt the difference.

Smurf’s yard was curated—staged. Your yard was lived-in: a toy half-buried near the steps, a hose not quite coiled right, a plant that was half dying by the top of the steps. Normal life, messy and real, built on routine and exhaustion. The air smelled faintly like detergent and stale coffee and something microwaveable.

Inside, your house was half unpacked. A tub of Lego spilt on the floor like a thousand tiny landmines. A chair with folded laundry. A stack of mail on the table—too much mail, too many envelopes, one with a red stamp he caught a glimpse of before you shifted and blocked it with your body without meaning to.

PAST DUE.

Pope’s throat tightened.

Late fees weren’t just numbers. They were pressure. They were shame. They were the way the world punished you for being broke.

Henry grabbed a black-covered tablet off the table and bolted down the hallway. Pope tracked him instantly. You exhaled like it was routine.

“And there he goes.”

Then the springs started squeaking—fast, rhythmic—Henry launching himself onto his bed like the mattress was a trampoline.

You paused in the living room, Pope behind you, and rubbed your forehead like you were trying to press the stress out of your skull, “So full disclosure,” you said, voice deadpan, like you’d decided the only way through the awkwardness was to headbutt it.

Pope paused in your living room, half a step behind you the way he’d learned to stand behind people when he didn’t trust their space—close enough to react, far enough not to crowd. The house smelled like detergent and microwaved something and the faint, sweet edge of brownies you hadn’t asked for. There were photos half put up on the wall, a throw blanket slumped over the couch like it had been grabbed in the middle of a night, and on the coffee table a scatter of things that looked messy in a put together way: a small pack of wipes, a water bottle with bite marks on the lid, a set of keys on a lanyard, and—Pope’s eyes snagged—two extra little latch locks still in their packaging like you’d bought them on impulse because your brain never stopped thinking about weak points.

Locks. Latches. Things that clicked shut.

Pope lifted his brows a fraction, the closest he got to Go on.

“Henry’s bed doesn’t need fixing,” you admitted. Then you immediately corrected yourself, because you were the kind of honest that couldn’t let even a small lie sit unaddressed. “Well—it does, but it’s more like… the slats need to be put back on when he knocks them down from jumping on his bed, but I’ve done it a million times.” You huffed, rubbing your forehead like you were trying to scrub your own thoughts clean. “This was meant to be a clever lie to leave the conversation because I felt super awkward and your mom reminds me of my ex-husband.”

There was a beat of quiet where the only sound was Henry’s bed springs protesting down the hallway—squeak, squeak, squeak—like a warning and a laugh at the same time.

The honesty hit Pope like cold water.

Not because it was shocking, because you weren’t trying to charm him. You weren’t trying to pull him in with sweetness or flirtation. You weren’t even trying to pretend you weren’t scared of being pulled into the Cody orbit like everyone else that eventually got pulled in.

You just… told the truth.

And Pope—who lived in a world of lies and people speaking around what they meant—felt something in his chest twitch in a way that wasn’t comfortable.

He watched your hand still on your forehead, fingers splayed, the heel of your palm pressing hard like you could physically hold yourself together. He watched the way your shoulders rose as you inhaled, then dropped on the exhale like you’d been carrying too much weight for too long. He watched you look toward the hallway again—eyes checking Henry automatically, like your body didn’t know how to be present anywhere without also guarding.

Then you glanced back at Pope.

Just a quick look—measuring him, expecting judgment, bracing for a lecture, ready to apologise for the apology you hadn’t even said yet.

Pope didn’t give you any of that.

He couldn’t, because something about you—your exhaustion worn like armour, your humour sharp enough to cut through shame, your refusal to pretend life was easier than it was—made it hard to be cruel.

And Pope wasn’t gentle by nature.

He was just… careful with things that looked breakable. He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face—brief, crooked, real. It startled him as much as it would’ve startled anyone else. It felt wrong on him, like wearing someone else’s clothes. But it happened anyway.

Your eyes widened slightly at the sight of it, like you’d just seen a flicker of something human under all that stillness.

For half a second, you looked… lighter.

And that did something to Pope that he didn’t want to name.

“Yeah,” Pope said quietly, and he meant it. She does that. The way Smurf wore kindness like a mask. The way control hid behind help.

He nodded once toward the hallway where the springs squeaked again, faster, like Henry was trying to launch himself into orbit.

“Show me.”

Not an order. Not like Smurf.

An offer.

You hesitated—just a blink too long—then let out a breath that sounded like relief and defeat tangled together, “Okay,” you said, and your voice softened at the edges like you’d surprised yourself by saying yes.

You started down the hall, and Pope followed, his steps quiet by habit.

Your hallway was lined with small evidence of your life, the kind of things Pope noticed because his brain noticed everything: childproof locks on doors, a table that had even more Lego spread around it, a side table that had a row of large soft Pokemon plushies lined up. A small basket of fidgets on a low shelf. A laminated picture schedule half-taped to the wall, corners peeling already. Someone had stuck a bright sticker on it—dinosaurs—and Pope couldn’t tell if it was for Henry or for you.

Probably both.

You glanced back once, catching Pope looking. Your mouth twitched, embarrassed.

“Yeah,” you said under your breath, “I know it looks like I’m prepping for the apocalypse. Excuse the mess.”

Pope’s eyes moved to the latch on the cupboard at the end of the hall. To the lock on the front door that had been doubled up. To the chain latch above it—too high for a four-year-old; “Looks… fine,” he said instead.

You blinked at that, like you weren’t used to people calling your house fine instead of ‘Messy but lived in’.

Henry’s door was half open. The squeaking was loud now, rhythmic and relentless—springs crying out like a cheap carnival ride. Pope stepped to the side of the doorway first, instinctively, so he wouldn’t startle Henry. He peered in.

Henry was on the bed, tablet in hand, bouncing in place with a joy so pure it almost hurt to watch. The slats—sure enough—had shifted. One was hanging loose at the edge, angled wrong, ready to drop again.

You hovered in the doorway, doing that careful thing where you didn’t storm in and yank him down, because yanking was a fight, “Henry,” you called gently, voice steady, “hop down.”

Henry didn’t stop immediately, but his bounce slowed, like the instruction needed time to travel. He chewed his tyre. Watched the tablet. Bounced once more.

“Hop down,” you repeated, firmer, still calm.

Henry echoed, distracted but obedient in his own way. “Down.”

Then he flopped onto his stomach with a dramatic sigh like he was the most put-upon person on earth, and the bed springs gave one final offended squeal before settling as he climbed off the bed and crouched on his green rug in the centre of the room.

You exhaled like you’d been holding your breath the whole time.

Pope realised, abruptly, that he’d been holding his too.

Your eyes flicked to Pope again, checking him—maybe for annoyance, maybe for judgment.

Instead, Pope crouched automatically, gaze locking onto the slats, the frame.  A problem. A fix.

He didn’t touch anything yet. He waited for your cue, because he’d learned—watching you and the way you moved in your world—that permission mattered.

You noticed that, too. The restraint. The way he didn’t just push past you like he owned space.

Something in your expression softened.

“See?” you whispered, a little self-deprecating. “Told you. He’s a menace.”

Pope huffed something that was almost a laugh, “You want me to…?” he asked, nodding at the slat.

You nodded, and your voice came out quieter than before. “Yeah. If you want. I mean I am happy to do it.”

Pope set to work with his hands first—lifting the mattress, testing the slat, checking how it had shifted. He could fix it, but he was already thinking past the fix, because that’s what his brain did. He could go back, get screws and a drill, properly attach them so they wont move again.

You were watching him with a strange kind of stillness, like you’d expected him to be rougher. Like you’d expected him to take over and make you feel small. Pope didn’t rush it.

He could’ve—he’d fixed worse with less, in the dark, under pressure, hands shaking from adrenaline. He knew how to muscle through a problem and call it done. That’s what he was good at. Quick, clean, efficient. No feelings required.

But this wasn’t a job.

This was a kid’s bed. A few slats that had popped loose because a four-year-old had the kind of energy that didn’t come with an off switch. This was your house—small, messy, held together by routines and whatever you could do between one meltdown and the next.

So Pope moved carefully. Methodical. Like it mattered.

He felt along the frame first, fingertips tracing the groove where the slat should sit, the cheapness of the timber. He tested the slat with controlled pressure, easing it back into position instead of jamming it. His hands were steady, quiet—competent in a way that didn’t need to show off.

And then he glanced up.

Just once. Instinct.

And caught you looking at his hands.

Not in a flirty way. Not in that obvious, hungry way people sometimes looked when they wanted something.

In a tired, grateful way.

Like watching someone else handle one small piece of your life made your chest loosen for a second. Like it reminded you that you weren’t the only set of hands in the world capable of holding things together.

Pope’s stomach tightened.

Hot and unfamiliar.

He didn’t want to want that look from you—didn’t want it because wanting things made him stupid, and wanting things made him careless, and wanting things made him easy to hurt. He didn’t want it because he knew what he was. He knew the blood in his past, the violence in his bones, the way his name carried weight in this town for all the wrong reasons.

He didn’t deserve grateful.

He wanted it anyway.

Your gaze flicked up and met his, and for a moment neither of you moved.

Henry’s tablet kept playing in the background—tinny voices, bright music, some animated character squealing with joy. The sound felt wrong in Pope’s ears, too innocent for a house that still smelled faintly of stress. Ocean air pushed through a cracked window, bringing salt and distant traffic and the faint call of gulls. The whole place felt too small for the way Pope suddenly became aware of the space between you—how close you were standing, how quiet it was, how easily a breath could become a moment.

You broke eye contact first.

Of course you did.

You cleared your throat like you could cough the tension out of the room. Like you could shove it back into a corner behind a pile of unpacked boxes and pretend it wasn’t there.

“Okay,” you muttered, and your voice came out too loud and too fast, like you’d just remembered you were a person who had to speak and not a statue watching a stranger fix your life.

You did what exhausted people did when they didn’t know what else to do with silence.

You offered hospitality. But you offered it like you were trying to improvise your way through a scene you hadn’t rehearsed.

“I’m—uh—” you started, then stopped, then started again with a new sentence like you were flipping through mental index cards. “Did you want tea or coffee or…” your eyes flicked toward the hallway, then back to Pope, then down at Henry like he might provide an answer. “Water… I think I have juice?”

You sounded like you were listing items in a cupboard you hadn’t looked at in a while, “Maybe?” you added, eyebrows lifting in a helpless question. “I haven’t been to the supermarket today so…”

Your mouth pressed together at the end of the sentence, like you’d just realised you were rambling. Again. Like you’d just realised you were offering juice to a man who looked like he’d never had a juice box in his life. You laughed—small, awkward, self-deprecating. It wasn’t really funny. It was just the noise you made when you didn’t want to feel how exposed you suddenly felt.

“I swear I’m usually… less chaotic,” you said, which was obviously a lie because your house, your eyes, the way you moved around Henry—everything about you said chaos was the weather you lived in. “Or maybe this is my personality now. ‘Hi, welcome to my home. Would you like a beverage I cannot confirm exists?’”

You gestured vaguely toward the kitchen, then immediately dropped your hand as if the gesture itself had been too much.

Pope watched you try to find footing. Watched you fill the space with words because words were safer than the silence where feelings lived. Watched you flick your gaze to Henry every three seconds like you couldn’t fully relax even while you were trying to be normal.

Henry, for his part, didn’t care about any of it. He lay on his stomach on the bed, tablet propped in front of him, tyre still in his mouth. He kicked his feet softly in time with whatever was playing, content in his own bubble.

Pope’s eyes tracked Henry automatically—position, movement, risk—then returned to you.

You were still standing there, half hovering, half trapped by your own politeness.

Waiting for him to accept your offer so the moment could become normal.

Waiting for him to decline so you could stop talking.

Waiting for him to do something that would tell you what kind of man he was in your house.

Pope didn’t know how to be a guest. That role didn’t fit him. He didn’t drink tea. He didn’t want coffee. He didn’t want anything you had to fetch, because fetching meant turning your back, and turning your back meant giving him your trust.

And Pope—regardless of how he wanted that grateful look—didn’t take trust lightly.

He shook his head once, small, “No,” he said. Simple. Not harsh. Just honest. “I’m good.”

You blinked, like you hadn’t expected him to make it easy.

Then your shoulders loosened a fraction anyway, relief sneaking in under the embarrassment.

“Okay,” you said quickly, then immediately kept going because your brain didn’t know how to let the conversation die without replacing it with something else. “Okay, cool. Good. Great. Hydration is overrated anyway.”

You rubbed the side of your neck, eyes darting to the kitchen and back like you were trying to physically locate your dignity, “I’m sorry,” you added, quieter. “I’m… not great at having people in my space.”

The truth slipped out before you could stop it. It wasn’t dramatic. You didn’t say it like a confession meant to earn sympathy. You said it like a fact you’d learned the hard way, the same way you’d learned which doors needed latches and which drawers needed locks and which sounds in the night meant you were about to be awake for the next four hours.

Pope’s hands paused briefly on the slat.

Fingertips still. Grip loosening for half a second like the sentence had reached under his ribs and caught on something sharp.

Because he understood that, too.

Space was safety. Space was control. Space was what you guarded when the world kept trying to take pieces of you.

Pope knew what it was to have people walk into your life like they owned it. Knew what it was to have someone decide your boundaries were optional. Knew what it was to keep your body tight and your eyes awake because relaxing meant getting hurt.

He didn’t have the words to say me either without it sounding like an invitation.

So he just went back to the bed, hands moving again—slow, careful—like if he focused on the slats he wouldn’t have to focus on the way your voice had softened on that sentence.

You swallowed, and Pope watched you do what you always did when something got too real.

You tried to cover it with humour because humour was armour.

“Also,” you said, nodding toward Henry, “this is the part where I’m supposed to warn you he might decide you’re furniture and climb you.”

Pope’s mouth twitched.

Not a smile, not quite—more like his face trying to remember how.

He kept his eyes on the slat as he eased it into place, but his voice came out low, steady.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he offered.

It was simple. It wasn’t dismissive. It was the closest thing to reassurance he knew how to give without making it sentimental.

You barked a tiny laugh, relief bleeding through it. “Okay, yep.”

Henry, as if he’d been waiting for his cue, sat up from where he was rewinding the same ten seconds of a video on his stomach, stood, then padded into the hallway without looking at either of you—quiet, purposeful, tyre still working in his mouth.

Pope’s gaze tracked him automatically.

You tracked him too, but yours came with that practiced overlay of what’s he heading toward, what’s within reach, what can he climb, what can he swallow.

A moment later; A screeching sound.

Then the unmistakable crash of a dozen tiny plastic pieces scattering across wood. Lego. A whole tub of it. Exploding like shrapnel.

You closed your eyes and let out a small, long-suffering sigh that sounded like you’d been negotiating with chaos for years and chaos still didn’t respect you.

“Okay,” you said, opening your eyes again with a look that was half apology, half resignation. “There’s that too.”

Pope’s hands paused again, but this time it was just so he could listen. He could hear Henry moving down the hall—little steps, a soft hum to himself, the occasional click of Lego pieces being nudged.

You rubbed the side of your face with your fingertips like you could wipe away the mental image of picking up tiny bricks off the floor at midnight, “I’m usually more on the ball with… you know.” You gestured vaguely toward the hallway like the entire concept of mess. “The mess.”

Pope looked up, finally, meeting your eyes.

He didn’t look annoyed. He didn’t look like the kind of man who expected a house to be quiet and tidy and convenient.

He looked like he’d seen worse. Like he understood that order was a privilege.

“Looks like life,” he said, and it came out rough, like the words weren’t practiced on his tongue.

Your eyebrows lifted slightly, surprised by the lack of judgement.

“Yeah,” you breathed, a faint smile tugging at your mouth. “Life. With extra tripping hazards.”

Pope went back to the bed frame, tightening what needed tightening. He worked in silence for a moment, and the silence wasn’t awkward the way silence usually was with strangers. It felt… steady. Like you didn’t have to perform for it.

Pope could hear the distant hum of Henry’s tablet now muffled from where you both were in the bedroom. He could hear the ocean air moving through the cracked window, salt and traffic and a gull calling like the world outside your house was still insisting on existing.

He caught himself noticing the small details in Henry’s room—the things you’d put in place without thinking they’d ever be seen by someone like him.

A nightlight plugged in near the baseboard, shaped like a little star. A stack of picture books with bent corners. A Super Mario blanket that had been folded half a dozen times and washed enough to fade some of the colour. A toy box in one corner. A set of toy drawers that had train tracks and little wooden puzzle shapes.

Pope’s chest tightened again, but softer this time—less panic, more… something else. Recognition, “You got everything you need?” he asked, voice low, like he was testing the water.

You blinked, then nodded immediately. “Yep. I had food and he has his toys and his tablet and he’s starting at a new Kindergarten next week.” You gave a humourless little huff. “Fingers crossed he doesn’t bite the teacher; he um, he’s going through a biting phase.”

Pope’s eyes flicked to the door where he could hear Henry talking to himself as he moved down the living room.

“You’re doing good,” he said before he could stop himself.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t romantic.

But it landed.

Your face went still for a second, like you weren’t used to people saying that without immediately following it with advice or criticism. Your shoulders loosened a fraction.

“Thanks,” you said softly, then cleared your throat like you didn’t want to feel the weight of it. “I—um. I try.”

Pope’s hands moved the last slat into place. He tested the slat once more—firm, stable, not going anywhere any time soon.  He was just about to shift back, to stand, to tell you that he’s got screws and a drill if you need him to come screw the slats into place; when a small voice drifted in from the other room.

“Oh no little baby, what happened?”

The tone was sing-song, dramatic, clearly rehearsed. Henry repeating your words like a script he’d memorised for when his body did something painful.

Pope froze.

You didn’t.

You smiled instantly toward the hallway, and the smile had that tender familiarity that made Pope’s throat tighten.

“It’s his way of telling someone he hurt himself,” you explained quietly, as if you were sharing a sweet secret instead of translating a need. “He doesn’t really—” you waved your hand gently, searching for a word that didn’t sound like pity—“he doesn’t really know how to tell you directly. But he knows that sentence gets a response.”

Pope nodded once, the information slotting into place in his head. A phrase. A signal. A safe way to ask for help.

Henry appeared in the doorway a moment later like he’d marched in with purpose.

“Oh no little baby, what happened?” he repeated, holding out his hand to you.

It wasn’t dramatic—no screaming, no tears. Just the ritual.

You crouched immediately, your whole body softening as you met him at eye level.

“Oh no little Henry,” you cooed back, mirroring his script with affection. “Look at your hand.”

You took his hand gently, turning it palm-up, inspecting it like it was a priceless artifact. A small red mark. Maybe a pinch from Lego. Maybe a bump against furniture.

You didn’t overreact. You didn’t dismiss it either. You leaned forward and kissed his hand.

Henry giggled—bright, sudden, delighted—as if the kiss had fixed the entire universe.

Then he took his hand back, satisfied, and wandered off again like the injury had been paid for in attention and now life could continue.

Pope watched him go with that quiet intensity of his, something tight and aching behind his ribs.

You stayed crouched for a beat, watching Henry disappear down the hall.

Then you stood slowly, turning back toward Pope. The room felt different now—softer around the edges.

You didn’t look embarrassed about Henry. You didn’t apologise for the script or the Lego explosion or the squeaky bed. You just looked… present.

“He’s happy,” you said softly, almost to yourself. Not bragging. Not pleading. Just stating it like it mattered more than anything else.

Pope’s gaze dropped to the now-stable bed slat, then lifted to you again. He didn’t know what to do with the fact that seeing your kid laugh had made something in him loosen and hurt.

It was the loosening that scared him most. The tiny unclench in his chest like a fist opening, the brief sense of relief that didn’t belong to him. Like his body had recognised joy as something safe… and then immediately followed it with grief because joy in the Cody house never stayed clean for long.

He didn’t know what to do with the fact that you looked at Henry like he was your entire world—like he was the sun you orbited, the reason you locked every door and paid every late fee and kept breathing even when you wanted to collapse and then you looked at Pope like he wasn’t a threat. Like he was just a man standing in your hallway, hands dusty from a bed frame, hearing laughter and feeling something unfamiliar and dangerous bloom in his chest.

Want. That was the word his brain avoided.

Wanting was how you got owned. Wanting was how Smurf got her hooks in. Wanting made you stupid.

So Pope did what he always did when he didn’t know how to hold a feeling.

He finished the job.

He pressed down on the slat one last time—tested it, listened for the creak that meant weak, didn’t hear it. He wiped his fingers on his jeans then he pushed himself to his feet, slow and controlled, and nodded once toward the bed like a man who only knew how to show care through outcomes.

“Won’t fall now,” he said.

And then—because Henry’s laugh still echoed faintly down the hall, because you were standing right there with that tired-soft expression on your face—Pope added, quieter, rougher, like the words had to scrape their way out of him.

“He’s… good.”

Your face warmed instantly, pride flaring bright through the exhaustion, “He’s the best,” you said without hesitation, like that was the easiest truth in your whole life.

Then you looked at Pope properly, and something about the way you did it—steady, grateful, not performing—made Pope’s stomach tighten again.

“Thank you,” you added, then huffed a laugh. “Again.” Your laugh went self-deprecating, almost defensive, like you couldn’t accept help without immediately balancing it with a disclaimer. “Still—I could have done it myself.”

Pope didn’t argue. He didn’t make you feel silly for saying it. He just gave you the blunt acknowledgement you clearly needed to hear to keep your dignity intact.

“I’m sure you could have,” he said.

And he meant it.

He’d watched you in ten minutes and seen more competence than most people had in their whole lives. You were running a system. A kid-proofing operation. A whole world built out of routines and sheer stubborn love. You weren’t helpless. You were just alone.

You nodded like his agreement mattered more than the fix.

“Cool,” you said, as if you’d just checked a box in your own head. “Great. Awesome.”

Then you gestured down the hall with a small tilt of your head, the universal this way, and started walking him back toward the front of the house.

Pope followed.

He kept his hands loose at his sides. Kept his steps quiet. Kept his eyes scanning like he always did—automatic, constant—even inside your home where the only danger was Lego underfoot.

Your hallway opened back into the living room, and Pope’s gaze immediately caught Henry.

Henry was in the middle of the floor, spinning in tight circles like a tiny tornado—arms slightly out, face lit up, laughter bursting out of him in bright hiccups. The tyre was still in his mouth, cheeks puffing around it as he squealed with joy like the world had become weightless.

Pope stopped for half a second without meaning to.

Spinning.

Lena used to do that when she was little—before everything got complicated, before Smurf made the house feel like a trap. Lena would spin until she fell over laughing and Smurf would watch with a smile that looked maternal until you knew the difference between love and ownership.

Pope’s chest tightened hard enough to sting.

You noticed his pause and immediately shifted, gentle and practical.

“Hey buddy,” you said to Henry, voice warm. “Slow body.”

Henry slowed slightly, still giggling, still dizzy-happy, and then spun again anyway but smaller, like he was trying.

You glanced back at Pope with a look that said sorry, also not sorry—because Henry’s joy didn’t need apology.

Pope’s eyes flicked to you—caught on the way you smiled at your son. The way your whole face softened when you watched him. The way the exhaustion in you didn’t disappear, but the love cut through it like sunlight.

It was… too much. In a way Pope couldn’t explain.

You guided Pope around the edge of the living room toward the front door, stepping over a stray Lego piece with the kind of practiced caution that said your feet had learned pain.

Pope clocked the locks on the front door immediately.

Deadbolt. Chain latch up high. An extra sliding bolt lower down.

Not paranoia.

Strategy.

Pope respected strategy.

You stopped at the door and reached for the chain latch, fingers moving like it was a ritual. Like you did it without thinking. Like the click of a lock was the closest thing you got to peace.

Pope waited behind you, still and patient.

You turned back to him with that awkwardness creeping in again now that the moment was ending—like you didn’t know how to wrap it up without making it weird.

So you did what you’d done all day, you made a joke and offered something practical.

“If you need anything,” you said, leaning back against the door for half a second as if you needed it to hold you upright. “I can do the neighbour thing.”

You huffed, one corner of your mouth lifting. “I’ll—um—I’ll bring your mom’s container back.” You nodded toward the brownies like they were a bomb you were temporarily storing. “Clean. Promise.”

Pope’s mouth twitched again, almost a smile, almost real.

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

Then—because he didn’t know how to do goodbye like a normal person, because his brain still ran on danger and obligation and worst-case—he added, low, “Make sure you lock the door.”

You blinked, then gave a small, genuine smile like you understood he wasn’t trying to control you.

“I always do,” you said quietly.

Pope held your gaze for a beat too long.

Henry’s laughter bubbled again behind you as he spun one more time, dizzy and delighted.

Pope’s chest tightened with that same unfamiliar ache.

Chapter 2: Saltwater Start. “I've been spending the last eight months, Thinking all love ever does Is break and burn, and end, But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again…” Begin Again- Taylor Swift.

“You don't know shit and you never will. You get that? No one is ever going to have a kid with you.”

Andrew thought, in some twisted, fucked up way, that Lena was the closest thing he’d ever had to proof.

Proof that something clean could exist in a house built on rot. Proof that innocence could sit at Smurf’s kitchen table—feet not even reaching the floor, cheeks still round with childhood—without immediately getting stained. Proof that the world could hand him something small and bright and good and real… and maybe, if he held it right, he wouldn’t crush it with his own hands.

He’d never asked to be responsible for her. He didn’t even know how to be responsible for himself half the time. But responsibility, like everything else in Andrew Cody’s life, had been shoved into his palms and turned into a test.

Here. Hold this. Don’t drop it. Now live with what happens if you do.

Lena had arrived in his orbit because Baz was never where he was supposed to be, and Catherine was always trying to do damage control with one hand while holding her daughter with the other. Pope became the one who picked up the slack because that’s what he did—he filled gaps. He patched holes. He stood in doorways and watched the street. He remembered lunch boxes and bedtime and whether the latch on the gate clicked right.

He didn’t do it because he was good at it.

He did it because no one else was steady.

And Lena—Lena didn’t know what they were. Not really. She didn’t know what jobs meant, or why Smurf’s smile never reached her eyes, or why her dad’s hugs were always distracted and half gone. Lena just knew Pope was there. Quiet. Weird. Sometimes scary if you didn’t understand him. But consistent.

And consistency, to a kid, felt like love.

That’s what made it dangerous.

Because Pope knew what it felt like when adults pretended consistency and then snatched it away.

Pope remembered foster care the way you remember a smell you can’t scrub out of your clothes—faint most days, but one wrong trigger and it’s suddenly everywhere.

He didn’t remember it like a storyline. He remembered it like flashes.

Strangers’ houses where everything was too clean or too loud. A couch that wasn’t yours. A guest towel. Rules that changed depending on someone’s mood. A social worker’s perfume. The word placement said like it wasn’t a knife. Adults talking over his head about him like he was paperwork. People saying sweet boy while looking at him like he was a problem they’d agreed to take on for points, for money, for Jesus, for whatever reason adults had that wasn’t love.

He remembered Julia beside him—his twin, his anchor—small fingers hooked into his sleeve like she was terrified someone would separate them. He remembered the way she’d watch every doorway, every adult, the way she’d go still and sharp as a cat when she sensed danger coming. He remembered the shame of needing her to translate the world for him. He remembered being unable to explain what he felt without sounding wrong, without sounding like the kind of kid adults got tired of.

And he remembered the worst part:

Not the houses. Not the food. Not even the fear.

The waiting.

Waiting for someone to come back for you. Waiting for the moment you realised they weren’t going to.

Because even if you hated the person who left you there, some part of you still expected them to walk back through the door and say, Okay. Come on. Let’s go home.

And when they didn’t?

That’s when you learned abandonment wasn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it was just… quiet. Administrative. A decision made in a room you weren’t allowed into. And that memory never sat in the past like it was supposed to. It lived in him. It shaped the way he gripped on. The way he panicked when someone left the room angry. The way he tracked exits. The way he thought love was something you had to earn by being useful, obedient, quiet.

So when Lena got pulled into the system after everything went to hell—after her parents were gone, after the Cody house stopped being temporary and started being a trap—Pope didn’t just fear paperwork.

He feared what it did to a kid’s head.

He feared Lena lying in a strange bed with a strange blanket, clutching a stuffed animal, staring at the ceiling, asking questions no one could answer right.

Where’s my dad? Where’s my mom? Where’s Pope?

He could see it too clearly: Lena thinking she’d done something wrong. Lena thinking she was being punished. Lena thinking she’d been left behind because she wasn’t wanted enough. Because that’s what kids do—they take adult failures and turn them inward until it becomes a belief that sticks.

And Pope couldn’t stand the idea of her wearing that belief like a bruise.

He couldn’t stand the idea of Lena looking at the world with that same hollow expectation Pope had learned too young: People leave. They always leave. Even the ones who swear they won’t.

That was the thing—Pope didn’t see foster care as help. Not at first. Not instinctively. His nervous system saw it as being taken.

Lena forced him to learn a different definition: Love was choosing the thing that hurt you, if it saved them.

Love was letting a little girl be confused and sad for a while—because temporary sadness was better than a lifetime of rot.

Love was understanding that a kid might feel abandoned even if you’re doing the abandoning for the right reasons… and still doing it anyway, because the alternative was keeping her at Smurf’s table until innocence didn’t look innocent anymore.

And the fear never left him. Even after he made the choice, it stayed—gnawing, obsessive, brutal.

What if she thinks I left her? What if she hates me? What if she forgets? What if she remembers too much?

That was Pope’s curse: he could never just hope. He always had to rehearse the worst.

Hope was for people who’d been allowed to believe the world wouldn’t take everything good and grind it down. Hope was for people who hadn’t learned, young and hard, that happiness was temporary and safety was a joke you told yourself so you could sleep at night.

Pope had been that kid once—waiting, watching the door, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. Trying to decode adult faces like they were a language he wasn’t born speaking. Trying to stand still enough, quiet enough, useful enough, so maybe nobody would decide he was too much trouble and send him somewhere else.

So when Lena happened—small hands, stubborn chin, a laugh that didn’t belong anywhere near Smurf’s house—Pope didn’t know what to do with it except hold on too tight and panic every time she stepped out of his sight. He told himself it was protection, because protection sounded better than need. Better than I can’t lose another person and survive what it does to me.

And when he let her go, it wasn’t because it didn’t tear him apart.

It was because that was what he did. He saw something he loved—something too good, too bright for his world—and he made himself the bad guy if it meant she stayed clean.

He let her go.

He let her be safe. Let her grow up normal, if normal was even real. Let her laugh in a house that didn’t hum with threat, didn’t smell like guns and chlorine and Smurf’s perfume. Let her have friends who didn’t know how to pick locks. Let her have dinners that didn’t taste like debt.

And he let himself carry the last, ugly hope anyway: that she’d remember him.

Not the scary parts. Not the screaming. Not the blood. Not the way his hands sometimes shook like his body was trying to crawl out of itself.

Just… him. Pope. The one who sat on the floor with her and watched cartoons without talking. The one who fixed her bike. The one who stood in doorways like a guard dog and kept the night back as best he could.

He didn’t get to keep her.

So he kept the memory instead, sharp enough to hurt.

It followed him everywhere, even when he didn’t want it to. Especially when he didn’t want it to.

Like today.

The beach was crowded in that Oceanside way—sunburnt tourists, locals with boards tucked under their arms, kids shrieking at the edge of the surf. The kind of day that looked harmless. The kind of day that made Pope’s skin crawl because harmless was never real.

He wasn’t here for fun. Pope didn’t do fun.

He was here because sometimes you had to put your eyes on the street, on the sand, on the people moving through your territory. Sometimes you had to make sure nothing was creeping closer to the house when everyone else was busy pretending life was normal.

The air tasted like salt and sunscreen. The wind pushed grit against his shins. He kept his hands in his pockets and his shoulders tight, scanning without looking like he was scanning. Old habit. Survival muscle memory.

And then he saw you.

Not at first as you. At first, you were just movement that didn’t match the rest of the day. A woman holding herself like she was carrying a threat in her chest. Not relaxed, not careless. A body that lived on alert even in sunlight. Then he saw the kid beside you and everything in Pope’s head clicked into place with that same cold drop he’d felt by the pool.

Henry.

Blue shirt today—Pokémon splashed across the front in bright colours, a little too vivid against the sun. Different shorts, different day, same gravitational pull toward anything that moved and shimmered and felt like more. He was walking close to you, but not holding your hand, and Pope clocked the way your fingers hovered near his elbow like a safety net you didn’t want him to feel. Ready to catch without grabbing. Ready to redirect without turning it into a fight.

You were watching the water like it could turn on you.

Pope understood that kind of watching. The kind where you’re technically standing still, but your nervous system is sprinting laps.

The beach was loud with normal life—kids shrieking, gulls screaming overhead, someone thumping music from a portable speaker like they owned the shoreline. The air tasted like salt and sunscreen and hot chips. The sunlight was so bright it bounced off the ocean in hard flashes, like the world was daring people to look away.

Henry didn’t care about any of it.

He crouched down near the dry sand first, hands skimming over the top like he was petting something alive. Quick little brushes back and forth, back and forth. Sensory seeking, Pope thought. Henry’s shoulders rose and fell with the rhythm of it, calm and intent.

You knelt beside him, voice low, steady, doing that careful narration thing Pope had seen you do before—gentle words laid down like stepping stones, “Hands gentle,” you murmured. “That’s it. Sand stays low. We don’t throw it at people, alright?”

Henry didn’t answer you directly. He was chewing something—jaw working slowly, methodically—and Pope’s eyes snagged on it, because it wasn’t gum. It was something rubbery-looking, dark, round.

A toy. A tyre.

You glanced up, catching Pope looking before he could pretend he wasn’t. For a second, you braced—habit. Like you were preparing to explain yourself before anyone accused you of doing it wrong.

Then you exhaled and chose polite anyway.

You gave him a small, tired smile. “Andrew, right?”

Pope stopped a few feet away, boots sinking slightly into the sand. He didn’t like crowds. Didn’t like being boxed in by strangers. But he’d been walking the shoreline half on autopilot, half on patrol, and now here you were in his path like a problem his brain had already decided to solve.

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

“Nice day for it,” you said, nodding toward the clear blue sky like you could anchor the moment to something normal. You looked down just in time to see Henry scoop a handful of sand and fling it up in an arc that looked beautiful for half a second before physics and wind made it everyone’s problem.

“Okay,” you winced, squeezing your eyes shut as gritty sand peppered your cheek and forehead. “That’s what we’re doing.”

Henry made a pleased little sound to himself, like the sand had done exactly what he wanted it to do. He scooped again.

You moved fast—hand sliding under his wrist, not grabbing hard, just intercepting the motion mid-swing. Redirecting it down. Calm voice, steady face, even though Pope could see the tension in your shoulders tighten like wire, “Not up, buddy,” you said, still gentle. “Down. Sand down.”

Henry blinked, chewed, and repeated the last word like it was the important one. “Down.”

“Good,” you breathed. “Yes. Good words.”

Pope watched the exchange with that quiet, unreadable focus that made people uncomfortable. Not because he meant to. Because his brain catalogued details whether he wanted it to or not—how you kept your tone even, how you gave Henry a replacement behaviour instead of just a no, how you praised the words like you were building a bridge between his world and yours.

You wiped sand off your face with the back of your wrist, grimacing. Pope’s mouth twitched.

It wasn’t a full smile. But it was something.

You noticed it anyway. Your eyebrows lifted slightly, like you were surprised he had one of those in him, “I never said thank you, by the way,” you started, shifting your attention back to him like you were determined not to let awkwardness win. “For fixing the fence the other week.” You let out a small laugh that sounded more like exhaustion than humour. “You have stopped about three prison escapes.”

Pope huffed—barely audible, but it might’ve been a laugh if you knew how to translate him. His gaze flicked to Henry, then back to you, “It wasn’t a problem,” he said.

You shook your head immediately, stubborn. “I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal to you,” you replied, voice firming with something real, “but it is to me. And I really—genuinely—appreciate it.”

Pope’s jaw worked like he didn’t know what to do with that. Gratitude always made him itchy. Like praise was a trap, like kindness was something that came with a hook.

He looked away toward the ocean, squinting against the glare. “Yeah.”

But he didn’t walk away.

Henry, still crouched, was murmuring to himself, eyes fixed on his hands as he dragged patterns through the sand. “Sand,” he said quietly, like he was naming the thing to make it safe. Or real.

“Yes, buddy,” you said instantly, warmth returning to your voice. “It’s sand. Good words.”

You smiled at Henry—soft, proud, the kind of smile that made your whole face different—then glanced back at Pope like you remembered he existed and you were suddenly aware you’d been doing The Parenting Thing in front of a stranger.

“Also,” you added, as if you couldn’t help yourself, “he’s chewing on a Lego tyre in case you’re wondering.”

Henry chewed demonstratively, as if to prove your point.

You lifted one shoulder in a helpless little shrug. “Which….you…..probably aren’t.”

Pope’s eyes dropped to the tyre, then back to Henry’s face. He didn’t look disgusted. Didn’t look amused in a mean way. Didn’t do that thing most adults did where their expression turned into a question—what the hell is that?—before they tried to smooth it over with politeness.

He just looked… thoughtful. Like he was filing it away as a fact.

Like it mattered.

Henry chewed steadily, jaw working slow and determined, the black rubber tyre half-hidden in his mouth. He wasn’t trying to be sneaky about it. It wasn’t shameful to him. It was just… what he needed.

Pope tilted his head a fraction, watching the motion, the focus. He’d seen chewing before—Craig chewing his nails until they bled, J chewing his cheek when he was thinking—but this was different. This was regulation, not anxiety. A tool, not a tic; “He always got… something?” Pope asked, voice low, careful. Like he didn’t want to spook Henry with the wrong volume.

You answered instantly, because you’d answered it a hundred times for people who asked in the wrong tone, in the pity tone, in the judging tone—and you’d learned to get ahead of the conversation before it got away from you, “Yep,” you said, immediate and matter-of-fact, like you were explaining what the sky looked like. “He—uh—he chews through his clothes.” You let out a breathy little laugh that wasn’t really humour, just the sound of someone trying not to cry about the price of replacement shirts. “Like… collars, sleeves, anything. And he kept chewing on anything small. Rocks. Little plastic bits. One time I caught him trying to gnaw the corner of a book.”

Henry, as if on cue, shifted and pressed his face closer to the sand, still chewing, eyes narrowed in concentration.

You kept going, words spilling out with that practiced, half-defensive, half-explanatory rhythm that came from living in a world that constantly asked you to justify your child’s existence, “So his OT suggested these cloth tag things,” you said, gesturing vaguely like the tags were still haunting your laundry basket, “and he hated them. Like, full-body offended. We tried rubber beads on a string and they didn’t work either—he kept trying to snap it or he’d just fling it and then we’d have… beads… everywhere.” You shook your head, exasperated affection. “But Lego tyres do.”

Pope’s eyes flicked to the tyre again. He didn’t react. Just accepted the information like it was a new rule.

You added quickly, because you couldn’t help yourself, “And I have those in abundance at home because we’re Lego-crazy at the moment, so…” You trailed off abruptly, realising you’d been talking in a rush. Too much detail. Too many words for a stranger. Your mouth tightened like you were bracing for him to look bored.

Or annoyed.

Or to do what people did when they didn’t know what to say: smile awkwardly and change the subject like Henry’s needs were embarrassing.

But Pope didn’t.

Henry slid fully onto his stomach on the sand, legs kicked out behind him. He was close enough to the ground that his eyelashes nearly brushed it as he peered at something tiny—shell fragments, maybe, or a piece of seaweed. His hands skimmed the sand in quick little sweeps, brushing it back and forth like he was smoothing it into patterns only he understood.

You hovered a step behind him, the way you’d hovered by the pool: close enough to catch, far enough not to crowd. Your fingers twitched like you were constantly fighting the urge to scoop him up and keep him safe inside your ribs.

Pope watched that too. His gaze didn’t stick on your body. It stuck on your posture. Your vigilance. The exact distance you kept from Henry, measured like you’d learned it through trial and error.

Then, quietly, he said, “He’s a good kid.”

The words hit you harder than they should’ve. Simple sentence, nothing dramatic. But it didn’t carry pity. Didn’t carry judgment. It wasn’t the patronising oh, he’s so special people threw at you when they didn’t know how else to be kind.

It sounded like… respect.

Like he meant it.

You blinked, then your expression softened into something real, “He’s amazing,” you said, and the pride in your voice didn’t try to hide behind humour. You crouched a little, watching Henry’s hands. “He—uh—he likes to watch videos on how to build Lego buildings and stuff.” Your smile warmed at the memory. “Like the proper ones, too. Not just cartoons. He’ll sit there and watch someone build a whole city and then… he’ll go to the floor and try to do it.”

Pope’s mouth twitched again, a ghost of a smile that might’ve been surprise.

You kept talking, because now you were on a roll, and honestly, talking about Henry was the easiest way to breathe, “He’ll sit on the floor for hours just building,” you said. “Like—hours. Totally quiet. Totally focused. It’s kind of… incredible.” You glanced up at Pope, then back down at Henry, watching him press his palms into the sand like he was stamping it. “Better than him flooding my kitchen.”

You snorted, the humour sliding out instinctively. “He figured out how to turn the tap on one day. Didn’t even make a mess at first—just stood there watching the sink fill up like it was the most beautiful science experiment on earth.” You lifted your hands in surrender. “I walked in and he was so proud of himself, like—and he just looked at me with this smile that said look, Mom, water.”

Henry made a soft little hum through his chewing, as if he approved of the story. He swept sand again, back and forth, back and forth.

You realised you’d been talking and talking—about OT, and chewing, and Lego, and kitchen floods—and suddenly it all felt like too much. Like you’d opened a door you usually kept locked. Your shoulders rose toward your ears. You let out a breath and gave Pope an apologetic look that was half self-deprecating, half weary, “Sorry,” you said. “I’m a chronic oversharer.”

Pope didn’t move. Didn’t look away. Didn’t laugh at you. Just watched like he was waiting to see what you’d do next.

You kept going anyway, because once you started, it was hard to stop. Because silence made space for fear, and you were tired of fear, “My ex-husband used to say,” you added, eyes rolling as if it was funny, even though there was something sharp underneath it, “if he left me at the checkout for too long, by the end of the transaction they’d know my social security number.”

You tried for a laugh. It came out a little strained.

 Pope heard the words ex-husband and felt it the way he felt a door left unlatched.

Not loud. Not obvious.

Just a shift in the air—pressure changing, something slipping out of alignment.

He didn’t react like a normal guy would. No polite “oh, sorry” face. No sympathetic noise. Pope didn’t do sympathy noises. His brain just took the information and started working it, turning it over like a loose tooth. Still connected. Still a problem. Still here, even if he’s not here.

He kept his eyes on you, because looking away felt like missing a detail he’d regret later.

You must’ve seen the change in him anyway—the tightening at his jaw, the way his gaze sharpened, the way his shoulders went subtly rigid like he’d squared up to something invisible. People always noticed that part of him. They just didn’t always understand what it meant. You moved fast to smooth it over, like you regretted handing him something sharp. Your hand went to your hair, tucking it behind your ear even though the wind yanked it right back out and slapped it against your cheek. The movement was automatic—nervous, self-soothing. Like locking a door twice. Like checking the stove even though you knew you’d turned it off.

“It’s—yeah,” you said quickly, trying to lighten it. Your mouth twitched like you were aiming for humour but your eyes were still watchful, measuring his reaction. “It was mostly a joke. He—” You cut yourself off, then tried again, words spilling faster as if speed could make them less real. Pope could see it now—how you filled the space when you got nervous, how you talked to keep the air from turning heavy. How you apologised with laughter before anyone could accuse you of being too much.

“He’s still technically my husband,” you deadpanned, and Pope caught the bite underneath it. Not just sarcasm. Anger. Fatigue. “The divorce hasn’t gone through, which isn’t my fault—he just doesn’t want to sign the papers because he likes to make sure my lawyer can afford his third holiday house.”

Pope blinked once, slow.

Third holiday house. The kind of detail that didn’t sound like exaggeration so much as it sounded like this guy’s a piece of shit with money. The kind of man who could drag a divorce out just because he could. The kind of man who used paperwork like a weapon.

Pope’s fingers flexed inside his pockets. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask what the guy looked like. Didn’t ask where he lived. Didn’t ask if he was local.

But his brain did it anyway—quietly, automatically. He’s not signing. He’s still attached. He’s still controlling her. He’ll show up.

Pope looked past you, over your shoulder, scanning the beach without making it obvious. People milling. Kids running. A couple arguing near a lifeguard tower. A man with a cooler. Another with a dog. No one looking directly at you, but Pope didn’t trust no one. He’d learned a long time ago that danger didn’t always announce itself.

He looked back at you.

Your mouth had flattened after the joke, like you’d realised you’d said too much. Like you could hear yourself and wished you had an off switch.

Then Henry changed the whole scene the way kids did—by just doing what his brain told him to do without caring about adult tension. He stood up abruptly, sand clinging to his knees and palms, a small shell pinched carefully in his hand like it was treasure. He turned and held it out.

“Shell,” he said, offering it in that simple, declarative way. Not a question. A fact. A gift.

Your face softened instantly, the tightness around your eyes loosening like someone had untied a knot. “Great words,” you told him, smiling like the sun had come out again. “It’s a shell.”

Pope watched the shift and felt something strange in his chest—how fast you could drop your own discomfort to meet Henry where he was. How your whole body recalibrated around him like he was the axis.

Henry stared at the shell, then the sand, then the ocean, chewing steadily. He looked up again and continued in the same calm, looping cadence, as if he was building a list of truths he could trust, “It’s a beach,” he said.

Pope’s eyes flicked to Henry’s mouth. To the way the words came out. To the way Henry seemed satisfied by naming the environment, like labeling it made it safer.

“We’re on a beach,” you agreed immediately, voice warm, steady. “Great job.”

You ran a soothing hand over Henry’s back—slow, consistent pressure—then left it there for a beat, your palm anchoring him. Pope noticed how you didn’t rub frantically, didn’t pat, didn’t fidget. You did it like a routine you’d used a thousand times, like the motion itself was a signal: I’m here. You’re okay.

Henry’s shoulders lowered slightly. The tyre kept working in his mouth. He crouched again, shell still in his fist, and went back to studying the sand like it held secrets.

And you—your smile still on your face—seemed to remember, abruptly, that you weren’t alone with your kid. That you were standing in front of a stranger.

A Cody.

Pope watched the moment you snapped back into adult awareness. The way your shoulders drew in. The way your eyes flicked up to him with that apologetic flash again.

“We should go,” you said quickly, like leaving was the safest way to stop yourself from saying anything else. “Sorry for the oversharing, and for briefly being my therapist—” Your laugh was small and self-deprecating, a shield more than humour. “—and, um… thanks again for the fence.”

Pope didn’t move. He watched you hover there for half a second, unsure if you should wait for a response or just bolt while you still had the courage. He watched the way your hand drifted toward Henry again, ready to guide him, ready to anchor him.

Pope felt his own silence stretch too long.

Most people filled silence with reassurance. Pope filled it with thought. With assessment. With that cold planning that lived behind his ribs.

But you looked like you needed something simple. Something that didn’t make you feel stupid for talking. Something that didn’t make you feel like you had to apologise for being tired and human.

So Pope gave you the closest thing he had to kindness, “It’s fine,” he said, low. Blunt. Honest. He nodded once toward Henry. “He’s… good.”

Not in a pity way.

In a I see him way.

Your mouth parted slightly, like you were startled by the lack of judgment again. Then you nodded, small, grateful without making a big thing of it.

Pope’s gaze dropped to Henry one more time—blue Pokémon shirt, sandy knees, shell in his hand, tyre in his mouth—and his brain flashed back to Lena like it always did when something small and innocent wandered too close to his world.

He’d let Lena go.

He’d made himself live with the ache.

And now, standing here with you and Henry on a bright, normal beach, Pope felt that same instinct rise up—unwanted, inevitable.

You shifted your weight, ready to shepherd Henry away. The wind tugged your hair again, and you tucked it back behind your ear out of habit even though it wouldn’t stay.

Pope watched you turn and thought, sudden and sharp:

She’s trying so damn hard.

It came out of Pope’s mouth like a directive.

Like training.

Like muscle memory from years of tracking people who didn’t want to be found—men who bolted, men who lied, men who thought speed meant safety. It was the same tone he used with his brothers when things went sideways on a job. Short. Sharp. No extra words to soften the edges.

“If he runs,” Pope said low, “don’t chase straight behind him. Cut him off. Like a corner.”

The second the words left him, Pope felt that faint, unpleasant flicker in his chest—the one that showed up when he realised he’d spoken too much. When he’d made himself visible.

He watched your head snap toward him.

Surprised. Alert. That quick recalibration mothers had, the one that said who are you to tell me anything about my kid? even before you decided whether you were being fair.

Pope didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. Looking away felt like weakness, and he’d been trained out of that. Smurf trained it out of him. The world trained it out of him.

He held your gaze, expression flat but intent, like if he stared hard enough you’d understand he wasn’t judging you—he was warning you. His eyes flicked briefly to the ocean, to the roll and pull of the water like it was an enemy he didn’t trust. “Water’s… a pull,” he added, words rough, clumsy in his mouth. He didn’t have the right language for it—sensory seeking, fixation, elopement risk—he only had instinct and lived experience and fear. “Kids don’t… think.”

He meant it doesn’t matter how good you are, he meant it only takes one second, he meant I watched him by the pool and it almost happened right in front of me.

But Pope didn’t know how to say all that without sounding like an accusation. So he left it blunt.

He watched your throat move as you swallowed. Watched you take a breath like you were trying to keep your voice steady.

“I know,” you said, and the words came out with teeth. Not shouting, not rude—just edged. Like a bite. Like you’d been chewed up by well-meaning advice one too many times, “I’ve been doing this since he could walk.”

Pope’s jaw tightened, not because you snapped—he understood snapping. Snapping was survival. It was the sound people made when they were tired and scared and sick of being told the obvious.

It was your face that hit him harder.

Because even as your voice was sharp, your expression shifted into something else—apologetic, guarded, familiar. Like you were used to people correcting you. Like you were used to being treated like you were doing it wrong. Like you were used to swallowing your anger because anger made you look like the problem and you couldn’t afford to be the problem when you were fighting for your kid every day.

You said “Sorry” fast, the way people said it when they didn’t mean they’d done something wrong, only that they’d been caught being human. You cleared your throat, adjusting the strap of your bag, smoothing your shirt—little nervous movements, a reset.

“I didn’t mean to sound like a bitch.”

Pope stared at you for a beat.

The wind dragged at your hair again, tugging loose strands across your cheek, and you tucked it back behind your ear like you could control at least that much. Behind you, Henry murmured to himself—“Beach,” or “Sand,” Pope wasn’t sure—still chewing his tyre, still orbiting his own little world. The ocean hissed and pulled and returned, indifferent.

Pope’s chest felt tight.

He didn’t like apologies. Not when they were forced. Not when they were reflexive. Not when they came from someone who looked like they’d spent years apologising for things other people didn’t have to apologise for. He shifted his weight, eyes flicking once to Henry to make sure the kid was still within arm’s reach of you, then back to your face.

“You didn’t,” Pope said.

Two words. Flat. Certain.

You blinked, like you hadn’t expected him to contradict you.

Pope’s jaw worked, and for a second it looked like he might stop there—end it clean, retreat into silence where he was safer. But something in him pushed forward anyway, stubborn and uneasy.

“I wasn’t… tellin’ you how,” he said, voice lower, almost rough with effort. “Just… how I do it.”

He didn’t add when shit goes bad. He didn’t add when it’s too late to think. But it sat in his tone.

Pope’s gaze flicked to the water again, suspicion sharp as a blade. “Ocean’s different,” he muttered, like he couldn’t help it. “Pool got edges.”

He looked back at you and there was something almost vulnerable in the way he said the next part—because it wasn’t about your kid. It wasn’t even about water. It was about him. About the way his brain worked. About the curse you couldn’t see unless you lived inside it.

“I plan,” he said simply. “Always.”

Your expression softened a fraction, the defensive edge easing when you realised he wasn’t trying to score points. He was trying to offer something he understood: strategy. Prevention. Control.

Because control was the closest thing Pope had ever had to safety.

The wind gusted, and Henry’s blue shirt flapped as he turned in a small circle, scanning the sand like a detective. He crouched again and poked at a shell fragment, then held it up to you like evidence.

“Shell,” he declared.

You immediately pivoted, voice warm, all the bite gone in an instant. “Yes, buddy. Shell. Great job.”

Pope watched that shift again—how you could be sharp with adults and soft with Henry in the same breath. How you could carry exhaustion and still show up for him with a smile.

It tugged at something in Pope’s ribs.

You looked back at Pope, cheeks flushing faintly, embarrassed by your own snap.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, smaller this time, like it was hardwired. “People just… always have an opinion.”

Pope’s eyes narrowed slightly. Not at you—at the imaginary chorus of strangers. The checkout therapists. The beach lifeguards. The random old ladies at supermarkets with their advice and their judgement and their perfect kids who never bolted, “Yeah,” Pope said, voice like stone.

Then, after a pause, he added—awkward, blunt, but honest, “You’re watchin’ him. I can see that.” Your mouth parted slightly, caught between relief and disbelief, like you didn’t know what to do with a stranger saying you’re doing good without tacking on a “but” afterward.

Pope watched it happen in real time—the way the tension in your face loosened by a millimetre, the way your eyes flicked down and away like you didn’t trust the warmth of being seen. Like you were waiting for the punchline. Like acknowledgement had always come with conditions in your world: Good job… for someone like you. Good job… if he behaves. Good job… if you keep proving it.

Pope didn’t know how to deal with that kind of vulnerability on other people. It made him feel… wrong. Like he’d stepped too close to something private. So he did what he always did when he didn’t know how to be soft.

He got practical.

His gaze slid back to Henry— Pokémon shirt, sand still stuck to his shins, tyre working steadily in his mouth. Henry had a shell clenched in his fist like he didn’t quite trust the world not to steal it. His body angled toward the ocean even while his eyes were on the sand, like the water had a string wrapped around his ribs.

Pope could see the math in it. The pull. The impulse. The one-second gap between curiosity and danger.

He swallowed, throat tight, and then said, low and blunt, “You need anything… you come grab me.”

The words surprised him as much as they surprised you. He didn’t offer things. Not like that. He didn’t invite people into his orbit unless Smurf told him to, unless a job required it, unless he could control it.

But he’d said it anyway.

Because he could see you. And Henry. And the way you were doing everything right and still looked like you were one bad moment away from collapsing. Because it reminded him of too many things he’d failed at and too many things he never got the chance to fix.

You stared at him for a beat, eyebrows lifting, humour sparking instinctively to cover the seriousness, “Like your mom?” you offered, careful but pointed.

Pope’s face tightened immediately, like you’d touched a bruise. His eyes snapped to yours—sharp, warning, but not angry at you. Angry at the idea. Angry at what she did to people when she offered help.

“Not like my mom,” he said, fast. Flat. Final.

He could feel Smurf’s shadow even out here, like she’d trained him to correct the record the second anyone confused his intentions with hers. Smurf offered things so she could own you. Smurf offered warmth so she could measure how much you’d bend under it.

Pope’s offer wasn’t that.

It wasn’t hooks. It was… an attempt. A clumsy one. A thing he wasn’t practiced at.

He looked away briefly, scanning the shoreline again—habit—then back to Henry, grounding himself in what he could understand; “You need the fence fixed again,” he continued, voice rough, “or just… an extra set of eyes.”

He paused, jaw ticking, like he hated how much he’d just admitted: that he’d noticed the holes. That he’d noticed you were alone. That he’d noticed how fast things could go wrong.

Henry shifted, pushing himself up to his knees. He held the shell out again—not at Pope this time, but at you—like he was sharing the discovery, “Shell,” Henry said, certain.

You crouched instantly, the world narrowing to your kid. “Yes, buddy. Shell. Great job.”

Pope watched your hand rub slow over Henry’s back—steady pressure, not frantic. He watched Henry’s shoulders ease a fraction. He watched the way your mouth softened when you looked at him, like pride was the only thing that cut through the fatigue.

Then you stood again, brushing sand off your palms, and your gaze returned to Pope with a different kind of caution now. Not fear. Not judgement.

Curiosity.

“You know…” you began, and Pope felt himself go still. He didn’t move much when he braced. He just got heavier in his posture, more solid, like he could anchor himself to the sand.

“I’ve heard rumors about you,” you said simply.

Pope’s stomach dropped, cold and immediate. Rumors meant stories. Stories meant versions of him that weren’t his to control. Stories meant people whispering psycho and killer and Smurf’s crazy son like it was entertainment.

He kept his face blank. He didn’t ask if they were true or false—because he already knew what they were. But he asked anyway, because sometimes you needed to know what people thought so you could predict what they’d do.

“Like what?” he said.

His voice stayed level, but his eyes didn’t. His eyes stayed on your mouth, on your hands, on the distance between you and Henry. On the ways you might flinch. On the ways you might pull away.

You hesitated for a long moment.

Pope watched you weigh it—truth versus safety, honesty versus politeness. He saw your throat bob as you swallowed. Saw your gaze flick to Henry, as if checking whether he was okay before you stepped into a conversation that might turn sharp.

Then you exhaled, slow; “I’ve learnt not to take people’s opinions at face value,” you said quietly. Low enough that it felt like it was meant just for him, not the beach, not the world. “I’ve learnt… most people talk because they like to feel like they know something.”

Pope didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to do with that. It wasn’t praise exactly, but it wasn’t fear either. It was something rarer.

It was caution with a choice inside it.

You looked at him for another beat, then gave a small nod like you’d decided the conversation was finished before it could get messy, “I’ll see you around,” you said, simple.

Pope nodded once back, because nodding was safe. Because anything more would make the moment too big.

You turned slightly, calling Henry’s name in that steady voice, guiding him with your body rather than your hands, “Henry,” you murmured. “We’re gonna go.”

Henry echoed, satisfied by the structure. “Go.”

You took his hand, and he let you, shell still clutched in his fist, tyre still in his mouth. You angled away from the waterline the way Pope had suggested—cutting him off, creating a corner without making it obvious.

Pope watched that too. Watched you use his advice without making a big deal out of it.

Watched you keep Henry safe without turning safety into a cage.

And when you and your kid started to walk away, Pope stayed planted in the sand, eyes following you until the distance grew enough that his chest loosened. He stared at the ocean for a long moment after you were gone, jaw tight, thoughts looping.

He’d offered help.

He’d invited you into his reach.

Not like Smurf.

Not for control.

For something closer to penance, maybe—an instinct to keep a kid from falling into deep water, an instinct to fix the weak point before it became a tragedy. Pope looked down at his hands, empty and gritty with sand, and thought—unwanted and sharp:

Don’t fuck this up.

Because for the first time in a long time, he’d met someone who didn’t look at him like a monster straight away.

Chapter 1.

“Because maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me…” Wonderwall-J2 ft Miranda Dianne

Andrew Cody had only really known love in five ways, and not one of them were clean. Love, to most people, was something warm. Something you fell into. Something you were allowed to keep.

To Pope, love was a thing with teeth. A thing you learned to handle carefully, like a loaded gun you were never fully sure was on safety. For him, it wasn’t a soft place to land. It was a lesson. A threat. A leash. A bruise you pressed just to make sure you could still feel something underneath the numb.

He could pathetically count the ways he’d been loved—really loved, or whatever passed for it in his world—on one hand.

Julia was the first person who ever felt like home.

Not Smurf’s house. Not the Cody name. Not Oceanside.

Julia.

She was his twin, his mirror, the one who knew his thoughts before he said them out loud. With Julia, he didn’t have to translate himself. He didn’t have to perform “normal.” He didn’t have to choose words like stepping stones across a river, terrified he’d slip and drown in the silence.

Julia loved him in the way that didn’t ask for proof. She loved him like breathing—automatic, unearned, constant.

And Pope loved her back with the kind of devotion that bordered on religion. The kind that made him furious when anything hurt her, because pain in Julia looked like sacrilege. The kind that made him obedient and reckless and protective in the same blink of an eye.

When they were kids, he learned that if Julia cried, his body moved. If she flinched, his hands curled into fists. If Smurf’s voice sharpened at Julia, Pope’s whole nervous system lit up like a warning siren telling him to fix it.

Julia was his truest love because she was the only person who ever held his edges without trying to sand them down or weaponize them. She didn’t need him to be good. She just needed him to be there.

Losing her—first to Smurf’s games, then to addiction, then to the final kind of gone—ripped a hole in Pope that never really closed. Everything after Julia was shaped by that absence. By the terror of loving someone and watching them disappear anyway.

Julia taught him love could be pure. And she taught him the cost of it.

Smurf didn’t teach Pope love; she taught him possession.

She taught him that love was something you could barter with. Something you could give in measured doses like medication: enough to keep someone dependent, never enough to make them strong enough to think for themselves.

Smurf loved Pope in a way that always came with a hook in it. The affection was real—she could be gentle, she could stroke his hair, she could call him her baby like he wasn’t a grown man with someone else’s blood under his skin and under nails—but it was never free. It always had a price.

Her love was conditional on loyalty. Her warmth was conditional on obedience. Her comfort was conditional on control.

If Pope did what she wanted, she rewarded him. If he didn’t, she punished him—not always with screaming or violence, sometimes with something worse: withdrawal. Silence. A look that said you don’t exist to me unless you’re useful.

Smurf taught him love could be used like a chain.

And Pope, for a long time, wore it willingly. Because Smurf’s love was the only kind of mother-love he’d ever had. Because when you’re raised by someone like her, you start confusing being claimed with being cherished. Smurf made love feel like captivity.

And for years, Pope didn’t know there was another version.

Catherine wasn’t love, not really.

She was hunger.

She was wanting something he wasn’t allowed to have and deciding that wanting it was the same as deserving it. She was the ache of watching Baz move through life like a man who got to take up space, got to laugh, got to be chosen—and Catherine choosing Baz over and over again like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Pope’s feelings for Catherine weren’t gentle. They weren’t patient and they absolutely weren’t respectful.

They were obsessive because obsession is what happens when you don’t know how to hold longing safely. He watched her and built a story in his head where she was his—where she could be his—where if he just did the right things, protected her enough, proved himself enough, she’d look at him and finally see him.

But Catherine didn’t see him that way, and that rejection—quiet, consistent, inevitable—didn’t turn Pope’s feelings off. It turned them inward. Made them rot. Made them dangerous.

Because Pope had been taught that love meant possession. So, when Catherine didn’t belong to him, his brain didn’t interpret it as ‘she doesn’t want you’, It interpreted it as: someone took what should’ve been yours.

That’s what made it obsession: it wasn’t just desire. It was entitlement bred from trauma, fed by jealousy, sharpened by Smurf’s influence and Pope’s own inability to fix the storm inside him.

Catherine showed him the ugliest version of love he was capable of—love as fixation, love as violence, love as a thing that destroys what it touches. And the fallout from Catherine stained him. Became proof, in his mind, that love always ended in blood or prison or both.

Amy was the first time Pope tried to be… normal.

Not normal like Craig’s version of normal—loud and careless and charming.

Not normal like Baz’s version—smooth and confident and untouchable.

Pope’s version of normal was small. Careful. Earnest in a way that almost hurt to watch.

Amy offered him a kind of love he didn’t understand at first: softness without demand. Kindness that didn’t immediately come with a threat. A calm tone. A hand on his arm that wasn’t trying to steer him, just made sure he kept steady.

With Amy, Pope learned about routine as comfort without control. About being spoken to like he wasn’t a weapon. About the idea that someone could want him because they saw something human in him—not because they needed him to do something.

But Amy also showed him something he’d never been able to accept:

Love could leave.

Not because you weren’t loyal enough. Not because you weren’t obedient enough. Not because you failed some test Smurf invented.

Sometimes love left because it had to.

Because it couldn’t survive what you were.

Because it couldn’t survive what you did.

Amy couldn’t hold Pope and the Cody world at the same time. She couldn’t reconcile the man who sat quietly in Bible study with the man who came home smelling like violence. She couldn’t keep choosing him when choosing him meant risking her own safety, her own morals, or her own life.

And Pope, who had been raised to believe love was ownership, took her leaving like betrayal—even though it wasn’t. Amy taught him that love wasn’t unwavering.

That it didn’t always stay; that you could try—really try—and still not be enough to keep someone.

And that lesson stuck like a thorn under the skin.

Angela felt like history.

Like the past reaching out a hand and saying, Remember me? Remember who you were before it got so bad? She knew things about him. Old versions of him. The boy he’d been. The kid who still had softness left. She spoke to him like she could reach that boy again, like she could pull him out of the wreckage.

And that was the trap.

Because Pope clung to Angela the way drowning people cling—hard, desperate, irrational. Not because she was good for him, necessarily, but because she was familiar. Because familiarity felt like safety, even when it wasn’t.

Angela showed him that being known wasn’t the same as being understood.

She could say she knew him, but she didn’t know the man he’d become. She didn’t know the weight he carried. She didn’t know the violence in his bones, the way his love could turn feral when he felt threatened, and she didn’t always treat his vulnerability with care. Sometimes she poked at it. Used it. Sometimes she fed his worst instincts because chaos was what she knew how to live in.

Angela taught Pope a brutal truth, but he didn’t learn it in some clean, neat moment with a lesson tied up in a bow.

He learned it the way he learned most things—through discomfort. Through that low, crawling feeling under his skin that told him something was wrong even when he couldn’t put a name to it. Through the way the past had a habit of showing up and trying to sit at his table like it still belonged there. And even now, standing in the back yard, those lessons sat deep in his stomach like a knot that never vanished.

The pool pump hummed. The wind blew at the palms. Someone’s music thumped faintly from inside the house—Craig, probably, apparently incapable of doing anything without a soundtrack—and the sun sat hot on the concrete until the whole place smelled like chlorine and warm stone.

Smurf had gone inside a few minutes ago leaving him with a parting “I’m going to make some lunch.” Smurf always moved like she had a reason, even when she didn’t. Even when the reason was just to remind everyone the house was hers and they were there because she let them.

Pope stayed outside because outside was easier—outside meant he could see the fence line. See the street. See the gate latch. See the angles. His brain liked angles. It liked routes and exits and what could go wrong before it went wrong. He liked to keep busy, to fix or to just spend time away from the noise and the way he constantly felt like he was just a guest in his own life. Sometimes it was just to keep his fingers busy—when movement at the far end of the yard made the hair on the back of his neck lift.

A kid.

Small. Bare legs. Shorts slightly too big in the waist, riding low on skinny hips. A red shirt bright as a warning sign against the blue glare of the water. The boy walked like he had somewhere he needed to be, but not like he understood why he needed to be there. Not like he was sneaking. Not like he was scared of getting caught.

Just… drawn to something. Pope went still. Everything in him tightened, immediate and instinctive.

The kid didn’t look at him. Didn’t look at the house. Didn’t look at anyone for permission. He just kept padding forward over the warm concrete, eyes fixed on the water like it was the only thing in the world worth paying attention to.

And he was talking; not loud. Not to anyone, really—just to the air in front of him, as if saying it made it more true; “A swimming pool is like a big big bath,” the little boy said, voice low and earnest.

He said it again two steps later. Same rhythm. Same words. “A swimming pool is like a big big bath.”

Pope watched his mouth move around the sentence, watched his jaw work, chewing something slowly—gum, maybe, or a piece of candy—his cheeks puffing just a little with it. The kid’s focus didn’t break. His eyes stayed on that shimmer of blue like the water had a gravity all its own.

Pope’s first thought was where the hell did you come from.

His second was don’t you dare fall in.

He moved without making noise, because moving loud made people jump, and jumping around a pool was the last thing he wanted from a kid that small. He didn’t rush. He circled.

Pope tracked around the pool’s edge, keeping the kid in his line of sight, matching his pace like a shadow. The kid drifted closer to the water, repeating the sentence under his breath like a spell.

“A swimming pool is like a big big bath,” he murmured, almost soothing himself with it.

Pope’s chest felt tight. The sun was bright enough to hurt his eyes, and the water looked deceptively still—pretty, calm, harmless. Pope knew better. He’d seen how fast calm turned to catastrophe. He’d seen what happened when someone slipped, when someone underestimated, when someone didn’t watch for one second too long.

The boy crouched, slowly, carefully, like he was following a rule only he could hear. His knees bent, he leaned forward and reached out with one hand—still chewing, still repeating, still utterly absorbed. The tips of his fingers hovered over the surface.

Pope stepped in closer, close enough that if the kid pitched forward, Pope could grab him by the back of the shirt, “Hey, buddy,” he said low, keeping his voice as calm as he could make it. Not sharp. Not loud. Not the kind of sound that would spook a kid into a sudden movement. “Where’d you come from?”

The boy didn’t turn his head right away. Just blinked slowly, like Pope’s words had to travel a longer distance to reach him. He touched the water, flinched at the cold, then smiled—tiny, private—like he’d proven something, “A swimming pool is like a big big bath,” he said again, a little softer, his fingers dragging through the surface and making ripples that broke the blue into shards.

Pope swallowed hard. He hovered, hand half-raised, not touching unless he had to. He didn’t know this kid. Didn’t know if touch would calm him or set him off. Didn’t know if the kid would bolt if Pope moved wrong.

So Pope did what he’d learned the hard way: he made himself a wall between the kid and the water. Between the moment and the disaster that might follow it. He stayed close enough to catch, far enough not to crowd. His shadow fell over the boy’s shoulder, dark on the concrete. And then, behind him he heard someone climbing the fence like their life depended on it.

Pope turned his head fast, body pivoting automatically, and saw you hauling yourself over the back fence, hair messy, face flushed, eyes wild with that specific kind of terror Pope recognized immediately.

Not fear for yourself.

Fear for someone else.

You hit the ground hard enough to jolt your knees, nearly stumbling, and then you were moving—half running, half stumbling toward them, breath ragged like you had run a marathon. Your gaze locked onto the little boy at the pool and something in your expression cracked—relief so sharp it looked like pain.

“Jesus—” You gasped, voice shaking. “Henry—”

The kid didn’t startle at your voice the way Pope expected. Didn’t jerk away. Just kept crouched there, chewing, fingertips in the water like he belonged to it.

You reached them and froze about a step away, hands hovering the same way Pope’s had been hovering—like you were trying not to spook him, like you knew exactly how delicate the space around him was.

Pope’s eyes flicked over you—quick assessment, habit. Scraped palms. Bare feet. The look of someone who’d run without thinking. The kind of exhaustion that wasn’t from today only, but from every day stacked on top of it. Your chest rose and fell hard. Your eyes were bright and furious and wet.

Pope didn’t move away from the edge of the pool. Didn’t relax. But he also didn’t block you. He just kept his body where it needed to be, a quiet barrier, and said, still low, still controlled, “He yours?” You swallowed, looking at him like you had finally realised he was there and then began nodding too fast. “Yeah. Yeah, he—” Your voice broke. You cleared your throat, trying again. “We were out the back and I had to get my phone and there must be a—” You glanced toward the fence like you already knew what you’d find. A gap.

Pope’s gaze followed hers and landed on it—the weak spot. The opening in the boards that a kid could slip through if he wanted something badly enough.

Pope felt something cold settle in his gut.

Not judgment. Not anger.

Just that stark, familiar drop—like the world tilting by half an inch and suddenly you could see exactly how easily a day could crack open and bleed out.

You stood a step away from your little boy, chest heaving, skin flushed from climbing fences and sprinting on pure adrenaline. Your hands hovered in the air like you didn’t trust them—not because you didn’t want him, but because you knew the wrong kind of touch could turn a rescue into a storm. Your eyes kept flicking between Henry and the water, Henry and the water, like your brain couldn’t stop replaying the what if even though he was still here, still breathing, still crouched safe on the concrete.

And then you looked at Pope.

It wasn’t even subtle—the way your face tightened, the way your shoulders pulled up around your ears, like you were bracing for impact.

For him to raise his voice or for him to accuse you or for  him to say something cruel and easy: Watch your kid. What’s wrong with you? Bad mother.

Pope didn’t.

He didn’t move closer. Didn’t bark a command. Didn’t reach for Henry like he had the right. He just kept himself between the little boy and the pool, one steady, controlled line of muscle and restraint, and looked back down at Henry—still crouched, still chewing, still dragging his fingertips through the water like it was the only thing worth touching.

The kid murmured, soft as a prayer, “A swimming pool is like a big big bath.”

Pope’s voice came out low, almost flat, like he was stating a fact he couldn’t afford to dress up in kindness because kindness was something he never quite trusted his mouth to hold, “He could’ve fell in.”

The words landed heavy, not because they were harsh, but because they were true. Your eyes flashed—pain and self-blame sparking sharp behind them, “I know,” you said, and it came out too fast, too tight, like you were biting down on panic so hard your jaw hurt.

Pope watched you then. Really watched you.

Not the way men watched women in Oceanside—quick appraisal, interest, entitlement.

This was different. This was assessment layered with something else, something quieter. He watched the way your hands trembled even as you held them still. The way you forced your breathing to slow because if you didn’t, Henry would feel it. The way you swallowed whatever you wanted to scream and replaced it with a voice you’d practiced until it could sound gentle even when your insides were on fire.

You moved carefully, lowering yourself beside Henry. Not grabbing. Not yanking. Just making yourself small, meeting him where he was.

“Come on, Henry,” you said softly, and your tone was the kind of steady that didn’t happen by accident. “We need to go home.” You swallowed once, hard—your throat working around fear. “We can have a bath tonight.”

Henry finally looked up, water dripping from his fingers, “Bath,” he said simply, like he’d pulled the only word he needed out of the whole sentence.

You gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes—tight, strained, but real. “After dinner.”

“After dinner,” Henry echoed immediately, as if the words were puzzle pieces that clicked into place once he heard them.

You offered him your hand—open palm, no force, an invitation. Henry stared at it for a beat, chewing slowly, then placed his smaller hand in yours.

Only then did Pope let himself breathe again.

You helped Henry stand, guiding him back from the edge, your body angling automatically so you were the barrier now—your back to the water, Henry tucked close to your leg.

Pope shifted just slightly to give you space, but he didn’t fully step away. Not yet. Like his body didn’t trust the world to stay calm just because the crisis had passed.

You looked up at him, cheeks flushed, hair a mess, eyes bright and furious with yourself, “I’ll… um.” Your voice faltered, then you tried again, because you were the kind of person who tried even when your hands were shaking. “I’ll get that fixed.” You glanced toward the fence line, like you could already see the gap, the weak point, the mistake. “Henry doesn’t really learn things like other kids so—”

You cut yourself off abruptly.

Too much.

Not enough. You looked like you wanted to explain everything and hide everything at the same time.

Pope didn’t fill the silence. He didn’t make you talk. He just watched you in that quiet way he had, as if he was taking notes on how you moved, how you spoke, how you protected your kid without crushing him.

The air hung there—chlorine and heat, the pool glittering, the distant thump of music inside the house—when the sliding door behind Pope opened and Smurf stepped out.

He could feel how backyard changed temperature.

It wasn’t dramatic in any obvious way—no thunderclap, no cinematic shift—but Pope felt it in his spine. Smurf’s presence always rearranged a room. She moved like she owned everything her eyes touched, and the sunlight on her hair made her look almost soft until you met her gaze and remembered softness was just another weapon in her hands. She paused just at the door, taking the scene in.

You. Henry. Pope standing too close to the edge of her pool like he’d been guarding something.

Her smile formed slowly, controlled, curious, “Well,” she said, voice sweet as sugar over a blade, “if I’d known we had guests…” Smurf walked around the pool at an unhurried pace, barefoot on the hot concrete like she didn’t feel heat the way other people did. Like discomfort was for everyone else.

Her eyes flicked to Henry first—assessing, measuring. Then to you, lingering a fraction longer. Then to Pope, a silent question in the tilt of her head: What’s this?

She stopped a few feet away, smile still in place; “And who might you be?”

Your shoulders stiffened. You pulled Henry a little closer without meaning to, your hand tightening just enough around his fingers that Pope noticed it—and noticed you force yourself to loosen again, because you didn’t want Henry to feel trapped.

You huffed an awkward laugh, like humour was a reflex you used when your body didn’t know what else to do with tension, “Oh—” You swallowed. “We just moved in next door, and my son discovered there’s a hole in the fence and he’s got a whole thing about water.” Another small, breathy laugh, the kind that tried to keep the situation friendly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—he just—he’s fast.”

Smurf’s eyes didn’t soften the way normal people’s eyes softened when they saw a kid.

They sharpened.

Not unkind. Not exactly.

Interested.

“A whole thing about water,” she repeated, as if tasting the phrase. Then she bent slightly at the waist—not close enough to crowd Henry, just enough to perform attention. “Well, aren’t you a brave boy.”

Henry didn’t respond the way she wanted. He didn’t smile. He didn’t engage, didn’t even look at her.

He stared at the pool again, mouth still working at whatever he was chewing, and said quietly, like he was still running the thought in his head: “Big big bath.”

Smurf’s smile didn’t falter. If anything, it widened, “And you are?” she asked you again, polite insistence.

Your throat bobbed. You kept your voice light, because light felt safer than honest, “I—uh—I’m…” You gave her your name. “This is Henry.”

Henry didn’t look up. Too focused on the pool, on the hundred other things that was happening in the space around him to acknowledge the adults.

Pope shifted his weight. Not a step, not a threat—just a change in posture that put him slightly closer to you and Henry than he’d been a second ago. As if his body had made a decision without consulting his brain.

Smurf noticed.

Of course she did.

Her gaze slid to Pope, and for a moment the sweetness dropped away, revealing the steel underneath. Not anger—ownership. She didn’t like her things changing shape without her permission.

Pope’s face stayed blank. But his jaw ticked once, the smallest tell.

You stood there caught between them, sun beating down, pool water glittering, Henry’s fingers sticky in your hand, your heart still racing from almost losing him.

And Pope—quiet, intense Pope—didn’t look at Smurf when she studied him.

He looked at Henry.

Like he couldn’t stop picturing how close the kid had been to falling in. Like his brain had already locked onto a new rule.

Watch the water. Watch the kid. Watch the mother.

Smurf’s smile returned, smoother than before. “Well,” she said, tone turning warm again, “welcome to the neighbourhood.”

You nodded, forcing another awkward little laugh because that was what you did when you were trying not to show fear, “Thanks,” you said, voice tight. “And—sorry again. We’ll… we’ll keep to ourselves.”

Smurf’s eyes lingered on Henry, then flicked back to you, “Oh, honey,” she said gently—too gently. “Nobody keeps to themselves in Oceanside.”

And Pope, standing by her pool with a strange woman and her kid who talked about baths like they were sacred, felt that cold in his gut deepen.

Because he knew Smurf.

He knew what she did with people she found interesting. And he could already tell—by the way you held your son like your whole world fit inside that small hand, by the way you tried to keep your voice even while your fear still trembled under your skin—

You were interesting.

Not pretty interesting. Not new girl next door interesting.

Interesting in the way Smurf liked. The way she noticed. The way she put her hooks in without you realising they were there until you tried to pull away and found the barbs.

Smurf’s gaze moved over you again, quick and smooth, taking inventory like she was pricing something at a market. The scraped palms. The flushed cheeks. The tightness around your mouth where you were holding yourself together by sheer force of will. The way your free hand kept hovering close to Henry’s shoulder, not touching, just ready—like you’d learned the hard way that a kid could change direction in a blink and all the air in the world could turn into panic.

Henry was still staring at the pool, chewing, whispering to himself like the words were a rope he could hold onto, “Big big bath,” he murmured, as if the water would behave better if he named it.

Smurf’s smile widened, all warmth on the surface. She stepped a little closer—still not crowding the child, but pressing into your space in that way mothers did when they believed they had the right, “Why don’t you come in for lunch?” she offered, voice light, friendly, almost sweet. “You must be tired from unpacking.”

It sounded like kindness.

Pope heard the other meaning underneath it, clear as gunfire.

Come into my house. Let me see how you move. Let me learn what you need. Let me decide what you’re worth.

You did, too. Maybe not in words. But your body reacted before your face could manage it—your shoulders stiffening, your grip on Henry’s hand tightening for half a second. You forced yourself to loosen it again immediately, like you were afraid even your fear would spill over into him.

You pointed awkwardly toward your house, an attempt at casual that didn’t quite land because your pulse was still thundering in your throat, “No, no,” you said quickly. “We’re—um—we’re good.” You swallowed. “We should probably… go.”

Your eyes flicked to Henry, then to the fence line, then to Pope—like you were plotting the safest path out of the yard without making anything worse.

Smurf’s smile didn’t falter. It never did. Smurf’s expressions were weapons she could keep steady even when everything else shifted, “Of course,” she said, like she hadn’t just offered you a trap disguised as hospitality. Like your refusal was adorable. Like she expected it. “If you need anything—anything at all—please don’t be afraid to ask.”

Her eyes held yours. Bright, sharp, almost amused, “If I’m not here,” she continued, sweet as honey, “someone will be.”

It wasn’t a reassurance.

You gave a small nod, the kind people did when they were trying to be polite and disappear at the same time, “Right,” you said. “Thanks.” Your mouth twitched like you wanted to say more—an apology, an explanation, something that would smooth the edges—but nothing you had felt safe enough to offer.

“I should—” You gestured toward the gate, because words were suddenly hard and the gate was simple. “Go.”

Henry echoed you under his breath, not understanding but catching the cadence. “Go.”

You tugged him gently, guiding his body away from the water without turning it into a battle. Henry didn’t protest, just kept chewing and repeating, “After dinner,” like he was still negotiating bath-time with himself.

You turned toward Pope then, the movement hesitant—like you weren’t sure if acknowledging him would make things bigger when you wanted everything smaller.

But you did it anyway.

“Thank you,” you said, and the sincerity in it was raw. Unpolished. The kind that came out when you were too tired to pretend you weren’t scared.

Pope’s throat worked once. He didn’t smile. Smiling felt wrong on him most days. But something in his eyes shifted—fractional, brief. He hadn’t done anything dramatic. He hadn’t hauled Henry back by the shirt or yelled at you or made a scene. He’d just… moved. Positioned himself. Kept a kid from tipping forward into deep water.

It wasn’t hero shit. It was instinct. It was vigilance. It was the kind of protection Pope offered without asking permission because his nervous system didn’t know how to do anything else.

Still—you thanked him like it mattered.

And it did.

Pope nodded once, curt. Like he didn’t know what to do with gratitude and didn’t want it to touch him too long, “Fix the fence,” he said instead, because practical was safer than emotional.

“I will,” you promised immediately, like you were desperate to prove you weren’t careless. “I—yeah. First thing.”

Smurf watched the exchange with that soft smile that meant she was filing it away. Pope standing too close. Pope speaking to you. Pope looking at your kid like he mattered.

Smurf’s gaze slid between the three of you, assessing the shape of something forming. Then she clapped her hands lightly, like this was all just neighbourly drama in the sunshine, “Alright then,” she said, voice warm. “Welcome again. Don’t be strangers.”

You gave another tight, awkward laugh—habit more than humour—and guided Henry toward the side gate.

The closer you got, the more Pope’s muscles eased, not because he stopped caring, but because he could see the danger receding: less water, more distance, more control.

You unlatched the gate with one hand, keeping the other anchored to Henry.

Henry hesitated at the threshold, glancing back toward the pool like it was calling him. He whispered, “Big big bath,” one more time. You crouched again, quick and steady, meeting his eyes for a moment.

“Home,” you reminded softly. “Then dinner. Then bath.”

Henry blinked. Chewed. Then nodded once, small and solemn, like he was agreeing to a contract, “Bath,” he said.

“After dinner,” you echoed, because structure was safety.

“After dinner,” he repeated.

You stood, and for the first time your gaze met Pope’s properly—no panic, no scramble, just a tired kind of honesty, “Thanks,” you said again, quieter.

Pope’s eyes stayed on Henry for a beat, then flicked up to you. His expression didn’t soften, not exactly. But it steadied. He gave another single nod, like that was the only language he trusted.

Pope watched you step through the gate, Henry’s small hand swallowed by yours, his red shirt flashing once in the sun before the fence swallowed him from view.

The latch clicked shut behind you.

It was such a small sound—metal on metal, final and clean—and it hit Pope’s nerves like a full-body exhale he hadn’t realised he was holding. Relief didn’t come often for him. When it did, it was never soft. It was always sharp, like the sudden drop after adrenaline, like the moment after a gunshot when you realise you’re still standing.

Henry’s voice drifted faintly over the boards for a second—something about “after dinner” and “bath,” the words looping in a calm rhythm now that the water was out of reach—and then even that faded, replaced by the constant hum of the pool pump and the lazy swish of palm fronds.

The backyard went still.

Not peaceful. Not really.

Just… reset. Like everything had snapped back into place, except Pope could still see the scene in his head—small knees on hot concrete, tiny fingers reaching for blue, the way the boy’s body had leaned just a fraction too far forward, the way Pope’s hand had hovered at the back of that red shirt ready to yank him back before tragedy could happen.

He stared at the fence line. At the gap.

The weak point.

It wasn’t big. Not dramatic. Just a handful of boards that didn’t meet the way they should—wood warped, nails loose, somebody cutting corners at some point because good enough was easier than safe.

And Pope couldn’t stop thinking: It only takes that.

One mistake. One second. One day where you’re tired and your hands are full and the world doesn’t care.

He shifted his weight, eyes tracing the edges of the opening like he could measure it with his gaze. His brain started working automatically—angles, tools, materials, time. How many boards. What length. Whether he had enough nails. If the drill battery was charged. If he could do it before nightfall without anyone noticing he’d left the house.

Smurfs hand came to his arm—warm, deliberate—fingers rubbing slow across his bicep in that affectionate way that always carried an edge. A claim. A reminder. Like he belonged to her down to his bones, “Well,” Smurf said, smile in her voice before Pope even looked at her, “aren’t they the sweetest.”

Sweetest.

Pope’s jaw tightened.

Smurf said it like she meant cute. Like she meant harmless. Like she’d just watched a kid nearly wander into deep water and a woman scramble over a fence with panic in her eyes and thought, how charming.

Her hand stayed on him, gentle pressure, as if she could soothe him into agreeing with her. She leaned closer, the scent of her perfume mixing with chlorine and sun-warmed skin, “Come on,” she coaxed, a soft tug like she was leading a dog away from a bone, “I’ve made you some lunch.”

Pope finally turned his head.

His mother’s smile was bright. Friendly. The kind she put on when she was trying to make the world think she was normal. When she wanted something and didn’t want anyone to see the wanting.

Pope’s face stayed blank, but his eyes flicked once—quick and sharp—back to the fence gap.

Smurf followed his gaze, then gave a small, dismissive laugh, like the hole was nothing. Like danger was only danger when it threatened her, “You don’t need to worry about that,” she said lightly, as if she could wave away the whole problem.

Pope didn’t answer.

Because it wasn’t just the hole.

It was the boy.

It was the way Henry had moved toward the pool like it was a magnet in his chest. It was the way he’d repeated the same sentence like it was a rule, a comfort, a script to make the world behave: A swimming pool is like a big big bath. It was the way the kid hadn’t looked scared—only curious, only pulled, only certain that the water belonged to him.

It was you. The way you’d climbed the fence like you’d done it before, breath tearing out of you, eyes wild, hands hovering. The way you’d spoken to Henry in that controlled, careful tone that screamed practice. The way you’d smiled like you were trying to keep from breaking apart.

Pope didn’t know you but he recognised exhaustion that lived in the bones. He recognised the kind of fear that didn’t go away when the danger passed because the danger could come back in a heartbeat.

Smurf’s thumb stroked his arm again—slow, almost indulgent, “You’re staring,” she murmured, amused. “What? You think they’re gonna rob us?”

Pope’s eyes snapped to hers.

Smurf’s smile sharpened, pleased with herself, pleased with the way she could poke at him and get a reaction. She liked reminding him she could still reach under his skin.

Pope looked away first, because if he didn’t, he’d say something he couldn’t take back.

He watched the fence gap again, and in his head the plan solidified: He’d get boards from the garage. He’d measure the opening. He’d reinforce it—extra brace, extra nails—because good enough wasn’t a thing he trusted. He’d do it quick, clean, and quiet.

Nightfall was hours away so there was more than enough time.

Smurf’s voice softened, turning sweet again. “Andrew,” she said, like a warning dressed as affection. “Lunch.”

Pope’s shoulders rose and fell once, a controlled breath. He didn’t pull away from her hand—he rarely did, not because he wanted her touch, but because resisting Smurf in small ways only made her push harder in big ones. He gave a short nod. But even as he followed her toward the house, his eyes kept tracking the fence line over her shoulder, mind still measuring, still building, still fixing.

Because he’d seen what almost happened.

And Pope Cody didn’t let almost sit in his yard and stay unfixed.

Not when it involved water. Not when it involved a little boy in a red shirt.

Not when it involved a tired woman next door who looked like she’d been living in survival mode so long she didn’t remember what safety felt like.

Smurf talked as they walked—something about neighbours, something about ‘nice to have new faces,’ something light and social—but Pope barely heard it.

All he could hear was the latch clicking shut. And all he could see was the gap that shouldn’t have been there.

Craig had called first.

You’d been in the kitchen when Andrew’s phone started buzzing across the counter. Dinner was almost done. Nothing special. Pasta from a box, sauce from a jar, garlic bread you’d almost burned because Andrew had distracted you earlier by standing behind you and resting his chin briefly on your shoulder.

For one whole minute, he’d been yours.

Quiet.

Warm.

There.

Then Craig’s name flashed across the screen, and something in Andrew’s face closed. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just enough. Like someone had reached over and lowered a shade.

He answered on the third ring. “Yeah.”

You kept stirring the sauce, pretending not to listen.

That was the thing with the Codys. Even when you didn’t want to hear, their emergencies filled the room.

Craig’s voice came through loud and irritated. Something about a guy who wasn’t paying. Something about a truck. Something about not wanting to deal with it alone.

“Come on, Pope. I need you.”

Not Andrew.

Pope.

The name landed like a leash.

Andrew’s eyes dropped to the floor. His free hand flexed once at his side.

“I’m coming,” he said.

Just like that. No question. No pause. No looking at you first.

He kissed the side of your head on his way out. Fast. Almost distracted. An apology pretending to be affection.

Hours later, he came back with bruised knuckles and dried blood near his thumb.

You asked what happened.

He said, “Nothing.”

Then he washed his hands in your sink until the water ran clear and went quiet for the rest of the night.

Andrew walked beside you now, that same hand hidden in his pocket. The bruises had started to fade, yellowed around the edges. You could still see them when the moon caught his skin right.

You didn’t mention it. You had learned, slowly and painfully, that naming every wound did not make him feel seen. Sometimes it only made him feel cornered.

So you walked. The water curled close to your feet and slid away again.

Out here, Andrew didn’t look relaxed exactly. Andrew Cody never looked relaxed. But he looked less like he was waiting for someone to call his name.

Then Baz had needed him.

Baz was different from Craig. Craig came loud. Baz came reasonable. That almost made it worse.

He showed up the next morning in sunglasses and a clean shirt, leaning against the doorframe like he belonged wherever he stood.

“Pope here?”

Andrew had come out of the bathroom with wet hair and a towel slung around his neck. He stopped when he saw Baz. Not startled. Never that. But you saw the shift.

The quiet morning you’d built around him disappeared. Coffee cooling on the counter. Eggs half-finished on a plate. Your hand still damp from rinsing dishes.

Baz looked him over once. “We gotta talk.”

Andrew didn’t ask if it could wait. Baz’s problems always came dressed like plans.

He spoke low, too low for you to hear all of it, but you caught pieces. A job. Timing. Smurf. J. Risk.

Andrew stood there listening, towel still around his neck, hair dripping water onto the collar of his shirt. He looked like a man interrupted in the middle of remembering he was allowed to have a life.

Baz glanced at you once. Quick. Measuring. Then back at Andrew.

“You good?”

Andrew nodded.

You hated that nod. It wasn’t agreement. It was surrender.

After Baz left, Andrew stayed by the door, staring at the knob like it might turn again.

“You don’t have to go,” you said.

He didn’t look at you. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

His jaw tightened. “Because if I don’t, something gets missed.”

“And if something gets missed?”

He finally looked at you then. There was no anger in his face. That might have been easier. There was only certainty.

“People get hurt.”

You wanted to say, “And what happens when you do?”

But you didn’t. Because he already knew. Because it had never changed anything before.

So you watched him pick up his keys. Watched him leave his coffee untouched. Watched him become useful again.

Deran came after that.

Deran didn’t even call first. He just showed up angry two days later, pacing outside your apartment.

Andrew had been on your couch. For once. Actually sitting. His head tilted back, one hand resting over his stomach, the TV on low even though he wasn’t watching it.

You were pretty sure he’d been close to sleep.

Then came the knock. Hard. Impatient.

“Pope, open up.”

Andrew opened his eyes before the second knock landed. For a second, he just stared at the floor. Like maybe if he didn’t move, the world wouldn’t find him. Then he stood.

Deran started talking before the door was fully open. Something about the bar. Something about a guy running his mouth. Something about needing backup, though Deran would have swallowed glass before saying it that plainly.

“I need you,” he said instead, lower this time.

And there it was again.

Need.

Need.

Need.

Andrew’s shoulders settled under it like his body recognized the weight.

You watched from the couch, arms crossed tightly over your chest.

Deran looked past Andrew at you. His expression shifted for half a second. Guilt, maybe. Or annoyance. Hard to tell with Deran.

“Sorry,” he muttered, though he didn’t sound like he meant it enough to stop.

Andrew looked back at you. That was the worst part. That he did look this time. That you saw the apology before he made the choice.

“I’ll be back,” he said.

You didn’t answer fast enough.

His face changed. Just slightly. Like he expected the silence to become proof of something.

You forced yourself to nod. “Okay.”

He left anyway.

Smurf was last.

Smurf was always the worst. She didn’t come loud like Craig. She didn’t come reasonable like Baz. She didn’t come angry like Deran. She came sweet.

And somehow, that was harder to watch.

It had been late afternoon. Andrew was sitting on your kitchen floor, fixing the loose drawer handle even though you’d told him three times it didn’t matter.

He looked almost peaceful like that. Focused. Useful. Safe inside a task.

You leaned against the counter and watched him work.

“You know people usually relax by watching TV or taking a nap.”

He didn’t look up. “Drawer’s loose.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“It’s annoying.”

“You’re annoying.”

That got you a look. Flat. Unimpressed. Almost affectionate.

You were still smiling when his phone rang. The sound cut through the room.

Andrew froze. Not moved. Not flinched. Froze.

You knew before you saw the screen.

Smurf.

He stared at her name for two rings before answering.

“Yeah.”

Then his face emptied. You hated that most. The blankness. The way he went still when she talked, like feeling anything in response to her was dangerous.

Her voice spilled faintly through the speaker. Sweet. Sharpened.

“Baby.”

The word made your skin crawl. Not because it was cruel. Because it sounded like love from a distance. Close up, it looked like ownership.

You couldn’t hear everything she said. You didn’t need to. You heard enough. His name. A reminder. A request that wasn’t really a request. Family. Loyalty.

The kind of words that had been used on him so many times they didn’t even have to be raised anymore.

By the time he hung up, Andrew was somewhere else entirely.

“Andrew,” you said softly.

He stood too fast. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.”

The words left your mouth before you could stop them.

He looked at you then. Really looked. And for one second, he seemed almost lost. Like he wanted you to be right. Like he wanted there to be a world where he could put the phone down, stay on your kitchen floor, finish fixing a drawer that didn’t matter, and be wanted for nothing at all.

Then the moment passed.

“I do,” he said.

Not defensive. Not angry. Worse. Certain.

He left the screwdriver on the counter. The drawer handle still loose.

You stared at it long after he was gone.

That was the thing about his family.

Craig needed his fists.

Baz needed his loyalty.

Deran needed his steadiness.

Smurf needed the part of him she had trained to come when called.

And every time, Andrew went.

Because his family didn’t ask for Andrew.

They asked for Pope.

And Pope always answered.

The wind lifted off the water, cool against your face.

Andrew walked beside you, close but not touching.

Not yet.

He had been quiet since you left the apartment, but this quiet felt different from the ones he brought home from his family.

Those silences had edges. This one was tired. You could work with tired. Tired still had a way in.

“You’re quiet,” you said.

His mouth twitched. “I’m always quiet.”

“Not like this.”

He glanced at you. Only for a second. Long enough for you to see how exhausted he was. Long enough for your chest to ache.

Out on the beach, Andrew finally slowed.

You slowed with him.

The tide came in gentle, water spreading thin and silver over the sand before slipping back into the dark.

For a while, neither of you spoke. The silence felt different here.

At the Cody house, silence meant someone was thinking three moves ahead.

In your apartment, silence sometimes meant Andrew was trying not to say something that hurt.

But here, silence was just silence. The ocean kept moving. The wind kept breathing. Nobody was waiting by the door. Nobody was calling from the other room. Nobody was saying Pope like it meant come here, fix this, carry this, bleed for this.

You looked at him. Really looked. At the dark circles beneath his eyes. At the set of his mouth. At the man beside you who had spent the entire week being summoned, used, needed, and sent back to you in pieces.

A few steps later, your knuckles brushed the back of his hand where it rested in his pocket.

You didn’t grab for him. You didn’t want to make him feel caught. You just let the contact happen and waited.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

Then Andrew’s hand came out of his pocket. His fingers wrapped around yours. Careful. Like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to.

This was the man who noticed when your tire pressure was low before you did. The man who always walked on the street side of the sidewalk. The man who remembered that you hated pulp in orange juice and bought the right kind without ever mentioning it.

The man who checked your locks before leaving, not because he thought you were helpless, but because the world had taught him love looked like prevention. The man everyone kept mistaking for a weapon because that was what they needed him to be.

But you had never wanted a weapon. You had only wanted him.

You squeezed his hand once. He squeezed back. Brief. Quiet. There.

For the first time all week, Andrew Cody breathed like no one was calling his name.

You kept walking. Slowly. Nowhere to be. No one waiting.

Andrew’s hand stayed in yours, warm and rough, his thumb resting against your knuckle without moving.

You didn’t point it out.

That was another thing you had learned with him. Some moments only survived if you didn’t look straight at them. So you looked at the water instead.

The moon had cut a pale path across the waves, silver breaking apart every time the tide rolled in. Somewhere behind you, the city kept existing, but out here it felt softened by distance.

You could almost pretend the rest of the world had been left at the edge of the sand.

Andrew’s steps slowed beside yours. You slowed too. The tide rushed forward, cold water brushing the edge of your shoes before sliding back again.

“You’re gonna get wet,” he said.

His voice was low from disuse.

You smiled. “That’s your concern right now?”

He looked at your shoes. “They’re canvas.”

“Wow,” you said softly. “Romance is alive.”

His mouth twitched. This time, it almost stayed.

You bumped your shoulder into his. He let you. That felt like something. Everything with Andrew felt like something if you knew how to read it.

The hand not pulling away. The step closer instead of back.

The quiet warning about your shoes because he couldn’t quite say, I’m glad you brought me here.

You turned your face into the breeze. “I missed you this week.”

Andrew’s hand tightened around yours. “I was there.”

You looked over at him.

He was staring at the water.

“I know.”

The tide whispered across the sand.

Neither of you spoke.

“That’s not what I meant.”

His jaw shifted.

You could feel him searching for the safest answer.

The one that revealed the least. The one that let the conversation die before it got too close to anything tender.

You almost let him have it. Almost. But then you thought about the drawer handle still loose in your kitchen. The coffee gone cold. The couch cushion where his body had barely settled before Deran knocked.

The way he kept coming back to you exhausted from being everything to everyone else, then acted confused when you noticed what was missing.

So you kept walking. And you told the truth gently. “You were there,” you said. “But you weren’t with me.”

Andrew stopped. Not abruptly. Just enough that your joined hands stretched between you. You stopped too.

The ocean moved around the silence. For a second, you wondered if you’d pushed too hard.

Then Andrew looked down at your hand in his. Like he’d forgotten he was holding it. Like he was deciding whether to let go.

Your chest tightened.

“Please don’t,” you thought.

Not aloud. Never aloud. You were tired of making your staying sound like begging.

Andrew didn’t let go. But he didn’t look at you either.

“I don’t know how to do both,” he said.

The honesty of it startled you. “Do both?”

“Them and…” His brow furrowed, like the word wouldn’t come. “This.”

This.

You.

The two of you.

The fragile, unnamed thing he kept touching like he expected it to burn.

You softened despite yourself. “Andrew.”

His shoulders pulled tight again. “I know.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“I know enough.”

That hurt. Not because it was cruel. Because it was familiar.

Andrew was always bracing for a sentence before you had the chance to speak it. Always meeting you at the end of an argument you hadn’t started.

You studied the side of his face. The hard line of his profile. The exhaustion beneath it.

“I’m not good at this,” he said.

Quiet.

Flat.

Like a fact.

You exhaled through your nose. There it was. The first stone in the wall.

“I know.”

His eyes flickered. Maybe surprise. Maybe hurt.

You didn’t soften the truth. Not completely. You loved him too much to pretend he was easy.

“But you’re here,” you added.

His gaze dropped again.

“To walk. To breathe.”

The words came out before you could think better of them.

“To be Andrew for a while.”

Something moved across his face. A flinch without motion. You saw it anyway. Because you knew him. Because you loved him. Because after nearly three years, you had learned that Andrew Cody reacted more to being seen than most people did to being touched.

“I don’t know what that means,” he said.

Your throat tightened.

“I think that’s the problem.”

He let go then. Slowly. Not angry. Not even defensive. Just retreating. One finger at a time until your hand was empty and cold in the night air.

You stared at the space where his hand had been. A familiar ache opened under your ribs. There it was again. That tiny step back. So small anyone else might have missed it. So polite anyone else might have forgiven it before it finished happening.

But you saw it. You always saw it.

Andrew dragged a hand over his mouth and looked down the beach. Like distance was something he could measure. Like leaving had already become a possibility.

“What?” he asked.

You almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because of course he could feel your change but not his own.

“Nothing.”

His eyes sharpened. “You’re mad.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m not mad, Andrew.”

“Then what?”

You looked at the water. The waves kept coming in. Kept leaving. Kept coming back like they trusted return was built into the world.

You wished you trusted it half as much.

“I’m tired,” you said.

Andrew went very still. You regretted it immediately. Not because it wasn’t true. Because you saw where his mind went.

Tired meant done.

Tired meant leaving.

Tired meant proof.

You stepped closer before he could disappear inside it. “Not of you.”

His jaw clenched.

You said it again, softer. “Not of you.”

He didn’t answer.

But he didn’t move away either.

So you kept going.

“I’m tired of watching everyone take pieces of you and then pretending it doesn’t hurt when there’s almost nothing left by the time you get back to me.”

His eyes dropped.

“I’m tired of missing you while you’re standing right in front of me.”

The wind moved between you. Andrew looked wrecked in the moonlight. Not crying. Worse. Like you had reached into him and touched a place he kept bandaged for a reason.

“I come back,” he said.

“I know.”

“I always come back.”

“I know.”

His voice roughened. “Then what else do you want?”

There it was. Not anger. Panic wearing its clothes.

You held his gaze even though it hurt. “I want you to come back before you’re empty.”

Andrew stared at you. Like the words didn’t make sense. Like he didn’t know that was allowed.

A wave rolled in, bigger than the others, rushing cold around the soles of your shoes. You barely felt it. Andrew did.

His eyes snapped down. “You’re wet.”

A broken laugh escaped you. “Andrew.”

He looked at your shoes with an intensity that might have been funny in another life.

“You said they were fine.”

“They are.”

“They’re canvas.”

“I don’t care about the shoes.”

He looked up at you then. And the sadness in his face almost undid you. Because he did. He cared about the shoes. He cared about the lock. The tire pressure. The drawer handle. The burnt toast you scraped into the trash before he could eat it anyway. He cared about every small thing he could manage. Every practical thing. Every fixable thing.

But when it came to letting himself be loved without earning it, Andrew still looked like a man standing at the edge of a language he had never been taught to speak.

You softened. You couldn’t help it.

“I know you come back,” you said. “That’s not the same as staying.”

You watched it hit him.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then, very quietly, he said, “I don’t leave you.”

You nodded. “No. Not all the way.”

His brow furrowed.

“But every time something gets too good, too close, too real…” You swallowed. “You pull back just enough to make me wonder if I imagined it.”

Andrew’s face changed. Not much. But enough. He knew. Maybe not fully. Maybe not in words. But somewhere in him, he knew.

You could see it.

You weren’t telling him anything his body hadn’t already confessed a hundred times.

The first time you said you loved him, he had gone quiet for nearly a week. Not cruel. Never cruel. He still came over. Still took out your trash before he left. Still noticed the porch light had gone out and replaced the bulb without being asked.

But he stopped meeting your eyes for too long. Stopped sleeping deeply beside you. Stopped reaching for your hand unless you reached first.

At the time, you had told yourself he was overwhelmed. That he needed time. That loving Andrew meant patience. And maybe it did. But patience had become something else when it was always yours to offer and never his to trust.

Then there was the weekend you’d asked him to spend the night and stay through breakfast. Not for any special reason. Just because you wanted to wake up without him already gone. He had agreed. He’d even looked pleased in that cautious, almost frightened way of his.

Then morning came. And you woke to his side of the bed cold. Coffee made. Door locked. No note. He showed up six hours later with new brake pads for your car. Like safety could apologize for absence. Like usefulness could replace being missed.

And you had let it.

Because when Andrew stood in your driveway with grease on his hands and guilt in his silence, you couldn’t bring yourself to punish him for loving you the only way he knew how.

But the thing was—

You didn’t want to punish him. You never had. You wanted him to stop punishing himself.

You looked at him now, standing in the moonlit dark with the ocean at his back.

“I know you think I’m going to leave,” you said.

His expression went blank.

Too blank.

There.

The wound.

You stepped carefully. “But Andrew, sometimes it feels like you start leaving first just so you don’t have to be surprised.”

He looked away. The words hung between you. Heavy. True. The kind of true that didn’t need to be loud. The kind that made the whole world go quiet around it.

For a second, you thought he might walk away. Not far. Just down the beach. Just enough to put space between his body and the sentence.

But he didn’t.

He stood there with his hands at his sides, breathing hard through his nose, staring at the water like it had betrayed him by witnessing this.

When he finally spoke, his voice was barely there. “I don’t know how to believe people.”

Your heart cracked so cleanly it almost felt calm.

You nodded. “I know.”

His eyes cut to you. Sharp. Pained.

“Then why are you still here?”

There it was.

The question under every retreat.

Every silence. Every unfinished morning.

Why are you still here?

Not because he didn’t want you. Because he couldn’t understand wanting without a cost. Because everyone in his life had needed Pope.

Used Pope.

Called Pope.

Praised Pope when he was useful and punished Andrew when he was human.

No wonder love looked like a trick from where he stood.

You closed the distance between you carefully. This time, you didn’t reach for his hand. You let him have the choice.

“I’m still here because I love you.”

He flinched. Barely. But you saw it. You always saw it.

“And because I know you’re more than what they ask you to be.”

Andrew’s eyes shone strangely in the dark. Not tears. Maybe almost. Maybe just moonlight.

You didn’t push. You’d done enough for one night. So you turned back toward the water and started walking again.

After a few seconds, Andrew fell into step beside you. Not touching. But close. Close enough that your sleeves brushed. Close enough that when the wind kicked up, his shoulder shifted toward yours without thinking, blocking some of the cold.

You smiled faintly.

There he is.

Still there.

Still trying.

Still terrified.

The beach stretched ahead of you, dark and open. For a while, neither of you said anything. And for once, you let the silence stay.

Then his phone buzzed. The sound was muffled in his pocket.

Small.

Ordinary.

But Andrew’s whole body reacted. His shoulders went tight. His stride stopped. The night changed around you.

You stopped too.

The phone buzzed again. Andrew looked down at his pocket.

You watched him. Not the phone. Him.

The way his hand twitched like instinct. The way his jaw set before he even knew who it was. The way the quiet you had worked so hard to give him cracked right down the middle.

“Don’t,” you said.

It came out softer than you expected.

Andrew looked at you.

You swallowed. “Just… don’t. Not yet.”

The phone buzzed a third time. Andrew pulled it out and looked at the screen. The light cut across his face.

Baz.

Of course. Reasonable. Polished. Persistent.

Baz’s name disappeared.

Missed call.

For half a second, hope rose in you so fast it hurt. Then the voicemail notification appeared. Andrew’s throat worked.

He turned the phone over in his hand.

Once.

Twice.

Then he unlocked it.

“Andrew,” you whispered.

“I need to see what he wants.”

“No, you don’t.”

His eyes lifted. There it was. That flash of defensiveness. Like you had stepped between him and a duty he’d been trained to obey.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it’s ten-thirty at night.”

“Doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know.” Your voice thinned. “That’s the problem.”