seven

“That’s a dangerous thing to say to me, sweetheart,” he says, already walking barefoot toward the kitchen, shoulders broad under a battered black tee. “Last time I surprised you we ended up with six blueberry pancakes shaped like… whatever the hell that was.”

“You called it a tactical manta ray.”

He points behind him without looking. “And you ate two.”

“They were good.”

“Damn straight.”

You pad after him, stealing his sweatshirt en route and drowning in it on purpose. The apartment smells like him—clean detergent, steel, a hint of gun oil that clings to the canvas duffel by the door no matter how many times he wipes it down. He’s already got the kettle going and the pan heating, moving around the stove with easy efficiency, hips bumping cupboards, mouth set in that line he uses when he’s pretending he’s not delighted to be doing something domestic.

You lean against the counter and watch him. He pretends not to notice you watching him.

“Don’t,” he says, cracking eggs into a bowl.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like I’m doing a magic trick. It’s eggs.”

“It’s hot,” you say, because it is. “You in a kitchen is extremely hot.”

He gives you side-eye, cheeks tipping pink in spite of himself. “I’m a menace.”

“You’re a menace who browns butter.”

He glances at the pan, jotted with browned specks, then at you. “Don’t tell anybody.”

“My lips are sealed.” You step closer. “Unless you want me to use them.”

His ears burn. He tries to scowl and manages… nothing. “Sit,” he grumbles, pointing at the stool like you’re a criminal and the counter is a lineup. “You’re a problem before I even had caffeine.”

“Coffee first, menace second?”

“Exactly.”

While the kettle rumbles, you reach for his hand. His knuckles are a mess—bruised, split, bandaged badly because he did it himself in the dark without looking. You turn his palm up and he lets you, quiet as a church. The pads of his fingers are rough, the calluses hard-earned and familiar. You press your lips to each battered knuckle, one by one, feeling the up-twitch of his breath with every kiss.

He watches you like he doesn’t deserve any of it. Like this is a language he understands better than words. “You don’t gotta… I’m fine,” he says, and his voice does that rasping drop it does when he’s trying not to get emotional.

“Uh-huh.” You reach for the first aid tin you keep in the drawer labeled ‘totally normal civilian things.’ “Humor me.”

“Sweetheart…”

“Frank.”

He surrenders immediately—big, lethal hands going docile in yours because that’s who he is with you. You dab antiseptic and he doesn’t flinch, just keeps looking at your face like it’s the first good thing he’s seen in days. By the time the kettle screams, you’ve added a cleaner wrap and threatened to put tiny smiley-face stickers on his bandaids. He promised retaliation and then kissed your forehead to distract you.

Coffee is a ritual: his for you, yours for him. He makes it strong but sweet because you’ve been trying to sleep, and you slide sugar toward him because he’ll say he doesn’t want it and then steal sips from your mug anyway. The eggs are quick, the toast golden, the bacon crisp, and when you reach for a strip before he plates it, he slaps at your hand with a wooden spoon like you’re five.

“You are so dramatic,” you inform him, nibbling anyway.

He leans in, lips ghosting your ear. “Say that again after you finish your food.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

“That’s logistics,” he says, deadpan, which somehow makes you laugh so hard you have to set your mug down.

He softens around the sound. He always does. It makes something in him unspool, that honeyed look washing through him like sunlight. For a minute—two—you pretend you’re a pair of people whose mornings are always like this. Eggs. Jokes. A man who doesn’t methodically check every window and mark the corners of the room with his eyes.

But the bag by the door is packed. And he keeps glancing at his phone like it owes him money.

You don’t bring it up. He doesn’t either. Instead, he slides a plate toward you and takes the stool next to yours, his knee knocking yours like he couldn’t sit a whole foot away if he tried. You eat. He steals your last bite of toast at the exact second you reach for it. You protest with wild, wounded noises. He smirks like the cat that learned how to use knives.

“Crime,” you tell him, pointing.

“Arrest me,” he says, mouth full.

“Don’t tempt me.”

You’re still smiling when the phone on the counter buzzes—a bite of sound that rearranges the air. Frank’s hand tightens around his fork. He doesn’t look right away. He always gives himself a beat: one breath to be just a man at a table with a woman he loves, before the other part—a harder, colder angle of him—stands up.

He flips the phone. You catch the red mask avatar Matt insisted on setting for himself because he thinks he’s funny. Frank’s jaw works.

“You can let it ring,” you say gently.

He eyes you, searching, and you can tell he wants to. He wants to shut the phone off, stand up, pick you up, carry you back to bed, and be selfish until the sunlight climbs the opposite wall. But he doesn’t get to want uncomplicated things. Neither of you do.

“I’ll answer,” he says, and it’s not an apology so much as a promise that he’ll come back from whatever this is in one piece. He swipes. “Yeah.”

You can hear Matt’s voice—tinny and clipped—bleeding through. Names, an address, the kind of information that tastes like copper even secondhand. Frank’s eyes cut to you as he listens; they always do. He’s measuring your face for fear, for reluctance, for the yes he won’t ask you to give.

When he hangs up, he doesn’t move for a second. Then he sets the phone down with careful fingers and turns fully toward you, knee pressing to yours again, like a tether.

“You don’t have to come,” he says, and it’s the lie he always tries first. “Murdock and me, we got it. Just recon. In and out.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, because recon with those two is a fairy tale. “And if something goes sideways and you don’t have a pair of eyes you trust covering your six?”

His mouth twitches, pride and dread and helpless affection all snarled together. “You’re trouble.” He tips forward and kisses you. It’s not a quick kiss. It’s not even gentle. It’s a slow, anchored thing that says thank you and I’m sorry and I don’t know how to leave this room without you in it. His palm cups your jaw, thumb skimming the soft place beneath your ear, and you lean into the heat of him without thinking.

He pulls back first because if he doesn’t, you won’t leave; you’ll just orbit each other until the sun goes down. He rests his forehead against yours for a beat, breath mingling, then clears his throat like it might stop the ache in it.

“Wear the light plate,” he says, which is how he says I love you without spooking himself. “And the gloves. Your hands were cold last time.”

“You noticed?”

His eyes drop to your mouth. “I always notice.”

You slide off the stool and he’s already there, hands at your waist, lifting you down like the floor might bite. He doesn’t let go until you’re steady. He never does. You steal one last strip of bacon on your way past him and he lets you, because he’s a sap and you own him.

“Frank,” you say at the bedroom door.

He grunts, rifling the duffel to check, again, that the gear he never wants to need is where it should be. He looks up, all that hard usefulness slotted into place, and somehow still looks like your big soft baby, hoodie half-zipped and hair a little stubborn from sleep.

“You’re not a menace,” you tell him.

“Yeah?” He cocks a brow.

“You’re a good man who makes terrible pancakes.”

His mouth curves. He looks away like it’s too bright in here, then back at you as if he’s memorizing you in case the world tries, again, to pry you out of his hands. “Go suit up, sweetheart,” he says quietly. “Before I make you late to this… recon.”

“You set an alarm,” you remind him.

He jerks his chin at the clock, trying hard not to smile. “And look at that—we’re already off schedule.”

You stick your tongue out at him like you’re not about to follow him into hard shadow, and he actually laughs, full and surprised. He crosses the space in two strides, hooks a finger through the belt loop of the sweatshirt you stole—the one that hangs to your mid-thigh—and tugs you close. One more kiss, quick and fierce, like armor he can leave on your mouth.

“Back in one piece,” he says, low.

“Both of us,” you counter.

He nods, and it’s a vow.

You go to pull on the light plate because he asked, and the gloves because he noticed, and the whole time you can feel his eyes on the door like hands: protective, impatient, already counting the seconds until you walk back through.

The kettle ticks as it cools. The phone sits silent. And for one more heartbeat, the kitchen holds the afterglow of breakfast—two mugs half-drunk, a plate still warm, a wooden spoon abandoned mid-threat—like proof that softness lives here, even when the hard world comes knocking.

The night tastes like rust.

The three of you—Frank, Matt, you—are deep in a warehouse that smells like old oil and blood. The concrete floor shines damp beneath the flickering overheads. Somewhere in the rafters a chain clinks, the only sound before everything snaps into chaos.

They come out of the shadows fast. Ten, twelve—more than Matt promised. Iron pipes, knives, makeshift armor. You barely have time to curse before Frank moves.

Frank is brutal efficiency: one hand around a throat, the other smashing the butt of a pistol across a jaw. Matt flows like water, his batons cracking ribs and wrists with surgical precision. And you—you’re holding your ground, ducking blows, landing sharp strikes where you can.

It’s going fine until it’s not.

Frank pivots, puts a man down hard—but he doesn’t see the one behind him. Doesn’t see the glint of steel raised high, angled for his spine. You don’t think—you move.

“Frank!”

You slam into him, shoulder-first, knocking him forward. The knife meant for him skitters across your arm instead, a shallow burn, but the second man doesn’t hesitate. His fist connects with your face, vicious and unrelenting, and you go flying back into the concrete wall. The thud rattles your teeth, white spots bursting in your vision.

Frank hears the sound before he even turns.

And then the world ends.

He whirls, gun clattering out of his hand, and collides with the man who touched you. The knife drops to the floor in a scrape of metal; Frank doesn’t notice. He drives his fists into the man’s face, chest, stomach, again and again and again, teeth bared, a snarl tearing his throat raw. The man is already limp when Frank pulls the blade from the ground and slams it down—once, twice, three times—until Daredevil’s arms are locked around him, dragging him back.

“Frank—Frank! That’s enough!” Matt’s voice is harsh, desperate. He’s got both arms hooked under Frank’s, straining against his rage. “You’ll kill him!”

“He touched her!” Frank bellows, spit flying, eyes wild with blood-red haze. He thrashes once, twice, nearly breaking free. “He touched her! I’ll gut him, I’ll—”

“Frank!”

The word rips through the air, raw and pleading. Your word.

And suddenly he’s still.

Frank jerks his head around and sees you on the ground, trying to push yourself upright, blood on your lip, your face already swelling where the fist landed. His chest heaves once, twice, before he rips free of Matt—not to go back to the fight, but to go to you.

He drops to his knees beside you so fast his joints crack. “Sweetheart—hey, hey, look at me. You with me? Look at me.” His hands hover over you, afraid to touch, terrified he’ll hurt you worse.

“‘M fine,” you slur, though your lip is split and blood trickles down your chin.

“You’re not fine.” His voice is breaking, thick with something that’s half fury, half fear. He pulls a rag from his vest and presses it carefully to your mouth, his other hand cupping the back of your head to steady you. “Jesus Christ, you—” His jaw locks. He can’t finish.

Matt clears the floor, sending the last thug scrambling, but Frank doesn’t even glance up. His whole world is you, sitting against a dirty wall, bruised and bleeding because you saved him.

“Don’t move,” he whispers, forehead pressing briefly against yours as if he needs to feel your breath. “Don’t you move a damn inch, sweetheart. I got you. I got you.”

And for the rest of the night, his hands never leave you.

Frank doesn’t notice Matt until the red mask fills the corner of his vision.

“You almost lost control back there,” Matt says, voice hard. His batons are still in his grip, chest rising and falling with the exertion. His head tilts toward the crumpled man Frank left bleeding out on the floor. “He’s not getting up, Castle.”

“Good.” Frank’s tone is venom, his eyes locked on you, thumb brushing at the blood on your lip with a tenderness that doesn’t match the savagery still vibrating in his shoulders.

“That’s not what we do.” Matt’s voice sharpens. “You can’t just—”

Frank snaps his head around so fast Matt goes still. “You think I give a damn about your rules when she’s the one they laid hands on?” His voice is thunder, his stare murderous. “He touched her. He was gonna put a knife in me and he—he—” His breath catches, like the words themselves scrape his throat raw.

You reach out, fingers curling into his sleeve. “Frank.”

Just one word. Just you.

The storm breaks a little. His jaw flexes hard, then he tears his eyes from Matt and looks down at you again, crouched at your side like he’s holding the perimeter of the whole world with his body.

Matt doesn’t push it. He exhales once through his nose, tucks the batons away, and says, softer now, “Get her out of here. I’ll clean this up.”

Frank doesn’t argue, doesn’t thank him, doesn’t even nod. He just scoops you up like nothing else exists, one arm under your knees, the other around your back, pulling you against his chest.

“Frank—” you protest weakly, “I can walk—”

“The hell you can,” he growls, holding you tighter. “Not after that.”

The warehouse fades behind you, Daredevil’s shadow swallowed by the dark. Frank doesn’t set you down once, not until the two of you are back home and the deadbolt is thrown, like putting four walls between you and the rest of the world might keep you safe.

The door slams behind you, the deadbolt snapping into place with a finality that rattles the frame. Frank doesn’t let you down until you’re lowered carefully onto the couch, his big hands lingering at your waist like you’ll vanish if he loosens his grip too soon.

“Stay there.” His voice is low, shaking at the edges. He crouches in front of you for one more check—your eyes, your lip, the ugly swell of your cheekbone—before he pushes up and stalks into the kitchen.

You hear drawers opening, the tin of medical supplies hitting the counter with a clatter. He comes back with his arms full: antiseptic, gauze, the ice pack he keeps in the freezer for his own busted knuckles.

“Frank—”

“Don’t.” He kneels in front of you again, cracking open the antiseptic. His hands are steady, practiced, but his jaw is tight enough to cut glass. He presses the rag to your lip, gentler than his voice. “Don’t say you’re fine. Don’t you dare.”

You watch him as he works, big fingers trying to be careful around the angry bloom of bruising. His thumb ghosts under your jaw, tilting your face so the light hits your cheek, and the ice pack follows. It burns cold, but his hand at the back of your head is warm.

“I didn’t have a choice,” you murmur. “He was gonna stab you.”

He freezes, eyes flashing up to yours. For a long beat, there’s just silence—his breath, the quiet hum of the fridge, the sound of your own pulse in your ears. Then, low and rough, “You think I’d rather take a blade in the back than see him lay a finger on you?”

You try to smile, but it hurts your lip. “Frank, I couldn’t just—stand there.”

His hand cups your face before you can look away, thumb brushing the uninjured side of your cheek. There’s something wild in his eyes, something breaking. “Sweetheart…” He exhales like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered. “You don’t get it. When I saw him hit you—” His voice cracks, just once. “I wasn’t there anymore. I just saw red. I almost—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head like he can shake the thought away.

“You stopped,” you whisper.

“Because you called me back,” he admits, quiet as confession. “Only reason.”

You want to reach for him, but he’s already wrapping gauze over your knuckles where you split them in the fight, layering protection over skin that barely stings compared to the way his eyes look right now.

The ice pack slips a little. He adjusts it, careful, precise. His fingers linger against your temple like maybe if he keeps touching you, he’ll believe you’re really here.

“You scared the hell outta me,” he mutters, finally sitting back on his heels. His broad chest rises and falls too fast, like he hasn’t stopped fighting. “Don’t—don’t ever do that again.”

You don’t promise him anything. You just put your hand over his, holding it there against your cheek, grounding both of you in the quiet.

For the rest of the night, Frank sits close—shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. He doesn’t turn on the TV, doesn’t touch his phone, just keeps his arm around you like if he lets go, the whole world will cave in.

Morning doesn’t creep in—it slams.

The sun is too bright through the blinds, too sharp against your bruised cheek, too loud in the room where Frank Castle is already pacing like a caged animal. He’s been awake for hours—you can tell by the empty coffee pot, the faint smell of gun oil, and the tightness in his shoulders as he moves back and forth across the floor.

You shift on the couch, the blanket he threw over you sliding down, and his head snaps around like a sniper tracking a target. His eyes rake over you—your face, your arms, every place he cleaned and bandaged last night. He doesn’t even blink.

“You should still be asleep,” he mutters. His voice is low, but it’s got that edge—the one that sounds like a growl trying to pass as human.

“I’m fine,” you say, pushing yourself upright. “Just sore.”

His jaw clenches, and that’s the last straw. He slams his palm down on the counter, the sound ricocheting like a gunshot.

“Don’t say that again.”

You blink. “What?”

“Don’t—” His voice rises, sharper now, the mask cracking. “Don’t you dare say you’re fine. You are not fine. You almost got your damn face caved in because you thought it’d be a good idea to play hero.”

Anger sparks in your chest, hot and defensive. “Play hero? Frank, I saved your life.”

His laugh is hollow, ugly. “You think I needed saving?” He takes a step toward you, finger stabbing the air like it’s a knife. “You think I’d rather live with you like this?” His hand gestures to your bruised cheek, the cut on your lip. “Than take the hit myself? Jesus Christ, sweetheart—what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that a knife in your spine would kill you!” you snap back, standing now, fury burning through the ache in your body. “What was I supposed to do, Frank? Just watch it happen?”

“Yes!” The word explodes out of him, ragged, too loud. His chest heaves like he’s been running. “Yes, you stand back, you let me handle it. That’s the deal. That’s how this works.”

Your blood runs hot. “No. That’s how you want it to work. You get to bleed, you get to break, and I’m just supposed to sit pretty and patch you up after? No, Frank. I’m not built for that.”

“You think I want you built for this?” His voice cracks on the word want, like it’s been torn out of him. He drags a hand down his face, eyes closing, then slams his fist against the counter again. “I’m not gonna bury you. I can’t—I won’t—”

“You don’t get to decide that,” you fire back, throat tightening with more than just anger. “You don’t get to decide how much I love you, Frank. You don’t get to decide if I take a hit for you.”

He stops cold. The silence is deafening.

His chest rises and falls, heavy and uneven. For the first time since you’ve known him, he looks like he doesn’t know where to put all that rage, all that grief. His hands curl and uncurl at his sides, the veins in his arms stark against his skin.

Finally, he shakes his head. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.” His voice is low now, dangerous with despair. “And I can’t—I can’t watch that happen. Not again.”

“Frank—”

“No.” He points at you, and it’s not anger anymore—it’s fear wearing anger’s mask. “You don’t understand. Every second you’re out there, every second you’re standing behind me—I see it. I see you gone. I see them taking you from me like they took everything else. And I can’t—I can’t breathe when I think about it.”

Your heart twists, but you can’t back down. Not when he’s looking at you like that. “Then maybe you need to figure out how to breathe, Frank. Because I’m not leaving you. Not when you’re out there taking on the world alone.”

Something in him buckles. He exhales hard, jaw working, and then he grabs his jacket off the chair.

“You don’t get it,” he mutters, already shoving his arms through the sleeves. “You’ll never get it.”

He storms to the door, movements jagged and furious, the weight of his body shaking the floorboards.

“Frank—”

He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t look back. The door slams so hard the frame rattles, and then he’s gone.

You stand there in the silence he leaves behind, chest heaving, the bruise on your cheek throbbing with your heartbeat. The apartment feels too big without him in it, too empty, like all the air walked out with him.

You don’t sit. You don’t cry. You just stare at the door and wait for it to open again.

Hours pass. Noon. Evening. Midnight. Still nothing.

When the lock finally clicks at 2 a.m., you’re still on the couch, arms crossed, eyes burning. 

The lock clicks at 2:03 a.m.

You don’t move. You’ve been waiting on that couch all day, fury burning a steady ember in your chest, arms crossed like a barricade. The bruise on your cheek has deepened into something ugly, purples and blues blooming beneath your skin, and it throbs in rhythm with your heartbeat as the door opens.

Frank steps inside, the weight of him filling the apartment the way thunder fills the sky. His jacket is damp, his boots tracked with dirt, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He looks like he’s been walking all night—like he’s been punishing the pavement for hours. His eyes cut to you immediately, then linger, guilt plain as the bruises on his knuckles.

You don’t speak. Neither does he.

He sets the jacket down slow, careful, like the noise might set you off. He doesn’t look away from you, though—not once—as if he’s waiting for you to move, to yell, to throw something. When you don’t, the silence presses heavier.

Finally, you stand. “You disappeared.” Your voice is sharp, brittle with the effort of holding back all the things you’ve wanted to scream since the door slammed that morning. “You left me here wondering if you’d even bother coming back.”

“I had to cool off,” Frank says, low, gravel scraping at the edges. “I didn’t wanna—” He stops, jaw tightening, then starts again. “I didn’t wanna say something I couldn’t take back.”

“You think walking out without a word was better?” Your chest heaves, tears threatening but refusing to fall. “You think leaving me here after everything that happened—after I took that hit for you—was the smart move?”

His mouth hardens. “Don’t you start with that again.”

“I will start with that again,” you snap, stepping closer. “I’m not gonna apologize for saving you, Frank. I’d do it again. I’ll always do it again.”

“Don’t say that.” He takes a sharp step toward you, the air between you tightening. “Don’t—”

“Why not? Because you can’t stand the thought of somebody giving a damn about you?”

His face twists, raw and unguarded. “Because I can’t lose you!” The words rip out of him, louder than he meant, louder than he’s ever let himself be with you. His chest rises and falls like he’s still in that warehouse, like the fight never ended. “You hear me? I can’t—I won’t—”

The silence afterward is thick. He’s staring at you like the truth just gutted him, like it’s bleeding out of him no matter how hard he tries to hold it in.

Your anger falters, swallowed by the weight of it. You step closer, softer now. “Frank…”

But he’s already moving—closing the space, one hand cupping the back of your neck, the other gripping your waist so tight it’s almost bruising. His mouth crashes into yours, desperate and rough, all teeth and heat and apology wrapped into one.

You gasp against him, and he swallows it like oxygen, kissing you harder. It’s not gentle—it’s starving, frantic, like every second he spent away from you today carved something out of him that he’s trying to put back.

Your hands fist in his shirt, pulling him down, and then you’re stumbling backward, hitting the wall with a thud. He presses into you, broad chest pinning you there, his mouth trailing down your jaw to the bruised corner of your lip, where he slows—soft now, reverent, like he’s begging forgiveness with every kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters against your skin, voice shaking. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so goddamn sorry.”

“Then don’t leave me,” you whisper, tugging his face back to yours. “Don’t walk out like that again.”

He kisses you like a vow, one hand sliding under your thigh, hitching your leg around his hip. The shift drags a groan out of both of you. His forehead drops to yours, breaths ragged, eyes dark with everything he can’t say.

“Never do that again,” he growls, the words raw against your lips. “Don’t you ever put yourself in the line for me like that. I can’t—I can’t lose you too.”

You don’t answer with words. You kiss him harder, pulling him with you as you stagger toward the bedroom, shedding clothes like confessions.

When you fall back onto the bed, he’s already on top of you, covering you with the same ferocity he uses in a fight—except this time it’s not destruction, it’s devotion. His hands roam like he’s cataloguing every inch of you, mouth trailing down your neck, murmuring things he’ll never admit to saying in daylight.

It’s not pretty. It’s not neat. It’s messy, frantic, desperate—the kind of sex that leaves nail marks and bruises, the kind that burns away anger until all that’s left is love so fierce it terrifies him.

And when it’s over, when you’re tangled together in the sheets, sweat cooling, his chest heaving against your back, Frank doesn’t let go. His arm locks around your middle, his face pressed into your hair, and in the hush of the room you hear it again, softer this time, broken open and real:

“Don’t make me lose you, sweetheart. Please.”

You lace your fingers over his, holding him in place. “I’m not going anywhere, Frank.”

For once, he lets himself believe you.

You wake first.

The light is pale through the blinds, dust motes spinning lazy in the air. The apartment smells like coffee and gun oil and faint sweat, but beneath it all is the steady warmth of Frank Castle wrapped around you like a fortress.

His arm is slung heavy over your waist, chest pressed against your back, face buried in the curve of your neck. You can feel his breath—slow, deep, the kind of breathing he only does when he’s finally, finally asleep.

You don’t move. Not yet.

Because this is rare—this softness, this calm. Frank sleeps, but not like this. Usually it’s tense, shallow, restless. But after last night, after the fight, the bruises, the breaking open and the putting back together—he’s out cold. His hand twitches against your stomach, fingers flexing as if he’s dreaming of holding on tighter.

You let him.

It takes another hour before he stirs. His breath shifts, his grip tightens, and then he groans low in his throat, a bear waking. His mouth brushes your shoulder, half kiss, half habit, and then he goes still.

“You awake?” you whisper.

He exhales hard. “Yeah.” His voice is rough, scratchy, like gravel under boots. He presses his forehead to your shoulder, not ready to face the world yet. “Shoulda let you sleep.”

“I didn’t want to.”

There’s a long pause. Then, softer: “Face looks worse this morning.”

You huff. “Thanks for the compliment.”

“I’ll kill him again,” Frank mutters, and you can hear the sincerity, the way his voice dips into that deadly place. “If I think about it too long—”

You roll onto your back so you can see him. His hair is a mess, his eyes bloodshot, stubble dark on his jaw. He looks wrecked—and so heartbreakingly human.

“Hey.” You catch his chin, make him look at you. “I’m here. You didn’t lose me.”

His throat works, and for a second, you think he might look away. But he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on yours, dark and unblinking.

“I meant what I said.” His hand cups your face, thumb brushing lightly over the bruise like he’s memorizing the pain he caused by letting you step in front of him. “Never do that again. I can’t lose you too.”

You swallow hard. “And I meant what I said. I’m not gonna stand back and watch you die. You can’t ask me to do that, Frank.”

His eyes close, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You make it impossible, sweetheart.”

“Good,” you whisper, leaning up to kiss him, soft this time, unhurried. “Because you’re stuck with me.”

He kisses you back, lingering, a sigh slipping from him like maybe—for one breath—he believes it’s true. When he pulls back, he presses his forehead to yours, eyes still closed, and for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t look like a soldier on watch. He just looks like a man holding the only thing in the world that keeps him steady.

“Breakfast?” you ask, after the silence stretches.

He huffs out something that almost passes for a laugh. “Only if you let me cook. Last time you damn near burned the eggs.”

“Liar.”

“You distracted me,” he says, half-smile twitching at his mouth.

You grin, even as your cheek aches. “Guess I’ll just have to do it again.”

you knew the moment you left the safe house that frank was gonna kill you when you got back. this was a fact. no matter how many excuses you gave him, you were dead.

he came back the night before and practically passed out as soon as his head hit the couch. he looked half beat to death, but he wasn't bleeding so you left him to his own devices. afterwards you'd woken up before the sun, before frank even, so you made a brash decision to go for a quick errand run while you had the time. you wouldn't be gone long, you told yourself.

well, you weren't supposed to be gone long.

that all changed when you were coming back. you were almost to the safe house when three guys came up to you and ambushed you. thank god you trained with the punisher himself or else you would've been dead. you dropped everything on you and immediately disarmed one of the men, shooting him in the knee before turning your back to him to face the other two. the second guy body slammed you, knocking the gun out of your grasp, out of your reach, and started beating the shit out of you. his buddy went to grab the gun and you pushed yourself out from under the man with your legs and slid towards the gun, but the third guy immediately shot you in the thigh.

excruciating pain pulsed through you suddenly, but you had to stay strong. you grabbed the gun finally and shot the guy above you in the neck and he fell backwards, blood spraying all over you as he did so. with a grunt, you pulled yourself to your feet painfully, assessing the scene. the first guy swung at you as you stood, and you put the gun to his ribcage and pulled back on the trigger. with one final bang, all three were either dead or damn near it. you let out a shaky breath. what the hell was all of that for?

shakily, you pulled the belt off of one of the guys and tightened it around your thigh, above where you got shot. it hurt like a motherfucker, but it worked. you hobbled over to the bag of groceries you'd dropped along with your messenger bag and grabbed them both. you took one slow, painful step after the other, making your way to the safe house, slowly but surely.

you were surprised when frank didn't come running at the nearby sound of gunshots, but you sure as hell weren't surprised to see him swing the door open with a glare as you limped over.

"before you say anything, i know. i screwed up. i'm sorry." you muttered, wincing as you bent your leg to step up onto the stairs.

"damn right you did, what the hell were you thinking? leaving without telling me?" frank scolded as he brought you into the house, taking the groceries from your hands and tossing your bag elsewhere for the time being. you eased yourself onto the couch slowly as frank disappeared into another room for a moment. while he did, you removed your hoodie to attempt to assess the damage. although most of it was a blur, you remembered one of the guys getting his hands on you and land a couple punches. you imagined he was trying to knock you out from how hard he was beating on you.

frank returned wordlessly with a first aid kit and a bottle of whiskey in hand. you knew what it was for and tensed up immediately. it was almost as bad as pulling teeth at the dentist--probably worse. you attempted to scoot further away on the couch but frank clocked your movements quickly. "nuh uh, none of that bullshit. you either let me do this or you can butcher it yourself." he barked, and you stilled your efforts. "good."

frank sat down across from you and briefly examined your wounds before opening up the kit. while he gathered what he needed, you broke the silence by asking, "besides, y'know, the hole in my leg.. how bad is it?"

he didn't even look up, just made a half shrug motion and muttered, "you'll live."

you took his opposed answer as a sign to shut up. you also assumed that he was pissed at you, given you left with no warning, and you came back with a bullet in your leg. he definitely wasn't too fond of that. of you.

you stared down at your lap as he cleaned a cut on your cheek, trying not to wince at the stinging. you sat motionless while he tended to you besides your fingers picking at the dried-up blood on your knuckles. endless thoughts ran through your head as the silence built up between you, feeling the tension in the air. you wanted him to say something, anything, scream at you if he had to. if he really wanted to. and he probably did, given the unfortunate circumstances. your thoughts ran rapid as you tried not to go full blown panic mode.

although he was trying to hide it, you could tell frank noticed the change in your behavior. you weren't usually so quiet, only when you got upset or were overthinking. and at this point, it was both. you were overthinking, which therefore made you upset about every outcome crossing your mind. it was easy to see if you knew what to look for--fidgeting with your fingers, finding anything to distract yourself with, vocal shutdown until you calmed down. frank knew the signs, and no matter how pissed he was at you for leaving without telling him and then getting hurt because of it, he wasn't going to sacrifice that to see you torture yourself in silence.

"kid," his voice was soft, his hand finding yours and halting your picking. he looked you in the eyes as yours were distant and unfocused. you heard him but your thoughts were prioritizing your focus. "hey, it's okay. you hear me?" you subtly nodded. "yeah? good." he paused, choosing his words carefully. "look, yeah i'm mad at you. fuckin' pissed actually. of all the times i tell you not to leave without me or without even telling me or damn, even waking me up, of all times and you actually end up hurt. i've told you this constantly and yet you still ain't listenin'." your jaw clenched at his words. he knew him yelling at you and scolding you wasn't going to solve anything, especially if you were internally breaking down and a wrong sentence away from sobbing.

he tried again, this time gentler. "look.. no matter how pissed i am at you for doing this shit, just know it's cause i care about you. ya think i'd be tryna protect you and shit if i didn't give a damn? hell nah, i care about you kid, a whole lot actually. i don't wanna see you like this anymore, it fuckin' kills me. don't go off doin' this shit no more." his hand squeezed yours, grounding you and bringing you back to the present. your breathing was much steadier, and your eyes were focusing on how his thumb smoothed over your palms. "that's it, there ya go..."

with your mind finally on the present situation, it finally reminded you about the piece of lead in your leg, the lack of circulation helping but also making your pain intensify from the tightness. your head tilted up and you looked pointedly at the man in front of you. "if you don't mind, i'd like to get this bullet out sooner rather than later." you retorted, zero malice in your voice.

the corner of his lips twitched up. "welcome back, kid." he removed his hand from yours, grabbing the bottle of whiskey. "this will probably hurt like hell but i have to. okay?" he looked you in the eyes, trying to sense your reaction.

you took a slow breath, putting the fleshy part of your palm into your mouth, bracing yourself as you nodded and squeezed your eyes shut. frank took this as a sign and poured some of the alcohol onto your wound, and immediately you groaned against your palm, biting in harder. your other hand pulled into a tight fist and frank's free hand slipped through it to squeeze your hand in an attempt to distract you momentarily. "shh, i know, i know. i gotta take it out now, this is gonna hurt a whole lot more." you squeezed his hand in response.

he took a pair of tweezers to the hole in your thigh and at that moment, you didn't think you'd been in that much pain before until now. you bit your hand so hard you drew blood, and there were most definitely small crescent-shaped indents in frank's other hand from the amount of pressure you were putting. a sob racked through you as your head fell to frank's shoulder and as he set the bloodied piece of metal on the table his now empty hand came to rub your back up and down gently. "shh, it's okay, i've got you. it's all over now. you're okay."

his words, rare but comforting, were what kept you from completely breaking down in tears, only limited to silent tears slipping down your stained cheeks. there were fresh bruises and a small gash on your face, but none of it mattered at that moment. you felt like absolute shit at the moment, from both your actions and the unbearable pain from your injuries. you were shocked that you hadn't passed out from the amount of pain you were in.

after a few minutes of frank rubbing your back and just sitting patiently next to you, finally you eased off of him, freeing your hand to wipe your eyes, paying mind to the wound on your cheekbone. the skin around your eyes was tender, and it only made you wonder what you looked like.

"how's my face?" you said shakily. frank grimaced and you rolled your eyes. "that bad, huh?"

he shook his head, grabbing a roll of gauze. "not awful. couple bruises. cool scar from the cut, but that's it."

you smirked lazily, quickly regaining your usual attitude. "i like the sound of a cool scar."

as he wrapped your wound in gauze to protect it, you paused, staring off, this time more aware than before. "y'know... i'm glad you care, by the way."

"yeah, yeah. don't get used to it."

It turned into weeks, then months. It turned into you knowing which pan he preferred for eggs and when to talk to him and when to let him stew. It turned into a routine: you up early to beat the chaos to school, him pretending he wasn’t tracking your route on a mental grid of alleyways and threats. You pushed and poked and prodded at his rules the way every kid with fire did, and he grumbled and laid the brick back in the wall. You never called him “sir,” never “Mr. Castle,” never anything but “Frank,” tossed as casual and defiant as loose change.

He told himself it was fine. He told himself that word had died with the house on Fowler Street, with beds that never got slept in again. He told himself he was a stopgap, a brace on a broken leg, something to help you limp until you could walk alone.

It was a Wednesday when it cracked.

He found the first cut class notice folded into the mail, a thin white blade. Then another. He watched your face when he put them down on the table side by side, the way you didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. You lifted your chin like a fighter measuring range.

“So?” you said, shoulders tucked into that hoodie like armor. “It’s one class.”

“It’s four classes,” he said. His voice came out low and flat, the kind of tone that vibrated in the bones. “Four this month.”

“School’s a joke,” you said, shrug in your voice. “It’s not like calculus is gonna save me if someone pulls a knife.”

The knuckles of his right hand whitened where they gripped the back of the chair. You did it without thinking—drove real close to the wire he kept buried under six inches of dirt and denial. He wanted to say a dozen things: that English comps weren’t about comma splices, they were about learning to listen; that geometry wasn’t lines but angles—awareness, spacial instinct—things that kept you breathing; that every hour you spent out there was an hour you left yourself open.

“You don’t get to pick the parts of life you think matter,” he said instead, each word forced through the grinder. “You want a bed? A door that locks? Food that ain’t stolen? Then you go.”

“Or what?” You laughed, dry as a match head. “You’ll ground me? Confiscate my phone I don’t have?”

He inhaled. Held it. Released it. He had learned a long time ago to pull the pin on his anger and let it sizzle out in his own palm.

“I’ll do whatever keeps you alive,” he said.

“You’re not my dad,” you snapped, and this time you aimed. “Stop pretending you get a vote.”

The room went so quiet he could hear the fridge trying to start. He never flinched where you could see it, but something small in his chest buckled. He set his jaw. He wanted to say: I don’t pretend. I don’t want a vote; I want you to see the cliff’s edge. He wanted to say: I got two kids in the ground because the world decided to take them. I’m not letting it take another.

What he said was, “Under my roof? I get a vote.”

You pushed back from the table so hard the chair skittered and toppled, clattering against the tile. Your hands shook when you grabbed your jacket, not from fear, from rage—the bright, useless kind that makes kids run. You stabbed an arm into a sleeve, chin up, eyes shining with threat and hurt.

“Watch me veto it,” you said, and the door slammed so hard the deadbolt jingled.

He stood. The old instinct howled: go get her. He clamped down. Two people angry in a ten-by-ten kitchen never calmed anything. Sometimes you let the kid walk the perimeter of their own cage and discover the gate was open for them the whole time. He walked to the sink. He turned on the tap and waited for the water to run cold, the way you liked it. He waited for the knob to jiggle, for the key he’d slipped onto your ring to scrape the lock, for the muttered “I’m not apologizing.” You were good at not apologizing.

Twenty minutes. The clock thudded like a heartbeat. He poured the water down the drain. He stood. He sat. He told himself not to look at the door again. He looked anyway. Thirty-five minutes. An hour.

At one hour, the tension changed. It shifted from anger to something colder, gray and dense, the thing that had haunted him since Fowler, since the park. His hands went numb and prickly like they did before firefights. His eyes scanned the room without consent, finding weapon, egress, med kit, rope. He reached for his coat.

At one hour and nine, he was on the street.

Hell’s Kitchen breathed at night. It coughed steam from manholes and whispered deals through doorways. It knew him and didn’t know him. He walked fast enough to keep the blood hot, eyes slitting against the wind, mouth a straight line. He checked the deli where you bought the sodium-bomb noodles and the bodega where the owner called you “kid” like it was a prayer. He checked rooftops where kids went to feel huge and alleys where kids went to feel small.

Two hours. He didn’t think about the number; he felt it, a weight strapped to his ribs.

“Y/N!” His voice barked down the block, ricocheting off brick. He didn’t shout names. He didn’t call attention. He did now.

He cut down Forty-Eighth, boots slapping, and then stopped dead so fast the heel of his left squealed on damp concrete. A smear of something dark marred the wall at the mouth of an alley, a long thumbprint dragged by gravity. He knew blood the way a mechanic knew oil by its shine. This was blood.

He didn’t run. Running made your vision narrow. He moved—fast, controlled, shoulders loose, hands open, eyes tracking—until the alley opened and you were there.

The human brain did a thing with shock. It slowed it down and broke it into frames so you had to see all of it, when what you wanted was blur. The frames clicked.

Your shoes at an angle that meant your left ankle either rolled or you’d been shoved and landed wrong. Your right hand curled tight under your ribs, fingers slick and red to the wrist. Your face—Jesus—bruised in splotches that would go yellow and green later if there was a later, lip split and swelling, a half-dried crescent cut along your brow where something had clipped you. Your backpack gone. The empty V of your jacket where someone had yanked for a phone and found a pocket lint universe.

You looked so goddamned small.

“Christ,” he said; it wasn’t a prayer. His knees hit cold concrete and didn’t notice. “Hey. Hey. Kid. Look at me.” His hands went where they were trained to go—one to the wound, heel of his palm sealing, fingers wide like the mouth of a river he meant to dam, the other sliding behind your shoulders to lift you onto his thigh, heart to heart, pressure sharing pressure.

Your lashes trembled, glued with a fine grit of alley dust. Your eyes fought their way open, foggy as a streetlight in rain. “Frank?” It was barely air, barely sound.

“Yeah.” He bent so his forehead almost touched yours, so his breath hit your cheek and might remind your lungs they had a job. “Yeah, it’s me. I got you. I got you. Stay with me.”

You blinked slow, like your brain showed you the options and staying took the most effort. Your mouth twitched—heroic, stupid, you trying to be brave for him while you bled. “M’—sorry,” you murmured. “I… I fought back.”

A shaking exhale left him, half laugh, half sob and half something that wanted to be a roar at the city itself. “Goddamn right you did,” he said, voice rough and uneven. He glanced at the wound—high quadrant abdominal, left of midline, shallow angle; maybe missed the worst of it if the blade hadn’t found something that didn’t want finding. Hard to tell in the dark when everything looked like murder. “You’re okay,” he said, because sometimes the lie was the rope you throw and sometimes the body took it and climbed. “You hear me? You’re okay.”

“Phone… took it,” you whispered. “Wallet too. Couldn’t… run.”

“I know. I know.” He cranked his jaw, ground his molars until the nerve sang. He needed a third hand. He didn’t have one. He did have his voice and the thing in it that kept men on their feet when the blood knew better. “Eyes open,” he said, a command clipped and precise. “Right here. Look at me.”

Your eyes found his and tried to focus. He felt you reaching for level ground and hating that the world slanted. “Don’t… look so scared,” you breathed, and the edges of his vision went white for a second because you were comforting him while your blood warmed his palm.

“Hey.” He swallowed hard and tasted iron, old reflex. “Don’t tell me not to be scared.” The sentence broke apart and he stapled it back together with will. “You’re gonna be fine. You hear me? You’re gonna. Be. Fine.”

Your body sagged a fraction, the way people did when the tide pulled unseen around their ankles. He felt it. He felt everything. He reached awkwardly for the burner in his pocket, fumbling it without letting go of pressure, thumb mashing the nine, the one, the one. He rattled an address he didn’t need to think about, clipped and drilled, demanded a bus, demanded they bring the kit that kept blood in bodies, demanded they hurry and then demanded faster.

The minutes stretched to a wire that sang. He kept pressure and cadence—counted your breaths, baited your stubborn streak to keep you angry enough to live, muttered stupid things: the bodega guy’s cat had kittens, the streetlight on the corner that always flickered finally died, he’d let you pick the cereal, hell, you could eat marshmallows for dinner for a week, he didn’t care, just keep that pulse pushing.

Sirens wormed into the atmosphere and got louder until they were there, too bright, too slow. Medics spilled out, faces all lines and efficiency, words the language of triage: “through and through?” and “BP falling,” and “two large-bore,” and “we need to move now.” Hands in blue gloves slid under you and his hand came with you because it had fused, nothing short of a saw would pry it off.

“Sir, we need you—” one medic started, but he cut them a look that said he had been on battlefields they’d only ever read case studies about.

“I’m not letting go,” he said, voice quiet, final. He shipped you into the rig, climbed after, the doors clanged and the city became flashing shapes gone mean with speed.

You stopped hearing them talk for a minute. He watched that happen—the moment when the sound of their voices became a thing his brain registered and his heart refused to because all other bandwidth was taken by the focus of watching you breathe. When your breath hitched into a long flat nothing, the rig became a war zone. Hands hammered, fingers pressed, someone shouted a number that belonged to death and he rejected it outright like a bad offer.

“Y/N,” he said, and his voice didn’t rise the way it wanted, it went down, a deep well where commands lived. “You come back now. You hear me? You come back.”

You did. Not all the way, not to consciousness, not to clarity, but the green beep on the monitor started its small mountain climbs again and he could breathe.

They wheeled you through doors he hated, white light that felt like accusation. He paced a stripe in the floor while they cut clothes and pushed meds and scanned and whispered in shorthand. A nurse with tired eyes tried to ask him paperwork questions and he stared at her like he didn’t speak a language in which boxes existed. She adjusted. “We’ll do it later,” she said gently, because sometimes good people survived the Kitchen too.

Minutes or hours—time melted into a slow-thaw mess—until a doctor with a soft beard and sharp hands came out and said words that were neither gift nor blow but a suspended sentence. “Knife wound missed major vessels,” he said. “Lucky angle. We repaired a laceration, she lost a lot of blood, we’ve got her stabilized, but we’re not out of the woods. We’ll watch for infection, for internal bleeding. It’s… it’s going to be a night.”

“Yeah,” Frank said, and it was more breath than voice. He nodded like someone had given him a task. “Night I can do.”

They let him in when there were enough lines snaking from you to make his throat close. He took your hand around the tape and the cannula, careful of the clip on your finger that hummed your oxygen into a graph. Your skin felt like paper that had been left near a radiator, warm and dry and fragile. He settled into the chair and it sighed under his weight, old springs complaining. He didn’t move after that. He didn’t blink more than he had to. He listened to the machines like they were ancient gods that could be placated by attention.

He told you things he hadn’t. He told you about the way his son had wanted to be an astronaut for six months and a firefighter for three and a trash truck driver for ten devoted days until he saw a guy hanging off the back on a rainy Tuesday, soaked and grinning. He told you his girl used to leave barrettes in every room like breadcrumbs. He told you he’d hated the word “dad” for years because it had been a severed wire hanging live in his chest and if anything touched it he fried. He told you he’d learned to walk with it anyway.

Sometimes, alone in the dark, he said he didn’t deserve the good things that still breached the surface of his life. He’d learned the world disagreed sometimes. The world had a stubborn streak too. The world had given him you with your scabbed knuckles and your sharp tongue and your stupid brave eyes.

Your lashes fluttered.

He didn’t breathe. He didn’t dare blink. He leaned forward, the chair sliding a whisper on linoleum. He thought about calling a nurse. He didn’t. He had watched men die; he had watched men wake. He knew the difference between the two in the first inch of inhale.

Your mouth moved, dry and cracked. He reached for the little pink sponge on a stick and wet your lips with a precision he usually reserved for weapons. Your brow knit like the world hurt; it did. Your eyes pushed up from wherever they’d sunk and fought the weight of the drugs and gravity and everything that wanted them closed.

“Y/N?” He said it like a benediction.

Your pupils struggled their way to him. Your gaze found his face and held, at first through fog, then with something like recognition and something like relief breaking through it like sunlight through a worn blind.

“…Frank?” you rasped, hoarse and tiny, but the sound of your voice did something to him that he would never admit, not out loud, not to anyone. He let breath out. The edges of the room softened a fraction, enough to make color again instead of grayscale.

“Yeah,” he said. The word shook. Didn’t matter. “Yeah. I’m right here.”

You blinked, slow. Thought. He watched it happen, the way your eyes moved like you were taking stock of windows and exits, all the things he’d taught you to count. When they came back to him, they had something in them that wasn’t fear or defiance or even the kind of wary respect you had for someone who refused to break.

This was something that tenderized the ground inside his chest with one syllable.

“Dad?” you whispered.

The word hit him like a round that didn’t kill but changed everything. He hadn’t been that in years. He had been a man with a map of grief and a list of names. He had been a hammer. And then there you were, raw and stitched and impossibly alive, offering him a title like a medal and a wound all at once.

He didn’t make a sound at first. His mouth opened and nothing came. Then his breath broke. It went ragged, full of gravel and history, and he leaned forward until his forehead touched the back of your hand, until his shoulders hunched like the weight that had been pressing on them finally admitted it existed. He didn’t sob big; it wasn’t his way. It slid out of him in two sharp, quiet breaks, the kind that echoed longer because they were rare.

“Yeah,” he managed finally, and the sound was soft like fabric ripping. He lifted his head enough to look at you, thumb rough and careful as he smoothed a strand of hair back from your temple. “Yeah, sweetheart.”

Your eyes warmed. The lines at the corners eased. You tried to smile; it came crooked and beautiful and brave.

“Sorry,” you mouthed.

“Don’t,” he said immediately, the word iron. He shook his head once. “Don’t you do that. You hear me? Don’t you put that on yourself.” He swallowed. “I let you walk. That’s on me. I knew better. I always know better.”

“You… always think you know better,” you mumbled, and there it was: the spark that made you you, the jab even from a hospital bed. He barked out a broken laugh and dragged a palm over his face.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do.”

Silence settled, but it wasn’t empty. The monitor beep lined up with the pulse he could feel under his fingers. He watched your eyes get heavy again and didn’t fight it this time. “You can sleep,” he murmured. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?” you whispered, not like a challenge, like a kid. It almost undid him again.

“Promise,” he said, and when he promised things, they held.

You slept. The night stretched. A nurse came with antibiotics and a measured smile. Another prodded a line and apologized at a volume that didn’t need apology. The beeps stayed steady like the metronome of a life he was shocked to find he wanted to conduct again.

He wrote a list in his head because lists saved him: replace the busted hallway bulb that flickered and drove you nuts; buy the expensive cereal with the marshmallows because near-death bought marshmallows; call the school and tell them you’d be out and no, they didn’t get to tut at him about attendance, not now, not ever; teach you how to break a grip on your jacket without wrecking your own shoulder; teach you to run when it was smarter to run; teach you that sometimes the bravest thing a person did was stay.

He sat there and realized the truth that had been looming over him for months had stepped into the light and said its name for him. He loved you like a daughter. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t official. It wasn’t sealed with paperwork or last names. It was sealed with the way his hands fit around yours, with the way his body had positioned itself between yours and everything else, with the way one word had detonated and built a house in the crater.

The dawn that burned at the edges of the blinds found him the same way it found rooftops and trash cans and the top of the cross on St. Andrew’s—slow, inevitable, forgiving in a way the city rarely was. He watched it move along the floor like spilled milk. You stirred and didn’t wake. He let his eyes close for thirty seconds, maybe sixty, and woke with his grip still around your hand like a dock line.

A doctor came in and rattled off numbers that landed somewhere in the column marked Better Than Before. He nodded because for the first time in a long time, a column like that existed. He bent and kissed the back of your hand before he quite thought about it, a habit from a life he had sworn he wouldn’t reach for and reached for anyway.

The morning shift nurse set a Styrofoam cup of something that pretended to be coffee on the windowsill, and Frank said “thanks” in a voice still sanded down. She looked at his hand on yours and understood something about the Kitchen no report captured: the way families formed out of disaster and choice.

You woke again after nine. Your eyes had more color. Your pain had edges instead of being a flood. He gave you water. You took it, grimaced, swallowed like you were trying to impress someone. He almost smiled.

“You… gonna lecture me?” you asked, voice rough and daring around a throat that had lost a battle.

He met your gaze and held it for a long beat. The old Frank would’ve scolded. The man who sat here all night let the single word do the work: “No.”

You blinked, because you had expected the fight. “No?”

“We’ll talk,” he said. “Later.” He shifted, ridiculous in a chair too small for him, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Right now you heal. Then we change some things.”

“What things?” Suspicion was a cat in your voice.

“The ones that put you here,” he said simply. “We get you a phone that you can actually use when you need to. We get you a better route to school. We talk to the shop on Forty-Sixth—he’s got a back entrance that’s safer; you cut through there in the morning. We drill some stuff. You don’t like school? Fine. You still go. You don’t run hot out the door after we yell. You tell me when you feel like leaving, I give you space that isn’t eighteen blocks of target practice. You don’t have cash? You ask me. Not because I want you beholden. ‘Cause I want you alive.”

You stared at him, then let your gaze drop to where his hand cupped yours. “You’re… bossy,” you said.

He huffed. “Yeah.”

A silence. You looked at him out of the corners of your eyes. “You, uh… okay with… what I called you?”

He could have made a joke and cut the wire that hummed daily now in his chest. He didn’t. He nodded once, slow. “If you want to call me that,” he said, voice low. “I’m not gonna stop you.”

“Okay,” you whispered. Your mouth trembled like you might cry. You didn’t. You squared your jaw like him and swallowed it down and he loved you for that too, even as he wanted better for you than choking feelings quiet.

He stood to stretch, bones popping in concert. “I’m gonna tell the nurse you’re awake and charming,” he said, settling his hand gently against the top of your head like the weight of his palm could ground you. “You need anything?”

You looked up at him and for once didn’t have a sharp answer. “Don’t… leave,” you said, softer than you meant, softer than you allowed yourself most days.

He tightened his grip, the big hand you’d once called a “shovel” cupping your skull like something precious, because you were. “I’ll be right outside the door talking about terrible coffee,” he said. “Two minutes.”

You considered. Nodded. “Two,” you said, testing the power of the number. He nodded like he’d sign it in ink.

He stepped into the hall. He spoke to the nurse. He lied and said the coffee tasted like coffee. He came back in one minute, thirty seconds, because sometimes you made promises and then beat them to show someone who had never been kept that kept existed.

You were still awake. You looked at him and rolled your eyes but couldn’t quite hide the relief that loosened your mouth. He took his seat without comment. He reached for your hand and you gave it without looking away.

There would be forms and questions and bureaucrats who didn’t understand the math of survival. There would be bad nights and worse nightmares and the slow work of learning to fight smarter than a corner demanded. There would be friction. There would be days you called him “Frank” like a thrown rock again because kids test fences, and he’d take it because he’d learned that love wasn’t the absence of war, it was the line you refused to retreat past no matter how loud it got.

But there would also be mornings with decent cereal and evenings where he made the kind of tomato sauce that took all day and made the apartment smell like a home he thought was buried. There would be drills in the alley and better shoes and routes that were ugly but safer. There would be a lock you could work blind and a set of keys you wouldn’t lose because he’d teach you a trick he’d learned in a place where tricks were gospel.

There would be you, breathing. There would be him, staying.

You blew out a breath, eyes closing, and he sat there and watched. The beeps ticked on, not dramatic, not enough for TV, just steady. His mind kept wanting to skip to the part where the worst happened. He brought it back, every time, to the part where it didn’t, to the part where you called him a thing he’d thought was stolen and handed it back like it fit.

He cleared his throat and spoke like he was telling the room a fact that would sit in it from now on.

“We’re going home,” he said, and the word meant a lot of things, and it meant all of them. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But we are. And you’re gonna hate how much I hover for a while.”

You cracked one eye. “You already—hover,” you slurred, and he smiled, small and crooked, the kind of smile that had almost rusted out.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well. Get used to it.”

You drifted, and he sat sentinel, a grim statue in a vinyl chair, a wall between you and anything that wanted another piece. He didn’t close his eyes again. He didn’t need to. He’d slept through too many things that had cost him, and this he would watch, every second, like the watching itself kept the machines honest.

When the day nurse asked if he wanted to step out while they changed dressings, he shook his head, head barely moving. “She says different,” he said, “I step out. Otherwise, I stay.”

You lifted a hand without opening your eyes, the tiniest wave of permission. “Stay,” you whispered. “Dad.”

He heard it. He let himself hear it. He set it carefully with all the other things he kept safe now in the space that used to be ash. He turned his head to crack his neck, rolled a shoulder, and settled a little deeper into the chair.

Addiction and overdoses are not specific to Hell’s Kitchen, or even New York City. Matt knows that, he owns a small law firm in an urban area, and he’s well versed in the crime underbelly of said urban area. 

But recently, he’s noticed a spike in unconventional overdoses; He goes out at night and comes across one too many bodies on the ground, usually with blood running down their face from their nose, eyes and mouth. Sometimes they don’t die from the drug, they die from choking on their own blood. 

Whatever this new mystery drug is, it’s horrible; Intravenous, he guesses, and from what he can find on his own, the effects include a buzzy, rushing high for a few hours, like Adderall, maybe, and then an intense crash, usually leading to a long, deep sleep. 

Matt spends two nights trying to find an origin, a source, anything that would help him figure out how and why these people are overdosing at such a high rate, other than this being a new street drug that is taking a lot of lives, one which has not breached the public eye just yet. So, when he gets to work on Monday, he uses his resources—

He divulges everything he knows to Karen and Foggy and asks them for help. It takes another day or so, but eventually, he has a lead, a friend of a friend of an old client who had been in and out of rehabs. 

Which lead him to this complex, the most complicated apartment layout he could imagine, a few miles away from his cozy Hell’s Kitchen apartment. This place is making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he feels like a cat.

He just hates everything about this place. He can tell there are bright lights on too, he can hear the LED buzzing above him. It’s definitely lab-like, he found a room earlier down this long hallway with large vats—one of the drug he’s looking for, and one of blood. Whose blood, he doesn’t know. 

That’s where the copper is coming from—above the large vat of blood is a thin tube that’s currently depositing blood into it. The tube goes up into the ceiling, and that’s what Matt’s been following for the past few minutes. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find, but whatever it is, he’s sure he won’t like it. 

He gets to the end of the hallway and stops in front of the door, taking a second to listen—there are sounds he’s not familiar with, he’s sure that there’s too much liquid sloshing around. And there’s something else—a heartbeat. A very faint one. The door is locked when he tries, but he busts the lock open easily and steps inside. 

And there you are. 

You’re not awake, or maybe you are, just barely. He’s not sure. But your breathing is shallow, and your heartbeat indicates to him that you’re quite drugged up yourself. You’re on a standing table, strapped in but tilted back enough where you don’t have to keep yourself standing on two feet; not that you could, even if you wanted to. 

There’s an IV coming from your arm. Maybe fluids to keep you alive, but he’s sure there must be some kind of drugs in there to keep you loopy. Around your face, he notes another tube—a nose cannula provides oxygen to you, and Matt has to assume you desperately need it; especially when he notices the needles sticking out of your skin. 

They’re large things with a glass tube on top of them, connecting to smaller, plastic tubes that all converge into the tube Matt had been following to get here. There are seven of them—three on each arm, and one right into your abdomen. From what he can tell, you’re wearing a sports bra and sweatpants, no socks, no shoes. 

You barely move, barely breathe, and your skin is drained of any flushness, your hands lightly shaking. He peels off his gloves before taking hold of one with both of his hands and feeling the cold, clamminess of them. 

Someone is working awfully hard to keep you alive. 

In an instant, he’s working to try and get the needles off you. You barely stir as he eases the needles out of you, careful not to hurt you. He’s sure he won’t have much time once he gets the needles out, so he works quickly. When the needles are out, he takes the IV out next, and then takes off the nose cannula, before working at your shackles. 

When those are off, you almost fall off the table—but he catches you, your body limp in his arms. He holds you close, cradling you like you’re precious. You’re just some kid, he reasons, and you need to be saved from whoever is harvesting the life from you, literally. 

You squirm a bit in his arms, and he winces. 

“It’s alright, you’re going to be okay.” He says gently, and you must believe him, since you curl into him. 

He thinks about taking you to the hospital, but he’s sure that whoever had you here will look there first. So, he does the only thing he can think to and begins to carry you back to his apartment. You’re still asleep, but he keeps his focus on your heartbeat, making sure that as he makes his way through the shadows, you don’t die. 

You make it back and since it’s been about an hour by the time he makes it there, and you’re still alive, Matt is semi confident that you won’t die just yet. But he lays you on his bed very gently, and before he can even think about taking his own suit off, he’s reaching to bandage your arms. The needles were big, so he’s sure they’ll scar. You have three bandages wrapped around different parts of each of your arms, and then he tenderly places a bandage on your side. 

He checks for other injuries, but he’s sure you’re just weak from the drugs and the blood draining. Or at least, he really fucking hopes so. He gets you a small washcloth, wetting it and squeezing to make sure it’s not dripping, before going back to you.

He listens for your heartbeat again and finds it still thumping. 

“Brave girl,” he whispers softly as he brushes some hair from your face, before placing the cold cloth on your forehead. He’s sure you can’t hear him, but he speaks anyways, “What happened to you?” He wonders quietly. 

That’s about all he can do for you until you wake up. So, reluctantly, he pulls himself from your side, and begins to strip, needing desperately to wash the smell of that place off of him—he wishes you’d be free of the scent too. After scrubbing every inch of his skin with a body wash that only barely smells like vanilla, Matt dresses in a pair of sweats, similar to yours, and an old ratty henley tee shirt. He brushes his teeth, washes his face, and slips his crucifix on, wondering what saints were looking after you while you were being.. tortured? Experimented on? 

Saint Jude, he thinks, Patron saint of desperate and lost causes, or Saint Dismas, patron saint of prisoners. Or maybe, he thinks more bitterly, Saint Januarius, patron saint of blood banks.

He stands in between his bedroom and the kitchen, scratching the back of his neck.

Then, he moves to go make you a sandwich. You’ll be hungry when you wake up, won’t you? Who knows when the last time you ate was—then, he’s reaching for a glass, too. You’ll be thirsty. He can’t fix whatever’s happened to you, but he can absolutely make sure you aren’t wanting for food or water when you wake up. 

He places the plate, complete with some chips he found, on his nightstand near the bed, along with the water.  Then, he realizes you might be cold or want to change when you wake up. He goes to find old clothes that might fit you. 

It’s a real ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ situation with him. 

Eventually, when he’s sure he’s accounted for everything that you could possibly need or want when you wake up, he grabs the pillow your head is not resting on and stands next to the bed, trying to convince himself to go sleep on the couch. 

He can’t help it. He leans down, kisses your head, and then, turns to make his way out of the room. He stops at the doorway, turning his head back in your direction, just to make sure your heart is still beating, before making his way to the couch, making sure to leave the door cracked open. 

He doesn’t sleep particularly well, what with the mysterious prisoner in his bed, but he does manage to get some sleep. In the morning, when he goes to check on you, you’re still dead asleep. But your heartbeat is stronger than it was, and that’s encouraging, at least.

He replaces the cloth on your head with a fresh one, using it to wipe sweat off your face and neck, as well. He goes back and forth with it for about an hour, trying to decide if he should go to work or not. What if you’re not here when he gets back? 

But, he reasons with himself—even if you do wake up before he gets home, which, he doubts you will, he’s sure you won’t be strong enough to get very far. Besides, maybe you’d appreciate being saved, being left in a warm bed with a plate of food and a change of clothes not too far from you. The office isn’t too far, either, he can keep an ear out for you.

Besides, he knows that if Karen and Foggy don’t hear from him, they’ll only worry. So, reluctantly, he gets ready for work. 

And the day drags, of course. Fridays always do. He almost stays three separate times and then goes when he remembers he doesn’t have any other substantial food in the apartment. You’ll definitely be hungry when you wake up, he remembers, so you need more than a ham and cheese sandwich. He does tell Foggy and Karen about you, who immediately start looking through missing persons files. He doesn’t see the point—he really doesn’t know what you look like, only that you’re weak and scarred. Besides, maybe when you wake up, he’ll learn exactly who you are. 

It takes him a couple of minutes at the Chinese place to decide what you’d like. He doesn’t know you, he reminds himself, but he’s tired, and he’s finding it hard to be focused on anything except the girl in his bed, like he’s known you for years. 

He settles on sweet and sour chicken and some fried rice. Carbs, sodium, and sugars will be good for you, he’s sure. He gets himself beef and broccoli, always preferring this place for how they clean they kept it, how their food never tasted like chemicals or soap. Besides, it was good food. The meal comes with two egg rolls. 

He trudges his way up the apartment stairs, noting the way the day both dragged on and passed with a snap of his fingers, but he’s about to have a much bigger problem on his hands. At the door, he listens for your heartbeat and finds it much faster than when he left. Are you scared? Well, you did wake up in an unfamiliar place. 

He comes inside, before placing the takeout on the coffee table near the door. He takes off his jacket, places his cane to the side, and rolls up the sleeves of his button up before following the sound of your heartbeat into his bedroom. The sandwich is half eaten, the chips demolished and the water gone. 

He listens for a minute, before locating you in his closet—Wait, his closet? You’re sitting in his armoire, curled up on top of the trunk he keeps his suit in. Why are you in there, he wonders? 

He makes his way towards the closet, and then stops, hesitating. Just opening the door might spook you, so he knocks. When he doesn’t hear any reaction, he slowly opens the door. When the light hits your eyes, you squint, taking in the site of this new captor you’ve found yourself next to. He wears dark glasses, and you’re trying to recall what that might mean. You’re sure you would’ve known once upon a time. 

Matt crouches down in front of you, so you’re more eye level. You haven’t changed clothes, he notes. Before Matt can say anything, you pull your knees closer to your chest and start to growl, like a frightened animal. He frowns, then sits on his butt and takes a scootch back so you don’t feel so threatened. He crosses his legs. 

“Hi.” He says softly, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry.” He starts. You don’t respond. “But I’m not going to hurt you.” He promises. 

You don’t believe him. But you do stop growling. He exhales softly, not sure why he’s so relieved. 

“I found you in a lab, there was.. well, I guess I don’t need to tell you what state I found you in. But you’ll be safe here.” He says, and then, when you still don’t respond, “I’m Matt.” He says next. 

A long beat of silence. 

And Matt finds himself talking again. 

“It’s okay if you don’t remember your name, but I’d like to know it if you do.” He offers, “Maybe I could help you, find someone who cares about you, who’s worried for you.”

You know two things: Your name, and that you are completely alone. No one is coming to save you. They never were. But this Matthew (How do you know Matt is short for Matthew, you wonder, how do you know anything?) is sitting in front of you and, while you know what men are capable of, you don’t detect any signs of aggression. You don’t trust him, but you know he’s brought you away from that terrible place. 

So, you whisper your name. Matthew echoes it, and it’s weird to hear your name fall from the lips of another person after so long. Then, Matthew does something you find strange. He smiles. 

It’s an awfully pretty smile, and you attempt to bare your teeth back at him, but it doesn’t feel like smiling, it just feels like showing off your canines and molars. He stands, then, and you’re almost dizzy with how much larger than you, curled up in this dark corner, he is.  He offers you his hand. 

“C’mon, it can’t be very comfortable in there. Besides, I got dinner. Or you could shower, change, whatever you want to do.” And despite your instinct, despite every inch of you screaming to run far far away from his kindness, you take his hand. 

Without another word, Matthew leads you out of the closet, and to the main room where he has the food. 

“You can, uh.. sit down. Do you want something to drink?” he asks, as you stand by the couch, quiet and staring at the door. You could leave. You could run. Why aren’t you running? Isn’t this what you’ve wanted for years, to run? He tilts his head at you. “Kid? You okay?” he wonders, and you look at him. He holds up two cans of soda. “Coke or Dr. Pepper?” He asks, not wanting to push on whatever that moment was. 

You reach forward and take the coke can, the idea of sugar making your mouth watery. Food is a luxury for you, and the scent of the food coming from the takeout bag Matt is reaching for is intoxicating. He pulls the containers out much too slowly for your liking, and then, you’re sitting on his couch in front of his coffee table as he reveals the spread of greasy, delicious New York City American Chinese food that you’ll be able to devour. 

“The chicken is for you, help yourself to the rice.” He puts the container of sicky sweet red sauce in front of you too, and then he’s sitting down to eat his beef with broccoli, his fork picking up a scoopful as you—

As you start pulling pieces of chicken out of the container with your hands, shoveling it into your mouth like you haven’t eaten in days. It’s so good, you cannot help yourself. You could cry, it’s so good—you won’t, you hate crying in front of anyone, but you could—and then you’re reaching for the sauce container, ripping off the lid to start drinking it, and that’s when Matt decides he needs to step in. 

“Okay, hey—” he leans forward to grab your hands, and you flinch, looking at him with wide, horrified eyes. He stops and sighs, noticing your tension. “It’s alright. It’s okay, I’m not upset. But if you eat like that, you’ll make yourself sick.” He promises and then hands you a fresh fork. “Here, use this.” 

You stare at the fork. You remember forks, you’re sure. You can identify the name of it, but you can’t remember quite how to use it. Your hand wraps around the stem, and you begin to stab at your chicken like it’s a knife. Matt doesn’t mind. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps eating. He gets the sense you don’t want to talk about whatever it is you’ve been through, and he won’t push. 

You eat in silence, and then, you manage the words out, after a long, disgusting slurp of cold soda. 

“Thank you.” You say quietly, and Matt smiles at you again. You look down at your food. 

He helps you when your stabbing method doesn’t work on the rice, showing you how to hold the fork properly. In the back of his mind, Matt keeps wondering what happened to you, and more than that, he’s wondering how long you had been isolated. 

But, he decides, when you finally are full, and you lean back, stretching your limbs, your bandages still around the wounds of those horrible needles, that for now all he needs to do is let you heal. Let you rest. Everything else can come after he makes sure you know he won’t let anything else hurt you. 

You find the shower when you’re done eating and after showing you how to use it and offering a fresh set of clothes, Matt leaves you alone as he cleans up dinner, but the sound of your sobs coming from the bathroom makes him pause. But you’ve been through so much, he reasons, you’re more than allowed to cry.

When you come out of the shower, clean and no longer smelling like blood and antiseptic, Matt rewraps your wounds with fresh bandages, and asks, 

“Do you need anything else? Are you tired, would you like to go to bed?” He asks, and you are tired, you won’t deny that... but, your eyes drift to the two egg rolls that sit on the table still. Matt smiles a little. “Just so you know, I can’t see. Not with my eyes anyways.” Your head tilts at this. “But I can tell you’re eyeing those egg rolls.” He reaches over and picks up the container, offering them to you. “Go on, take one.” And you do. 

You take a large, crunchy bite, and remember that you like egg rolls. They’re delicious, you’re quickly recalling.

Matt must sense this, although you’re not sure if that’s part of his ‘seeing but not with his eyes’ thing, so he tells you that you can have his, too. 

-

You like Matthew’s friends. In the small bit of your brain where you can access memories from before the lab, memories you can only reach on the brink of falling asleep or right when you wake up, you’re sure you’d be good friends with them if you were normal. 

You’re not sure if they like you. 

Matt had asked Karen and Foggy to come over to meet you yesterday, when he was sure you were settled in enough to not freak out on him. 

“Dude.” Is all Foggy has said for the past half hour. You look normal, besides for the big tee shirts you’ve stolen from Matt. You’re wearing pants that are a size too big for you, and socks that are thick and soft. They feel like cuffs after years of being barefoot, but you’re managing. 

“Dude.” You chirp back, smiling up at them from your place on the couch. Karen sits on the other end of the couch, looking at you.

“This is insane, you must see that!” Foggy demands and you shake your head, tapping the space between your eyes. 

“Can’t see.” You offer. Matt sighs, hands on his hips. It’s your favorite thing to say, anytime anyone makes an indication that Matt might be able to see, figuratively or not, whether it’s Matt himself or someone else. 

His one hand leaves his hip and rests on your head for a second. 

“Yes, Kid, we know, I can’t see.” Then, he’s turning back to Foggy to continue their conversation. 

“She hasn’t told you anything except her name? She doesn’t remember anything about who took her, or—” You bring your knees to your chest, curling into yourself. Karen cuts herself off, tilting her head when she notices your change in body language. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?” She wonders, and you shake your head. She watches as you get this far away look in your eyes. 

She shares a look with Foggy, and Matt steps away from you, closer to them. In a low voice, he begins to talk, 

“Listen, whatever happened to her, I know it’s bad. I know it kind of..” he sighs. “Broke her brain, I guess. I don’t even know how long she was in there for, and you guys know that even a few weeks of torture and isolation can destroy someone, let alone..” his head tilts back to where you sit, as you begin to rock a bit, before your hands move to play with the blanket that drapes over the couch, picking at stray bits of fiber. You hum a tune none of them recognize, and Matt has noticed you do this when you’re stressed. You make sounds, instead of words. 

Humming, purring, growling, cooing. 

Foggy sighs. 

“I’ll call my sister, see if she has any old clothes she’s not using. They’re about the same size. Then, I’ll see if I can get my hands on some missing persons reports that match her description.” He offers, unable to deny his bleeding heart. 

“I’ll talk to Ellis,” Karen offers, “See if he has any leads on the manufacturers who had her.” 

“Thank you,” Matt smiles, and your eyes drift up to watch the three of them, talking at the other end of the couch. You feel the familiar bitter swirl of jealousy in your stomach. Would anyone ever love you as much as Matt loves his friends, and his friends love him? Had anyone, before you knew nothing, except pain and blood? 

You feel the familiar urge to run, to get as far away as possible, but you can’t move. You also want to cry, but you force yourself not to, as you stare at the glass of water Matt had poured for Karen when she came in, forcing yourself to stare at it instead of one of them. 

Their chatter becomes dull noise in a roar of dissociation, static filling your brain as you relish in all the terrible things floating around in your brain. 

You’ve always been alone, you’re sure. You don’t know exactly how long you’d been in the lab, but you’re sure it was a long time, long enough that it’s strange that no one ever came for you. Maybe you went willingly. Maybe you went by your own accord, and that would mean that this is all your fault. That you did this to yourself, that you deserve the scars from those needles, since no one forced you to be experimented on, you did this all to yourself. 

You sink deeper into the darkness. Into the blood that sloshes around your brain, blurring your memories. 

Why do you even let Matt help you? You don’t deserve it. You’re only putting him in more danger, more than you’re worth. You’re not worth anything, you’re a blood bank, remember? Matt, maybe he made a mistake, when he saved you. He’s good, he helps people, he’s so kind, and you’re horrible. You’re angry, and bitter, and sad, and selfish. Maybe you should’ve just died in that lab. 

The water starts to bubble like it’s being boiled on the table. 

You’re just not worth all of this effort, not when you’ve done so many horrible things, not when your blood has been used for things you can’t even begin to describe, not when you did this to yourself. Maybe there’s still time to fix it, you reason—maybe you should just end it. Maybe you should just kill—

The glass of water shatters, glass and water spilling everywhere. All three heads turn to it as Karen gasps, obviously surprised. Your eyes are wide with surprise too. You’re trembling now, and you can smell blood, but you’re not sure why. You’re dizzy. Your chest heaves up and down, and Matt notices your frenzied state. 

He frowns, and grabs a rag from his kitchen, going over to the coffee table. His head tilts towards yours with a gentle smile as he begins to clean it up, 

“It’s okay. No harm done, it was an old glass, anyways.” He assures, scooping glass into the wet rag. He goes to dump it out in the trash, and as he passes Karen and Foggy, he mumbles, “Oh, yeah. There’s that too.” 

You put your head between your knees and try to breathe. You only flinch when you feel a warm hand on your head, gently petting your hair.

-

One night, Matt wakes up to the sound of you crying. Your gentle sobs wrack your body from the other room, as you try and control your breathing. And although every bone in Matt’s body is aching for sleep, he pulls himself up off the couch, rubs his eyes and makes his way to his bedroom. 

He’s been sleeping on the couch since you got here, and he can’t deny that he misses his bed. But he’s happy to give you your privacy, sure that you aren’t used to that luxury. Besides, he feels bad that he falls asleep to the thought of you every night. Not because he’s worried for you, but because he longs to be close to you. 

He’s definitely going to hell. This alone is enough to damn him. 

He wears dark sweatpants and an old Columbia tee shirt, and the sound of your crying is making his heart ache. He can’t help himself as his feet begin to move towards the bedroom door. He stops there, listening for a long moment. You’re crying, but your movements are subtle. You’re twitching, and Matt’s face softens when he realizes you’re having a nightmare. 

He opens the door as quietly as he can, and makes his way over to his bed, where you’re sobbing in your sleep, flinching like you’re hurting, your leg moving like you’re trying to run. He goes over to the bed and sits near your head, his hand gently resting on your arm. 

“Hey,” he begins, “Hey, kid, c’mon, wake up.” He tries, gently shaking you, and when you keep crying he sighs, “C’mon, brave girl, wake up for me, I promise, you’re okay. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you.” He leans down to press a kiss to your forehead, and you choose that exact moment to wake up, and move your head right up—your forehead hitting Matt’s nose with a light crunch!, as you panic, gasping for air as you move away from him. 

Matt whimpers and scrunches his face, his hand coming up to hold his nose. But you didn’t hit hard enough to break his nose or draw blood, so he’s not super worried about it. However, you know he’s hurting, and you feel horrible, because all Matt has done is save you, feed you, try to make you feel safe, and you hurt him. 

God, what a waste of space you are. 

You keep crying, and you hate yourself for it. For all of it, but especially this. You swore of crying in front of anyone a long time ago, so long you can’t remember when you did, back when you still had some sort of resolve, when you didn’t want to show whoever was hurting you how vulnerable you really were.

Matt reaches for you instinctively. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” he says it softly, like he’s talking to a skittish animal, which, you’re not too far off from, “You’re safe, I’ve got you, baby,” he says, and neither of you are in the state to address that slip. “Can I hold you?” He requests, and you only sob, wishing to go home. 

Where even is home? Did you ever have one? Do you have parents out there, somewhere? Folks who raised you, who made you soup when you were sick, who knew when your birthday was, and never missed it? 

Matt takes your crying as a yes, scooting over a bit and wrapping his arms around you, pulling you close. He cradles you close, your head tucked under his chin. Your nose rubs against his Adam’s apple, against the bottom of his scruff, as his hand gently pets your hair. You clutch his other arm with both of your hands, afraid he’ll disappear. You don’t stop crying. 

“It was just a nightmare. You’re safe here, I’ve got you.” He whispers it over and over again, like a prayer, just barely rocking you. “Just a nightmare.” 

A nightmare you can barely remember now, but it felt so real. 

Your tears slow, simply because you have nothing left to give. You’re still trembling. Matt hates it when you shake. Just tell me how to fix it, he wants to say, but that would be a load of shit—he can’t fix what you’ve been through. He can’t even fix how you’re feeling right now. 

But even if you’re not crying, you’re still hyperventilating, so he starts to rub slow circles into your back with his hand. 

“Kid, you have to breathe. Just breathe with me, okay? In,” He inhales, listening for you to follow suite, and then exhales, “Out.” The two of you sit like this for a long moment as you match his breathing, no longer breathing in a way that deprives your brain or your lungs of the necessary oxygen. Matt thinks of the nose cannula you had on when he first met you. “Do you want me to go get you a glass of water? Or I can go—” But you start shaking again at the idea of him leaving. 

Your hands cling to him, gripping his arm tighter. 

“Stay.” You request, and Matt nods, pulling you closer. 

He presses a kiss to your head. 

“Okay, I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” He says softly. 

And true to his word, Matt holds you until the sun rises, and you’re completely sure you’re not in any danger. Although, in the back of your mind, you are worried for the way you melt into him, the way you trust him, the way you wish you could stay in his arms forever. 

-

You haven’t eaten in days and Matt’s beginning to get worried. He knows you, or at least, he likes to pretend that he does. Aren’t you hungry? 

You haven’t had much of an appetite lately, anyways, but you usually can stomach some soup or something light. 

But for the past three days, you haven’t had an appetite at all; Matt knows it’s hard, he’s had a hard time taking care of himself before, but he can’t help but wonder what he could do to help you eat something. You were so fucking hungry when you first met, where did that go? Where is his girl that would shovel handfuls of takeout into her mouth? 

As a compromise with himself, he decides to tuck you into bed and tells you he’ll be back in a few hours, that Daredevil must make an appearance for the night. It’s been a few days since he’s really let himself get into it. 

He spends hours throwing punches, swinging kicks and getting punched right back. He crawls into the apartment at around three in the morning, sweaty and smelling as he tries to make his way through a rattled brain and into the shower. But he hears you in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. So, he heads towards you. 

“Hey, kid,” He says as he limps towards the kitchen, pulling off his helmet. His hair is drenched in sweat, sticking to his forehead despite the short length, “What’re you doing up?” he asks, and you stop, not realizing he was there. 

You slowly turn towards him, a mouth full of raw ground beef as your hands dig into the package you have taken the raw meat from. You don’t say much, you tend not to, and Matt really doesn’t mind. Except, maybe, for the fact that you’re the lovely girl he’s been developing feelings for, and he wishes he could hear more of your voice. 

You let out something resembling a coo, and then clear your throat,

“Hungry.” You tell him, scooping a big handful of ground beef into your mouth letting out a hum as you enjoy the texture. Matt frowns softly and goes over to you. He has no idea what’s wrong with you, why the first thing you’ve eaten in days is raw meat. 

“I know, I mean,” He pulls off thick gloves and sighs, “I bet you are. This is the first time I’ve seen you eat in days.” He reminds, approaching you. You don’t flinch, you just reach for another bite, and Matt lets you have it. 

Then, you shake your head. 

“Can’t see.” Your pointer finger comes up to run along the bridge of Matt’s nose, right between his eyes. He tenses a bit, a small smile on his face as you rub small grains of raw beef on his forehead. 

“Yeah, you’re right. I meant I know you haven’t eaten in days. I’ve been worried about you.” He confesses. You tilt your head. 

“Not worried.” You assure, with a small shake of your head. Matt smiles a bit. 

‘Yeah, I know you’re not worried. You’re never worried about you. That’s why I am.” He reminds, and when he senses you going for another bite of the raw beef, he gently wraps his fingers around your wrist. “You can’t keep eating raw meat. You’ll get sick.” You let out a whine and try to pull your wrist back, and Matt lets you but he also pulls the raw beef from your hands, and then you whine louder. “I know, I’m sure it tastes good, but you’ll get sick, and you’ll feel awful, honey.” 

You pause. 

“Honey?” 

Matt sighs, feeling bad about the slip up. He shouldn’t be using pet names for you, he has no idea how much you do or do not understand about the world around you. It’s why he feels so bad that he likes you so much. He tosses and turns, goes back and forth, is it even okay, morally, to fall for someone if you don’t know that they understand what love is? Does it make him even more of a sinner than he thought? 

“It’s just a nickname. For friends, I guess.” Matt sighs. 

“We are friends?” You ask, and Matt nods. 

“We are. We take care of each other, right?” He wonders, and if you had the words, you’d tell him that he takes care of you far more than you take care of him. You look from your hands, covered in specs of meat, then to Matt, sweaty, tired and a little bit beaten up. You frown softly when you notice a cut on his head. 

“Matthew Hurt,” You chirp, and you go to touch his forehead, but again, his hand wraps around your wrist, oh, so gently, 

“I’ll live. It’s okay. Can you wash your hands, please?” He really does not need your ground beef hands on him. Again. And you oblige, washing your hands as he sticks the raw meat in the fridge again, and when you turn back to him, you reach past him to try and get into the fridge, but he’s blocking your reach. 

“Hungry.” You echo, and Matt sighs. 

“I know,” He promises, “I’ll get you whatever you want.. but raw meat isn’t good for you. I could cook it for you, if you want.” And to that, you make a face, with a disgusted ‘ick’, sticking your tongue out. “Okay, I won’t cook it for you. How about..” Matt turns, goes back into the fridge and finds edible cookie dough. He hands you the tub, and you take it begrudgingly. 

“Fine.” You grumble, and you open the tub of cookie dough, taking a scoop. The sweetness makes you hum, licking the dough off your fingers. “Thank you, honey.” You hum, and Matt smiles. 

“You’re welcome. How about you eat, while I shower?” He wonders. You know this is the routine, even if you’re usually asleep for it. 

“Then we cuddle?” You wonder, and Matt smiles. Sure, he shouldn’t be falling for you, but how could he deny such a request? 

“If that’s what you want, then sure.” He promises, “But no more eating raw meat, okay?” He confirms and you take a second. Then, you nod. 

“Okay.” 

-

Matt doesn’t really care about bookstores, especially the big ones, mostly because they’re usually too loud for a store with a limited number of books he can actually read. But you’ve made your way through the two or three books that had been left at his place from old flings at least twice. 

So, of course, he stands a foot away as your fingers graze against the spines of various books. You’re examining all of the titles, trying to find something familiar. You know, from the few books you’ve been able to get your hands on since meeting Matt, that you really like reading—

You’re sure you did. You miss feeling normal, even though you cannot remember what that was really like. Matt keeps assuring you that it’ll get easier, that you won’t feel this way forever. You don’t respond when he says this, but you want to tell him that maybe this is it; this is as normal as you’ll ever be. 

You find yourself in the young adult section—why, you do not know. Then, you pluck a book from the stands, finding a.. familiar title. The Hunger Games. You blink, startled. You know this book. 

You love this book. 

Although, you cannot for the life of you remember why, or what the story is about.

You clutch the book in your hands and immediately open it, starting to read the first page, and although you don’t remember the contents of the story now, you are hooked on every single word. 

In the middle of the aisle, you sit down, your eyes still following the sentences, only getting to the end of the page when you hear Matthew’s voice—

“Honey, you can’t just sit in the middle of the aisle and start reading. We’re here to shop, remember?”

“Can’t. Your favorite word.” You’re getting better at full sentences, and Matt is hoping that through reading, you’ll only get better.

“I’m sorry,” He sits down next to you in the aisle, and you find yourself not minding his closeness. “Was that sass?” he wonders, and you glare at him, although there’s no anger in it. Not yet. You know he’s teasing. You hate it when he teases, your face always gets too red. But you hate the silence more.

“I want to read.” You grumble, looking down at the page. You squirm when you feel Matt’s hand on the back of your neck. 

“I know,” he promises, and he’s honestly on the verge of pissing you off. You really like him, he’s the only person you feel safe with, and yet, you can feel yourself grow frustrated. He’s cooing at you, like you’re stupid, but you’re not stupid, you just don’t have the words to express yourself, not like everyone else does. “But we should find you more books, that way we can—”

“No.” You say firmly, turning the page of your book. You want to know more, you want to understand why you feel so drawn to this book, why it was so important to you once upon a long fucking time ago, and Matt doesn’t understand. Does he understand what it’s like to lose everything, to feel so disconnected from who you once were? 

“Kid, I know, you want to read, but—”

Oh, my god, you hate this. Why isn’t he listening to you? He’s supposed to be on your side, and you can feel your heart beating faster with frustration, your head rushing—you can hear the blood rushing through your skull, and you hate it more than you hate this frustration--

“No!” You snap, and when you do, a nearby light overhead goes out with a dramatic snap!, causing numerous gasps to erupt form nearby patrons, and you close your eyes, trying to get control of your breathing. You can’t think about Matt right now, can’t think about how horrible you feel. Why are you like this? Once you’re sure you won’t do it again, you open your eyes to look at Matt. “I did not…” you shake your head, and his face is tilted up towards the light, face twisted in confusion, as if he’s trying to figure the light out. 

“I know,” he repeats, and you exhale, trying to not get more upset. “I’m not mad—"

“Say something else.” You demand, and his shoulders deflate. He nods, before continuing, 

“Maybe you could read some of your book to me.” He offers, and your lips tilt up a bit, the tension melting from your shoulders. 

“Okay.” You say softly, and then Matt gently rubs your arm up, and down. 

“Would you like to pick out a few more books? Maybe we could stop by the CD section, too.” He offers, and you smile more. You glance down to your book, and you know you can’t keep being so stubborn, that you need to agree to going with him, because he’s assuming you can’t understand as much as he does. 

“No money.” You sigh. 

Matt shakes his head and waves his hand, like it doesn’t even matter. 

“My treat.” He says, and then he stands up, and offers you his hand. “C’mon. I’m getting hungry, anyways.” You know he’s not, but he always says that when your stomach rumbles, and you’re wondering if he’ll always have the upper hand on reading you, on knowing your cues. 

Then, you think it’s nice to be known so well, and you can’t find it in yourself to be angry about it. 

-

You find that you really love the sun. You love the way the warmth feels on your skin and you love the brightness of it—closing your eyes and tilting your head right up to see all these different dull oranges behind your eyelids. 

Maybe Summer was your favorite season, before. Maybe you had days like these, before. 

Karen hates that you’re always so cooped up in Matt’s apartment. He’s your only friend, and when he’s at work, Karen wonders what you do to keep yourself entertained all day. Matt says you have books and music, but how fulfilling can that really be? 

So, Karen asked you if you wanted to go to the farmer’s market they were having by the docks. When the sun shines and it’s warm, the people of New York tend to come out of hibernation, so Matt was a little worried about you being suddenly around so many people. 

But he didn’t save you from that lab just for you to stay cooped up in his apartment all day when he’s not around. He told you that you should go. 

You wore one of Matt’s button ups and a pair of shorts he had gotten for you, your shirt only half tucked in, sleeves rolled up to your elbows. Your arm hooks around Karen’s, mostly because it’s what you’re so used to doing with Matt. She smells different than him, though, more like lavender and clean laundry than his coffee-cologne, hint of vanilla scent. You don’t mind, it’s a good different. Ten minutes into your exploration of the farmers market, you bought a small bouquet of roses, before picking the petals and popping them in your mouth. You tried Karen’s strawberry matcha from one of the booths, and you thought it was fine. You sipped a lemonade as she perused some pretty crochet creations that a young woman with many piercings was selling—you were amazed by her piercings.

Overall, you were having a nice day. 

You’ve been happily humming for a few minutes now, letting yourself be guided by Karen, only occasionally pulling her towards something that catches your eye. 

Your eyes scan the crowd, back and forth, just looking. Maybe you’re watching for danger, although, you aren’t sure what danger there would be in this place like this, where younger kids wander far from their parents who don’t want to stop their wine tasting to look at blind boxes. 

Your eyes land on a man—he’s staring at Karen. He’s staring at her like he wants something, and it makes your nose twitch. You don’t like it. Your humming ceases as you stare the man down, your gaze hardening as Karen finishes buying some tea she knows Foggy wanted to try. She turns back to you when she hears you start to growl, the type of low, back of the throat growl a pitbull might do when they sense danger. 

You’re not sure why, but as you glare at him, your ears start to ring, and you hear the rushing of blood—but not your blood. His.

You’re weird. She knows that. She doesn’t really mind it, all things considered. But, she’s trying to learn your cues. 

“What’s wrong?” She asks, then follows your gaze to the man who’s staring at her. She scoffs and then rolls her eyes. “Weirdo. Don’t worry about him, okay?” You can’t stop worrying about him even if you wanted to, but you’re pulled back to reality when Karen hooks her arm with yours again, before smiling. “Don’t worry,” She taps her bag with her hand, and you listen to the faintest click of metal, “Mine’s bigger than his.” 

You don’t fully know what the joke is here, but she says it with the same cadence as Matt does when he’s joking, so you know she’s not worried or upset. So, you laugh, and it makes Karen laugh—and the two of you walk away from the staring man to go get lunch at one from one of the vendors on the other side of the farmer’s market. 

When you find something yummy, you and Karen sit next to each other on a bench, people watching as you eat and sip, like nothing about either of you is anything except completely normal. 

And then, your mouth starts to water when you notice a pig being set up to be roasted, still raw, and the illusion of normalcy is broken.  

-

You have good days and bad days. 

Today is a bad day. 

You wake up restless. You wake up unable to find words, unable to talk. You’re looking over your shoulder all through breakfast. You’re watching Matt get ready for work. You’re tapping your foot anxiously, as if you’re trying to outrun your fears, all while sitting in the same place. 

You know there’s uncooked steaks in the fridge, and you have this desire to sink your teeth into them, lick the drops blood out of the container. Everything is wrong. You can hear Matt’s blood swirling through his veins. You’re dizzy. 

“Doin’ okay over there?” He asks, a small smile on his face. He really tries to keep a sense of normalcy when you have these bad days, but it’s not easy. He’s worried about you, he’s so fucking worried, and you won’t talk to him. 

You let out a whine, and the smile drops from his face.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he starts gently. “Is it the food? Can I get you something else?” 

Of course it’s the food, but It’s also everything else. 

You whine again, burying your face in your hands. Matt’s frown deepens, and he steps closer to you. 

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” He reminds, and you want to kill him. You’ve never had that thought about Matt before, it scares you, but you’re mad. You’re mad that he doesn’t understand that you can’t, that the words aren’t even available for you to use. You want to cry, but something in you insists that you don’t, that you cannot show vulnerability, even to this man that you lo—really enjoy the company of. 

Matt sighs at your silence, as his shoulders fall. 

“Okay.” He nods, “Okay. Then, I have to go to work.” He moves away from you and goes to the door to get his jacket. You’re up in an instant, following him. The only thing worse than him being so close is him not being here at all. Your breathing becomes uneven as you struggle with the thought of being without him. You need him, you think, you cannot live without him, you won’t—you’re not safe here without him, you’re not safe anywhere without him. 

Matt is also dealing with an internal conflict. He wants to hold you, cradle you close. But you need to work through your emotions, you need to be able to not shut down every time you have a bad day, you need to heal. And if he babies you, if he keeps running to your aid whenever you whine, you never will. 

And then you’ll spend the rest of your days in this apartment, where he’ll fall deeper and deeper in love with you. 

Besides, Matt never claimed to be a perfect man. 

You grab at his arm, pulling him away from the door. It doesn’t do much, instead leaving Matt more annoyed than before. 

“No, C’mon, you know I have to go.” But this isn’t good enough for you. You tug harder, willing yourself to communicate without words that you need him, that you’re sorry, that you’ll never ever do anything bad ever again. Matt sighs, before putting his free hand on his hip like a disappointed mother. “Tell me. Use your words and tell me you want me to stay, and I will.”

You try. You open your mouth to tell him, but the words die in your throat. In your captivity, you had forgotten how to speak. Now, the effects of what you have gone through render you speechless once more. 

Matt tries not to let his frustration show on his face. 

He moves his hand from yours and brings it up to your face, cupping your cheek. 

“I’m sorry. I gotta go. But I’ll bring home food, we’ll have a nice meal, and I’ll hold you for as long as you want. I promise, Honey, it’ll all be okay—”

But you’re not listening to a word he says. Your eyes are glued onto his arm, static and the sound of rushing blood filling your ears again. Your mouth starts to water, and whatever primal instinct that has aided your survival up until this point wins when he retracts his hand. 

In a flash, Your teeth sink into the skin of his forearm. Not the light, teasing nibble of a lover, but the crazed, blood thirsty gnaw of an animal, one that has been tortured for too long. You draw blood, tear skin, and then, Matt pulls his arm away with a cry. 

For a moment, you don’t even feel bad. You relish in the taste of him, in the way his blood overwhelms your tastebuds, at the way his skin tastes. You don’t tear off a lot of flesh, but it’s enough, and he’s bleeding. It’s not pretty. 

Then, Matt loses it. 

“Are you.. fucking kidding me?!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but you just tore a chunk out of his arm, after weeks and months of gentle care. “Did you just bite me?! I cannot believe you,” he huffs, and he doesn’t process your shaking or the way you flinch away from him. He’s just so angry. 

You back away from him, before turning and walking towards the bedroom. That makes him even angrier. 

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me!” He snaps, “You bit me like a damn animal, you do not get to walk away from me—” He follows you, but you can’t hear him. You can’t breathe, everything about this is nauseating. You walk into the bedroom, and Matt sighs. He takes a deep breath, not realizing how uneven his breathing had become. “Honey, I’m sorry, I—” 

You slam the door behind you, and Matt blinks, flabbergasted. He holds his bleeding arm with one hand but quickly drops it. 

“Fine! You want to be like that? Like a fucking stray dog that I picked up? Fine!” His hand forms a fist and he slams it against his—your bedroom door. It rattles the entire wall, and he can hear you wailing on the other side, but he’s so angry—he does have the devil in him, after all, as much as you have a deep-rooted bloodthirstiness in you. 

You cover your ears with your hands, as the lights in Matt’s room flicker, a glass mirror he had bought for you, when he realized he didn’t have one in the apartment, when he realized you probably had no idea what your reflection even looked like, cracks, and then shatters. 

Matt, too angry at himself, and honestly, at you, simply grabs a dishtowel from his kitchen, pressing it into the fresh wound in his arm. God, he’s filled with a rage he hasn’t been in months. You calm him, as strange as you are, but this is other worldly. It seems, just as much as you can calm him, you fuel the fire of rage that settles in the pit of his stomach. 

He slips on his jacket and leaves, slamming the door behind him. He forgets his cane. 

Of course, he’s angry the entire walk to the office and when he gets there. He stews, and then rants, angrily, to Karen and Foggy about it as Foggy fishes his through the first aid kit that he keeps, specifically for when Matt gets his shit rocked during the day instead of late at night. 

And then, of course, he feels horrible. 

He knows he’s allowed to feel frustrated, that he’s allowed to be upset, that even anger has it’s place. But, you’re not just a girlfriend he’s had a rough fight with. You’re the poor girl he saved from a lab, where your blood was being extracted out of you. And you’re some kind of freak of nature (Although, Matt would put it much more delicately than that), desperate for any sense of normalcy. 

And he failed you. Yes, you absolutely did bite him, and he’d have a whole conversation about that with you, but when you were vulnerable, when you really needed him, he let his emotions get the best of him and yelled at you. 

He feels awful about it all day. He barely gets any work done, but he assumes you need space. By the end of the day, his wound has clotted, and he’s called in to the Chinese place you both like to get you dinner. You were crying so much, you must be hungry. He thinks about the bitemark on his arm. 

He’s home by ten to five, but you’re not there to greet him. He places the takeout on the table near his doorway, takes off his jacket, and then his glasses. He sighs, and then he listens for where you are. 

You’re in the closet, on top of the trunk, just like the first day he really met you. He makes his way to the bedroom, and then, to the closet. He notes the broken mirror, and the pillow stained with tears. 

He knocks gently on the armoire door. 

“Honey?” he asks gently. You give no response. Matt’s heart aches in his chest. “I’m gonna open the door now.” He sighs, and then he does. You cower into the corner, like the frightened animal you are. And he can’t deny the way he missed you today. You’re whimpering, and dry heaving like you want to cry more, but you can’t. And of course, you’re trembling. Matt hates it when you shake.

He sits down in front of the closet like he did that first day. 

“My arm is fine. And I’m not mad at you.” Then, he pauses. “Well.. I am, but.. we can talk about that later. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I should’ve stayed home.” He sighs. You still don’t respond, so he offers, “Can you please come out here, so I can hold you and apologize?” He wonders, and you, being just as devoted to him as he is to you, and having had hours to make yourself sick with guilt, completely dissipating your frustration, crawl right out of the armoire and into his lap.. like a cat. He sighs, wraps his arms around you, and just like he does when you have a nightmare, rests his chin on the top of your head as it curls into his neck.

“There she is, there’s my girl.” He mumbles, and the tiniest part of you, you’ll admit, wants to bite him again. Not out of anger, but out of a need to taste the love he has for you. You overcome that instinct. 

The two of you sit in silence for a long, long while, before he talks again. 

“I’m so sorry. I never should’ve yelled at you. You’re just.. scared, and alone..” And doesn’t he remember how that felt? How horrible it felt to have nothing, and no one? “I’m sorry.” And he presses a kiss to your head to prove it. You purr in response. He can’t help but smile. 

You trace patterns on his arms, before finding your first words since you woke up this morning,

“I’m sorry.” It’s a gentle whisper, but Matt hears it all the same. 

“I know,” He sighs. “We’re both awful, and we’re both sorry.” He decides, before shaking his head. “No, You’re not awful. I’m sorry, you’re wonderful.” He presses another kiss to your head.

But you are awful, you want to tell him, but it hurts to think, let alone talk. 

Matt holds you for a long moment, before asking, 

“Can you tilt your head up for me?” He wonders, “I want to see your face.” 

And although talking feels like a herculean task, you cannot help but offer him an olive branch. Your hand leaves his arm, and a finger traces the space between Matt’s eyes, down the bridge of his nose. 

“Can’t see.” You whisper, and Matt smiles. What a pretty smile, you think for the millionth time. 

“I know,” he says softly, “Just let me..” his hands move now, coming up to your face. Even with his senses, he needs this right now. He places his hands on your cheeks and begins to map out the details of your face with the pads of his fingertips. “Oh my god, You’re beautiful.” He says softly, and it almost comes out as a whine. 

Then, because Matt really never claimed to be a perfect man, his lips are on yours. It’s perfect. You taste of salty tears, a vague mint toothpaste and.. a copper taste he doesn’t care to think about. But you’re perfect. You’re beautiful, and you’re perfect. He’s kissing you, cradling your face with his hands, and then, he comes to his senses and pulls back.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps, “I never should’ve—I should’ve asked you before I did that, please don’t—” But then, you’re kissing him. And he likes that even more. He responds with a hum and he continues to kiss you, your hand gently rubbing small, comforting circles around where you bit him. 

You pull away and bring his arm to your lips. He inhales sharply, and you kiss where you’ve torn his flesh with your teeth over the bandage.

“I’m sorry.” You mumble softly, and Matt shakes his head. 

“I told you, we can talk about it later.” He offers, and then he kisses you again, but he pulls away after a moment. “But maybe you should wash the taste of it out of your mouth. Just so I can keep kissing you. Then, we can have dinner.” He offers, and this seems reasonable enough, besides, you need to wipe the crust and exhaustion from your meltdown away with a warm washcloth. 

But, you can’t help yourself.

“Kiss?” You wonder, the word coming out as a chirp more than anything else. 

And of course, Matt obliges you. Even if he thinks, maybe, he can taste his own flesh on your lips. It’s not exactly a turn on, but you’re his beautiful, perfect, freak of a girl. So, he kisses you again. 

-

Well, tonight sucks. It didn’t start out so bad, not really, and then it started to rain. It always made it harder for him to be Daredevil in the rain, the extra noise always distracting him or hiding sounds. As he made his way home, it really started to pour, just as Matt was really processing the growing ache in his side from when someone landed a particularly powerful punch.

Then, as he made his way home, back to his beloved apartment, his apartment where you wait for him, where you sleep soundly in his bed, completely oblivious to the bad night he’s having, he hears a woman cry for help, the click of a gun, and a whisper for her to stay quiet. 

She got away as soon as Matt dropped down, as soon as the man who deserves much worse than Matt will ever give him turns his attention towards the devil. But a loud clap of thunder caught Matt off guard, and suddenly, he’s the one who’s getting the shit beaten out of him.

If he can survive tonight, tomorrow is going to be just as bad, he’ll be in pain and you’ll be so sad, and the idea of that is somehow worse than when the man hits Matt right in the nose and he hears a devastating crack!

Then, the man finds his gun that Matt had kicked out of his hand. 

Matt’s thankful he can only hear so much since he’s so concussed. 

He was stupid, letting his guard down like that.

Now, he’ll die the same way his father died, with someone waiting for him to come home, depending on him. He feels the end of the gun on his forehead, ribs aching every time he inhales or exhales. Will you ever know how much he loves you? Will you ever know what happened to him, how he was really on his way back to you, to your arms, to your lips, when he died? 

Will you ever know that he would do anything for you, that the very love you’ve been craving is just two blocks away, head throbbing? 

He thinks about the sounds you make when you cry, and it makes his heart ache. He’s saved you just to tear you right back down, devastating you by rehabilitating you, making you fall in love with him, and then, leaving you. 

His weird, perfect girl with scars from needles, with an affinity for blood, a craving for flesh, and an ability you probably don’t quite understand yourself. His perfect, strange girl who he could drink up like lemonade on a sunny day, who snuck up on him, and yet, he feels like his life lead right to your side. 

Silly, silly him for thinking he could be happy. For thinking that things could work out for poor, tortured Matthew. 

He closes his eyes behind his mask and waits to die.

But the shot never comes. 

Instead, the man drops his gun from Matt’s head, as he starts to cough, and then, Matt can smell his blood. 

From what he can tell, it’s dripping down the man’s face from his nose, then, he’s gurgling on his own blood as it pours out of his mouth, and then, blood is coming from his eye sockets, and the balls of his eyes roll back— complete with a subtle snap, coming from somewhere in the man’s skull. He falls to the ground then, lifeless. 

Matt feels like he can’t breathe, and that’s when he processes you, at the end of the alleyway, blood running down yourface from your nose. Your hand comes up to wipe it away, and then you’re kneeling in front of him, your hands on his cheeks, cradling him softly.

He’s shaking now, and you hate the man you just killed with everything you have for making him so scared. 

“You are hurt,” you tell him, studying his features. Matt shakes his head, even though that makes it worse,

“I’m okay...” He mumbles, which is true, he will live but he does feel shell shocked, not to mention his numerous injuries. “I’m alright.” He comforts, and then he pulls you in close, wrapping his arms around you, still shaking, still freezing from the rain, still concussed and still terrified, of dying, of the man lying on the ground— and you wrap your arms around him, gently stroking his head like he has done to you so many times— 

“It’s okay, Honey.” You echo a familiar comfort, and then, your lips are on his, kissing him. Matt can’t help himself. He didn’t think he’d be able to kiss you again, so he relishes it. The idea that any kiss with you could be the last one freaks him out, maybe even more than the thought of dying. 

Matt has exactly one thought as he inhales the smell of so much blood—

At first, you didn’t understand what the big deal was.

It wasn’t dramatic, there was no slow motion, there was no thundering action music, there wasn’t even a loud noise.

You wouldn’t have registered it at all, truthfully.

If it weren’t for the screaming.

Karen’s hands violently shake around your chest, her whole body shuddering uncontrollably, a string of expletives flying from her lips on a frantic hiss as she tries to stop the bleeding.

Foggy yells at everyone to get the hell off the street, ushering people into Josie’s in droves, panting and wild, before turning back to you, his face pale and clammy.

“Foggy, oh my God!”, Karen stutters out, nearly retching in shock from the amount of blood pouring out of you.

He rips his coat off then, stuffing it into a ball and applying pressure with it over the top of Karen’s hands.

The warmth of it was weirdly inviting, as you couldn’t remember when you’d suddenly become so cold.

Your vision swims as you try to take in their movements, your eyes becoming glazed over and unfocused.

Huh.

Kind of like-

“MATT!”, Foggy practically wails at the top of his lungs, the syllable slightly slurred from the way his throat feels like there’s a noose around it, unforgiving and definite.

“MATT, PLEASE! WE NEED YOU!”

They’re both hysterical now, Karen’s breathing rapidly sharpening into short, hyperventilating gasps, whilst tears stream down Foggy’s face as he screams Matt’s name over and over until his voice becomes hoarse and strained with the effort.

You…

You really wanted-

“Matt…”

Karen shushes you gently, and you think she’s trying to tell you not to talk, but the words come out garbled, your voice and hers unfamiliar and distant to your own ears as you try to remember where Matt was.

From somewhere far, far away from you, steady footsteps echo your way; your two horrified friends locking eyes with none other than Benjamin Poindexter before you lose consciousness for the first time, drifting away to the thought of a warm embrace, and calloused hands.

——————

“Matt…”

His ears were ringing.

His head was pounding around the inside of his mask.

The city was so loud tonight, much more than it had been mere moments ago.

He didn’t understand what had happened, only that the trail to Foggy’s client was a dead end, and that he had to get back.

He had to get back.

“Matt…”

Because there was screaming, so much screaming and so many panicked, battering, fluttering heartbeats and pulse spikes, and erratic footsteps at once, he furiously hits into the side of his cowl with the heel of his hand, struggling to orient.

There was no warning.

Only one, desperate plea from his best friend, ringing out amongst the chaos and the smell of blood, so much blood, blood that was-

“MATT, PLEASE! WE NEED YOU!”

He took off like a shot, vaulting his body over rooftops, grappling across his city that he loved so much, his city that had suddenly turned on him, suffocating him with the stench of misery and fear.

The wind batters against his suit, and he snarls in fury at anything that might dare to slow him down.

The sounds are coming clearer now, and everything that his senses begin to slowly unravel nauseate him, fighting hard to keep composure, to get to you.

But then he hears it fully.

Your weakened pulse.

Foggy’s broken sobs.

The blood pouring out of your body.

Karen’s frantic pleading as she administers pressure.

Your wet, rattling breaths.

And one lone voice, light and teasing, a sickening contrast to everything else.

“Hi Karen.”

Matt Murdock hurls himself through the shape of Benjamin Poindexter on a furious roar, throwing them both to the ground before he can fire another shot.

——————

It’s strange what happens to you next.

You’re in Foggy’s arms, you know this, but the sirens are a far, distant thing, the sharp bite of the concrete beneath you slipping into something softer as you are pulled into this fleeting, surging lapse of time, flashes of sound and touch washing over you all at once.

You take in the fluorescent lights in this long corridor of dorm rooms, the smell of pizza and soda seeping into you with every inhale. You startle a bit to realise that you’re running, and Matt is running with you, his carefree laughter melting into your shoulder as you catch your breath on a corner.

“Foggy is gonna kill us when he catches us”, he huffs breathlessly into you on a soaring laugh.

You pant into him as he holds you by your waist, fingers skating up and down your sides, kissing him breathlessly, before pulling back on a wicked smirk.

“That was certainly one way for him to find out.”

As if some part of you is aware of the memory, you smile softly, taking his hand and turning the corner straight into the office of Nelson and Murdock.

The four of you sit around the rickety table that is overflowing with Chinese food, your hand in Matt’s, his fingers gently tracing your wrist as Foggy squawks about bankruptcy and financial ruin.

“To the dream team of crippling debt! May your cups stay full, and your bank accounts empty!”

The flashes come quicker now.

Coffee spilled over case files, drinking the dreaded eel in Josie’s on a dare, stumbling back to Matt’s apartment, drunken and joyous.

Foggy’s bear hugs, sunlight in his fingertips, wine nights with Karen, voices conspiratorial and low as you regale her with stories of the boys in college that should never see the light of day.

They pass over you beautifully, these memories, too quick, desperate to hold onto them for a fraction longer before suddenly, everything stops.

Time slows to a halt as you find yourself in Matt’s apartment, breath catching as he suddenly appears right in front of you, quiet and thoughtful, brow furrowed in concentration as he brushes his fingers over your face.

“You’re so beautiful”, he murmurs on a soft sigh, his touch ghosting over you in devoted reverence.

You’d learned long ago not to jest that he couldn’t see you, so he couldn’t possibly know. Regardless of what you thought, it’s how he’d always made you feel.

Instead, you look over him now, at your Matt, with his rough, but gentle hands, always wandering, always searching. You look at his beautiful, beautiful eyes, amber and honeyed like the warm bath of a church light, like the last glow of a sunset resting against old brick.

The skin around them is older now, soft smile lines forming around them and spreading out to his hairline which has also changed. There are little flecks of grey tracing around his temples, tiny, glimmering patches in his beard. He is more sure of himself than he ever was, strong, assertive, confident.

He’s turned into the man you always knew he would become when you met him in college all those years ago, that charming, reckless boy who you knew, even then, that you would love for the rest of your life.

“So are you”, you respond softly, and the gentle curve of his lips appears as though he can’t stop it, tender and warm and dripping with adoration.

You’d have stayed in that memory forever, except-

The sound of Matt’s boot thuds directly against your ear, dropping next to you and panting out breathless, audible groans of pain, his gloved hands shaking violently as he reaches out to touch you, to hold you.

“I’m here, I’m-“

He never gets that chance.

“LOOK OUT!”, Karen yelps from your side as Poindexter hurls shards of glass straight through Matt’s back, arching on a pained moan, before retreating into the darkened door of an old apartment complex.

Foggy and Karen watch as Matt follows, watch as your eyes flutter wildly, fighting to open, watch your breathing get slower and slower, frantic and powerless.

“An ambulance is gonna be here soon”, Foggy chokes out on a thick sob, his hand stroking through your hair.

“She’s losing too much blood!”, Karen shrieks, her panic climbing higher and higher but you pay it no mind.

In your head, there is only Matt, your wonderful, frustrating, sensitive, reckless, kind, brave and beautiful Matt.

You’d lost your ability to speak some time ago, the blood blocking the path to your voice, the taste of rust and salt overwhelming you.

You didn’t mind though.

If this was it, if your final moments were here, being held by your friends, and wrapped in the bubble of Hell’s Kitchen under a night sky, you were content.

Content to float away to thoughts of him, and content for his name to be the last thing that falls from your lips.

——————

He feels it all burn away.

His composure, morality, strength, conscience, it all sets him on fire, in one agonising burst of flame that he cannot escape.

He hears your last breath.

He hears Karen’s agonised, broken wail.

He hears Foggy’s hushed ‘no’, his voice disbelieving and small.

And from deep within his chest, Matt Murdock feels his own heart break in two.

He throws his head back on a sound he’s never made before, raw, and piercing, and wounded, the force of it ripping up from below his ribs and shredding his throat on an animalistic howl. He clings to Bullseye like he’s drowning because he is, he is, there is no air, no pulse, no way for him to breathe when you aren’t, nothing left keeping him afloat.

Except for him.

The grip he holds on Bullseye is a messy thing, bone tired and sagging in defeat, as the misery, the pain, the loss swallows him whole, a torture that Matt Murdock cannot withstand.

“WHY?”, he screams, his voice guttural and ragged as he shakes Poindexter by the shoulders in an iron grip.

The word tumbles out of his mouth over and over, his outpouring of grief laid bare before the man who just ruined his life.

Who just ended yours.

And he…

Laughs in his face.

A shiver of indescribable peace passes through Matt when he hears the sickening splat of Benjamin Poindexter hitting the concrete below.

——————

The horrendous thud is what shakes Foggy from his stupor, staggering back as he looks at the unmoving body of Benjamin Poindexter.

The street has fallen silent, the wails of the approaching sirens the only thing that breaks out through the shock and horror.

Karen’s stare is utterly vacant, staring at the blood that has begun to dry and seep into the sidewalk. He doesn’t know what to do, only that he needs to get to Matt.

And he needed to do it now.

“Karen?”, he says gently, smoothing his hand on her shoulder as she startles to attention.

“Karen, I need you to stay with her okay?”

She nods shakily, not taking her eyes off the stained tarmac.

Hesitantly, Foggy rises, fighting the wave of nausea that passes over him, looking up at the rooftop in despair.

He takes a few clumsy steps towards the building before Karen calls after him once.

He turns back to her reddened face, tears still flowing silently.

“Bring him back Foggy”, she says on a choked whisper.

“Please.”

He spares her a pitying glance, before he starts his ascent, Karen’s shoulders shaking behind him as he says nothing.

——————

When he reached the top of the stairs, his heart plummeted through his body, one thing an absolute certainty.

The sight of his best friend, on his knees and broken more than he’d ever seen him would haunt Foggy Nelson for the rest of his days.

Because there he sat on the edge of the rooftop, his head hung low, and his breathing shallow and wrecked, every intake of an air a fresh wave of agony as Foggy’s eyes roamed over Matt’s injuries, shards of glass, and blades sticking out of him at all angles that he didn’t even seem to care about.

Foggy approaches him slowly, his hands hovering over his friends back, the sight even more heartbreaking up close at the sight of Matt’s stricken face, blotchy, and twisted up in grief. His tears wouldn’t stop, endlessly, violently flowing, his shoulders heaving up and down hopelessly.

“Matt?”, Foggy whispers, his voice cracking, and tears once again forming in his own eyes, knowing there is absolutely no comfort or solace he can give.

The sound that wrenches out of his friend sends a cold sweat down Foggy’s spine, it feels like it’s been dragged up from the depths of his soul, shattered and broken and empty.

He thought Matt was going to be sick, that he might faint, his eyes distracted and vacant as opposed to holding any sense of urgency or panic.

He tilts ever so slightly, and Foggy has to ignore the cry of pain Matt releases when he grabs him to pull him back over the ledge.

And the sigh he lets out when Matt sags into him, grateful and exhausted, holding his friend as he shakes and sobs into his shirt, gripping it so tightly he thought it might rip, but Foggy holds him just as fiercely, fighting back the prick of tears that threaten to spill over.

“Matt”, he tries again, desperately trying to convey a calmness amidst this impossible situation, taking the lead the way Matt often did so well.

“Matt, listen to me. We-“, he cuts himself off on a sharp noise that he barely swallows down.

“We need to go back down, okay? Karen- Karen is with her, but…”

God, forgive him.

“…They’ll need to take her soon.”

He sobs out brokenly then, involuntary and unforgiving as he shakes his head violently, his panic bubbling straight up to his throat.

“No”, he growls vehemently, his grip on Foggy’s shirt tightening even harder.

“I can’t- I can’t”, he starts, his voice desperate and pleading, before he breaks out of Foggy’s hold, hands slamming down onto the rooftop as he retches, his shoulders heaving and shaking but nothing comes out, nothing but the sound of his desperate shuddering sobs that stuns Foggy into silent horror.

He rubs his hands over the few places on Matt’s back that haven’t been utterly brutalised through the suit as he dry heaves bile and acid that burns his throat and stings at his eyes.

As it passes, Foggy takes Matt by the shoulders, gently, and he slackens in his hold.

“Matt”, he says solemnly, but more sure this time, a light pressure in his cadence as his friend drags in a shaky inhale, unable to fight the exhaustion any longer.

“You need to go and see her, okay? We can’t fall apart up here, not yet.”

He says nothing at all, his eyes looking past Foggy’s shoulder, glazed over from the weariness and the shock.

Tentatively, he brings Matt’s coat around his shoulders, hiding the panelling of the suit as best as he can. Blood seeps through instantly, but neither of them react to it.

Slowly Foggy, a pillar of strength, brings Matt to his feet, allowing himself to lean on his friend for the first time in his life as he desperately tries not to collapse.

And they make their way down.

——————

When the door opens, Matt’s senses are assaulted with the wail of sirens, the static of a radio, and the unsettled hum of the EMT workers and paramedics working near you.

Foggy drags a stumbling Matt to the line of tape surrounding you, as a firm hand places itself on Matt’s chest.

“Sir, you can’t go through there.”

“He’s her partner”, Foggy says tersely, lawyer mode activated instantly.

The officer removes his hand, and nods tightly.

“Just be quick.”

Foggy nods once, and tries to swallow down the notion that he may have just saved that man’s life.

At their arrival, Karen looks up, her own face aged by ten years as she stares at Matt in utter hopelessness.

With an outstretched arm, he fumbles on his feet, staggering to his knees and it occurs to Foggy that Matt’s senses must be absolutely scrambled.

They take a step back to where the officials hover, holding each other tightly, and giving Matt what space they could.

On a shuddering breath, Matt tentatively raises his hand to your hair on what was supposed to be a gentle caress, but his hands don’t glide through. They become trapped, your hair sticky and hardened with the blood that clings to it and he bites back a pained sound, startled and horrified.

He drags your limp body into his arms, his ear pressed right over your heart that once provided him such comfort and grace, only now to be met with hollow silence, and nothingness.

He opens his mouth, but finds himself unable to speak through his tears, harsh and never ending as they fall into your hair, onto your clothes, dragging in the scent of you, only to be met with the overwhelming tang of copper instead.

“I- I’m so-”, he starts on a tight whisper, shuddering into you as Foggy and Karen weep behind him.

“I don’t know who I am without you”, he confesses on a mournful, wounded sob as he thinks of your life together, your souls attached since the day you met, how you were supposed to grow older, get married, maybe even have children one day…

How he was always supposed to die first.

Because absolutely nothing else made sense, it was incomprehensible to him that this was real, that this wasn’t some awful nightmare that he may wake up from to you soothing him and holding him, pressing kisses into his skin until daybreak.

But you never would again.

God, please, he thought.

Just let me die.

He sniffles into you on a broken whisper that was never meant to be overheard but he hears Foggy’s strangled, choked down sob all the same the sheer vulnerability of it ripping him open.

“Please come back.”

He releases a low, guarded growl, his arms tightening around you, as two men approach.

“We really need to move her”, one of them whispers hushed and low to Foggy and Karen.

“Can’t he just have another minute?”, she hisses back angrily.

Foggy places a hand on her shoulder in warning.

“Just give me a second.”

The taste of salt is overwhelming as Foggy crouches down next to him, a bolt of lightning shredding his shoulder where Foggy grips it.

“Matt…”

His grip tightens around you even more so, burying his face in your neck like a hiding child, refusing the hands that reach for him, shaking Foggy off with a wild grunt that is muffled by your skin.

“Matt, it’s time.”

“They’re not taking her anywhere”, he snarls out on a vicious snap of his head, the Devil on full display before him.

He would just have to take the hit.

Turning upwards to the EMT workers, Foggy nods once, guilt and shame flooding through him as they gather around you, lifting you gently to place you on the stretcher.

It takes Foggy and Karen both to wrench Matt off you, shaking and sobbing the whole way, stumbling after you as Foggy catches him just barely.

The breath is knocked from his lungs as the sirens fade away from them, his two friends the only things keeping him standing, as they hold him, and cry with him through the pain and the anguish and the misery under the half broken neon sign of Josie’s bar where you’d drank and laughed an hour before.

Where he’d listened to the sound of your heartbeat that had long since become one with his.

Your heartbeat that had kept him grounded in morality, had given him purpose, had given him the truest and realest love he had ever known.

Now there was nothing left to reach for.

And as the rain came, as the onlookers trickled out of the bar to see Matt in all of his devastated glory, broken beyond reason, for the first time in his life, he regarded his city with disdain, the grief and the sorrow morphing into unbridled, uncontrollable rage.

…

The eighth month of a relationship is a strange, beautiful middle ground. You are no longer on your "best behavior" 24/7, but you haven't yet reached the stage of effortless, decades-long predictability. For you and Jungkook, this was the sweet spot. You knew his coffee order by heart, and he knew exactly which playlist to put on when you had a long day of creative work. It felt safe.

That evening started with the kind of comfortable domesticity you had come to cherish. The apartment was warm, the scent of a failed attempt at a new pasta recipe lingering in the air. Jungkook was sitting on the edge of the sofa, scrolling through his phone, while you were trying to organize a cluttered shelf nearby.

The disagreement started over something incredibly small: a weekend trip.

"I already told the guys we’d probably join them at the cabin," Jungkook said, his voice casual, not looking up from his screen.

You paused, a stack of books in your hands. "Wait, this weekend? I thought we were staying in. I have a deadline for my draft, and you said you wanted to help me with the new product shots for the shop."

Jungkook sighed—a small, tired sound. "It’s just two days, and I haven't seen them in a while. You can bring your laptop. It’s not a big deal, right?"

"It is a big deal if we already had a plan," you countered, your voice steady but rising slightly. "I’m trying to get this business off the ground, Jungkook. I can't just drop everything because you 'probably' told them we’d come."

Jungkook finally looked up, his brows furrowed. He was tired from a long day of practice, and the frustration he’d been suppressing bubbled to the surface. "It’s not about dropping everything. It’s about being flexible. Sometimes it feels like if things don't go exactly your way, you just... stall."

"I don't 'stall,'" you snapped, feeling a defensive heat creep up your neck. "I prioritize. There’s a difference."

"Is there?" Jungkook stood up, tossing his phone onto the cushion. He wasn't yelling, but his voice had that sharp, competitive edge he used when he was pushed too far. "Because whenever things get a little complicated or stressful, you start overthinking and making everything a hurdle. You’re so focused on your own little world that you forget there’s someone else here trying to move with you."

You opened your mouth to argue, to tell him that your "little world" was the career you were building from scratch, but he wasn't finished.

"Honestly," he muttered, turning to grab a glass of water from the table, "it’s like I can't ever fully rely on you to just... be there without a thousand conditions. You’re always looking for a reason to stay guarded."

The room went icy.

It wasn't a loud sentence. It wasn't even the meanest thing someone could say in an argument. But the word rely and the accusation of being guarded hit a tripwire deep inside your chest.

Suddenly, you weren't in your apartment with Jungkook. You were years back, hearing a similar tone from a voice that should have loved you unconditionally—someone telling you that your needs were a burden, that you were "too much" and "too difficult" to deal with. Your brain didn't process it as a lovers' spat anymore. It processed it as a threat.

The air in your lungs felt thin. You looked at Jungkook, who was now leaning against the kitchen counter, looking slightly guilty for the sharpness of his tone but still waiting for a comeback. He expected you to fire back, to defend yourself, to keep the "silly" argument going until you both got tired and apologized.

But you couldn't.

The familiar, heavy curtain of silence began to fall. It started in your throat, a physical tightening that made swallowing difficult. Then it moved to your limbs, making them feel heavy and disconnected. You didn't want to be angry at him; in fact, you could see the slight regret in his eyes already. But the "shutdown" wasn't a choice—it was a door locking from the inside, and you didn't have the key.

You carefully placed the books down on the table. You didn't look at him.

"Hey," Jungkook said, his voice softening. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just frustrated. Let’s just talk about the schedule properly."

You didn't answer. You walked past him toward the bedroom.

"Are you serious?" he asked, his frustration returning, fueled by the sudden lack of feedback. "Are we doing this? You’re just going to walk away because I said one thing you didn't like?"

You stopped at the doorway, your back to him. You wanted to say, It’s not that I don't like it, it’s that it hurts. You wanted to say, Please don't use those words with me. But the words stayed trapped behind the wall of your trauma. To speak would be to show the wound, and your brain told you that showing the wound was dangerous.

You stepped into the room and gently closed the door.

Outside, you heard Jungkook let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. "Fine. Great communication. Truly."

You sat on the edge of the bed, the silence of the room ringing in your ears. You knew, logically, that you were making it worse. You knew that shutting him out was a flaw—a reflex you hadn't outgrown. You loved him, and you knew he loved you. But as you stared at the wall, the weight of the words he’d spoken felt like a physical barrier between the bedroom and the kitchen.

Eighty-five feet of hallway felt like a thousand miles. The silence had officially begun.

Inside the bedroom, you sat perfectly still. The "shutdown" wasn't just a lack of words; it was a sensory experience. It felt like being submerged in deep water where every sound from the surface was muffled and distorted. You could hear Jungkook moving in the living room—the clink of a glass, the heavy thud of him sitting back down on the sofa, the restless tapping of his foot. Each sound felt like a physical pressure against your chest.

You hated this. A rational part of your brain was screaming at you to stand up, open the door, and say, “I’m sorry I froze, let’s talk.” But the rest of your body was in survival mode. To your nervous system, Jungkook’s comment about being "unreliable" hadn't been a critique of a weekend schedule; it had been a confirmation of your deepest fear—that you were fundamentally difficult to love.

When you were younger, silence had been your only shield. If you didn't speak, you couldn't be blamed. If you stayed quiet, you were invisible, and if you were invisible, you were safe. Now, as an adult in a loving relationship, that shield had turned into a cage. You felt the guilt pooling in your stomach, heavy and bitter. You knew you were punishing him with your silence, even though you didn't want to.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Jungkook was vibrating with a mixture of confusion and mounting irritation.

He stared at the closed bedroom door, his chest tight. He was a man who lived loudly—he spoke his mind, he laughed with his whole body, and when he was upset, he wanted to hash it out and move on. To him, the silence felt like a weapon. It felt calculated, even though it was anything but.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” he thought, dragging a hand through his hair. “Every time I’m honest about how I feel, she just disappears?”

He felt a flash of resentment. He had worked hard to be a good partner, to support your business, to be the "reliable" one. Seeing you pull back felt like a rejection of everything he had invested over the last eight months. He wanted to knock on the door and demand an explanation. He wanted to tell you that it wasn't fair to leave him hanging in the middle of a conversation.

But then, he stopped.

He remembered a night three months ago, early in the relationship, when you had briefly mentioned how your parents used to stop speaking to you for days as a "lesson." You had said it with a forced laugh, dismissing it as "just how things were," but Jungkook had seen the way your fingers trembled as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

His anger flickered, replaced by a cold, sobering realization.

He looked down at his hands. He had used the word unreliable. He had told you that you were guarded. To him, they were just words born of frustration. To you, they were the echo of a ghost.

The silence stretched for hours.

Around 11:00 PM, you finally emerged. Your throat felt dry, and your head ached from the internal tension. You walked into the kitchen to get water, moving like a ghost. You saw Jungkook still on the sofa, the TV on but muted, his eyes fixed on the blank screen.

As you passed, he looked up. His expression wasn't angry anymore—it was exhausted.

“Do you want to talk now?” he asked, his voice low and cautious.

You looked at him, and for a second, the wall almost crumbled. You wanted to reach out. But then you saw the flicker of expectation in his eyes, the "demand" for a resolution you weren't ready to give yet, and the wall reinforced itself. Your throat tightened.

You didn't say a word. You filled your glass, drank the water in a few quick gulps, and walked back toward the bedroom.

“Seriously?” Jungkook’s voice cracked slightly. He didn't follow you this time. He just stayed there, shadowed by the dim light of the TV. “You’re just going to pretend I’m not even in the room?”

You closed the door again, but this time, you leaned your forehead against the wood. Tears finally began to prick at your eyes. You weren't pretending he wasn't there. You were painfully aware of every breath he took. You were just terrified that if you opened your mouth, you would fall apart, and you didn't know if he would be there to catch the pieces or if he would just see the mess and finally decide he’d had enough.

The silent treatment wasn't just hurting him; it was isolating you in a way that felt like drowning. And for the first time, you realized that if you didn't learn how to swim, you were going to take the person you loved down with you.

Jungkook didn't sleep. He spent most of the night on the sofa, the cushions feeling less like furniture and more like a raft in the middle of a dark ocean. He was used to fixing things—broken electronics, a difficult dance routine, a bad mood. But this? This was a silence he couldn't muscle his way through.

By 4:00 AM, his mind was a chaotic loop of frustration and guilt.

“I’m the one who should be mad,” he told himself, staring at the ceiling. “She’s the one who shut down. She’s the one who walked away.” He thought about the weekend trip, the work he’d put into the relationship, and how much it hurt to be treated like a stranger in his own home. He felt a surge of pride—the part of him that wanted to stay silent too, just to show her how it felt. A "tit-for-tat" strategy that his ego whispered was only fair.

But then, he looked at the bedroom door.

He thought about the way your shoulders had slumped when you walked to the kitchen. You hadn't looked like a person winning a fight; you looked like a person who was lost.

Jungkook sat up, rubbing his face with both hands. He realized that if he chose his pride, he might "win" the argument, but he would lose you. And the thought of a life without your quiet laugh, your messy baking sessions, and the way you leaned into him when you were tired was far more terrifying than the thought of swallowing his pride.

“She isn't doing this to hurt me,” he realized, the thought landing like a heavy stone. “She’s doing this because she doesn't know what else to do.”

As the sun began to peek through the blinds, Jungkook stopped focusing on the argument and started focusing on the person. He knew he couldn't force you to talk. If he pounded on the door and demanded a conversation, you would only retreat further into your shell. He needed to build a bridge, not a battering ram.

He spent the morning in a state of quiet, focused energy. He didn't try to initiate a conversation when you finally came out of the bedroom to start your day. He didn't huff or puff or give "loud" sighs to let you know he was bothered. Instead, he simply existed in the same space as you, providing a calm, non-threatening presence.

He saw you sitting at the kitchen table, staring blankly at your laptop, your fingers hovering over the keys but never typing. You looked paralyzed.

Without a word, he moved into the kitchen. He didn't ask if you wanted anything. He just brewed a fresh pot of coffee—the roast you liked, not the one he preferred. He placed a mug next to your hand, along with a small plate of the brownies you had made the day before.

He saw your hand twitch toward the mug. You didn't look up, but your posture softened by a fraction of an inch.

Jungkook didn't linger. He didn't wait for a "thank you." He just went back to the living room and began to clear a space. He moved the cluttered boxes, straightened the rug, and set up a small, comfortable area with pillows on the floor near the window—a place where you usually felt most creative.

He was setting the stage for safety.

Throughout the day, he felt the urge to snap, to ask, "How much longer is this going to last?" but he suppressed it. He was learning a new kind of strength: patience. He realized that his desire to save the relationship had to be bigger than his desire to be heard.

By the late afternoon, the tension in the apartment hadn't disappeared, but it had changed. It was no longer sharp and jagged; it was soft and expectant.

Jungkook took a deep breath and sat down on the floor in the space he had cleared. He didn't call your name. He just waited. He was proving to you that he wasn't going anywhere—that even in the silence, he was reliable. Even when you were guarded, he would stay.

He was waiting for you to realize that the door wasn't locked from the outside. He was just waiting for you to turn the handle.

…

The evening light filtered through the window, casting long, amber shadows across the floor. You had watched Jungkook all day. You watched him choose patience over anger, and every time he moved through the apartment without slamming a door or throwing a cold glance, a brick from your internal wall crumbled.

He was sitting on the floor in the little nook he’d cleared for you. He wasn't on his phone; he wasn't distracting himself. He was just... there. Presence was his peace offering.

Your legs felt heavy as you finally stood up from the kitchen table. The silence was starting to feel less like a shield and more like a suffocating weight. You walked over, your heart hammering against your ribs, and sat down on the floor a few feet away from him.

Jungkook didn't jump to speak. He didn't demand an apology. He just looked at you, his large eyes soft and weary.

"I’m sorry," you whispered. The words felt like sandpaper in your dry throat. "I’m sorry I... stopped."

Jungkook reached out, not to pull you into a hug yet, but just to rest his hand on the floor between you, an invitation. "I’m sorry too," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have used those words. I was frustrated about the trip, but that was no excuse to call you 'unreliable' or tell you that you're always guarded. I know why you stay guarded, and I shouldn't have thrown that in your face."

The honesty of his apology made your eyes sting. You looked down at your lap, picking at a loose thread on your sleeve. "When you said that, it felt like... like you were seeing me the way my past saw me. Like I was a problem to be solved instead of a person."

Jungkook nodded slowly. "I see that now. But we need to talk about the silence, too." He moved a little closer, his voice calm but firm. "When you shut down, I feel like I’ve been evicted from our life. I’m standing right in front of you, but you’re a thousand miles away. I want to respect your space, but I can't fight for us if I’m the only one in the ring."

You bit your lip, the guilt finally finding a voice. "I don't do it to hurt you. It’s like... a reflex. My brain thinks if I don't speak, I can't make it worse. But I realize now that the silence makes it so much worse for you."

"It does," Jungkook admitted, his thumb tracing the pattern on the rug. "It’s okay to be hurt. It’s okay to be triggered. But you have to tell me, even if it’s just one sentence. Tell me 'I’m triggered and I need an hour,' or 'That word hurt me.' Give me a map, so I don't get lost trying to find you."

You looked up at him, seeing the vulnerability he was showing. He was an "alpha" in so many parts of his life—confident, strong, capable—but here, he was making himself soft just so you wouldn't feel threatened. It was a realization that hit you hard: a relationship isn't just about being loved for your best parts; it’s about someone seeing your flaws and staying to help you work through them.

"I don't want to be the person who shuts down forever," you said, your voice gaining a bit of strength. "I want to be better for you. Because I want this... us... to be forever. I need to learn to trust you with the 'messy' version of me."

Jungkook finally reached out, taking your hand in his. His grip was warm and grounding. "Then let’s practice. Next time I say something stupid—because I will, I’m human—don't run to the bedroom. Stay in the room. Even if you’re just sitting there being angry, stay in the room with me."

You squeezed his hand back, a small, tearful smile finally breaking through. "I'll try. I really will."

"That’s all I need," he whispered. "We don't have to be perfect. We just have to be present."

For the first time in twenty-four hours, the air in the apartment felt light enough to breathe. The argument hadn't been swept under the rug; it had been dismantled, piece by piece, through the very thing you feared most: being seen.

…

The weeks following the air in the apartment felt lighter, not because the problems had vanished, but because the fear of them had. You no longer walked on eggshells, and Jungkook no longer treated every disagreement like a battle to be won.

It was a Tuesday evening, and the coffee table was a chaotic spread of your brownie business spreadsheets and Jungkook’s messy handwritten lyrics. The "S and M" logo you had been working on sat open on your laptop screen.

"I think we should go with the pastel cream for the packaging," you murmured, mostly to yourself. "The dark brown is too heavy."

Jungkook looked up from his notebook, leaning over to squint at the screen. "I like the cream. It looks... approachable. Like you."

You smiled, but then your eyes snagged on the calendar. "Oh, wait. Friday. You have that recording session, and I have the bulk order for the assorted samplers. We’re going to be in each other's way in the kitchen again, aren't we?"

A month ago, this realization might have sparked a sharp comment about space or a defensive remark about whose work was more "urgent." You felt that familiar spark of anxiety—the urge to preemptively protect your workspace.

Jungkook noticed the tiny shift in your posture—the way your shoulders climbed a fraction of an inch toward your ears. He didn't ignore it, and he didn't poke at it.

"Yellow?" he asked softly, his voice humored but sincere.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding and laughed. "Maybe a very pale lime green. Not a full yellow yet."

"Okay," he said, closing his notebook. "If it's lime green, let's solve it now before it turns bright red. I can move my setup to the bedroom for the afternoon so you have the counter space for the brownies. Then, when you’re done, we can clear the table and have dinner. Deal?"

"Deal," you said, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

It was a small moment, but it felt monumental. You hadn't shut down. You hadn't retreated into the "survival mode" of your childhood. You had acknowledged the friction, and he had met you halfway with a solution.

Later that night, as you both lay in the quiet of the bedroom, the city lights filtering through the curtains, you turned to him. "I realized something today," you whispered.

Jungkook shifted, pulling the duvet up. "What’s that?"

"I used to think that a strong relationship was one where people never fought. I thought if we hit a wall, it meant we were failing," you confessed, tracing the tattoos on his arm. "But I think I was wrong. The wall is where the growth happens. If we didn't hit it, I'd still be hiding behind my silence, and you'd still be shouting to be heard."

Jungkook turned on his side to face you, his expression uncharacteristically soft. "I think the same thing. I used to think being a good partner meant being 'right' all the time. But being right is lonely. I’d much rather be wrong and be with you."

He reached out, brushing a stray hair from your forehead. "You’ve been doing so well, you know. I see you trying. I see you staying in the room even when you want to run. I know how hard that is for you."

"It’s getting easier," you admitted. "Because I know that even if I fall apart, you aren't going to use it against me. You’ve given me a safe place to be 'messy.'"

"That's the goal," he whispered. "Eight months down, and a lifetime of 'messy' to go."

You leaned into him, resting your head against his chest, listening to the steady, reliable beat of his heart. You weren't the same people who had argued over a weekend trip a few weeks ago. You were older, wiser, and more deeply connected.

Love is about the hard, unglamorous work of unlearning your own defense mechanisms. It’s about choosing to stay when every instinct tells you to bolt.

As you drifted off to sleep, you didn't feel the need to be guarded. For the first time in your life, the weight of your words didn't feel like a burden—it felt like a bridge. And on the other side, Jungkook was waiting, ready to walk across it with you, every single time.99

The first few nights, Yoongi believed it was coincidence.

Hospitals never truly slept. Monitors hummed behind closed doors, wheels from passing carts whispered against polished floors, and distant conversations drifted through the hallway until they dissolved into silence. He assumed one of those sounds had pulled him awake every night, yet his eyes always found the same blue numbers glowing from the clock mounted above the door.

3:17 a.m.

By the tenth night, he stopped questioning it.

By the twentieth, the nurses stopped questioning it too.

Room 712 had become familiar territory for everyone on the overnight shift, and so had the man who refused to leave the chair beside your bed. His black hoodie remained draped over the backrest no matter how many times the nurses offered him a proper blanket, and the untouched cup of vending machine coffee beside him inevitably turned cold before sunrise because his attention never wandered far enough to remember drinking it.

You stirred before your eyes opened, your fingers twitching weakly against the white hospital sheets. The smallest crease appeared between your brows, the first warning that the pain was returning, and Yoongi reached for your hand almost instinctively. His thumb traced slow circles across the back of your skin. The tension in your shoulders loosened by a fraction.

"I'm awake," you whispered, your voice barely louder than the steady rhythm of the heart monitor.

"I noticed."

Even after weeks of sleeping in an uncomfortable chair, his tone carried the same dry humor that always managed to coax a smile from you. He shifted forward until his elbows rested on the mattress, studying your face with quiet concentration, as if memorizing every eyelash and every faint shadow beneath your eyes could somehow stop time from moving.

"You look terrible."

A breath of laughter escaped you, thin but genuine. "So do you."

He glanced toward the dark window and shrugged one shoulder. "I've seen worse."

"You looked better yesterday."

"I looked better three months ago."

You rolled your eyes, though the movement exhausted you enough to leave you staring at the ceiling afterward. The silence that settled between you wasn't uncomfortable. It had become another routine, another familiar part of these endless nights spent measuring time through medication schedules and changing IV bags instead of sunsets and dinners at home.

A gentle knock broke the stillness before one of the nurses stepped inside carrying another syringe. She smiled the moment she noticed Yoongi already awake. "I was going to wake you."

"You would've been late."

She shook her head while checking your chart, completely unsurprised. "I swear you have an alarm nobody else can hear."

Yoongi only reached for the blanket that had slipped from your shoulder and tucked it back into place with careful hands. "Maybe she snores."

You nudged his arm with the little strength you had left. "I don't snore."

"You absolutely do."

The nurse hid a laugh behind her clipboard while replacing the empty IV bag. "I'll bring another warm blanket."

Yoongi nodded without looking away from you. "And hot chocolate."

"You ask for that every night."

"You bring it every night."

"You never drink it."

"I like having options."

The nurse disappeared into the hallway still smiling.

You watched the doorway until it closed before turning back toward him. "They all know you now."

"They tolerate me."

"They like you."

"They pity me." The answer arrived so quietly that it almost vanished beneath the monitor's steady beeping.

You squeezed his fingers. "They don't."

For a moment, he couldn't bring himself to answer. Instead, he brushed a strand of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear with practiced familiarity. The motion had become as natural as breathing, something he repeated dozens of times a day without realizing it because illness had a habit of making ordinary acts of affection feel impossibly precious. Outside, rain tapped softly against the window.

"I saw a cat earlier," he murmured after a while.

You shifted your attention toward him. "The orange one?"

He nodded. "The security guard finally fed it."

"I told you someone would."

"It ignored him."

"It likes you better."

"It likes free food."

You smiled again, smaller this time, your eyelids growing heavier as exhaustion settled over you. "Did you feed it?"

"It stole half my sandwich."

"So you did."

"I was robbed."

Another quiet laugh slipped between you before fading into comfortable silence.

The clock above the door ticked forward.

3:18

3:19

3:20

Your breathing gradually evened out beneath the soft hiss of oxygen flowing through the tubing. Yoongi kept tracing slow circles over the back of your hand long after you had fallen asleep, unwilling to move because every night followed the same fragile pattern. Pain arrived at 3:17, conversation carried you both to 3:20, and sleep borrowed a few peaceful hours before morning arrived.

He had started believing the ritual would always save you.  The thought settled somewhere deep inside him, stubborn and hopeful, refusing to acknowledge the doctors who spoke in careful voices or the sympathetic smiles that lingered a little too long. 

As long as 3:17 ended like this—with your hand in his and your breathing steady against the silence—he could pretend there would always be another night.

Morning arrived in fragments instead of sunlight. Pale streaks slipped through the narrow gap in the curtains, painting soft lines across the hospital floor while nurses traded shifts outside the room, their hushed voices blending with the distant rattle of breakfast carts.

Yoongi had fallen asleep with his cheek resting against the edge of your mattress, one hand still wrapped around yours. His neck protested the awkward position the moment he stirred, but the familiar ache barely registered. He lifted his head first to look at you instead of the clock, instinctively searching for the slow rise and fall of your chest before allowing himself to blink the exhaustion from his eyes.

Your eyes fluttered open a few seconds later. "You look worse than yesterday."

A quiet snort escaped him as he rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows. "I've been informed that's becoming your favorite hobby."

"You should sleep."

"I am sleeping."

"In a chair."

"It's a very expensive chair."

You let out the faintest laugh, the sound rough from days of medication and endless interruptions. Even weakened by illness, you still laughed the same way you always had—small at first, then with enough warmth to soften the guarded expression Yoongi carried everywhere else.

The doctor arrived just before noon. White coats, clipped explanations, carefully chosen words that never sounded frightening enough until they settled into the silence afterward. Yoongi stood beside the window with his arms folded across his chest, staring outside while percentages and treatment plans drifted through the room like another language.

He caught only pieces. Stable. Continue monitoring. Pain management. Comfort. The last word lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs.

After the doctor left, you watched Yoongi study the parking lot three floors below as though every answer he needed might be hidden between rows of parked cars. His shoulders had always carried tension differently from everyone else. He didn't pace or raise his voice. He simply became quieter until silence did all the talking for him.

"You don't have to stay every minute."

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his hoodie without turning around. "I know."

"You could go home."

"I know."

"You could shower."

"I know."

You smiled. "You smell like vending machine coffee."

That finally pulled him away from the window. "I smell like dedication."

"You smell terrible."

"I'll put that on a T-shirt." The corners of his mouth lifted just enough to convince you he was trying.

Lunch arrived untouched.

The soup cooled beside your bed while Yoongi picked at a sandwich the nurse had practically forced into his hands. Every few bites, his eyes drifted toward you, checking that you were still comfortable, still breathing evenly, still there. It was a habit he never noticed. 

But the nurses surely noticed. One of them paused in the doorway while updating your chart and caught another quietly watching the two of you.

"He looks every thirty seconds."

The older nurse followed her gaze. "Twenty."

"You counted?"

"I've been on this floor for fifteen years." She lowered her voice. "The ones who stop looking are the ones who already know." Neither of them finished the thought.

Evening settled over the city with gentle rain tapping against the windows. The sky darkened until the glass reflected the room instead of the buildings outside, leaving only the two of you suspended in a world made of fluorescent lights and steady heartbeats.

Yoongi reached into his backpack and pulled out a small paper bag.

You tilted your head. "What's that?"

He unfolded the top and produced a tiny plastic container. "Convenience store pudding."

Your eyes widened with genuine excitement. "The caramel one?"

"They were sold out."

"I don't love you anymore."

"I bought the vanilla."

"I'll think about forgiving you."

He peeled the lid back and scooped a small spoonful before holding it toward you. Your hands trembled too much to manage the spoon yourself, so he waited patiently until you swallowed, brushing away the smallest smear from the corner of your mouth with his thumb. Neither of you acknowledged how natural the gesture had become. The pudding disappeared one careful bite at a time while rain continued its quiet rhythm outside.

"I miss home." The words slipped out so softly that Yoongi almost thought he'd imagined them.

He set the empty container on the bedside table. "What do you miss?"

"The couch."

"You always complained about the couch."

"I miss complaining about it."

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. "The neighbor's dog?"

"It barks too much."

"The old elevator?"

"It gets stuck."

"The dishes you keep leaving in the sink?"

"They're soaking."

"They've been soaking for two weeks."

"They're marinating."

You watched the amusement reach his eyes for the first time all day and committed the image to memory.

"I miss ordinary things." The smile faded, replaced by something quieter.

Yoongi reached for your hand again, threading his fingers through yours with practiced familiarity. "We'll go home."

You looked at him for a long moment. Not because you doubted him but because you wanted to believe him as much as he believed himself.

The digital clock above the door continued counting forward.

11:48 p.m.

12:31 a.m.

1:56 a.m.

The hospital settled into its familiar midnight hush. Nurses dimmed the hallway lights, visitors disappeared, and rain surrendered to the stillness that only existed in the hours before dawn.

Yoongi refused another blanket, ignored the untouched coffee cooling beside him, and leaned his head against the mattress while your breathing lulled him into a shallow sleep. Somewhere beneath exhaustion, his body had learned its own ritual.

Long before his mind woke, before his eyes opened, before consciousness returned, something inside him always reached for the same moment. Three seventeen. Every night. Without fail.

A sharp inhale pulled Yoongi from sleep before any machine had the chance to protest. His eyes opened into darkness, instinct carrying him upright in the narrow chair before his thoughts caught up. The digital clock above the door glowed faintly against the dim room, its blue numbers washing the walls in an almost ghostly light.

3:17 a.m.

You hadn't called his name. You hadn't moved. Even so, the familiar crease had returned between your brows, the one that always appeared seconds before the pain settled into your bones. Your fingers tightened weakly around the blanket instead of his hand, as if you were trying to hold yourself together without disturbing him.

Yoongi reached across the mattress before you could say anything. His palm covered yours with practiced certainty, his thumb tracing slow circles over your skin until your grip loosened. The motion had become so instinctive that he no longer remembered learning it. Somewhere between the endless nights and endless medications, his hands had simply memorized the language of comforting you.

"You cheated," you murmured, your voice rough with sleep.

One eyebrow lifted. "How?"

"You woke up before me."

"I have a reputation to maintain."

The corner of your mouth curved despite the discomfort pulling at your features. "You really think the nurses are impressed by this?"

"They definitely have a leaderboard."

"For what?"

He tilted his head toward the hallway. "Boyfriends who survive entirely on vending machine coffee."

"You'd win."

"I've been training."

Your laugh barely reached the room before exhaustion stole the sound away, but it was enough to soften the tension lingering in your shoulders.

Silence settled again, carrying the steady rhythm of the monitor and the distant squeak of rubber soles against polished floors. Rain had disappeared sometime after midnight, leaving the city wrapped in the muted glow of streetlights that spilled through the window and painted pale shapes across the blanket covering your legs.

You stared toward the ceiling for a long moment. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

Yoongi didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leaned farther into the chair until his forearms rested beside your pillow, studying your face with the quiet concentration that always appeared whenever he thought something mattered enough to deserve precision. "You spilled coffee on my laptop."

"It was your fault."

"You walked into me."

"You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk."

"I was reading."

"You were impossible."

"I still am."

"You definitely still are." Another fragile smile found its way onto your face. "I thought you hated me."

"I almost did." His other arm reached for your intertwined hands.

"Almost?"

"You bought me another coffee."

"I felt guilty."

"You bought me another one the next day."

"I still felt guilty."

"The next day too."

"I was making sure you forgave me."

His gaze drifted to your intertwined hands. "I never stopped showing up after that."

Neither of you spoke for several seconds. There was no need.

The memories filled the room more completely than words could. You remembered tiny apartments cluttered with music equipment and half-finished lyrics scribbled across napkins. You remembered grocery shopping at midnight because Yoongi always forgot to eat until hunger became impossible to ignore. You remembered falling asleep on the couch while he worked, waking hours later with a blanket draped over you even though he insisted he wasn't the affectionate type.

"I miss your studio."

His thumb paused for the briefest moment before continuing its slow circles. "It's dusty."

"It always smelled like coffee."

"It smelled like old speakers."

"And coffee."

"And old speakers."

You closed your eyes, letting the image settle behind your eyelids. "I miss listening to you work."

"I'll play something when we get home."

"You never let anyone hear unfinished songs."

"You aren't anyone." The answer arrived so naturally that it carried none of the self-consciousness people often wrapped around confessions. It was simply a fact.

You opened your eyes again and found him already watching you. "What if I forget?" The question hung between you with surprising weight.

His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. "You won't."

"What if I forget the songs?"

"I'll play them again."

"What if I forget our apartment?"

"I'll show you every room."

"What if I forget you?” 

For the first time that night, Yoongi looked away. His gaze settled on the window, on the reflection of the two of you suspended against the darkness outside, and he remained there until he trusted his voice again. 

"Then I'll introduce myself." You watched the muscles in his jaw tighten before he turned back toward you. "I'll tell you we met because you ruined an expensive laptop."

A weak laugh escaped you. "You'll exaggerate."

"I absolutely will."

"And I'll buy you coffee?"

"You'll owe me at least three."

The laugh faded, replaced by quiet breathing and the steady pulse echoing through the room.

You squeezed his hand with what little strength remained. "I think..." Your voice trailed away. Yoongi leaned closer, catching every syllable. "I think I'd still fall for you."

Something fragile crossed his expression, so fleeting that anyone else might have missed it. His lips parted as though he wanted to answer, but emotion crowded every sentence before it reached his tongue. Instead, he lifted your hand and pressed his forehead gently against your knuckles. The gesture carried more honesty than words ever could.

Outside, somewhere beyond the hospital walls, the first birds began greeting a dawn that neither of you could see. Inside Room 712, the clock quietly advanced from 3:17 to 3:18, and for one more night, the ritual held.

Morning arrived with clear skies for the first time in nearly a week, washing the hospital room in soft gold instead of the muted gray that had become so familiar. Sunlight settled across your blanket and warmed your face just enough that Yoongi reached for the curtain, hesitated, and left it open after deciding you looked better with light on your skin.

A nurse stepped inside balancing two paper cups and a clipboard against her hip. "I brought actual coffee today."

Yoongi accepted the cup with a nod before peering inside. "So this is what generosity looks like."

"It means I got tired of watching you drink whatever comes out of the vending machine."

"I was building immunity."

She rolled her eyes and shifted her attention toward your chart, but her smile faltered for the smallest moment when she compared yesterday's notes to this morning's numbers. The pause lasted less than a second before she tucked the clipboard against her side again, yet Yoongi caught it anyway, his fingers tightening around the paper cup until the lid crinkled beneath his grip.

You noticed too. The room had taught you how to read people long before the monitors or medications ever could. Doctors slowed their steps before difficult conversations, nurses smiled a little brighter on hard mornings, and visitors laughed louder whenever they were trying not to cry.

"I'm okay." The reassurance escaped your lips automatically.

Yoongi looked at you instead of the nurse. "I know." The words landed with enough certainty that even you almost believed them.

The nurse adjusted your IV line, checked your temperature, and lingered beside the bed for another moment. "Physical therapy is stopping by after lunch."

You groaned into the pillow. "I'd rather fight a bear."

"You said that yesterday."

"My opinion hasn't improved."

Yoongi folded his arms across his chest. "I'll cheer for the bear."

"You always take the wrong side."

"I take the entertaining side."

The nurse laughed quietly before slipping out into the hallway, leaving behind the faint scent of hand sanitizer and fresh coffee.

For a while, neither of you spoke. Cars crawled through the streets below, tiny from the seventh-floor window, their movements slow enough to make the outside world feel impossibly distant. Somewhere downstairs, a child laughed, the sound carrying upward through an open courtyard before disappearing beneath the steady hum of hospital air conditioning.

"I had a dream."

Yoongi shifted his chair closer. "Good or bad?"

"I couldn't tell." You watched the sunlight creep across the blanket as though the answer might be hidden there. "We were home."

His shoulders relaxed. "You kept leaving your guitar in the hallway."

"I do that."

"I almost tripped over it."

"Also accurate."

"You were making coffee."

"I'm sensing a pattern."

"And I couldn't remember why we owned seven mugs when there are only two of us."

A quiet smile touched his face. "You keep buying them because you think they're cute."

"They are cute."

"They all say the same thing."

You frowned. "They don't."

"They literally all say 'World's Best Coffee.'"

"They have different fonts."

He let out a soft breath that almost resembled a laugh, and for a fleeting second the hospital room disappeared, replaced by your tiny apartment where mismatched mugs crowded every cabinet and music drifted between unfinished laundry piles.

Then the smile left your face. "I woke up before we got home."

The silence that followed carried a different weight than usual. Yoongi reached for your hand without looking away from you, his thumb finding the familiar path across your skin. "We'll get there."

You searched his expression, looking for the slightest crack. The stubborn hope remained exactly where it always had, anchored behind tired eyes and sleepless nights. He wore it the way other people wore armor, refusing to remove it even when the weight of it bent his shoulders lower every day.

After lunch, physical therapy arrived exactly on schedule. A cheerful therapist wheeled in a walker and greeted you with enough enthusiasm to brighten the room, but simply sitting on the edge of the bed drained the color from your face.  Your fingers clung to the mattress while Yoongi stood close enough that your elbow brushed against his sleeve. 

"You've got this." Yoongi restrained himself from helping you up because he knew you’ll just swat his hands away. "I hate encouraging people." 

"You hate everyone." You laugh under your breath.

"I tolerate a select few." 

"Am I included?" 

He pretended to consider the question. "The jury's still out."

You pushed yourself upright anyway. Your knees trembled before your feet even touched the floor, the effort pulling uneven breaths from your chest. Yoongi instinctively extended a hand, but you shook your head and steadied yourself against the walker instead, determination flickering behind the exhaustion.

One step, then another. The therapist offered quiet praise while measuring distance in feet and progress in tiny victories, but Yoongi measured something else entirely. He counted every breath that hitched, every moment your grip tightened until your knuckles lost their color, every smile you forced whenever someone looked at you.

Halfway across the room, you stopped. Not because you wanted to but because your body had already decided.

Your shoulders sagged, and before anyone could react, Yoongi moved beside you, sliding one arm around your waist with practiced familiarity. "I've got you."

You leaned into him without protest. For a heartbeat, neither of you cared that the therapist politely looked away or that a nurse paused in the doorway pretending to organize paperwork. The world shrank until it contained only your uneven breathing and the steady rhythm of Yoongi's heartbeat beneath your temple.

"I'm heavier than I used to be."

He adjusted his grip. "You've always been difficult."

"I was trying to be sentimental."

"I'm trying to keep you from falling."

The smallest laugh escaped you, carrying equal parts exhaustion and affection. When he helped you back into bed, your eyes drifted closed almost immediately. Within minutes, sleep claimed you.

Yoongi remained in the chair beside the mattress, watching sunlight slide across the floor until it reached his shoes. His coffee sat untouched on the windowsill, now completely cold, while the clock above the door continued its patient march toward another night.

Another 3:17. Another promise that he would wake before the pain did. Another promise he intended to keep, no matter how impossible it was becoming.

Yoongi woke before the clock. The habit had rooted itself so deeply into his body that exhaustion no longer mattered. His eyes opened into the dim hospital room, instinct already reaching for you before consciousness fully returned, and his fingers found the warmth of your hand resting above the blanket.

The room was unusually still. No restless shifting beneath the sheets. No quiet inhale that caught halfway through your chest. No whispered complaint about the ache in your shoulders or the stiffness in your neck. Only the soft mechanical rhythm that had accompanied every night for weeks.

His gaze drifted toward the clock.

3:16 a.m.

The smallest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You finally gave me a head start."

The joke slipped into the darkness, expecting the familiar pause before you rolled your eyes and accused him of turning everything into a competition. Instead, the room offered nothing back except the muted hum of fluorescent lights beyond the closed door.

He looked at you again. Your face had relaxed in a way he hadn't seen for months, every line of discomfort erased from your features until you looked impossibly peaceful. The crease that always appeared between your brows during the early hours had disappeared, leaving only the quiet expression of someone enjoying uninterrupted sleep.

Yoongi loosened his grip on your hand and brushed a strand of hair away from your forehead. "You've got five seconds before I claim victory."

Silence. He counted anyway. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

"I win." Nothing.

The smile lingered for another heartbeat before uncertainty settled beneath it. His thumb resumed its slow circles across the back of your hand, repeating the motion that had soothed you through every difficult night. He waited for the tiny squeeze that always followed, for your fingers to curl weakly around his, for the almost imperceptible sign that you were still there with him. Your hand remained still.

The digital clock clicked forward.

3:17 a.m.

Yoongi leaned closer until his forearms rested against the mattress. "Hey." His voice stayed low, careful not to disturb you. "It's time."

No answer.

Outside the room, rubber soles whispered against polished floors before fading into the distance. Somewhere farther down the hallway, a monitor chimed twice before a nurse silenced it, and the familiar sounds of the hospital continued without noticing that something inside Room 712 had shifted.

He reached for the call button, then stopped. You had slept through medication checks before. You had slept through blood pressure readings. Once, after an especially exhausting day, you had slept through Jin's painfully loud video call, only waking when Yoongi threatened to answer it himself. This could be that. It had to be.

"You always complain when I wake you up." His fingers tightened around yours. "So I'm giving you another minute."

He settled back into the chair, never releasing your hand, and watched the rise and fall of your chest. One breath. Another. The movement was so faint that he almost convinced himself he had seen it.

The clock changed again.

3:18 a.m.

A quiet knock interrupted the silence before the overnight nurse stepped inside carrying another folded blanket. She paused the moment her eyes landed on the two of you. "You're awake already."

Yoongi nodded toward the untouched blanket. "She's winning today."

The nurse smiled automatically, expecting the usual exchange that had become part of her shift. She crossed the room and reached for your chart, but her attention drifted to the monitor almost immediately. The smile disappeared. She stepped closer then closer still. Her fingers found your wrist with practiced precision while her eyes searched your face.

Yoongi watched her, confusion knitting his brows together. "She's just sleeping."

The nurse didn't answer. Instead, she pressed the call button on the wall, her movements calm but impossibly quick. 

Within seconds, footsteps echoed through the hallway. Another nurse entered then another. The room filled with quiet urgency. Someone gently guided Yoongi's chair backward. He didn't move.

"I'm staying."

A doctor arrived still fastening the sleeves of his white coat, his expression composed in the way only years of practice could produce. He checked your pulse, listened for a heartbeat, adjusted a sensor, and exchanged a look with the nurses that lasted less than a second but seemed to stretch across an eternity.

Yoongi barely noticed any of it. He kept talking instead. "You skipped physical therapy yesterday."

His thumb continued tracing slow circles over your hand. "They're going to think you're avoiding them."

No one interrupted him.

"They'll make you walk twice as far." His eyes never left your face. "And you still owe me caramel pudding because vanilla was a terrible compromise."

The doctor lowered his stethoscope. The nurses gradually stepped away from the bed, each movement slower than the last.

Someone rested a hand against Yoongi's shoulder. He shrugged it off without looking. 

"You promised we'd go home." The words escaped in a voice so quiet they almost disappeared beneath the steady, unbroken tone that had quietly replaced the familiar rhythm of the monitor.

He stared at your face, waiting for the tiny laugh that always followed whenever he became too serious. Waiting for your fingers to squeeze his hand. Waiting for 3:17 to end the way it always had. But for the first time in seventy-four nights, the pain never came, and neither did you.

The room never became chaotic. No one shouted instructions across the bed or rushed equipment through the doorway, because there was nothing left to fix. The nurses exchanged brief glances that carried years of experience, the doctor lowered his eyes toward the chart instead of the monitor, and the steady tone that filled Room 712 continued with quiet indifference, stretching into every corner until it became impossible to tell where the sound ended and the silence began.

Yoongi remained exactly where he was. His hand still covered yours, his thumb still tracing slow circles over your skin with the same measured rhythm he had repeated every night for weeks. The movement had become muscle memory long ago, existing independently of thought, and he couldn't stop even when the warmth beneath his fingertips had already begun to fade.

A nurse crouched beside him. She had been the one bringing him hot chocolate every night, the one who always laughed when he complained about vending machine coffee, the one who pretended not to notice that he never drank either. "Yoongi."

He didn't look at her. "You forgot the blanket."

Her hand paused halfway toward his shoulder. "It's right here."

He glanced at the folded fabric resting over her arm and gave a small nod, as though she had simply arrived a few minutes later than usual. "She gets cold around this time."

The nurse swallowed against the tightness in her throat before unfolding the blanket with careful hands. Together, without exchanging another word, they draped it over you exactly the way they always did, smoothing the edges near your shoulders and tucking the corners beneath your arms.

For one impossible moment, it almost looked like another ordinary night. The doctor stepped forward after giving them enough time to breathe. "I am so sorry."

Yoongi stared at the clock instead. The blue numbers continued shining above the door.

3:23 a.m.

"You don't understand." His voice remained steady, almost conversational, the same tone he used when correcting someone's coffee order or reminding you to take your medication. "She always falls asleep after the pain passes."

No one interrupted him.

"If we wait another few minutes, she'll wake up and complain that my hand is too cold." His thumb continued its slow circles. "And she'll ask what time it is."

The doctor removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose before speaking again, but the words never reached Yoongi. They dissolved somewhere between the monitor and the window, lost beneath memories that crowded his thoughts with relentless clarity.

You, laughing because he had burned toast. You, stealing his hoodie even in the middle of summer. You, insisting that seven identical coffee mugs counted as interior design. You, whispering at exactly 3:17 every single night, "You're awake."

A vibration against his thigh pulled him back. His phone. The screen glowed with an incoming video call. Namjoon.Yoongi stared at the name until it disappeared.

A second later, another notification arrived.

Jin: Did you both survive the terrible hospital breakfast?

Then another.

Hobi: Tell Y/N I found the blanket she wanted.

The messages continued appearing one after another, piling across the screen while the room remained perfectly still. Yoongi locked the phone without answering. He knew that once he replied, the world outside Room 712 would learn what had happened. 

As long as he stayed silent, time hadn't moved yet. As long as he stayed silent, somewhere beyond sunrise there still existed a version of today where you would wake up hungry and complain about pudding flavors.

The nurse quietly slipped the phone into the pocket of his hoodie when it buzzed again. This time she didn't look at the screen. She simply rested a hand against his shoulder.

Yoongi finally turned toward her. For the first time since 3:17, his expression cracked. Not dramatically. Not with sobs or desperate pleas. Just a tiny fracture around his eyes, the kind that formed after too many sleepless nights and too much hope carried for too long.

"I promised her we'd go home." The sentence hung between them, unbearably small.

The nurse couldn't offer reassurance that would matter, so she reached for the cold cup of vending machine coffee sitting untouched beside the chair and quietly threw it away.

Outside, dawn began spreading across the city. The first rays of sunlight slipped through the window and landed gently across your face, warming your closed eyes exactly the way Yoongi had always liked. He noticed the light immediately and stood without thinking, crossing the room to adjust the curtain.

His hand stopped halfway. You had always looked prettier in the morning. Slowly, he lowered his arm again and left the sunlight where it was. Then he returned to the chair beside your bed, laced his fingers through yours one last time, and settled in as though another night still waited ahead.

The digital clock continued counting.

3:41.

3:58.

4:12.

Yoongi never looked away from you. If anyone had asked, he would have answered with complete certainty that he was only waiting. After all, for seventy-three nights, you had always responded.

And some stubborn, exhausted part of him still believed that if he kept holding your hand, if he kept tracing those familiar circles across your skin, if he stayed awake long enough, you would open your eyes and ask the same question you always did.

"What time is it?"

------------------

Winter arrived without asking for permission.

The first snow settled across Seoul in thin layers that disappeared by noon, dusting sidewalks, rooftops, and the windows of Yoongi's studio before melting into nothing. He watched it from behind the piano, a mug of coffee cooling beside scattered sheets of music, and caught himself counting the minutes until someone would walk through the door to complain that the heater was too high.

No one came. The silence no longer startled him. It simply lived there now, tucked between unfinished melodies and the faint scent of coffee that had seeped into the walls over the years. The studio looked exactly the way it always had—cables tangled beneath chairs, notebooks stacked in uneven piles, hoodies thrown across the sofa—but there was an emptiness woven into every familiar corner, a shape that belonged to someone who would never occupy it again.

He still owned seven identical mugs. People had asked why he never threw them away. He never bothered answering. Every Saturday morning, he reached into the cabinet without thinking and pulled out two. One for himself. One for you.

By the time he realized what he had done, steam would already be curling from both cups. He would stand in the kitchen for a moment, staring at the second mug until the coffee cooled, before quietly drinking them both because wasting it somehow felt worse than pretending.

Namjoon stopped mentioning it after the third visit. Jin simply washed the extra cup and returned it to the cabinet without a word. The others learned to leave one chair empty whenever they gathered, never discussing why the seat remained untouched through dinner, movies, or nights that stretched too late into morning. Some absences deserved respect instead of explanation.

Yoongi returned to writing music because he no longer knew what else to do. The melodies came slowly, gathering one note at a time until they resembled conversations that would never happen again. He left mistakes exactly where they landed, refusing to polish every rough edge, because perfection had started feeling dishonest after discovering that life could end in the middle of an ordinary sentence.

The piano became the only place where grief stopped feeling heavy. There, it transformed into rhythm. Into pauses. Into chords that lingered longer than they should.

One evening, he found a strand of your hair caught inside the sleeve of an old hoodie. He didn't remember the last time you had worn it, only that you always stole his clothes and insisted they smelled better than yours. The tiny thread rested against his palm, almost weightless, yet it carried enough memories to send him sinking onto the studio floor with the fabric gathered tightly against his chest.

He stayed there until sunset painted the room amber. Not crying. Not speaking. Just listening to the quiet settle around him until breathing became easier again.

Life continued because it always did. Schedules filled calendars. Albums reached deadlines. Friends dragged him outside for dinner often enough to keep him from disappearing completely into the studio. He smiled when expected, argued over takeout menus, corrected Jin's terrible movie opinions, and rolled his eyes whenever Namjoon knocked over another glass.

Anyone watching from across the room might have believed he was healing. Only Yoongi knew the difference between healing and learning where to place the ache.

Months slipped by. Winter surrendered to spring, and spring carried enough warmth to leave the windows open at night. City lights stretched across the river while distant traffic hummed through the darkness, familiar enough to blend into dreams.

Then, without warning, Yoongi's eyes opened. The room remained completely dark except for the faint blue glow of the digital clock resting on the nightstand.

3:17 a.m.

He didn't sit up immediately. His hand moved first, sliding across the mattress with quiet certainty until his fingers reached the empty space beside him. The sheets were cool beneath his palm, untouched except for the small indentation that no longer existed anywhere except in memory.

His thumb traced slow circles against cotton. The same circles. The same rhythm. The same silent promise his hands had memorized long before his mind understood it.

The words escaped before he could stop them. "Does it still hurt?"

The apartment answered with stillness. Outside, rain brushed softly against the window, and somewhere in the distance a train carried strangers toward homes where lights still glowed in waiting.

Yoongi closed his eyes. For the first time since that night, he didn't wait for a reply.

He pushed the blanket aside, crossed the quiet apartment barefoot, and made his way into the studio where the piano rested beneath the moonlight spilling through the glass. An unfinished score still sat on the stand. He had started it months ago. He had abandoned it after the second page because every melody kept finding its way back to you.

Tonight, he lowered himself onto the bench without hesitation. His fingers hovered over the keys then they began to move.

The first notes drifted into the empty room, gentle enough to sound like footsteps returning home. The melody wandered through familiar places—the warmth of convenience store pudding shared after midnight, sunlight falling across hospital blankets, laughter over identical coffee mugs, hands finding each other at exactly 3:17 every morning. It wasn't a goodbye. It never could be. It was every ordinary moment stitched together into something that could survive memory.

As dawn slowly painted the horizon pale gold, Yoongi reached into the pocket of the hoodie draped across the piano bench. His fingers brushed against smooth plastic. The hospital bracelet. He had carried it everywhere for months without realizing its weight.

Carefully, almost reverently, he placed it beside the sheet music. Not hidden inside a drawer. Not locked inside a box. Just resting there, where the morning light could find it.

The melody came to a quiet end. Yoongi looked toward the window as the first rays of sunlight slipped into the studio, warming the empty chair beside the piano exactly the way they used to warm your face. A small smile touched his lips, tired but unmistakably real.

At 3:17 every morning, his body would probably still wake before the sun. The habit would remain, stubborn and faithful, reaching across empty sheets for a hand that no longer answered. But somewhere between the silence and the music, Yoongi realized that love had never disappeared with you.

As he slowly approached the shower door, his foot caught on the underwear you discarded. An impossible amount of heat built inside him at the mere sight of the white cotton. Steve picked them up and inspected the drenched fabric – drenched in your sweat and your slick. He held it to his nose and sniffed the gusset deeply, feeling the warmth that was still there from your body, inhaling it into his. On the exhale, Steve groaned, intoxicated by the scent of your secretions.

He quickly threw the fabric in the laundry hamper, feeling slightly guilty, when he heard a high pitched moan echo out of the shower cubicle.

The image in front of him when he opened the door would have made Steve come right there and then if he hadn’t gotten some of it out his system just five minutes ago.

“Christ…”

There you were slumped back against the tiles, your wet hair stuck to your face and your neck, drops of water danced on your chest, your nipples perked up and inviting. Steve’s eyes followed a single trickle of water as it cascaded down between your breasts, all the way to where you held the shower head between your legs.

“Honey,” Steve groaned like he was somewhat disappointed but also so very turned on. “I said I–“

Another one of your moans cut Steve off, your hips twitched forward when one of the jets hit directly on your needy clit.

“You took too long–nuh,” you whined.

Steve wanted to say ‘I took like five seconds’ but he was completely unable to form words when your breathing started to labour, your back arched off the wall and you called out his name like a prayer.

He stepped into the confines of the shower, leaving the door open behind him so he wouldn’t feel too claustrophobic – he didn’t think about the fact that the bathroom was about to get absolutely soaked.

A chill ran up Steve’s spine when he felt the cold water pool at his feet as it flowed through your folds and down the drain. You held the shower head steady and moved your hips in circles over the gushing water. You were already so close but now that Steve’s body took up your field of vision, your thighs trembled at the sight of him.

Even though you were hogging the refreshing water, Steve was still very much soaked by his sweat. Evidence of his earlier release stuck to his tummy, swirling into his scandalous trial of hair that met the base of his cock.

God, that cock of his.

It stood tall, pressed against his belly. Already it looked ready to pop again and you just wanted it everywhere. In your hand, your mouth, your pussy. You’d even take it rubbing against your thigh if it meant you got to feel him.

You moved your hips in smaller, more frantic circles, your hand gripped the shower head like your life depended on it. Steve looked you dead in the eyes, his stare so intense you felt it burn your retinas.

Suddenly, he snatched the head out of your hand.

A desperate whine left your lips followed by an annoyed grunt. “What the fuck, Steve,” you snarled at him.

You had to use every last thread of your self respect to hold your ground and not drop to your knees and beg him to let you finish.

“You really think this thing can get you off better than I can?” Steve waved the head around, water splattering everywhere, before he turned it back on you and blasted water on your heaving chest. You yelped at the sudden coldness and you could feel some of your arousal washing away.

“He was about to,” you spat, literally spitting some of the water that found its way into your mouth back at him.

“He?” Steve chuckled. “Does he have a name?”

You nodded wordlessly and Steve moved the head down past your quivering cunt to the inside of your thigh, just out of reach of where you needed it most.

“I named him after you, Stevie,” you said softly, trying to appease him.

“That’s cute.” His condescending tone made you clench around nothing.

With his free hand, Steve held your chin between his thumb and pointer finger, tilting it up to him so he could brush his lips against your wet ones as he spoke.

“Maybe two Stevies are better than one.”

Before you could question what the fuck he meant, Steve flicked the shower head over to shoot water with pinpoint accuracy into your pussy. One tiny jet hit your swollen clit, another spluttering at your entrance.

“Oh my–fuck, Steve,” you yelled at the sudden intensity. It made your knees buckle but Steve was quick help support you, his hand pushing your hips agaisnt the cold tiles.

“Your Stevies making you feel good, huh, baby?”

You replied only by gripping his shoulders tightly to stop yourself from slipping down the wall. Which earned Steve a smug smile to plaster on his lips.

Like you did before, your hips started moving in tight circles, faster and faster as you felt tension build in your core again.

Steve ducked his head down to capture your lips in a hot and wet kiss. You opened your mouth against his in a groan, not really kissing back as the water pressure became too much for you to do anything other than hang your jaw open.

“C’mon, honey,” Steve coaxed you, his wrist flicking minutely to get you over the edge.

“Is… ugh–“

It’s too much, is what you tried to say – too much and not enough. Your hips twitched uncontrollably from the water jabbing at your clit. You were painfully close, teetering on the edge of release, not quite able to jump.

Your nails dug into the back of Steve's neck in a silent, desperate attempt to communicate. As if he could read your mind, Steve relinquished his harsh hold on your hip and reached his other hand down between your legs. Two of his fingers, without any teasing or fanfare, thrusted deep and fast into your clenching cunt.

You cried out a blubbering version of his name. Your eyes were wet and you had no idea if it was from the shower, sweat or tears – probably all three. Your head fell forward onto Steve’s shoulder, your breath hot as you added to the wetness on his skin by drooling over it.

“You got it, baby. Come for Stevie.”

Was he talking about him, his fingers massaging deep over that spongy spot inside you. Or was he talking about the shower head annihilating your clit. It didn’t really matter. Either way, that wave crashed over you. Your ears rang out, the sound of running water became just white noise buzzing through you as your whole body vibrated.

Steve removed his fingers from you to help hold you up against him, but he kept the shower head exactly where it was. You were too delirious to move your hips out the path of the water. If you thought it was too much before, now it felt unbearable.

“Ste–ugh–Steve…” you whimpered quietly, your voice only just audible over the sound of water gushing from between your legs.

“S’okay, I got you.” Steve placed a kiss to your wet hair as he finally removed the head from you and hung it up on the holder above.

The water sprayed the top of your head and you slumped further into Steve. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close, your bodies slick, his hard length between your tummies although you were too drained to take much notice of it.

Steve on the other hand could not ignore the feeling of you pressing against him each time you tried to regain air into your lungs.

It was the rumble in Steve’s chest that helped you regain some composure as he lost all of his. He groaned deeply, rubbing his cock against you. Water filled the gaps between you making everything slippery.

“Fuck, honey,” Steve mumbled, water spilled into his mouth and he let it dribble out onto you as his lips parted.

You finally lifted your head from his shoulder. Somehow, Steve looked just as wrecked as you did, even through his only half open eyes, you saw the wanting in him. With the haze of your orgasm still clouding you, it didn't take much for you to whimper at him. So the sight of Steve, wet and desperate, much like he was earlier that night in bed, elicited a needy squeak from your throat as if he hadn’t already got you off good.

With the shred of energy you found deep within yourself, you grabbed Steve’s head and pulled his mouth roughly to yours. A mixture of his warm saliva and the cool water flooded your mouth. Your tongues licked together as you drank each other in. The kiss quickly turned sloppy, an all too familier ache brewed in the pit of your stomach right where Steve rubbed his cock over the outside of it.

“Steve…” you moaned.

“I need you so bad.”

Much like the running water, his words washed over you causing your eyes to flutter shut for a moment. When you opened them Steve had left your sight and it took a beat too long to process that he was now on his knees.

His strong hands gripped the back of your thighs as he guided you back against the cold tile of the shower wall. Your legs were still shaking as he hoisted you up onto his shoulders but Steve kept a stable hold on your hips. Your hands found his dripping hair for something to hold on to.

“Steve,” you whined when you felt his breath on your cunt, a heated contrast to the water spraying your skin. “No, I–“

A soft peck to your folds halted your protest. Sure you were already ruined, still feeling the sensitising effects of Steve and Stevie, but his mouth felt so soothing, you wanted him to kiss you better.

“Please let me taste you, honey.” Steve's voice was muffled between your legs but his eyes reached up to you, wide and expectantly. “I’ll be gentle, promise.”

You nodded your head looking down at him and gave his hair an encouraging tug. His mouth was hidden from your view but the smile on his face filtered up to his gaze..

Cool mist sprayed off Steve’s back and on to you as he kissed around your folds. Some quick and fleeting, others long and insistent. The sting you felt morphed into a dull ache with each press of his lips.

You shifted your hips a little, angling your cunt against Steve’s mouth wanting to feel more of it. A deep groan echoed off the tiles from his mouth, picking up your signal – he knew you so well.

Steve opened his mouth wide over you, eliciting a groggy squeal from your throat. You felt his warmth radiate through you so you reached a hand out to the running water in an attempt to keep yourself cool. It didn’t last long. When Steve’s tongue licked through your dripping folds, you needed every morsel of strength to stop yourself from crashing to the shower floor.

“Ugh–fuck,” you gasped.

Steve drank in the mixture of your fresh arousal and the water, practically inhaling it in a way that made you worried he might actually drown in your cunt. He sucked as much of the liquid into his mouth as he could before spitting it back on to you in a messy, forceful spray.

“Nuh– what happened to gentle,” you questioned breathlessly.

“Sorry baby, couldn’t resist.”

Steve dove back into you with the kind of hunger he usually reserved for his favourite meal – right now that was you. His hands pulled your thighs tighter around his head – how is he still breathing – and you locked your ankles together behind his back.

After each curling lick through you, Steve spat back your juices onto your clit and into your hole. The way he fluctuated between long strokes and quick splats, had you disoriented, never quite getting the rhythm you needed until, finally, he sunk his tongue into you.

“Ugh– my God,” you moan and Steve does the same as he felt your pussy suck him back.

He groaned into you sending sweet vibrations all the way to your toes – and he kept doing it. Like he got off on the taste of you, the way you pulsed on his tongue and clenched around his head.

Everything was so loud. The running water, your increasingly strangled whines, Steve’s low and breathy moans, the sound of him slurping you up and spitting you out like mouthwash.

Then something else joined the chaotic symphony. The slapping sound of wet skin on wet skin. You looked down and all you could see from your view above him was Steve's arm as it moved rapidly.

Fuck, he’s fucking touching himself.

For the second time that heat heavy, early morning Steve had his fist wrapped tight around his cock all because of you.

This time not because of some untouchable fantasy, but the real you. You in his hands, on his tongue, and you griped him like you needed it just as much.

As Steve grew closer to his own tipping point, he drank from your soaked pussy. He sucked you in but no longer gave it back, letting your sweetness coat his throat as he consumed you. His tounge jabbed back into your hole and you thrusted yourself into his face for more.

One hand twisted around his throbbing length, the other came all the way to the around your back to the other side of your waist to pull you close.

Seriously, can he breathe?

The feeling of Steve’s tongue flicking inside you, his hot mouth wide over your cunt, his teeth grazing your aching clit, his increasingly desperate moans, had you a complete mess.

You bounced on top of his shoulders, the speed at which he fucked his fist making you juggle. Just as you felt yourself start to slip to the side on the wet tiles, far too gone to keep yourself upright, your whole body tightened. You suffocated Steve within your thighs, forced his face into your pulsing pussy as you soaked him. Your hands pulled at his hair from the root making him hiss into you.

“Steve…” was all you could muster as he sucked up your release.

Steve’s mouth and body vibrated against you as he pumped himself just one more time before he shot his cum straight down the drain.

“Oh, baby, tastes so good,” he said, his lips against the ones between your legs.

He held you in place as he made sure to squeeze every last drop from his cock. There was no place Steve would rather be than buried in your cunt and if it had drowned in it, he would have died a happy man.

Luckily for you, Steve was very much alive, even if it seemed his soul wasn’t quite back in his body as he helped you off his shoulders. It was like blind leading the blind, the two of you completely dazed for your orgasms, as you tried to keep each other steady.

When you came face to face, Steve pressed his lips to your forehead, a comforting pressure to help centre you and him.

It was a good couple of minutes before either of you were able to form anything that sounded like a word and not a breathless whimper.

“You feel cooler?” Steve asked, his voice quiet and groggy.

You laughed. “I feel like I need a shower.”

Steve returned your infectious giggle. “Good thing we’re in here then.”

He captured your lips in a soft kiss, humming contently against you when you kissed him back slowly.

The two of you took your time washing each other, foaming soap over each other’s skin. Steve massaged your shoulders when you complained they hurt from being pressed against the tiles.

“Sorry, honey,” he mumbled, ducking his head down to peck your soapy skin and nuzzle his nose into the back of your neck.

“It’s okay, it was so worth it.”

It felt like your own little world inside the shower, cold from the water but warm from stolen kisses and soothing touches. You didn’t want to leave and go back into the world that was so full of a more oppressive heat.

But your eyes started to feel heavy and each confronting touch of Steve’s skin on yours made you drift closer to sleep.

“Honey, we should go back to bed,” Steve said into your ear startiling you from your haze.

“No,” you grumbled like a child about to throw a tantrum.

“You’re literally falling asleep.”

“Am not.” Your eyes betrayed your words as they fell shut for a moment too long to get away with being a blink.

Steve chuckled sweetly. “C’mon.”

He shut off the water and stepped out the shower soaking wet. What’s another few drops when your bathroom looked like a tsunami hit it. He grabbed a big towel and held it open to beacon you into his arms. The softness of the fabric on your skin as Steve wrapped it tightly around you made your journey to the land of sleep much faster. Steve pressed a kiss to your head before leading you carefully out the bathroom to make sure you didn’t slip.

The bedroom was now cast in an early morning glow, with it came a slight breeze that rustled through the trees before blowing to the window. The fresh feeling of the air lifted the thick tension that inhabited the room earlier. Your skin even caught a slight chill as Steve ushered you past the window and sat you on the bed. You quickly flopped back to snuggle up to the pillows, giving in to the heaviness in your eyelids.

Although you could not see him, you heard Steve move about the room, his wet feet on the carpet, drawers opening and closing.

“What’re you doin’,” you mumbled from your cocoon.

“Just getting you some clothes,” Steve replied. A smile was evident in his voice from hearing your sleepy words.

You shook your head against the pillow even making a disapproving grunt. “Get over ‘ere.”

Steve turned to look at your form curled up in the towel on the bed. How can he say no to that.

You don’t even hear him cross the room, you just felt the mattress dip and then his chest against your back.

His arms wrapped around you, slightly drying himself off on your towel.

“Tell me if you get too hot,” he murmured in your ear just as you were on the precipice of dreams.

You simply pressed your body harder into his. You’d take a bit of heat over not having him close any day.

A/N: I did a bit of a rush job editing this so hopefully it makes sense!! lol <3

Instead, she'd stepped closer, drawn by a curiosity that had kept her alive this long and was about to be her downfall. The portal's edges rippled like water, casting shifting shadows that made her eyes water. She'd reached out—not to touch it, just to test the air around it, to see if she could feel whatever impossible force was tearing through dimensions.

The puddle was small. Insignificant. The kind of thing she'd normally step over without thinking. But positioned exactly where it was, at the precise edge of the portal's influence, it became the pivot point on which her entire world turned.

Her foot slipped. Physics took over. And suddenly she was falling forward, through liquid light and the space between heartbeats, through the golden throat of something that shouldn't exist.

The landing knocked the breath from her lungs and the sense from her head. When the world stopped spinning, she found herself sprawled on familiar concrete, staring up at the same brick walls, breathing the same stale alley air. But the portal was gone, sealed shut like it had never existed, leaving only the faintest afterimage burned into her retinas.

And somewhere in the distance, she heard the murmur of a city—familiar, but not the same. The cadence of traffic sounded off-key, like a song she knew played in the wrong tempo. The low thrum of voices carried different accents, different rhythms. Even the distant wail of a siren seemed to rise and fall in patterns her ears didn't recognize.

The wrongness revealed itself in layers, each one more unsettling than the last.

She discovered the first crack when she went to what should have been her station. At first glance, it looked identical—same brick facade weathered by decades of city grime, same cracked concrete steps where she'd sat during her lunch breaks, same scuffed double doors that stuck in humid weather. But the moment she walked inside, the air felt different. Heavier. Foreign.

The desk sergeant looked up with mild curiosity rather than the usual grunt of acknowledgment. Officer Martinez walked past without his customary nod. Detective Chen emerged from the break room with coffee and didn't so much as glance in her direction.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching the front desk with her badge already in hand. "I need to check in with Chief Barnett."

The sergeant—Henderson, his nameplate read, though she could have sworn his name was different yesterday—looked at her like she'd asked for directions to Mars.

"Ma'am, there's no Chief Barnett at this precinct. Never has been. You might be looking for the 12th? They got a Captain Barrett over there."

Her badge felt suddenly heavy in her palm. She held it up, the shield catching the fluorescent light. "I'm Detective—"

"Ma'am." Henderson's voice sharpened, and she saw his hand drift toward his radio. "I'm going to need you to step back from the desk."

That was when things went bad. Fast.

Within minutes, she was surrounded. Familiar faces wearing unfamiliar expressions of suspicion and confusion. She knew these people—had shared coffee with them, complained about paperwork, celebrated arrests. But they looked at her like she was a stranger wearing a stolen uniform.

"I work here," she insisted, even as they guided her toward the interrogation rooms. "Check my locker—it's number 47. Check my desk. I've been here for six years."

But when they checked, locker 47 belonged to someone else. The desk she thought of as hers was occupied by a detective she'd never seen before. And when they ran her prints—her own goddamn fingerprints—the room fell silent.

"That's impossible," she heard Chen whisper to Martinez. "These prints... they match a woman who died three years ago."

The words hit her like ice water. Died. Three years ago. The version of her that had lived in this world was dead, and now they were staring at her like she was either an imposter or a ghost.

They moved her to Interview Room 2—the one with the broken chair leg that she'd always avoided. The irony wasn't lost on her. Here she was, finally sitting in the damn chair, but as a suspect instead of a detective. She tested the chair before she sat down in it. The broken leg was stable. 

The one-way mirror reflected her pale face back at her, and she found herself staring at her own features as if seeing them for the first time. Same eyes, same scar on her chin from falling off her bike at age seven, same stubborn part of her hair that never stayed flat. But somehow, she looked like a stranger to herself.

Detectives came and went—Patterson, who'd taught her how to read blood spatter patterns; Rodriguez, who always brought donuts on Fridays; Williams, who'd been her partner for two years. Each one studied her with the same mixture of confusion and suspicion, as if her very existence was an insult to someone's memory.

She gave them everything—her name, badge number, social security, the names of every case she'd worked, every partner she'd had, every scar and story that made up her life. All of it true, and all of it sounding like elaborate fiction when filtered through their disbelief.

Hours passed. Or maybe days. Time felt fluid in that windowless room, marked only by the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional rattle of the ancient air conditioner. She'd long since stopped pinching herself, accepting that whatever this was, it wasn't a dream.

When the door finally opened again, she expected another detective with the same tired questions and skeptical eyes. Instead, a stranger walked in.

He moved with the careful control of someone accustomed to being watched, though tension coiled in his shoulders like a spring wound too tight. Not a cop—his clothes were too casual, too lived-in. Civilian, but not ordinary. The way the desk sergeant had practically saluted when he'd walked past suggested someone with serious pull.

He was a handsome black man, probably mid-thirties, with intelligent eyes that seemed to catalog everything they saw. When he looked at her, those eyes went soft with something that might have been recognition, or hope, or grief. Maybe all three.

The silence stretched between them like a held breath. She watched him settle into the chair across from her with the careful movements of someone carrying invisible weight. His hands rested on the table, knuckles pale with tension, and she found herself studying the calluses on his palms—the kind that came from gripping something regularly. Reins, maybe. Or rope.

Finally, he spoke. His voice was steady but quiet, like he was afraid of the answer before he asked the question.

"Do you know who I am?"

The hope in his voice was so naked it made her chest tight. She wished she could give him what he was looking for, but honesty was all she had left.

"No," she said, then added more gently, "Should I?"

Something inside him crumbled. She saw it happen—the way his shoulders sagged, how his breath left him like he'd been punctured. The careful composure slipped, revealing grief so raw it made her want to look away. But he held her gaze, managing a smile that was equal parts bitter and fond.

"Maybe not this you," he murmured, and there was a world of loss in those four words. "Was worth a shot, though."

Her brows drew together, frustration sparking hot beneath the confusion. "What do you mean, 'this me'? Look, I don't know what kind of game this is, but I'm a detective. This is my station—or it's supposed to be. I don't know what happened, but one minute I was processing a crime scene and the next there was this... portal, or whatever the hell—"

"Portal?" He leaned forward so fast his chair creaked, urgency replacing the gentle sorrow in his voice. "What did it look like? Exactly where were you when it appeared? Did you feel anything before it opened—heat, electrical charges, any kind of distortion in the air?"

The rapid-fire questions made her head spin. "I don't know! It just... appeared. Like someone had torn a hole in reality and filled it with golden light. It was humming, vibrating the air around it." She shoved back from the table, the legs screeching against linoleum. "Look, I don't know who you are or why you're asking, but I've had enough mystery for one day. Just tell me what the hell is happening to me."

He studied her for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing on words too big to swallow. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful, measured—the tone of someone delivering news that would change everything.

"You're not wrong. About this not being your world."

Her heart stuttered. "What?"

"You came through some kind of dimensional rift. It happens—rarely, but it happens. Sometimes the barriers between realities get thin, and things slip through the cracks." He spoke gently, but each word felt like a small betrayal of everything she thought she knew about the universe. "You've crossed into a parallel dimension. A world that's similar to yours, but not the same."

She stared at him like he'd started speaking in tongues. "Parallel dimensions? Are you out of your mind? You expect me to believe I just... fell through a crack in reality like some kind of science fiction nightmare?"

"I know it sounds impossible." His voice remained calm, patient—the way you'd talk to someone standing on a ledge. "But I've seen enough impossible things to know they're usually just improbable. And..." His eyes softened as he looked at her again, really looked, like he was trying to memorize her face. "You're not the first version of you I've met."

The room seemed to tilt. "Excuse me?"

"There was another you. Here, in this world." He paused, choosing his words with surgical precision. "She was... important. To a lot of people. To me. She was a good friend."

Something in his tone—reverent, aching, carefully controlled—made her stomach clench with dread. She swallowed hard, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What happened to her?"

For the first time since he'd entered the room, he looked away. His hands flexed against the table, tendons standing out like bridge cables. When he spoke, his words were weighted with the kind of grief that never fully heals.

"She died. Three years ago."

The words hung in the air between them like smoke, acrid and choking. She felt the world shift beneath her feet, reality reshuffling itself into patterns she didn't recognize. The fluorescent lights seemed too bright suddenly, the air too thin.

"No." The word came out sharp, defensive. She shot to her feet so fast her chair crashed into the wall behind her. "No, that's not possible. I'm right here. Alive. Breathing. You don't just get to have another version of me conveniently die before I show up. That's—" She barked out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. "That's fucking insane."

He didn't flinch, didn't move, just watched her pace the small room like a caged animal. His patience only made her angrier.

"Do you hear yourself?" She spun to face him, fury and terror warring in her voice. "Parallel dimensions? Different versions of me? That's comic book bullshit. I'm a detective, not some interdimensional traveler. You think you can feed me this story and I'll just... what? Accept it? Stop asking questions?"

She slammed her palms against the table, leaning over him. "Tell me the truth!"

He met her gaze without wavering, and his voice when he spoke was rock-steady, implacable as gravity.

"I am telling you the truth."

The conviction in his tone cut through her spiraling panic like a blade. She froze, chest heaving, studying his face for any sign of deception. But there was none—just bone-deep certainty and a grief so profound it seemed to have worn grooves in his features.

He rose slowly, closing half the distance between them—close enough to be reassuring, far enough to avoid seeming threatening. "I know how insane this sounds. I know every instinct you have is screaming that it's impossible. But I've lived through stranger things than you being here right now. And I'm not trying to trick you or manipulate you. I'm trying to help."

Her jaw clenched, but some of the fight leaked out of her voice. "Why should I believe you?"

He was quiet for a moment, seeming to weigh his words. Then he extended his hand—palm up, an offering rather than a demand.

"Because my name is Sam Wilson. And if you let me, I'll do everything I can to make sure you're safe."

Something in the way he said it—solid as bedrock, unshakeable as sunrise—made her anger waver. There was a quality to his voice that spoke of promises kept, of responsibility accepted and never abandoned. Without meaning to, she found herself believing him.

Sam Wilson was clearly someone important. She could tell by the way the precinct transformed around him. Officers who'd treated her like a curiosity or a threat suddenly straightened when he appeared, their voices taking on the particular tone of respect reserved for true authority. They clapped him on the shoulder, thanked him for unspecified favors, and more than one called him "Cap" as they headed out for patrol.

She studied him as they walked to his car, noting the way he moved—confident but not cocky, alert without being paranoid. Military bearing, but softened by civilian life.

"Cap?" she asked as they settled into his black sedan. "As in Captain?"

Something flickered across his face—amusement mixed with something heavier, more complicated. His smile was warm but tinged with melancholy, like a song played in a minor key.

"Something like that."

She didn't press, but the title lodged itself in her mind like a splinter. Captain. The kind of rank that came with weight, with responsibility, with the expectation that you'd carry other people's burdens as easily as your own.

He drove her through the restless pulse of New York, and she found herself cataloging the differences. The skyline was almost identical, but not quite. A building here that shouldn't exist, a street there that curved the wrong way. Like someone had rebuilt her city from memory but gotten some of the details wrong.

They stopped at a building that seemed to hum with unseen energy, its architecture somehow more alive than the structures around it. The man waiting inside introduced himself as Doctor Stephen Strange, the air around him shimmered with barely contained power.

Strange studied her with eyes that had seen too much, and she caught the flicker of recognition—and pain—when his gaze met hers. Another person haunted by a ghost she was apparently wearing the face of.

His examination was thorough, involving incantations in languages that hurt her ears to hear and geometric patterns of light that made her vision water. When he finally delivered his verdict, his voice carried the weight of cosmic authority.

"She's a dimensional variant. Another world's version of the woman you knew." He paused, his expression growing grave. "And the portal that brought her here... it wasn't random. She was meant to come through. Meant to stay."

The words hit her like a physical blow. "What?" She lurched to her feet, the chair scraping against polished marble. "No. No, I don't belong here! This isn't my world, my life. That portal was an accident. You have to send me back."

Her voice cracked on the last word, desperation bleeding through the careful control she'd maintained all day. She turned to Sam, searching his face for any sign that Strange was wrong.

"You said the other me is dead. But I'm not her. I have my own life, my own world. People who'll miss me. You can't just... you can't just expect me to replace her."

Sam flinched like she'd struck him, his gaze dropping to the floor. The grief carved into his features was so raw it made her chest ache with sympathy she didn't understand.

Strange's voice softened, but his words remained uncompromising. "I'm sorry. If there were a way to send you home, I would. But the forces that brought you here... they don't make mistakes. You're here because this is where you belong now."

The pronouncement settled over her like a funeral shroud. She stood frozen for a moment, every muscle tense with the urge to run, to fight, to somehow undo the cosmic joke that had torn her from everything she knew. Instead, she forced herself to breathe, to think, to survive this moment the way she'd survived every other impossible thing life had thrown at her.

"I need air," she managed, and walked out before either of them could respond.

The hallway beyond was lined with artifacts that seemed to hum with their own inner light. Ancient books, crystalline sculptures, weapons that looked like they'd been forged in other dimensions. She leaned against the cool stone wall, closing her eyes and trying to find her center.

That's when she heard their voices drifting from the chamber she'd just left.

"Have you told Barnes yet?" Strange's voice carried clearly in the empty corridor.

A long pause, then Sam's reply, heavy with reluctance. "No. Not yet. I don't even know how to begin that conversation."

"She's here for a reason," Strange said firmly. "The universe doesn't place people where they don't belong. He'll need to know. The sooner the better."

Another silence, longer this time. When Sam spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Yeah. I just don't know how either of them will handle it."

The conversation ended with the sound of chairs scraping, footsteps moving. She pushed herself off the wall and composed her face just as Sam emerged, looking like he was carrying the weight of the world.

"Let's get out of here," he said gently, as if she hadn't overheard every word.

His brownstone was a refuge from the chaos of the day. Warm wood floors, lived-in furniture, bookshelves that actually held books instead of just decoration. Photographs covered the mantle and side tables: Sam with various people she didn't recognize, group shots that looked like they'd been taken after successful missions, candid moments of laughter and camaraderie.

She sank into his couch, exhaustion finally catching up with her. The adrenaline that had carried her through the day was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness that went beyond physical fatigue.

Sam settled across from her, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together. He studied her for a long moment before speaking.

"I guess it's time I told you who I am. My full story." He took a breath, as if steeling himself. "My name is Sam Wilson. I used to go by the Falcon—had a pair of mechanical wings, worked with the Avengers. But a few years back, Steve Rogers, Captain America, passed the shield to me. So now people call me Captain America."

The revelation should have shocked her, but somehow it fit. The deference at the station, the way Strange had treated him as an equal, the weight he seemed to carry…it all made sense now.

“Yeah, we…had a Steve Rogers in my world,” she murmured, playing with some loose threads between the cushions of the couch. “Had the Avengers. Mutants, too.” 

"The version of you that lived here," he continued, his voice growing softer, more careful, "she was part of that world too. An intelligence specialist who helped us track down dangerous people. She fought beside us, bled with us. She was..." He paused, searching for words. "She was family."

Family. The word hung in the air between them, loaded with implications she wasn't ready to unpack.

"And she's gone," she said quietly.

Sam's nod was barely perceptible. "Yeah. She's gone. But you're here now. And maybe—"

"There's no maybe." The words came out harder than she'd intended, sharp with frustration and fear. "There's no cosmic plan or grand design. Sometimes shit just happens. Bad luck, wrong place, wrong time. You're telling me that if you suddenly woke up in a different reality where everyone expected you to be someone else, someone dead, you'd just accept it? Roll over and play the part because strangers called it fate?"

Sam's expression hardened, but not with anger. With understanding that cut too deep. "You think I don't know what it's like to have everything you thought you knew about the world get turned upside down? To lose people who mattered more than your own life?" His voice carried the weight of hard-earned wisdom. "I've wanted to wake up in a different world more times than I can count. One where the people I've lost are still alive, where the choices I made turned out different."

He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "But that's not how it works. We don't get to pick the reality we land in. We just get to decide what we do once we're there. And right now, you're here. That's not negotiable. The only question is what you're going to do about it."

His words hit harder than she'd expected, cutting through her anger to something more vulnerable underneath. She wanted to argue, to maintain her fury because it felt safer than the alternative. Accepting that her old life was truly gone.

"So what, you expect me to just slide into her place? Live in some dead woman's shadow?"

"No one's asking you to replace her." Sam's voice was firm, brooking no argument. "You're not her, and we both know that. But like it or not, you're here now. And pretending this isn't happening won't change that fact."

"I don't belong here," she said, but the words felt hollow even as she spoke them.

"You don't belong there anymore either." The gentleness in his voice made it worse somehow. "If that portal brought you here, maybe it was because this is where you need to be. You can be angry about it—hell, you should be. But anger won't change reality."

The fight drained out of her slowly, like air from a punctured tire. She turned to stare out the front window at the head of the room at the unfamiliar-familiar city beyond, her reflection ghostlike in the glass.

Sam showed her to a small guest room with the same quiet efficiency he'd displayed all day. It was simple but comfortable. Clean sheets, soft pillows, and a window that looked out on a tree-lined street that could have been from her world.

"You can stay here as long as you need," he said, lingering in the doorway. "I'll work on getting you set up with your own place, new identity, whatever you need to build a life here."

The casual way he mentioned building a life here made the reality of the situation crash over her again. This wasn't temporary. This was her new existence, whether she wanted it or not.

"Sam?" Her voice was smaller than she'd intended. "Tell me about her. About... me. The one you knew."

Something in his expression shifted, pain flickering across his features like shadows cast by firelight. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze growing distant.

"She was brilliant," he said finally. "Sharp as hell, with instincts that could cut through any lie or deception. She specialized in intelligence work—tracking people who didn't want to be found, uncovering connections others missed. She came into our world during the hunt for the Winter Soldier, back when he was still... when he was still HYDRA's weapon."

Her stomach clenched at the mention of the Winter Soldier. A killer in her world, same as in this one, it seemed. 

"She was the one who helped Steve and Natasha track him down," Sam continued, his voice growing softer. "And when we finally found him, when we realized he could be saved instead of just stopped... she fought for that. Fought to bring him back from the darkness."

The name hit her like a physical blow. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier had a real name, a real identity. 

"After that, she stayed close to the team," Sam went on. "Worked missions with us, became part of the family. She was brave, loyal, never hesitated to put herself in harm's way if it meant protecting innocent people or helping the team." His voice caught slightly. "She saved my life more than once. Saved all our lives."

The grief in his voice was palpable, a living thing that filled the space between them. She found herself holding her breath, afraid to disturb the weight of his memories but wanting him to continue.

"She mattered," he said simply. And yet, the effect — the emotion on his face — was devastating. 

She didn't ask how the other version of her had died. The pain etched into every line of Sam's expression was answer enough. Some wounds were too fresh to probe, even three years later.

Sam moved to leave, but her voice stopped him at the threshold.

"The Winter Soldier... that's Bucky Barnes, isn't it?"

He went absolutely still, tension radiating from his frame like heat from a furnace.

"In my world," she continued, forcing the words past the tightness in her throat, "the Winter Soldier died. Steve Rogers killed him during the fall of SHIELD. It was the only way to stop him." She hesitated, then added, "I heard you and Strange talking earlier. About... him."

Sam turned slowly, his expression carefully controlled but his eyes dark with something that might have been worry or fear or protective instinct. Maybe all three.

"It's better if you don't know," he said quietly, each word chosen with surgical precision. "Not yet."

The finality in his voice left no room for argument. He left her alone with her questions and the growing certainty that whatever connection existed between her and this world's version of the Winter Soldier, it was going to change everything. 

Why did the other version of her help him? What was different about their relationship that Sam seemed so on edge about? 

She sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room, staring out at the unfamiliar-familiar street, and wondered if there was any such thing as fate. Or if the universe was just crueler than she'd ever imagined.

______________________________________________________________

Sam was a good man, that became clear within hours of meeting him. The kind of good that ran bone-deep, expressed not in grand gestures but in small consistencies. He checked in without hovering, offered help without condescension, and by the third day had somehow managed to secure her an apartment only six blocks from his brownstone. When she'd asked how he'd pulled that off so quickly in New York's brutal housing market, he'd just smiled and said he knew people.

She could see why they'd chosen him to carry the shield. His moral compass alone was seemingly larger than life.

Still, living under his roof felt like wearing clothes that didn't quite fit. Not because Sam was unkind. If anything, he was almost painfully considerate, the way people are when they're afraid of breaking something fragile. It was the weight of expectation that pressed against her shoulders, the careful way he sometimes caught himself mid-sentence, as if he'd been about to say something meant for someone else.

Someone who looked exactly like her. Someone who was dead.

She threw herself into research with the desperate focus of someone trying to solve her own existence. Hunched over her laptop at Sam's kitchen table, she devoured everything she could find about this world's history. The Avengers Initiative. The Chitauri invasion. The fall of SHIELD and rise of HYDRA. The Sokovia Accords. Thanos and the Blip—five years when half of all life simply ceased to exist, then returned as suddenly as it had vanished.

The broad strokes matched her world's timeline, but the details were all wrong. Like looking at a painting that had been copied by someone with imperfect memory. Close enough to be familiar, different enough to be deeply unsettling.

What disturbed her most wasn't the differences themselves, but the growing realization that she wore the face of a woman who had lived through these events, who had bled and fought and sacrificed alongside Earth's mightiest heroes. Every record she found mentioned her. Intelligence reports signed with her name, mission debriefs that referenced her tactical assessments, personnel files that listed her as an active associate of the Avengers until three years ago.

And then, abruptly, the records stopped.

Sam's grief haunted the spaces between them like smoke. She'd catch him looking at her sometimes, as if he could will her to be someone else through sheer force of longing. When their eyes met, he'd remember himself and look away, but not before she glimpsed the disappointment that flickered across his features. Brief as lightning, but it left its mark.

She understood. But that didn't make it hurt less.

The day after she'd arrived, Sam's friend Joaquin Torres had shown up with a laptop bag and an easy grin that transformed the heavy atmosphere in the brownstone. Young, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of boyish charm that made people trust him instinctively. More importantly, he looked at her without the weight of recognition, treating her like a person instead of a ghost wearing familiar skin. He hadn’t known her, the other version of her, Sam had told her. Much to her silent relief — a fresh human interaction was much needed. 

"Alright," he'd said, settling at the kitchen table and cracking open his laptop. "Let's get you a new identity. Technically, the old you is listed as deceased, which creates some interesting paperwork challenges. But nothing we can't handle."

His fingers flew across the keyboard with practiced ease, pulling up forms and databases with the casual expertise of someone who'd done this before. She found herself relaxing for the first time since falling through that portal, grateful to be treated like herself…whoever that was now.

By the second day, curiosity got the better of her.

"Did she, the other me, have any family?" she asked, trying to keep her tone casual while her hands twisted together under the table. "Husband, boyfriend, anyone who might be looking for me?"

Joaquin glanced up from his screen, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Let me check... okay, parents died when she was eleven—" Her stomach clenched. Her parents, the ones in her world, had died around the same time. "—grandparents took her in but passed right before the Blip. No siblings listed." He scrolled further, eyebrows rising. "But damn, look at these connections. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Sam obviously. Tony Stark had you on his personal payroll after the whole SHIELD thing went sideways in 2014. You ran in some serious circles."

He leaned back, scanning the screen with obvious admiration. "No marriage records, no registered domestic partnerships. But there's some interesting cross-references here..." His grin faltered slightly as his eyes focused on something specific. "Hey, did Sam mention Bucky? Because there's quite a bit of documentation linking you two, and I'm talking—"

He stopped. The words died in his throat as he looked up and saw her expression.

The confusion must have been written across her face in bold letters, because Joaquin's boyish enthusiasm dimmed like someone had turned down his brightness settings. His gaze flicked from her to the laptop screen and back again, and she watched understanding dawn in his eyes with all the subtlety of a freight train.

"Oh." The word came out small, uncertain. "Judging by the look on your face... Sam hasn't talked to you about this yet."

"No," she said carefully, studying his suddenly nervous posture. "He hasn't."

Joaquin shifted in his chair, angling the laptop away from her line of sight with movements that screamed guilt. His cheeks flushed pink, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost all its earlier confidence.

"Listen, if Sam hasn't brought it up, there's probably a good reason. Maybe it's... maybe it's not important right now."

The lie was so transparent she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Something on that screen you don't want me to see, Joaquin?"

"No! Nothing like that," he said too quickly, his voice cracking on the denial. He clutched the laptop closer to his chest like a shield. "It's just... if Sam thinks you're not ready to hear about it yet, then maybe..."

He trailed off, realizing he was only making it worse. She let the silence stretch, watching him squirm, filing away every nervous tic and unconscious gesture. In her experience, people revealed more in their attempts to hide things than they ever did when trying to be honest.

Finally, she nodded slowly, as if accepting his non-explanation. "Okay."

But the damage was done. This was the third time Bucky Barnes's name had surfaced in conversation, always followed by the same pattern—hesitation, deflection, someone changing the subject or ending the conversation entirely. Whatever connection had existed between her dimensional twin and this man, it was significant enough that Sam couldn't even bring himself to discuss it.

The questions multiplied like cancer cells in her mind. Who had Bucky Barnes been to her? An ally? An enemy? Had they worked together, or had she been hunting him? Was he the reason she'd died, or was there something else she wasn’t seeing? 

The not-knowing was worse than any answer could be.

When Joaquin packed up his laptop that evening, giving her an awkward yet genuine goodbye, she remained at the kitchen table staring at the stack of files and printouts she'd accumulated. The apartment Sam had found for her was ready—bare bones, but functional. She could move out tomorrow, start building something that resembled a life.

But first, she had research to do.

She waited until she heard Sam's bedroom door close, then fired up her own laptop and got to work. If no one would tell her about Bucky Barnes, she'd find out for herself.

The internet was a treasure trove of declassified documents, survivor testimonies, and conspiracy theories that turned out to be disturbingly accurate. She cross-referenced names, dates, and events, building a timeline that slowly painted a picture of James Buchanan Barnes—friend of Steve Rogers, sergeant in the 107th Infantry, presumed dead in 1945.

Except he hadn't died. HYDRA had found him, broken him, turned him into their perfect weapon. The Winter Soldier had been a man stolen from time and stripped of his identity, programmed to kill without question or memory.

Her hands trembled as she read mission reports that detailed his crimes. Political assassinations spanning decades. Scientists who'd gotten too close to inconvenient truths. Whistleblowers who'd tried to expose corruption. All of them silenced by a ghost with a metal arm and empty eyes.

But the story didn't end there. In 2014, Steve Rogers had found his childhood friend buried beneath layers of programming and torture. Had fought to bring him back, to restore the man HYDRA had tried to erase. The process had taken years of therapy, rehabilitation, deprogramming. But it worked.

Bucky Barnes was no longer the Winter Soldier. He was an Avenger. A former Congressman. He had rewritten his own story.

Her breath caught as she found what she'd been looking for: a digital roster buried in the aftermath of the Sokovia Accords. James Buchanan Barnes – Status: Active. Affiliation: New Avengers Initiative.

He was alive. Reformed. Fighting for the good guys now, apparently.

The knowledge sat in her stomach like a stone. Here, according to Joaquin's nervous reaction, he'd been connected to her in some significant way.

The irony was so sharp it could cut. A brainwashed assassin from the 1940’s connected to her? Were they friends? Had he killed someone she knew? She had no idea. There were no records about his personal life online. 

She stared at the screen until her eyes burned, then made a decision that felt both inevitable and insane. If Sam wouldn't tell her the truth, if Joaquin was too loyal or too scared to fill in the gaps, then she'd get her answers from the source.

She was going to find Bucky Barnes.

______________________________________________________________

Her new apartment felt like a train station, a place to exist rather than live between stops. The walls were still institutional white, the floors bare hardwood that echoed with every step. Sam had helped her haul in the essentials: a mattress, a couch from a secondhand store, a small table that wobbled when she put weight on it.

It should have felt like freedom. Instead, it felt like exile.

She didn't linger. Twenty minutes after Sam left, promising to check in tomorrow, she was studying transit maps and plotting her route to the New Avengers facility. The original Stark Tower had been sold, but the team had established a new base of operations in the same building, now deemed as the Watchtower. 

The evening commute provided perfect cover. Thousands of people moving with purpose, no one paying attention to one more face in the crowd. She joined the stream of humanity flowing toward the subway, her heart rate steady despite the magnitude of what she was planning.

Breaking into a superhero stronghold probably wasn't her smartest decision, but she'd made a career out of risky choices. This felt like just another case to crack, another locked door that needed opening.

The Watchtower rose thirty stories into the Manhattan sky, its glass facade reflecting the dying light of sunset. Even from the sidewalk, she could see the security measures. Cameras at every angle, discrete guards positioned at key points, biometric scanners flanking the main entrance.

She approached with the confidence of someone who belonged, shoulders back, stride purposeful. Sometimes the best disguise was attitude.

"Ma'am." A security guard stepped into her path before she'd made it halfway to the door. Young, alert, with the kind of bearing that screamed military background. His partner moved to flank her, casual but deliberate. "I'll need to see some identification."

She reached for her wallet, movements slow and non-threatening. "I'm here to see James Barnes. He's expecting me."

That got their attention. Too much attention. She saw the micro-expressions that flashed between them: surprise, confusion. The lead guard's hand drifted toward the radio clipped to his vest.

"You'll need clearance for that, ma'am. And I don't see you on any authorized visitor lists."

Behind them, the building's main doors hissed shut with hydraulic finality. The message was clear — she wasn’t getting in.

She maintained her smile, friendly and understanding. "Of course. My mistake. I'll just call ahead next time."

She turned and walked away, feeling their eyes on her back until she disappeared into the evening crowd. 

An hour later, she was back.

The Tower looked different at night. Imposing, fortress-like, its upper floors glowing against the darkness. She'd spent the time walking the perimeter, mapping service entrances and delivery bays, timing guard rotations and identifying blind spots in the surveillance coverage.

The rear of the building faced a narrow alley used for deliveries and maintenance. Less glamorous than the front entrance, but infinitely more accessible. She positioned herself in the shadows between two dumpsters and waited.

Patience was a detective's best friend. After twenty minutes, a catering van rumbled into the alley, its headlights cutting through the gloom. She watched the driver show his credentials to the guard, saw the heavy security door roll up to reveal a loading dock beyond.

As the van backed up to the platform, she moved.

She slipped alongside the van as the driver climbed out, using it as cover while boxes and trays were unloaded. The guard's attention was focused on his clipboard, checking items off a list with mechanical precision.

When he turned to examine a particularly large crate, she made her move. Three quick steps took her to the door, another two got her inside. The loading bay was cavernous and dimly lit, filled with the hum of machinery and the distant echo of voices.

She pressed herself against a concrete pillar, heart hammering as footsteps approached. A maintenance worker in coveralls walked past, whistling tunelessly, his footsteps fading as he disappeared around a corner.

She was in.

The Tower's interior was a maze of corridors and security checkpoints, but she'd navigated worse. She found a service stairwell — no cameras, minimal foot traffic—and began to climb. By the fifteenth floor, her legs burned and her lungs worked like bellows, but she pressed on.

The residential levels had to be near the top. That's where she'd find him.

Twenty-eighth floor. Twenty-ninth. Thirtieth.

The final door was different from the others. Heavier, with a biometric scanner and keypad that spoke of serious security measures. This had to be it. The private residential area where the Avengers lived when they weren't saving the world.

She stood before the scanner, knowing she had no way past it, knowing this was where her amateur breaking-and-entering skills reached their limit. But she'd come too far to turn back now.

"Who are you?"

The voice came from behind her, low and accented and sharp as a blade.

She spun, instinct driving her hand toward a weapon she didn't carry, muscles coiling for a fight that might be her last.

A woman stood at the mouth of the stairwell. Small, compact, with platinum blonde hair that caught the corridor's LED lighting. But it was her eyes that made the breath stick in her throat. Dark, calculating. This wasn't building security. This was someone far more dangerous.

The woman moved with liquid grace, each step deliberate and controlled. She wore dark tactical clothing that seemed to absorb light, and something about her posture—coiled, ready, predatory—set off every alarm bell in her brain.

"I asked you a question," the woman said, stepping closer. "How did you get past security?"

Her mouth had gone desert-dry, but she forced her voice to remain steady. "I could ask you the same thing."

The woman's lips curved in what might charitably be called a smile. It didn't reach her eyes. "Cute. Very cute. But I live here. You, on the other hand, definitely do not." Another step closer. "So let's try this again. Who are you, and what are you doing on a restricted floor?"

The accent was unmistakably Russian now that she heard more of it. Sharp consonants softened by years of speaking English, but the underlying cadence still there. The woman's stance was that of a trained fighter. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, hands loose at her sides but ready to move in any direction. Everything about her screamed potential danger.

"Look," she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender, "I'm just trying to find someone. I don't want any trouble."

"Then you came to the wrong place." The woman tilted her head, studying her with a vague intensity. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

The question sent ice through her veins. Another person who might recognize her face, who knew the woman she'd replaced. But this one's recognition carried a different quality. Not grief or longing, but something sharper. More analytical.

She didn’t know her. The old her. Not directly, at least. 

"I don't think so," she said carefully.

The blonde's sharp eyes never left her face, cataloging every feature with unsettling precision. "Hmm. You remind me of someone. I cannot place it exactly, but you have a very familiar face." She paused, head tilting further. "Are you a reporter?"

The question was so unexpected she almost laughed. "Do I look like a reporter to you?"

"Yes," the woman answered with complete seriousness. "Actually, you do. You have excellent bone structure. Very photogenic. Strong jawline, well-shaped eyebrows. The kind of face they put on Channel 9 news, no?" She gestured vaguely at her features. "Really quite striking, actually. And we get reporters trying to sneak in here all the time. You would not believe the lengths they go to. But none have made it this far before, which makes you either very skilled or very stupid."

Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly. Was this woman seriously critiquing her facial symmetry in the middle of what felt like a life-or-death situation? "...Thank you? I think? But I'm not a reporter."

The blonde hummed thoughtfully, those dark eyes scanning her from head to toe and back again with predatory interest. "I believe you, strange woman. Somehow, I do. But that makes this worse, doesn't it? Because if you are not a reporter, then why break into a tower full of superhumans and trained killers? Seems very..." She paused, searching for the right word. "Stupid. Or very desperate."

The weight of the moment pressed down on her shoulders. She could lie—make up some story about being lost, about mistaking this for a different building. But something about this woman's piercing gaze told her lies would be spotted immediately and punished accordingly.

So she chose the truth. Raw, unfiltered, desperate truth.

"Because I'm not from this world." The words tumbled out faster than she could stop them. "I know how insane that sounds, but apparently I'm from a parallel dimension—almost identical to this one—and a week ago I fell through some kind of glowing portal that spat me out here in New York. Sam Wilson found me, helped me out, told me I can't go home."

She ran a hand through her hair, exhaustion and frustration bleeding into her voice. "But the version of me that lived here? She's dead. Has been for three years. And everyone keeps looking at me like I'm her ghost, keeps mentioning James Barnes like I should understand what he meant to her. So yeah, I broke in here to find him. To get some goddamn answers about who I was supposed to be."

The confession left her feeling hollow, stripped bare. She'd laid all her cards on the table for a complete stranger who could probably kill her seventeen different ways without breaking a sweat.

Not one of her brightest moments. But somehow, it had felt right. 

The woman stared at her for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then something shifted in her features. A flicker of recognition, quickly suppressed but not fast enough.

"What is your name?" she asked softly, and there was something almost gentle in her tone now.

She hesitated for just a beat before giving her real name. Not the fabricated identity Joaquin had helped create, but the name she'd been born with.

The effect was instantaneous. The woman's carefully neutral expression crumbled, revealing shock, disbelief, and something deeper. A profound sadness that seemed to age her years in seconds.

"Bozhe moy," she whispered, the Russian slipping out unbidden. Her shoulders sagged as if an invisible weight had settled on them. "Yes... I know your story. All of it. Oh….this will not be easy. But he needs to know you are here."

She stepped closer, extending her hand with careful deliberation. "My name is Yelena Belova. I am... an associate of Bucky's. A friend. I can take you to him now, if that is what you truly want."

Her throat constricted as she stared at the offered hand. Every instinct screamed warnings, but she'd come too far to turn back now. She reached out, gripping Yelena's fingers.

"It's nice to meet you," she said, her voice barely steady. "Did you... did you know her? The other me?"

Yelena's smile was hollow, haunted. "No. But I know of you. We all do." The words carried the weight of a funeral dirge. "Come. I will take you to him. You’re on the wrong floor."

The elevator ride felt endless, each floor they passed stretching the silence tighter between them. Yelena stood with her arms crossed, staring at her boots with the intensity of someone trying to solve the world's most complex equation. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, brow furrowed in deep concentration.

The quiet became unbearable.

"You know," she said, clearing her throat, "everyone who seems to know about this other version of me... you all look at me like I'm some kind of ghost."

That pulled Yelena's gaze up, one eyebrow arching with sharp precision. Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "That is because you are a ghost. You are supposed to be dead here. Did you forget that small detail?"

The bluntness hit harder than expected, making her chest tight. "No, I remember. But it feels like more than that. You don't just look at me like I don't belong. You look at me like you're afraid."

Yelena's exhale was long and weary, her shoulders dropping as if she'd been carrying an invisible burden. When she spoke again, her accent thickened with emotion. "We are not afraid of you. We are afraid of what your being here will do to the people we care about."

"What do you—"

"You will see soon enough." Yelena's tone brooked no argument, but her expression softened slightly. She reached out, resting a careful hand on her arm, the touch cautious. "Just... be gentle with him. Please. He has been through enough."

The plea left her speechless, questions multiplying like cancer cells in her mind. All she could manage was a stiff nod.

The elevator chimed softly, doors sliding open with a whisper of hydraulics.

She followed Yelena into what was clearly a common area, all gleaming surfaces and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered breathtaking views of Manhattan. The space was dotted with comfortable seating, state-of-the-art monitors, and a conference table that could seat a dozen people.

Four figures stood around that table, all wearing matching tactical uniforms with red "A" emblems on their chests. Their conversation died the moment they noticed the newcomers.

The tallest of them—a blonde man with the kind of square jaw that belonged on recruitment posters—straightened immediately. His blue eyes narrowed with suspicion as they fixed on her. "Yelena," he said, his voice carrying authority and wariness in equal measure. "Who the hell is this?"

Before Yelena could answer, the large bearded man beside him stepped forward with a booming laugh that filled the entire space. His presence was overwhelming. all warmth and barely contained energy, like a bear-sized golden retriever.

"Ah, look at this! A new face, and such a lovely one!" He spread his arms wide as if preparing to envelope her in a bear hug, his voice thick with Russian accent and unmistakable joy. "Finally, some beauty around here to balance out all these ugly faces. You are... how do Americans say... a sight for sore eyes, da?"

Heat flooded her cheeks. She stood frozen, caught between mortification and the strange urge to smile despite everything.

Yelena groaned audibly, dragging a hand down her face. "Dad, stop."

"What?" The older man looked genuinely confused, then winked at her with shameless charm. "I only speak truth. Your mother, if she were here, she would agree—this one has excellent genetics. Very fine bone structure."

"Stop talking, Alexei," Yelena snapped, her tone sharp enough to cut glass. She turned back to the group, exhaling through her nose like wrangling her father was a full-time occupation. "This is—" She glanced back, seeking silent permission, then said the name quietly, as if she knew what was about to happen.

The effect was immediate and devastating.

The brunette woman—young, maybe mid-twenties, with energy crackling faintly around her fingers—went completely still. The shaggy-haired man in civilian clothes muttered something under his breath and took an unconscious step backward. Even Yelena's father sobered, his jovial expression fading into something more complex.

But it was the blonde man's reaction that made her stomach plummet.

His entire demeanor shifted, professionalism giving way to something colder, more calculating. He stepped closer, hands settling on his hips as he studied her like she was evidence at a crime scene.

Recognition flickered across his features as he processed her name, cross-referencing it with files in his memory. His expression shifted into something caught between a smirk and a sneer—the look of someone who'd just solved an unpleasant puzzle.

"I know that name," he said, his voice taking on a mocking edge. "Wasn't that the name of Barnes' dead girlfriend?"

The revelation hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Dead girlfriend.

The words ricocheted through her skull, each repetition more devastating than the last. Not partner. Not colleague. Not enemy. Girlfriend. The other version of her, the woman whose shadow she was apparently condemned to live in, had been dating James Buchanan Barnes.

The Winter Soldier.

With a known killer.

The irony was so vicious it threatened to tear her apart from the inside. In her world, she'd spent years hunting down monsters, bringing justice to families destroyed by violence. Here, apparently, she'd been sharing a bed with one of the worst monsters of all.

Her vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges like spilled ink. Her lungs had forgotten how to function, each breath coming in short, desperate gasps that never seemed to bring enough oxygen. The panic attack was inevitable now—her body's revolt against information too massive, too impossible to process.

Heat flooded her face, a burning flush of shock and shame and something else she couldn't name. Her hands began to shake, trembling at her sides as if her entire nervous system was short-circuiting.

"Hey." Yelena's voice cut through the static filling her head, firm but gentle. Warm fingers wrapped around her arm, anchoring her to reality when everything else felt like it was spinning away. "Breathe with me. Just breathe. In and out."

She shot a murderous glare at Walker, her voice cracking with fury. "Excellent timing, you absolute moron. Really thoughtful approach there."

Walker raised his hands in mock surrender, but his expression remained coldly entertained, like he was watching a fascinating psychological experiment unfold. "What? I figured she already knew! Isn't that the whole reason she's here?"

Alexei, blissfully oblivious to the emotional carnage unfolding around him, chimed in with maddening cheerfulness. "Of course she is the girlfriend! Look at her—she is exact copy of girl in photographs on Winter Soldier's nightstand. Very beautiful, very tragic, like heroine from Dostoyevsky novel." He beamed at her with paternal pride that made her want to scream. "You loved him deeply, da? Was passionate romance? He was good lover?"

"Dad!" Yelena's voice cracked like a whip, her glare hot enough to melt steel. "You are making everything worse!"

But Alexei only shrugged, completely immune to his daughter's homicidal expression. "What? I only speak truth everyone is thinking. And besides, is much better to be remembered as someone's great love than to be forgotten completely, no? It is romantic tragedy, like in great Russian stories."

The words were meant to comfort, but they only drove the knife deeper. Great love. Romantic tragedy. She was standing in a room full of people who remembered a version of her that had been intimately, desperately connected to a man who represented everything she'd spent her life fighting against.

Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting crescents into her palms as she fought to stay upright. The walls seemed to press closer, the ceiling lower, the air thicker. Everyone's stares felt like physical weight pressing down on her shoulders until she thought her knees might buckle.

This was wrong. Fundamentally, cosmically wrong. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be wearing this face, shouldn't be expected to carry the emotional baggage of a woman who'd made choices that defied everything she believed in.

But she was trapped. Caught between worlds, between identities, between a past that wasn't hers and a future that terrified her beyond reason.

"What the hell are you people talking about?" she whispered, her voice barely audible above the thundering of her own pulse. "Is this some kind of sick joke?"

The pity in their faces was worse than cruelty would have been. At least cruelty would have given her something to fight against. This careful sympathy, these cautious expressions—they made her feel like a wild animal everyone was afraid might bolt or attack without warning.

Everyone except Walker, who continued studying her with clinical detachment, and Alexei, who kept rambling about the beauty of doomed love.

"You need to slow down your breathing," Yelena urged, gripping her shoulders with steady hands and forcing eye contact. "Focus on my voice. Just breathe."

But the command fell flat. The air had turned to concrete in her lungs. The room spun around her like a carnival ride gone wrong, and she could feel herself fragmenting, splitting apart at invisible seams.

She tore herself free from Yelena's grip and stumbled backward, her body moving toward the elevator of its own accord. Her chest heaved with each stuttering breath, vision blurring as tears she refused to acknowledge burned behind her eyes.

"Listen to me," she managed to choke out, every word sharp and desperate. "I don't know what twisted game you think you're playing, but whoever you think I am, I can't be her. I won't be her. I'm my own person, and I'm not from this world, and I've never even met James Barnes—"

Walker's eyebrow arched with infuriating calm. "Well, sweetheart," he drawled, "you're about to."

Behind her, the elevator gave a soft mechanical hiss.

The doors slid open.

She turned, ready to throw herself into whatever escape the elevator offered, ready to run until her legs gave out or her heart exploded—

And froze.

James Barnes stood there.

To her, he should have been nothing more than a name in old files, a face in grainy photographs, a shadow from history books. But in the flesh, he was devastatingly, undeniably real. Taller than she'd expected, broader through the shoulders. Dark hair fell in waves past his collar, shot through with faint silver that caught the light. His beard was neatly trimmed, dusted with gray that spoke of years and battles and sleepless nights. And his eyes — pale blue like a winter sky, sharp and intelligent. And currently wide with shock.

But it wasn't his appearance that stole her breath and left her feeling like she'd been struck by lightning.

It was the way he looked at her.

He'd been stepping out of the elevator, probably heading to some routine meeting or training session, and he'd frozen mid-stride. His hand was still braced against the elevator frame, knuckles white with tension. His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths, like someone had just punched all the air out of his lungs.

Those ice-blue eyes locked onto her face with an intensity that felt like being dissected, like he was looking straight through time and death and impossibility to see something that shouldn't exist. The expression on his face — raw disbelief warring with desperate hope, grief colliding with wonder—made something twist violently in her chest.

To her, he was a stranger. A name from her nightmares made flesh.

To him, she must be resurrection walking.

Her name fell from his lips like a prayer, broken and reverent and so full of longing it made her want to run screaming. His voice cracked under the weight of that single word, and his entire body seemed to lean forward, drawn by invisible strings.

He moved toward her slowly, as if afraid she might vanish if he startled her. Every step was careful, measured, like he was approaching something that might disappear any second. She wished she could right now.

His expression was torn wide open, every emotion playing across his features without filter or pretense.

She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. For one suspended moment, she was caught in the gravitational pull of his gaze, trapped in the way he looked at her like she was the answer to prayers he'd stopped believing would be answered.

His hand twitched at his side, fingers flexing like he wanted to reach for her, to touch her face and confirm she was real and not just another cruel dream.

And then reality crashed back down on her like a tidal wave.

Her chest seized with pure, primal panic. Ice flooded her veins, her body's fight-or-flight response kicking into overdrive. She stumbled backward, shaking her head violently, trying to break whatever invisible connection had snapped taut between them.

"Don't—" Her voice shattered on the word. "Don't come near me."

He stopped immediately, but the damage was done. The anguish that flooded his features was unbearable, like she'd physically struck him. His lips parted, words trembling on his tongue, confusion bleeding through the desperate hope.

"It's okay," he said softly, his voice gentle in a way that made her want to scream. "It's me. It's Bucky. I don't understand what happened, how you're here, but it's going to be okay—"

"I don't know you!" The words exploded out of her, sharp and laced with mounting hysteria. She wrapped her arms around herself like armor, her whole body shaking with the effort of holding herself together. "I don't know who the hell you think I am, but I'm not her!"

He said her name again, softer this time, like he was trying to gentle a frightened animal. The sound of it in his voice, so full of history and intimacy, made her feel like her skin was crawling.

Before she could respond, before she could scream or run or collapse entirely, Yelena stepped forward. She positioned herself subtly between them, one hand raised in a calming gesture that encompassed both of them.

"She's not who you think," Yelena said quietly, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. Her gaze flicked between Bucky's devastated expression and her trembling form. "She's not the woman you knew, Bucky. She's a variant. From another world, another timeline. She's not... she's not her."

The words landed like physical blows. Bucky staggered backward, his face cycling through disbelief, understanding, and a grief so profound it seemed to hollow him out from the inside.

But his eyes never left her face. Never stopped drinking her in like she might disappear at any moment.

She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find herself back in her own world, her own life, where none of this impossible situation existed.

"This is getting incredibly uncomfortable," the young man with shaggy hair muttered from somewhere behind the group.

And it was. The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on. The weight of everyone's stares, the pity and confusion and worry—it was suffocating. Worst of all was the way Bucky kept looking at her, like the sight of her was simultaneously healing and destroying him.

She hated it. Hated this twisted version of fate that had dropped her into someone else's tragedy. Hated being expected to carry someone else's love, someone else's loss. Hated the way this man, this killer she was supposed to believe had been redeemed, was looking at her like she held his heart in her hands.

She'd come here for answers, but the truth was worse than any mystery could have been.

So she did the only thing that made sense anymore.

She ran.

Her detective training had kept her in good shape, years of chasing suspects through back alleys and up fire escapes had given her speed and endurance. She used all of it now, lunging toward the elevator with desperate urgency.

Behind her, she heard voices calling out—Yelena shouting her name, someone cursing in Russian, the sound of movement as superhuman reflexes kicked into gear.

But she was already inside, her finger jabbing frantically at the door close button as if her life depended on it.

The last thing she saw before the doors slid shut was Bucky's face—devastated, lost, reaching a hand out toward her like he was trying to stop her from disappearing all over again.

The moment she was alone, the adrenaline that had been holding her together evaporated. Her knees buckled, and she slid down the elevator wall until she was sitting on the cold metal floor, her head buried in her hands.

And for the first time since that portal had ripped her away from everything she knew, she broke.

The sobs came in waves, ugly and harsh and desperate. They tore out of her chest like they'd been trapped there for days, weeks, a lifetime. She cried for the life she'd lost, for the world she'd never see again, for the impossible situation she'd been thrust into without her consent.

She cried for the woman who'd worn her face and made choices she couldn't understand.

She cried for the man upstairs who'd looked at her like she was his whole world coming back from the dead.

Most of all, she cried because somewhere deep down, in a place she didn't want to acknowledge, she'd felt something when their eyes met. Something that terrified her more than any truth she'd uncovered.

Recognition.

Not of him, but of the way he'd looked at her. Like she was home.

And she had no idea what that meant, or what she was supposed to do with the guilt that had made a home in her heart. 

______________________________________________________________

Sam showed up at her apartment a few hours later, and for the first time since she'd met him, he was furious.

"What the hell were you thinking?" The door had barely clicked shut before his voice cracked across the room like a whip, sharp enough to make her spine straighten reflexively. His jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin, his shoulders squared and rigid like he'd been holding onto that rage through the entire drive over. She didn’t doubt it. "Sneaking into the Watchtower like that? I told you—I told you—to keep a low profile."

"Oh, so now this is all my fault?" The words launched out of her before she could stop them, her finger jabbing toward his chest like a weapon. Heat flooded her veins, her pulse already wild and erratic, her voice shaking with something deeper than just rage. Desperation, maybe, or the kind of fear that could only be fought with fury. "You expect me to sit here, smile, and nod at every half-assed, vague non-answer you people throw at me? Just twiddle my damn thumbs in a world where the other me is dead?" Her voice cracked on the last word, raw and jagged. "I'm a detective, Sam, not some helpless civilian you can placate with scraps."

For a moment, Sam blinked like she'd blindsided him with a truth he hadn't bothered to consider. The fire in his eyes flickered, uncertainty creeping in around the edges. "Okay. I didn't…" He exhaled slowly, his anger deflating slightly as understanding dawned. "I didn't think about it like that. But when you put it that way, yeah, it makes sense, but—"

"Oh, for God's sake." She groaned, both hands flying to her hair, fingers tangling in the strands and tugging until her scalp burned with the sharp bite of pain. It grounded her, kept her from flying apart completely. Her chest was heaving now, words tearing out faster than she could filter them, like a dam had burst. "Were you seriously not going to tell me that your version of me, that she…was with the Winter Soldier?"

The silence that followed was deafening. Sam's gaze locked on hers, heavy and unblinking, his expression shifting into something guarded and final.

"No," he said finally, the word flat and unyielding as stone. "I wasn't planning on it."

Her stomach plummeted, a cold wash of betrayal flooding through her. Her throat constricted. "What the fuck, Sam? Why wouldn't you tell me that?"

He threw his hands up in exasperation, the sound of his sigh filling the cramped space between them like a punctured tire. "Why would I? What possible good would that do you?" His voice climbed, defensive and sharp. "You never knew him in your world. All it would do is create exactly what's happening now. Chaos, confusion. Pain for everyone involved."

She felt her mouth fall open, the words catching like glass shards on her tongue, but he barreled forward before she could speak.

"And how would it help him?" His voice cracked this time, a raw edge breaking through the frustration like a fault line splitting open. His hands fell back to his sides, limp and defeated, like the weight of everything had finally dragged him down. "It would just rip him apart all over again. You don't understand…he never recovered from losing her. From losing you." Sam shook his head, swallowing hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with the effort. "And now? Seeing your face again, hearing your voice, watching you move like her but not being her…" His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I can't even imagine what that did to him."

Her breath caught, sharp and ragged, like she'd just taken a sucker punch to the throat. Her anger stuttered and died for one disorienting second, replaced by something she couldn't name. Guilt? Sympathy? The strange, hollow ache of mourning someone she'd never been?

Her voice dropped, barely more than a whisper, fragile as spun glass. "Was he the one who called you? Told you I came to the Tower?"

Sam looked at her then, and there was no anger left in his face. Just a deep tiredness and something that looked disturbingly like pity.

"Of course it was him," he said softly, each word deliberate and weighted. "He's my best friend."

He let that hang in the air between them, heavy and damning, like a confession.

"And I know you didn't know," Sam added, his voice quieter still, almost gentle. "But I was just trying to protect him. I've watched him put himself back together piece by piece, and I couldn't…I won't let him fall apart again."

The fight drained out of her like water through a sieve. All the yelling, the accusations, the righteous fury, it all seemed suddenly hollow and pointless as Sam's words echoed inside her skull like a death knell. She collapsed onto the couch, her knees giving out beneath her, elbows braced on her thighs, hands pressing hard against her forehead as if she could physically hold the spiraling pieces of herself together.

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"Okay," she finally whispered, the word trembling out of her like a prayer or a surrender. "Fine. You didn't tell me before. But you can tell me now." She lifted her eyes to Sam, and the weight of the question sitting heavy in her chest felt like it might crush her ribs. "What happened to her? The… me from here. How did she die?"

Sam froze, his mouth opening like he was going to speak, but no sound came out. His gaze flickered away from hers, darting toward the window, the floor, anywhere but her face. Like the answer was a wound he couldn't bring himself to reopen, a scab he refused to pick.

The silence stretched taut and unbearable, elastic and ready to snap, until a low voice cut through the tension like a blade.

"She died right after the fight against Thanos."

Her head snapped toward the door so fast her neck protested.

Bucky stood there, framed in the dim amber light from the hallway, his broad shoulders rigid as steel beams, his vibranium hand clenched around the doorframe with enough force that she could hear the wood creaking under the pressure. He looked like he was using it as an anchor, the only thing keeping him upright and steady. His eyes were locked on her, storm-blue and unflinching. So intense it felt like he was trying to memorize every detail of her face, as though looking away would destroy him all over again.

"Bucky—" Sam shot to his feet, tension coiling through his frame like a spring wound too tight. "I told you to wait in the car—"

Bucky didn't look at Sam. Didn't even acknowledge he'd spoken at all.

His gaze remained fixed on her, unblinking, burning through her like he could pin her to the floor with nothing but the weight of his stare. His voice, when it finally came, was steady but saturated with grief so thick and suffocating it seemed to bend the very air around them. He was still looking at her like she was a ghost made flesh, a cruel trick of light and shadow.

He stepped further into the apartment—one deliberate step, no more—like crossing that invisible threshold would mean too much, would shatter some fragile equilibrium he'd spent years building. Even this much proximity felt dangerous, charged with electricity that made her skin prickle. His eyes were sharp and hard as cut glass, but she could see the faint tremor of a storm barely restrained beneath the surface.

"It happened after we all came back. From the Blip. Fifteen days later, to be exact. Some nutjob — mad about the Blip and trying to take it out on the Avengers — broke into her apartment and…killed her. But you don't need to know the details," he said finally, his voice clipped and final. His eyes were damn near black. Hollowed out with grief.

The weight of his words hit her chest like a stone dropped from a great height. She stared back at him, her own words tangled in her throat like barbed wire. Sam shifted awkwardly between them, his expression tight and pale, like he was watching history about to repeat itself in the worst possible way. Maybe he was.

Her jaw clenched, forcing her voice out through the sudden tightness in her throat. "So now you get to decide for me?" The quiet venom in her tone surprised even her, cutting and precise. "You don't get to do that. Just because you knew me in another life doesn't give you the right to—"

"Stop." His voice cracked through hers like a whip, cold and brutal and absolutely final. It froze her mid-sentence, the words dying on her tongue. "I didn't know you. You're not her. You're just a woman wearing her face, carrying her voice, moving through the world like some cosmic joke." Each word was delivered like a physical blow, precise and merciless. "So no, you don't get the right to know how she died. You don't get to carry her memories or her pain or her love. All you should be doing is staying the hell away from anything that has to do with her."

Her stomach dropped to her feet, a cold wave of shock and hurt washing over her. She wasn't sure why his words sliced so deep—this man was a stranger, wasn't he? But the raw, bleeding wounds in his voice told her otherwise. Every syllable sounded like it cost him blood to speak.

Her chest burned with indignation and something sharper. Rejection, maybe, or the sting of being reduced to nothing more than a cruel facsimile. "I don't want any part of this world, Barnes," she shot back, watching him flinch—that subtle, involuntary recoil—when his last name hit the air like a curse. "But I'm not wearing anyone's face. This is me. My identity. My body. My life." Her voice rose, shaking with emotion she couldn't contain. "So I'm sorry your girlfriend died, but it's not fair for you to tell me I don't have the right to know what happened when I'm the one who has to live with everyone looking at me like I'm her ghost—"

"Shut up."

The words were a snarl, torn from his throat with a fury so raw and primal it made even Sam take a step back. His voice cracked like thunder, filling every corner of the small room. "Don't fucking say you're sorry. You have no idea who she was…what she meant, what she gave, what she sacrificed. You have no right to even speak her name, let alone wear her face and pretend you understand what any of us lost when she died."

Her chest heaved as white-hot anger surged through her veins like molten metal. "Why are you being such a complete jackass?" she snapped, her voice rising to match his, all pretense of composure abandoned. "You can't take this out on me! This isn't my fault! I didn't ask to be here, I didn't know what I was walking into, I didn't choose to look like her!" The words poured out of her in a torrent, years of frustration and confusion and fear crystallizing into pure rage. "You think I wanted to land in a world where I find out I was apparently dating a mass murderer? In my world, you're a war criminal! A terrorist!"

Something fundamental broke in him then. She could see it happen, the exact moment his carefully constructed composure shattered like glass.

Before she could even draw her next breath, he was there. Impossibly fast, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat. His face was just inches from hers, close enough that she could see the flecks of silver in his blue eyes, could feel the heat radiating off his skin. The air between them vibrated with the force of his fury, electric and dangerous. His eyes had gone nearly black, bottomless and wild, and when he spoke, his voice was molten steel poured over broken glass.

"You need to stop talking. Right now."

But her heart was hammering against her ribs like a caged bird, her throat raw with fury and fear and something else she couldn't name, and she couldn't stop. The words kept coming, sharp and cutting and designed to hurt. "What, does the Winter Soldier not like being reminded of the blood on his hands?" she spat, each word hitting its mark with surgical precision. "You think you get to stand there and act like I'm the monster when it was you? You killed for decades, Barnes. Innocent people. Children, probably. And now you want to be the judge of who deserves answers? That's rich."

His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, his metal hand curling into a fist at his side with a soft mechanical whir.

"You ruined lives," she pressed on relentlessly, her voice shaking with anger and hurt and the desperate need to make him feel even a fraction of the pain he'd inflicted on her. She didn’t know why. She felt horrible doing it, knew it would solve nothing but create more pain. But she was so mad. So frustrated that everyone was treating her like a scar that hadn’t gone away. Couldn’t they see how alone she felt like this? "Entire families. Hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people who never even knew your name." 

She laughed, but it was sharp and bitter, more like a sob than anything resembling humor. "But I'm the problem here? Because I look like some woman you couldn't save? Because I'm a reminder that you failed to protect the one thing that mattered to you?"

"Stop." The word broke from him like something vital tearing, guttural and desperate, but she was too far gone to hear it.

"—at least I never became the boogeyman little kids had nightmares about. At least I never let myself become a weapon pointed at the innocent. You're a murderer, Barnes. A murderer trying to play saint, and you have the audacity to act like—"

"Stop it, babe —"

The word slipped out before he could catch it, automatic and devastating. His face changed instantly—shock and raw, bleeding pain flickering across his features like he'd just ripped open a wound that had barely begun to heal. His lips pressed together hard, his eyes wide with something that looked like horror at his own slip, but it was too late. The word was hanging in the air between them, heavy and intimate and absolutely forbidden.

Her stomach lurched violently. The sound of it hit her like a physical blow. Unfamiliar to her but weighted with an intimacy she didn't share, couldn't claim, had no right to. It was a glimpse into someone else's love story, someone else's heart, and she was nothing but an unwelcome intruder. She stepped back sharply, stumbling slightly, as if the word had burned her.

"Don't," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Don't call me that. I'm not her. I'm not—" But she couldn't finish, couldn't voice what they both knew: that she was a pale imitation, a cosmic mistake like he had said. A walking reminder of everything he'd lost.

Sam was there in a flash, planting a firm hand against Bucky's chest, shoving him back a step before things could escalate further. "That's enough," Sam barked, his voice sharp with authority, his eyes darting between them like he was trying to defuse a bomb. "Both of you. Stop this right now."

Bucky froze, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, but his eyes never left her face. He looked utterly shattered, like he wanted to reach for her. Or maybe like he wanted to run as far away as possible. She couldn't tell which, and that uncertainty made everything worse.

Sam's hand stayed firm against Bucky's chest, even as the soldier's breathing began to even out into something resembling normal. His gaze flicked to her — still standing there rigid and trembling, staring at Bucky like she didn't even know what she was looking at anymore, like he was some dangerous animal that might strike at any moment.

Sam made the executive decision first. "We're leaving," he said flatly, not taking his eyes off Bucky. He gave him a sharp nudge toward the door, and Bucky went without protest, his shoulders tense as steel cables, his jaw locked like stone. He moved like a man in a trance, hollow and mechanical.

Before following, Sam turned back to her one last time. His expression softened fractionally, regret shadowing his dark eyes like storm clouds. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she could hear that he meant it. Sorry for bringing Bucky here, sorry for the pain they'd both inflicted, sorry that any of this had to happen at all.

She didn't answer. Couldn't. Her throat was too tight, her chest too full of emotions she didn't have names for. She just stood there, arms wrapped around herself like armor, eyes burning holes in the floor as silence pressed in from all sides.

Sam lingered for a heartbeat longer, waiting for something, anything, from her. Some sign that she was okay, that they could salvage this situation, that the damage wasn't irreparable. But when nothing came, when she remained frozen in her protective shell, he nodded once—heavy and resigned and infinitely tired—and followed Bucky out.

She watched them go through the blur of unshed tears. The door closed behind them with a soft click that echoed louder than it had any right to, final and absolute. Bucky never looked back.

The apartment was suddenly too big and too empty, the silence pressing against her eardrums like deep water. And all she could hear was that single word still echoing in her head carrying a weight that wasn't hers to bear, a love that would never belong to her, and the devastating knowledge that she was nothing more than a cruel reminder of everything this world had lost.

______________________________________________________________

When you hear the door finally open with a click, you don’t move to run to Joe like you usually would. Letting him feel your absence felt right, that way he could feel exactly how you’ve felt for the past five hours. He still calls out like he usually does, a gentle ‘baby, I’m home’, but you don’t respond, letting the distant murmur from the TV fill the space.

His footsteps pad into the living room, and his eyes land on you, curled up on the sofa under a blanket, staring blankly at the rug. He pauses in front of you, crouching down so that you have no choice but to look at him. Your eyes slowly trail to his face, not blinking once.

“Baby?” He says, gently brushing his thumb over your cheek, completely oblivious to how you’ve been waiting for him for hours.

You squint your eyes at him at his clueless state. “What?” You glared, the words coming out harsher than you intended.

He slightly moves backwards as if your words physically pushed him away. “Hey, what’s got you so irritated, baby? Are you tired?” He asks.

A breathless huff leaves your mouth, and you shake your head. “Tired? Really?” You laugh. Your tone filled with sarcasm. “I’ve stayed awake for hours, waiting for you to come home.”

He furrows his eyebrows, sitting back on his heels. “Baby, I never asked for you to stay awake for me. You could’ve gone to sleep hours ago. You didn’t need to keep yourself awake.” He says with a genuine tone, but you take that the complete other way, too pissed off to listen to any word he says.

“I would’ve gone to bed, but you promised me this morning that you would come home and watch the movies with me, so I stayed awake.” You huff, slowly sitting yourself up on the sofa, curling your legs beneath you.

“I never promised you anything, baby.” He sighs, and you can tell he’s getting increasingly more frustrated.

“Yes you did.” You retorted.

“I said I would, but the word promise never left my mouth.” He says, dragging his hand down his face.

“Exactly, so you still said you would. You never even texted me to tell me that you weren’t going to be home on time, I would’ve appreciated that a whole lot more instead of leaving me here confused without answers.” You say, slightly raising your tone without realising.

His breathing hitches, and he stares at you blankly for a moment, then he scoffs. “I’ve been working hard in the studio baby, and it has been really stressful for me. The least I want from you is for you to just be understanding and know that sometimes I can’t be home on time. Yes, I’ll try my hardest to get back as soon as possible for you, but that’s not always going to happen.” He says, trying to give you his reasoning, his tone raising the more that he speaks.

“I understand that it’s stressful, but you could at least just message me.” You mumble, avoiding his gaze.

“Then you don’t understand if you’re wanting me to message you when I’m obviously so clearly in the middle of writing music, desperately trying to get everything completed so that I can go home and relax for at least a few hours.” He groans.

“Crazy that your girlfriend just needs some communication, isn’t it?” You say sarcastically, rolling your eyes.

“Fucking hell. Did you not hear anything I just said?” He snapped, and his words very clearly hit a spot as they came off as insensitive to you.

“It takes like ten seconds max to tell me that you won’t be able to make it home on time. I’m sure in the time that you spend waiting for everyone to set up to start recording, you can message me.” You mutter, shaking your head.

“It’s not easy like that, and you would never understand that.” He glares, the stress finally collapsing down on him. “You don’t ever have to stay up late, stressing about production and being in a room full of noise for hours straight. It’s unbearable.”

“Ten seconds. That’s it.” You repeat, letting your head fall back against the plush pillow on the sofa.

“You just don’t ever listen, do you?” He laughs breathlessly, blinking around the room.

Being heard and listened to by other people is something that is so important to you, especially because that was a privilege. Life never came easy for you; you had to learn a whole spoken language alongside the sign language. Speaking became a little easier when you finally got hearing aids, and hearing yourself for the first time was something so unfamiliar that you never expected to ever hear. Growing up was just as hard, because every word you tried to communicate felt like it got lost halfway through the sentence. Children never understood, and not knowing what people were saying about you felt hard but also relieving at the same time. You automatically tuned out.

Through your own frustration, you knew why Joe was stressed, and you did understand that, but what you couldn’t understand was how he wouldn’t take a few seconds from his time to tell you that he couldn’t be on time. You carefully take the hearing aids out, and the silence that followed was completely unfamiliar, something that you haven’t been used to. It wasn’t often that you ever took them out, you hadn’t taken them out for the purpose of blocking peoples voices out for years.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Joe tense up, staring at you blankly. He’s never seen you take out your hearing aids, never because of him. You slip off the sofa, walking straight into your bedroom and slipping under the covers. You set your hearing aids on the bedside table before resting your head on the pillow, completely settling into the silence. The silence wasn’t something you wanted, because all you wanted was to hear Joe’s voice, but through the frustration, you didn’t want to listen to what he had to say.

A slither of light slips into the room after a few minutes, and you don’t bother to look back. Joe rounds the bed, coming over to your side and kneeling in front of you with the guiltiest look. His eyes are glassy, like he’s been crying, but you don’t mention it, you don’t comment on anything at all.

He gently taps your arm to gain your full attention and waits until your eyes are on him. He points to his chest and follows that sign by placing his fist on his chest, going around in a circle, signing that he’s sorry. You weren’t sure if him apologising set you off, or if it was that he learned sign language for you, but a sob rips from your throat. His arms come around you, shuffling under the covers with you.

His hands comb through your hair, holding you close to his chest. His breathing is unsteady and you can tell by the way his chest shudders and his tense shoulders. You stay in his arms for a while, letting his thumb gently rub circles on your side. It felt best not knowing what he sounded like right now, because you knew it would completely kill you even hearing him sound so upset.

After your breathing steadies and slows down, you lean over to pick up your hearing aids, gently pushing each one into your ears. The first thing that you hear is his breaths, heavy and unsteady, and his rapid heartbeat. He slowly blinks at you, and he’s quick to speak, like he’s running out of time.

“I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry, baby. I was the one that wasn’t listening properly. I shouldn’t have said any of that. You’re right, baby, I should be communicating with you if there’s a change to plans. There’s nothing stopping me from messaging you and letting you know. I feel sick knowing you took your hearing aids out because of me. I’m so sorry.” He practically rushes out, his eyes flicking over your face as if he’s looking for any sign at all that you’re okay.

“I’m going to end up taking it out again if you keep talking.” You roll your eyes, though a small grin twitches at the corner of your lips. He nods at you, immediately going quiet.

“I just need you to listen to me, Joe. That’s all I ask. I really do understand that you’re stressed, and I understand that you need to stay in the studio longer because of that, but I can’t read you like that.” You say, slowly trailing off.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. Your point makes way more sense than mine.” He sighs, letting his head drop to your neck, breathing in the faint scent of your floral perfume.

“It’s not about anyone’s point making more sense, because they both do. I just would’ve been happier knowing that you bothered to message me and let me know you weren’t going to be back for a while.” You whisper.

“I will do that next time.” He promises, gently slipping his hand under your shirt, brushing his hand over your back.

He lifts his head from your shoulder, and you stare at him for a moment, longer than necessary. “You learned sign language?” You ask.

“It’s only the simple things that I’ve learned, but yes. More of a just in case thing, like if you ever forgot your hearing aids.” He whispers.

“Or if I just need to shut you up.” You laugh, pulling a grin from him.

“That too.” He mutters.

“I won’t do that again. I realised I was a bit harsh, and that’s not something you should get used to. Just needed quiet for a moment.” You admit, a slow sigh leaving your mouth.

“I felt sick seeing you taking them out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you take them out for the purpose of being upset.” He says with a guilty look, and that alone tugs at your heart.

“I haven’t done that in a while. When I was younger, I’d take them out during class when people were being loud or being rude to me.” You whisper.

“Now I feel even worse about it.” He groans, letting his forehead press against yours.

“Don’t. Nothing you could say could be worse than what they said about me.” You say, gently slipping your hands into his hair.

“I love you so much. Feel free to take out your hearing aids any time I piss you off.” He laughs, pressing a slow, gentle kiss to your lips, a silent promise.

You completely relax into the kiss, letting him guide you through it. His hand rests on the back of your head, keeping you as close as possible. “I love you. Thank you for learning sign language, I thought I’d say.”

“You don’t need to. That should be a given.” He mumbles.

“Not really, I don’t use sign language that often.” You whisper.

“Just in case.” He says with a warm smile, and he kisses you again, slowly, carefully, doing anything he can to make it up to you.