Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources
Updated just now with new hand sewing resources (mainly buttonholes) and textbook pdfs on fashion history, fashion illustration, and thinking through designs!
k but imagine Rocky wanting to learn about how humans became the apex predators of their planet so he has Grace “hunt” him in the biodome as an experiment and during it he thinks Grace isn’t trying or taking it seriously which is bad bad bad because this is for research purposes
only for Rocky to get more and more tired as the experiment goes on just to realize that Grace isn’t which makes him panic so he puts as much distance as he can between them and finds a (hopefully) safe spot to sleep and when he wakes up the human is crouching over him like “got youuu” and Rocky has never shrieked so damn loud before in his life
physical touch comes to benjamin poindexter as easy and as natural as breathing. whether it's a hand on your thigh when he's driving, or a pinky hooked 'round yours mid conversation. fingers intertwined with yours as you walk outside, of course, is normal for him. and at home, when he's navigating around you, even though he has ample space, his hand falls to the small of your back as he moves you gently to get around. there's a lazy arm slung over your shoulder, a finger drawing distracted patterns across your skin, his head heavy on your chest at night when he's asleep. and that's just the things he's not really aware he's doing.
sometimes, when he's in a particularly good mood, he'll kiss your lips until you're dizzy and laughing and breathless, then move onto the rest of your face while you catch up on oxygen and your surroundings.
"doin' too much, poindexter," you'll laugh, and he'll lean back in to lick a broad stripe up your cheek, because he's nothing if not unconventional, and if you even try to wipe it away, he'll just lick your hand too. or maybe you're not giving him enough attention, maybe you're busy working—most times, you don't even notice him, because of his training. not until he's sinking his teeth into your limb of his choice anyway. on luckier occasions when your camera's off in a meeting, you stifle your surprise until you're able to mute yourself and complain; on important calls, though, he's sitting on the floor by your legs, and you don't even feel his hand wrapping around your ankle, or his breath ghosting over your skin before pain shoots up your leg. on more than one occasion, you've been asked if everything's alright, and when you glare down at him later, all he does is grin back up at you. the worst part is you can't even stay mad at him when he's so beautiful and you're so in love.
the biting also continues… elsewhere, like he's determined to mark you as his territory. even if he's careful to make sure that all of them—okay, most of them—are hidden, he revels in the thought that your knowledge of them will remind you of him, regardless of where you are. oh, and the dull ache of the bruises left in his wake that are totally by accident because he definitely doesn't know his own strength is nice to think about too—even though you both know better than that.
and then there are the bad days. he'll walk in, silent, and you don't say anything, either. you know him too well for that—if he doesn't want to speak, he won't, and if you keep asking you'll just make it worse. so you wait, and he pulls you onto his lap and buries his face in your neck, and your hands are in his hair, and he just stays like that until he feels better—your weight on top of him is more comforting than he'd ever admit. rarer events are when you lose track of time, pass out without realising, and wake up hours into the night, a cramped tangle of limbs. but your shared warmth is more comfort in one sitting than he's felt in his life before you, so who is he to complain?
he wakes up before you almost every morning, but even then, you're conscious enough most of the time to feel his fingers trace over your face, like he's trying to memorise you, like he hasn't a million times over already. and when you pad into the kitchen, still half-asleep, he lets you drape yourself all over him and catch a few more minutes while he cooks breakfast.
you've changed his routine; he's always hated change, but he'll be lying if he says he's not grateful for it this time.
you nudge him with a toe, he lifts you up effortlessly into his arms and doesn't put you down, your feet are in his lap as you watch a movie while he traces those same idle patterns across them—you ask him, "what's that supposed to be?"
he pauses, smiles in the way he does when he knows something you don't.
"i'm sure you'll figure it out," he says unhelpfully. and it's simple—too simple, maybe, 'cause you feel stupid when you figure it out. i mean, you should've known what it was, because obviously—
it's a bullseye.
hi guess who. 0.7k words i think i died and went to hell except hell is being obsessed with this man. i actually hated him so much the first time i watched daredevil (~6 years ago) lol guess this is karma. pls reblog to support ur authors !!
Brainrot areas but I'm currently reading Peter Ackroyd's Queer City and aside from being a great (and surprisingly lighthearted) look at queer culture in London it has reminded me that like. I don't actually think this was intentional but reasons to be a contemporary fan of Christopher Marlowe were basically:
there are boys kissing on stage & you can rent them after
no that is the entire reason like they're fine plays but they are more than anything homoerotic plays & people who were big Marlowe fans were effectively known sodomites, it was the late 16thC equivalent of being very into musical theatre
& I just think it's very funny that Hob looked Dream in the eyes and said "I am sexually attracted to men, by the way" and Dream walked off in a huff.
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 h-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-I had to. I had to have broken something, because there’s no– hnggf— n-n-o 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 y-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 m-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 s-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, t-then get off me,” you whispered, mean and gentle all the same, by his ear, close enough to lick the lobe. “Then d-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. S-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!
parts: previously
plot: "It's a blip in your history of otherwise uneventful self-sacrifice. One moment in the grand timeline of your life where he'd helped you take control. No one else could have you in that way but him."
pairing: benjamin poindexter x gn!reader.
cw: canon-divergent from daredevil: born again s2e7, slow burn, crackfic that takes itself seriously sometimes, dark themes, stalking, murder, just straight up murder, detailed murder because dex talks you through it, alternating pov, reader is getting divorced, dex is bored so he gets involved in your marital drama, dex finds you kinda hot when you’re angry, your ex sucks and dex is willing to do something about it, dex cannot be assed to remember your ex's name, asexual!dex agenda a little bit.
words: 9.4k. + 1.5k (alternative ending).
a/n: thank you for reading this ridiculous coping mechanism. love dex and prosper. amen. I listened to these songs while writing this:
I. with a little help from my friends - the beatles
II. smile - lily allen
III. new york state of mind - billy joel
"Let me kill him for you."
The "Let me" bothers you more than the "kill him". You expected a demand. A threat, even. But as you look into the eyes of this strange killer, mapping the openness of his expression (what little you could see of it, anyway), you register his asking permission. As if he needed you to issue the command. To tell him you needed the help that only he could provide.
You'd heard stories of the havoc wreaked across Hell's Kitchen back before you'd arrived in town, and the sudden appearance of a man in dark blue with pinpoint accuracy and an absolute mortality rate. You remembered break room talk about the attack on Bel Aire Diner, about the massacre of AVTF agents left in his wake. You knew not one bullet was fired that day. The story had walked with you all the way home from work. You did not think Bullseye was the type to ask for permission.
Your heart rate spikes when you think of the hairpin he'd given you, too delicate for someone like him to just casually carry around, and you think of the way those agents were killed in the diner. Forks in the backs of their kneecaps, a lobster claw to the brain. A hairpin would've dropped you in that alleyway if he was the one to throw it, and you had stood there like a perfect target. You were only alive right now because…
Because the man above you let you be.
You wrack your mind for some kind of logic. A renowned killer has inserted himself into your failed marriage, taken a criminally low commission to kill you, seemingly changed his mind, and is now asking for you to let him kill your ex instead. And he'd get what? The satisfaction of the kill? For "the love of the game"?
Kyle may hate you now, and you may feel almost as strongly, but he was someone to you once. You needed to be rational. "Prove it." You hiss through quickened breath. "How do I know you're not lying? Prove he wants me dead."
Bullseye looks irritated. Like you'd yanked the dangling carrot out of his reach.
He slips his hand into his pants pocket, drawing out a flip-phone. He snaps it open with his thumb, pressing into the keypad all the while keeping eye contact with you. You look at the screen from the corner of your eye as he selects his messages and hits play. Your ex-husband's voice hits your ears for the first time in over a week.
"Hey, uh... hey. Man. I'm just calling about that thing we talked about at Big Hops the other night. You know... the job I paid you for. Um. Anyway. Please pick up the phone. I can't... I can't let this be for nothing, man. I know you've got a heart. You— you listened when I told you my story. You know I'm the victim here. Right? You... taking care of them would do me a big favor. You know? I won't win this case otherwise. They know that. That's why they're draining me for everything I have. I can pay you more if that's what you need to get it done quick. I just can't lose, man. I'll do anything if it means that bitch suffers for ruining my career. Plea—"
The voicemail ends.
You both sit in silence. The part of you that held on to this all being an elaborate prank dies under the glint of the phone screen, showing Kyle's number under the name "Hairline (from the bar)".
You play his words over and over in your head. Victim. Big favor. Everything I have. I can pay you more. Bitch.
Eventually, Bullseye closes the phone and tosses it aside.
You swallow. "When was that?"
"This morning. He called while I watched you walk out of your apartment, down the street." Your mouth goes dry. "You stopped for a jackass on a bike with a flat tire. He made you late to work. You stayed late, gave me some time to look around."
You can't help but sniffle, feeling another wave of tears coming on. "You were going to kill me this morning."
"I thought about it."
"Why didn't you?"
He'd avoided that question once already. He couldn't dodge it again. "I don't like liars."
That was one thing you and Bullseye could agree on.
You were fine with the divorce, fine with calling this chapter of your lives to an end. What you'd resented was the story he weaved to make you the villain, and the loneliness that followed. It wasn't enough trying to get everyone who knew you on his side? It wasn't enough trying to take your money, too? His ego was so badly wounded that he had to kill you about it. And he couldn't even do it himself.
"I need to think about this." You worry that the annoyance in his eyes would be enough to change his mind about killing you, get the hassle out of the way—two birds, one stone—but he just huffs against the mask. "Tomorrow's the first day of trial. My head... I..."
Bullseye climbs off of you and a rush of cool air hits your skin. You're a little wobbly as you try to stand, as he looms off to the side and watches you.
For a brief moment, you consider your chances of getting to your gun. You hadn't shot the thing since the day you bought it, carried it around more for peace of mind than you did with the understanding that one day you might use it.
You don't get much time to consider your chances against a man named Bullseye, because you hear a shunk! sound as a knife flies into your peripheral and embeds itself in the carpet. The tip of the knife sits snugly in between the trigger and trigger guard. All chances go out the window.
You walk briskly around the couch, into your bedroom, and lock the door behind you.
Dex hears you drag a chair under the doorknob for good measure. He admires that—even if it wouldn't stop him—and considers your apartment once more.
Your bag lays by the front door, items spilling out after your tumultuous entry: a wallet, some lotion for your hands (he brings it up to his nose and purrs at the clean, melon scent), your phone. He picks that last one up and taps the screen.
Your lockscreen is a picture of pink tulips from the park, taken mid-bloom. You've got notifications from family asking how you're handling things, emails about bills, likes on your Instagram story. He doesn't carry around a phone that can look at things like social media, feels too old to care about it, but he thinks if he'd had more time to look into you, he'd have liked to know what you put out for strangers to see.
Dex glances at your bedroom door. In a few slow strides, he crouches outside it and slides your phone underneath the gap. He hears you gasp, and his lip twitches up. "In case you'd like to call for help."
It's silent on your side for a few. Dex is close to putting his ear up to the door to listen for your breathing, when he hears the floor creak inside. He pictures you standing nearby, looking at your phone like it might be a bomb, before he hears it unlock. Then, "Can you pass the gun under too?"
The laugh escapes him. "Don't think it'll fit. Could crack the door open a smidge, I could hand it to ya." You don't say anything for a bit, and Dex gets the feeling that's all you have to say on that.
He removes his mask on the way to your couch, dropping into it with a deep sigh. His muscles ache from scaling his way into your apartment. He rubs his thigh with one hand, looking up at the ceiling as headlights reflect through the windows with each passing car. He watches them pass, counting down the minutes.
Without meaning to, he drifts off.
When Dex wakes up again, you are kneeling in between his legs.
It's not an unwelcome sight. The juvenile part of him that felt little arise from Playboy magazines still feels vindicated, but the way your eyes quickly flicker up to his has him resisting the urge to lock his legs around you and keep you there.
Instead, he focuses on what you're holding.
You've got the look of a deer caught in headlights, his phone flipped open in your hand. From the way the sunlight turns your skin golden, he knows it's early morning. You seem to be waiting for him to do something to you. He shifts his foot, boot knocking against your leg, and you jolt a little. Dex zeroes in on the stiffness of the movement. Your eyes look freshly wet. He leans his back off the couch and comes closer. "What is it?"
He doesn't mean to sound harsh, but he feels the need to get to the point.
"Kyle." You stammer. "He's coming."
Dex snatches the phone out of your hand and looks through the series of texts he'd received, all since early this morning.
Hairline (from the bar)
2:26am
Hey
Hairline (from the bar)
2:27am
So I realized that you never actually confirmed if they were dead or not
I just want to know if you have some proof?
My mind's racing haha
Hairline (from the bar)
2:30am
Was that photo from earlier right before you did it? The one of their back?
I know you said you'd do it in the apartment but if you had to improvise that's cool too
Hairline (from the bar)
2:33am
I haven't seen anything on the news. I'm just curious
Wouldn't surprise me if no one checked up on them for a while, I took the friends in the divorce haha
I'd go check out the scene myself but I don't wanna leave evidence haha
Hairline (from the bar)
3:02am
You're probably asleep
I'd be sleeping too if I could
It's hard enough not telling Chad about it, but if anything goes wrong, he'd be the first one they'd look for, you know? He was chill enough to let me stay with him. I can't do my boy like that
Hairline (from the bar)
3:06am
Tomorrow's the trial. If they don't show up it's gonna be awesome
My lawyer sucks. He doesn't believe in me. Little does he know hahaha
Hairline (from the bar)
6:16am
Hey
6:17am
(1) One missed call from Hairline (from the bar)
Hairline (from the bar)
6:20am
Please fucking pick up
Hairline (from the bar)
6:21am
I'm freaking out, man. I just need to know you took care of it
Anything
Hairline (from the bar)
6:25am
please
Hello???
Hairline (from the bar)
6:32am
Fuck it
I'm heading to their place
I got some shit to get out of there before the cops show up
Hairline (from the bar)
6:34am
If I shouldn't go, tell me right now
Hairline (from the bar)
6:35am
Fuck
I have to be at the courthouse at 8
I'm going
whatever
I'm going and I'm deleting this number
You should too
Dex's eyes flicker up to the little clock in the corner of the screen: 6:47am.
He's yanking you up by your shoulders before you can blink those tears out of your eyes, moving you out of the way as he stomps toward your front door. Looking through the peep hole, he can't see anyone wandering outside in the hallway.
When he turns back to you, you're standing right where he left you, holding your arms to yourself. Dex puts his phone in his pocket and stalks over. "Make your choice."
"I can't."
"Like hell you can't."
"I can't!" You plead, voice cracking. "Don't you get it? He comes here, you kill him, then what? All signs point back to me."
"You'd rather he find you alive and do something about it himself?" You frown, nose twitching like you're trying not to sniffle. Dex grabs you again, and it takes considerable effort to not bruise you in the urgency. "It's you or him."
Your eyes blow wide. "No. No, I'll call the cops and—"
"And what? Tell 'em your ex is trying to kill you? With what proof? With what story?"
He watches you trying to put something together, but you lag like you keep running into a wall. Your eyes scatter across his face, trying to find a way. He sees the cogs turning in your head and knows that there is no answer to this equation that doesn't end with one of you being fucked over. And he's not a hero, those days are long gone. He won't let it be him. He would prefer it not to be you.
The adrenaline pumping through him is setting his veins on fire. He feels his mind going rigid, linear. The way it does when the thrill of the hunt begins to kick in. His hands—which cling to you—itch for a knife.
Dex is now close enough to see every minute shift in your expression. You shake, even as his hands hold you in place. He looks at you, and it's different without the mask in the way. When he forces you to look him in the eyes, he's forcing you to see him. Dex. Not Bullseye. It makes him feel as uncomfortable as it does alive.
"Let me." His voice has dropped to a hush. Dex had never been very good with fragile things, but he has to be if he's to get what he wants. What you need. And then, a word he has not employed in a long time: "Please."
Your mouth drops open. Your eyes flit between his, looking for the catch. If you find one, you don't seem to hate it.
There's an irritating sound at the door, like something jiggling in the lock. Dex looks to it immediately.
"I changed the locks." You whisper, and Dex catches the look of fear in your eyes.
One of his hands drops to a knife at his side. He doesn't need to say it, but the movement is clear: Make your choice.
Dex's jaw ticks in annoyance when he hears soft thumps against the door, like the idiot had given up on lockpicking and resorted to breaking the door down. If a neighbor heard, and you were really dead on the floor like he was hoping you'd be, how would he get out of that one? He knew Kyle was stupid. He was not prepared for him to get stupider.
It shocks Dex when you push him by the chest against the wall, shoving him into the corner behind the front door. He's only partially hidden by the coat rack beside it. You say nothing, and then you unlock the door.
It's difficult to see from his perspective. He can see the hallway through the sliver between door and frame, the shape of Kyle blotting out the hallway light. He can see your hand holding the door open, inches from his own, gripping the knob tight enough that it trembles.
Dex did not like imagining life without sight. He had always been able to draw out the numbers with his mind; figure out the exact angle he'd need to ricochet his knife into someone's throat, the measured curve of his wrist needed to bounce a baseball off a pole and through to the soft meat of Coach Bradley's head. How Murdock handled it—relying only on the sound and the rhythm of the earth—he could not imagine. But he had to. Dex breathes slow through his nose, listening for what he can't see.
He can hear Kyle's exhausted breathing with the weak plank of wood between them both. He listens for the scuff of shoes on the carpet as Kyle finally says, "...Hey."
"What are you doing here?" Dex makes note of the warble in your voice. He watches your fingers on the doorknob.
"I was coming to talk to you before the trial. My key didn't work."
Dex looks down at the floor and notices your gun has been wedged back here with him. It was a Ruger. Small, lightweight. Easy to hide. It wasn't his preference but he imagines putting the barrel to the door, right where he thinks Kyle's head is, and blowing a hole through them both.
"If you wanted to talk about the trial, you could've just unblocked my number."
"Look, I— can I come in, at least? I'd like us to talk like civil adults. Face to face."
Dex rolls his eyes.
He sees the metal of the doorknob beginning to fog around your fingers. Slowly, he nudges your hand with one of his fixed blades and watches your grip falter. He waits. "Yeah." You say, and reach your pinky out to wrap around the hilt of the blade. "In the kitchen."
Kyle walks in, you take the knife behind your back, and Dex shuts the door.
This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea.
You feel Bullseye's breath on the back of your neck for just a second, and then he's slipping behind the couch and out of sight as you watch Kyle walk into your kitchen. You fumble with the knife Bullseye had given you, nervously attempting to tuck it into the back of your pants, afraid it might slip and cut you. Right now, based on that voicemail Bullseye had shown you, that was the least of your worries.
Kyle looks... rough. He'd bothered to dress up in a suit and tie for trial, but it was clear that was the extent of effort he put into his appearance. The last time you'd seen him in person, he'd appeared fine (if not irritated), but now he looked wired. There was something behind his eyes that might've concerned you if you didn't know why he was here.
Kyle takes a seat at your breakfast table, and you take the seat across from him.
Kyle pushes his overgrown fringe out of his face, tucking the black hair behind his ears. Your eyes follow the scope of his cheekbones. Ones you used to kiss in the mornings. "Alright, I'll just come out and say it. We don't need to go to trial."
You blink. "I... agree."
A flicker of frustration crosses Kyle's features. "But I do think I deserve something."
"Kyle, I haven't taken anything from you that you own. You moved out. You took most of your stuff. I want you to take the rest of your stuff. I want this to end, you're the one who keeps dragging it out. What else could you possibly want?"
"That's easy for you to say! You've always been the one with the stability, the money, the nice, cushy job. You've been fine laying at corporate America's heels while people like me—real artists— struggle to make ends meet everyday. I'm... I'm sleeping on Chad's couch. You know Chad. He's had a silverfish problem for two years and he hasn't fixed it yet. It's really fucking gross."
You remember Chad. And the silverfish. "I'm sorry to hear that, Kyle."
"I lost my business, I lost this apartment—"
"Okay, you didn't lose this apartment. You moved out because only my name is on the lease and you said you didn't want to be with me anymore."
"Well, I didn't want to be with you anymore because you never supported my business."
You almost can't believe your ears. The wildness behind Kyle's eyes tell you that he fully believes in what he's saying.
You laugh, bordering on hysteric. "Okay, fine. Let's pretend like we live in a world where I didn't put every cent in my bank account and then some toward your stupid fucking food truck. What about every weekend I helped out when you insisted on going to little league baseball games, parking outside, and trying to sell your hipster falafels to a bunch of eight year olds? Or how about all the grocery runs I did for you? When you ran out of money to pay for your chickpeas because you didn't sell any falafels that week? Who was the one who had to take the subway all the way to that fancy grocery store on Ninth to get you those chickpeas that were twice as expensive as the normal ones because you said they made a real difference in your recipe?"
"They did."
"You treated me like your backup plan for everything. Except there was never a plan in the first place."
"What happened to 'in sickness and in health'? 'For richer or poorer'?" You hear a noise in the living room, suspiciously sounding like a chair scuffing the floor. Or a scoff. "All I'm saying is... you could spare some money to help me out. You know what position I'm in."
"Kyle, I've done nothing but spare you money for the entirety of our marriage. I was there, eating falafel salad every night for a week so we didn't have to toss out food. I singlehandedly kept your business funded because even your friends couldn't spare a few bucks to buy some food off you. I paid the rent, I paid utilities. I supported you in your dream. Have you ever considered that maybe your recipe just sucked?"
Kyle throws his hands up, looking to the side with a scowl. "You want to go there? If I remember correctly, you mom loved my recipe."
"She was just being nice."
He folds his arms on the table and leans forward, staring up at you through his eyelashes. It confuses you how a guy this hellbent on arguing over something so stupid could have paid someone to kill you. Right now, you're angry enough that you'd pay someone to... you bite your lip. "Well, it's okay. I've got a loyal customer base who's interested in my next venture."
That stops you in your tracks. "Your next what?"
A shadow crosses Kyle's face. It seems to dawn on him that he's said something he shouldn't have. He looks away from you, finally appropriately sheepish. "Ethan... you know Ethan. He said... he'll be my partner as I start up a new business. I'm gonna clean up the food truck and start selling street tacos."
You know Ethan, Kyle's best man at the wedding. You could count on a closed fist the amount of times Ethan had paid for the food he got from Falafel Fixins and FIxes.
Your eye twitches. You hear another noise from the living room, closer this time. You do not want to accept that it was a laugh. "Tacos?" Kyle nods. "Kyle. You're not even good at making fucking tacos."
"See? This is why I'm divorcing you. You could never say anything nice about me."
"I'm not going to say this again." You start, shifting in your seat, and you feel the cool blade of Bullseye's knife against your sweating spine. "You take your money, I take mine. You get the fuck out of my life and we don't have to talk about this anymore."
There's a flare of anger in his eyes that almost gives you pause. "You owe me for putting up with you for six years."
It's hard to admit, but your heart seizes at that. "Putting up with you". Like loving you was charity and not desire. You hate that you feel tears coming on again. You couldn't seem to stop crying since last night. "You loved me."
"I did. Until you started shoving your successes in my face, making me feel like I would never amount to anything. And you're still doing it now, 'cause you just can't help yourself, can you? The least you can do is give me a couple thousand dollars to get me on my feet. Then I'll never talk to you again."
"Fuck you."
You feel the table lurch into your gut, almost forcing out yesterday's lunch. You see Kyle jump up, reaching across the table for you with one hand, while the other—
You do not register the screaming at first.
You've got Bullseye's knife skewered through Kyle's hand and the table. You don't even remember giving your brain the okay to do it, but you do know that you saw him coming for you, and something just... clicked. You let go of the knife but it stays firmly in the table, pinning Kyle to it.
Almost as soon as you let go, Bullseye is grabbing the dishtowel hanging off your oven door and shoving it into Kyle's mouth from behind, forcing him back down into his chair. Bullseye holds Kyle's other flailing wrist in one hand, and the other cups Kyle's chin, pressing his head into Bullseye's stomach. The killer looks down at your ex-husband, shushing him gently. There's a small smile on his face as his eyes trail over to your own. "Impressive, sweetheart. Fast reflexes."
"I stabbed him." It's more of a statement than anything. You can't quite believe what you've done. You watch the blood slowly pool around the wound, where blade binds to flesh and muscle. Kyle's eyes are wide, dripping fat tears down his cheeks.
"Real clean." Bullseye leans over Kyle, taking a good look at your work. "I've never seen someone work my knife quite as good as me."
"Please, Bullseye. I—" Kyle screams something into the towel. You think it was "Bullseye?!"
Bullseye's head tilts. "Call me Dex."
It feels so mundane. Bullseye is holding your ex-husband by the chin, cooing at him to stop crying about the knife you'd stabbed through his hand, and he's asking you to call him by (what you think) is his real name. Like this split second decision had made you friends.
You press your hands between your thighs, punishing them for their offense. "Dex... that was assault. I assaulted him. I fucked up."
Dex doesn't seem bothered. In fact, he seems pleased as you test out his new name. "Not from what I saw. It looked like self-defense. I mean," Dex moves his hand from Kyle's chin to his hair and yanks his head closer to the knife, forcing him to look at your handiwork. Hearing Kyle's muffled cries ought to scare you, but... "What were you going to do, cowboy? See who shoots first?"
Dex releases Kyle's hair and reaches into his suit pocket, pulling out a revolver and setting it on the table. Your breath hitches. When you look into Dex's eyes, he's already looking back at you. The question is already there. Waiting.
You look away. "We have to..."
Have to what? You could call the cops and they'd see the gun, and perhaps after a lengthy trial they would figure out what your ex had done and put him away in prison for life without parole. Perhaps your good lawyer would see to it that you get off scot-free, even for the knife in his hand. Dex would not be needed. You could send him on his way with his $350 and freedom from your unnecessarily complicated divorce. Leave this whole thing in the kitchen, between you and the cops.
You could do that.
You push up from the table. Feeling Dex's eyes on you, you take a glance at the other knives on his belt. They vary in shape and size. You reach around and grab the end of the dishtowel hanging out of Kyle's mouth. "Don't scream, or you'll have to explain that gun to the police. And I know you don't have a fucking permit." You warn, and then yank out the towel.
Kyle coughs up some spittle into his lap. "It doesn't matter. Ethan knows everything, and if I don't show up to court, he'll expose you and your new boyfriend here to everyone."
You shriek when Dex suddenly slams Kyle's head on the table, drawing him back by the hair so he can speak directly into his ear. "You told your buddy Ethan everything? Did he also tell you to come all the way here with a loaded gun to finish the job? Well, that would make him complicit. And you see, I've got a long string of texts from you on a phone I've taken great effort to make untraceable. And the voicemail. God, the voicemail. It's almost like you've never had anyone killed before. If I was a cop, I'd start drawing some pretty damning conclusions. Don't you think, sweetheart?" Dex grins at you, giddy with the alibi he strings together.
Kyle's breath shudders. "Then I'd tell them it was you I was texting. Bullseye. They'd put you on death row."
"But it wasn't Bullseye that you told Ethan you were talking to, was it? It was a... a stranger who didn't give you a name. Who you couldn't even really describe because you were seeing double by the time you reached in that wallet of yours and put down the cash. And what makes you think you'd live long enough to say something?"
"H— How do you know I don't have a wire? Maybe all this is being recorded. Maybe the task force would like to hear about how you've been holed up in this bitch's apartment—"
Dex slams Kyle's head against the table again, cutting him off. "I know because you're stupid, Kyle. Six years with this guy?" When you don't react to that jab, he stands to his full height and tucks Kyle's gun into the back of his pants. "I'm not going to ask again."
What Dex didn't know was that you had already made your decision. You had hoped that maybe you wouldn't have to, but as Kyle looks up at you with nothing but disdain, and his words from earlier continue to eat away at your heart, you feel something worse than contempt: rage.
You'd put all your money and time and love into this man who couldn't bother to kill you himself until the final minute. And of course he did, because he sucked at everything else.
You had given him the benefit of the doubt until you just couldn't anymore. And you were tired. Bone-deep tired.
You look up at Dex. He must know what your choice is, because his dark eyes spark with exhilaration. "How should we do it?"
Kyle starts to protest, but Dex is quick to take the towel from you and gag him once more. "Well, we've roughed him up pretty good, so the police wouldn't buy attempted murder-suicide. Gun's too loud, and if we stab anywhere it'll look like murder. Best we can do is slit his throat and stage him a little bit."
"Stage him?" You ask, swallowing down the thickness in your throat.
Dex hums. He holds Kyle still with little effort. "Would you like to watch?"
You stare at him. How you'd gotten here in your life, you did not know. You wish you'd never asked your cousin for that falafel truck. "I... Yes."
Dex smiles, almost proud. He takes out a knife and holds it up to Kyle's neck. "Would you like to help?"
Kyle is whining for mercy, and Dex holds him down like a squealing pig. "How?" You ask.
Dex whispers a "c'mere", and beckons for you to stand in front of him. You move, reluctant, slipping between the back of Kyle's chair and Dex's chest. He's solid behind you, just like he had been last night, but you don't feel the same panic you did hours ago when you thought it'd be your neck he'd slit. Dex hands you his knife. "Here's what we're gonna do: I'm going to hold his hand so he doesn't try to get loose. You're gonna grab his chin to hold his head back," You cup your hand around Kyle's sweaty jaw. "And push until his big, fat head is digging into your belly."
You shiver when Dex's chin finds the spot between your neck and shoulder, his stubble tickling you. You do as he says, and make eye contact with Kyle. He pleads with his eyes for you to let him go. "Like this?"
"Yeah, that's it. You're doing good. We have to use your right hand 'cause Kyle here is right-handed. Now, you're going to put the knife to his neck. A little closer to the Adam's apple; starting at the ear is a tip-off that someone else did it. Usually, when someone slits their own throat, there's hesitation too, so it's okay if you're a little uneven at first. But then you'll want to cut fast. Can you do that?" Dex walks you through it like he's showing you how to change a tire, or fix a clogged pipe.
"I don't know... I..." You feel Dex's hand slip over your own holding the knife, and the warmth shocks you. It wasn't enough that he was holding you, talking you through your ex's demise. He was going to guide the knife with you.
He helps you place the blade under the left side of Kyle's jaw and presses against your hand to make the first prick. You squirm when Kyle screams and the first of the blood begins to pour down the front of his shirt. "It's okay. You're doing good. You just gotta block it out. That's good. Now, fast. On three, with me. One, two—"
You shut your eyes and let Dex yank your hand to the right. You hear the shocked gurgle, and then a loud thump as you release Kyle's head to hit the table one last time. You stand there, heaving breath against Dex, and you squirm when his chin hair rubs against your shoulder. You feel nauseous. You think you may throw up on your ex's dead body.
You feel Dex reach in front of you, shifting somewhat. "You wanna see?" He asks. You open one eye and see him examining your work. The light in Kyle's eyes have already dimmed. From the opening in his neck pours rivulets of deep crimson. Your hand is dripping with some of it, and you cling to the knife like you've got rigor mortis. Was that insensitive to think in front of a dead person? "Not bad at all." He praises. If you were in your right mind (if this was a normal morning, and your ex hadn't brought a gun to shoot you with), you'd have thoughts about all this praise for killing someone well.
"What do we do now?"
Dex's chest rumbles. He plucks the knife out of your hand, wipes the blade with the towel in Kyle's mouth and sheathes it. Then, he grabs your knife-wielding hand and wipes it clean on his thigh. You feel the tough muscles flex beneath your touch and you thank God he lets you go before you feel something else. "Cleanup. Can't leave too much blood on the floor. Table's fine, I've got an idea for that." You watch him strut over to your kitchen sink and peer out of the window, eyebrow raising. "Looks like he brought the truck. We'll be needing that."
"The food truck?" You rush over, and sure enough, he's got the falafel food truck parked in the alley. You wonder if he'd put it there so that he could bring your body out without anyone noticing.
"I'll handle it. Once I've got him in the truck, you call the cops and tell 'em your ex tried to kill you, you stabbed him, and he took off." Dex says with finality.
You look up at him, this seasoned assassin. He'd accepted this peculiar situation of a love life you had, helped you avoid getting killed by your crazy ex, and helped you kill said crazy ex. And now he was offering to take care of the body for you. For free.
"And then what? What are you gonna do with him?"
Dex glances at you. "Better if you don't know."
"So you're just going to help me cover this up? Just like that? And then I just go on with my life, telling no one?"
"If you'd still like to have a life, then yeah."
"What about you?"
"You never saw me."
He grabs a different dish towel from one of your drawers, and you don't have time to wonder how he knew where to find it. You watch him move into the living room, retrieve his knife and your gun with the towel, and then make his way into your bedroom. You try not to bristle when he finds the safe under your bed with just as much ease, tucking your weapon away. He's staging.
When he walks back out, fixing his gloves around his wrists, he sees you still standing in the kitchen, hand stained with your ex's blood. The morning sun is shining through the blinds more brightly now, waking the world. Kyle lies dead a few feet behind you.
"I'm sorry." Is all you can think to say. You feel like even with his generosity, this is somehow your fault. You've dragged someone into your messy marriage and now someone's dead because of it. You think that's how you should look at it. That you were the problem. That even in the midst of your ex putting a hit on you, you were responsible for the scheme.
Dex crosses the room in a few easy strides, stopping right before you. There's such a leisurely look on his face, as if some wild dog inside him had been fed. You only knew because you felt the same. He watches you through half-lidded eyes, almost sleepy and belly-full. "Nah, don't apologize. I should be thanking you. This was fun."
Fun. This was the worst thing to have ever happened to you. This was fun for Bullseye. You rub your nose with your arm, trying to wipe away the snot starting to drain there. "So, what's our story?"
"I'll need another one of your ex's suits. Don't need to fit perfect, just need something that looks like his. And a straight edge razor." You watch him reach a hand up to his jaw, scratching at his stubble. "Could use a good shave."
"So, just to get this straight: this morning—the morning of your scheduled divorce trial with Mr. Kyle... Nuttenberger, you were visited by the suspect at your apartment in Clinton at around seven in the morning. You were alerted to someone trying to enter because you heard what sounded like someone—who you leanred to be Mr. Nuttenberger—trying to shove a key into the lock but was unsuccessful. You then heard Mr. Nuttenberger repeatedly kicking the door, as if he were trying to break in. This is when you unlocked the door."
"That's correct." You sit on your couch, knees drawn together and thumbs twiddling. Inside your apartment, several cops and investigators were coming in and out, taking pictures of the crime scene and dusting for prints. Kyle's gun had already been taken in for further examination.
Of the two cops questioning you, one keeps a very detailed account of your attempted murder. He sits on the edge of your coffee table with a pen behind his ear and a sagging face like a sweet, old bulldog. He'd introduced himself as Officer Harvey. "Mr. Nuttenberger insisted you let him enter, and you guided him to the kitchen where he proceeded to coerce you into settling and giving him a 'couple thousand dollars' to help him start a street taco business, rather than go to trial. You claim he said his lawyer wouldn't be able to win against you if you did. When you refused, Mr. Nuttenberger reacted aggressively, going for a gun he was keeping in his suit jacket. You believed he was going to kill you."
You nod.
Both cops glance at each other, flipping to the next page on their notepad. "Okay... you then claim that you managed to knock the weapon out of Mr. Nuttenberger's hands and onto the floor. You grabbed a knife from the counter and stabbed him in the right hand through your kitchen table. At this point, Mr. Nuttenberger abandoned his plan to hurt you, removed the knife, and ran out of the apartment. We have reports from some of your neighbors saying they saw a man in a suit come in earlier, and believe they saw the same man leaving with a hoodie over his face and a duffel bag over his shoulder. He ran into the alley next to your building to flee in the Falafel Fixins and Fixes food truck you helped him purchase a few years ago. You haven't seen or heard from him since. Is that correct?"
You watch one of the investigators carry out your gun safe, and your heart beats a little faster. "Yes. He, uh.... he's had my number blocked ever since he told me he wanted a divorce. He moved out with his friend Chad, he said. He told me he was done with me, except... then he tries to break into my house and..." You trail off.
Harvey gives you a sympathetic look. He was an older man, and this clearly wasn't his first time dealing with a domestic dispute. Maybe it was his first one driven by falafels, but he doesn't seem too surprised by anything you're telling him. "You're lucky to be alive. Most people in situations like these don't think as fast as you do."
You gnaw on your bottom lip, trying to keep eye contact with the officer. Most people in situations like these didn't have Bullseye talking them through slitting their ex's throat either.
Harvey continues. "Do you know what was in the bag, by any chance?"
"Some of his stuff, I think. I bagged it all so I could give it back to him whenever this was over." You gesture to the remaining bags in the living room, watching the investigators poke through for evidence. "In the rush, I think he just grabbed what he could and got out."
"Well, it seems he left some things too. We found his phone out in the hallway. We're currently working with our investigators to see if we can glean anything. Without any idea of his whereabouts, it's likely he sacrificed it for an easier getaway. Running away in a big food truck with falafels on the side seems counterintuitive, but..."
If they had a warrant to search it, they'd see everything.
"There was someone else." You start, trying to remember exactly what Dex had instructed you to say. "When Kyle was here, he kept mentioning Ethan. Ethan Holland. He was Kyle's best man at our wedding. Kyle kept saying that Ethan knew everything, and that he would cover for him if he got caught. It was strange but now that I think about it, I've felt weird for the past few days. Like someone might've been watching me. It was the worst yesterday."
Both cops perk up. The other cop, a short woman with a low ponytail, stands behind Harvey with her hands on her belt. The name on her badge reads "Weston". "Did you know Ethan well?"
"Uh, sort of. They met back in college. He never... struck me as someone who would be involved in something like this."
You remember the stranger on the street outside your apartment complex, face covered by a Yankees cap and drinking bodega coffee, feet away while you helped that biker. The way his shoulders stood out beneath his jean jacket. The way you felt his eyes burning a hole into you. Too big to be Ethan. Too observant.
"You said you've felt like someone's been watching you. Do you think it could've been someone else?"
Your eyes snap up to hers, and you speak with conviction, "I can't think of anyone else it'd be." Both cops look at you then. "It's just that... ever since the divorce started, Kyle's been telling all his friends awful, untrue things about me. It wouldn't shock me if he convinced his best friend to go along with this. You think you know a man when you marry him."
Weston nods. "It's not uncommon for abusers to try to isolate you, make you feel like no one is on your side."
Harvey stands, nodding to Weston. "Well, we'll reach out as soon as we get an eye on that truck. In the meantime, your trial will most likely be suspended. If we can find the guy, you may be able to file for divorce uncontested. At this moment though, all we can do is wait. Is there anything you'd like to know? Concerns? Any other leads?"
Dex had been true to his word. You had no idea where he was now. It was your relief he hadn't changed his mind and dropped the body off at the precinct just for fun.
You had no way of contacting him.
It shouldn't have made you sad. Out of all the things that had happened to you in the last two days, this was the last thing that should've made you sad. "Just, um... if you find him... tell him the last thing anyone in this neighborhood needs is a white guy making street tacos."
Harvey and Weston's mouths open, then close. Harvey nods, "Thank you for your time."
It's been two months.
Time passes slower for Dex with all the laying low. He spends his days in routine: making his bed, cleaning his kitchen, taking his timed walks around the city. His treat for checking off his to-do list is watching you.
At first, it was precautionary. The police found the truck a day after he'd crashed into a tree with Kyle sitting in the driver's seat, knife in hand, buckled in. He'd wiped down your prints from the weapon, so the investigators assumed that he'd tried to get away, failed, and decided taking his own life would be better than prison. Still, he keeps his eye on the court proceedings and the investigations (and you).
After Kyle was confirmed deceased, the divorce trial had been dismissed and you were legally considered widowed. It was a lot more paperwork, especially because Kyle hadn't thought to remove you from the will, but you made sure whatever you were left went to his parents. It was nice of you to do. Dex wouldn't have done it.
And then there was Ethan. The police didn't waste much time arresting him for connection to your attempted murder, and while he clung to his assertion that he had not been the one Kyle hired, he could not describe Dex because Kyle did not describe Dex. Because Kyle was an idiot.
But as much as Dex wanted to stretch his legs, he also knew that it'd be a while before he could get back to his new normal. So, with measured patience, he began following you.
It was simple: waiting for you to leave for work, walking you there. Reading in the park while you take your lunch. Camping out on the building over as you prepare dinner and head to bed. It was muscle memory from his time with... Julie. He tries not to compare her to you. Tries to not let that fragile thing be fragile.
But sometimes—lately—you surprise him.
Dex hasn't been in a bar since the fateful night he met your ex. He sits in a corner with his back to the wall as always, sipping lightly on a fine bourbon. He's brought the book he'd been reading at the park with you (near you), and every few paragraphs, he looks up to see you and your new friends laughing over shared commiseration over work. After Kyle, you'd ventured to make new connections. He was happy for you. Mostly.
He wasn't jealous. Dex was comfortable with his lonesome. It was uncomplicated. No deep emotions to parse through, no social blunders and unspoken expectations. He was not beholden to anyone. It's what he loved so much about his coworkers in the FBI: they were at arm's length on a schedule. Manageable. Healthy.
And it was hard finding people who he could talk to. The hiding was exhausting. It was easier being alone.
So he's not jealous, because he knows that morning changed you too.
He knows how much you divulge about your ex. It's easier to say you had a "rough relationship" and you "wish it ended differently", and it's necessary to skirt around all the details because talking about that with a regular person would never end well.
And that's how he'll keep you. It's a blip in your history of otherwise uneventful self-sacrifice. One moment in the grand timeline of your life where he'd helped you take control. No one else could have you in that way but him.
Your friends can have you this way.
When you eventually cut the night short, he leaves a tip on the table and waits a beat or two longer to follow you outside, bookmarking the last page of his book.
He keeps considerable distance now that you've been training with that gun more. You keep it on you every time you go outside, tucked discreetly in a bag or the back of your jeans. You keep your keys between your knuckles and, though you don't tell anyone about this one, you keep a knife on your hip. He'd been there the day you walked into a military surplus and asked for something sturdy and easy to hide. He'd watched you practice throwing it into pillows across the room, into trees on your weekend walks through the park where no one could see you but him.
He slips into the building beside yours, scales the stairwell up to the rooftop like he did two months ago, and sets up shop on the ledge as he waits for you to get to your apartment.
You'd learned to keep your blinds closed now, so he only knows you're home when you flick on the lamp. He makes a game of it: timing how long it'd take you to get to your door, get inside, lock it, and survey the area before turning it on. You'd shaved down unlocking and locking by six seconds since he first met you.
And you're full of surprises tonight because, every once in a while, you would open your blinds anyway.
He sees you at your living room window, behind the couch where the fire escape is. He sees you scoping out the alleyway as you always do. You hadn't learned to look up yet. A part of him hoped you never would.
From up here, he could see the you that belonged to him.
You'd replaced the table in the kitchen (he'd learned one night while he watched you wash dishes), so there wasn't much of a physical mark left of Dex there. Something to remind you every morning that he'd been there. Your appointments with your psychiatrist were some of the only bits of privacy he allowed you. Because he knew what losing that privacy felt like. Because he was nice like that.
So he looked for signs of himself in everything. This little routine of yours was one of those signs.
It's a lovely sunny morning, and the bodega on your street was out of jalapeño and cheese croissants. It threw him off a little bit, but he still arrived at your stoop 45 minutes early, coffee in hand, cap low. You'd spent your weekend inside, so Dex was good and found other things to do to pass the time. He'd bought a new book, a diatribe on love and relationships that the bookseller had recommended him after he mentioned helping a friend through a "difficult divorce", and was now leaned back against the wall on chapter twenty.
He takes a break every few minutes to people watch. Spring was in full swing, so there were shorter and lighter clothes out. Pretty soon, you'd be wearing the same. Dex takes a longer sip of his coffee.
He hears the door open beside him and he keeps to the shaded corner provided by the stoop, listening for the sound of your keys clanking in the way only they do. Your shoes scuff the concrete. You must've been wearing sneakers today. Park lunch it is, then.
Dex waits a bit for you to get going, eyes catching on a passage about the importance of connection. Taking those small invitations to build something more.
"Tony."
He doesn't react at first. There's probably a million Tonys in New York City, and half of them probably live in Hell's Kitchen. But... it's your voice saying it.
He looks up slowly, and you're standing there in your spring clothes. You look a little more done up today, but he was right about the sneakers. Your eyes hold him steady. You step closer, and Dex is forced to realize that you are approaching him. You are breaking routine. You notice him.
He hasn't fully revealed his face to you, so he tries to play it off by sticking his head back in his book, roughing up his voice. "Sorry, you must be looking for someone else."
"Dex?" You try, quieter now.
Dex is stuck on the passage: "The truth is, we are human. Even with our misshapen insides. We often miss opportunities to connect out of fear of being cut open for everyone to see."
He glances at his watch—7:47am—then finally raises his head to greet you. "You're going to be late to work at this rate."
You narrow your eyes, then smile as if despite yourself. "I took today off. I'm sick." And then you fake a cough into your fist. "Did you pencil that into your schedule for me?"
Dex blinks. He wonders how long you've been aware to tease him. He straightens up, dogearing his page and tucking the book under his arm. He puts on an easygoing smile. "No, no I did not."
"Well, it's a nice day out. I was going to get breakfast somewhere. Would you like to join me?"
Dex knows this goes against his philosophy of never being a regular, drifting where he can for his own sake but, then again, he's been going against his philosophy for two months. You've come to notice him. He tells himself he doesn't need it, but he does like it. He'd even come to miss it a little bit: being noticed for a good thing.
And what else was he going to do? He was going to follow you anyway.
He heaves a deep sigh. Makes a show of it being such a hassle, and falls into step with you as you begin to walk down the street. "How long have you known?" He asks, kicking a rock down the path.
"Not long. Maybe a week? I saw you at the bar last night."
"That's good." Dex says. "You're getting better."
"Or you're getting worse."
He jerks his head to you when you say that, but you're already laughing, and it feels like this is a you he shouldn't have. The you he'd gotten a glimpse of when he approached you in the park. He doesn't even defend himself, he just smiles.
Suddenly, there's a shrill bell ringing behind Dex. He hears you gasp, feels you tug his arm to get him out of the way, and Dex turns in time to see that same jackass biker from before barrelling down the sidewalk yelling, "Get out of the way!"
Dex has nothing to throw, but he knows you might get hit, so it's enough for him to grab the handlebar of the bike as it passes by, jerking it to a stop so hard that the biker flips over the front and crumples to the ground in a bleeding, scabbed mess.
"Oh my God!" You scream. Dex realizes his mistake as soon as he's made it, dropping the bike like a dog with a shoe in its mouth. He thinks you'll insist to help this guy again, maybe walk him to an urgent care, and it bothers him even more than it should because he'd rather drink piss from a bottle. But then you tug Dex forward, walking around the biker whining for help. "Asshole! Sidewalks are for pedestrians."
You really were full of surprises.
a/n: I included the alternative ending that I didn't end up going with, but I do still really love... and prefer? enjoy!
It's a month later.
It was a fairly busy month, one that your boss had granted you ample vacation time to deal with after finding out about the attempt on your life. Spring was in full swing, and you've only had a few nightmares about killing Kyle.
The police had found the truck a day after it happened, crashed into a tree with Kyle sitting in the driver's seat, knife in hand, strapped in. Your prints were wiped clean from the weapon, so the investigators posited that he'd tried to get away, failed, and decided taking his own life would be better than going to prison for trying to kill you. It was a gruesome sight, they'd showed you the pictures. Bullseye was pretty good at staging, it turned out.
After Kyle was confirmed deceased, the divorce trial had been dismissed and you were legally considered widowed. That also meant all of his belongings became yours because of course he planned to open another food truck, but did not bother to write you out of the will. You hadn't been too happy about that, and had passed on everything you could to his parents who you absolutely could not look in the eye. You packed the physical things into boxes with a letter, and everything else they took after the funeral.
Ethan had been on trial for aiding in the attempted murder, and while he clung to his assertion that he had not been the one Kyle hired, he could not describe Dex because Kyle did not describe Dex.
And... then there was Dex.
No Bullseye sightings had been confirmed in over a month. You didn't know where he would've gone to after crashing the truck, and if he had been keeping an eye on you since then, you wouldn't find out unless he wanted you to.
It felt strange. He'd come into your life like a whirlwind, upending everything you ever knew in the span of two days. And then, just as quickly, he'd gone. It felt about as heartbreaking as a really good one-night stand. Dex had seen you in a way no one else had before—a killer—and perhaps no one else would again.
When people ask you how you're doing, you have to not talk about it. Who could you tell without getting arrested? You hadn't even worked up the courage to write about it in your journal.
So you moved on with your life. Even as you scoped out corners and double (and triple, and quadruple) checked the shadows of your home, looking for him in the dark, you had moved on. You needed to if you wanted to make any new friends.
It's been a month, and you are walking home after a night of drinks.
You keep your keys between your knuckles and your gun in a convenient pocket. You know how to spot bad people who look too long, and you keep close to other strangers.
When you get to your apartment door, you do a quick check of the hallway, but it's almost two in the morning. Quiet enough that you'd hear if someone else was awake right now. You quickly unlock your door and shuffle inside, head on a swivel, and then you shut and lock it behind you with your back to the door. Your apartment is dark. Silent. The blinds are flipped up so no streetlight can get through. You have a lamp turned on by your couch, something you leave on for whenever you're due to get back late.
You comb the room with your eyes, keys still tucked in your hand, but you don't see anything out of the ordinary. A quick check of the kitchen says the same. You walk by every open door, stopping to make sure nothing blended into the shadows too well. Your bedroom returns the same report, and after a few moments of standing in the doorway, you let the warm light of the lamp inside lull you in.
You drop your bag first, then kick off your shoes; you're working on your shirt next, walking over to your bedside table to drop off your phone, when you feel it. Warmth. A vice grip on your ankle.
The world flips ninety degrees and you land on your back with a hard thump, knocking the air out of your lungs. Black stars form disorienting constellations in your vision, but it's not enough to catch you fully off guard.
The next thing you know, you've unsheathed the knife at your hip and thrust it into the hot, heavy weight that climbs on top of you. It hisses out a "shit". You can't blink away the dizziness fast enough.
Above you is Dex. And your knife in his shoulder.
"Oh my God!" You panic, but the position you're in makes it hard to remove the knife. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Dex's teeth are clenched, but you can smell the bourbon on his breath. His eyes are squeezed shut, intensifying the crow's feet that outlines them a little more now. "That was good... you're pretty good." He rolls off you onto his back, looking up at the ceiling with glistening eyes. You immediately get up on your knees to take him in.
He's in no costumes or suits this time. Your knife had gone through a black jean jacket and matching tank underneath, and his face was fully open to you. You could still see his stock of handheld weapons around his waist, tucked into his belt and pockets, but he was lightweight today.
You press your hand to his forehead and he looks at you, his own hand hovering awkwardly near the knife protruding out of him. You shine your phone light in his eyes and watch their slow reaction. "Are you drunk right now?"
"Could ask you the same thing."
You frown. "How long have you been hiding under here?"
Dex's head lulls to the side, but you think it's more from his lax attitude than being inebriated. "Thought I'd check up on you."
Your chest constricts. "Dex. How long have you been hiding under my bed?"
"Just... twenty minutes. Had to beat you home."
You watch his chest rise and fall slowly. "You were watching me?"
The side of his mouth quirks up. "Sometimes."
You don't know what to say to that. So instead, you look at his shoulder. "I'm s—" And then you catch yourself on an apology. "You shouldn't scare people like that."
"You're faster now."
"And you're slower."
He laughs, then groans when it shifts the blade in his shoulder. "That's just the whiskey, sweetheart. I could still take you." He sits up, smoothly removing the knife and his jacket, and you curse at him as he moves his bad shoulder to shrug it off.
You help him pull the damned thing off, and then you help him sit on your bed, checking his wound for how deep the blade had gone. "I should wrap this." You inform him, and he watches as you pull the strap aside to examine him closer. "Maybe then you can tell me where you've been."
"Why? D'ya miss me?" Dex grins, and you almost want to dig your finger into the tender flesh of his wound just to wipe it off. But behind the booze and shock, you did miss him. It feels weird to think. You don't know if you could say it out loud.
And, in a weird way, you don't have to. Dex looks at you and it's like he knows. His grin softens.
You flush. "I'm gonna get the gauze."
You stand to your full height, staring into his eyes as if he'd disappear if you looked away. He stares back. "Turns out the jade was real." He says quickly, and while there's teasing in his tone, there's something else. Something reciprocal. You glance at the hairpin he'd "gifted" you a month ago, sitting on your dresser. "Well, mostly. It probably was treated and stuff but, uh... did you know jade can symbolize protection from evil? Healing, too. They call it the 'stone of heaven'."
You huff out a laugh. "I don't think I'm getting into heaven."
Dex shrugs, winces. "That makes two of us."
"Where'd you get that thing, anyway? Doesn't seem like something you'd buy."
You see Dex's eyes glaze over a little bit, different from their drunk sheen. You tilt your head. "I didn't. Old man gave it to me for free. Said to give it to my lucky someone." You swallow. "I was going to kill you with that thing. Can you believe that?"
You step over to the dresser, picking up the hairpin and sitting down on the bed next to him to inspect the resin-y sheen of the jade. The petal charms tink against each other as you shift it in the light. It looks far too delicate for the violence you know Dex could've wrought with it. Perhaps its very nature had spared you.
If you asked him, he'd probably say it was bullshit. You hoped you weren't wrong when you thought he looked a little softly at you. "Seems pretty lucky to me."
parts: previously / final
plot: you turn down dex's offer to kill your ex. he thinks you should let him anyway.
pairing: benjamin poindexter x gn!reader.
cw: canon-divergent from daredevil: born again s2e7, slow burn, crackfic that takes itself seriously sometimes, dark themes, stalking, light violence, alternating pov, reader is getting divorced, dex is bored so he gets involved in your marital drama, dex finds you kinda hot when you’re angry, your ex sucks and dex is willing to do something about it, dex cannot be assed to remember your ex’s name.
words: 4.9k.
a/n: this accidentally became the only thing I've thought about all day
"A Good Samaritan."
There's something wrong with this guy. Aside from the obvious.
I mean, it's one thing to dress up as Hell's Kitchen's most dangerous terrorist in recent history and go freaking people out in alleyways for money—and you're trying not to think about where Kyle would've gotten the money to spare when he's been jerking you around about paying for a lawyer—but it's another to make not one, but two declarations of intent to murder.
It's an unfunny joke. Typical Kyle. "Right." You study him, slender guy packed into a tight dark blue tactical suit. From the grainy pictures you'd seen of the real Bullseye, it looked as spot on as you could get in a grungy alleyway. It perfectly conceals every inch of his upper body, from hair to hands. It's unsettling with only his eyes to see though, because when you look into them, there's nothing quite... there. "I think I'll pass."
Fake Bullseye says nothing, but his head tilts, studying you like a curious dog.
You test taking a step back, and then another. He doesn't follow you with anything but his gaze. "You should head home, it's late." You add on.
He continues to say nothing.
You try not to sprint back to the side door, and you try not to look back at him once inside but you fail. He remains at the edge of shadow, standing completely still, and you can't get the door shut fast enough.
You've known Kyle since you first moved to the city six years ago. He was a friend of a friend at your old job who you don't talk to anymore, and after a somewhat disastrous double-date with said friend, you two managed to still hit it off. It was a year and a half later when you moved in together and barely four months had passed before he proposed. It was a quick marriage, and it felt okay for it to be so quick because this was the pace of New York City.
Everyday was a rush; getting breakfast, catching the train, work and lunch, drinks with friends after work, date nights that even the most well-thought out plans could never keep sacred. Fights were quick, make-ups quicker... until they weren't. The actual fights were just as fast, but the aftermath began to linger. Bills were in constant chaos. When Kyle started up Falafel Fixins and Fixes, you had put aside your feelings on the marriage and the "Dead End" sign coming clearer into view. You had hoped that maybe, if you poured your all into this, showed him you were willing to try and support his dreams, he'd stop being such a fucking— "Asshole."
Your whisper goes unnoticed by passing neighbors coming down for mail. You slip into the elevator and press yourself into the corner. Your phone, which sat heavy in your pajama pants pocket, is now in your hand. You know Kyle has your number blocked, but you still open the last text exchange to type out something heated.
But the elevator dings. You're at your floor all of a sudden, and as you look over the wall of text with more expletives than nouns, you feel something tug in your chest. A small, broken part of you is aware that you once loved this man, and he'd stooped this low. Sending a guy dressed up as a local serial killer to your front— well, back door. To scare you. Maybe make you settle.
And he has you blocked, so he wouldn't see it anyway. None of this matters anyway.
Not even your leftovers.
You drag yourself to your front door, inside and deadbolted in under twenty seconds. Naturally, your eyes find your abandoned dinner. Now gone cold. You have the energy to put it in the fridge and that's it.
Hairline (from the bar)
Hey
It's a lovely sunny morning, and Dex has half a jalapeño and cheese croissant in his mouth when he gets the text from Karl. He thinks briefly on changing the name in his burner phone. He doesn't bother.
After you'd rejected his proposal last night, Dex had made peace. He assumed Karl would get embarrassed, probably say something about how he didn't mean what he said last night, and ask for his $350 back. Dex didn't get the chance to explain to him last night that he doesn't do refunds.
He shifts his croissant between two fingers on his other hand—the other three occupied with a nice, warm cup of coffee—and uses the keypad to text back a simple:
You
Morning.
Hairline (from the bar)
So, about the other night
You
?
Dex watches three dots appear, then disappear. Reappear, then disappear. He takes a slow sip from his cup, people-watching until his phone vibrates again.
Hairline (from the bar)
It's been about 36 hours
You
32.
Hairline (from the bar)
Can we meet?
You
About?
The phone starts vibrating like crazy. One incoming call from Hairline. Dex purses his lips. Down the street, he notices a biker weaving between sidewalk traffic haphazardly. They nearly knock over an old lady, almost run over a dog. The shouts from down the street do nothing to stop the guy. Dex looks away.
Hairline (from the bar)
Come on, man!!! Please
Dex doesn't feel bad making him suffer. Karl will panic, feel bad about putting a hit on you, and blow up his phone until he's sure you're not actually laying in a pool of your own blood in apartment 313. It would be the nice thing to respond now, let him know that you were still perfectly alive and kicking, but putting a hit on your ex who—in his opinion, and of course you and Karl would care about his opinion on your marriage—didn't deserve it wasn't very kind either. And he likes watching them struggle.
Besides, if Karl's info was right, you'd be leaving right about...
The door of the apartment building behind him swings open, and Dex cranes his head away from you as you descend the staircase, already off in the other direction for another day of work. His eyes drag across the ground until they find you power-walking away in a huff. He suppresses a smile as he snaps a photo of you from behind, sending it to Hairline. Hairline immediately responds.
Hairline (from the bar)
Are you about to do it???
He closes the flip-phone, slipping it into his pocket, and takes another sip of his coffee.
Closer now, he could hear the commotion of the rogue biker continuing to make zero use of the bike lane. Dex pushes off the side of the apartment complex, walking over to a faded poster stapled into the wall between your place and the laundromat. Sticking his croissant in between his teeth, he sets the coffee on a nearby window ledge and rips out one of the staples, smoothing it over with his calloused thumb until it's straight and rigid. He picks up his coffee, shifts his croissant between his fingers again, and lets one open eye focus on the biker barrelling down the sidewalk. Right for you.
He flicks the staple at the bike tire and the pop! as the pressure releases all at once has the biker swerving into a mailbox.
A couple bystanders exclaim in surprise, some stepping around the collapsed biker with muttered "serves you right"s and "jackass"es. Dex goes back to his coffee, but then...
"Oh my God!"
Dex whips his head at the sound of your voice. You should've been half a block away by now, a perfect pace to follow, but suddenly you're rushing toward the downed biker with worry written all over your face. No one really appreciates you pushing against sidewalk traffic, so it takes you a while to get to him, but then you're dropping down to help the guy up.
And Dex is... unsettled.
There was no way you could've seen the guy causing problems just a minute ago, but you'd heard the crash and you rushed over to help. Even though it was—he flicks his wrist out to read the time on his watch—16 minutes until your shift started. And it would take you the whole 16 to walk there. He knows. He'd mapped it.
Dex had read the books. Dr. Mercer had drilled it into his mind. People like this guy don't usually get sympathy. This guy doesn't deserve sympathy. Inconveniencing others, shoving his way through life. He doesn't even smile when you offer him a hand. Even Dex knows how to do that.
But here you are, throwing your lot in to help a guy who only had himself to blame. Dex presses his back against the wall again, tucking his baseball cap low to hide his eyes, and brings his coffee cup back to his mouth.
"Are you okay?" You ask, picking the bike up off the guy who'd sandwiched his leg between it and the sidewalk.
The guy is going on about people getting in the way, making excuses, when you both notice his front tire has deflated. Dex looks immediately at you.
Your eyebrows pinch together. He can see the wheels turning. His stomach twists at the realization that you're thinking about how to help. He remembers something about this street as soon as you say it. "There's a bike shop a little bit from here," You tell the guy, taking hold of one of the handlebars. "Maybe... maybe I could help you carry the bike there? Get a new tire?"
Dex can't help it. He scoffs. Your eyes flicker to him and he hides his face in the cup even more.
The biker agrees, and of course he does, because a guy like this would have no problem accepting a selfless offer. Especially not one from someone who looks like you. You're practically radiating in the sun, warmth spilling off you in waves, and what kind of asshole wouldn't gravitate toward that?
He watches you carry the bike across the street, chatting with the biker, laughing too much and too often. He thinks you ought to know how much is too much. He had to learn that to survive. But Dex supposes that if you'd already known that, you wouldn't have sunk your savings into your ex's food truck.
Dex glances at the poster on the wall, now hanging with a loose corner, and considers taking another staple. It would be just as quick with you. If he played his cards right, you'd barely register the pain.
His thigh vibrates. Dex takes out his phone and sees another incoming call from Hairline. He declines, typing a reply with a little more force than necessary.
You
I said 36 hours, didn't I?
Hairline (from the bar)
Shit
Man
fuck
Dex exhales through his nose. Tamps down the frustration. He shouldn't care who you choose to help, or marry, or divorce. He was just keeping busy, and he could quit whenever he stopped having fun. That's why he was entertaining this: for fun. Keeping this fish on the hook, hovering above water, was fun. His phone buzzes with three more messages.
Hairline (from the bar)
I don't know what to say
That's a weight lifted off my shoulders
And it won't be traced back to me?
Oh.
For the first time since he'd taken the money, Dex really, really thinks about Kyle. Were his cheeks really that gaunt? Had he been a broken man on the edge of losing it all, or had Dex filled in the gaps to justify... this?
A loud horn honks and his eyes find you on the street instantly. You're rushing across the crosswalk, tugging the full weight of the bike with you, while the biker flips off a car about to run both of you over. Dex takes a step in your direction.
You take your lunch at exactly 1:34pm, which is to say that Dex sees you take a seat at the picnic table across the park, right as he's tossing a little boy up in the air. It's a good thing he has fast reflexes (and that he knew you were coming, had timed it down to the minute), because he's not even looking at the kid anymore when he falls back into his hands. Dex has the mind to at least send the kid back to his parents, waving goodbye to the party of excited kindergarteners on his way to you.
You're just removing a sandwich from your lunch bag when he approaches, and the look of surprise on your face tugs at his lips. And then he remembers you can see those lips now, no hidden smiles.
"Oh! Hello." You exclaim, looking around the park for something. Maybe a better place for him to be. "Um... can I help you? Mr. Rogers?"
The cartoonish red, white, and blue costume clings too tight below the waist and traps the warm heat in, but it was the closest thing he could find to fit him this far out from Halloween. The polyester mask sewn into the upper part of the suit does a poor job of absorbing the sweat on his forehead, but it does conceal most of his face from you, and it's enough that he feels just a little less stupid approaching you in public.
As far as you know, he does this for a living.
He reaches into the pocket of his suit—and it's a miracle the thing even has them—and stabs the hairpin into the wooden tabletop.
You jerk back, your sandwich flying out of your hands and into a dirt pile behind you where an army of ants starts picking away at it. "Fuck!"
Dex sits down on the bench across from you.
"What is your—" Your eyes catch on the hairpin, and something clicks for you. "You. From last night. Seriously, who are you?"
"Call me Tony."
"Okay, Tony. Did he send you to fuck with me again?"
Dex glances behind him, at the group of kids chasing each other around with water guns while their parents smoke. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder in their direction. "I was in the neighborhood."
You look between him and the kids, still angry but less so. After a few deep breaths, you straighten your back and give him a long hard stare. "Look, if he's trying to get me to back off the trial, you should tell him to spend more of his money on a good lawyer and less on a birthday clown. No offense."
"None taken. Does your ex have a key to your place?"
"I don't see how any of that is your business."
Dex flexes his hand. He would catch no flies with vinegar. As much as he'd like to get to the point, you have no reason to tell him anything like this. He feigns understanding. "You're right, you're right. I just, uh... I don't know. I was thinking about what you said last night. I just felt awful, you know? Really awful. It wasn't cool of me to come out there and freak you out like that. It's just... you know, Kip—"
"Kip?"
"—Forgive me. It's just that Kyle seemed really upset about the divorce. He was all erratic and saying all these things about how he wanted to get revenge on you for trying to take everything from him." Dex pauses, searching your expression for what he hoped would be concern for your own safety. You watch him, unblinking. "I just... I know, I know. It's not my business. Would just hate to say I didn't warn you."
You look at the hairpin, the wood splintered around it's sharp end. Then you look at him. "Are you trying to say that you think he's gonna hurt me?"
Dex's expression tightens. "Maybe. Guy like that... it's possible." He sees your eyes beginning to well with tears and it grates on his nerves. "Look, I'm not trying to scare you—"
"All you've done is scare me."
"I'm just saying. Do you have someone you can stay with, maybe? Just until all this is over?"
You shake your head, wiping hard under your eyes before the tears can even leave streaks. "No. All my friends are Kyle's friends. I thought they were mine but they chose their side. I'm alone."
A dangerous thought crosses Dex's mind. So dangerous, in fact, that he feels the sudden need to walk away and never come back. You were not his problem. This was not his problem. He was just supposed to be keeping busy. This was not...
"You're not alone." He says, and when you look at him in confusion, he pulls the hairpin out of the table and holds the jade end out to you. You take it, cautiously. "You know, I read this self-help book once. And there was this bit in there about how sometimes it feels like we don't always get back what we put into the world, you know? All that effort and time. Sometimes it feels like it's going nowhere. But some people believe that the good you put into the world comes back to you. In little ways, sometimes big. You know, it might not be a million dollars but it might be a helping hand. You seem like the type who looks out for others. Who knows? Maybe there's somebody out there looking out for you."
You let the hairpin sit in your palm, the petal charms making chiming sounds in the breeze.
For a while that's all that's said between you, and Dex gets nervous. He combs back over every word he's said, every micro-expression you've made. He doesn't know if this is right, or normal.
"Thanks, uh... Cap." You whisper. You close your fist around the pin and bring it into your lap. "Can I hire you for my divorce party when this is all over?"
Dex's eyes widen. He laughs out loud, genuinely. The uncomfortable stickiness of his throat dissipates and he thanks God he can quote those books by memory. "Yeah, sure. You want a slice of pizza? I think Zaden's mom will let you have some if I tell them you're my manager."
You shake your head. "No, I think I'll just grab something on the way back to work. You should probably head back too. I don't wanna keep you when you're working."
"Oh, it's fine. I don't know those people."
"What?"
You
You've got an alibi, don't you?
Hairline (from the bar)
Shit. Of course. I was at home.
You
Of course you were.
:)
It took Dex two hours to decide on whose house to break into.
He'd found Kip's place easy. He was crashing on a friend's couch in Brooklyn, all his stuff shoved under the pull-out bed and hallway closet. There were beer bottles and empty candy wrappers littered around the floor. If it hadn't been for the friend being home, he might've had a root around in there for something to use against the guy, but time was of the essence.
It felt only right that he come to your place instead.
Dex hears your keys jingling in the hall before you've even unlocked the door. You get in quick, spinning to lock and deadbolt it, so quick that you completely miss him sitting on your sofa.
You miss a lot, actually. Even with your locks, you've got no alarm system. No cameras. A guy about 6'0 with a few years of lockpicking under his belt could get your fire escape window open easy, take a tour of your digs, and then settle himself on your sofa in the 35 and a half minutes it takes for you to get from work, to the bodega, to your front door.
He'd mapped out your home pretty well in that time. No weapons that he could find, but a safe under the bed with some boxes of bullets and cleaning gear tells him that you've got something lethal in your work bag. It's why he doesn't allow you to see him first.
It's probably a bad idea, sneaking up on you after telling you your ex might want to hurt you. He tells himself it's necessary, and that you'll forgive him for it later.
You're facing the front door, going to hang up your coat and your bag next, when you still. It dawns on him, your almost inhuman way of knowing when he's right there beside you, because your hand is reaching for the gun in your bag in the next half second. But Dex is faster.
He grabs the wrist with the gun in one hand and forces it up against the wall, pointed at the ceiling, while the other hand covers your mouth to seal off your scream. He presses you against the wall, chest to chest. He barely gives you enough room to fill your lungs with air to scream again.
"Quit it." He hisses against the back of his hand, but you struggle all the same, wiggling your fingers in an attempt to get one around the trigger of your gun. If you let off a bullet in this apartment, there'd be no coming back from that. He pulls your arm back once and slams it against the wall again, this time forcing you to lose your grip. The gun clatters to the ground by Dex's feet and he uses the toe of his boot to kick it across the room.
Your next defense tactic is much dirtier, and he'd be impressed if you didn't come so close to kneeing him between the legs. He's fast enough to stop you, but your insistence digs into what little patience he has.
Taking a quick glance behind him, he manhandles you back into the sofa, all but tossing you into the couch cushions with enough force to knock the breath out of you and nothing else. You bounce, frantic and confused, but before you can get far, Dex throws his heavy thighs on either side of your lap and forces his full weight down on you.
The knife at his side leaves its sheath, metal sliding against leather lining, and hovers right above your throat. You're forced to sit still, head thrown back and neck exposed, as he looms over you to meet your eyes with his. A tear slips out of you as if on cue.
The both of you share breath, inhaling and exhaling each other's air as you try not to tremble. He gives you a little more room between skin and blade because he's thoughtful like that.
You swallow thickly. "Y..."
Dex's head tilts. "Remember me?"
He can see it dawn on you. Up close now, in the dim moonlight pouring in through your window shades, he sees you recognize the balaclava for the same one he donned last night, but this was no costume or cheap ski mask. This looked too real for a birthday party.
You let out a whine. His head tilts again. "Fuck." You finally say, and more tears are spilling out of you now.
"I don't want to hurt you." He says, and it's mostly true. Dex feels something warm on his arm, and he sees your hand gripping it, trying to pull it away from your neck. "Scream and I will."
It's not a question. You agree. He slowly lowers his arm.
You take in bigger gulps of air now, but you're still beneath him, consumed by his body heat and size. Your hand falls away from his arm to touch at your throat in hopes that he hadn't nicked you there by accident. He'd be offended if you thought he didn't have total control over his weapon, but you are a regular person who helps assholes on bikes get new tires even when it makes you late for work. You shake when you're scared. You cry. You wouldn't know what he could do because your heart is beating too fast too focus. He can feel it beating hard up against his own.
"Why are you here?" You ask.
"Because Kevin thinks you're dead."
You blink. "Who?" And then, when he doesn't answer, you figure it out. "Oh— fuck. Why would he think that? Did you...?"
"I didn't tell him you were dead." Dex sheathes his knife. "He came to his own conclusion."
Watery as your eyes may be, you get that look in them like you did last night: when you figured out who put the hit on you. "Are you real?"
You're asking if he's the one who makes things go bump in the night. Dex doesn't think his head can tilt any further. But then, your hand is touching the side of his mask and he stills.
He can't remember the last time someone had gently touched him there.
His life had not returned to any kind of normal after he'd done his one good deed for Matthew Murdock. He was still a wanted criminal, and after finding himself somewhere low to hide out, he had sequestered himself and any dreams of returning to routine to a basement hideaway, far away from Fisk or Murdock or anything else reminding him that he was still a prisoner like this.
He dressed heavy and kept his head low, even as the winter months faded into spring and all the warm bodies came crawling out of the earth. He never visited anywhere twice if he could help it. Cash and burner phones and library Wi-Fi got Benjamin Poindexter by. The last person to see his face (his full face, not the one hidden by the mask or the hats and hoodies) was Murdock.
He still knew what he looked like in the mirror. Sometimes. He hadn't shaved this morning. He'd been up early waiting for—
Your nails drag down the side of his head. Gentle, leaving behind the sound of your skin against the fabric. It had a weirdly soothing effect on his nervous brain.
He thinks about showing you his face. Were you a good enough person to call the cops on him?
Dex grabs your wrist, stopping you in your tracks.
"Last night. He really paid you to kill me?" You ask. Dex says nothing. "And he says he can't afford a fucking lawyer?"
"If it helps," He starts, and by that point he knows it doesn't, but he still keeps going. "It wasn't a lot."
You lift your head slightly, bringing your mouth closer to where his would be behind the mask. Dex's eyes flicker down for a brief second. "Are you serious? How much?"
"$350."
You... deflate. You can't even hide it. "Oh. I just thought..."
"What?"
"Killers. They always charge more in the movies."
A beat passes. Dex laughs. There's a lot he can say: you'd be easy to kill, he was doing your ex a favor, he was still getting back into this mercenary-for-hire gig (and since when was it a gig?). Instead, he says, "It's not about the money. I do this for the love of the game, sweetheart."
That ought to freak you out. He expects it to. But you look more concerned than troubled. He doesn't like that. "Why haven't you killed me yet? We're going to trial. He'll find out I'm still alive when I show up. You don't get anything out of this." And then you wince, as if you'd just given him the reason he needed to kill you after all.
Dex has been watching you for two days now. Within those two days, he has learned a few things about you. You cry, often. You really don't have any friends. Despite best judgement, you are kind. You stay late at work to make up for getting there late, even when your boss doesn't know. You hold doors open for people who don't even say "thank you".
Your home, which he had familiarized himself with while you were gone, had once been filled with kindness too. Kevin's clothing and things that didn't look like they belonged to you packed in bags that you had yet to give back. You'd tossed out food scraps in tears. God only knows when you'd get around to fully cutting Kevin out of your heart. No matter how angry you were, you hadn't succumbed yet. You'd thought he was just a jerk pulling a prank on you until now. And now you know he wants you dead. For real.
He remembers how he felt when you told him you were alone. No one in your corner. A losing dog like him. It made him uncomfortable. It made him think about himself.
But perhaps you were just a really good actor. He'd been betrayed by kind hands and hearts before. Fear tended to separate the oil from the water. And when you're scared, you beg. You hide. There's only fight in you when you're angry, and Kevin makes you angry. But you wouldn't go all the way, right?
So you needed this, what he could give to you. And laying low was boring. He needed something to do with his hands. He needed to keep from getting rusty. He wanted to be useful.
Dex's gaze turns fierce. Pointed. Target locked. You must sense it because you hold in a breath, as if he'd placed a hand on your throat. "Let me kill him for you."
a/n: I picked a captain america costume because I found out that wilson bethel actually auditioned for cap back in the day, and I thought that was pretty cute :D
tags: violence, death, harassment (not from dex), toxic relationship dynamics, obsession, reader is a bit of a freak, dex being soggy and pathetic
————————
“If I knew you’d look so good in that quarter-zip, I would have brought you out here ages ago.”
Dex flusters at your compliment, a pink stain rising to his cheeks. Your reward from him is a shy smile, small and lopsided. His fingers tug at the zipper of the aforementioned quarter-zip, a simple black thing that hugs his chest and the broad line of his shoulders.
“Thank you,” he says. Months of dating still haven’t acclimated him to the warmth of your attention, and his bashfulness is still as charming as it was in the beginning. You lean back on your elbows, grass tickling your skin, and let the sun warm you with its fading light. This park has been a favorite escape of yours. Just outside the city and tucked up against the riverbank, it’s offered you a quiet refuge for as long as you’ve lived here, and now you’ve shared this little piece of yourself with Dex. A quiet place for both of you to enjoy — together.
“You look pretty,” Dex says, and you know before you even turn to him that he’s been staring at you this whole time. “The sun is on your face. You — you’re glowing.”
“Thank you, baby,” you say, twining your fingers with his. You turn your attention to the river and the sun dipping below the skyline of the city beyond. By the bank, a man walks with his dog. The air is cool and quiet until the bright ring of a phone cuts through the silence.
Dex tugs his hand away from yours and seizes the phone from his pocket, eyebrows scrunching as he glares at the screen.
“Shit,” he says. “It’s work.” His thumb hesitates over the answer button.
“It’s ok, Agent Poindexter. I’ll wait here while you do your FBI thing.” You give him a reassuring smile and he returns it, squeezing your hand one last time before climbing to his feet. The low tone of his voice fades as he moves out of earshot, and you’re left alone in the grass.
Minutes pass, and a glance over your shoulder reveals Dex with arms crossed and shoulders tight as he speaks into the phone. Something stressful has come up, or a last-minute call into work, perhaps. You climb to your feet and wander closer to the bank. Whatever it is, you’re sure to get the run down when he’s finished.
You hear it before you see it — gravel crunching under heavy feet from beyond the crop of trees to your left. A man emerges from the tree line, walking along the path that hugs the bank. He catches you assessing him, eyes locking with yours, and a weight settles deep in your gut. The man is moving towards you.
“Out here alone?” he asks.
You offer a tight-lipped smile. “No,” you say. “I’m just waiting for my boyfriend.”
“Don’t see no boyfriend,” the man says. He stops at a too-close distance, and you cross your arms over your chest, turning your body away from his.
“He’ll be here in a minute,” you say shortly. “I’m just waiting for him.”
The man takes another step toward you. You take a step back.
“So you can’t talk to nobody?” he says. “Or are you just too pretty to talk to me?”
You turn to walk away from him, to find Dex yourself, but the man steps in front of you in one smooth motion, cutting off your path of escape.
“Hey, nothing wrong here,” he says, advancing into your space again. “I’m just trying to get your number.”
He’s too close, and moving closer. He raises a hand like he’s going to grab at you, and you take a sharp breath, you’re going to yell —
Thunk. The man freezes. His mouth parts stupidly and his hand — the hand that was reaching for you — moves, trembling, to his temple, where a pen has lodged into his skull. His fingers fumble around it, as if in disbelief, as if he doesn’t understand what’s just happened, and in your shock you haven’t quite grasped it either. Blood sprays down his pale face. He collapses into the soft grass.
His mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, breaths short and ragged. His body twitches once, twice, muscles locking up in a violent spasm, and then he stills. Eyes open. Afraid. Dark blood and clear fluid pool around that soft, green grass, and the man’s chest does not rise again.
He’s dead. You watched him die. Your heartbeat is a pounding thud in your ears, and you turn, dazed, to the man you know is waiting there.
Behind you, Dex stands like a wild animal. His wide eyes are not on the body, but on you. You stare at each other in taut silence. For one delirious moment, you think you could laugh. Dex — your Dex — launched a pen like a bullet through that man’s skull. Dex killed him. Killed him, and in his eyes, you see fear. He raises his hands slowly. Placatingly. Like one sudden movement will spook you and send you running to the road. He says your name.
“The body,” you blurt out. “The river. Put it in the river.”
All at once, your senses come back to you. You’re in the park. A public park. You glance frantically around for anyone nearby, anyone who could have seen it happen. The man with the dog. The walking paths. Did anyone see? Are there cameras here? You rush to the body and the bright patch of red soaking the dirt. Dex is still staring at you as you crouch beside it.
“Now, Dex,” you snap, voice low and hoarse. He’s just looking at you. Just standing there and looking at you with fear in his face.
“Yeah,” he rasps. “Yeah. Ok. The river.”
The two of you haul the body down to the riverbank, behind the crop of trees, over stones and brush out of sight from the path. You dump it clumsily into the water and it sinks into the murky depths, disappearing in the current as if it was never there at all. In days or weeks it will float back up to surface, bloated with gas and rot. But by then the two of will be long gone. You scrub your hands in river water until they’re pink and stinging and clean of his blood.
Beside you, the pen rests on a mossy rock. Dark blood clings to its bottom half, wrenched free from its victim with a wet squelch. Federal Bureau of Investigation, it reads, letters engraved into the silver. You offer it to Dex, who has said nothing since the two of you began the disposal. That animal-panic is still in his eyes, and his eyes are still trained on you.
“Throw it,” you say softly. “As far as you can.” He takes the pen from your fingers and hurls it into the water.
——
The sky is dark on the drive back into the city. Dex’s hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and when the car finally rolls to a stop, you look up to see that he’s brought you back to his apartment. The entryway is dark and quiet when he lets you in, and the sterile world of his home feels almost like a different reality from the dark waters you’ve just left behind. You move like a ghost to his room, on legs that seem to carry you with a will of their own. Your bag thugs to the ground and your jacket follows it, before a dark silhouette blots out the light cast from the open door.
Dex stands in the doorway. He is a shadow illuminated by the hall light behind him, his face hazy and obscured. He says your name again, strained.
“I couldn’t let him hurt you. He was - he reached for you, he was scaring you, and I couldn’t let him touch you.” His fingers flex and open, a nervous tick. The room is cold silent. Not even the rush of traffic outside.
“I know, Dex,” you reply. The silence drags only for a moment as Dex realizes you’re not going to say anything else. He takes a step toward you, out of the harsh backlight of the hallway and into the dimly lit room.
“I was protecting you,” he says. “I’ll always, always protect you. Nothing else matters. You’re the only thing that matters, you’re the only person I love, your the only person who loves - who loves me, and I can’t - I had to -“ his breaths become shakey, rapid. He stops an arms-length away as if he’s afraid to come closer. In the space between you he raises a hand, palm up in request of your own. He wants you to touch him. To slot your fingers between his and tell him that everything will be all right. You don’t offer it to him.
“I know, Dex,” you say again. “I’m not mad. I just . . . I just want to sleep. I want to shower and go to bed.”
His hand falls to his side and his face crumples for a moment, desperate and close to tears. “Ok,” he says. “I can do that. We can shower.” He follows you to the bathroom and starts the shower as you strip in silence. The small space is tighter still with two bodies huddled inside of it, steam clinging to the tiles and water just hot enough to make you squirm. You don’t bother asking him to lower it. Dex’s eyes follow every move you make.
The familiar scent of his laundry detergent wraps around you as you curl into his sheets, and before you can shy away his body is sliding into bed behind yours. His chest is firm against your back. His arm snakes around your waist and presses you flush against him. Legs tangling, fingers curling into the worn fabric of your sleep shirt. You feel his breath stall against the bare skin of your neck, as if he’s going to speak.
“Don’t,” you say softly. “I don’t want to talk. Not right now. We can do it in the morning.”
Calloused hands clutch at the fat of your waist. He presses himself further, further into you.
“Ok,” he rasps. “In the morning.”
You fall asleep in the vise of his arms.
——
You wake with his limbs twisted up in yours. Bodies tangled in a sweaty knot, his breath warm against your neck. You are one half-turn away from slipping off the mattress, as if you shifted away from him in sleep and he chased you to the edge. His breath catches and you know he’s woken up, too. Dex always wakes when you do. A sixth sense that you used to joke about. You shift in his arms and he jolts up to rest on his elbow, his other hand worrying the sleeve of your shirt.
Somewhere in the river there’s a body, cold and bloodless. You swing your legs over the bed and Dex follows close behind. He’s a shadow at your back as you slink into the bathroom to splash your face with cool water. His anxiety is a dark cloud in the room, buzzing, clawing energy that surrounds you even without looking at his reflection in the mirror as you squeeze toothpaste onto a brush. He’s waiting for you to say something. But speaking about it makes it real, makes the man hovering behind you into someone you no longer know as well as you thought you did. A hidden facet of him has been revealed to you. Soon you will have to decide what you’ll do about it.
You make it into the kitchen before he cracks.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asks, weakly. “Are you mad at me?”
You force yourself to meet his stare. A fitful and sleepless night has carved lines under his eyes and made his skin blotchy red. He looks young and fearful. He looks like he could be sick.
“I’m not mad,” you answer. “I’m just . . . thinking.”
Dex sniffles. “I did it for you,” he says, voice wobbly. “To protect you. I would do anything for you. Anything. I need you so much it—it hurts.” He shuffles towards you with his palms up and open. You realize, not for the first time, that Dex is big. Tall. Broad shouldered. Intimidating.
But he’d never felt intimidating to you. Shouldn’t it have been obvious? Dex is a sniper with the FBI. He’s paid to kill. And he’s already confessed to you, between tears and wracking sobs, the truth of his violent childhood and the source of the shame that permeates his every waking moment. Of course he was capable of this. Of course. What were you thinking? That he was better? Changed? That he wouldn’t hurt anyone anymore — that he wouldn’t hurt you?
No. No, Dex would never. He loves you. He’s fiercely protective of you. He’s never, ever made you feel unsafe, not until . . . until now. Until last night.
The length of your silence must have been a few breaths too long, because Dex presses on, tears rolling down his red cheeks.
“I’m not good,” he says. “I’m not good like you are. I want to be, fuck, I’m trying to be, but I don’t care what I have to do to keep you safe.” He’s shuffled into your space again, his body a furnace next to yours. His fingers grip the fabric of your t-shirt.
“Please, please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just please don’t leave me.”
It strikes you then. The truth of what Dex is feeling. All of the nerves, all of the shaking, the crying . . . Dex isn’t afraid of being caught. He’s not worried about the police or even shaken by the fact that not 10 hours ago, he took a human life. Dex is afraid that you’re going to leave him.
. . . Would you? You think of the body in the grass. Gasping. Twitching. He didn’t have to die. Dex could have scared him, or fought him, or just taken you away, but he put a pen through the man’s skull without a moment of hesitation, and apparently, without any remorse. It’s not the first time he’s done it. It may not be the last. What happens the next time he sees someone harassing you? What happens if he meets any of the people who’ve wronged you, the former friends, the exes? He’s violent. He’s dangerous. He’s . . .
He’s crying into your shoulder. Pitiful, gasping sobs that shake his big body as it’s folded over to curl into your warmth. A wet patch clings to your skin, tears and snot soaking the cotton of your shirt. When your hands rise to cup his face and lift his head to look at you, the movement is all muscle memory. Comforting him is second nature now, engrained in you like instinct. This is Dex. This is your baby.
“Oh, honey,” you coo. “It’s ok. Shhh, it’s ok. I’m not going anywhere.” You wipe the tears from his eyes, even as they’re immediately replaced by more.
He chokes on a sob, an attempt to gather himself enough to speak. “Y-yeah? Really?”
“I promise, baby. You know I would never leave you.”
Dex sighs then, a long exhale of relief, and takes the first full breath you’ve heard from him yet. “Thank you,” he says, sniffling. “Thank you, thank you,” each thanks punctuated with a kiss pressed to your face. He continues down your neck, mouth hungry over your skin, like he could swallow you whole. A wet trail follows the path of his lips. You run your fingers through his sweat-damp hair. Let him take what he needs.
No one saw. No one knows what happened. And when the news eventually reaches you — “did you hear? A body was found in the river” — you’re not going to watch Dex go to prison over the life of some creep. It was a mistake; one that no one needs to know about. He wants to be good. He’s trying. He just needs patience and love, and you’ll give it to him. The rest will sort itself out.
When he’s cried himself dry, you lead him to the table, sit him down in a chair and set a glass of cold water in front of him. You’ll make breakfast, go out on a run together. Get him back into his routine. Get him stable again. He takes a long sip of water, his breath evening out at last.
“I love you,” he says, eyes wide and rimmed with red.
“I love you, too,” you say and press a kiss into his hair. “So, so much.”
Dex has a life to get back to and a future with so much left to learn.
"grace. grace! grace give attention. rocky perform human ritual of escape closet now. statement."
"come again?"
"i learn more from thinking machine. human gender preference. attraction to same gender, means word 'gay.' all eridian same gender." rocky stands straight up. "rocky come out to grace now. all rocky plural gay, statement."
"...wow, that's... rock, i'm not sure it makes much sense to apply human ideas of sexual orientation to a monogendered species."
⤿ BRUCE WAYNE wasn't the type of man to get caught up on the headlines about himself. Then your article came out and sent waves through his socialite lifestyle.
!! tension. fem!reader. journalist!reader. i geeked out a bit w the journalist concept. for those who don't know im a journalist. ignore the run on sentences pls. not fully proofed. i also ran out of bruce pictures that i haven't used yet so enjoy lego bruce. taglist open. comments encouraged as always. ENJOY.
Bruce Wayne hated bad press.
Not because it damaged Wayne Enterprises, because Lucius usually fixed that before it became a real problem. And definitely not because Gotham’s elite whispered about him over expensive champagne either, because Bruce had learned years ago that rich people would gossip about anything if they got bored enough.
He hated bad press because you wrote it well.
Not tabloid garbage, not shallow billionaire hit pieces filled with lazy commentary and recycled headlines, but articles sharp enough to make people uncomfortable, pieces that dug beneath the polished charity galas and photo ops and exposed the ugly disconnect between Gotham’s suffering and the city’s wealthiest man pretending another fundraiser counted as activism.
Your latest article had been particularly brutal.
The article had gone live at 6:12 AM.
By 7:00, every major Gotham outlet had reposted excerpts.
By 8:30, Wayne Enterprises stock had dipped two percent.
And by noon, Bruce Wayne himself had apparently read it three separate times.
----
Bruce Wayne does not save Gotham. He curates it.
There is a difference.
One requires sacrifice. The other requires branding.
For years Gotham has treated Bruce Wayne like a symbol of civic generosity, the charming billionaire heir photographed beside hospital wings and scholarship funds while reporters eagerly document another smiling donation beneath carefully arranged lighting.
The city calls him compassionate because compassion is easier to market when it wears tailored suits and buys buildings with its last name engraved above the entrance.
But Gotham’s wealthiest son has perfected a version of philanthropy that prioritizes visibility over permanence.
Last Thursday, while residents in the Narrows were still clearing floodwater from apartment buildings the city deemed “structurally inconvenient,” Wayne Enterprises hosted its annual preservation gala downtown beneath imported chandeliers and a floral installation rumored to cost more than the average Gotham household earns in two years.
Inside the gala, donors drank champagne beside ice sculptures.
Six miles away, children slept in water-damaged shelters.
Wayne Foundation representatives later confirmed that emergency aid was distributed to affected neighborhoods by Friday afternoon, complete with media coverage and coordinated press releases.
Convenient timing.
Bruce Wayne has built an empire on being seen caring about Gotham, but visibility has never been the same thing as accountability. Charity offered after cameras arrive is still charity, but it is also performance, and Gotham has mistaken performance for heroism for far too long.
Because the uncomfortable truth beneath Wayne’s carefully maintained image is this:
Gotham does not need another wealthy man funding damage control after tragedy strikes.
It needs someone willing to prevent the tragedy before it becomes profitable to mourn publicly.
And perhaps the cruelest part of Bruce Wayne’s legacy is not that he fails Gotham entirely.
It is that he convinces people that incremental kindness from billionaires should feel revolutionary in the first place.
-----
It spread fast.
By the next morning every media outlet in Gotham had picked it up, and suddenly Bruce Wayne was trending for something other than being photographed falling out of clubs with models draped over his shoulders.
Which was why you nearly dropped your drink when your editor leaned against your desk and casually informed you that Bruce Wayne himself had requested a private interview.
Specifically with you.
“No assistants?” you asked slowly.
Your editor grinned. “No PR team either.”
“That’s suspicious.”
“That’s journalism, good journalism. Means you got to him.”
“No,” you muttered, staring at the forwarded email on your screen, “that’s a setup.”
Still, two days later, you found yourself walking through the front doors of Wayne Tower wearing your nicest blazer and the expression of somebody entering enemy territory.
The receptionist practically melted the second she saw your name on the appointment list.
“Mr. Wayne is expecting you.”
That somehow made it worse.
You expected a boardroom. Or a conference area. Something sterile and corporate where he could smile politely while a legal team watched from the corner.
Instead, they brought you to the penthouse office at the very top floor.
And Bruce Wayne opened the door himself.
It was irritating how attractive he was in person.
You already knew that, obviously, Gotham practically documented the man like he was a national monument, but photographs didn’t capture the size of him properly, or the way his voice settled low and smooth when he spoke directly to you.
“You came.”
You blinked once. “Well.. you did invite me.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, subtle enough that you almost missed it.
“Right,” he motioned for you to properly enter. “Come in.”
The office was massive, all dark wood and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Gotham, but somehow it still felt strangely personal. His jacket was tossed over the couch instead of hung up properly, files scattered across the desk like he’d actually been working before you arrived.
Bruce gestured toward the sitting area. “Drink?”
“I don’t take beverages from men, especially those who are trying to sue me.” You smiled, despite the slight bite behind your words.
That got an actual laugh out of him, low and rough.
“I’m not suing you.” He shook his head while pouring himself a glass.
“You should,” you replied. “The article was mean.”
“You think it was unfair?”
“I didn't say that. I think it upset you.”
Bruce sat across from you then, elbows resting against his knees slightly as he studied you in silence for a second too long.
It was unnerving.
Most powerful men interrupted constantly, especially men with reputations like his, but Bruce just watched people, quiet enough that it forced them to keep talking.
“You don’t like me,” he said eventually.
You crossed your legs. “Professionally?”
“Personally.” He corrected without a breath. Your eyes narrowed at that as you took him in. Though you had never spoken to him directly, he was so far looking like everything you had heard.
“I don’t know you personally.”
“You write like you do.”
The air shifted a little after that. Not hostile exactly, but heavier somehow.
You had expected defensiveness. Anger maybe. Instead he seemed calm in a way that felt more dangerous, because every question he asked sounded casual while somehow managing to feel intensely direct at the same time.
“You think I’m shallow.” His eyebrows quirked slightly, allowing himself to lean back instead of sitting in such a defensive manner as he had moments earlier.
“You cultivate shallow.”
“You think the playboy act is fake.”
You held his gaze. “Isn’t it?”
Bruce smiled faintly then, and something about it made your stomach tighten. “That depends who’s asking.”
God.
That was annoying.
Because suddenly this did not feel like an interview anymore.
You glanced down at your notebook mostly to regain control of your own brain.
“So why exactly did you ask for this meeting?” you asked. “Because if it’s just to stare at me while I insult you, I should probably start charging consultation fees.”
Bruce leaned back into the couch slowly, one arm stretched along the back cushion behind you, not touching, but close enough that you became painfully aware of the space anyway.
“I wanted to know if you actually believed what you wrote.”
“I did.”
“Even the part where you called me Gotham’s most emotionally detached philanthropist?”
You smiled despite yourself, a small, amused breath escaping you. “Especially that part.”
Another pause.
And then, infuriatingly, Bruce looked pleased. “You’re different in person,” he noted quietly.
“You sound disappointed.”
“No,” he murmured. “More so... distracted.”
The tension hit so suddenly it almost felt embarrassing.
Because you should not have been reacting to him like this.
Not when you’d spent months publicly criticizing him. Not when half your career currently revolved around dismantling the mythology surrounding Bruce Wayne.
And definitely not when he was looking at you like he already knew exactly what effect he was having.
You cleared your throat. “Do you flirt with every woman who says mean things about you?”
His tongue poked out to run across his bottom lip, while his eyes found something in the room that wasn't you for just a moment before meeting yours once more. “Only the interesting ones.”
“That line probably works often.” You shook your head. This was absolutely feeling like a trap, and you'd make sure your editor knew you were right. You were not going to let Bruce fucking Wayne flirt himself out of your opinions.
“It hasn’t worked on you yet.” The yet lingered after the words died in the air between you two.
You hated that your face felt warm.
Bruce noticed too. You could tell by the way his eyes dropped briefly toward your mouth before returning to your eyes again, slower this time.
The silence stretched.
Outside the windows Gotham glittered in the dark below you, but inside the office everything suddenly felt close and overheated and strangely private.
“You know,” you said carefully, “this is a very manipulative PR strategy.” You shifted, your legs uncrossing briefly as you adjusted your blazer, before your right leg tightly rested atop your left.
Bruce tilted his head slightly. “Is it working?”
Your laugh came out softer than intended. “That depends,” you replied. “Are you this arrogant all the time?”
“No. I'd like to call myself generally humble. I only act like this when someone keeps looking at my lips.”
You stared at him.
He stared back.
And the worst part was that he didn’t even look smug about catching you. If anything he looked more interested now, gaze heavier, sharper, like the tension between you had finally become something undeniable instead of hypothetical.
You shut your notebook sharply and decisively. “Right.. that’s enough interviewing for today.”
Bruce’s eyes flicked down to the motion before lifting again.
“Leaving already?”
“You are a workplace hazard, and I'm not letting that jeopardize the career I've built for myself.” You shook your head with an annoyed huff. This was not how you wanted this to go. You wanted to get him to say something that would prove everything you've ever written to not just be convenient coincidences but rather cold hard truth.
As much as you hated to admit it, you were underprepared. You chose not to believe the idea that he was actually charming (when he wanted to be).
This time, when you turned to look at him after slinging your bag onto your shoulder, his smile was slower.
“Come back tomorrow,” he said.
You stood carefully, trying very hard not to think about how close he was now. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re curious.”
He stepped forward then, not enough to crowd you fully, but enough that the space between you narrowed into something charged and dangerous.
“And because,” Bruce added quietly, “I think you want to find out whether you hate me as much as you thought you did.”
Too many people characterize Dex as this dominant, macho, no one does anything to him person. And while I think that can be true in some cases. I think we should start seeing him as what he is, a pathetic, masochistic, obsessive pushover. I mean matt slamming his face against the table until he knocked out a tooth and saying "thank you" speaks for itself but also stalking Julie and then coming to her in public so she feels safe screams "I am dangerous but I'm absolutely pathetic about you"
He stalks you because he's possessive the way a dog resource guards. You are highly valuable to him and he knows if he doesn't bare his teeth you will be easily stolen from him. He's insecure as fuck and is needy and desperate and entirely pathetic. He barez his teeth, barks, he bites, but kick him and he rolls over on his back as submissive and complacent as a puppy
Can you imagine being stuck in space completely alone with only the corpses of your friends for company, and the first living thing you meet after 46 years of that misery is a fucking weird alien creature who just rolls up with crazy advanced tech and goes "hi let's work together" and makes it possible for you to save your world through the power of friendship and molecular biology. AND THEN you find out that in this creature's language, its name means "mercy". Happened to my good friend Rocky btw
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turnnoffyourmind
