He looks like such a red flag but guess what? The way I would fuck this old man would have people concerned about HIM, asking if HE needs help escaping our relationship
disclaimer *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ angst. teeny-tiny bit fluff. NONCON. oral (m!receiving). humping. predator/prey dynamics. slight petplay(?). knifeplay(technically). slight bloodkink. dacryphilia. yandere themes. dark themes. slight ED mention. emotional/psychological manipulation. mindbreak. implied/slight somno. slight dumbification. implied drugging. dex is one crazy mf but wbk. MDNI.
pairing *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ Yan!Benjamin Poindexter x fem!reader
a/n *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ It’s something of a breather post between requests and comms. I wanted to write something on my latest hyperfixation lol. I need that man so bad like UGHHHH .Provoked into writing by @avantlilies and the voices™. The timeline’s a bit wonky but it's set in DD S3. It's dark and messed up so proceed at your own risk. Also it's long as shit. Comment, Like and Reblog
“Dex, thank you so much for today. Truly.” Y/N let the words tumble out with a smile that finally reached her eyes, the kind of smile that didn’t require her to consciously tug the corners of her mouth upward and hold them there until her cheeks ached. It was the first authentic expression she’d worn in weeks contrasting the hollow grins she’d been presenting to Foggy and Karen over lukewarm coffee and concerned glances.
She’d spent the better part of the month perfecting the art of appearing functional—nodding at the right moments during their conversations, assuring them that sleep came easy and appetite was normal, all while feeling like she was watching herself from a great distance, performing a version of “okay” that no longer existed. But here, under the kaleidoscope blur of the carnival lights softening into the dusk, that performance was unnecessary.
“I really needed this pick me up,” she confessed, her voice dipping into something more vulnerable as the cacophony of the carnival seemed to recede into a muffled hum around them, creating a small, private bubble where honesty didn’t feel so expensive.
“Don’t worry about it, really,” Dex replied, his tone carrying that effortless, dry warmth that always managed to chip away at her defenses without her noticing. He adjusted the precarious tower of neon plushies threatening to spill from his arms, bouncing his hip upward to recapture a slipping, cross-eyed panda bear that had been trying to make a break for the pavement. “In all honesty, I needed it too. It was starting to get downright sad without any sunshine bleeding through the walls from the apartment next to me.” The joke was light, but the implication underneath it was heavier, a quiet admission that he’d felt the void her self-isolation had carved in.
As they ambled towards the parking lot, Y/N found herself glancing at the spoils of his strange, unerring accuracy. He had insisted—stubbornly, almost boyishly—on trying his hand at every single rigged game the moment he caught her gaze lingering on a prize for a beat too long. The softball toss, the water gun race against a plastic clown, the impossible ring-on-bottle scam—Dex approached them with a placid, almost detached focus. And somehow, infuriatingly, he hadn’t missed. Not once. The darts landed with a satisfying thwack, the baseballs dropped perfectly into the slanted milk cans and the carny running the balloon board had just stared, slack-jawed, handing over stuffed creatures with the resigned air of a man watching a natural disaster.
Y/N didn’t know the specifics of his job—he was cagey about the details, only ever letting slip how brutal the hours were or how the paperwork seemed designed to suffocate a man’s soul—but she had been inside his apartment enough times to notice the signs. The edge of a badge peeking from a drawer, the particular way his shoes were lined up with military precision by the door, the heavy-duty flashlight on the kitchen counter. It pointed to law enforcement, to a discipline and a dangerous edge that most people didn’t have. And perversely, that was part of why she felt so safe standing next to him right now, even as the rest of her world felt like it was held together with fraying twine.
Y/N let her gaze drop to the plush nestled in the crook of her own arm, the one he’d handed to her personally rather than piling it onto the heap he was carrying. It was a fluffy, somewhat lopsided bunny with ears that were absurdly long and soft as dandelion fluff. He had pointed at it wordlessly, a faint smirk tugging at his lip and muttered, “Looks like you.” She didn’t have the heart to argue that she felt nothing like soft cotton and innocence these days.
“Yes, I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, her fingers tightening around the bunny’s plush middle as if anchoring herself to the single good thing in the immediate vicinity. “It’s just this past month hasn’t really been easy on me.” The understatement of the year. With Wilson Fisk out—the name alone felt like a shard of ice sliding down her spine—everything her brother had sacrificed, every sleepless night and bloody knuckle he’d invested in trying to shine a light into the city’s darkest corners, was unspooling with terrifying speed. The fragile architecture of justice he’d helped build was being kicked over like a sandcastle by a tyrant’s boot.
And then, separate from the city-wide nightmare of Fisk’s resurgence, there was him. The other shadow. The one who had left a mark so deep she sometimes felt like she was still bleeding internally from the wound. A tremor threatened to travel up her spine, a cold, familiar dread that belonged to the quiet of 3 a.m. Y/N shook her head sharply, a physical, violent motion meant to rattle the unwanted thoughts loose and send them scattering back into the dark recesses of her mind where they belonged. She fixed her eyes on the steady, broad line of Dex’s back ahead of her and forced herself to breathe in the smell of gunpowder and cotton candy, clinging to the present moment like it was the last life raft on a very dark sea.
“Hey, hey—it’s okay. I get it. I truly do.” Dex’s voice dropped into something softer, more deliberate, as if he were carefully choosing each word to build a small bridge across the chasm of her unspoken grief. He turned toward his car, fishing the keys from his pocket with one hand while balancing the chaotic menagerie of stuffed animals against his chest with the other. The electronic chirp of the locks disengaging cut through the quiet of the parking lot and he swung the rear door open, depositing the plushies into the backseat with a gentleness that seemed almost comical given his size and the sheer volume of synthetic fur he was handling.
They tumbled onto the upholstery in a soft avalanche of bright colours—a neon green frog with bulging plastic eyes, a tie-dyed unicorn missing half its glitter, a penguin wearing a tiny sombrero that he’d won purely because she’d laughed at its absurdity. “Things aren’t always easy,” he continued, straightening up and leaning one forearm against the roof of the car, his gaze meeting hers across the span of metal and glass. There was no pity in his eyes, just a kind of steady, unflinching recognition, “And if being with family makes you feel better—even just a little bit—then what’s better than that? Nothing. That’s the stuff that actually matters. The rest of it is just noise.”
“Yeah,” Y/N breathed out, her voice small but steadier now, anchored by the warmth in his words. “Foggy’s like my brother. He really is. Him and my brother Matt—they were friends since college, you know? And when things got hard, when I was just a kid trying to figure out which way was up, Foggy just... stepped in. He basically helped raise me after everything fell apart.” She paused. She hadn’t meant to say so much, but the words kept spilling out as if Dex’s quiet patience had loosened some valve she usually kept screwed tight.
“Him and a couple of Matt’s other closest friends—Karen, mostly—they’re the only ones I really had left after my brother passed. The only ones who knew him the way I did. The only ones who understood that the world lost something irreplaceable when he... when he was gone.” She pulled the bunny up higher, pressing its plush face against her collarbone as if it could absorb some of the ache radiating from her chest.
Dex was quiet for a long moment, processing the shape of her loss with the same careful attention he gave to everything else that was hers. Then, slowly, a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—not the broad, performative grin he sometimes deployed as armour, but something smaller, more honest, a sliver of light through a crack in his own carefully maintained walls. “Well, I’m glad at least you have someone to help you through it,” he said, his voice carrying an undercurrent of something that might have been envy if it weren’t so tinged with genuine relief. “Everyone needs a harbour. Someone to remind them that the storm doesn’t last forever, even when it feels like it’s going to swallow you whole.”
A wave of guilt crested unexpectedly in Y/N’s chest, cutting through the warmth of the moment. Dex had mentioned it once—just once, late at night when they’d both been sitting on the floor of his apartment, backs against the wall, sharing a bottle of cheap whiskey and the kind of silences that felt more like conversations. He’d lost his parents young. The details had been sparse, offered up like pebbles dropped into still water before he quickly changed the subject and she had never pried. She understood the sanctity of closed doors better than most. But standing here now, watching him extend such effortless grace toward her own grief while carrying his own invisible burdens, the imbalance felt suddenly, achingly unfair.
“But Dex,” she said, her voice firming with a sudden resolve, “you know you have me too, right? I mean it. You’re not just some guy who lives next door and wins me an obscene amount of carnival prizes. You’re part of this now. Part of my harbour.” She smiled then, a genuine, unguarded thing that softened the sharp edges of her face and raised the bunny’s limp, floppy arm to wave at him in a ridiculous greeting. “And Lord Snuggleton of Hugsville too, obviously. He’s very loyal. Once you’re in his inner circle, you’re in for life.”
Dex cracked a smile at that—a real one, the kind that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look younger, less like the guarded, capable man she knew and more like the boy he must have been before the world had asked so much of him. “I’m honoured,” he said, dipping his head in a mock-serious bow. “Truly. I don’t take titles like that lightly. Lord Snuggleton’s esteem is not easily earned.” Y/N laughed, a short, bright sound that surprised even her, rising up from some place she’d thought had been buried under weeks of exhaustion and fear. But before either of them could say anything more, the sharp, insistent trill of his phone sliced through the moment like a blade.
Dex’s expression flickered—a brief, almost imperceptible apology flashed across his features as his gaze darted to her face—before he pulled the device from his pocket and brought it to his ear. “Hello?” His voice shifted instantly, shedding its warmth for something clipped, professional, the tone of a man accustomed to receiving orders he couldn’t refuse. “Poindexter.” The name came out flat, almost clinical, a designation rather than an identity. Y/N watched the transformation with a quiet, sinking feeling in her stomach. Whatever was being said on the other end of the line, it was dismantling the evening they’d just shared, brick by careful brick.
His jaw tightened. His free hand came up to rake through his hair in a gesture she recognized now as a tell—a nervous habit that surfaced only when he was bracing himself against something he didn’t want to face. His eyes, which had been warm and present just seconds ago, grew distant, clouded over with something she couldn’t name. “Yes, I—I’ll be there,” he said, the stammer a rare crack in his otherwise composed facade. “I know. I know.” The repetition was almost a whisper, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as the person on the phone. He ended the call and stood there for a long, suspended moment, the phone still pressed to his ear, his gaze fixed on some point far beyond the dimly lit parking lot, far beyond her.
“Is everything okay, Dex?” Y/N asked, her voice carefully measured, deliberately light. She could read the shift in his posture—the way his shoulders had drawn up just slightly toward his ears, the rigid line of his jaw, the way his thumb was still hovering over the screen of his phone as if expecting it to ring again with even worse news. The easy, warm presence that had been walking beside her just moments ago had retreated somewhere deep behind his eyes, replaced by something taut and coiled, a wire pulled just shy of snapping.
Dex turned back to face her and she watched him visibly assemble a mask of calm the way someone might hastily straighten a painting knocked askew. It was a valiant effort, but she could see the cracks where the urgency underneath was bleeding through—a slight tremor in his hand as he pocketed the phone, the way his gaze kept darting toward the driver’s side door as if already calculating how many minutes it would take him to reach wherever he needed to be.
“Yes, yes, it’s, uh—” He stumbled over the words, uncharacteristically clumsy, his usual measured cadence fracturing under the weight of whatever he’d just been told. “It’s a work emergency. Something that can’t wait, apparently. They need me there now. Like, now.” He exhaled sharply through his nose, a frustrated sound that seemed directed more at himself than at the situation. “I know I said I would drive you back. I promised. And I am so, so sorry, Y/N, but I—”
Y/N cut him off, raising a hand in a gentle but firm stop signal. She’d spent enough time around people who carried the weight of urgent responsibilities—Matt had been the same way, always torn between the life he wanted to live and the life that demanded him at the most inconvenient moments. She recognized the guilt flickering behind Dex’s eyes, the specific agony of someone who prided themselves on reliability being forced to break a promise.
“Dex, it’s okay,” she said and she meant it, pouring as much reassurance into the words as she could muster. “I get it. Duty calls. That’s just how it works sometimes and I’m not going to hold it against you.” She gestured broadly at the carnival still glittering and churning in the near distance, the Ferris wheel turning in its slow, luminous circle against the darkening sky. “I’m a big girl, remember? I’ll probably wander around a bit more, maybe watch the carousel lights for a while and then I’ll call myself a cab. You don’t have to worry about it. Seriously.”
“Are you sure?” The question came out tight, strained and he was trying so hard to mask his guilt that it was almost painful to witness. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, a rare display of restlessness from a man who usually moved with such deliberate, controlled economy. “I could wait. Just until a cab shows up. It wouldn’t take long, I could—I could make the time. They can wait five more minutes. Ten, even. It’s not—” He was bargaining now, with himself more than with her, trying to find some arrangement that wouldn’t leave him feeling like he was abandoning her in a parking lot after dark.
“No, no, Dex.” Y/N shook her head firmly, her voice softening but leaving no room for argument. “I swear I’m fine. I’ll get myself some more of that ridiculous cotton candy we saw earlier and I’ll be perfectly content.” She waved her hand dismissively, a small, deliberate gesture meant to physically brush away his concerns. And the strangest part was, she realized with a small jolt of surprise, she actually believed her own words. In recent months, after the incident—she couldn’t bring herself to name it directly, even in the privacy of her own thoughts—she had felt fundamentally unsafe stepping outside her apartment alone. Every shadow had seemed to hold a threat, every stranger’s glance a potential prelude to danger. The world had shrunk to the size of her living room and leaving it had required Herculean effort and often a companion to anchor her.
But tonight, after hours spent walking beside Dex’s steady presence, she could feel something shifting inside her. The confidence he exuded had seeped into her bones like warmth from a fire, pushing back the cold tendrils of anxiety that had taken up residence there. She wasn’t cured—she knew better than to think it worked that way—but she was better. Stronger. More herself.
Before she could overthink it, she stepped forward into his space and wrapped her arms around him in a small, brief hug. It wasn’t much—just a quick press of warmth, the soft squash of Lord Snuggleton caught between them—but it was an offering. A thank you. A promise that she would be okay. She stepped back just as quickly, her cheeks warming slightly and fixed him with a look that was part stern older sister and part something else she wasn’t ready to examine. “Drive safely and stay safe, hmm? Whatever it is, I want you coming back in one piece. Lord Snuggleton would be devastated otherwise.”
Dex smiled at her then and despite the urgency still thrumming visibly beneath his skin, the expression reached his eyes. “Always, sunshine,” he said, the nickname falling from his lips like it belonged there, like it had always been hers. And then he was sliding into the driver’s seat, the engine growling to life and pulling out of the parking lot with a controlled, efficient speed that spoke of someone accustomed to navigating emergencies. Y/N watched the red glow of his taillights shrink until they were swallowed by the darkness beyond the carnival’s halo of light and for a long moment, she simply stood there, alone in the half-empty lot, clutching her rabbit and feeling the unfamiliar but not unwelcome sensation of being okay.
Back at the carnival, Y/N made a beeline for the chocolate fountain with the singular determination of a missile locking onto its target. The smell hit her before she even reached the counter: rich, warm and decadent, laced with the subtle bitterness of good cocoa and the sweet promise of immediate gratification. She had already indulged plenty tonight—more than plenty, if she was being completely honest with herself, which she was decidedly not in the mood to do—so what was a little bit more?
She stepped up to the counter and ordered the large cup without hesitation, watching as the vendor skewered plump, ruby-red strawberries and dense squares of fudge brownie onto wooden sticks before plunging them beneath the chocolate’s glossy surface. The coating hardened almost instantly into a thin, crisp shell that crackled satisfyingly when she bit into the first strawberry, the tartness of the fruit cutting through the sweetness in perfect, harmonious balance.
She had only ordered the medium cup earlier when Dex had been standing beside her, hyperaware of his presence and the quiet, observant way he seemed to take note of everything without passing judgment. She hadn’t wanted him to think she was completely unhinged, that her relationship with sugar had crossed some invisible line from “treat yourself” into “concerning coping mechanism.” Especially considering the culinary carnage that had preceded this final indulgence: she had methodically worked her way through every single flavour of gourmet popcorn at the stall near the entrance—caramel sea salt, white cheddar, buffalo ranch, dill pickle, birthday cake and a truly unhinged sriracha honey variety that had made her eyes water but she’d finished anyway.
That had been followed by a triple-decker ice cream cone the size of her forearm, a precarious tower of belgian chocolate, strawberry cheesecake and cookie dough that had required strategic licking and rapid consumption to prevent a catastrophic structural failure. And then, of course, there had been the cotton candy—not one but two entire clouds of spun sugar, both of which had dissolved on her tongue like sweet, fleeting dreams and left her fingers sticky and her conscience only mildly bruised. Dex had watched her consume all of this with an expression somewhere between amusement and genuine scientific curiosity but he hadn’t said a word. That was one of the things she appreciated most about him—he let her be, without commentary, without the gentle, well-meaning lectures she’d grown so accustomed to deflecting.
“Miss, please—feel free to pick a prize from here.” The vendor’s voice pulled her from her chocolate-induced reverie and she looked up to find him gesturing toward a board mounted on the side of the stall. It was covered in styrofoam cups arranged in neat rows, each one with a tissue stuffed into its mouth. The whole display had a distinctly homemade, slightly melancholic charm, the kind of prize system that existed more for the vendor’s entertainment than any real value to the customer.
Y/N blinked, a smear of chocolate still clinging to the corner of her lip. “What for?” she asked, genuinely bewildered. She glanced down at the large cup in her hand, then back up at the board, trying to piece together the logic. “I didn’t think a large cup warranted a prize. Is this a new promotion or something?”
The vendor chuckled softly and shook his head. “Yes, miss, but two medium cups of strawberries back then—” He paused for effect, his eyebrows lifting meaningfully, “—and now two large cups of strawberries and brownies?” He spread his hands as if presenting irrefutable evidence to a jury. “That’s four cups total. In one evening. From my stall alone.” He said it without judgment, more like a man acknowledging a worthy adversary, but the implication landed with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.
A deep, mortifying blush crept up Y/N’s neck and flooded her cheeks, spreading like wildfire across her face until even the tips of her ears felt hot. She suddenly became intensely aware of the chocolate cup in her hand, which now felt less like a treat and more like Exhibit A in the case against her self-control. Perhaps she shouldn’t have indulged quite so much after all. Perhaps there had been a reasonable limit somewhere back around the first cup of strawberries, a line she had gleefully vaulted over without a backward glance.
Matt would have known. Matt always knew. Her brother had possessed an almost supernatural ability to detect her dietary transgressions—he could quite literally smell the sugar on her breath, the artificial fruit flavouring of Skittles clinging to her fingers, the scent of processed chocolate that no amount of hand-washing could fully erase. He would fix her with that look, the one that was equal parts exasperation and affection and launch into his familiar litany: “Y/N, you know that stuff is poison, right? Your body is a temple, not a candy disposal unit. Come on, let’s go for a run. Just a few miles. You’ll feel better, I promise.”
And she would groan and protest and drag her feet, but ultimately, she would go, because it was Matt asking and because he was right and because watching him—blind, yet moving through the world with the grace and precision of a predator, fighting criminals on rooftops while she wheezed on a treadmill—was both deeply inspiring and profoundly humbling. He had been Daredevil, a vigilante with seemingly infinite stamina and an unbreakable moral code, while she struggled to maintain a light jog for more than fifteen minutes without questioning every life choice that had led her to that moment. It had been embarrassing, yes, but it had also been love. His nagging, his gentle scolding, his relentless insistence that she take care of herself—it had all been love, wrapped in the rough packaging of older-brother concern.
But after his death, the silence had been deafening. There was no one to nag her anymore. No one to wrinkle their nose at the scent of contraband candy and demand she put on her running shoes. No one to care, in that specific, irritating, irreplaceable way, whether she ate a vegetable or went for a walk or took care of the body she inhabited. The absence of that nagging felt infinitely worse than the nagging itself ever had. It was a void, a negative space where his voice used to live and, in its emptiness, she had fallen back into old, comfortable patterns.
She knew—intellectually, rationally—that consuming these many sweets wasn’t good for her. She knew about blood sugar spikes and empty calories and the long, slow creep of habits that became harder to break with each passing day. But knowing and doing were two different countries and she hadn’t yet found the bridge between them. Having dinners and cook nights with Dex had helped. His quiet, unassuming presence in her life had motivated her to eat healthier, to plan meals that contained actual nutrients, to slowly pull herself back onto some semblance of a track.
He never lectured, never judged—he just showed up with vegetables and a recipe and an expectation that she would participate and somehow that gentle, wordless accountability was more effective than any of Matt’s well-intentioned scolding had ever been. But standing here now, clutching her fourth cup of chocolate-drenched indulgence, she felt the familiar ache of missing her brother’s voice. She missed the exasperated sigh. She missed the way he would shake his head and call her a menace to her own pancreas. She missed being known that completely, being seen that clearly, even when—especially when—she was doing something she shouldn’t.
She looked up at the vendor, still blushing and gave him a small, sheepish smile. “I’ll take whatever prize is behind cup number seven,” she said softly, pointing at a random styrofoam cup on the board. It seemed appropriate—lucky number seven, the number of completion, of rest. Maybe it was a sign. Or maybe it was just a cup with a tissue stuffed in it. Either way, she would take it.
The vendor’s face broke into a wide, practiced smile as he reached beneath the counter and produced a slim, silver ticket that caught the carnival lights and shimmered like a promise. “A ticket to the mirror maze! Congratulations, miss.” He slid it across the counter toward her with a small flourish, clearly pleased to be delivering something more substantial than the usual plastic trinkets and temporary tattoos that most prizes consisted of.
Y/N accepted the ticket, turning it over in her fingers to examine it. Mirror maze, huh? The thought settled into her mind and unfurled slowly, like a flower opening to the sun. That actually sounded... fun. Genuinely, unexpectedly fun. She had spotted the attraction earlier in the evening, toward the far end of the carnival grounds. The exterior had been impossible to miss—a massive, warehouse-sized structure wrapped in panels of reflective material that caught the surrounding neon glow. A sign above the entrance had proclaimed it “The Labyrinth of a Thousand Faces—Find Yourself, If You Can,” in curling, carnivalesque script. She had paused when she’d seen it, her footsteps slowing unconsciously, her gaze lingering on the entrance with a familiar pang of childhood nostalgia. She’d wanted to go in. Badly.
But she hadn’t said anything. She had swallowed the desire and kept walking, because making Dex navigate an endless maze of mirrors while balancing that absurd, precarious mountain of stuffed animals in his arms just didn’t seem appropriate. It would have been selfish, she’d told herself. Unfair. The man had already gone out of his way—truly, genuinely out of his way—to invite her out tonight. He had shown up at her door with that quiet, determined look on his face, the one that brooked no argument and had essentially dragged her out of what he affectionately referred to as her “depression hole.” Dex had pulled her out of that.
He had driven to Foggy’s building where Y/N was staying temporarily, waited in the hallway while she threw on something other than sweatpants for the first time in days and then spent his entire evening winning her stuffed animals and pretending not to notice when she stress-ate her body weight in carnival concessions. Asking him to also stumble through a mirror maze with an armful of plushies would have been too much. It would have tipped the scales of his generosity into territory she wasn’t comfortable occupying. And besides, moving past it had been easy enough. The mirror maze was one of the carnival’s biggest attractions in terms of sheer physical size—it dominated that entire corner of the grounds, a sprawling labyrinth that promised to consume time and attention in equal measure and she had convinced herself it wasn’t worth the hassle.
But now, holding this unexpected silver ticket in her chocolate-sticky fingers, the universe seemed to be offering her a second chance. A small, glittering do-over.
“But miss, you should hurry.” He gestured toward the maze with a tilt of his chin, his expression shifting into something more urgent. “The carnival closes in fifteen minutes and that ticket’s only good for today. After that—” He made a small, apologetic gesture, the universal sign for “it becomes worthless paper.”
Y/N nodded quickly, the motion jerky and determined, even as she stuffed another chocolate-coated strawberry into her mouth with the single-minded focus of someone preparing for battle. Lord Snuggleton remained tucked securely in the crook of her arm, his floppy ears bouncing with each hurried step she took away from the chocolate fountain and toward the distant, glimmering silhouette of the mirror maze. Pushing through the remaining crowd was tough—the carnival had thinned out considerably as closing time approached, but those who remained were concentrated in the main thoroughfares. She muttered apologies as she slipped past, her shoulders twisting to avoid collisions, Lord Snuggleton pressed protectively against her chest.
Thankfully, when she finally reached the entrance to the mirror maze, the wait line was almost non-existent—just a handful of stragglers like herself, drawn by the same last-minute impulse to squeeze one more experience out of the dying night. She took her place and used the brief pause to scarf down the remaining contents of her cup with an efficiency that would have impressed even her judgmental brother. The strawberries disappeared in quick succession, their tart sweetness cutting through the rich chocolate coating. The brownies followed, dense and fudgy and almost obscenely decadent, leaving a pleasant warmth in her stomach that bordered on uncomfortable.
She checked beneath the crumpled paper cups, searching for napkins and realized with a small pang of regret that she had completely forgotten to ask for tissues. The chocolate residue on her fingers was one thing, she could wipe that surreptitiously on the inside of her jacket and deal with the consequences later, but the sticky, sweet film she could feel clinging to the corners of her mouth and probably smeared across her chin was another matter entirely. With no better options presenting themselves and the line inching forward, she resorted to the undignified but effective method of running her tongue around her lips in a broad, sweeping circle, hoping the impromptu self-cleaning would suffice. It probably didn’t. She probably looked like a toddler who had been left unsupervised with a jar of Nutella. But the carnival was closing, the maze was waiting and dignity was a luxury she couldn’t afford at this particular moment.
The mirror maze swallowed her whole. It was vast and well-lit in a strange, disorienting way—not bright, exactly, but saturated with light that bounced and refracted and multiplied, creating an atmosphere that felt simultaneously infinite and claustrophobic. Every surface gleamed. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined every wall, their edges so seamlessly joined that it was impossible to tell where one reflection ended and another began. Soft, coloured LED strips ran along the baseboards, casting everything in a dreamlike glow that shifted subtly between cool blues, warm pinks and ethereal purples.
Y/N found herself surrounded on all sides by versions of herself—dozens of them, hundreds maybe, stretching away into what looked like impossible, endless corridors. Some reflections stood close, their details sharp and intimate; others receded into the distance, growing smaller and smaller until they were just specks of colour and movement. She turned slowly in place, mesmerized, watching as every version of Y/N Murdock turned with her, a synchronized army of herself moving in perfect unison. It had been a long, long time since she had been in a mirror maze. The last time must have been years ago, back when Matt was still alive and dragging her to every strange corner of New York City he could find, insisting that she needed to “experience” things rather than just read about them or watch them on a screen. He had always been like that—relentlessly experiential, convinced that life was meant to be lived in three dimensions, with all the mess and discomfort that entailed.
But Matt had also possessed a singular, almost supernatural talent for ruining mazes. It wasn’t intentional, which somehow made it worse. His senses—those impossible, heightened senses that allowed him to navigate the world in ways she could barely comprehend—meant that he could perceive the maze not as a disorienting puzzle but as a clear, three-dimensional map. He could feel the subtle differences in air currents that indicated a dead end versus an open passage. He could hear the faint echo of sound bouncing off glass versus empty space. He could smell the difference between a corridor that led somewhere and one that circled back on itself.
While she blundered around like a confused, sighted mole, walking face-first into mirrors with a resounding thwack that echoed through the entire structure, Matt would stand there with his head tilted slightly, that infuriating half-smile playing at the corner of his mouth and simply know which way to go. He would listen to her collide with yet another reflective surface, sigh with the long-suffering patience of an older brother who had seen it all before and then calmly guide her toward the exit while she nursed her bruised forehead and bruised pride in equal measure.
And then, for the next week—minimum—he would bring it up at every opportunity. “Remember when you walked into that mirror so hard I thought you’d cracked it?” he’d say, his voice warm with barely suppressed laughter. “The carnival people probably still have your face print on file.” She would whine and protest and throw things at him, but secretly, secretly, she had loved it. The teasing. The attention. The way he noticed and remembered and cared enough to make fun of her.
Now, standing alone in this cathedral of reflections, she found herself almost wishing for the thwack of forehead against glass, if only because it would mean he was there to hear it.
Y/N shook off the creeping melancholy and focused on the task at hand: navigating. She extended one hand in front of her, palm flat, fingers spread—the universal posture of someone trying very hard not to walk into something solid. Her other arm remained curled protectively around Lord Snuggleton, the bunny’s soft body pressed against her ribs like a fuzzy, inanimate anchor. The maze was quiet, unnervingly so. The carnival’s ambient noise seemed to be absorbed by all the glass. She took a tentative step forward, then another, her outstretched fingers brushing against cool, smooth glass. She adjusted her angle, stepped again, found open space and allowed herself a small, private smile of victory.
The smile faded approximately two minutes later when she realized, with a slow, dawning horror, that she had absolutely no idea where she was.
The corridors of mirrors stretched in every direction, identical and infinite. She turned left, encountered her own startled reflection blocking the path, turned right, found another version of herself looking equally confused, turned back the way she came and couldn’t tell if she was retracing her steps or venturing deeper into the labyrinth. The glowing arrows on the floor that the attendant had mentioned were there, yes—faint, luminescent strips that pulsed softly in the dim light—but they seemed to point in contradictory directions, or maybe she was just reading them wrong or maybe she was walking over the same patch of floor again and again, trapped in a loop of her own making.
Lord Snuggleton’s reflection stared back at her from every angle, his big, black, beady plastic eyes catching the coloured lights and gleaming with what she could only interpret as silent, fluffy accusation. You did this to us, those eyes seemed to say. You and your impulsive, last-minute decisions. We could have been in a warm cab by now. We could have been home, watching Netflix, eating something that wasn’t our fourth chocolate cup of the evening. But no. You had to be adventurous. She pulled the bunny closer, tucking his soft head under her chin in a gesture that was half comfort, half apology.
It was safe to say, Y/N reflected grimly as she stared down a corridor that looked exactly like the three corridors, she had just tried and failed to navigate, that Y/N Murdock did not always make the best decisions. In fact, if there was a Hall of Fame for Questionable Life Choices, she would probably have her own wing. Coming to a mirror maze alone, fifteen minutes before the carnival closed, with a sugar crash looming on the horizon and no clear exit strategy—this was going on the highlight reel, right alongside “ignoring Matt’s advice about literally everything” and “thinking four cups of chocolate-covered fruit was a reasonable dinner.” She pressed her palm against another mirror, felt the cool glass resist her touch and sighed deeply, her breath fogging the surface in a small, temporary cloud. Somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard the faint, mechanical groan of a ride powering down. The carnival was closing. And she was lost in a hall of mirrors with a stuffed rabbit and a rapidly fading sense of direction.
Perfect. Just perfect.
Five more minutes bled into an eternity of glass and confusion, each passing second stretching like taffy as Y/N stumbled through the endless corridors of her own fractured image. She had lost count of how many times she’d pressed her palm against what she thought was an opening, only to feel the unyielding smoothness of a mirror meeting her skin. Her forehead was tender from at least three separate collisions and Lord Snuggleton’s fur was damp where she’d been clutching him too tightly, her anxiety seeping out through her palms like an invisible sweat. But finally—finally—she rounded a corner and found herself stepping into what was unmistakably the final section of the maze.
The red section.
The transition was immediate and jarring. Where the previous corridors had been bathed in soft, shifting pastels and cool blues, this part of the maze was saturated in crimson. The effect was disorienting in a way that went beyond simple navigation—it felt primal, almost visceral, as if she had stepped into the chambers of some great beast’s still-beating heart. And more than that, the red made her see things. Or think she saw things. Fleeting movements in her peripheral vision—a dark shape slipping behind a mirror, a figure standing where no figure should be, gone the moment she whipped her head around to confront it. Her exhausted, sugar-crashing brain was playing tricks on her, populating the crimson gloom with phantoms born of fatigue and old, unhealed fears.
A familiar anxiety began to rise in her chest, unbidden and unwelcome, like floodwater seeping through cracks she’d thought she’d patched. It started as a tightness in her throat, a constriction that made each breath feel shallow and insufficient. The walls—those endless, gleaming walls—suddenly seemed closer than they had a moment ago. It wasn’t real, she knew it wasn’t real, she knew that—but knowing and feeling were two separate countries and right now she was stranded in the wrong one without a passport.
And then she saw it. A flash. Over her shoulder, reflected in the mirror just behind her left side. A shape. A figure. There and gone so quickly she couldn’t be sure it had ever existed at all, just a dark silhouette against the red glow. A sudden, bone-deep chill climbed her spine like a spider ascending a web, one vertebra at a time, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Her breath caught, hitching in her throat and she stood frozen for a long, terrible moment, every instinct screaming at her to turn around and look while every other instinct screamed equally loudly to not turn around, to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, to keep moving forward and never look back.
Panic—true, undiluted panic—began to rise in her bloodstream like a tide of ice water. She started walking again, faster now, her outstretched hand forgotten as she moved without checking, without the careful, probing caution that had saved her from countless collisions earlier. The consequence was immediate and painful: her forehead connected with a mirror with a loud, resonant THWAK that echoed through the red-drenched corridor like a gunshot. The impact sent a sharp spike of pain radiating through her skull and she stumbled backward. “Ow,” she rubbed at the tender spot, feeling the beginning of what would undoubtedly be an impressive bruise and tried to blink the stars from her vision.
Then she heard it. A chuckle. Low, warm and horrifyingly, hauntingly familiar. It floated through the red-tinted air like smoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, bouncing off the countless mirrors until its source was impossible to pinpoint. Her blood ran cold. Every hair on her arms stood at attention. That chuckle—she knew that chuckle. She had heard it before, in a context so terrible that her mind had tried to wall it off, to bury it deep in the unmarked graves of her subconscious where she wouldn’t have to look at it.
Maybe it was her brain imagining it. Maybe the stress and the sugar and the exhaustion and the claustrophobic red maze had finally conspired to break something loose in her psyche, conjuring auditory hallucinations from the raw material of her trauma. Maybe. Possibly. But she couldn’t take that risk. She couldn’t. Not here, not now, not trapped in this labyrinth of glass with no clear exit and no one to hear her if she screamed.
Her pace hastened from hurried to desperate. She tried to weave through the maze faster, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, but speed in a mirror maze was its own punishment. She collided with mirror after mirror—her shoulder glancing off one, her hip smacking painfully into another, her outstretched hand slapping against glass where she’d been certain there was an opening. Each impact sent a fresh jolt of pain through her body and a fresh spike of terror through her heart. The red light seemed to pulse now, throbbing in time with her racing heartbeat, transforming the maze into something organic and alive and hungry.
“Running from me, doll?” The voice floated through the air, silky and mocking, curling around her like poisonous vapor. It seemed to come from everywhere, from the walls themselves, from the red light, from inside her own skull. And then she saw him. In the mirror near her right shoulder, his reflection materialized like a ghost taking form. The helmet. The red horns curving up from the brow like devilish crowns. The black and red kevlar, sculpted to a body she knew was powerful and cruel in equal measure. It was him. Daredevil. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
But it wasn’t the Daredevil she had known and loved, the one who had once piggybacked her up a rusted fire escape in the dead of night because they were fleeing from armed thugs and she had twisted her ankle on a loose piece of concrete. That Daredevil had been gruff and exasperated and endlessly patient, grumbling under his breath about her “terrible survival instincts” even as he carried her to safety, his grip secure and his warmth seeping through the kevlar into her chilled skin. That Daredevil had been her brother, her protector, her annoying, overbearing, fiercely loving Matt. And Matt Murdock was dead. Daredevil—the real Daredevil—had died with him.
This person—this thing stalking her through the crimson labyrinth—was nothing but a vile impersonator. A parasite wearing her brother’s skin or at least a suit identical to his. He had stolen the symbol, corrupted it, twisted it into something unrecognizable and profane. He had taken everything Matt had stood for—justice, protection, the defense of the innocent—and perverted it into a tool for terror and cruelty and his own sick gratification.
And if that wasn’t bad enough—if the desecration of her brother’s memory wasn’t already an unforgivable sin—this man was the cause of the incident. The one that had stolen the light from her eyes for weeks and left her in complete, utter desolation. The one she couldn’t name, couldn’t speak aloud, could barely allow herself to remember in the safety of daylight. How he had cornered her in that narrow, garbage-strewn alleyway on a night that should have been ordinary. How he had pressed her against the wet brick wall, the smell of rot and rain filling her nostrils as he leaned in close, the horns of his helmet catching the distant streetlight. How he had done horrible, unspeakable things to her for his own perverse pleasure, things that still visited her in dreams that left her waking up gasping and drenched in cold sweat. How he had laughed—that same chuckle—as she cried and begged and tried to fight back with hands that felt like they belonged to someone else. How he had left her there afterward, crumpled among the garbage bags like something discarded, her body a map of violations and her mind a shattered mirror she was still trying to piece back together.
Y/N tried to run. What else could she do? Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, hot and traitorous, blurring the already disorienting reflections into smears of red and black and her own terrified face multiplied into infinity. But a mirror maze—she realized with a sick, sinking certainty—was quite possibly the worst place in the entire world to be trapped with someone like him. Every surface was a weapon he could use against her. Every reflection showed him where she was, where she was going, where she was trying to hide. And every reflection showed her exactly how close he was getting, a countdown to capture displayed on every gleaming wall.
He stalked closer, his movements unhurried and predatory, a wolf who knew his prey had nowhere to run. His reflections grew larger in the mirrors surrounding her, multiplying as he approached, until it seemed like there were a dozen of him closing in from every angle. His helmeted head tilted slightly, a mockery of curiosity, as if he were savouring her fear, drinking it in like fine wine. The glowing arrows on the floor pointed insistently in one direction, their soft luminescence cutting through the red gloom like a lifeline. She had to follow them. She had to get out. She had to move.
His reflection grew closer still, swelling until it filled the mirror directly in front of her, life-sized and terrifyingly present. She could see the texture of the kevlar, the slight scuffs on the horns, the way his chest rose and fell with calm, measured breaths. Panic seized her—total, overwhelming, animal panic that bypassed thought and went straight to instinct. She turned and ran, her feet pounding against the floor, following the arrows with blind, desperate faith. The corridor opened before her, a clear path, an escape, she was going to make it, she was going to get out—
And then she collided with something solid. Not glass this time. Something warm and unyielding and very much alive. A chest. His chest. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs and sent Lord Snuggleton tumbling from her grasp, the stuffed rabbit hitting the floor with a soft, pathetic fwump that seemed to echo in the sudden, terrible silence. She looked up, her vision swimming with tears and terror and found herself staring at the blank, expressionless face of the Daredevil helmet. The horns curved upward like a devil’s crown. The red light painted him in shades of blood and shadow. And beneath the helmet, she knew—she knew—there was a smile. That horrible, familiar, haunting smile.
He had her.
Before Y/N could even process the collision, before the impact of her body against his chest had fully registered in her overwhelmed nervous system, he was already moving. His hands found her shoulders—strong, gloved, implacable—and he pivoted, using his weight and momentum to spin her around and slam her backward against the mirror she had just been fleeing from. The impact drove the air from her lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. The glass behind her was unforgiving, cold even through the fabric of her jacket and it vibrated with the force of her body hitting it, sending a low, resonant hum through the crimson-drenched corridor. His body pressed against hers immediately, eliminating any space between them, his hips pinning her lower half to the mirror while his chest crowded her upper body, leaving her no room to twist, to squirm, to do anything but exist in the narrow prison of his proximity. The pressure of his legs against hers was immovable, a cage of muscle and kevlar and malevolent intent.
The tears came then, hot and humiliating, spilling over her lower lashes and carving glistening tracks down her cheeks. They caught the red light and shimmered like tiny rivers of blood, a detail she was sure he noticed and enjoyed. She couldn’t stop them. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry but her body had betrayed her completely, surrendering to the terror that had seized control of her autonomic nervous system. She cranked her neck away from him, twisting her head to the side with such desperate force that the tendons in her throat stood out like cables. She couldn’t look at him. She wouldn’t look at him. Not at the reflection of herself—pinned, terrified, small—that she could see multiplied in the mirrors surrounding them, an infinite gallery of her own violation playing out in every direction. If she looked at him, if she met those empty eye-slits in the mask, she would shatter completely. She would break into pieces too small to ever be reassembled.
“Did you miss me, doll?” His voice was a low, rumbling purr, intimate and mocking, the kind of tone a lover might use in a dark bedroom. The pet name—doll—landed on her skin like a brand, a proprietary claim that made her stomach turn over with nausea. He raised one gloved hand and traced a slow, deliberate line along the curve of her jaw, the leather of his fingertips dragging across her skin with horrible, clinical precision. The touch made her flinch violently, her whole body jerking as if she’d been shocked and she squirmed against his immovable weight, trying to press herself further into the mirror as if she could phase through the glass and escape into her own reflection. “Because I sure missed you.” The words were followed by that chuckle—that terrible, familiar, haunted chuckle that had been echoing in her nightmares for weeks now, the sound that meant pain and violation and a darkness so complete she still hadn’t found her way back to the light.
He leaned in closer, his helmeted face filling her peripheral vision despite her efforts to look away. She could smell him now—leather and sweat and something metallic, something that might have been old blood or might have been her imagination filling in the gaps with the worst possible details. And then she felt it: the wet, warm drag of his tongue against the corner of her mouth. He licked her slowly, deliberately, as if savoring a delicacy and followed it with a low, satisfied hum that vibrated against her skin. The sound was almost pornographic in its pleasure, a noise of genuine enjoyment that made her skin crawl and her stomach heave.
“You taste so fucking sweet every time,” he murmured, his voice thick with a satisfaction that bordered on reverent. He smiled against her skin—she could feel the curve of it through the opening in the helmet, the stretch of his lips pressing against the sensitive flesh near her mouth—and lapped at the skin around her lips again, collecting the residual chocolate and sugar and the salt of her terror. Y/N squirmed helplessly, her body bucking against his in a futile attempt to dislodge him and a small, pathetic whimper of pure disgust escaped her throat.
“When I kiss you,” he continued, his tone almost conversational, as if they were lovers sharing an intimate secret rather than predator and prey in a hall of mirrors, “I wonder if I’m kissing the woman of my dreams...” He paused, pulling back just enough to look at her face, to drink in the tears and the fear and the revulsion. “...or a fucking candy bar.” The profanity was delivered with a kind of affectionate amusement, as if her terror were a charming quirk rather than a genuine trauma response.
Y/N clamped her mouth shut with every ounce of strength she possessed, pressing her lips together so tightly they went bloodless and white. She knew this game. She remembered it from the alleyway, from the last time he had cornered her and taken what he wanted. If she opened her mouth—to scream, to beg, to say anything at all—he would use it as an opening. He would force his tongue inside, would taste her from the inside out, would violate yet another boundary she had no power to defend. The sweetness of the chocolate still lingering in her mouth mingled with the salt of her tears on her lips and she knew—with sick, horrifying certainty—that for him, it was a truly delectable combination
“Now open up for me,” he crooned, his voice dropping into something almost gentle, almost coaxing. “Say aah.” He pressed two gloved fingers against her sealed lips, the leather cool and slightly rough and began to push, trying to pry her mouth open by force. The pressure was insistent, invasive, a precursor to everything else he intended to take from her. Y/N didn’t budge. She didn’t open her mouth, didn’t give him the satisfaction of entry. And when his fingers continued to press, continued to demand entry, she opened her jaw just enough to catch the leather-clad digits between her teeth and bit down on those with every ounce of desperate, terrified strength she could summon.
The man—she refused to acknowledge him as Daredevil, refused to let that name, her brother’s name, be contaminated by this monster, even in thought—withdrew his hand with a sharp, almost surprised laugh. It wasn’t a laugh of pain; she hadn’t hurt him, not really, not through the reinforced gloves he wore. It was a laugh of genuine amusement, of delighted surprise, as if she were a pet who had performed an unexpected and entertaining trick. “Feisty,” he said and the word was dripping with approval. “I like that. I really do.”
Y/N looked at him then—she couldn’t help it, the laugh had startled her into breaking her own rule—and in that moment of eye contact, of her tear-blurred gaze meeting the empty black slits of his helmet, he moved. Without thought, without warning, without giving her a single second to prepare. He smashed his lips onto hers with brutal, consuming force. The kiss was not tender; it was not romantic; it was an act of violence committed with mouths instead of fists. And at the same moment, his hand—the one she had bitten, the one still wet with her saliva—curled around her throat. His fingers found the delicate column of her neck and squeezed. Not hard enough to crush her windpipe, not yet, but with enough steady, inexorable pressure to restrict blood flow, to make the edges of her vision begin to darken and sparkle with warning lights.
The pressure around her neck grew and grew and the world began to swim. The red light of the maze seemed to pulse in time with her faltering heartbeat. Dizziness washed over her in waves, her thoughts scattering like startled birds. Her mouth, which she had fought so hard to keep sealed, fell open involuntarily—a biological imperative, a body’s desperate attempt to pull in oxygen by any available channel. And he was waiting. The moment her lips parted, his tongue pushed inside, filling her mouth with the taste of him—coffee, something metallic and a wrongness that had no name. He explored her mouth with slow, savoring thoroughness, mapping the territory he had claimed, tasting the chocolate and the salt of her tears all mingled together.
“Please,” she gasped, the word muffled and deformed by his tongue still occupying her mouth. Her voice was barely audible over the roaring in her ears. “Please, don’t—” The plea dissolved into a choked whimper as his grip on her throat tightened fractionally, a silent warning that her begging was not welcome, that her words were not part of this particular script. She struggled to breathe, her chest heaving against his, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at the kevlar covering his shoulders. The mirrors around them reflected the scene from every angle—her pinned body, his dominating form, the intimate horror of his mouth on hers—creating an infinite gallery of her own violation. And somewhere in the crimson gloom, Lord Snuggleton lay on the cold floor, his beady black eyes staring at nothing, a silent witness to the nightmare unfolding above him.
“I-I’ll do anything,” she hiccuped, the words tumbling out between ragged, oxygen-starved gasps, her voice cracking and splintering like thin ice under too much weight. “Please, just don’t—please just don’t—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t give voice to the specific horror she was pleading to avoid, because naming it would make it real, would solidify it from a lurking possibility into an impending certainty. Instead, she poured everything she had into her eyes—wide, tear-glazed, desperate—looking up at that blank, demonic helmet with a silent entreaty that she hoped, prayed, begged would reach whatever remained of the human being beneath the mask. Please. Please remember that I’m a person. Please don’t do this again.
The man broke the kiss, pulling back just far enough to regard her with those empty, unreadable eye-slits. The sudden absence of his mouth on hers was almost disorienting, like a pressure she’d grown accustomed to had been abruptly removed. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking—the helmet revealed nothing, gave away no flicker of emotion, no telltale shift in expression. It was like staring into a void, a blank canvas onto which she could project nothing but her own terror. But he paused. He actually paused. For one suspended moment, he simply looked at her, his head tilted slightly to the side in a posture that might have been curiosity or contemplation or simple cruel amusement.
“Don’t what?” he asked finally, his voice deceptively casual, almost conversational. And then, with deliberate, brutal clarity: “Fuck you?” The word landed like a slap, crude and vulgar and stripped of any pretense. It was the ugliest word for the ugliest act and hearing it spoken aloud in his familiar, almost affectionate tone made Y/N cringe so hard her shoulders hunched inward, as if she could physically retreat into herself and disappear. Her stomach lurched, bile rising in the back of her throat. But she forced herself to nod—a small, jerky, humiliating movement—her gaze falling from his helmet to the floor, unable to maintain eye contact through the shame of what she was agreeing to. She was bargaining with a monster, negotiating the terms of her own violation and the degradation of it burned like acid in her chest.
The man hummed, a low, considering sound that vibrated in the narrow space between their bodies. He seemed to be contemplating her request, weighing it with the same casual deliberation one might give to choosing between two equally appealing desserts. “I’m in a good mood today,” he said and the words were almost playful, as if he were granting her a generous favor rather than withholding an unspeakable cruelty. “So I’ll let you off easy. Plus—” He leaned in closer, his helmet brushing against her hair, his breath warm against the shell of her ear. “—I want to take my time with you, sweetheart. I won’t fuck you just yet.”
The qualifier—just yet—hung in the air like a guillotine blade suspended by the thinnest of threads. It wasn’t mercy. It was a postponement. A promise that the reprieve was temporary, that the clock was still ticking, that eventually—whenever he decided the time was right—he would collect on the debt she was accruing simply by existing in his presence. But even knowing that, even understanding that this was merely a stay of execution rather than a pardon, Y/N felt a shuddering sigh of relief escape her lungs. Her body sagged slightly against the mirror, the tension in her muscles releasing a fraction of its death grip. She would take what she could get. She would cling to whatever scraps of dignity and safety he deigned to leave her, because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.
But her relief was premature. She should have known better. She did know better. Men like him didn’t give without taking. Every apparent kindness was merely the setup for a crueler demand, a way to make her complicit in her own degradation.
“But you gotta make up for it somehow, yes?” He cooed the words, his voice dripping with false sweetness. His gloved hand came up to stroke her cheek, the pad of his thumb dragging slowly across her tear-dampened skin in a grotesque parody of tenderness. The leather was smooth and cool and utterly dehumanizing—it erased the warmth of human touch, reduced contact to something clinical and threatening. Y/N’s blood froze in her veins. Of course. Of course. Someone as vile as him, someone who had already proven capable of such monstrous cruelty, wouldn’t simply let her go. That wasn’t how this worked. That wasn’t how he worked. Every interaction was a transaction and he always, always extracted his price.
“Wh-what do you want?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, reedy and trembling. The question felt like walking off a cliff, like voluntarily stepping into a trap she could see but couldn’t avoid. She was scared—terrified, really, down to the marrow of her bones—and every syllable was laced with that fear. Whatever it was, she told herself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline, it would be better than the alternative. Retaining even scraps of her dignity, even shreds of her autonomy, still felt infinitely preferable to having none at all. At least this way, she could pretend she had some agency, some small measure of control over her own destruction.
“Take your clothes off.”
The command was delivered with casual, almost bored simplicity, as if he were asking her to pass the salt at a dinner table. Three words. Just three small, ordinary words arranged in a sequence that stripped away everything she was and reduced her to nothing but a body to be displayed and consumed. Y/N’s eyes widened, the whites showing all around her irises and she squirmed instinctively in his grip, her body revolting against the demand before her mind had even fully processed it. She pushed against his chest, tried to twist away, tried to find some angle of escape—but he was immovable, a wall of muscle and kevlar and implacable intent. Her struggles accomplished nothing except to amuse him, a faint chuckle rumbling through his chest where it pressed against hers.
“But you said—” she started, her voice cracking, the protest rising automatically to her lips.
“I said I wouldn’t fuck you.” He cut her off, his tone shifting subtly—still controlled, but with an edge of frustration creeping in around the seams, like a temper being held in check by a fraying leash. “I never said I couldn’t do other things.” The words were precise and clinical. He had promised her one specific mercy and he was honouring that promise to the letter while violating its spirit completely. It was a game to him. It had always been a game. And she was losing, had been losing from the moment she stepped into this maze.
Then, without warning, he moved. His fist lashed out and connected with the mirror directly behind her head. The impact was explosive—a sharp, crystalline CRACK that shattered the silence and the glass in equal measure. Y/N squealed in fear, the sound high and animalistic, torn from her throat by pure reflex. The mirror fractured into a spiderweb of silver lines and then pieces began to fall, tinkling to the floor like deadly rain. A small shard, no bigger than her thumbnail, spun through the air and caught her cheek, opening a thin, stinging line across her skin. She felt the warm trickle of blood begin to well up and slide down toward her jaw, a single crimson tear tracking the path of its saltier predecessors.
He plucked a larger shard from the ruined mirror—long and wicked and glittering with sharp edges—and brought it to her neck with deliberate, terrifying slowness. The point of the glass pressed against the delicate skin just below her jaw, not quite hard enough to break the surface, but with enough pressure to make the threat unmistakable. The cold of it was shocking, a sharp contrast to the warmth of her terror-flushed skin. Y/N stilled completely. Every muscle in her body locked into perfect, rigid immobility. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t blink. The only motion in her entire being was the wild, frantic thumping of her heart, pounding against her ribs like a caged animal throwing itself against the bars. It was so loud she was certain he could hear it, certain he could feel it through the point of contact where the glass met her pulse.
The shard began to move. Slowly, so slowly, he trailed it down the column of her neck, following the path of her carotid artery, tracing the vulnerable architecture of her throat. Then lower, over her collarbone, dipping into the hollow at the base of her neck. Lower still, down her sternum, until the glittering point came to rest in the valley of her cleavage, pressing just firmly enough against the fabric of her shirt to dimple the skin beneath. Not enough to cut—not yet—but enough to be a constant, undeniable threat. A promise written in glass and malice.
He leaned down, his helmeted face descending toward her bleeding cheek and she felt the wet, warm drag of his tongue as he licked the blood from the fresh cut. The sensation was obscene—intimate and violating and utterly dehumanizing. He savoured it, drawing out the contact and when he spoke again, his voice was a whisper against her skin, intimate and terrifying. “Are you going to take it off,” he asked, the words soft as a lover’s endearment, “or should I cut it off?”
The question hung in the red-drenched air between them. The glass shard pressed a fraction harder against her chest. And Y/N, trembling and bleeding and utterly trapped, understood that she had only two choices and both of them led to her degradation. The only question was how much pain would accompany it.
“I-I’ll do it.” The words scraped past her teeth like shards of the same glass he’d been holding to her throat, each syllable a surrender, each consonant a small death of pride.The admission of compliance tasted like ash and bile on her tongue, but what choice did she have?
He took a step back. Not far—never far enough to give her any real sense of space or safety—but enough to change the dynamic from predator pinning prey to spectator observing a performance. That was what this was to him, she realized with sickening clarity. A performance. A show. She was the entertainment and he was the audience and the mirrors around them were reflecting her degradation from every possible angle, creating an infinite gallery of her humiliation for his viewing pleasure. The single step backward wasn’t a gesture of mercy, it was an adjustment for optimal viewing.
Y/N’s hands moved to the zipper of her jacket, her fingers clumsy and numb, as if they belonged to someone else. The sound of the zipper descending was obscenely loud in the quiet of the maze, a long, drawn-out zip that seemed to announce her surrender to every corner of the crimson labyrinth. She shrugged the jacket off her shoulders, feeling the fabric slide down her arms like a second skin being shed and let it fall to the floor with a soft, defeated thump.
The chill of the maze immediately assaulted her newly exposed skin, raising goosebumps along her arms and across her shoulders. The temperature seemed to drop by several degrees the moment the jacket was gone, or maybe that was just the cold radiating from inside her own chest, the frost of despair crystallizing around her heart. There were no more tears in her eyes now. The well had run dry, leaving behind only a hollow, aching emptiness.
Next was her top. She clutched the hem of the fabric in both hands, her knuckles whitening with the force of her grip, as if holding onto this thin barrier of cotton could somehow change his mind, could somehow rewind the last few minutes and return her to the safety she’d felt walking beside Dex with an armful of stuffed animals and a stomach full of chocolate. But she knew it wouldn’t. She knew nothing would. He was still standing there, still watching, still twirling that wicked shard of glass between his gloved fingers with casual, almost hypnotic dexterity. The glass caught the red light and scattered it in bloody sparkles across the walls, a deadly kaleidoscope in his hand. His gaze—those empty black eye-slits—was fixed on her with unwavering attention, drinking in every tremble, every hesitation, every small surrender.
She pulled the top over her head in one swift, desperate motion, as if speed could somehow lessen the violation. She aimed deliberately, letting it fall over Lord Snuggleton where he lay abandoned near her feet. The soft cotton draped over the stuffed rabbit like a shroud, covering his beady black eyes, hiding him from the scene unfolding above him. It was a small, pathetic act of mercy—for herself more than for the inanimate toy—but it was all she had. At least this way, she’d be spared the misery of an audience.
Her jeans came next. Her fingers found the button, worked it free and then she was sliding the zipper down, the sound somehow even more obscene than the jacket had been. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband and pushed the denim down over her hips, down her thighs, past her knees. She stepped out of them awkwardly, one foot at a time, nearly losing her balance in the process. The jeans joined the growing pile of discarded clothing on the floor and suddenly she was standing before him in nothing but her underwear—a simple, practical set in pale lavender, chosen that morning with no thought beyond comfort and now transformed into the last fragile barrier between her body and his gaze. The chill of the maze raised fresh goosebumps across her stomach, her thighs, the exposed curve of her hips. She wrapped her arms around herself instinctively, crossing them over her chest, trying to cover what little she could.
He took a step closer. The glass shard fell from his fingers, landing on the floor with a delicate, musical tink that seemed impossibly loud in the silence. The sound made her flinch and she instinctively backed away—one step, then another—until her bare shoulders and the knobs of her spine pressed against the cold, unyielding surface of the mirror behind her. The glass was freezing against her exposed skin, sending a violent shiver racing down her entire body. She was trapped again, cornered again, the cold at her back and the monster at her front and nowhere left to run.
His gloved fingers rose and traced along the edge of her bra strap, following the line of pale lavender fabric where it curved over her shoulder. His touch was almost featherlight, a whisper of leather against skin and somehow that gentleness was worse than brutality would have been. Brutality she could hate purely, could resist with every fiber of her being. But this—this horrible parody of tenderness, this mockery of a lover’s caress—it confused her instincts, left her without a clear enemy to fight. “Cute,” he said and the word was a dismissal, a judgment, an appraisal. He fingered the strap, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger as if testing its quality. “But this has gotta go.” His voice dropped into something softer, something almost coaxing, the tone of a man training a reluctant pet. “Now be a good girl for me and take it off, yes?”
Her hands moved on their own accord, as if they had made a separate peace with the enemy while her mind was still screaming in protest. She reached behind her back, her fingers finding the clasp of her bra with practiced ease—a motion she’d performed thousands of times before, always in the privacy of her own bedroom, always with the door locked and the curtains drawn. Never like this. Never as a performance for a monster’s entertainment. The clasp released with a soft click and the straps went slack on her shoulders. For one suspended moment, she held the cups in place with her crossed arms, clinging to this final shred of modesty. Then, slowly, she let her arms fall to her sides and the bra went with them, sliding down her arms and joining the rest of her clothes on the cold floor.
He didn’t wait. He didn’t give her a single second to adjust to her own exposure, to process the vulnerability of standing half-naked before her tormentor. His hands—those gloved, leather-clad hands—rose immediately and cupped her breasts, filling his palms with her flesh. The rough texture of the leather against her sensitive skin was jarring, alien, wrong in a way that went beyond physical sensation. And the cold—the cold of the maze, the cold of his gloves, the cold of her own terror—made her nipples tighten and harden against his palms, a physiological response that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with temperature and fear. She hated her body in that moment. Hated it for responding, for betraying her, for giving him any reaction at all.
“God, you’re so pretty for me,” he breathed and there was a strange, unsettling glee in his voice—a genuine, almost boyish enthusiasm that made her skin crawl more than outright cruelty would have. He was enjoying this. Not just the power, not just the control, but her. Her body. Her fear. Her humiliation. “Look at you.” He squeezed gently, kneading her breasts with a familiarity, as if they belonged to him. As if she belonged to him. And in this moment, trapped against a mirror in a maze of red light, stripped and shivering and utterly powerless, she wasn’t sure she could argue otherwise.
He shifted his weight and suddenly his knee was wedging between her legs, pushing her thighs apart with insistent pressure. The hard shell of his knee pad—kevlar, probably, or some reinforced composite—brushed against her core through the thin cotton of her underwear. The contact sent an involuntary jolt through her body, a spark of sensation that traveled up her spine and lodged somewhere behind her eyes. He continued to knead her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples with deliberate, practiced attention, while his lips ghosted over her cheek—not quite kissing, not quite touching, just the warm suggestion of his mouth hovering a millimeter from her tear-stained, blood-streaked skin. His breath was hot and damp, carrying the faint metallic scent she’d noticed before.
Y/N tried her hardest to be silent. She clamped her jaw shut, ground her teeth together until her molars ached, focused every ounce of her willpower on containing any sound that might try to escape. She would not give him that satisfaction. She would not let him hear how his touch affected her, how her body was betraying her mind’s desperate resistance. But then he pushed his knee further up, intentionally grinding the hard surface of his knee pad against the apex of her thighs, applying pressure exactly where she least wanted it. And despite everything—despite the terror and the violation and the soul-deep revulsion—a small, strangled whimper escaped her lips. It was barely audible, a thin sound of unwanted sensation, but in the silence of the maze it might as well have been a scream. Heat bloomed in her core, unwanted and undeniable, her body’s autonomic response to stimulation that had nothing to do with consent.
“You like that, huh?” His voice was thick with satisfaction, with triumph. He had heard her. Of course he had heard her. He was attuned to every reaction, cataloging each flinch and whimper and tremor like a collector admiring his acquisitions. He pushed his knee up higher, grinding it deliberately against the damp cotton of her underwear, letting her feel the hard ridge of the knee pad pressing against her most intimate flesh. The pressure was insistent, rhythmic, a grotesque pantomime of intimacy that made her stomach turn even as her hips twitched involuntarily against him.
Y/N closed her eyes. She threw her head back against the cold mirror, the glass pressing against her skull like a second, harder reality and she focused every fiber of her being on swallowing the sounds that were building in her throat. She would not moan. She would not whimper. She would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her come apart. The red light played against her closed eyelids, painting the inside of her vision in shades of blood and fire.
“On your knees, doll.” The command came with pressure—his hands on her shoulders, firm and insistent, pushing downward with an authority that brooked no argument. Her body folded beneath the weight of his demand, her knees buckling as she sank toward the cold floor. They landed on the discarded pile of her jeans and in the midst of her degradation, she found one small, pathetic mercy: the thick denim provided a meager cushion against the hard ground, sparing her kneecaps from the worst of the chill and the bruising pressure. She knelt there, half-naked and trembling, her bare skin pebbled with goosebumps in the red-tinged cold of the maze. Above her, he loomed like a monument to her powerlessness, his silhouette framed by the fractured mirrors that reflected this moment from every conceivable angle—an infinite gallery of her submission.
She heard it before she understood it: the metallic clink of a belt buckle being worked loose, the whisper of leather sliding through loops, the unmistakable sound of a zipper descending tooth by tooth. The realization hit her like a wave of ice water, crashing over her head and flooding her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Oh God. Oh God, no. Her eyes, which had been fixed on the floor in an attempt to dissociate from her surroundings, flickered upward involuntarily—and immediately wished they hadn’t. He was freeing himself from the confines of his pants, his movements unhurried and almost casual, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. As if her kneeling before him was simply the correct order of things.
The tears that had dried up earlier returned with a vengeance, but they were different now. Before, they had been tears of fear and desperation, a silent plea for mercy. These were tears of utter, soul-deep brokenness—hot and heavy and accompanied by small, shattered sobs that escaped her throat before she could swallow them down. And what made it so utterly, cosmically perverse was the context. Daredevil. The name she used to whisper in public just to watch her brother’s shoulders stiffen beneath his suit jacket, to see the barely concealed panic flicker across his face. ”Y/N, I swear to God, if you call me that in front of the barista one more time—” And she would laugh and loop her arm through his and tell him he was being dramatic, that no one would ever connect the blind lawyer Matt Murdock to the vigilante who haunted Hell’s Kitchen’s rooftops. The name had been a joke between them, a shared secret, a term of endearment wrapped in sibling mockery. Daredevil. How goofy it sounded when you said it out loud. How ridiculous that a grown man in devil horns was the hero of this city.
And the suit. God, the suit. She had spent countless late nights stitching it back together, the red and black kevlar spread across her lap as she worked by the dim light of her apartment, waiting for him to return from patrol. He would stumble through the window—her window, because he knew she’d be awake, knew she wouldn’t sleep until she heard him come home—and collapse onto her couch, too exhausted to even remove the armor himself. She would unclip the cowl for him, revealing his sweat-matted hair and the dark circles under his sightless eyes. She would help him peel off the gloves, the boots, the heavy chest piece. And then she would carry the damaged pieces to her sewing corner and begin the work of mending what the night had torn apart. Stitch by stitch, she had poured her love and her worry and her fierce, protective hope into that suit. Every repaired seam was a prayer that he would come home again tomorrow. Every reinforced panel was a wish that he would be safe.
And now she was being forced to look at that same suit—or its identical, corrupted twin—while being made to commit acts so vile, so degrading, that she couldn’t reconcile them with the memory of her brother’s tired, grateful smile when she handed him his repaired armor. The dissonance was a knife twisting in her chest, cutting deeper than any physical blade could reach.
“Aw, are you scared?” His voice dripped with false sympathy, the mockery of comfort from a mouth that knew only how to wound. He cupped her cheek with one gloved hand, his thumb brushing away a tear even as new ones replaced it. The gesture was almost tender and that was a reminder that he could choose to be gentle and was choosing not to be. “It’s okay, doll. I’ll guide you, hmm?” As he spoke, he finished freeing himself from his pants, his length emerging into the cold red light. Her stomach lurched. She tried to look away, but his hand on her cheek held her face steady, forcing her to confront what was coming.
His other hand joined the first, one gripping her jaw while the other squeezed her cheeks, applying pressure until her lips puckered involuntarily, parting just slightly. She felt something wet and warm smear across her lower lip—precum, her mind supplied with clinical horror—before he pushed forward, forcing himself past the barrier of her lips and into the warm, unwilling cavern of her mouth. The invasion was immediate and complete. He let out a sharp hiss of satisfaction, the sound vibrating through his body and into hers, a serpent’s exhalation of pleasure. His free hand moved to tilt her chin upward, angling her face so that she was forced to look up at him through the blur of her tears, her mouth stretched obscenely around his length. The red light of the maze painted his helmet in shades of blood and shadow, the devil horns curving upward like a crown of thorns made monstrous.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he breathed, his voice gone thick and rough with pleasure. His grip on her chin tightened fractionally, a warning disguised as guidance. “And don’t even think about trying anything funny with your teeth, got it?” The threat was implicit, unnecessary—she knew exactly what he was capable of, knew the violence that lurked beneath his controlled exterior. The only response she could manage was more broken sobs, muffled and deformed by the obstruction in her mouth. He patted her cheek lightly, condescendingly, the gesture of a master acknowledging a pet. Get to work.
Y/N closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him anymore—not at the helmet, not at the suit, not at the reflection of what was happening playing out in the mirrors surrounding them. The darkness behind her eyelids was the only escape available to her, the only privacy she could claim. The salty, bitter taste of him coated her tongue, flooded her senses, made her gag reflex spasm uselessly around his intrusion. He was too big—his length and girth stretched her jaw uncomfortably, filling her mouth to capacity and then some, leaving no room for her to breathe, to swallow, to do anything but exist as a vessel for his pleasure. She tried to slack her jaw, to create more space, but it wasn’t easy between the sobs that still wracked her chest and the relentless onslaught her mouth was enduring. Each thrust pushed deeper, hitting the back of her throat and triggering another involuntary gag, which only seemed to please him more.
His hand gathered her hair into a makeshift ponytail, twisting the strands around his gloved fist with ease. And then he began to move her—not letting her find her own rhythm, not allowing her even the illusion of participation, but simply using her. Pushing her head forward, pulling it back, setting a pace that suited him, that pleasured him, that reduced her to nothing more than a warm, wet opening to be fucked. She was a toy in his hands, an object to be manipulated and he made no pretense otherwise. There was really no point in resisting. Her hands hung limp at her sides, her body swayed with each thrust and she tried—desperately, furiously—to shake away how disgusting it made her feel. She tried to retreat to some deep, interior space where this wasn’t happening, where her mouth wasn’t being violated, where her brother’s stolen identity wasn’t being weaponized against her.
Daredevil was her brother. The thought kept circling back, a wounded bird trapped in the cage of her skull. Daredevil was Matt and Matt was good and Matt would never—Matt would die before he—Matt was dead. Matt was dead and this thing wearing his face was using her and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fight it, couldn’t do anything but kneel here and take it.
She tried to think of anyone, anything, that could pull her mind away from the horror of the present. Away from Matt. Away from the suit. Away from the taste of salt and skin and degradation on her tongue. She cast about desperately in the darkness of her closed eyes, searching for a lifeline, a memory, a face that wasn’t contaminated by this nightmare.
And the only face that came to her was Dex.
Her sweet, kind neighbor. The man who lived in the apartment next door, separated from her by nothing more than a thin wall and a world of unspoken possibilities. Dex, who wordlessly helped her carry groceries up the three flights of stairs when he saw her struggling with too many bags. Dex, who showed up at her door with a casserole dish and a quiet smile, claiming he’d “made too much” and would she mind helping him finish it? Dex, who sat through terrible movies on her lumpy couch without complaint, his shoulder warm and solid beside hers, his laughter genuine when she made snarky comments about the plot holes. Dex, who had appeared with a wrench and a determined expression when her kitchen sink started leaking, spending an hour on his back under the pipes and emerging dusty but triumphant, refusing any payment beyond a glass of lemonade and her company.
He was good to her. Too good. So much so that she sometimes felt a twist of guilt in her chest, a nagging sense that she was taking advantage of his kindness. That she was a burden, a charity case, a wounded bird he felt obligated to nurse back to health. But whenever she tried to voice these insecurities, to apologize for being “too much” or “not enough,” he would just shake his head with that quiet, steady patience of his and tell her she was being ridiculous. He never seemed to mind. He never seemed to want anything from her except her presence.
Dex was a little older than Matt had been—thirty-one to her twenty-two, a gap that sometimes felt insignificant and sometimes felt like a chasm. He was handsome in an understated, rugged way that snuck up on you: strong jaw, kind eyes, a smile that transformed his whole face when he let it out fully. And his arms—God, his arms—she had caught herself staring more times than she cared to admit. The way his biceps strained against the sleeves of his plain cotton shirts when he reached for something on a high shelf. The corded muscles of his forearms when he rolled up his sleeves to wash dishes after one of their shared dinners. The solid, reassuring weight of him when they sat close on her couch, watching the television flicker in the dark. It was a hopeless crush, really. She knew that. He was older, more established, probably saw her as a kid sister at best, a neighborly obligation at worst. She was a mess of grief and trauma and bad coping mechanisms and he was... steady. Stable. Safe.
But right now, kneeling on the cold floor of a mirror maze with a monster’s length shoved down her throat and tears streaming down her cheeks, Dex was the only lifeline she had. She clung to the memory of his quiet smile, his warm laugh, the way he called her “sunshine” like it was her name. She imagined his hands—not the gloved, violating hands currently fisted in her hair, but Dex’s hands, bare and warm and calloused from whatever work he did. She imagined those hands cupping her face gently, tilting her chin up not to force her but to see her, to ask if she was okay. She imagined his voice saying her name—not “doll” or “sweetheart” in that mocking tone, but Y/N, said with warmth and respect and something that might have been the beginning of more.
She held onto that image like a drowning woman clutching a piece of driftwood. She let Dex’s face fill her mind, pushing out the horror of the helmet, the devil horns, the suit that should have meant safety and instead meant violation. She remembered the way he’d looked at her when he called her “sunshine”—not like she was broken, not like she was prey, but like she was something precious. Something worth protecting.
The monster’s pace quickened, his grip on her hair tightening, his thrusts becoming more erratic. She could tell he was close. And through it all, she kept her eyes squeezed shut and her mind fixed on Dex—on the impossible, beautiful, hopeless fantasy of a man who was kind without condition, who was strong without cruelty, who might someday, somehow, see her as more than just the broken girl next door. It was the only thing keeping her sane. The only thing keeping her from shattering completely. In the red-drenched darkness behind her eyelids, she held onto Dex like a prayer and she waited for this nightmare to end.
But just then, as she was finally beginning to achieve the fragile, desperate escape of dissociation—as the edges of her consciousness started to blur and soften, as she managed to tune him out, to retreat into that small, dark, quiet room at the very back of her mind where his touch couldn’t quite reach—he stopped. Everything stopped. The rhythm of his hips, the pressure of his hands, the relentless, violating presence of him inside her mouth. He withdrew his length from between her lips with a wet, obscene sound that echoed off the countless mirrors surrounding them and the sudden absence of him was almost as disorienting as his presence had been. Y/N’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy and she looked up at him from where she was kneeling on the cold, hard floor.
“Hmm.” The sound he made was contemplative, almost playful, as if a thought had just occurred to him—a delightful little notion that he wanted to share. He looked down at her, that blank, horned helmet tilting to one side in a gesture that might have been curiosity or mockery or something else entirely. “It’s not fair that I have all the fun, right?” The question hung in the red-tinged air between them, rhetorical and cruel. Y/N stared up at him from her knees, her expression slack and dazed, her mind struggling to process the words through the thick fog of dissociation. He was cruel enough—vicious enough, monstrous enough—that he wouldn’t even allow her the small mercy of retreating into her own head to avoid him. He wanted her present. He wanted her aware. He wanted her to experience every moment of her own degradation with full, terrible clarity, because her suffering was the point, her awareness was the prize and he would not be cheated of a single second of it.
He adjusted his stance, shifting his weight with deliberate precision and suddenly his foot was positioned directly beneath her core. The hard, reinforced toe of his boot pressed up against the damp cotton of her underwear, creating a ridge of unyielding pressure right where she was most sensitive. The friction was immediate and electric—a bolt of sensation that lit her nerves on fire despite every desperate attempt her mind made to reject it. Y/N’s fingers dug into her own thighs, her nails barely leaving crescent-shaped indentations in the material of his tactical pants, as her body lurched forward involuntarily, her hips grinding down against his boot before she could stop them. The movement was instinctive, animal, completely beyond her conscious control and she hated herself for it even as a small, traitorous part of her welcomed the distraction of physical sensation.
“Move those pretty hips for me, will you?” The command was delivered with casual authority, the tone of a man who knew he would be obeyed. And he was right. Y/N obliged without so much as a thought, without even a flicker of resistance. What was the point anymore? What was the point of fighting, of clinging to scraps of dignity, of pretending she had any agency left to protect? She had already surrendered her clothes, her body, her mouth. What was one more degradation? What was one more act of compliance in an endless litany of them? The fight had drained out of her completely, leaving behind only a hollow, mechanical obedience. Her hips began to move, rocking against the hard surface of his boot with a slow, grinding rhythm that sent sparks of unwanted pleasure shooting up her spine.
He guided himself back between her lips, the weight and heat of him filling her mouth once more and she accepted it with the same numb compliance. But something was shifting inside her, some desperate survival mechanism kicking in to protect what remained of her fractured psyche. As her hips continued to buck against the leather of his boot, as the friction built and built and sent waves of sensation crashing through her nervous system, her mind began to grow blessedly, mercifully numb. The pleasure—unwanted, undeniable, shameful—acted like a drug, smoothing the jagged edges of her terror, blurring the sharp lines of her violation. Shivers ran up her spine, one after another, as her clit dragged against the textured surface of his boot through the increasingly damp cotton of her underwear. The sensation was good. She hated that it was good. She hated herself for feeling it, for responding to it, for allowing her body to find any pleasure at all in this nightmare. But the alternative—remaining fully present, fully aware of what was happening to her—was worse. So much worse.
He used her mouth as he had before, setting a rhythm that she followed without thought, her head bobbing along his length while her hips ground down against his boot. But it didn’t feel as difficult anymore. The soul-deep wrongness of it—it all seemed to recede, muffled and distant, like sounds heard through a thick wall. In the red-drenched darkness behind her closed eyelids, she forced herself to imagine something else. Someone else. She conjured an image of Dex—his warm, steady presence, his quiet smile, the way he’d looked at her with such gentle fondness when he’d handed her Lord Snuggleton. She imagined it was Dex’s hands touching her, Dex’s body pressed against hers, Dex’s voice murmuring encouragement. It was a lie, a desperate, pathetic fiction constructed from equal parts longing and self-preservation, but it was the only lifeline she had. She clung to it with everything she had left.
Soft whimpers began to fall from her lips, muffled and distorted by his cock filling her mouth. The sounds were small, almost animal—the helpless noises of a creature caught in a trap. They vibrated against him, sending ripples of sensation up his shaft and she felt his grip tighten in her hair, his fingers twisting and pulling with renewed urgency. A string of curses fell from his lips, harsh and breathless and there was something almost reverent in the way he said them, as if she had surprised him, as if she had exceeded whatever twisted expectations he’d held.
“You sound like a fucking puppy,” he chuckled, the words laced with genuine amusement. His free hand came down and patted her head—a condescending, almost affectionate gesture, the way one might pet a well-behaved dog. The touch was degrading, dehumanizing, reducing her to nothing more than a trained animal performing for her master’s entertainment. And yet, in her dissociated state, it barely registered. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her lips still stretched and wrapped around him, her jaw aching, her throat raw and there was nothing in her eyes but a distant, unfocused daze. She was present in body, but her mind was somewhere else entirely—somewhere with Dex, somewhere safe, somewhere this nightmare couldn’t quite reach.
But then something strange began to happen. The red light—that pervasive, bloody glow that saturated every corner of the maze—seemed to flicker and shift, playing tricks on her exhausted, traumatized perception. As she looked up at the monster using her mouth, the sharp lines of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the shape of his chin visible beneath the edge of the helmet... they started to look more and more like Dex. It was impossible, of course. A hallucination born of wishful thinking and psychological desperation. Dex was kind and gentle and safe. Dex had driven away to handle a work emergency, had promised to come back in one piece, had called her sunshine like it was the most natural thing in the world. Dex would never do this to her. Dex would never hurt her. And yet, the resemblance was there, hovering at the edges of her vision, a mirage conjured by her starving, traumatized mind.
His hand left her hair and came to rest against her cheek, the leather of his glove cool and smooth against her flushed skin. And before she could stop herself, before her conscious mind could intervene, she found herself leaning into the touch. She almost nuzzled into his palm, her cheek pressing against the leather as if it were Dex’s hand, as if this were a gesture of affection rather than ownership. The movement was instinctive, automatic, the response of a creature so starved for gentleness that she would accept even its cruelest imitation. He seemed surprised by her sudden change in temperament—she could feel it in the brief hesitation of his hand, the subtle shift in his posture. The dazed, terrified victim who had been mechanically complying with his demands had been replaced by something else, something softer, something almost willing. And he liked it. She could tell he liked it.
“Fuck, you’re perfect, baby,” he breathed, his voice dropping into something almost tender, almost genuine. The praise washed over her like warm water, seeping into the cracks of her shattered self-worth. “You’re taking me so well. Just a little more.” Her body seemed to react to the encouragement independent of her will, responding to the positive reinforcement like a flower turning toward the sun. She increased her pace, her head bobbing along his length with strange renewed enthusiasm while maintaining eye contact—looking up at him through her lashes. Her tongue swirled around his tip, tracing circles and patterns and she was rewarded with a deep, guttural groan that seemed to vibrate through his entire body.
He threw his head back, the horns of his helmet catching the red light and casting demonic shadows on the mirrored walls. “Baby, you’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, the words thick with pleasure and something that almost sounded like genuine affection. His hands found the sides of her head, fingers threading through her hair and he took control—pushing his length all the way down, past her gag reflex, until she could feel him in her throat, a thick, intrusive presence that made her eyes water and her vision swim.
A visible bulge formed in the column of her throat, the outline of him pressing against her skin from the inside and he stared at it with something approaching awe. He could swear it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen—her lips stretched around him, her throat distended by him, her eyes watering and dazed and looking up at him with that strange, surrendered softness. And being able to look at her from all angles, thanks to the infinite mirrors surrounding them, was just beautiful. Everywhere he looked, there she was—on her knees, servicing him, her body reflected into eternity. A study of her and he was the sole, appreciative audience.
Y/N closed her eyes, surrendering to the darkness behind her lids because the alternative—watching her own reflection in the endless mirrors, seeing herself reduced to this—was more than she could bear. She could feel her climax building, coiling low and tight in her belly like a spring being wound past its breaking point. It was a terrible, unwanted thing, this pleasure that her body was manufacturing against her will. She hated it. She hated herself for feeling it. And yet she couldn’t stop chasing it, couldn’t stop the frantic, desperate bucking of her hips against his boot, grinding herself against the hard leather with an urgency that bordered on madness.
Her body had betrayed her completely, had signed a separate peace treaty with the enemy while her mind was still at war. The friction of her soaked cotton underwear against the textured surface of his boot was maddening—not quite enough, never quite enough, but all she had. She rutted against him like an animal in heat, her movements jerky and uncoordinated, driven by a need that was purely physiological and utterly divorced from desire.
His thrusts into her mouth had changed. Where before they had been rapid and punishing, a brutal rhythm designed to overwhelm and dominate, now they had slowed into something longer, deeper, more deliberate. Each thrust pushed the full length of him past her lips and into the tight, constricted channel of her throat, forcing her jaw wide, filling her mouth completely until there was no room for anything but him—no air, no protest, no thought. He held himself there at the deepest point, buried to the hilt and she choked around him, her throat spasming and contracting in involuntary resistance. Her eyes watered, tears spilling over her lashes not from emotion now but from pure physical reflex, her body’s desperate attempt to clear an obstruction that wouldn’t move. Her skin reddened with the effort of not breathing, flushed from her cheeks down her neck to the tops of her breasts, a visible map of her struggle. When he finally pulled back, allowing her a gasping, desperate inhale through her nose, the relief was almost as overwhelming as the violation.
Moans fell relentlessly from her lips—or rather, from the small spaces around him where sound could still escape. They were muffled, distorted, transformed into something barely human by the obstruction filling her mouth. But they were unmistakably sounds of pleasure and she couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop her hips from rolling against his boot. The two rhythms—his deep, measured thrusts into her throat and her frantic grinding against his foot—had synchronized somehow, creating a terrible harmony of violation and unwanted arousal. She matched his grunts with her own muffled vocalizations, a call and response of degradation. The cotton of her underwear was utterly drenched now, saturated beyond any pretense of dryness. Her wetness had soaked through the thin fabric completely and was drooling onto the leather of his boot, leaving a glistening, obscene trail that caught the red light and shimmered like evidence of her betrayal. She could feel it—the slick, warm slide of her own arousal against his boot, the way it eased her movements even as it marked her shame. And still she chased her climax, hips rolling and bucking with single-minded desperation. Just a little more. Just a little more. The words became a mantra in her head, drowning out everything else—the wrongness, the violation, the hatred, the fear. All that existed was the approaching edge and her body’s primal need to tumble over it.
“You wanna cum for me, baby?” His voice was rough, strained with his own approaching release, but still laced with that horrible, proprietary tenderness. The question was rhetorical—he could feel her racing toward the edge, could read it in every desperate undulation of her hips, every muffled moan vibrating around his length. He didn’t need her answer. But he wanted it. He wanted her complicity, her verbal surrender, one more small piece of her autonomy to add to his collection.
“Uh huh.” The affirmation came out garbled and barely intelligible but unmistakable in its desperate agreement. It was the only answer she could give—not because she wanted to give it, but because her body had taken over completely and her body wanted to come. Her mind had been relegated to a distant observer, watching from very far away as this stranger wearing her skin debased herself for a monster’s entertainment.
“Then cum for me, sweetheart.” His words acted as a trigger, a key turning in a lock she hadn’t known existed. The permission—or the command, they were the same thing from him—unleashed something inside her that had been straining at its leash. A wave of senseless, devastating pleasure crashed over her, drowning her in sensation so intense it bordered on pain. Her vision, already darkened by her closed eyelids, exploded with spots of color—red and gold and white, a private fireworks display behind her eyes.
Her body convulsed, her inner muscles clenching and releasing in rhythmic spasms around nothing, the empty ache of it somehow making the orgasm sharper, more acute. She reached out blindly and grabbed onto the material of his tactical pants, her fingers twisting in the heavy fabric, anchoring herself to the only solid thing in a world that had dissolved into pure sensation. The rough texture of the pants against her palms was the only tether keeping her from spinning away into the red-tinged void.
He, too, was reaching his end. She felt it in the way his rhythm faltered, the deep, measured thrusts becoming erratic, more urgent. His grip on her hair tightened, holding her in place as he doled out his final few thrusts with a roughness that bordered on violence. And then he was there, buried to the hilt in her throat and she felt the hot, pulsing flood of his release. It spewed down her throat in thick, salty ropes—almost bitter, carrying the sharp, alkaline taste of him. There was so much of it, more than she could comfortably swallow and she gagged around him, her throat working desperately to accommodate the volume. He groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure male satisfaction and held her face in both hands, keeping her impaled on his entire length while the last pulses of his orgasm emptied into her. The pressure was overwhelming, her throat stretched and filled, her nose pressed against the coarse fabric of his suit, her entire world reduced to the taste and smell and feel of him.
“Swallow,” he commanded, his voice rough but still controlled, still the voice of a man accustomed to being obeyed. He patted her cheek—a gesture that might have been affectionate if it weren’t so patronizing. A pat for a good pet. Then, slowly, he pulled out. The withdrawal was almost as overwhelming as the intrusion had been. She felt every inch of him sliding free of her throat, leaving behind a raw, aching emptiness. A thick, glistening string of saliva connected her swollen lips to the tip of him for one suspended moment before breaking, drool and the remnants of his release dribbling down her chin in warm, viscous trails. The fluid dripped onto her bare breasts, landing on her flushed skin in small, obscene droplets that caught the red light and gleamed.
He had told her to swallow and she had. She stuck out her tongue—pink and swollen and utterly empty—to show him her compliance, to prove that she had done as she was told. The gesture was automatic, born of some deep, survival-oriented part of her brain that understood the rules of this particular game: obey, perform, survive. He grinned at the sight and there was a strange, unsettling pride on what she could see of his face beneath the helmet. Not lust, not cruelty, but pride. As if she were a prized possession that had performed beautifully, a well-trained animal that had executed its tricks flawlessly. The expression made her stomach turn more than the taste of him still coating her tongue.
He grabbed her hand—his grip firm, commanding, leaving no room for resistance—and pulled her up from her kneeling position. Her legs screamed in protest, aching deeply from being folded beneath her for so long. The muscles in her thighs and calves had gone stiff and cramped and she stumbled as she rose, her jelly-like legs barely supporting her weight. The recent orgasm had left her boneless, wrung out, her body a collection of pleasant aches and deep, soul-sick bruises. He didn’t let her fall. He pinned her lower body against his, using his hips and thighs to force her upright, to keep her standing when all she wanted to do was collapse onto the cold floor and disappear. The pressure of his body against hers was immovable, a wall of muscle and intent that held her in place like a butterfly pinned to a board.
He cupped her face in both hands—those gloved hands that had touched her everywhere, that had violated every inch of her—and kissed her. It was not a gentle kiss. It was thorough, invasive, his tongue pushing past her swollen lips to explore the mouth he had just used. She didn’t kiss him back. She couldn’t. Her lips were numb, her jaw ached and her mind had retreated to some distant, foggy place where sensations arrived muffled and distant, as if happening to someone else. Her head was too cloudy from everything that had happened—the fear, the violation, the unwanted orgasm, the degradation of swallowing him down. It all swirled together into a gray, formless fog that obscured everything but the most immediate physical sensations: the cold glass at her back, the warm body at her front, the taste of him still lingering on her tongue.
“God, you’re such a good girl for me,” he murmured against her lips, the words vibrating through the kiss. It was praise. It was ownership. It was the final stamp on her degradation, the verbal acknowledgment that she had performed exactly as he wanted, that she had been everything he demanded her to be. She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. She stood there, held upright by his body and his grip, her bare skin pressed against his kevlar-clad chest and stared at nothing through the red-tinged fog of her own dissociation.
“Now let’s get you dressed up.” His voice had shifted into something almost gentle, almost caring. He bent down and gathered her discarded clothes from the cold floor, collecting each piece with the same casual efficiency he might use to pick up after himself. The jacket, the top, the bra—he shook them out briefly, smoothing wrinkles with his gloved hands, treating her garments with a care that seemed utterly incongruous with everything that had just transpired. And then he began to dress her, guiding her arms into sleeves and settling fabric over her shoulders as if she were a doll, an inanimate object to be posed and arranged according to his whims. She cooperated because her mind was too muddled to do anything else. It was easier to simply comply, to let him move her limbs and adjust her clothing, to surrender to the strange, dissociative calm that had settled over her in the aftermath. Resistance required energy, required presence, required a self that felt worth defending. She had none of those things right now.
She stepped back into her jeans when he held them open for her, balancing unsteadily on legs that still felt like they belonged to someone else. The denim slid up her calves, over her knees and he pulled them the rest of the way, settling the waistband at her hips. But he paused before fastening them, his hands stilling on the open fly. “Hmm,” he hummed, a considering sound that made her stomach clench with fresh dread. “I think I wanna keep this.” Before she could process what he meant, his fingers hooked into the side of her underwear—the pale lavender cotton, still soaked through with the evidence of her unwanted orgasm and he pulled. The fabric tore with a sharp, ripping sound, the thin cotton giving way easily under his strength.
He pulled the ruined panties free from between her legs, the damp fabric dragging against her sensitive flesh one final time and her breath hitched audibly as the cold air of the maze rushed in to fill the absence. Her bare, swollen cunt was exposed to the chill, still tender and oversensitive from everything that had been done to it and she shivered involuntarily at the sensation. He stuffed the drenched fabric into his back pocket with casual satisfaction—a trophy, a souvenir, a claim staked and collected. Then he pulled her jeans up fully, settling the rough denim directly against her bare, sensitive flesh and buttoned them closed. The seam of the jeans pressed against her in ways that would remind her, with every step she took, of what she no longer wore beneath them.
Once she was fully dressed—or as fully dressed as she could be without the underwear he had stolen—he turned his attention to her appearance. He patted her hair with surprising gentleness, smoothing down the tangles and flyaways. His gloved fingers combed through the strands, working out the worst of the dishevelment, arranging her hair so that she looked less like a woman who had just been violated in a hall of mirrors and more like someone who had simply had a long, exhausting night at the carnival.
His fingers found her chin, tilting her face up and he swiped his thumb across her skin, collecting the remaining saliva and the residue of his release that still clung to her chin. The pad of his glove came away glistening. He brought it to her lips, pressing gently against the swollen, tender flesh. “Clean it up,” he said, though the words were less a command and more an expectation, a continuation of the ritual they had established. Y/N parted her lips without thought, without resistance and took his gloved finger into her mouth. She licked it clean, her tongue dragging across the leather, collecting the bitter, salty taste of him mixed with her own saliva. The act was intimate and degrading and utterly automatic. When she had finished, he withdrew his finger and gave her a satisfied smile—that same strange pride she had seen before, the expression of an owner admiring a well-trained possession.
His gaze dropped to the floor and he spotted Lord Snuggleton where the stuffed rabbit still lay abandoned and forgotten in the chaos of what had transpired. He bent down and picked up the bunny with surprising care, holding it by its floppy ears for a moment before dusting it off with a few brisk pats. His gloved hands smoothed the rabbit’s fur, straightened its lopsided expression, restored it to some semblance of its former cheerfulness. Then he stepped closer and tucked the stuffed animal securely into the crook of Y/N’s arm, pressing it against her side with a gentle, almost tender insistence. “Wouldn’t wanna leave Snuggleton behind, now would we?” His voice was light, almost teasing, as if they were sharing a private joke.
The name hit her like a physical blow. Snuggleton. Lord Snuggleton of Hugsville. The silly, affectionate nickname she had invented just hours ago, standing in a parking lot with Dex, feeling safe and seen and almost happy. She had waved the bunny’s little arm at him, had made him laugh with the ridiculous title, had created a small, private world of warmth and humor in the middle of her otherwise bleak existence. And now this monster—this vile impersonator, this predator who had violated her in every possible way—was using that name. He knew the bunny’s name. The only people who knew that name were her and Dex. She had invented it on the spot, had spoken it aloud exactly once, in a moment of genuine connection with the man who lived next door. There was no other way he could have known. No other explanation.
Her mind reeled, spinning through the implications with dizzying speed. Had he been watching her since before the parking lot? Had he been lurking somewhere in the shadows of the carnival, observing her and Dex together, listening to their conversation with some kind of surveillance equipment? Had he been waiting—patiently, predatorily—for Dex to leave so he could make his move? The thought sent ice water through her veins. It meant this wasn’t random. It wasn’t a chance encounter, a terrible coincidence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This had been planned. Orchestrated. He had watched her laugh and eat cotton candy and accept stuffed animals from Dex, had watched her feel safe and happy and almost normal and he had waited. He had let her have those moments of peace specifically so he could destroy them, so he could prove that nowhere and no one was safe, that he could reach her whenever he wanted, that her happiness was merely a loan he could call due at any moment.
His arm hooked around her waist, solid and unyielding and he began to walk her through the maze. But not back the way she had come, not toward the main entrance where she had presented her silver ticket with such foolish, hopeful excitement. He guided her instead toward a back exit she hadn’t known existed—a plain, unmarked door set into a mirrored wall, virtually invisible unless you knew exactly where to look. He pushed it open and the cool night air rushed in, carrying the distant sounds of the city beyond the carnival grounds. The carnival itself had powered down completely now. The rides were silent, their lights extinguished. The game booths were shuttered and dark. The crowds had dispersed, leaving behind only scattered trash and the ghostly echoes of the evening’s revelry.
She wondered, as he steered her through the door and into the empty service area behind the maze, if there had been anyone else in the maze when he had caught her. Had there been other visitors, laughing and bumping into mirrors and enjoying the simple fun of getting lost? Or had he, just like with Dex, carefully orchestrated her isolation? Had he waited until the maze was empty, until the carnival was closing, until every possible witness or protector had been systematically removed from the equation? The precision of it—the patience, the planning, the intimate knowledge of her movements and her company—suggested a predator who had been hunting her for a long, long time. And the worst part, the part that made her blood run cold and her stomach drop into some bottomless void, was the realization that he would do it again. That this was not an ending but merely another chapter in an ongoing nightmare. That he knew her routines, her relationships, her small moments of joy. And he would use all of it against her, whenever he chose.
He at least had the decency—if such a word could even be applied to a monster—to call her a cab. He had pulled out a phone, not his personal device she suspected but something disposable, a burner purchased with cash and destined for the bottom of a trash can within the hour. He had spoken to the dispatcher in a clipped, efficient tone, rattling off the carnival’s address and requesting a pickup at the service entrance where they stood. And then, before the cab’s headlights could sweep around the corner and illuminate them both, he had melted back into the shadows. One moment he was there, a solid, oppressive presence at her side, his arm still hooked possessively around her waist. The next moment he was simply… gone. Swallowed by the darkness behind the mirror maze as if he had never existed at all, as if he were nothing more than another phantom conjured by her exhausted, traumatized mind.
The cab arrived. A beat-up sedan with a flickering interior light and an air freshener shaped like a pine tree dangling from the rearview mirror, its artificial evergreen scent doing little to mask the underlying odors of stale cigarette smoke and too many strangers’ lives. She climbed into the backseat, clutching Lord Snuggleton to her chest like a lifeline and gave the driver her address in a voice so small and hollow she barely recognized it as her own. The cabbie—a middle-aged man with tired eyes and the weathered patience of someone who had spent decades driving through the city’s darkest hours—glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
She saw his gaze linger on her dishevelled hair, her swollen lips, the vacant, thousand-yard stare she couldn’t seem to shake. He noticed. Of course he noticed. A woman getting into a cab alone, late at night, from a closed carnival, looking like she had been through something unspeakable—it was a story as old as the city itself. But he didn’t comment. He didn’t ask if she was okay, didn’t offer to call anyone, didn’t press for details she couldn’t have given even if she’d wanted to. Maybe he had learned, over years of driving these streets, that some silences were kinder than questions. Maybe he simply didn’t want to get involved. Either way, she was grateful.
The drive passed in a blur of streetlights and darkened storefronts, the city sliding past her window like a movie she was watching from very far away. She couldn’t possibly return to Foggy’s place like this. The thought crystallized with sudden, painful clarity. Foggy, who was like a brother to her in every way that mattered, who had stepped in after Matt’s death and tried so desperately to fill a void that could never truly be filled. Foggy, who already worried about her constantly, who called to check in with a frequency that should have been annoying but was instead deeply, achingly touching. If he saw her like this—bruised, hollow-eyed, wearing clothes that had been put back on her body by the man who had just violated her, walking with the careful, pained gait of someone hiding fresh injuries—he would crumble.
He would demand answers. He would want to call the police, to hunt down whoever had done this, to wrap her in protective layers of concern and investigation and well-meaning interference. And she couldn’t deal with that. She didn’t have the strength. Every ounce of energy she possessed had been drained from her, siphoned away by the horror of what had happened in that mirror maze. She had nothing left—no words, no explanations, no ability to manage someone else’s emotional response to her trauma. She could barely manage her own.
Besides, she didn’t want him to see her like this. The thought was simpler, rawer, more honest. What brother—even a brother by choice rather than blood—would want to see his sister in this condition? What good could possibly come from forcing Foggy to witness this, to see the evidence of what had been done to her written across her face and body? He had enough problems to deal with already. The weight of Matt’s death, the ongoing chaos of Wilson Fisk’s return, the endless, grinding work of trying to hold together some semblance of justice in a city that seemed determined to tear itself apart— Foggy carried all of that on his shoulders every single day.
Adding her brokenness to that burden felt cruel, felt selfish, felt like asking a drowning man to save someone else. So, she gave the cabbie the address of her old apartment building instead. The cab pulled up to the curb outside her building and she paid the fare with trembling fingers, fumbling bills from her jacket pocket. She didn’t wait for change. She just wanted out. The building loomed before her, tired and familiar, its brick facade stained with decades of city grime.
The lobby was dimly lit, the single fluorescent bulb flickering with the erratic pulse of something on the verge of dying completely. And of course—of course—the elevator was out of order. A handwritten sign taped to the metal doors announced this fact with cheery, passive-aggressive regret: ”Out of Service. Sorry for the inconvenience.” It had been out of service for three weeks now. She was starting to suspect it would never be fixed, that she would be climbing these stairs until she died or moved away, whichever came first.
She trudged up the steps, each one a small mountain. Her legs were tired—not just tired, but exhausted, the muscles in her thighs and calves screaming with every upward step. The bruises on her knees, earned from kneeling on the hard floor of the mirror maze while she serviced him with her mouth, throbbed with a deep, persistent ache that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat. Climbing three floors was hard on a normal day, when she was well-rested and whole and carrying nothing heavier than groceries. Now it felt Herculean. Impossible. A task designed by cruel gods to break her completely.
She gripped the banister with white-knuckled desperation, pulling herself upward one painful step at a time. Halfway up the second flight, her legs gave out briefly and she had to catch herself on her knees—bad idea, terrible idea, the pain that shot through her was blinding—before forcing herself upright again. By the time she reached the final flight, she was almost crawling, using her hands on the steps above her to drag her body forward. Just a bit more, she told herself, the words a mantra in the fog of her exhaustion. Just a bit more. You can make it. You have to make it. There’s nowhere else to go.
She finally reached her floor—the third floor, the floor where her tiny studio waited like a cold, unwelcoming refuge—and let out a shuddering sigh of relief that was almost a sob. Her door was at the end of the hall. Just a few more steps. Just a few more—
Dex returned home earlier than he had expected. The work emergency had been urgent, yes, but ultimately straightforward—a situation that required his presence and his particular skills but not the hours of painstaking effort he had anticipated. He had handled it with the cold, efficient precision that had made him both valuable and feared within the organization and now he was back, earlier than planned, the adrenaline of the night’s work still humming beneath his skin like a low-grade electrical current. The exhaustion would hit later, he knew. It always did. For now, he was still running on the residual energy of crisis management, his senses sharp and his mind alert.
He walked down the hallway of his apartment building, his footsteps nearly silent on the worn carpet—a habit born of years of training, of learning to move without being heard, without leaving traces. His door was ahead, the familiar scuffed paint and brass numbers a small comfort after the chaos of the night. But as he drew closer, something tugged at the edge of his awareness. A detail out of place. His door was already unlocked. The slight gap between the door and the frame, the way it sat just a fraction of an inch ajar when it should have been flush and sealed—it was wrong. He had locked it when he left. He always locked it. It was a reflex, as automatic as breathing.
He slipped inside with light, careful steps, his body moving into a combat-ready stance without conscious thought. His hand found the gun he kept stashed under the kitchen counter and he drew it smoothly, the weight familiar and reassuring in his palm. The apartment was dim, lit only by the ambient glow of the city filtering through the windows, but his eyes adjusted quickly. There were soft sounds of movement coming from his bedroom. Faint, barely audible, but unmistakable. The rustle of fabric. The creak of a floorboard. Someone was in there.
He moved cautiously, every sense on high alert, his training taking over completely. Who could it be? His mind raced through possibilities even as his body flowed through the familiar space of his apartment. With his time at the bureau, he had made enemies—that was inevitable, a natural consequence of the work he did and the way he did it. There were people who would love to see him dead, who had the resources and the motivation to send someone after him. Or could it be someone Wilson Fisk sent? Finally deciding that he didn’t want him.
The door of his bathroom was open, the light still spilling out into the bedroom beyond. That was wrong too. He hadn’t left the bathroom light on. He was certain of it. He stood at the edge of his bedroom door, his back pressed against the wall beside the frame, his gun held in a two-handed grip, pointed toward the ceiling but ready to snap down and fire at a moment’s notice. He took a slow, controlled breath, centering himself, preparing for whatever threat waited on the other side of that threshold. Then, in one fluid motion, he whipped around the corner and into the bedroom, his gun coming down with deadly precision, aimed directly at—
He froze.
“Dex?” The voice that called his name was so small, so fractured, that for a moment he didn’t recognize it. It was barely more than a whisper, a broken thread of sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep and wounded, the kind of voice that belonged to small animals caught in traps or children waking from nightmares they couldn’t articulate. It was the smallest, most shattered sound he had ever heard and it stopped him cold.
“Y/N?” His gun lowered immediately, the tension in his arms releasing as recognition flooded through him. The bedroom was dark—the only illumination came from the bathroom light spilling through the open door, casting a pale golden rectangle across the floor and catching the edges of her silhouette. But even in the dimness, he could see that it was her. The shape of her, the way she stood, the familiar curve of her shoulders now hunched inward as if she were trying to make herself smaller, less visible, less there. The room was humid, the air thick and warm with residual steam that clung to his skin and fogged the edges of the bathroom mirror.
She had just showered, he realized. Her hair was wet, dark with water and plastered against her skull and neck in dripping tendrils. And she was wearing his clothes—one of his old t-shirts, soft and faded from years of washing, hanging loose on her smaller frame and a pair of his sweatpants rolled multiple times at the waistband and cuffs to keep them from swallowing her whole. On any other night, in any other context, the sight of Y/N wrapped in his clothing would have made his heart stutter and swell, would have filled him with a warm, possessive tenderness he barely knew how to name. But this wasn’t any other night. Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.
“Dex—I—I’m so sorry for breaking in.” The words tumbled out of her in a frantic, rambling rush, as if she could outrun whatever accusation she imagined was coming by filling the silence with explanation. “I mean—I didn’t break in. I didn’t. I just used the spare key. The one you keep by the radiator. You know the one? I remembered you showed me where it was, in case of emergencies and I couldn’t find my apartment keys, I looked everywhere, in my jacket and my jeans and they just weren’t there and you told me—you told me I could let myself in if I ever needed to. You said that. Remember? You said, ‘If you ever need a place, my door’s always open. Spare key’s by the radiator.’ So I just—I just—” She rambled on, her words tripping over each other in their desperate haste, trying to explain away the situation, to make it seem normal, to prevent him from seeing what was actually written across her face and body and posture. She was building a wall of words, hoping he wouldn’t look too closely at what lay behind it.
He crossed the room in three long strides, closing the distance between them with the same focused intensity he brought to everything that mattered. His hands came up to cup her face, his palms warm against her chilled, damp skin. The contrast was stark—she was cold despite the humid warmth of the room, cold in a way that came from inside, from shock and trauma and something he didn’t yet understand but could feel radiating off her like a physical force. “Hey, hey,” he said, his voice dropping into something soft and steady, the tone he used when talking someone down from a ledge or calming a frightened witness. “It’s okay. What happened?”
Her hair was wet, plastered to her forehead and cheeks in dark, dripping strands. Droplets of water slid down her temples like tears she wasn’t shedding. And if this were any other day, any other circumstance, his heart would have burst out of his chest at the sight of her—his sweet, brave, wounded Y/N standing in his bedroom wearing his clothes, looking soft and vulnerable and impossibly dear. He would have allowed himself to feel the warmth of that image, the quiet domesticity of it, the unspoken promise it seemed to hold. But right now wasn’t the time for those feelings. Right now, something was broken in her and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to fix it, to protect her, to love her.
Y/N shook her head, a small, jerky motion and looked away from him. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t bear to see the concern there, the questions, the inevitable demand for an explanation she wasn’t ready to give. “I—I just spiraled after you left,” she said, her voice thin and distant, as if she were reporting events that had happened to someone else. “And I didn’t want to return to Foggy’s. I couldn’t. He would’ve—he would’ve asked too many questions and I didn’t have answers and I didn’t know where else to go.” Her voice cracked on the last words, splintering into something raw and wounded. “I’m so sorry, Dex. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have just let myself in like this. I should’ve called. I should’ve—”
He pulled her into his arms before she could finish the apology, wrapping himself around her with a fierce, protective urgency. One hand pressed flat against her back, the other cradled the back of her wet head and he held her against his chest as if he could shield her from whatever had happened simply by being a barrier between her and the rest of the world. She melted right there in his embrace. The tension that had been holding her upright, that had carried her up three flights of stairs and through a shower and into his apartment, dissolved all at once. Her body sagged against his and then the sobs came. Small at first, barely more than hitches in her breathing. Then larger, deeper, racking through her frame in waves that shook them both. She gripped the front of his jacket with both hands, her fingers twisting in the fabric, anchoring herself to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world that had turned to water.
“It’s okay, sunshine,” he murmured against her hair, the nickname falling from his lips automatically, a talisman against the darkness. “I got you. I’m here. I’ve got you.” He repeated the words like a mantra, like a promise, like a spell that could somehow undo whatever had been done to her. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing him in, letting his warmth and his scent and his steady, unwavering presence wash over her. “Just missed you s’much,” she whispered, the words muffled against his jacket but unmistakable in their raw, simple honesty.
Ten minutes later, she was sitting on his couch, wrapped in the thickest blanket he owned—a soft, worn flannel thing that had seen him through countless cold nights and now served a more important purpose. She had burrowed into it, pulling it up to her chin, cocooning herself in its warmth. And it smelled like him. Like that woodsy, musky scent that clung to everything he owned—his clothes, his furniture, his very presence. It was the smell of safety, of comfort, of the one person in the world who made her feel like she might still be whole somewhere deep inside. She breathed it in like medicine, letting it settle into her lungs and her bloodstream, letting it push back against the cold, creeping tendrils of the mirror maze that still lingered at the edges of her consciousness.
He was in the kitchen, moving with quiet efficiency, making her something to eat. She seemed pretty shaken—more than shaken, shattered—and he didn’t want to overwhelm her with anything complicated. So he made French toast. Simple, warm, comforting. Her favourite. He had learned that about her during one of their cook nights, had filed the information away like he filed away everything important about her. The way her eyes lit up at the smell of cinnamon and vanilla. The way she liked hers with just a dusting of powdered sugar, no syrup. The way she would close her eyes and make a small, satisfied sound at the first bite, as if the simple pleasure of good food was something precious and rare.
He brought the plate out and set it on the table in front of the couch, the golden-brown slices of bread steaming gently in the dim light. Then he sat down next to her, close enough that she could feel his warmth through the blanket, close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she needed to.
Y/N began digging into the French toast immediately, her movements mechanical but driven by a sudden, ravenous hunger she hadn’t realized she was carrying. The first bite was a revelation—the warm, eggy sweetness of the bread, the subtle kiss of cinnamon and vanilla, the way the powdered sugar melted on her tongue like the ghost of something good and pure. It flooded her senses, pushing back against the bitter, salty, alkaline taste that had consolidated itself on her tongue and refused to leave. That taste—his taste—had been clinging to her since the mirror maze, a phantom residue that no amount of showering or tooth-brushing or desperate tongue-scraping could fully erase. But the French toast helped. Dex’s French toast, made with careful hands in his small kitchen, served on a plain white plate with no expectation or demand attached. It tasted like safety. Like normalcy. Like the world she had inhabited before everything went wrong, when her biggest concern was whether she’d eaten too much cotton candy and not whether she’d survive the night with her sanity intact.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Dex’s voice was tentative, careful, the tone of someone approaching a wounded animal with open palms and slow movements. He wasn’t pushing—Dex never pushed, that was one of the things she appreciated most about him—but the question was there, hanging in the warm air between them, an offering she could accept or decline as she chose.
Y/N froze mid-chew, the bite of French toast suddenly thick and difficult to swallow. Her mind raced, spinning through possibilities, constructing and discarding explanations with frantic speed. What could she even tell him? The truth was impossible. It was a labyrinth of horrors with no clear entrance and no safe exit. Oh, you know, Dex, I just got assaulted by a vigilante who wears my dead brother’s costume. You know, the Daredevil suit? The one Matt used to wear when he was alive and fighting for justice? Well, there’s this imposter now, this monster who’s stolen his identity and his symbol and he cornered me in the mirror maze after you left and he— No. Absolutely not. She couldn’t say those words.
Couldn’t give voice to the specifics of what had been done to her. And even if she could somehow find the courage to speak the truth, there was another layer, a deeper, more shameful confession lurking beneath the surface. The way she had coped. The way she had survived. How, when he was touching her and violating her and forcing sounds from her throat she didn’t want to make, she had closed her eyes and imagined it was someone else. Imagined it was Dex. His hands instead of those leather gloves. His mouth instead of that terrible, grinning maw beneath the helmet. His voice calling her sweetheart, sunshine, good girl.
She had superimposed his image onto her tormentor like a protective filter, using her feelings for him as a shield against the full horror of what was happening. It was preposterous. It was pathetic. It was deeply, profoundly shameful in ways she couldn’t begin to articulate. And even though Dex wasn’t the kind of person who would ever victim-blame—she knew this about him with bone-deep certainty—she was still drowning in shame. She didn’t want him to look at her differently. Didn’t want him to see her as broken, as damaged, as someone who had been reduced to nothing and then rebuilt herself around a fantasy of him.
“I told you,” She muttered, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes fixed on the remaining French toast rather than his face. “I just spiralled.”
“Spiralled hard enough that you had to break into my house, take a shower in my bathroom and wear my clothes?” His voice was light, teasing, an obvious attempt to cut through the heavy atmosphere with humour. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he bumped his shoulder gently against hers.
Y/N smacked his arm with the back of her hand, a reflexive gesture of mock outrage that felt almost normal, almost like them. “I didn’t have my house keys on me, okay?” The protest came out stronger than she intended, a flicker of her usual fire showing through the ash. “And I was going to text you about it, but my phone died. So technically, this is your fault for not having a charger readily available for your guests.”
“My fault?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly delighted that she was engaging, that some colour had returned to her voice.
“Yes, your fault. Completely and entirely.” She set her plate down on the table with a deliberate clink and rose to her feet, wrapping the blanket more securely around her shoulders like a cape of righteous indignation. “And if you have such a big problem with me being here, I’ll just leave then.” She wasn’t going to leave—not really, not actually—but she wanted to see how he would react. Needed to see it. Needed confirmation that she was wanted here, that her presence in his space wasn’t a burden he was too polite to name.
Dex’s hand shot out and caught her wrist before she could take her first step. His grip was warm and firm and he pulled her back with a surprising strength that sent her off balance. She stumbled, her feet tangling in the trailing edge of the blanket and fell directly into his lap with a soft, startled gasp. His arms came around her immediately, steadying her, holding her in place against his chest. “You aren’t going anywhere, sunshine,” he said and there was a grin spreading across his face—wide and warm and possessive in a way that made her heart flutter despite everything.
For a single, suspended moment, her blood ran cold. That grin. That smile. It reminded her—with a jolt of visceral, gut-wrenching recognition—of his smile. The monster’s smile. The way he had looked at her in the mirror maze, like she was a possession he had successfully claimed. But then reason reasserted itself. It was her own fault, wasn’t it? She had been the one to superimpose Dex’s image onto her attacker, to use his face as a shield against the horror. Of course there would be echoes. Of course her traumatized brain would make connections that weren’t really there.
She couldn’t blame Dex for her own coping mechanisms, for the way her desperate mind had twisted and blurred the lines between protector and predator just to survive. She shook her head slightly, physically dismissing the thought and forced a smile onto her face. “I don’t plan to,” she said softly and slipped off his lap—though she didn’t go far. She settled back onto the couch beside him, close enough that their thighs pressed together through the blanket, close enough to feel his warmth and his solidity and his steady, reassuring presence.
It didn’t take long for Y/N to fall asleep. The exhaustion of the evening—the terror, the violation, the long climb up three flights of stairs, the hot shower that had scrubbed her skin raw but couldn’t reach the places where the real dirt lived—finally caught up with her. Her head grew heavy, drooping forward and then found a natural resting place against Dex’s shoulder. Her breathing slowed, deepened, softened into the gentle rhythm of unconsciousness. Her face, which had been tight with unspoken pain and hidden fear, relaxed into something peaceful, almost childlike. It had been a long and very tiring evening, after all. The longest of her life, perhaps. And here, in the warmth of Dex’s apartment, wrapped in his blanket and his scent and his quiet, undemanding presence, she finally felt safe enough to let go.
Dex looked down at her sleeping face, and his expression shifted—melted, really—into something that no one had ever truly seen. Not Y/N, not his colleagues at the bureau, not anyone who thought they knew him. His eyes traced the delicate curve of her cheek with a slow, possessive reverence, following the flutter of her lashes where they rested against her skin, lingering on the soft, unconscious parting of her lips as she breathed. “You really are a dumb little puppy, aren’t you?” His voice was a whisper, barely a disturbance in the quiet air, meant for no one but himself and the unconscious woman draped against his shoulder. “Running right back to me after the maze.” A sinister glint sparked in his eyes—a cold, predatory light that transformed his handsome features into something else entirely. Something hungry. Something patient. Something that had been waiting a very, very long time.
Carefully, with the practiced ease of a man accustomed to moving without waking, he pulled her fully into his lap. She needed to stay asleep. After all, she hadn't yet drunk the tea he always made her before he did anything. It was a ritual now, one she never suspected—every single time, she would accept the warm cup from his hands, drink it down without question and drift off into a deep, pliable slumber, leaving her completely unaware of the hours that followed in her bed. Dex did prefer her awake and responsive— he liked the fire in her, the way she squirmed and whimpered and reacted to every touch. But for now, he would take what he could get. At least for tonight.
His fingers rose and traced the line of her cheek, featherlight, barely grazing the surface of her skin. Then they drifted lower, following the elegant column of her neck and pausing at the hollow of her throat, where her pulse beat slow and steady beneath his fingertips. Lower still, until his hand found the soft swell of her breast through the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt. “So sweet,” he murmured, his fingers circling her nipple with a lazy, knowing touch. It pebbled instantly under his attention, the sensitive flesh tightening just as he had expected, just as it always did, “So trusting.” There was wonder in his voice and satisfaction and something darker—something that had no name in any language she would recognize.
His hand slipped a little lower, toying with the loose waistband of the sweatpants she wore. They hung large on her frame, the fabric gaping enough that he could have easily slipped his hand inside without resistance. But he abstained. She’d had enough for one day and he was a patient man. Instead, his palm glided over the fabric, hovering just above the warmth of her sweet cunt, separated by nothing more than a thin layer of cotton. His mind wandered, as it often did, to what awaited him there. If her mouth had felt so exquisite—so hot and tight and willing—how much better would her plush walls feel when he finally buried himself inside her? How sweet would she sound when he filled her completely? Y/N shifted in her sleep, a small, involuntary whine escaping her lips as if she could sense the weight of his thoughts. Dex smiled to himself. One of the things he loved most about her was just how responsive she was, even now. Nothing compared to feeling her squirm beneath him when she was fully conscious, but even under the heavy veil of the tea, her body remained warm and innately attuned to his touch.
He brought his hand back up to her face, his thumb coming to rest against her bottom lip. It was still swollen, still slightly reddened, bearing the marks of everything that had been done to her in the mirror maze. He caressed the tender flesh with a gentleness that was almost reverent, feeling its warmth, its softness, the slight roughness where she had bitten down to keep from crying out. A fleeting thought crossed his mind—he still needed to retrieve the pair of panties he had torn from her body in the maze, the ones currently sitting in the pocket of his suit in the back of his car. A trophy for the collection.
His gaze lifted, moving across the room to where Lord Snuggleton sat on the armchair opposite the couch. The stuffed rabbit’s beady black eyes seemed to stare back at him, empty and unblinking, its floppy ears and stitched smile frozen in perpetual, helpless cheerfulness. Dex smirked at it—a slow, knowing curl of his lips—as if the rabbit recognized the horror of the truth but could do nothing to save its master. As if they shared a secret, him and this inanimate witness, a joke that only one of them could appreciate.
He leaned in, closing the small distance between them and pressed the softest, most tender kiss to her sleeping lips. It was barely a brush of contact, a whisper of warmth, the kind of kiss a lover might give in the quiet hours of the night when they thought no one was watching. “You don’t need to worry your pretty little head anymore, doll,” he breathed against her mouth, the words a promise and a threat wrapped in the same silken tone. “I’ll take such good care of you.” His lips curved into a smile against hers and then he pulled back, settling more comfortably into the couch, letting her sleeping weight rest on him. His arm came up to wrap around her shoulders, holding her close, keeping her warm, keeping her his. The sinister glint in his eyes softened into something that might have been mistaken for affection by anyone who didn’t know better. And there, in the quiet of his apartment, with the city humming distantly beyond the windows and the woman he had been hunting sleeping peacefully against his chest, Dex allowed himself a moment of pure, uncomplicated satisfaction. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
╰ ┈➤ A/n: Part of a larger AU and maybe one day I’ll write the somno fic for this. Lemme know if you’d wanna read it. Update: posted here.
OKAY. This is an announcement for all the writers out there who write smut and are obsessed with Soldier Boy and Bullseye. Please. I’m begging you. Write a one-shot about these two. PLEASE.
Pairing: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter x F!Reader
Summary: pt. 2 to midnight stranger
WC: 6.3k
Warnings: 18+, mildly dubcon, reader is lowkey scared of him but also isn't telling him "no", maybe a little fear/primal play?, (i really dk how to tag this scene), uhmm, dark!dex, JEALOUS!dex, he thinks you and matt have something going on, manhandling, rough sex, biting, spanking, fingering, PIV, overstimulation, unprotected, creampie, no use of Y/Nben
Dex's not-so subtle moans fill your ears. His jaw working. His fingers press into his mouth, sucking and licking them clean. His gaze levels yours with a smile.
Your face burns and you look away while you clear your throat.
"Food's good. Thank you."
You turn back to him, face still aflame as you stand, clearing your plates from the table. "Of course. You need fuel to help heal your...body." You almost cringe at yourself, trying not to glance down at his shirtless state. His damp hair messy on top of his head. You turn abruptly to the kitchen, hands full with the dishes. He watches you closely, tracking your every move. You're trying not to squirm, try not to think about these thoughts he's eliciting out of you. After cleaning the plates, you take your time washing your hands as he stares from the dining room table. Maybe you just needed to keep some distance away from him.
"You feed Matt while he's here?"
The question makes you frown and pause in your task, looking back up from to catch his stare. Dex's tone every time he's mentioned the Daredevil has been laced with...you want to say, unfriendliness. Maybe even hostility. It confused you, weren't they supposed to be friends? He was sent here by him, was he not? His hands are busy picking nonexistent lint off the sweats you gave him, as he looks away from your questioning regard.
"Uhm...no, I don't think I have." You actually try to think back to those countless nights. Maybe there was a pizza ordered here or there.
"Too busy with each other, huh?"
You miss the seething hatred in his tone as your brain tries to think about Matt and food and when the last time you saw him was.
Airily, without thinking, you reply, "Yeah, we're always busy when he's here."
You turn away to grab a rag to dry your hands, sink water turned off. This means you also miss the way Dex's lips twist up in a sneer, the way his hands clench and bunch up the grey fabric of his sweats. When you're done with your tasks, you turn towards your bedroom door, peering in before turning back to him. You were exhausted. You assess the man still seated at the table, his lips pressed into a thin line. Maybe he really was still in pain.
"I'll get you some pain medicine." You head into your bathroom cabinet, grabbing some acetaminophen and ibuprofen. It was the only thing you had on hand, hoping the two combined with the right dosage would help him ease some of his obvious discomfort.
When you come back, you're shocked to see he's moved to the couch. Pillow over his lap, legs kicked up onto the coffee table in front of him.
Before the two of you had sat down to eat, he'd helped you roll up the ruined rug, despite your protests about his wounds. You stood there and watched his muscles work, trying not to think about his hands on you while his arms worked the rug into a roll. Watched his back muscles roll when he lifted it up, hoisting it over his shoulder. Blushed when he'd given you a wink, not even phased, not even winded. You had to scold yourself when thoughts about him hoisting you up over his shoulder, ushering you into the bedroom, maybe even his hand swatting your ass had clouded your mind. He had looked at you like he knew exactly what you were thinking.
So the rug was gone. As was his cut up suit. His weapons, however... They sat right next to his feet on the coffee table. They unnerved you, to say the least. Daredevil didn't ever have any real weapons on him. He wasn't a killer. You didn't know much about the man you had in front of you, but you could venture to assume that he was similar to using violence as a tool like Frank Castle. You weren't sure how you felt about that.
You step closer to Dex, hand reaching out to drop some meds in his outstretched one. Instead of letting the medicine fall into his palm, he catches your hand with his, his rougher and larger hand engulfing yours. You catch yourself from pulling back in shock, instead turning your hand in his so he can properly take the medicine from you. He hums when you finally pull away from him, popping the medicine into his mouth like candy with a devious smile. Your skin tingles from where he'd touched you.
As a distraction, and curiosity, you look back at his weapons, trying to keep cool about everything. You doubted the Daredevil wanted you lusting over his friend, who was obviously in a vulnerable state. There's a moment of silence, as you turn away from his weapons and look around the room, until you're staring back at him. He smiles and pats the cushion next to him. A bit awkwardly, you move around the coffee table and sit on the opposite end of the couch, hands folded in your lap like this wasn't your home.
Taking a steadying breath, you turn to him with a careful voice, "What...what happened last night? Is Daredevil...is Matt okay?"
It was Dex's turn to look away from your gaze. Which was odd, considering how he never seemed to stop staring at you. His tone was nonchalant, "There was a fight. I can't get into too much detail." He turns back to you, his eyes slowly assessing you, "I'm sure he's fine."
You don't feel satisfied with his answer, "Okay, well, you're going to have to give me more than that. What is going on?" Your body turns more towards him on the couch, brain now on a mission. He was being way too vague from the get go. "Why did he send you here?"
"I told you," his shoulder lifts up in a shrug, "He told me to come. I had to get out of there."
"So, that's the part where I'm concerned, Dex," you stress his name in a scold, "If you came here in such a state, who is to say that Matt isn't worse off? Shouldn't we call the authorities or go check on him?"
He clenches the pillow on his lap, he teeth biting together. "Why are you so worried about him?"
You blink.
"What?" You ask, taken aback from his accusatory tone.
"I said why are you so worried about him." He almost hisses it out.
"I heard you." You frown at him, suddenly not liking where this conversation was going. All those comments on Matt from him starting to line up together in your head. Oh God. Did he...did he not like Matt? "I...I'm sorry, I'm confused. Why would I not be concerned about him?"
"Are these his fucking sweats I'm wearing?"
Your brows pull together into a deeper frown, glancing at the grey sweats around his legs. They weren't. They were a pair of your ex's you had stolen, unwilling to give them back and in a way, spitefully keeping them after the breakup years ago. They were comfy, and you doubted the SOB was missing them. Maybe it pleased you if he did, but that was besides the point. What was going on in this conversation with the man in your house? On your couch.
You slowly stand from the couch, red flags and warning bells now ringing in your head. God, you were stupid. Falling blind to his attractiveness, thinking he was here because Matt sent him. What if he killed him? You look down at the weapons on the table with widening eyes. Oh God, what if those wounds you patched up on him were from the Daredevil himself? You feel your feet backing up slowly, trying to subtly gain space from Dex.
His eyes darken, his lips parting into a dark smile. "These are, aren't they?" He makes a low furious noise as he stands from the couch. "No wonder they don't fit properly." Dex rises to his full height, tossing the pillow behind him, back onto the couch. He takes a slow step forward as you're taking a slow step back.
Sweat drips down your back. Eyes trailing his down his torso, to the waistband of the sweats. You're about to tell him, No, of course they aren't. Why would you have his clothes here? But your mouth dries and you force a swallow as you see the obvious outline of his thickening dick through the material. You feel your skin burn, desire filling your belly. You feel dizzy from the mixture of fear and arousal. What has gotten into you?
The man chuffs an amused noise as you take him in as he continues to stalk you like prey around your coffee table. Your legs quiver with anticipation, your body wanting to bolt. Fuck, you're wet. He's so tall and broad, the outline of his cock in the sweats burning into your brain. He looks big and thick and heavy. He takes step forward, and you flinch at the sudden movement, heart rate quickening. Your lips part in a pant before your tongue swipes out to wet them. Your mind clouding with desire. Your gaze trails back up his body, his mouth still lifted up in a smirk. Like he's happy to see that you caught on to him. That you're still catching up to the game he's been playing since you let him in. He's somehow moved so subtly, that he's an arm length's away. Your body racks itself into a full shiver, just before you're jolting into action.
Except he's faster. His hand reaches out to snatch your loose pajama shirt, almost tearing the fabric as he pulls your body back to him. His built arms coming around you to capture you against him, his breath leaving him in a short laugh when your back hits against his torso. You can feel the press of his hard cock flush against your ass as you squirm against his hold, one arm of his cording around your waist to keep you trapped to him. His other arm banding across your chest, hand going up to flex over your throat. You let out a small simpering and pathetic sound, pussy painfully throbbing with the contact of his body against yours. He presses his hips into you, the length of his dick grinding in between you two.
"Easy, girl." Dex's voice presses on the shell of your ear, like he's trying to calm you down. His fingers flex over your throat, not cutting off your oxygen, just keeping you in a hold. "Fuck, you're squirmy." He groans as you try to continue, weakly, to get out of his hold, your ass rubbing up against his hard cock. You feel it jump against you. You freeze while pull in air through your bared teeth.
"What are you doing?" You hiss out to him, biting back a whimper when he grinds into you at the sound of your voice.
His nose presses into your hair, a shudder racking his body behind you as he takes in a breath of your scent. "Do you fight Matt like this?"
You can't suppress a gasp when his mouth comes down to your throat, his fingers just barely parting for his tongue. He licks you softly, like he's testing your taste. Your eyes flutter shut as your head tilts, giving him more space. Dex notices and hums, pleased with the permission you gave him, his hand coming up to your jaw to tilt your head more as he sucks a spot on your neck. His grasp on you loosens, though he's still keeping you caged against his hard body as he works you up with mouth and tongue. Your panties are thoroughly soaked, and you grind back against him with a small moan. He releases your neck with a sucking pop, pleased to see his mark on you. He wants more of them on you, dark thoughts almost overtaking him until your hand is reaching in between the two of you, seeking out his throbbing length. He chokes when you grip him through the sweats, his head dropping to your shoulder.
You suck in a breath as your hands grip his girth, feeling him throb underneath your fingers. You work him through the fabric, his hips twitching up to press more into you. Dex's hand leaves your jaw to trail down to your breast, squeezing you through the fabric of your shirt, eliciting another weak moan from you. You hadn't bothered putting on a bra after your shower last night, something you don't ever sleep in. His fingers finding the peak of your nipple, rolling it in between them, causing your grip on him to tighten. He lets out a curse behind you, his mouth going back to your throat to suck another mark into you. When he's satisfied and finished with his bite, he quickly releases you, spinning you around before his mouth comes crashing down on yours, his hands grasping the back of your head, fingers tangling into your hair.
A surprised noise leaves you, smothered into his mouth, body rigid with the sudden movement until you soften into the kiss, mouth parting for him. You can feel him shudder again, pleased with how obedient you were being. How soft. How willing. But his mouth turns harsh, consuming, his kiss almost biting and clashing with anger. He's thinking about Matt having his hands on you, swallowing your moans. Having your hands pulling him in. An angry noise spills into the space of your battling mouths, his hands now hooking up under your thighs and ass, hoisting you up into the air with such ease it shocks and scares you. He was so strong, so agile and quick. Your thighs come around his waist, knocking into his wounds and stitches, the pain egging him on as he lets out a anguished noise. You try to slow down, to apologize, to tell him to put you down so you don't hurt him, but he kissing you with such angry abandon that you can't get anything out, can't even think straight as your hands come down to clutch his broad shoulders. His fingers dig into the swell of your ass, gripping you so tightly you're sure to have his fingers imprinted on you. Dex walks the two of you steadily back into your bedroom, placing you onto your bed, following you without his mouth leaving you once.
The situation starts to play your mind, your lower belly burning with want and need, legs spread for him to make space as his cock rubs along your clothed sex. You let out a moan into his mouth, your hands trailing up to his hair, tugging, trying to get him to take his mouth of yours so you can at least speak. The pain just seems to encourage him, his dick humping into your cunt, the friction from his weight and clothes making you hotter and hotter. You pant openly against his mouth, his tongue slipping in with an eager groan. You feel his hands pet along side of you, touching and gripping as much as he can through your clothes. He pulls away to look down at you.
Hell. You're looking up at him with hungry eyes, soft and pliant in his arms. Lips red and puffy from his attacks. Your pupils are blown out in lust, and it makes his stomach tighten as he thinks about Matt of all people in this moment.
"You look up at him like that too? Or is that just for me?" He grips your jaw, making you look at him dead on as your face scrunches up in confusion.
"Wh-" You start, until he's cutting you off by smacking his lips against yours again, teeth biting at your lips. You let out a shrill, hands coming to his shoulders to push him away.
"What is with you?" You hiss at him, thumping a hand against his shoulder as you try to push him off you. You're fighting him again, weakly, you might say, as his fingers wiggle their way under your shorts, making you pause in your fake struggle. You look back up at him, his dark gaze on your face as you watch him watch you feel his quick fingers just outside your soaked panties. He swipes them against the heat of your clothed core, your hips bucking up in response. He presses his fingers against your sopping wet entrance, smiling at the way your mind goes blank just from his touch.
"Tell me you want me more than him." Dex growls down at you, the pads of his fingers pressing onto your clothed and aching clit. You let out a broken gasp as he finds your spot easily through your clothes.
"Dex," you whine, trying to grind down on his fingers, needing more friction than he's allowing you to have. You give him no other response but a short cry, as he's suddenly shoving your panties to the side, underneath all your clothes, his fingers brutally shoving inside you. Even fully clothed, you feel exposed as two of his fingers stretch you open, making squelching noises around his digits as he fucks them into you. Your hands scramble for purchase on his shoulders, fingernails digging into his flesh. He can't pull his fingers out properly to thrust them in, so he moves them in a debilitating up and down motion, scissoring them into you, pressing harshly against your G spot. You suck a sharp breath in, your exhale a long devastating moan. He's ruining you, destroying and rewriting you this quickly.
You don't realize the noises you're making until he's leaning down to swallow them, his mouth sucking another biting kiss into yours. Your fingers clutch the strands of his hair as you keep him to you, the moans and whimpers you're making not stopping, just getting muffled into his lips. There's dull and hot sensation in your core as he works you, he's shoving you towards a sensation you've never really felt before. Your legs tremble with the stimulation, and you almost want him stop - it's so strong. Your muscles clench and release, like you're body is trying to catch up with the way he moves. You can only feel pleasure, as his fingers isolate a perfect spot inside of you, overwhelming you with the fire blurring hot inside your veins and entire body. He pulls back from your mouth, staring down at you. You almost cry when he starts talking again, his fingers pushing you higher and higher-
"That's it. That's it. Fuck yes."
What is happening? Your pussy is clamping and fluttering around his fingers, your mouth opens with a silent cry and you suddenly feel soaked. Your back arches into the bed, head tipping back, eyes screwing shut and that's when you finally feel it. Sparks zapping inside you, energy sucking up out of your body. You feel your orgasm through your entire body, rather just down there, body cumming before your brain even knew what was happening. You pant as you come down, limbs heavy. Dex eases his fingers out of you, humming a pleased noise in the back of his throat. He pulls his wet fingers out from underneath your shorts, your eyes darken as he sucks them into his mouth, cleaning them up noisily. It makes that need and want crawl back inside of you, core clenching with just the act of him doing that. He smirks around his fingers, teeth biting into his flesh as he looks down at you. Looking every bit of handsome and dangerous. You almost forgot who you were dealing with here, your legs starting to push you back up the bed away from him.
Dex grips your ankle, yanking you back down to him. You let out a weak squeak, helping him anyways when he goes to shuck your ruined shorts and underwear off you. His nostrils flare and pupils dilate as he takes in your lower naked half, his large hands gripping the back of your knees to lift and spread your legs, exposing your wet and fluttering sex to him. You blush, embarrassed by the unwavering attention from him, trying to squirm away from his hot gaze. He groans and presses your legs open even more, his clothed cock coming to rub against your soaking pussy. You watch as your wetness darkens the grey fabric and whimper when he drags his heavy cock against your sensitive slit. He curses at the feel of you, at the sight of you.
His fingers flex against your skin, letting go of his hold on you. He reaches up instead to strip you of your shirt, completely exposing you to the air. Your nipples peak with the temperature change and you blush, hands going up to cover over yourself. He growls with a frown tugging on his face, knocking your hands away from yourself.
“Don’t hide. Do you hide with him? Huh?” He palms your breasts, spreading his fingers wide to catch all of you, his cock thrusting against you just once, letting you feel him through the pants.
You find yourself shaking your head. What were you doing? Why were you playing into this with him? You liked how anger spread through him, made him rougher. Made him act like he had something to prove. Made him possessive. He’s angry with your answer, not necessarily at you, but angry with Matt. Angry that he gets you like this. The anger and jealousy heed inside of him, consume him. He yanks down the waistband of the sweats, not bothering to remove them all the way. His heavy cock smacks down against your soaked pussy, making you jump with the sudden stimulation. You feel him throb against your sex, hot and thick and heavy. Your eyes widen at the sight of him, his tip pink and leaking, twitching and pulsing with need.
He slides his tip up and down your sopping cunt, teasing your clit with every up motion he drags through. On his next down movement, his tip catches in your fluttering entrance, just barely pressing.
Your hips raise on their own accord, trying to catch him better inside you, a whine spilling out of your mouth. His hands squeeze your chest in response.
”Fuck you better than him.” He mutters, more to himself, as he’s staring down at where you two are just barely meeting, entranced.
You answer him anyway, with a needy and whiny tone, “Please, Dex.”
His gaze snaps back up at you, in shock, his lips parting with a pant. He looks fucked out already, his eyes glassy, hair a mess from your fingers, lips red and swollen from kissing you with abandon. He keeps eye contact with you, a devious smile splitting his lips as he starts pressing inside of you as slow as he can. You let a long whine, keeping your legs spread for him, grabbing onto the back of your thighs to stay open. He gets about half way before you’re panting and shaking, the stretch of him so much that it’s making you lightheaded. It hurts so good. When he bottoms out, your eyes almost roll to the back of your head as you let out a simpering moan.
“He stretch you out like this?” Dex laughs, his length pulling back just barely before he’s pushing back into you, grinding his hips when he gets flush against you.
“A-ah. No, Dex,” you whimper out, head tipping back before he’s catching the back of your neck, tilting your head up for you, making you look down at where he meets you.
”Watch.” He hisses out. His cock moves back, letting you see how slick and shiny he is with you. Your pussy makes obscene noises around his girth, as he’s thumping his length back into you, making you watch the way your pussy clings to him and pulls him back in. He lets out a groan as he watches you take all of him, pussy warm and fluttering around him. It feels better than he could have ever imagined. You’re tight and warm and slick. He bites back his own whimper as his hips start picking up.
You let out such perfect noises as his hips smack into you, the slap slap slap and creaks of your bed making music in your house. He feels drunk. He leans down to capture one of your nipples in his mouth, hearing a cry from you when he sucks and bites. He wants to mark you up everywhere, so the next time Matt sees you, he knows. Knows who you really belong to. Dex leans his weight onto you, his hands coming up underneath your hips, so he can use his strength to fuck you back onto his thrusts. He feels your nails dig into his back, your legs squeezing around his torso, sometimes knocking into his wound at his side, the pain and pleasure mixing something deadly inside of him.
You keen when he lets go of your skin with a wet pop, your chest littered with red marks and bites from him, the sight of you driving him insane. The feel of you. He can feel your pussy clench and tighten around him, more and more. You're getting close. One of his hands leaves your hips, to trail in between you, his fingers pressing and finding your clit. He rubs you in a way you like, by finding out how and where just by the hitches in your breath.
It does something devastating to you. The stimulation from his cock dragging back and forth, hitting and pressing against your cervix, his fingers on your clit. You moan out, saying something that’s got to be a plead. You don’t hear it though. All you can do is feel, feel the way your body reacts to him.
“I’m gonna — Oh, Dex. I’m g—gonna,” you start to hiccup in a babble, holding onto him as he brings you closer and closer to the edge. He moans back to you, catching your mouth in his, like he can’t stand not kissing you while you spill over the edge.
You let yourself go, body filling with hot plasma and euphoria, going away into that dark voided space as you black out while you cum around his thick cock. He pulls back to watch, his thrusts easing up while he fucks you through it, your pussy painfully squeezing around him. He almost chokes as you milk him, having to stop entirely, his hips twitching in need while you clamp down around him. He wants to fill you up so badly he can feel it in his bones. His cock throbs in need, the need he’s denying himself while you come back to him.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, lips trailing across your cheekbones as you gasp and heave for air. Body trembling. It’s delicate and intimate, this space he has you in now, as he presses his lips against you just barely. Light kisses butterflying across your face and mouth as you come back to reality.
Dex is kind enough to let you adjust before he’s pulling out of you. You whine at the loss of him, weakly reaching out to him. He lets out an amused and breathless sound, before he’s picking your boneless body up, turning you over to lay prone on your bed. He hoists your hips up, stuffing one of your pillows under them. He braces one hand on the outside of your body, the other tangling into your hair, close against your skull, tugging your head up and back towards him. Your throat is exposed, the pressure making your moans throaty and deep. He shoves back inside you with a single deep thrust, not letting you adjust again before he’s slamming down into you. Your hips and ass tilted up to him with the aid of the pillow.
Dex’s free hand comes back to palm your ass, gripping and groping you as his hips slap heavily into you. He groans watching his cock being swallowed up by your pussy from behind. You’d blush if you weren’t so fucked out and delirious from him, his cock hitting you deep in an angle you’ve never felt before, your animalistic moans struggling to leave your craned throat. He tugs your hair a bit, letting you feel the delicious pain from his grip. A sharp slap hit your ass, a surprised but greedy moan leaving you in reaction. Your pussy clamps down on him and gets even wetter, if that were possible. Dex growls with pleasure, his palm smoothing the pain out from his slap he delivered to you. Liking the way the red hand print started to show already. He plunges into your wetness over and over again, your hips fucking back onto his couch with such a greediness that makes him curse lowly. You cry out with a hoarse voice and he shudders with the sound.
"Let him hear it, let him hear you." He hisses out, tugging your head back after it falls forward.
You have no idea if Matt is anywhere near your place, if he can hear you, why Dex said that, but it puts a dark thought in your mind. It makes your cunt clamp down on him, thinking about Matt walking in and seeing Dex claim you as his. The thought picks you up and carries to the edge of your orgasm, a cry falling from you. Dex feels it, feels how tight you're getting around him and he almost laughs before he lets out his own devastating moan. That's all it takes before your cumming again around him, the wave of it brutalizing your body and senses. He doesn't slow down, dropping his grip from your hair, hands going around your hips to drag you back onto his cock and thrusts. You're moaning, whimpering, gasping, unable to keep any noise to yourself as you try to come back to Earth.
Dex grits his teeth as he keeps pounding into you, watching your ass bounce with every thrust. There's a ring of frothy white cream around the base of his cock and he has to tip his head back up to the ceiling at the sight. You feel so good, look so good. He doesn't want to stop. You're writhing and squirming around him, no doubt overstimulated, but he can't help himself. He moves over you, putting his torso flush against your back, arms wiggling up underneath you to trap you against him. He slides own of his arms around your throat, hand going to your opposite shoulder, caging you in a chokehold without actually choking you. He can feel your moans vibrating on his forearm, his other arm going around your torso to keep you as close as he possibly can. He cages your entire body, making you feel so small, so trapped, and so dominated that you know he's going to ruin you for anyone else.
His mouth drops to the shell of your ear, his face pressed just barely behind yours. His dark and low voice make you shudder, his hips still snapping something violent into your pussy. "He fuck you like this? Hm?"
You shake your head, voice tiny and weak, "N-no, Dex."
"He ever make this pussy feel this good?"
You cry out, tears starting to fill your eyes from how good he's making you feel. How overstimulated you are. His cock hitting a spot deep inside you over and over and over--
"Please," you whine out, not even sure what you're begging for.
He licks your ear from behind, wanting to get to every part of you. But his cock is throbbing, he's not able to hold back for much longer, his thrusts getting choppier, sloppier. The sound of your pussy squelching and cries filling the room. It fills him with some sort of pride, seeing how submissive he got you. How he marked you up. How he's made you come and cry like this before the end of the day.
"His dick fill you up like this?" It makes him angry even thinking about it. His arm banded around your throat just tightening briefly. He feels you try to shake your head no, and he loosens up.
"No--no one--no one ever--" you're gasping out, fingernails reaching up to dig into his forearm.
"Yeah? Good." He shudders, thinking about how you're taking him. Taking him so fucking good. He groans, balls tightening up to his body, but he can't stop. Can't stop fucking into you with abandon. With need. With possession.
"No one ever gets to,hear me?" He hisses out through gritted teeth, making sure you hear him loud and clear when he ducks his voice to your ear.
You'll do anything at this point, you're so high on him. You nod frantically, begging again, pleading and crying and whimpering. Pathetically wet and creaming on his cock just to hear how he claims you with no problem.
"This cock is yours." He fights back a whimper, so close so close. You moan lowly at his admission, starry eyes crossing as your belly starts to fire up again. You feel his head drop down to your shoulder, his teeth coming down to bite gently onto your flesh there. He had claimed you, physically, but he was giving you him. It made you dizzy. Made you hot, made you messy.
You cry out, gasping, "Fuck, Dex, I'm going to cum again, I--I'm going to--" you're trying to catch up with yourself, trying to stop it, trying to finish it, you're not sure.
He just slams into you with more force, his whines spilling out of his mouth as your cunt starts to milk him, his cock just hitting the right place inside you, again and again. The wave of your orgasm crashes over you, leaving you crying out in a near scream, his cock bursting inside of you, lengthening and strengthening the force of your orgasm. His hips still as your milk his cock, both of you making obscene animalistic moans and cries, your walls pulsing around him to take every drop of his cum. Dex lets out a broken sound as his weight crushes against you, letting the pleasure of cumming in you wash through him. You can hardly breathe though, so you start squirming and whining for a whole different reason before Dex groans like he's in pain, eases his weight up and off you.
He keeps his cock buried in you, so he can lean back and watch his length leave your perfect hole. There's cum all over your thighs, wetting his cock and matting his pubic hair down. It's so dirty and filthy, it makes him smile as he eases out of you, his cum dribbling out. He makes a soft and enamored moan, the image of your ass up, pussy wet and used with him, burns into his mind.
He playfully swats your ass before he's tumbling into the bed next to you, sighing out. Exhaustion takes ahold of both of you. You're fucked out, limbs heavy, eyes heavy. Dex leans over, helping you ease the pillow under your hips out, using it with a smirk on his face to prop his head up. You scrunch your nose at him, about to scold him and tell him to use a clean one when a knock sounds at the door.
Dex watches you with an amused smile, as you start to piece together what just happened. The knock sounds again.
Frantically, with panic surging through your sore body, you sit up. "Coming!" you shout out, and try to run a hand through your tangled hair. Dex can't help but laugh, as he puts his wet cock back into the sweats he never bothered to take off. He watches you try to put your shirt on, cum leaking down your thighs. You have bite marks on your back, on your tits, on your neck, really anywhere he could get his mouth on you. You pull your shirt on over your head backwards, and he doesn't bother to tell you the fact. You scramble for your ruined panties, but think better on it, just pulling your shorts on commando. He watches you stumble out of the bedroom, and he hears you open the front door.
"Matt!" You shrill out in a too cheery voice.
Dex can't help but feel more amused. More smug. He puts his hands up over his head, unable to wipe the smirk off his face. He hears Matt ask if you're okay with a concerned tone. You tell him you've never been better. Dex's eyes close as he takes it all in, victorious.
Matt can't see your state, but can hear your heart rate. Can smell the sweat on your skin. Can hear another and smell someone else's sweat too. "Is...this a bad time?" He asks you.
"Uh..." You're about to lie to him, he can tell. So he cuts you off.
"Listen, I'm looking for--"
Dex emerges out of the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, that smug look on his face hasn't left. "Right here, buddy. Pretty girl over here was just telling me all about you."
Your face heats as both men turn to you.
"I really should thank you for sending me over, Matt." Dex moves over to you, looping an arm over your shoulder, tugging you in close to him. His head dips to smack a loud kiss on your lips. He pulls away before you can even react, his eyes dark as he looks down at you with mirth swirling in his eyes.
"And I should really thank you for your hospitality."
Summary: Dex becomes obsessed with one of the waitresses at his local diner. (3.5k)
Tags/warnings: smut (mdni), dry humping, oral (f!receiving), face riding, cumming untouched, pathetic dex, mentions of violence, mentions of murder, stalking, obsessive/possessive behavior, reader is morally grey and kind of a freak (affectionately)
A/N: First time writing for Dex!!! Heavily inspired by the song "She" by Tyler, The Creator and Frank Ocean. English is not my first language and this was not proofread. Enjoy!
masterlist
A routine, that's all you craved for when you skipped town a couple of months ago. That's what you try to remind yourself as another day, identical to the previous, begins.
You wake up tangled in your cheep sheets, glistening with sweat as the first rays of sunshine filter through your open window.
You paddle to the small kitchen of your new home, the floorboards creaking under your bare feet, and make yourself a cup of coffee. Then, you start to get ready for another shift at the diner.
It's not your dream job — far from it, actually — but the pay is decent, and if you manage to flash a sweet smile convincingly enough to the right clients, the tips can be pretty consistent.
After a relatively long drive from the secluded ranch you managed to buy from a man who didn't ask many questions when you asked to pay upfront with cash, you park your beat-up sedan in front of the diner.
As you walk in you flash a smile to the few regulars you recognize, and you great your coworker behind the counter — a young girl too sweet for her own good.
"Morning!" she replies with a smile of her own, despite the fact that's way to early for someone to look this joyous.
After exchanging a few niceties, you tie your apron and officially begin your shift. It's the same routine as usual: go up to tables, take orders, and refill cups with coffee that you know for sure tastes like shit.
But then, just like clockwork, at exactly the same time as every day you work the morning shift, your favorite costumer walks in.
He's older and unfairly attractive, with his broad shoulders and graying blond hair. Like usual, he sits at a booth far from the windows and he picks up the menu, carefully studying it, despite always ordering the same thing.
"Good morning, Tony! What can I get you today?"
You take out your notepad from the pocket of your apron, and let the pen hover over the blank page, waiting for his answer.
"I'll have a banana milkshake," he replies, looking up at you with a controlled smile, making a shiver run down your spine.
There's nothing unusual about him. He's polite, always thanks you when you get him his order, and tips way too much considering he always gets the same banana milkshake.
But there's something in the way you feel his eyes following you whenever he's in the diner that makes you feel naked — like he knows what you're so desperately trying to hide.
Still, you keep on the facade you use whenever you're interacting with other people, especially costumers, and leave to make his banana milkshake.
His gaze burns on the back of your head, and your hands tremble slightly as you pour the milk in the blender. You try to sneak a glance in his general direction, but when your eyes land on his figure, he's already looking somewhere else.
After, the routine resumes as usual. He drinks his milkshake, you give him his check, and he leaves a generous tip before walking out of the diner.
In the past, you tried imagining what his life outside might look like. Where does he work? Does he live nearby? Does he have someone waiting for him at home?
Questions like this usually leave you feeling uneasy and unsatisfied when you realize that you'll probably never know the answer.
Later that night, desperately trying to push further away any thoughts about Tony, you decide to call Chris over.
He's a nice guy. Definitely not the love of your life, but a pleasant enough distraction from your previous life.
You met him a few weeks ago at the diner, and when he shyly asked for your number — after pushing the initial instinct to give him the wrong one — you left it written on his check.
After that first encounter, he brought you on many dates, but still, you never got past first base, and he, like a gentleman, never pushed further.
Tonight, though, things are going to change.
At 8 pm sharp, you hear the doorbell ring, and when you open your door, you find him still in uniform, holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.
"Sorry, I just got off work. I would have changed, but I didn't want to be late, and-" you press your lips against his, muffling the rest of his apology.
Truth be told, at first the fact that he's a cop made you nervous. You worried he would look into your past and find out what made you run away. Instead, he seemingly believed every word that came out of your mouth when you told him your made-up background story, and it made you more inclined to keep seeing him. At least, until he realizes that everything you told him, even your name, is a lie.
"Don't worry about it," you mumble against his lips. "I'm pretty sure I've got some clothes that could fit you. Now, come in."
You take his free hand in yours and drag him past the threshold, closing the door behind him.
Then, after putting the bouquet in a vase, you walk towards your bedroom, looking at him over your shoulder, silently inviting him to follow you. Like a siren luring in an unfortunate mariner.
He seems to take the bait, and gladly follows you. Men are so predictable.
"Here, let me see if I can find some sweats," you say, looking inside your closet.
In the meantime, Chris stands awkwardly near the door, looking so out of place in your bedroom.
As you rummage through the few clothes that you brought with you, he takes off his holster and places it on your nightstand, making it land on the wooden surface with a loud thud.
The cold night air enters the room through your open window, moving the blinds in an almost hypnotic way, catching Chris' attention.
Then, he freezes.
You turn around in that exact moment, holding a pair of oversized sweats in your hands, and furrow your brown when you see him looking attentively at a distant point outside your window.
"What is it?"
"I think I saw something."
You let out a giggle, taking a step closer to his unmoving body.
"I live near the woods. It was probably just an animal."
You can see it in his eyes that he's not convinced, so you lay the sweats on your bed and place your hands on his chest.
"Come on. Let's get you out of this uniform, officer," you whisper near his ear, before placing a languid kiss on his jaw.
It turns out to be a good enough distraction. His gaze shifts in your direction, and his hands immediately find your hips, pulling you closer to his body.
You push him on the bed, and then straddle him, before moving your hands on his shoulder and leaving a trail of kisses from his jaw down to his neck.
His back is pressed near the window, making it possible for you to see some movement near a couple of trees outside your house.
Before you can think about your next move, a knife slices the air, landing on the opposite wall. You let out a scream, as Chris moves your body and lunges towards the gun on your nightstand. He then fires two shoots in the general direction of the attacker. But it's too late. He's gone.
Your heart is beating so fast in your chest that you're pretty sure Chris can hear it as well. He has something more urgent to think about though.
Blood is running down his left arm, soaking his uniform. The wound is pretty close to the spot where your hand was just a few moments ago, and yet, you're unharmed.
Did the attacker miss, or were you never the target?
"Shit," Chris says, as he tries to apply some pressure on the cut.
"Wait, let me help you."
You raise from the bed and run to your bathroom, where you keep your first aid kit. Once you're back in the bedroom, you help him take off his uniform, and as you begin to disinfect the wound, Chris breaks the silence.
"Who the fuck was that? He had a fucking- A fucking mask, and he-" his tone is understandably panicked, and his mind was clearly running a hundred miles an hour.
"Was that one of your exes?"
The question sounds so absurd you almost laugh, but decide that now is probably not the right moment.
"If that's your ex you should probably own a pistol, you know that?"
You blame his rambling to the adrenaline that's probably running through his veins right now, and keep cleaning him up.
It doesn't take you long to stop the bleeding. The cut is actually not that deep, but it doesn't seem to ease his mind. On the contrary.
As soon as you finish securing the sterile gauze over the wound, he grabs his things and almost runs to the door, mumbling something about calling you tomorrow.
He does offer you to spend the night at his apartment, but when you decline he doesn't try too hard to change your mind, instead getting in his car and driving away as if someone were chasing him.
When you go back to your room, for some reason unknown to you, you don't feel scared or threatened.
Your eyes land on the knife, still plugged in the drywall. You walk closer and pull it out, the weight feeling oddly comforting in your hands.
There's some of Chris' blood on it, so you wipe it on your sleep shorts, before hiding it in your underwear drawer.
And in that moment you think: it was never meant for you. It was meant for him only.
The next morning, when you check your phone, you don't find any missed calls from Chris. You think that what happened last night must have scared him away for good, and, weirdly enough, it gives you a strange sense of relief.
Throughout the rest of the day you keep occasionally checking your phone, mostly because it feels like the right think to do, not because you're actually concerned.
You should be worried. Maybe you should try to reach out. Go to his apartment, even. But you never do.
Instead, you go back to your house and slip in the shower, trying to wash away the smell of fried bacon and burned coffee that always lingers on you after you leave the diner.
Once you're done, you realize you've forgotten your towel, leaving you no option but to walk completely naked to your bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the floorboards.
The blinds in your bedroom are open — as they usually are — but now, for the first time since you moved in this house, you feel a pair of eyes on you.
A shiver runs down your spine, but you do nothing to cover yourself or close the curtains, because there's something familiar about this feeling.
You brush it off, instead applying lotion over your damp body, before finally putting on your clean pj's and going to bed.
Next time you're at the diner, something strange happens.
Tony walks in at the same time as usual, he sits at his usual booth, and he orders the same banana milkshake.
Nothing is out of the ordinary. Except this time the way his gaze follows you feels warmer than usual, and just as you're about to pour the drink inside the glass, the realization suddenly dawns on you.
Tony's the one who has been looking at you through your window. And he's probably the one who threw that knife at Chris.
You remain frozen on your spot until another waitress squeezes past you, reminding you that you're still in a public place. And he's in the same room as you.
You swallow hard enough to make noise, before pouring some whipped cream over the milkshake, grabbing a straw and walking up to Tony's table.
"Here you go," you said placing the glass down on the table, praying he didn't notice the way your voice wavered.
"Thank you, ma'am," he replies, reaching for his milkshake and accidentally brushing your fingers with his.
You immediately move your hand as if you got burned, and without saying anything else you walk away, busying yourself with other costumers.
His gaze, though, weights heavier than it ever has today, and you can't breath properly until he leaves.
The drive home after your shift is silent — you don't even turn on the radio — but that's fine, because your thoughts make enough noise on their own.
The road that usually seems never ending, today feels uncharacteristically short. Even after turning off the engine, you remain seated inside your car.
Your skin is prickling with a feeling similar to anxiety, but not quite.
Excitement, that's what it it.
Despite the rational part of your brain telling you that you should feel scared, that you might be in danger, and that Chris' radio silence might have been caused by something quiet dark, you can't help but hope Tony will be outside your window, watching you.
So you walk inside your home.
Everything's silent. The only sound that can be heard is the low buzz of your fridge. Despite that, you have a feeling you're not alone.
"Tony? Is that you?" and after a moment. "Is that even your real name?"
Then, from a dark corner, a broad figure emerges. Despite the tactical gear and the mask covering everything beside his eyes, you know immediately that the figure that has been inhabiting the shadows near you for longer than you might expect is none other than your favorite costumer.
"Hi, Tony," you great him, your voice just above a whisper. "Or you wanna tell me your real name?"
For a moment you're met with silence, so long that you begin to wonder whether you got it all wrong and there's an actual stranger in your house. Your heartbeat begins to raise, until he speak.
"Benjamin."
"Hi, Benjamin."
You stand there, staring at each other, until you take a step forward in his direction.
"So it was you, uh? How long have you been watching me?" you ask, but there's no real malice, or anger in your voice. Just plain curiosity.
"Ever since I first met you."
It's weird, you would have expected him to be unwavering, sure of himself. Terrifying, even.
Instead, he sounds almost ashamed, making it difficult for you to believe that he's the same man that threw a knife at your date the other night.
You take another step forward, never moving your gaze from his masked face.
"Are you going to show me you pretty face or not?"
He lets out a sharp exhale, sounding like he just got punched. Experiencing first hand the power your words have over him makes you feel almost high.
When he doesn't make a move to take off his mask, you raise your hands to his neck and do it yourself.
The moonlight shines over his messy locks, and the scar on his cheek catches the light just right, making you want to lick it.
Instead, you let the mask drop on the floor, and begin lightly scratching his chest over his suit, your touch featherlight, almost imperceptible.
"So, you watched me for weeks. What was I doing?"
The way his expression shifts and the tips of his ears redden slightly make your lips curl into a smug smile.
You can see his gloves hands clenching at his sides, almost like he's making an active effort not to reach out. Like he's waiting for your permission.
"You were reading, mostly. Sometimes you would watch a movie, if you were not too tired. Most of the times you were too exhausted to do anything. Other times-" and he stops, his face burning.
You tilt your head, confused by what he might be referring to, until you realize.
"What? What was I doing?"
Silence.
"Touching yourself."
Your grin widens, and your hands shift from his chest to his hair.
"Hm, and how did that make you feel, uh? Did it turn you on? Did you wish you could replace my fingers with yours?"
As you ask him these filthy questions, you tug his hair. Hard.
In response, he lets out a low moan, and his hands fly to your hips, mostly trying to ground himself.
"P-Please..."
The word comes out almost uncertain from his mouth, making your lips curl in amusement.
How the tables have turned. How did he go from being your stalker to begging you to let him touch you?
"Please, what?"
"Let me make you feel good."
His voice is strained, almost as if he were in physical pain.
"You really think you can do that?" you ask mockingly.
He nods, looking so eager to please.
You don't offer him a response. Instead you start walking to your bedroom — the same bedroom he has been spying for weeks — and you don't have to look back to know he's following you.
The mattress sinks under your weight as your sit on it. Benjamin doesn't hesitate before falling on his knees, right in front of you.
He starts soft, gently kissing your knuckles. Then he starts traveling higher, his lips caressing the soft skin of your arms, making your eyes flutter closed.
He then places his hands on either side of your body, steadying himself as he kisses your neck. He keeps getting closer to his final destination, grazing your jaw, your cheeks, and finally your lips.
At first the kiss is soft and tender, until you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer. This seems to be enough of an invitation for him.
The kiss turns hungry, almost desperate. You can feel the weight of his body over yours as he lays you down on the bed. But you don't stay in this position for long.
Taking him by surprise, you flip him over — but you have the suspicion he's right where he wants to be, underneath you.
His hands begin exploring your body, and your own move back to his hair, burying your fingers in his graying locks.
Underneath the layers of his tactical gear, you can feel him getting progressively harder. All it takes is you grinding your hips over his bulge to get another moan out of him.
You keep moving, chasing friction with his clothed cock, trying to ease the heath between your legs.
Surprisingly, he's the first one to break the kiss.
"Please, can I taste you?"
He sounds so desperate you can feel your panties getting even more wet than before.
In response, you take off your pants and your underwear in one go, but when you move to lay on the bed, he stops you. Instead, he moves your hips higher up, near his face.
Without a warning, he pushes you down on his face. Your hands immediately travel back to his hair, tugging them as you let out a high pitched moan.
At first, he drags his tongue from you needy hole to your clit, before laying a kiss on the bundle of nerves.
His movements are unsure at first, like he's trying to memorize the shape of you. Then, when you start grinding on his face, he seems to gain more confidence, and begins to eat you out like a man starved.
Even though you're completely lost in your pleasure, you can feel him moaning and whispering praises into your cunt.
Things like "you taste so good," and, "you're so perfect."
But the closer you get to your release, the darker his words get.
"Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom except for me," or, "he couldn't have made you feel this good," or simply, "you're mine."
The possessiveness in his voice is enough to make you reach your orgasm, holding onto him like an anchor.
The sound of your release paired with the way to keep pulling his hair — hard enough to sting — is enough make him cum untouched in his pants.
After catching your breath, you move from Benjamin's face and roll over, laying by his side.
He moves as well, resting his head in your lap and wrapping his arms around your waist, holding you so tight that you think he might be afraid that you're going to disappear at any moment.
A moment of silence passes between the two of you.
"Benjamin?"
"Mhm?"
"What happened to Chris?"
"I killed him."
A/N: This was the fic! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated, even if it's criticism (as long as it's constructive). I love talking with you angels, so my dms and inbox are always open!
you're too young for me!dex who's so hesitant on getting into a relationship with you at first, so he doesn't implicate what you two are, yet. but dex so desperately wants you to belong to him and him only. he tries so hard to be subtle but his obsessiveness get the best of him, you're on his mind 24/7, what else is he supposed to do?
you're too young for me!dex who knows exactly how dangerous his attachment has become and absolutely hates himself for it. he goes home after every date and sits alone in his apartment replaying the moments with you over and over again - every time you reacted, smiled, pouted, blushed. dex also replays conversations in his head for hours afterward, dissecting them word by word, trying to figure out if he sounded strange or too cold or too interested.
you're too young for me!dex who is actually really shy when he's around you. you start to notice his ears getting red every time you give him a small innocent kiss, or when you say something sweet and kind to him. he's surprised you care, even if it comes natural to you, dex doesn't understand what's so likable about him.
you're too young for me!dex who thinks less of himself and doesn't think he deserves someone so perfect like you. the man just gets so tense whenever he finds you in his bed, comfortably laying in his pajamas when he gets back from work. his heart is pounding in his chest, tired eyes filled with wonder on what to do with you.
you're too young for me!dex who loses all his composure when he sees you talking with a guy your age at the function - both of you smiling. he inspects, you seem like you're laughing at something he's saying. fuck. dex curses himself, overthinking immediately taking over his whole being.
you're too young for me!dex who seems so stressed while driving you back home, hands forcefully digging into the steering wheel. he avoids eye contact the whole time, dryly responding to you who clearly enjoyed the night. although, you don't miss the death stare and angry expressive eyes.
you're too young for me!dex who falls apart the second you step a foot home. he's trying so hard not to mention the younger guy but it just slips in the conversation. you already know why he's mad, but you can't take it seriously, trying to tease. dex is dead serious, though.
you're too young for me!dex who's voice trembles when his thoughts gets the best of him. he so desperately wants you to reassure him you're not leaving him, dex just can't put that into words and starts blaming you, like you were lying to him the whole time. the conversation slowly turns into a heated argument which makes you storm out of his house middle of the night.
you're too young for me!dex who starts shaking the second the door slams and he's left alone. you don't feel like talking to him for a few days, wanting for him to realize he messed up and put the blame on you for something so stupid.
are you ignoring me?
please, just answer me.
desperate!dex who deletes the message, then rewrites and deletes it again in a span of a minute. he eventually sends it and then spends the next hour convincing himself not to check whether you’ve read it. when you don’t answer a text for too long he’ll find himself checking things repeatedly. locking and unlocking doors, counting steps, rearranging objects. anything to quiet the anxiety crawling beneath his skin.
I'll be good
I know you're home. open the door.
you're too young for me!dex who's ready to get on his knees if only you forgive him. you observe him: he looks tired - eyes dark, red and teary, he hasn't slept, he's blinking too hard, his hair is a mess, knuckles white from digging at his own palms. dex's completely dissociated but focused on you at the same time, breathing deeply and loudly, it's like you can hear his heart pounding.
you're too young for me!dex who's voice trembles while he explains himself. you decide to forgive him and put the argument to the side for his sake, and also because you got what you wanted. dex exhales loudly when he gets to hold you, finally getting you back. he's going to make sure not to upset his pretty little girl next time.
Summary: Dex becomes obsessed with one of the waitresses at his local diner. (3.5k)
Tags/warnings: smut (mdni), dry humping, oral (f!receiving), face riding, cumming untouched, pathetic dex, mentions of violence, mentions of murder, stalking, obsessive/possessive behavior, reader is morally grey and kind of a freak (affectionately)
A/N: First time writing for Dex!!! Heavily inspired by the song "She" by Tyler, The Creator and Frank Ocean. English is not my first language and this was not proofread. Enjoy!
masterlist
A routine, that's all you craved for when you skipped town a couple of months ago. That's what you try to remind yourself as another day, identical to the previous, begins.
You wake up tangled in your cheep sheets, glistening with sweat as the first rays of sunshine filter through your open window.
You paddle to the small kitchen of your new home, the floorboards creaking under your bare feet, and make yourself a cup of coffee. Then, you start to get ready for another shift at the diner.
It's not your dream job — far from it, actually — but the pay is decent, and if you manage to flash a sweet smile convincingly enough to the right clients, the tips can be pretty consistent.
After a relatively long drive from the secluded ranch you managed to buy from a man who didn't ask many questions when you asked to pay upfront with cash, you park your beat-up sedan in front of the diner.
As you walk in you flash a smile to the few regulars you recognize, and you great your coworker behind the counter — a young girl too sweet for her own good.
"Morning!" she replies with a smile of her own, despite the fact that's way to early for someone to look this joyous.
After exchanging a few niceties, you tie your apron and officially begin your shift. It's the same routine as usual: go up to tables, take orders, and refill cups with coffee that you know for sure tastes like shit.
But then, just like clockwork, at exactly the same time as every day you work the morning shift, your favorite costumer walks in.
He's older and unfairly attractive, with his broad shoulders and graying blond hair. Like usual, he sits at a booth far from the windows and he picks up the menu, carefully studying it, despite always ordering the same thing.
"Good morning, Tony! What can I get you today?"
You take out your notepad from the pocket of your apron, and let the pen hover over the blank page, waiting for his answer.
"I'll have a banana milkshake," he replies, looking up at you with a controlled smile, making a shiver run down your spine.
There's nothing unusual about him. He's polite, always thanks you when you get him his order, and tips way too much considering he always gets the same banana milkshake.
But there's something in the way you feel his eyes following you whenever he's in the diner that makes you feel naked — like he knows what you're so desperately trying to hide.
Still, you keep on the facade you use whenever you're interacting with other people, especially costumers, and leave to make his banana milkshake.
His gaze burns on the back of your head, and your hands tremble slightly as you pour the milk in the blender. You try to sneak a glance in his general direction, but when your eyes land on his figure, he's already looking somewhere else.
After, the routine resumes as usual. He drinks his milkshake, you give him his check, and he leaves a generous tip before walking out of the diner.
In the past, you tried imagining what his life outside might look like. Where does he work? Does he live nearby? Does he have someone waiting for him at home?
Questions like this usually leave you feeling uneasy and unsatisfied when you realize that you'll probably never know the answer.
Later that night, desperately trying to push further away any thoughts about Tony, you decide to call Chris over.
He's a nice guy. Definitely not the love of your life, but a pleasant enough distraction from your previous life.
You met him a few weeks ago at the diner, and when he shyly asked for your number — after pushing the initial instinct to give him the wrong one — you left it written on his check.
After that first encounter, he brought you on many dates, but still, you never got past first base, and he, like a gentleman, never pushed further.
Tonight, though, things are going to change.
At 8 pm sharp, you hear the doorbell ring, and when you open your door, you find him still in uniform, holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.
"Sorry, I just got off work. I would have changed, but I didn't want to be late, and-" you press your lips against his, muffling the rest of his apology.
Truth be told, at first the fact that he's a cop made you nervous. You worried he would look into your past and find out what made you run away. Instead, he seemingly believed every word that came out of your mouth when you told him your made-up background story, and it made you more inclined to keep seeing him. At least, until he realizes that everything you told him, even your name, is a lie.
"Don't worry about it," you mumble against his lips. "I'm pretty sure I've got some clothes that could fit you. Now, come in."
You take his free hand in yours and drag him past the threshold, closing the door behind him.
Then, after putting the bouquet in a vase, you walk towards your bedroom, looking at him over your shoulder, silently inviting him to follow you. Like a siren luring in an unfortunate mariner.
He seems to take the bait, and gladly follows you. Men are so predictable.
"Here, let me see if I can find some sweats," you say, looking inside your closet.
In the meantime, Chris stands awkwardly near the door, looking so out of place in your bedroom.
As you rummage through the few clothes that you brought with you, he takes off his holster and places it on your nightstand, making it land on the wooden surface with a loud thud.
The cold night air enters the room through your open window, moving the blinds in an almost hypnotic way, catching Chris' attention.
Then, he freezes.
You turn around in that exact moment, holding a pair of oversized sweats in your hands, and furrow your brown when you see him looking attentively at a distant point outside your window.
"What is it?"
"I think I saw something."
You let out a giggle, taking a step closer to his unmoving body.
"I live near the woods. It was probably just an animal."
You can see it in his eyes that he's not convinced, so you lay the sweats on your bed and place your hands on his chest.
"Come on. Let's get you out of this uniform, officer," you whisper near his ear, before placing a languid kiss on his jaw.
It turns out to be a good enough distraction. His gaze shifts in your direction, and his hands immediately find your hips, pulling you closer to his body.
You push him on the bed, and then straddle him, before moving your hands on his shoulder and leaving a trail of kisses from his jaw down to his neck.
His back is pressed near the window, making it possible for you to see some movement near a couple of trees outside your house.
Before you can think about your next move, a knife slices the air, landing on the opposite wall. You let out a scream, as Chris moves your body and lunges towards the gun on your nightstand. He then fires two shoots in the general direction of the attacker. But it's too late. He's gone.
Your heart is beating so fast in your chest that you're pretty sure Chris can hear it as well. He has something more urgent to think about though.
Blood is running down his left arm, soaking his uniform. The wound is pretty close to the spot where your hand was just a few moments ago, and yet, you're unharmed.
Did the attacker miss, or were you never the target?
"Shit," Chris says, as he tries to apply some pressure on the cut.
"Wait, let me help you."
You raise from the bed and run to your bathroom, where you keep your first aid kit. Once you're back in the bedroom, you help him take off his uniform, and as you begin to disinfect the wound, Chris breaks the silence.
"Who the fuck was that? He had a fucking- A fucking mask, and he-" his tone is understandably panicked, and his mind was clearly running a hundred miles an hour.
"Was that one of your exes?"
The question sounds so absurd you almost laugh, but decide that now is probably not the right moment.
"If that's your ex you should probably own a pistol, you know that?"
You blame his rambling to the adrenaline that's probably running through his veins right now, and keep cleaning him up.
It doesn't take you long to stop the bleeding. The cut is actually not that deep, but it doesn't seem to ease his mind. On the contrary.
As soon as you finish securing the sterile gauze over the wound, he grabs his things and almost runs to the door, mumbling something about calling you tomorrow.
He does offer you to spend the night at his apartment, but when you decline he doesn't try too hard to change your mind, instead getting in his car and driving away as if someone were chasing him.
When you go back to your room, for some reason unknown to you, you don't feel scared or threatened.
Your eyes land on the knife, still plugged in the drywall. You walk closer and pull it out, the weight feeling oddly comforting in your hands.
There's some of Chris' blood on it, so you wipe it on your sleep shorts, before hiding it in your underwear drawer.
And in that moment you think: it was never meant for you. It was meant for him only.
The next morning, when you check your phone, you don't find any missed calls from Chris. You think that what happened last night must have scared him away for good, and, weirdly enough, it gives you a strange sense of relief.
Throughout the rest of the day you keep occasionally checking your phone, mostly because it feels like the right think to do, not because you're actually concerned.
You should be worried. Maybe you should try to reach out. Go to his apartment, even. But you never do.
Instead, you go back to your house and slip in the shower, trying to wash away the smell of fried bacon and burned coffee that always lingers on you after you leave the diner.
Once you're done, you realize you've forgotten your towel, leaving you no option but to walk completely naked to your bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the floorboards.
The blinds in your bedroom are open — as they usually are — but now, for the first time since you moved in this house, you feel a pair of eyes on you.
A shiver runs down your spine, but you do nothing to cover yourself or close the curtains, because there's something familiar about this feeling.
You brush it off, instead applying lotion over your damp body, before finally putting on your clean pj's and going to bed.
Next time you're at the diner, something strange happens.
Tony walks in at the same time as usual, he sits at his usual booth, and he orders the same banana milkshake.
Nothing is out of the ordinary. Except this time the way his gaze follows you feels warmer than usual, and just as you're about to pour the drink inside the glass, the realization suddenly dawns on you.
Tony's the one who has been looking at you through your window. And he's probably the one who threw that knife at Chris.
You remain frozen on your spot until another waitress squeezes past you, reminding you that you're still in a public place. And he's in the same room as you.
You swallow hard enough to make noise, before pouring some whipped cream over the milkshake, grabbing a straw and walking up to Tony's table.
"Here you go," you said placing the glass down on the table, praying he didn't notice the way your voice wavered.
"Thank you, ma'am," he replies, reaching for his milkshake and accidentally brushing your fingers with his.
You immediately move your hand as if you got burned, and without saying anything else you walk away, busying yourself with other costumers.
His gaze, though, weights heavier than it ever has today, and you can't breath properly until he leaves.
The drive home after your shift is silent — you don't even turn on the radio — but that's fine, because your thoughts make enough noise on their own.
The road that usually seems never ending, today feels uncharacteristically short. Even after turning off the engine, you remain seated inside your car.
Your skin is prickling with a feeling similar to anxiety, but not quite.
Excitement, that's what it it.
Despite the rational part of your brain telling you that you should feel scared, that you might be in danger, and that Chris' radio silence might have been caused by something quiet dark, you can't help but hope Tony will be outside your window, watching you.
So you walk inside your home.
Everything's silent. The only sound that can be heard is the low buzz of your fridge. Despite that, you have a feeling you're not alone.
"Tony? Is that you?" and after a moment. "Is that even your real name?"
Then, from a dark corner, a broad figure emerges. Despite the tactical gear and the mask covering everything beside his eyes, you know immediately that the figure that has been inhabiting the shadows near you for longer than you might expect is none other than your favorite costumer.
"Hi, Tony," you great him, your voice just above a whisper. "Or you wanna tell me your real name?"
For a moment you're met with silence, so long that you begin to wonder whether you got it all wrong and there's an actual stranger in your house. Your heartbeat begins to raise, until he speak.
"Benjamin."
"Hi, Benjamin."
You stand there, staring at each other, until you take a step forward in his direction.
"So it was you, uh? How long have you been watching me?" you ask, but there's no real malice, or anger in your voice. Just plain curiosity.
"Ever since I first met you."
It's weird, you would have expected him to be unwavering, sure of himself. Terrifying, even.
Instead, he sounds almost ashamed, making it difficult for you to believe that he's the same man that threw a knife at your date the other night.
You take another step forward, never moving your gaze from his masked face.
"Are you going to show me you pretty face or not?"
He lets out a sharp exhale, sounding like he just got punched. Experiencing first hand the power your words have over him makes you feel almost high.
When he doesn't make a move to take off his mask, you raise your hands to his neck and do it yourself.
The moonlight shines over his messy locks, and the scar on his cheek catches the light just right, making you want to lick it.
Instead, you let the mask drop on the floor, and begin lightly scratching his chest over his suit, your touch featherlight, almost imperceptible.
"So, you watched me for weeks. What was I doing?"
The way his expression shifts and the tips of his ears redden slightly make your lips curl into a smug smile.
You can see his gloves hands clenching at his sides, almost like he's making an active effort not to reach out. Like he's waiting for your permission.
"You were reading, mostly. Sometimes you would watch a movie, if you were not too tired. Most of the times you were too exhausted to do anything. Other times-" and he stops, his face burning.
You tilt your head, confused by what he might be referring to, until you realize.
"What? What was I doing?"
Silence.
"Touching yourself."
Your grin widens, and your hands shift from his chest to his hair.
"Hm, and how did that make you feel, uh? Did it turn you on? Did you wish you could replace my fingers with yours?"
As you ask him these filthy questions, you tug his hair. Hard.
In response, he lets out a low moan, and his hands fly to your hips, mostly trying to ground himself.
"P-Please..."
The word comes out almost uncertain from his mouth, making your lips curl in amusement.
How the tables have turned. How did he go from being your stalker to begging you to let him touch you?
"Please, what?"
"Let me make you feel good."
His voice is strained, almost as if he were in physical pain.
"You really think you can do that?" you ask mockingly.
He nods, looking so eager to please.
You don't offer him a response. Instead you start walking to your bedroom — the same bedroom he has been spying for weeks — and you don't have to look back to know he's following you.
The mattress sinks under your weight as your sit on it. Benjamin doesn't hesitate before falling on his knees, right in front of you.
He starts soft, gently kissing your knuckles. Then he starts traveling higher, his lips caressing the soft skin of your arms, making your eyes flutter closed.
He then places his hands on either side of your body, steadying himself as he kisses your neck. He keeps getting closer to his final destination, grazing your jaw, your cheeks, and finally your lips.
At first the kiss is soft and tender, until you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer. This seems to be enough of an invitation for him.
The kiss turns hungry, almost desperate. You can feel the weight of his body over yours as he lays you down on the bed. But you don't stay in this position for long.
Taking him by surprise, you flip him over — but you have the suspicion he's right where he wants to be, underneath you.
His hands begin exploring your body, and your own move back to his hair, burying your fingers in his graying locks.
Underneath the layers of his tactical gear, you can feel him getting progressively harder. All it takes is you grinding your hips over his bulge to get another moan out of him.
You keep moving, chasing friction with his clothed cock, trying to ease the heath between your legs.
Surprisingly, he's the first one to break the kiss.
"Please, can I taste you?"
He sounds so desperate you can feel your panties getting even more wet than before.
In response, you take off your pants and your underwear in one go, but when you move to lay on the bed, he stops you. Instead, he moves your hips higher up, near his face.
Without a warning, he pushes you down on his face. Your hands immediately travel back to his hair, tugging them as you let out a high pitched moan.
At first, he drags his tongue from you needy hole to your clit, before laying a kiss on the bundle of nerves.
His movements are unsure at first, like he's trying to memorize the shape of you. Then, when you start grinding on his face, he seems to gain more confidence, and begins to eat you out like a man starved.
Even though you're completely lost in your pleasure, you can feel him moaning and whispering praises into your cunt.
Things like "you taste so good," and, "you're so perfect."
But the closer you get to your release, the darker his words get.
"Ain't no man allowed in your bedroom except for me," or, "he couldn't have made you feel this good," or simply, "you're mine."
The possessiveness in his voice is enough to make you reach your orgasm, holding onto him like an anchor.
The sound of your release paired with the way to keep pulling his hair — hard enough to sting — is enough make him cum untouched in his pants.
After catching your breath, you move from Benjamin's face and roll over, laying by his side.
He moves as well, resting his head in your lap and wrapping his arms around your waist, holding you so tight that you think he might be afraid that you're going to disappear at any moment.
A moment of silence passes between the two of you.
"Benjamin?"
"Mhm?"
"What happened to Chris?"
"I killed him."
A/N: This was the fic! Reblogs and comments are always appreciated, even if it's criticism (as long as it's constructive). I love talking with you angels, so my dms and inbox are always open!
I think Dex would eat you out well past over stimulation, and not even just because he’s being controlling etc etc. No, I think it’d be because he’s so lost in it. I think he’d be straight up whimpering into your pussy, hips flexing while he grinds into the bed, all pathetic and needy and just about ready to cum in his pants because he’s so drunk on the taste of you.
I think you could be crying out above him, over stimulated and near tears, hands in his hair, calling out his name and trying to squirm away and he’d had his arms hooked under your legs, meaty palms pressing down on your hips, brows furrowed while he’s groaning with each lick of your clit. Fuck he loves this, and he loves you, and he needs more.
And when he eventually comes up for air, pupils dilated, lids half closed, and you realize he has cum in pants, chin painted in your release, you’ll only soften.
“Oh baby,” You’d coo, and he’d just let his face fall against your thigh, looking dazed and utterly fucked out. You’d urge him up your torso, kiss him all sweet and messy, the taste of your cum still bitter on his tongue while you urge his sensitive cock into your soaking pussy and oh-
Dex is whining into your neck, grip tight on you while he ruts into you.
Pairing: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter x F!Reader
WC: 4k
Summary: Normally you expect Daredevil this late at night…Bullseye comes in his place
Warnings: 18+, Dark!Dex, Jealous!Dex, Possessive and obsessive Dex....of course....., blood and wounds mentioned, also reader stitches dex up, i'm not a dr don't @ me, masturbation, masturbation in shower, uh, i think that's it, reader doesn't get to have fun in this, fun as in....smex..., srry lol, dex is literally insane i'm sorry he's not mentally well, i need him so bad, i might have to make a part two to this idk, No use of Y/N
A knock rings at your door. You turn from your book, glancing at the clock on the wall. It's late, too late for you to be up with work in the morning. Time lost on you. You want to ignore the knock, but from the time of night -or is it early day- you can imagine who it is.
New York's Devil.
The relationship you had with Daredevil was friendly and informative. He came when he needed things. Things that you had plenty of access to, information, tools, most importantly, your insider knowledge on Fisk. It was something that you didn't enjoy about yourself, that when he had taken over as Mayor, you'd stayed in your position. You remember meeting the tall and dark man, his deep voice raising fear out of you. He'd ask if anyone wanted to leave their position. You think most of the office was terrified to say otherwise to him. The majority of you stayed. You know you had. Despite the feelings of disgust and anger towards your new boss.
When Daredevil had caught you looking through Fisk's files, late at night in his office, that's when your relationship started. Fueled by the resentment against one man.
Your feet carry you to your front door, not even bothering looking through the peephole to see who it is. You swing open the door, expecting the friendly masked face of the Daredevil. Only for your face to fall in shock and fear.
Bullseye is on the other side, bloodied, bruised, smiling. He's unmasked, giving you a full painting of the handsome man in front of you, dangerous as they all come. Smirking like he's got the know of it all. He's bracing his arm against your door jam, the sight of it telling you that's the only thing really keeping him up right. You can't tell where he's bleeding from.
"Is that how you greet him?" Bullseye's eyes trail down your body, taking your attire in.
You don't know what to say, gripping the handle of your door. Slam it in his face and call the police, your brain screams. But fear has got you frozen in time, blood drained from your face, heart stuck in your throat.
"He sent me." Bullseye's voice betrays his pain, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, his arm shaking with holding himself up.
Your lips start to part with a remark, with a question, with something, until the giant man in front of you is pitching forwards, falling. Your arms automatically shoot out to catch him, going under his armpits, catching most of his upper body against yours. The air rushes out of you from his weight, his boots squeaking against the floor as his legs fight to keep himself upright. He has the audacity to laugh before it turns into a pained and weak groan. You can feel the warmth and wetness of his blood on you, staining you in more ways than just physical. Your arms shake with his weight and you barely gasp out,
"I can't hold you up!"
Bullseye lets out another anguished sound, trying to help you help him, as you both stumble to the living room, where he pitches onto the floor, taking you with him. You let out a shrill, trying to catch him and yourself to no use. He takes the majority of gravity, hitting the floor with a hard thud and another amused yet tormented sound. His hands have your waist, keeping you pressed against him. You don't let him keep you there for long, untangling yourself from his weak grip, scrambling up off of him and the floor. His arms drop to either side of his body, sprawling out on your floor. He lets out a long sigh, like he's finally letting his guard down, eyelids dropping to a close. You look at the bleeding man on the floor under you, shocked with how much space he takes up. The blood seeping on the floor under him pushes you from your shock and fear into action.
You spin towards your door, shutting and locking it. Your stomach drops when you smear blood against your white paint and door handle. You look down at your pajamas, shorts and oversized band tee, both drenched in blood. You rush to the bathroom, grabbing towels, alcohol, and a tiny first aid kit you keep under your sink. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, eyes wide with terror, blood stained against the side of your cheek, where Bullseye had brushed his own face against yours. Not dwelling on the way you look, you burst back into the living, dumping all the contents of supplies on to the floor. You drop to your knees, assessing the man in front of you.
He tips his head towards you, shallow breaths quaking in his chest. He watches with curious and tired eyes.
"Where...where are you hurt?" You can't even tell where to start on him.
"Guess you'll have to strip me to find out." The corner of his mouth tips up in a similar smirk you saw on him at the door. Your face flattens in an unamused stare.
"This is no time for joking." You scold him, a breathless laugh from him rewards you. But he's right, you will have to strip him. You stand up, going into your kitchen to grab some scissors, praying to anything that will listen to strengthen your scissors enough to be able to cut through his obviously enforced suit.
You turn back to him, his gaze up at your ceiling, staring into space. Your heart pangs for a moment. You need to call someone. You'd never thought to grab the Daredevil's number. You doubted he'd give it to you anyways. Complicated things too much. But if he really was sent here by him...
You kneel at his side, slipping the scissors under the sleeve of his suit. It takes you far too long, but within a few hours, his shirt and pants are splayed and flayed off of him. You're dipping a warm rag in soapy water, washing the blood off of his muscled torso, face burning with the fact that you hate he's attractive. He's since passed out, his breathing unsteady. He has tears and gaping wounds on his sides, some too deep. You'd done a poor job at stitching, they hadn't taught you this level of care in school, but it was better than nothing. Just like sewing clothes right?
You drip the bloodied rag back in the warm water, ringing it out. You start on his face and hair, unbothered with how messed up your floor was about to be with all this water and blood seeping into it. At least what he was on top of was a rug. Under that, hard floor. You could clean later, granted he didn't die and bleed out in the night. You wished Daredevil would come soon and tell you what the hell happened, but a dark thought kept creeping into your mind before you'd push it out. You didn't want to think about what state he was in. Or why he'd sent Bullseye to you in the first place. You stand up with a grimace, body aching with how many hours you'd spent on the floor, kneeling over him, cleaning him, stitching him, pressing gauze and tape to his sides. Your back screams at you, though you're not finished, you continue on.
Gripping your phone, you call your work with shaky breaths and leave a message that you won't be able to come in in a couple hours. You glance at the balcony doors, the sunlight just beginning to peak. It'd been a long night. You look down at Bullseye, his eyes still shut, his breathing still steady. There wasn't any blood leaking out of him anymore, and you let yourself feel a little accomplished at your work. He wasn't dead. Yet.
You go into your bedroom, ignoring the dried blood caking your hands, and grab a pillow and blanket before turning back into the crime scene. You toss your blanket on the couch, that was for you. And once again kneel with protesting knees, to carefully lift the man's head and stuff the pillow underneath him. Exhausted, you drag yourself up off the floor for one last time and trudge to the shower. You would rather not shower with a stranger on your living room floor in the next room, but you hardly had a choice with how much blood of his you had on you. And you refused to go to sleep with it still caking your body. The shower is hot and relaxing, the red stain washing into the drain. You were too tired to dwell on the morbidity of the situation, exhaustion sapping out all emotion from you. You dress yourself in your bedroom and when it's all said and done, you peek back into the living room. Your guinea pig of a medical disaster unmoved from it's spot. You're not surprised, but a part of you had wondered if he was playing pretend. A deep breath shakes from his passed out state and you sigh too, moving back to the couch, curling up under the blanket you'd brought yourself. This way you could keep an eye on him. You watch his chest rise and fall, before your eyes are slipping shut, sleep pulling you in fast and hard.
---
It's a bird that wakes you, your eyes blinking open, head pounding with the telltale sign that you didn't get nearly enough sleep. Your body aches as you stretch, a frown pulls at your lips as you take in your surroundings. You're on the couch. You sit up, hair a mess from going to bed with it wet, blanket falling with your movement. You turn and look at the floor, the events of last night rushing into you. Bullseye's already looking up at you from his spot on the floor, hadn't moved a muscle except the turn of his head. You stare silently at each other while you gather your bearings.
He looks...relaxed. Sprawled out on your bloodied floor, blue fabric of his suit strewn underneath him. Boxers hugging his waist and thighs, the only piece of clothing on him that you didn't tear off of him. You avert your gaze from his crotch with a dry swallow, scolding yourself in your head. Refusing to ask yourself: what was wrong with you? Your gaze trails up his torso, his ribs littered with dark bruises, one side stitched haphazardly, still some crusted blood you missed on his skin. He watches you watch him, his gaze warm, yet calculated. Amused still. Like everything that is happening is some form of joke only he's in on.
"How-" your voice croaks and you have to clear your throat before speaking again, "how long have you been awake?" You have an eerie feeling he was laying awake and watching you for a long time.
He lifts one shoulder in a shrug.
You sigh, "Okay...how are you feeling?" You stand from the couch, stepping over him to go into the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water. You drink while he stares from the floor.
"Like I got my ass kicked. And slept on the floor."
You make no remark, filling the glass back up with more water to bring to him. He licks his lips as you walk towards him, careful to not spill. With an aching body, you kneel once again, hand coming up underneath his head to help him sit up. He groans, but doesn't say anything as he takes a sip from the glass you put against his lips. You pull the glass back as you let him swallow before offering some more. He takes about three or four drinks before he's shaking his head no more. You set the glass down besides you, far enough that either of you won't tip it. You were careful like that, always thinking ahead just in case. He liked that. He almost wants to preen when your gaze trails his body, his muscles twitching like he can feel the weight of it on his skin. He watches you blush and look away, trying to seem unafflicted, but he saw. He knows. That knowing smirk shows up on his face and you can't meet his gaze while you talk.
"I...stitched two of your wounds. I don't know how well I did, but I really think you need to go to the doctor or something." You look towards your kitchen, trying to gather your thoughts and composure, doing a pretty bad job at it too.
"You're kicking me out?" he can't hide the bite in his tone. Did you kick out the Daredevil too? He can't help but feel aflame with jealousy as he watches you turn back to him a frown, obviously confused at the way he talked to you.
"No." You state, trying to gauge why he reacted that way. "Well," you bite your bottom lip while you think and you miss the way his pupils dilate at the sight, "I don't know. I have no idea who you are. Why you're here, what happened last night --" You start to get defensive, puffing up a bit as you rattle on before he cuts you off.
"Matt sent me. Said you were safe. We got into trouble last night."
You try not to react to his name. You'd never known it. "Matt..." you whisper, tasting his name on your breath. The masked vigilante Daredevil was named Matt. Such a normal and common name. You'd always wondered what his name was, after long nights going over stolen paperwork together. Questions ringing in your mind that you'd never had the courage to ask.
He watches you think of his...whatever Matt was to him. And hears the way you say his name. He grits his teeth, jealously tightening in his chest like a snake wrapping around him. He gave you his name and you were sitting there in La La Land thinking of him, while Dex was right here, bleeding and bruised on your living room floor like a stray you'd pitifully allowed in.
"I'm Dex." He grits out, your attention going back to him with another shocked look. Good, back on him. Push Matt out of your mind. Think of him, only him, put your soft hands back on him--
"Dex." You say his name with a small smile, giving him yours. You shudder when he says it back to you, something dark in his voice. Like he owns it now. You turn away from his burning gaze and almost catch yourself glancing back down at his boxers, your eyes shooting back up at the ceiling.
You clear your throat as you hear a shaky chuckle leave the man in front of you, "Okay, Dex." You sigh, gathering your own dark thoughts. You didn't know him, why were you thinking this way? Thinking about his large hands on you. His muscled torso pressing into you, his arms caging you in. You stand, trying to move these thoughts away, far away. "Can you stand?"
Dex stares up at you, burning arousal coursing through his veins, his dick hardening into a half mast as you stand above him. Curious. He never knew he'd enjoy that, a girl like you standing over him. He wants you to place both of your legs on either side of him, his fingers twitching as he thinks about pulling you over him. He watches a frown cast over your face, nose crinkling and brows furrowing.
"Are you okay? I feel like you hit your head." You reach a hand down, palm up, in an offer to help him stand.
He wets his lips and sees you follow the movement with your eyes, pink dusting across your cheeks. "Probably," he replies as he sits up slowly, his elbows coming up to support him. He groans as pain shoots through his body, doing nothing to drown how badly he wants you in this moment. He moves slowly, pulling oxygen through his lungs as he tries to keep himself under control and focus on moving with as little pain as he can. He refuses to grab your hand as he stands, suddenly towering over you. You swallow and step back a bit, taking in his large stature, refusing to let your eyes wander from his face.
His hands clench at his sides, suddenly itching to reach out and touch you as you look up at him with something a little bit more than fear. You take a breath to steady yourself, and his lips twitch with a smirk again. Your face flattens, not liking how amused he finds this situation.
"You really need to go to a doctor or hospital or something. I'm not a professional in what happened last night."
He looks down at his wounds, not seeing anything wrong with them, "Why? You did a good job. I'm not dead. Not bleeding out anymore."
You look down at his stitched side, hands reaching out to touch the bruising around it. You don't pay attention to the sharp inhale he takes, assuming he's flinching only from the pain. "Sorry," you mutter, pulling your touch back, but keeping your gaze on the stitching, not seeing the shudder that racks his shoulders as his pupils practically consume his eyes, "What if it gets infected?"
While you're worrying over his side, he closes his eyes with a clenched jaw, trying to remain unaffected. Did you touch Matt like this? The thought burns into him. He grabs your wrist when you go to touch it again, your attention shooting back to him.
"It won't. We'll keep it clean." His voice is husky, low, and you keep assuming his reactions are caused by his pain. Not by you.
"We?" You ask, suddenly incredulous.
"I..." Dex pauses, dark ideas coming to him. He shouldn't. But he will. "I don't have a place to stay. Matt said you were safe." Repeating what he'd said earlier.
You bite down on your lip again, the sight almost infuriating him. Fuck, didn't you know what you were doing to him? His grip tightens just briefly on your wrist, making you stop as you look up at him worriedly.
If the Daredevil...if Matt trust you this much, to send his injured friend, to tell him that you were a safe place...then how could you deny him? It could hurt Matt, whatever he was doing. You trusted the Daredevil. You trusted Matt. Therefore, you'd trust Dex. The decision in your mind comes to your expression and you nod, suddenly resolute. But firm.
"Okay. You can...stay here. I don't have a guest bedroom though, so-"
"We can have a sleepover in your room."
You laugh, the absurdity of the situation, the relief of knowing this stranger was okay, the lack of sleep, all of it, comes out in a release. Your laugh peals off into a giggle, hand waving him off as you turn into your kitchen. "You're silly, Dex." Not knowing he was dead serious, your back turned to him as you look through your fridge, "I'll make some breakfast. Go take a shower, okay? Then I need help with that rug when we're done."
Dex watches with dark eyes as you hum, guard down and back to him as you pull out eggs from the carton. Busying yourself with making him food. He rolls his shoulders and neck, trying to shake off the tension consuming him. He's lucky you don't turn around when he's palming his aching and throbbing cock through his boxers, your hips swaying with a song you're still humming. Sure, he'll take a shower. Use your shampoo. Think of you naked in there. Maybe he'll take his time. Release himself with you in the room next to him. Maybe he'll get caught. His hand grips around his cock, making the blood rush to the tip. He almost groans. Turn around. He begs you in his mind. You don't.
By the time you do, he's already disappeared into your bathroom, shower turned on. You have no idea the kind of person you'd just let in your space and house. Into your life. You're blissfully ignorant, beating the eggs into a scramble, happy to be of service to something greater than yourself. To be helping Matt. All the while the dark stranger is slicking his cock with your body wash in your shower, thinking about how he can't wait to get his hands on you. How he'd lied about what Matt said. He bites back a moan when his dick throbs in his soapy hand, balls pulling up tight. Not yet, he chides himself, slowly his rhythm as the blood from last night washes away, water cascading down his back.
Lied about Matt knowing he was here. Lied about him saying you were safe. In fact, the Devil himself told him to stay away from you. That you were too good. He knew then you were something Matt wanted to keep to himself. He didn't know where Daredevil was now, maybe worse off than he was last night. All he knew was he got to you first.
"Dex?" Your voice calls from outside the door.
Your voice and the shock of hearing you makes him gasp, his cock jumping in his hand at the thought of you walking in. His head falls forward as his hips twitch, unable to stop himself from fucking into his grip, his balls tightening up again.
"Y-yeah?" He moans out, needing you to talk to him more.
You have your head close to the bathroom door, not pressing your ear against it, but close enough so you can hear his reply. You frown, upset that he sounds in so much pain. You'd be sure to get out some ibuprofen or some other pain med out for him.
"You okay?"
It fills him with such need to hear how concerned you are. How cute. His dick leaks with precum, his fist dragging down the length, his thumb swiping his tip when it eases up before fucking back down the shaft. His movements getting jerkier and louder, not able to bring himself to care if you catch on to what he's doing in here.
"Fuck." he curses lowly, before he's replying a little bit louder for you to hear, "Yeah. Yeah. I'm good." A groan falls from his lips before he can catch it, his orgasm building at the base of his spine. He needs you to talk one more time, once more, he's right there--
"Well, breakfast is ready and I have some clothes set out for you-"
He doesn't hear what else you say, his orgasm seizing him up, cock throbbing in his grip, hips fucking into his grip like he wishes it was your hot and tight pussy wrapped around him. He bites down on his bottom lip so hard, hard enough to taste blood as he tries to keep the devastating moan in his mouth. His cum shoots out of him in ropes, spilling in your shower, balls tightened up so much he loses his breath. He shoots a hand out against the shower wall, keeping himself upright, panting as he comes back down.
"I'm coming, sweetheart." He calls out to you with a biting smile, one you can't see but can hear in his tone.
Your face is flushed, thighs pressed together, not really sure what you'd just heard but you could hear his insinuating tone. You say nothing as you turn back to your kitchen, trying to catch your breath. He wouldn't do that. Surely not, if he was a friend to Matt, he'd be nothing but a respectable man. You convince yourself it was nothing but the pain, and you sit down at your table, ready to eat breakfast, not knowing one bit of better. Not realizing you'd let something, someone, dark and dangerous in.
He comes out, dressed in loose sweats, missing a shirt still. A hungry expression on his face that finds you wondering just how starved he is. A smile that reminds you of a shark spreads across his lips as he asks,
Summary : Dex is convinced that he‘s bad for you, but maybe you were made for each other.
Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : Freak4freak!!!! Hurt/comfort(?) Major sex themes, dark romance, codependent relationship, obsessive attachment, Sex is very much described (explicit, but no anatomical detail), hostage backstory, handcuffs/restraint mention, Stockholm syndrome discussion, guilt, panic/anxiety, morally questionable romance, vomiting mentioned (not as a sex act), drug mentioned but no drug use, chase kink mentioned, cursing (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 2.9k
Notes : This was supposed to be an impromptu 500-word blurb I wrote while listening to “Free” by Florence and The Machine but I went overboard. This is probably my most explicit fic yet. Enjoy!
The first time you told Dex you loved him, he had thrown up.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
You had said it in his kitchen, half-asleep in one of his old FBI shirts, barefoot with love bites on your neck, reaching for the coffee like you had any right to look that adorable in a place he lived. Like his apartment was not a place where he planned to kill people. Like his hands had never done anything worse than skim under the hem of your shirt and pull you close.
“I love you,” you had said, casual as breathing.
Dex had gone white.
Then he had walked very calmly into the bathroom with one hand over his mouth and vomited until his ribs hurt.
Because yes, he loved you too.
He loved you so badly it felt like his body had mistaken affection for a terminal illness. He loved you until being away from you made his skin crawl. He loved you so much it made him cruel to himself. He loved you so much he wanted to crawl out of his own skin because wanting to keep you felt like a crime. He had wanted to be loved his whole miserable life, and then when you came along and loved him, he wouldn’t fucking trust it.
Because there was no way you loved him back.
Not really.
Not if you were whole.
Not if he had not done something to you first.
Because the first time you met, he had broken into your apartment. After all, your window had the perfect sightline into the building across the street.
Because you had caught him in your living room with a mug in your hand and sleep shorts riding high on your thighs, and he had looked at you like you were a small obstacle.
“What the fuck—”
His hand covered your mouth before you could get any louder.
“I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely, because he was one of the good guys now. “I just gotta do this one thing.”
You bit his palm.
He hissed, then caught your wrist and handcuffed you to the exposed water pipe under your kitchen sink.
He flexed his bitten hand once. “I said sorry.”
You glared up at him.
That day, you should have screamed yourself hoarse.
Instead, you had talked for six straight hours.
You. Fucking. Yapped.
Like a pomeranian on cocaine.
You had insulted his boots, his posture, his insane audacity. You demanded coffee. You asked if the gun was compensating for something (you later found out it was definitely not). You asked if he always tied women up before breakfast or if you were getting special treatment. You even threatened to bite him again if he came too close, then immediately asked if he was single.
Dex had sat by your window with a rifle scope pressed to his eye. He was pretty sure he fell in love somewhere between the twelfth complaint that your ass was sore and the twenty-first threat to sue him.
So now, eight months later, with you under him, legs wrapped around his waist and your body taking him so well he could barely breathe, all he could think was…
He had done this.
He had broken something in you.
Still, he moaned your name. You were perfect beneath him, pleasing him so well that his own voice kept dying in his throat every time he tried to speak. He could barely form the guilt into words because you kept squeezing around him like your body wanted him closer than close, like every thrust dragged a sound out of you that went straight through his cogmium spine and lit him up from the inside.
“You don’t love me,” he suddenly rasped, because of course he had to bring it up again while he was inside you.
You laughed, but it broke into a moan halfway through when he moved again, and the stretch of him made your whole body seize. “Dex…”
He choked on the spit buildup in his mouth because he was drooling at this point, his hands fisting in the sheets beside your head. “Fuck,” he breathed, voice ruined. “Don’t—don’t say my name like that.”
You tried to answer, but he was too much, too deep, fucking you into the mattress hard enough to make the bed frame knock harshly against the wall like every thrust was an argument he was losing.
“You’re so… hmph,” His forehead dropped against yours. His voice cracked. “God, you’re so fucking tight. I can’t think when you— when you feel like this.”
You could barely hear what he was saying, you just dragged him down by the neck and kissed the scar on his cheek. You were practically making out with it, because hyperfocusing on it helped bring you back to earth. “Dex… fuck!”
His whole body jerked at the sound.
“Don’t,” he rasped, but he didn’t stop.
His hips kept driving into yours, deep and rough, punching the breath out of you until your hands pawing at his skin. “Don’t say it like that.”
You tried to laugh again, but it came out as a shaky gasp when he pushed deeper. “Like what?”
“Like you, hmm.” His head dropped now, his mouth dragging wet and open against your throat. “Like you love me.”
Your nails dug into his back, giving his back scar company. “I do.”
Dex’s brows furrowed like you had hit him.
His pace faltered for half a second. Then the panic caught up to him and he thrusted harder, like he could outrun the words by burying himself deeper inside you. “N-no.”
“Yes.”
“No,” he said again, and it came out so small it was nearly swallowed by the filthy sound of his body moving against yours. “You don’t know that. You don’t know what this is.”
“I know exactly what this is.”
“You don’t.” His hand grasped the sheets. “You can’t. You can’t love me.”
You were struggling to keep your eyes open. He was stretching you so much every thought came apart before it finished forming, pleasure dragging through you hot and heavy, making your thighs shake around his hips.
Still, you forced yourself to look at him. “I do love you.”
Dex looked like he might be sick again.
Every time.
Every fucking time you said it, even if it was a hundred times a day, his heart broke a little. Like his body wanted the words and his mind rejected them. Like being loved by you was too impossible to fit inside him without tearing a wormhole open.
“You hear y-yourself?” he demanded, breathless, furious, hips still snapping into yours. “You hear how insane that sounds?”
You moaned, head tipping back against the ridiculously expensive pillows he had bought you because his last one ‘made your neck a little stiff’ once.
He groaned at the feel of you tightening around him. “Fuck… don’t—don’t do that.”
“I… ahh, can’t help it,” you managed, voice shaking. “I fucking love you.”
“No, you don’t.” He sounded almost angry now, but all of it was pointed inward, all of it soaked in guilt. “I cuffed you to a pipe. I— Fuck— scared you. I held you hostage and now you’re here, telling me you love me while I’m—” His teeth clenched, his body shuddering over yours. “While I’m doing this to you.”
“You’re not doing anything to me,” you forced out, gripping his arm hard enough to make him hiss. “I asked for this.”
His eyes burned. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“It does, actually.”
“You’re sick.”
“So are you.”
He laughed once, but there was no humor behind it. He then buried his face in your neck as his pace got messier. “I think I gave you Stockholm syndrome.”
“You didn’t,” you insisted. It was barely a sound, it was a miracle he heard you at all.
“You’re not listening.”
“You’re not thinking.”
“I am thinking.” His voice cracked on the last word because you tightened around him again and his forehead dropped to yours, “Shit, you drive me insane.”
“Good.”
“No.” He kissed you hard. “No, not good. That’s what I mean. You make me like this. You make me want too much.”
“You already want too much.”
His hips stuttered, and you saw the guilt pass over his face at once.
Then he drove into you harder. You cried out, and his eyes went dark.
“There,” he said, voice ragged. “That. You should hate me for this.”
“No, Dex.” Your hands slid up, catching his chin, forcing his face close to yours while he kept fucking you breathless. “You didn’t give me Stockholm syndrome. I. Love. You.”
He shuddered. His mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Then a broken moan as his body betrayed him again.
“You don’t,” he whispered.
“I do.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“You’re perfect.”
“I’m not.”
“You are to me.” His voice sounded raw, almost boyish in its disbelief. “And if you love me, then I did something to you. I had to. I had to have broken something, because there’s no– hnggf— no other way.”
Your chest tightened.
He was still moving, still taking you apart with a rhythm so desperate it bordered on punishing, but his eyes were wet. His eyes filled with self-hatred. He looked like a man starving at a feast and hating himself for opening his mouth.
“Fine,” you gasped. “Have it your way.”
Dex went still for exactly one second. Not fully, and definitely not enough to pull out. Then his body reacted before his mind did and he thrust harder.
It was as if the sentence had scared him so badly he had to pin you beneath him with his weight, his mouth, his hands, his hips. Like if he stopped moving, the words would become real enough to take you away. “W-what?”
“Maybe— hm, maybe you did g-give me Stockholm Syndrome,” you said, voice shaking, half from pleasure, half from fury. “Now what?”
His breathing turned ragged.
“So what, huh?” Your nails dragged up his neck into his hair, combing his scalp “You gonna tell me to go?”
Dex’s face soured. “No.”
“You gonna leave me?”
“No.” The thought of it made him sick. You could see it. You could feel it. His whole body tensed, his grip tightening, his hips losing rhythm for a moment before coming back rougher, deeper, more desperate.
Leaving you was the one noble thing he kept threatening himself with, and the second you suggested it, it destroyed him.
“No,” he said again, like he hated you for making him admit it. Like he hated himself more. “Don’t f-fucking ask me that.”
“But that’s what you’re… you’re saying.” You were so close now you could barely speak, words breaking apart every time he drove into you. “If you really think you ruined me, then stop.”
Dex’s eyes locked on yours.
Your mouth trembled into a cruel little smile. “If you really think, you— shit, you broke me, t-then stop fucking me.”
His breath hitched.
He didn't stop.
You felt it in the way his body went even harder, even more frantic, like the command had gone straight into the darkest, neediest part of him and went feral.
“I-if you think you’re bad f’me, then get off me,” you whispered, mean and gentle all the same, by his ear, close enough to lick the lobe. “Then don’t touch me. Don’t kiss me. Don’t come in me, because we b-both know you’re— hmphh— planning to.”
Dex groaned, tortured, burying his face against your throat.
“No,” he rasped.
“No?”
“No.”
“Thought so.”
He kissed you then, hard enough to steal the rest of the taunt from your mouth.
It was perfect after that, fucking perfect and awful. Your bodies slick with sweat, his hands gripping your hips like he was trying not to bruise you and failing at restraint in every other way. He fucked you like he was confessing and denying the confession in the same breath, like every thrust said mine and every sound said I’m sorry.
“You should run,” he rasped.
“You’d follow.”
His eyes burned.
You smiled up at him, breathless and shaking. “And I’d let you c-catch me. I’m fucking into it.”
Dex looked ruined.
His rhythm stuttered, and for a second you thought that was it, that he was going to fall apart right there, but he grabbed your hips and flipped you with quick motion that left you dizzy.
Then you were on top of him.
Your thighs trembled on either side of his hips, your hands braced on his chest, and Dex looked up at you like you were killing him. His face was flushed, eyes wet, mouth parted as you sank back down onto him.
“Say it,” he said, voice destroyed.
You moved over him, thighs shaking, pleasure making you unsteady. “Say what?”
His eyes opened, furious and starving. “Say– fuck, baby— that you know you could leave and I’d let you leave.”
Your chest tightened. “Dex.”
“Say it.” His grip tightened, not forcing, just holding on. “Say you know the door isn’t locked. Say you know I’d let you go.”
You stared down at him. At the man who had wanted love so badly it made him monstrous with fear. At the man who still believed wanting you was worse than first degree murder. At the man underneath you, shaking, begging for proof that this was not captivity while his body betrayed how badly he needed you to stay.
You leaned down until your mouth brushed his.
“I know I can leave,” you whispered. “I-I know you’d let me.”
His breath collapsed.
Then you kissed the corner of his mouth without ruining your rhythm. “But I’m not.”
Dex broke under you.
His hands slid up your back, dragging you down against his chest as he thrust up into you, needy and completely undone. You could barely keep up, barely keep speaking, your forehead pressed to his as you rode him.
“I love you,” you said again. and this time, he knew you meant it.
That was what did it for him. Not the heat. Not the filth. Not the way you tightened around him or the way he was losing himself inside you, though that helped.
That.
The idea that you had chosen him with all your mind intact.
Your breath hitched first, then your whole body seized, pleasure dragging you under so good that your words turned into a ruined little sound against his mouth. Dex’s eyes widened, his hands clamping around your waist as you went through it.
“There,” he rasped. “There she is.”
You came too hard to answer him properly, nails digging into his chest as he kept you there. “There she is,” he said again, almost broken. “That’s my girl.”
And then Dex broke completely.
He buried his face in your neck as he came after you, groaning your name like an apology, like a confession, like it was the only prayer he knew. His body trembled beneath yours, his arms locked around you while he spilled inside you, holding on as if letting go too soon might make the whole thing disappear.
Afterward, Dex held you like an apology.
His mouth fluttered gentle kisses over your temple, your cheek, your throat, frantic in little broken bursts. He kept whispering sorry so many times the word stopped sounding like language and started sounding like breathing.
You were half-asleep against his chest, your fingers tucked loosely against his ribs.
He kissed your forehead again. “Sorry.”
You breathed out, half asleep. “For what?”
Dex went quiet.
He didn’t know, not really. He was sorry for the pipe, for wanting you too much, for needing you in a way that still scared him. He was sorry for looking at your love and thought it must have been damage.
His arms tightened around you.
You opened your eyes just enough to look at him. His face was ruined, like he was still trying to decide whether holding you counted as selfish.
You giggled softly.
“Dex,” you murmured, eyes half-lidded, fingers lazy in his hair. “If I’m broken, then I was broken when you found me.”
His breath stopped.
You smiled like that was supposed to comfort him.
Instead, it crawled into him and settled under his ribs, sweet and infected. It made his heart thump hard against his ribs. It made the guilt twist, mutate, turn into a warm and fuzzy feeling. Because there you were, looking at him like he wasn’t the man that had ruined you, but the man that had finally made sense. Like whatever was wrong with you had looked at whatever was wrong with him and fuckin’ purred.
Dex stared at you, eyebrows relaxing.
You touched his face, thumb dragging gently over his cheek scar, and he leaned into it before he could stop himself.
Pathetic. So utterly gone for you.
“I love you,” he said.
It came out hoarse.
You shrugged like you knew all along.
“I love you,” he said again. His hand tightened at your waist. “I love you.”
And for the first time, Dex wondered if Stockholm syndrome could happen the other way around, to the captor instead.
There was probably a fancy word for it. Some clinical term made by people with normal hearts. Something he could look up, self-diagnose, dissect, pretend to understand.
But Dex didn’t care.
If that was what had happened to him, then fine.
He didn’t want it cured.
—end.
Extra note : I’ll start the Dex taglist in the next post, comment if you want to be added!
fbi!ben poindexter has this bad habit of referring to you as his. it comes off weird to outsiders, occasionally, because you obviously aren't an object to be owned; you know, though, he doesn't mean it like that. in his mind, it's an equivalent exchange—he's as much yours as you are his.
my girl, he introduces you to colleagues sometimes. my perfect baby, he breathes into the space between you at night, sweat-slicked chest pressed to yours. so good to me, for me. in the mornings, while cooking breakfast: my pretty girl sleep well? mine, mine, mine.
and then, other nights, he's begging you to say it back, pleading for you to acknowledge that he belongs to only you, pressing your hands to his neck 'til your fingers wrap around it and euphoria fills his veins and you lean down to kiss him and call him yours. when he's bored, maybe at the checkout queue in the grocery store, or waiting in his car at a red light, he presses kisses to each of your knuckles, murmuring something against them you never quite seem to catch—i'm yours. my benjamin poindexter, you say once, in passing, and he's always hated his name, but he's just so flustered, cheeks flushed the prettiest pink, and just this one time, just this once, he might be okay with it.
or he overhears you talking to your friends when he's working in the other room—he doesn't mean to, really, he's just attentive, a good boyfriend—and you say you don't know how you got so lucky; you don't deserve your beautiful boy, and his brain short-circuits, because how dare you say that first part, and what did you call him? you don't make the correlation, though, that night, when he's somehow even more devoted to you than usual, telling you how obsessed with you he is, his gorgeous, gorgeous girl. must be a little pent up, you think, but you don't know how wrong you are.
after the events of s3 you don't expect him to come home, of course not. who walks out of that?
your boyfriend, apparently. much stronger than the last time you saw him, twice as built—you don't know what to expect from ddba!dex. he's obviously different, because that shit back there changes you, and not always for the better, right?
and yes, he's still your boyfriend, whether you're single or dating someone or you have a ring on your finger—not that it matters much, because if there is someone, he'll take care of them before he comes back home to you. neither of you will have to worry about them anymore.
and you're his girl, after all; even if you're scared or horrified or disgusted by his actions, you'll find yourself completely uncaring by the end of the night, when he's holding you in a headlock, firm bicep pressing into your airway and his chest pushed up right against your back. you're in tears, overwhelmed by everything you're feeling, everything you know is wrong (he's an escaped convict, for heaven's sake), and his breathless words are low and urgent in your ear—who do you belong to, c'mon, say it, that's right, my good girl—
and maybe he's a little scared that you'll still leave him after this, maybe he's gone too far. but you're lying under him, boneless, and his arms are braced on either side of you, and you push yourself up on your elbows (with considerable effort) and say, if he's still really yours, won't he kiss you again? and he smiles the biggest he has in a while, because he knows he won—and with you, he always will.
hi im back. sorry. i hate myself too. this man will be the death of me. 0.6k words
Rating: 18+ (eventual smut, mentions of violence, eventual violence ig because this is bullseye we are talking about)
Summary: Dex is your neighbor, and your secret admirer. You need help going to the library, and he easily obliges.
Rain sputtered from outside, Mother Nature spiraling in her fury against the maltreatment with which mankind treated her. Dex did not mind the rain - the strong wind, rare in New York City this time of year, was calming, as it made his exterior world spin just as much as it did within the dark corners of his consciousness.
He wondered if someone else found calm in chaos, too.
He ironed his t-shirt, the blue waves of wrinkled fabric flattening underneath the heated metal. The steam from the handheld appliance was refreshing, but he turned off the switch as soon as his street clothes were as neat as he wanted them to be.
Lightning illuminated his shadow along the apartment wall, and he briefly blinked at it before pulling the shirt over his head, and the jeans over his undergarments and legs. He sighed before leaving, double-checking the refrigerator, each window lock, and the microwave before he stepped through the door, rattling it to ensure the lock was secured before he left.
“Another day out, Tony?” Mrs. Smithers’ brows furrowed in worry for Tony, unaware of the band of knives barely covered by his thin jacket.
“Yes, Mrs. Smithers.” Dex responded plainly, giving her a grin lacking the twinkle in his eye. That he saved for his hobby, the only thing that brought him great joy, if he ever believed in such a thing. “Have a good day.”
Mrs. Smithers shook her head, crossing her arms as she leaned onto the doorway. “Such a busy boy.” She commented. “He could use a good girl in his life.”
Dex didn’t care to listen to her lamenting - he could not care less of what she thought of him at all, actually, so long as it doesn’t blow his cover. His soil for a budding and blossoming romance was cancerous (such that Dex could not experience such feelings, not for long before he plucked at her flaw, and such a flaw poisoned her entirely); Dex did not care for movies with intimate scenes, and scowled at the closeness of two people, unclothed, skin to skin, as beads of sweat exchanged between them.
The first time he experienced attraction was in his early 20s in the military. There, barbed wire slashed across his hands, on the underside of his palms; while he was in the infirmary, he hissed and groaned while receiving bandages, attempting to contain the erection underneath his uniform. The nurse did not notice - or pretended not to notice, for her own sanity - even when Dex breathed heavily and released a small whimper as he met his release, his lips laxing as he relished in his first orgasm.
When discussing such a topic with allies, Dex would avoid eye contact and lie, a curve presenting itself on his lips as he entertained his perverted fantasies:
“She held a knife to my throat while she rode me, too.” Dex explained, goosebumps forming on his clothed skin as he expressed his fantasy to those listening.
“You seriously into that? Damn, Poindexter, that’s just…” one replied, trailing off in disbelief.
“How did you even know that you liked it? Did she just…bring it up one day?” Another asked, adjusting his glasses on his face.
Dex shrugged, his face illuminated by the low-lit lamp. “We talked about it, thought we could try it, and…it just felt right.” Dex’s lips froze, preventing him from discussing the details leading to his ejaculation: kind words spoken only for him to hear, only for him to know.
When he turned the corner, you were descending from the stairs leading to the apartment complex, your kitten heels hitting the uneven concrete with a small clack.
Dex did not directly look at you, but his peripherals allowed him to capture each sway of your hips, skin exposed by the delicious wind that day. Why you decided to wear a midi skirt was beyond him, but he was thankful for such stormy weather to lift the material, revealing your thighs to him in ways he only thought of when he fisted his cock in the shower.
You didn’t even know his name - you knew him, saw him nearly every day on your way to the library - but never bothered to ask him for his name. Perhaps it was the low clouds, high pressure, or just the merciless wind taunting your reckless choice of attire, but you turned around and scooted your headphone away from one of your ears, facing Dex. “Hey.”
He stopped, hands in his pockets. He feigned innocence, turning around to determine whether or not it was him you were acknowledging with your brown eyes and hilltop cheeks. Then, when he didn’t see anybody behind him (of course he didn’t), he pointed to himself, index finger poked at his chest.
He mouthed, me?, to which you nodded. “I see you everyday on my walk, and I don’t even know your name, but could you do me a favor?”
The way you scrunched your nose in mild embarrassment was endearing, and nearly thawed his frozen heart. “Sure.” He passed you the same grin.
“Could you walk with me to the library? I dunno if you go there, but the wind is really unforgiving today, and-”
“Asbolutely.” This time, the smile met his eyes, but the corners of his lips stitched into something you couldn’t put your finger on. “Do you want me to walk behind you, or…”
You opened your mouth to answer, but before you could even speak one word, an abrupt gust of wind picked up, lifting your skirt to reveal your navy boyshorts underneath. Your hands rushed to pin down the thin fabric, and you cursed under your breath, heat rising to your cheeks. “Sorry.” You were truly apologetic, unable to meet Dex’s gaze. “I dunno how to ask this, but could you just…be behind me a little bit?”
Dex cocked his head to the side upon hearing your absurd request. “Not like grinding on me, but just…being there. I promise I’m not a serial killer.”
The last statement drew an unexpected chuckle from Dex, amused at your discomfiture at the situation, and your request to begin with. Still, he obliged, stepping closer to you until his clothed chest was near your shoulders, and you noticed just how large was compared to you. “Don’t get any weird ideas, now.” You warned Dex, although both of you knew you were speaking aloud to yourself.
You placed the cushioned ear piece back on your exposed ear, walking with Dex while humming to tunes you played on your headphones. Dex hadn’t been this close to someone without taking their life, but wasn’t disgusted like he typically felt when strangers attempted such proximity.
He noticed new things about you, too: your hair had notes of peach and bergamot, while your thick black cardigan draping over your shoulders and dropping at your hips was soft and carried notes of vanilla and cinnamon; the spice of cinnamon drew him in naturally, reminding him of a home for which he longed, and he wanted for himself.
When the wind began to blow, you would walk slower, closing the gap between you and him; Dex didn’t notice at first, only picking up the hint when he felt something brush against his clothed crotch. You turned your head to give him a sympathetic grin and a soft, “sorry!” as you waited until the wind dwindled for you to widen the gap between your bodies.
You did it again each time the wind picked up in force, driving your bodies together; you didn’t notice that after the third time, Dex’s hands moved to hold your hips, his fingers trembling when he realized his actions; you did, however, notice it after the fifth time the wind picked up, the gust so unforgiving that it howled when it flossed between skyscrapers - you felt heat on either side of you and looked back up at Dex, whose eyes widened as he quickly retreated his hands.
“Thank you.” You grinned back at him, replacing his hands on your hips. The way you gazed at him was innocent, a vulnerable gazelle in the wooded sunrise, and he wanted you to stare at him like that forever.
Yet your focus was once again on the trek to the library, one foot in front of the other. Dex watched your footwork from above, noticing how the tip of your booties flared each time you took a step, and how they poked slightly out each time they pressed against the concrete; he watched how you thoughtlessly dug underneath your fingernails for dirt and grime, a habit he found revolting, but intriguing, and; Dex noticed how nervous you were. Each time you stopped at a crosswalk, your eyes darted to and fro, your expression sharp and almost wired. He wondered if something made you feel so on edge, and blinked the thought away to temper his rising frustration.
These habits were new to him, only discovered after accepting the opportunity to be so close to you. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, he liked the way your hips dipped in a certain way under your clothes, like an imperfect vase sculpted out of earthy clay. When his grip tightened on your hips, you pretended not to notice, although Dex acknowledged the raised hairs on the back of your neck, and the orange hue forming on your terracotta skin.
“Thank you again for doing this.” Dex didn’t realize you two were on the steps leading to the library entrance, much to his disheartenment. “Really, I know it was a weird request, but I appreciate it.” You were one step above him, your eyes meeting his. At this close range, you noticed the crow’s feet stickered around his hazel eyes, and the strands of gray blending with his otherwise hay-colored stubble.
A corner of Dex’s lips twitched into a smirk. “No problem,” he began before the other end of his lips rose, too, sending you an uneven smile. “Anytime.”
“What’s your name again?” Your black cardigan hugged your shoulders and arms, but did not cover your bare neck, exposed for Dex to stare at while you awaited an answer.
“Dex.” He answered mindlessly.
“Dex…” you echoed. “Nice to meet you.” You presented him a sweet smile, and only then did he realize that he accidentally gave you his real name.
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