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Personal/Rambling: #cress talks too much

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[dicklessswonder]

uterus, i dont need you. go forth and find a beautiful trans woman who wants you.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

[hiddinginmyroom]

me with you guys (yes you) simping over hot men

[kurr-ko]

does anyone here like project hail mary

[dexgirlfriend]

imagine being bullseye's target for a paid hit. he's so good at inserting yourself into your life, becoming an integral part of it. you're stupidly unsuspecting; he'd feel bad, but quite frankly, he's never seen such a high bounty placed on anyone's head yet, let alone a simple girl like you. it's almost too easy.

until it isn't. until he realises that he genuinely does like you, likes taking you out on dates and seeing you smile. even though you know him as tony, and he's been careful not to let the real him show, it's been slipping out anyway. and all the things he's catalogued in his brain about you under the pretence of knowing his target are things he keeps in mind around you—your coffee order, your morning routine, the temperature you like your shower water at.

he knows you charge your phone in the living room so you don't scroll in the morning, and your preferred way of waking up is when you're curled right into him with your legs tangled together, and when you're at home you skip more than you walk because you don't know what to do with the excess energy you have. and he's taken you on what, twenty dates now? and you call him your boyfriend and he's talked to your mum before—although it has been on the phone—and he has the spare key to your apartment.

he conveniently forgets to "do recon" sometimes, and he is not a man who ever forgets. he keeps on letting his guard down; he likes you too much. it has to be today.

or that's the plan, anyway.

it's a pretty warm day and you're already halfway through a tub of ice cream—or two; you've dumped both flavours in your bowl together and open the door with the spoon still in your mouth.

"hi," you say, but it comes out unintelligible, and he kisses your cheek and his hands slot into place on your hips. your free one traces the contours of his muscles up his side even through the hoodie he's wearing, and he kicks the door closed behind him.

"hi," he whispers back. you put the bowl and spoon down, licking your lips.

"y'miss me?"

"yeah."

then he kisses you for real, shuffling you back towards the wall. your arms loop around his neck, pulling him further into your space, and you taste like strawberry ice cream, a hint of vanilla. the weight of the gun, 3d printed to be untraceable, is devastatingly heavy from where it's tucked into the back of his jeans. just—just five more minutes, let me live this dream, he thinks.

you hum happily into his mouth, fingers brushing through the short hair at the back of his head. he doesn't mean to make a sound, but it happens, and you pull back to laugh at him. you're perfect, don't give him that look, now. you don't even know.

your eyes move to somewhere over his shoulder. "oh, my ice cream's melting."

he turns back, too, glaring at the offending mixture of pink and white. "oh."

you're scarfing it down at amazing speeds, sat beside him on the sofa with his arm 'round your shoulders. you'll get brain freeze if you keep going like this—

"i think i have brain freeze," you announce between mouthfuls of your strawberry-vanilla concoction. there it is.

he takes the bowl from you and finishes what little's left of it; your head's leaned back against the sofa, staring into space as you reconsider life.

"want me to kiss it better?"

you lift your head to stare at him, unamused. "tony, that's not how it works."

"i know that's not how it works," he responds, and his voice has dropped an octave, and you know what he wants, and you laugh.

"okay," you relent. he sets the bowl on the coffee table and you pull him down by the front of his hoodie to kiss him again and he makes the executive decision to not kill you tonight or forever. there's spit and teeth the way he likes it, the way you know he likes it. his knees bracket your thighs, arm braced by your shoulder as the other one tilts your head up; you push him away, back into the cushions, grinning at him with swollen lips already. he bites back a whine when you climb onto his lap, hand straying under the hem of your shorts. you guide his mouth to your neck with one hand, other one busy with god-knows-what (taking off your shirt, he hopes) and he's sure he'll leave bruises on your thighs, but the good kind, born of love and something more, ones only he gets to see, because your life will not end tonight. or anytime soon, if he gets to have a say in things.

the safety of your gun clicks off. you'd hidden it beneath the cushions, waiting for the perfect opportunity—as in right now.

"game's over, poindexter," you're still smiling, but its something sharper, meaner. so very unlike you, a mask fabricated for this very moment.

he draws in a breath, slow, controlled. "oh."

"i know why you came here tonight," you say. "to kill me, right?"

"wasn't gonna."

"no?" you realise with horror that even with your gun pressed up against his head, he's gazing up at you adoringly through his lashes, thumb still rubbing circles idly into your thigh. there's a faint flush on his cheeks. he doesn't seem scared.

"no," he repeats. "gun's under the hoodie. i changed my mind."

you reach behind him, pull it out, toss it to the floor like it burns to touch.

"you have no other weapons on you?"

his eyes flicker downwards, yours follow. then he looks up again, and your cheeks are burning because of what he's just implied. nothing you haven't seen before, of course, but under these circumstances…

"no, baby, i don't."

he looks like he wants to kiss you. and he isn't scared.

things are much, much worse, actually.

he's in love. with you.

a terrifying prospect, really.

(your heart skips a beat. or three.)

"you're my target," you say, more to convince yourself than him. "i'm going to have to shoot you now."

"okay." his voice is steady. he shifts, just a little, and the movement below makes your breath catch in your throat. "do you want me to put my hands up, or is this okay?"

your palms are sweaty, grip faltering. you're trembling. he tilts his head a little, surveying, and you push the barrel further into the side of his head.

"don't be scared," he murmurs. it's intimate, the way he's talking to you, like you're not holding him at gunpoint. "bravest girl i know."

"i'm not scared," you snap, but the gun's not even aimed at his head now; your hold falters. "any last words?"

his hand reaches up to yours, realigns it so it's like you'd originally held it.

"can you kiss me?" it's pathetic—he's pathetic, and he knows it. or maybe he knows you. "i know it was real for you too—"

he thinks he might've died and they accidentally let him into heaven.

or,

you chuck the gun away from you abruptly, scooting forward on his lap. you're not crying, 'cause you don't cry, especially in situations like this, but he swallows the distressed sound you make anyway and kisses you harder, licking into your mouth like a beast that's finally been uncaged. you're apologising with every breath, and a part of him wonders if he should too—

he pauses in place, pulls back just a little to look at you better, and you let out a soft tony, not liking the delay (even though you know it's not his name).

"dex," he corrects gently; you repeat it in the same breathless tone as before. he thinks he's never heard a prettier sound. when he cups your face, you lean into the touch with a sigh.

"i'm sorry," he says. he doesn't say it often, but he really means it when he does. "for everything."

and then a quieter confession. "i love you."

it's not like either of you haven't said it before, but something's changed this time. it's different, more honest in a way, even though you'd meant it every time you said it before.

"i know." it comes out a whisper, and you blink and swallow, hoping you don't end up crying. "me too. i mean—"

"i know," he echoes your words from before, before you lapse into a comfortable silence. it's almost normal for a second. then you sit up straighter, clearing your throat, and begin taking inventory of the situation. "we can't stay here for much longer. they'll know something's wrong."

he glances around, not as urgent as you. "we have time."

"hey," you say suddenly. "did you really get hard from being held at gunpoint?"

instead of responding, he shucks off his hoodie and his hand slips under your shirt, burning against your bare waist. he makes no effort to move it upwards; it just stays there, heavy, a brand on your skin. he looks up at you and grins, needy, wanting, and you get your answer.

hello god it's me gf2page BACK with ANOTHER fic about BENJAMIN POINDEXTER and before you ask YES i hate my life NO i will NOT stop writing. if you like this LMK :] 1.5K WORDS!

[pagesfromthevoid]

OH

Didn’t know this was what I needed but it was

[aquaticmercy]

He's Good To Me

Summary : Benjamin Poindexter, monster to everyone else, is the only person who could keep your mind from falling apart.

Pairing : DDBA!Benjamin Poindexter x mind reader! reader (she/her)

Warnings/tags : Angst, Fluff, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, panic attacks, sensory overload, mind reading, intrusive thoughts, trauma response, mentions of medical experimentation, murder, blood, protective/obsessive behavior, codependency, morally complicated love, hurt/comfort, domestic Dex, very brief mention of sex. Reader is mentioned to be an OXE medical experiment (Set in the last Episode of DDBA Season 2) (let me know if I missed anything!)

Word Count : 15.8k

Requested By : Anon

Notes : Please send me an ask if you would like to be added to the taglist, sometimes it gets lost in the comments. Enjoy!

Matt Murdock told himself it was a welfare check.

Which was stupid. Obviously it was stupid. Calling anything involving Benjamin Poindexter a welfare check was almost funny, if Matt had been in the mood to laugh at anything anymore.

Dex had shot Buck Cashman outside the Supreme Court and forced a makeshift siege. Of course he’d act like people were just moving targets. Of course, if the city was falling apart, Dex was probably the one person who could make it worse. 

But the courthouse was done now.

Sort of.

Matt had stood there in front of God, Fisk, Karen, the cameras, all of New York, basically, and said it. He had torn the last piece of himself open with his own hands.

He was Daredevil.

There was no putting that back.

Fisk took the plea, and he was finally out of office. Fucking finally. The city had helped, and for better or for worse, the streets had bled because of it. Riots broke out, and sirens were everywhere. The whole city sounded like it was trying to crawl out of its own skin.

And Matt knew his days of moving freely were numbered.

It would not take long for the paperwork to be in order. It would not take long for the police to get their arrest warrant.

His name would spread through every system he had spent years trying to evade. Matthew Michael Murdock, Daredevil.

Whatever he was to people; Catholic boy, blind lawyer, vigilante, hero, hypocrite, all of it? That meant nothing. He was just a criminal who had to pay for breaking the law now. 

So, fine.

But before all of that happened. He needed to tie up loose ends.

That was what he told himself as he put on a hoodie the morning after the courthouse, at 2 AM. 

He crossed rooftops and fire escapes, ribs aching, lungs burning, sweat cold beneath his hoodie.

He was gonna check on him, that’s all. Make sure Dex was not out there killing people for the love of the game. Make sure the city didn’t have one more monster loose before he was taken away.

This better be quick, because would really rather spend his time with Karen before getting locked up.

By the time Matt reached Dex’s apartment building, the riot noise had thinned, like thunder moving farther away without ever really leaving.

Outside, New York still burned in fragments. Inside the building creaked. Old pipes ticked in the walls. Someone two floors down whispered angrily behind a locked door. A television murmured emergency coverage through cheap speakers. The exhaust fans gave a faint metallic complaint above him.

Matt climbed the stairs, knowing Dex’s apartment was ahead.

And then… Matt heard sobbing.

He stopped at the door.

It wasn’t theatrical, not the kind of crying meant to pull attention from the other side of a wall.

It was smaller than that. It almost made it… worse.

It came through Dex’s door in little broken pieces, like your body had run out of strength before it had run out of panic. One shaky breath, then another, then a thin, wet sound you tried to swallow and failed. You were trying to be quiet, Matt could tell. You were trying not to make noise and still the hurt kept leaking out of you anyway.

Matt stopped dead and assessed the situation.

There was a woman crying inside Benjamin Poindexter’s apartment.

For one second, Matt thought about every horrible thing he already knew about him.

Foggy, Father Lantom, all the other bodies he left in his wake.

All of them were there in his head at once, not as memories, but as evidence. As proof against Dex. As a case already built and closed in his mind.

Dex had never been someone Matt could afford to give the benefit of the doubt, not after what he had done. Not after who he had taken. Not even after all that bullshit about one good deed, about evening out the scales, as if taking another life could balance out the lives he had destroyed.

So Matt listened.

And then Dex spoke. “Baby, breathe. Come on. I’m here.”

Matt’s stomach tightened.

Baby?

From anyone else, maybe it would have sounded the way it was meant to: a soft comfort, words meant to soothe.  

But coming from Dex, the words twisted in Matt’s ears.

Still, Matt knew it sounded… sincere. 

Soft, but not fake-soft. Not mocking. Not cruel. Not even controlling.

It sounded… exhausted and careful. It frayed apart at the edges, like he had been kneeling there for hours, saying the same few words over and over because he was terrified you would disappear somewhere he couldn’t pull you back from.

“I’m right here,” Dex murmured. “You’re okay. You’re with me.”

You made a small, broken sound.

It was this heartbreakingly helpless, breathless little noise that caught in your throat and dragged itself out anyway. It was as if your body was trying to keep crying after you had already run out of strength for it.

Your breathing was too fast; Matt could hear every jagged inhale scraping up short in your chest, every failed attempt to steady yourself. Your heartbeat fluttered, frantic and uneven, skipping over itself like it was trapped.

You were on the floor. He could tell by the way your sobs hit the wood first, the way it sounded low and folded down. You were curled into yourself, maybe. 

And Dex was too close. He was close enough that his voice barely had to rise. He was close enough that Matt could hear the shift of his body beside yours, the drag of fabric against the floor, the way he moved like he knew exactly which sounds would hurt you and which ones would not.

Everything Matt heard told him Dex was not hurting you.

The care was there. The patience was there. The way he kept his voice quiet enough not to startle. The way he didn’t grab at you, didn’t bark orders, didn’t crowd too fast. He seemed to be making himself smaller just to keep from adding to whatever was tearing through you.

Benjamin Poindexter sounded…. kind.

Matt hated that. his senses were giving him one answer and his memory was giving him another.

His senses said Dex was helping you. His memory said Dex hurt people.

His senses said Dex was gentle with you. His memory said Dex had killed Foggy.

His senses said there was love in the room. His memory said Benjamin Poindexter didn’t know how to love correctly.

His mind immediately assumed the worst.

Had he held you here? Kidnapped you? Had he convinced himself he loved you, and was he trying to convince you to love him, too? 

Your sob hitched again.

“I can’t,” you whispered, voice shredded thin. “I can’t, Dex, I can’t—”

“I know,” Dex said immediately, and Matt could hear his skin on yours, rubbing gentle circles on your arm. You weren’t pulling away. “I know. Stay with me.”

There it was, the softness again.

That was an almost desperate patience in his voice, and still, Matt couldn’t make himself trust it.

Not with Dex crouched close enough for his voice to brush your skin. Not with you breathing like the room itself was killing you. Not with the door locked and the city screaming outside and no one else coming.

Then your breath snagged hard “Dex.”

“I’m here.”

“No.” Your voice thinned, almost terrified. “Someone else is h-here.”

Matt went completely still.

Behind the door, the apartment changed.

It was just a shift in the air. Dex went quiet all of a sudden. Matt understood, somehow, that you knew he was there.

For one suspended second, no one moved.

Your breathing trembled in the silence. Then Dex’s heartbeat slowed as he turned.

That was what made Matt decide. The sudden stillness of a killer turning his attention toward the door.

Whatever comfort Matt had heard before, whatever gentleness had almost confused him, it collapsed under the weight of everything else he knew:

A woman was crying in Dex’s apartment. Dex was too close to you. Ergo, Dex was hurting you and Matt had to get you out.

So Matt stepped back once he kicked the door down, and it broke inward. The sound tore through the apartment, wood splitting against the wall.

Matt stepped, expecting you to recoil.

He expected you to scramble backward on the floor, away from Dex. He expected fear to pull you toward the farthest corner, toward the broken doorway, toward him.

Anything but what actually happened.

You moved toward Dex.

It was a clumsy, desperate little scramble, knees dragging over the floorboards, one hand slipping against the wood as you tried to push yourself up and failed. Your breath came in miserable pieces, your whole body folded around the panic like it hurt to exist inside your own skin.

“Dex,” you choked.

Dex was already moving. He closed the distance before you could reach him properly, like he couldn’t stand the sight of you having to cross even that little distance alone. His hands came out, open, and you clambered into him.

There was no other word for it.

You climbed into his arms like you were trying to get beneath his ribs. As if you pressed close enough, hid deep enough, the rest of the world might lose track of you. Your fingers caught the front of his shirt and twisted there, tight and frantic, pulling yourself higher until your face was buried against his chest.

Dex caught you with his whole body. One of his arms was wrapped around your back. The other came up over your head, shielding your face, tucking you under his chin. He bent around you so gently it was almost painful to process, all that deadly mass turned into cover, into shelter.

Matt froze.

You… were not trapped.

Your cheek was pressed to his chest, hands fisted in his shirt. Your body shook against his, but the second he held you, your heartbeat changed. It was still too fast, still terrified, still broken up with panic, but it reached for his rhythm like a drowning man reaching for shore.

Dex lowered his mouth to your temple.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, baby.”

You made a devastated sound and curled tighter.

Your knees drew up against his thigh. One of your hands slipped from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, gripping there like you were afraid Matt might pull him away from you.

“He’s loud,” you managed.

Dex’s eyes stayed on Matt, who still hadn’t said anything. “I know.”

“He’s loud, Dex, he’s so loud.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

You shook your head against him, hiding your face harder in the hollow of his throat. “Baby,” you whispered, voice barely there. “He thinks you’re hurting me.”

Dex went still. 

“I’m not,” he said.

“I know.” Your voice cracked on it. “I know. But he thinks it and I can hear it and it hurts.”

Matt’s throat tightened. What did that even mean?

He heard it then, not just the panic and sobs. He heard the trust.

Your fear was everywhere, all over the room, spilling out of you in ragged breaths, but it was not aimed at the man holding you. Dex was the only place in the apartment your body seemed to recognize as safe.

You kept trying to disappear into him.

Every time Matt shifted, even slightly, your fingers tightened. Every time the broken door creaked behind him, your breath snagged and Dex’s palm moved slowly over the back of your head, as if smoothing you back into yourself.

“Don’t listen to him,” Dex murmured against your hair. “Listen to me.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

“It’s too much.”

“I know, baby. I know.”

Matt took half a step forward. Dex’s head snapped up. “Don’t.”

The word was quiet to not startle you, and that was enough to stop Matt anyway.

Dex shifted on the floor, turning his body more fully between you and the doorway. You followed without thinking, clinging to him as he moved, your face still hidden against his chest. He kept you tucked there, one arm firm around your back, the other curved protectively around your head like he could keep Matt’s thoughts from touching you if he just covered enough of you.

“Poindexter,” Matt started, and it was smaller now.

Dex’s expression did not change. “Get out.”

“I thought—”

“I don’t give a shit what you thought.”

You trembled harder at the anger in his voice. Dex felt it instantly. His eyes flicked down, and when he spoke again, it wasn’t to Matt.

“Not you,” he whispered, pressing his mouth briefly to your hair. 

You made another broken little noise and pushed closer, like the words had gone straight through your heart.

Dex held you tighter, not possessively in a way that trapped, but just enough to tell your body there was he was around it. 

Matt stood there in the wreckage of the door, listening to your heartbeat try to steady itself against Dex’s chest, and for one awful second he didn’t know what to do with what his senses were telling him.

Because Benjamin Poindexter was still the reason too many people Matt loved were dead. But you were curled into him like he was the last quiet place in New York.

“He’s still here,” you whispered.

Dex’s eyes lifted. “I know.”

Dex’s face changed, but not by much. Matt doubted anyone else would have noticed, but he did. He heard it in Dex’s breathing, in the shift of his weight, in the sudden burst of restraint. The city outside was loud. The riots were loud. Matt was loud. His suspicion was loud. His righteousness was loud. His judgment was loud.

And somehow, you could hear all of it.

“I don’t want him here,” you said.

That was it. Whatever patience Dex had left for Matt died right there on the floor.

His hand stayed gentle on your back, but his voice didn’t. “Get the fuck out.”

For once, he did what Dex told him to do.

Matt stepped back into the hallway and got out.

The ruined door dragged crookedly against the floor when he pulled it mostly shut behind him. The lock was useless now, broken out from the frame, hanging loose in splintered wood, but Matt still closed it as much as he could.

He stood there in the hall, one hand still near the broken door, breathing quietly through the dust and old paint and the faint metallic tang inside the apartment.

He should have left. He knew that.

You had wanted him gone. Matt had seen enough, heard enough, to know he had been wrong about at least the first thing: Dex hadn’t been hurting you.

But Matt still could not make himself walk away.

Because Matt has convinced himself that love, in the hands of someone like Benjamin Poindexter, could become a locked room so easily.

Matt stayed.

Not close enough to push the door open again, but not far enough to pretend he wasn’t listening.

Inside, your breathing was still ragged.

Dex was still on the floor with you.

Matt could hear the tiny, frantic movements of your hands in Dex’s shirt. The tremor in your inhale. The way you kept trying to tuck yourself into him like the world might stop finding you if there was enough of his body between you and everything else.

“He’s still out there,” you whispered.

Dex’s answer came after a second of consideration. “Is he, now?”

Your breath hitched. “He didn’t leave.”

Fuck.

Matt stood very still in the hall.

“I’ll take care of him,” Dex murmured.

Your breath snagged. “Don’t hurt him.”

There was a pause. It wasn’t long, but long enough.

Then Dex said, “I won’t kill him.”

“Dex.” You didn't sound convinced.

“I won’t kill him,” he repeated, softer this time. “Promise.”

“You’re mad.”

“I know.”

“It’s sharp,” you winced.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry.” Inside the apartment, Dex went quiet in a way that felt less like guilt and more like being seen too clearly. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to.”

“Dex.”

“I won’t hurt him,” he said, and this time there was no loophole in it. There was only surrender, because it was you asking. “Okay? I won’t.”

Your breathing shuddered as Dex shifted on the floor.

“I’m going to move you, okay?” he said. “Just to the bed. I’ve got you.”

You made a small sound, and Matt could picture it too clearly now. You curled in on yourself, face hidden, body shaking from too much of whatever it is you could sense. 

Dex crouched slowly, though he was already close. Like even now, even with you clutching at him, he was careful not to startle you.  He slid one arm under your knees and the other behind your back.

You clutched at his shirt with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“No.” His voice went firm immediately. “No, don’t say things like that.”

“I ruined your night.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.”

“I came here and I—”

“You came to me.” Dex pressed his mouth to your temple, quick and fierce. “That’s all. You came to me.”

You made a broken little noise against him.

Matt stood in the hallway, just outside the ruined door, listening to Dex lift you from the floor.

He heard the way your breath caught when your body left the ground. He heard your hands grip for a better hold. He heard Dex adjust instantly, pulling you closer.

“I’ve got you,” Dex murmured. “I’ve got you. I know.”

“You’re going to leave.”

“No.”

You sounded so small when you said, “You are.”

Dex carried you to the bed like every step had been chosen before he took it. Like he knew which floorboards made noise and which ones didn’t. Like he had learned how to move through this apartment in a way that made the least amount of noise for you.

“I’ll take care of him, okay?” Dex murmured. “I’ll make him go away.”

Your breathing hitched as you started to say something, but Dex shushed you gently.

“Yes, I know,” he said, softer. “I know you don’t like it when people see you like this. I know. It’s just gonna be me and you, okay? Just me and you.”

The mattress dipped down under your weight.

“I’ll close the door,” Dex continued. “I’ll turn the lights off. I’ll come right back.”

Your fingers caught the fabric of his shirt again. “Don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving.” Dex let out a slow breath. “I’m right here.”

“You’re thinking about going.”

“I’m thinking about making him leave.”

“I can’t tell the difference.”

Dex went quiet.

Matt heard him sit beside you instead of standing right away. The mattress shifted again as the room settled around the two of you.

You cried a little, more exhausted now, as if the panic had torn through you and left you hollowed out behind it.

Dex’s hand moved over fabric in a slow, repetitive pass. Matt realised he was making the sheets smooth for you as he laid you down.

His hand slid up from your back to the side of your face, thumb hovering near your cheek, not quite wiping the tears away until you leaned into it first. “Look into my mind, baby.”

Matt’s head tilted from the hallway.

What?

Inside the studio, everything went still except for your breathing.

The room was not large enough for privacy. Not really. The bed sat pushed into the far corner. The broken front door was too close. Matt was too close. The whole world was too close.

But Dex bent over you like he could make distance with his body alone.

“Go on,” he murmured. “Look at me.”

You stared up at him through wet lashes, face blotched from crying, lips parted around breaths that still would not come right. Your fingers trembled against his shirt, twisted in the fabric so tightly the seams strained.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then your grip loosened by a fraction.

Your eyes fluttered.

A shaky breath left you, not calm, not even close, but relieved enough that Dex’s shoulders almost caved in with it.

“You’re coming back,” you whispered.

Dex nodded once, forehead nearly touching yours. “Yeah.”

“You’re not leaving forever.”

“No.”

The answer was immediate. No room for doubt. No space for the thought to grow teeth.

But then your expression crumpled again.

“You’re mad.”

Dex closed his eyes for half a second.

He didn’t deny it. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. Not to you. “I am.”

Your breath caught so suddenly it sounded like it hurt.

Dex’s whole face changed. The anger was still there, Matt could hear it in him, running hot under the skin. But with you looking at him like that, terrified because his fury had no color, no label, no clear direction once it got inside your head, Dex felt almost sick with it.

“I’m not mad at you,” he said, urgent in a way that made the words rough. “Never at you.”

Your mouth trembled and repeated yourself. “You know I can’t tell the difference sometimes.” It came out so pained Matt felt it in his own chest.

You said it like an apology, like you hated needing him to explain the direction of his anger because you could feel it anyway, and feeling it didn’t mean understanding it.

Dex swallowed. His hand curved more fully around your cheek now, warm and steady, thumb finally catching one tear before it slid down to your jaw.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

You looked at him for another second, searching his face like your own mind wasn't enough tonight. Like even seeing inside him had not made your body believe it yet.

Then he lowered his voice. “I have to make him leave.”

Your fingers tightened again, not as badly this time.

Dex did not pull away. He leaned in instead, pressing a short kiss to your forehead, then another to the corner of your temple, like he could nail the promise into place with his mouth.

“I’m going to turn off the lights, okay?” 

You nodded, barely, as breathing scraped in and out through your nose.

Dex shifted only when you let him. He eased you back against the pillows in the bed, not putting you down so much as arranging the room around your collapse. One hand stayed on you the whole time, a constant point of contact while the other reached for everything else.

He crossed the few steps to it and slid the window shut with painstaking care, catching the frame before it could knock. Street noise dulled at once.

Then he pulled the curtains together until the thin spill of city light vanished from the wall and your face disappeared into darkness.

As promised, he clicked the lamp off.

The studio fell dimmer, warmer, reduced to the weak strip of hallway light bleeding through the ruined front door.

The phone was next. He picked it up from the small table beside the bed and silenced it without looking, thumb moving from memory. He put it back, screen turned down.

A radio sat near the kitchenette, cheap and old, still plugged into the wall. Dex crossed to it barefoot and pulled the cord free. The plastic scraped faintly against the outlet, and even that made your breathing tremble.

Then, he opened a drawer near the bed.

Something rattled softly as he picked it up. A pill bottle, maybe? No, it could be earplugs in a little tin. 

He came back with them in his palm.

You must have watched him through the dark because your breathing changed when he got close again, sounding less lost than before.

Dex sat on the edge of the mattress.

He tucked the blanket around you, drawing it up over your shoulder, smoothing the edge down like he was sealing the world out inch by inch. His hand lingered there after, broad against the blanket, feeling the shake of you through the fabric.

The apartment had become smaller. Every sound had been answered. Every light had been put down. Every little edge of the room had been softened, covered, turned away from you by hands that knew the ritual too well.

He had done this before. Like he had learned, piece by piece, how to make the world survivable for you.

At some point, you must have reached for him again, because Dex’s voice dropped inaudibly. “Hey,” he whispered. “I know.”

The bed creaked as he leaned closer.

A kiss touched your skin. Your forehead, maybe. Then another, lower. Your temple. The damp line of your cheek.

“I’ll be right back,” Dex breathed.

You made a small sound.

He stayed another second, maybe two. Long enough for your fingers to loosen.

Then he stood.

Dex walked to the other side of the apartment without turning on a single light. He made no wasted movement, not a single sound he didn’t mean to make.

At the broken front door, he paused and looked back once.

Matt could hear the small turn of his head. The habit of making sure you were still under the blanket, still breathing, still there.

Then Dex slipped into the hall and pulled the ruined door mostly shut behind him.

It couldn’t latch. But he cracked it closed as carefully as if it still mattered, leaving only a narrow gap of darkness between the apartment and the hallway.

He was keeping the light out. He was keeping Matt out.

When Dex turned, he stood half-shadowed in the corridor, eyes red-rimmed and flat with exhaustion. His face was calm in the way loaded weapons were calm. His voice stayed quiet, almost gentle, but not for Matt.

He did it for yous

“I told you,” Dex said, “to get the fuck out.”

For a while, Matt didn’t say anything.

The hallway held them in the aftermath of what Matt had done. The door hung crooked in its frame, pulled mostly shut even though the lock was split and useless, the wood around it cracked open where Matt’s boot had forced its way through. It couldn’t protect you anymore. It could barely pretend to be a door. Still, Dex stood in front of it as if his body could replace what Matt had broken, as if he could become the lock, the wall, the whole goddamn building if he had to.

Matt could hear the anger in him as clearly as he could hear traffic below: hot, contained, and viciously focused. Dex wanted to do something with it. Matt knew that, but he kept it buried beneath his ribs because you were behind that broken door, and if he let the rage rise any higher, you would feel it.

That was what Matt could not stop noticing. Not the anger. The restraint.

Inside the apartment, you shifted under the blanket. It was only a movement of fabric, barely anything, followed by the small uneven catch of your breath as you tried to settle yourself in the dark corner Dex had made for you. Dex turned his head at once. Not fully, not enough to take his attention off Matt, but enough that Matt realised that some part of Dex had never left the room with you. Some part of him was still sitting beside the bed, counting your breaths, waiting for the slightest sign that you needed him again.

For one moment, Matt didn't feel like he was looking at Bullseye. He was looking at a man furious enough to kill and still aching to go back inside because the woman he loved was trying to remember how to breathe without him there.

Matt swallowed. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

Dex looked back at him and the answer was obvious. Matt had no right to know. No right to ask. He had no right to stand there in the hallway after frightening you and pretend the question was harmless.

“I didn’t tell you.”

His voice was flat and guarded, the words set down like a barrier. Matt’s mouth tightened. 

Behind the door, your breathing hitched again, smaller this time, like the sound of voices through wood was still enough to scrape against you. Dex heard it too. The anger in him shifted immediately, folding smaller, tightening down.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

He knew it was wrong the second it left his mouth. The words were too blunt, too harsh, too clinical. He had meant, What happened? He had meant, Is she going to be okay? He had meant, What did I just walk into, and how badly did I make it worse? But none of that came out. What came out sounded like you were a problem. 

“Nothing is wrong with her,” Dex said, and Matt could tell he was trying his hardest not to snap.

Matt didn’t move. Dex stepped closer by the smallest amount, and the entire hallway seemed to narrow with him. His face had gone hard, but not empty.

“Nothing,” Dex repeated, each syllable harsh enough to cut. “She’s perfect.”

Matt exhaled slowly through his nose. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did.”

Dex didn’t have to snarl. He didn’t have to raise his voice. The accusation sat there between them, plain and ugly, and Matt couldn’t defend himself from it because part of it was true.

Inside, you were quiet now. Not calm, but silent in the way people became when they were trying very hard not to take up too much space with their hurt. Matt listened to the small tremor and felt the pieces beginning to arrange themselves in his head.

You had known he was outside before Dex opened the door. You had reacted to him even before he even stepped inside. You had known Dex was mad but couldn’t tell where that anger was aimed. Dex had told you to look into his mind with the ease of someone offering proof, not metaphor, not comfort dressed up as poetry, but a real thing he knew you could do.

Oh.

Matt looked back at Dex and stated the painfully obvious explanation. “She can read minds.”

Dex’s expression changed only a little, but Matt heard the rest. The brief tightening of his mouth. The instinct to protect you by lying took over, followed almost immediately by the realization that lying to Matt Murdock was pointless.

Dex looked away, and said, “Yes.” 

His voice had changed, still rough around the edges, but the explanation seemed to cost him a part of his soul. Every word about you had to be handled carefully because it belonged to you first. He kept his eyes on the door as he spoke, as if even describing your pain required him to make sure it had not worsened.

“She hears thoughts, feelings. Most days she can keep it out, or keep it separate, or read one mind at a time. She knows how to get through the day.” His teeth clenched, and he looked down for half a second before forcing himself to continue. “But when there are too many people, when emotions run too high, it stops being individual thoughts and turns into noise.”

Oh.

Oh shit, Matt thought as he realized that last night hadn’t only been bad for you. It had been a disaster built exactly out of the things that hurt you most. 

Last night, protests clashed with Fisk’s Task Force. Bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder in the streets, voices raised, officers behind their shields, civilians furious and terrified and righteous all at once. Fisk’s fall had moved through the city like a shockwave. Matt Murdock’s confession that he was a Daredevil had made a home on every screen, in every mouth, in every disbelieving mind.

His confession had not stayed in the courtroom. It had spilled outward, turning into rumor and revelation and riot, and you had walked straight into all of it because you thought Dex was hurt. Because you missed him.

Matt felt his stomach sink.

He thought of you moving through that crowd, not just hearing the sirens and shouting like everyone else, but taking in the thoughts beneath them. Panic layered over rage layered over grief. Thousands of minds all pushing against yours with no space between them. A whole city losing control at once, and you were caught in the middle of it, trying to find one person.

Dex’s face tightened as if he could see the same picture and hated it more because he had already lived the end of it. He hated that he had found you like that. 

Matt understood that without being told. Dex had found you shaking apart in this same apartment, or near it, or on the street outside, too overwhelmed by everyone else to find yourself. He had found you and brought you here and spent the night closing windows, killing lights, silencing phones, making the world smaller with hands that had done unspeakable things.

“She came looking for me,” Dex said.

The words were almost stripped of anger now. Dex looked at the door again, and his body softened before he could stop it. But Matt heard it in the way Dex’s breath caught around your existence on the other side of the wall.

Benjamin Poindexter loved you.

Matt didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to have to make room for it inside the shape of the man he hated. He wanted Dex to stay simple. A killer. Someone with a label simple enough to condemn without complication. But love was written through him now in ways Matt couldn’t ignore. 

Matt’s voice came quieter when he asked, “Does she need a doctor?”

Dex scoffed. “Doctors are what made her like this.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t explain. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe Matt hadn’t earned that part of the story. But still, he was opening just enough of a door for Matt to picture the white rooms, fluorescent lights and people calling pain research, behind him.

Dex looked back at the broken door, and for half a second, the rage in him gave way. “She has good days and bad days,” Dex said. His mouth tightened, and when he spoke again, the grief in it was almost unbearable. “And she was having a good week.”

That mattered.

Matt couldn’t possibly understand the full weight of that sentence, but Dex did. A good week meant sleep. It meant you could eat without feeling nauseous. It meant you had mornings where you didn’t wake up already bracing against other people’s thoughts. 

You’ve had several really good weeks, actually. 

It mattered because Dex had met you on a bad day.

—

Twelve months ago… 

OXE hired him to kill you.

A freelance gig, really. 

The file was from the private medical trial branch of the corporation. It said that you were a failed participant. You were a liability. You were just a woman whose condition had become unpredictable.

They sent Dex a name, a photograph, an address, and a warning not to engage longer than necessary.

The house they had sent him to had no security. It was an old, empty place with drawn curtains and stale air and dust gathered thick in the corners.

You hated it.

Dex found you in the attic under the slanted roof, sitting in the weak orange spill of late afternoon light, one wrist was handcuffed to an exposed pipe. Your knees were drawn up close to your chest. Your hair stuck damply to your face, and your lips were bitten raw, like you had spent hours trying to keep something inside your mouth by force.

The key was across the room.

It was kicked. Dex could tell from the scrape in the dust where it had skidded away from you, just far enough that your fingers couldn’t reach it unless you pulled hard enough to tear the skin around your wrist. The cuff had already bruised a dark, ugly ring on your skin. 

You looked at him once.

A small, breathless laugh left you. It wasn’t happy, not even close. It was more like your body had mistaken despair for humor because it had run out of other ways to hold it.

“You’re…” Your voice cracked. “You’re here to kill me.”

Dex didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Your eyes moved over his face, and something strange passed through them. 

Then you laughed again, barely. “You think I’m pretty, Dex.”

The attic went still as dust drifted in the light between you.

Dex’s finger rested near the trigger.

“How do you know my name?”

You looked at him like the question itself was tired. “Mind reader,” you said. “Obviously.”

Dex stared at you for a long moment.

You didn’t look like what OXE had described.

Dangerous, yes, maybe. But not in the way they meant. You looked exhausted, cornered, and afraid of yourself than of him. Your whole body was tense against the cuff, but you weren’t trying to get free anymore.

Dex’s eyes flicked to the key, then back to you.

“Why lock yourself up here?”

For the first time, you looked ashamed. “Because it’s loud.”

Dex glanced around the empty attic.

You heard the thought before he could speak.

“Not here,” you said, swallowing, then pointing to your head with your free hand, “but here.”

Your hand then curled briefly around your own throat, not pressing, just remembering. 

“I kicked the key away,” you whispered. “So I’d have time to stop myself.”

“From what?”

You closed your eyes. Your voice came out small. “Strangling someone.”

Dex didn’t move.

You opened your eyes, wet and miserable, and looked past him because looking right at him was suddenly too hard.

“He was loud. He wouldn’t stop. He kept thinking and thinking and thinking, and I kept hearing it. I told him to stop to shut up, but they couldn’t, because people can’t just stop thinking, and I knew that, see, I knew that, but I—

Your breath broke as you looked down at your cuffed wrist. “So I locked myself up here. Before I kill someone again.”

Dex should have killed you. That was the job.

OXE had paid him to remove a problem, and there you were, handcuffed beneath a slanted roof, bruised and filthy and shaking because the world had made you into something you were terrified of becoming.

He should have pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the gun.

Your face fell immediately, like mercy was its own kind of threat.

“Don’t,” you whispered.

Dex paused.

“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” you said, voice cracking. 

Dex’s mind went quiet.

He had no idea what to do with that. No idea what to do with you.

So he did the only practical thing he could.

He walked across the room and picked up the key.

You cried then, silently at first, tears spilling over without sound as he came back and crouched in front of you. Dex moved slowly. He set the gun down beside him, close enough to reach, far enough that you could see both his hands.

“I’m going to unlock it,” he said.

You stared at him.

“You can read my mind,” he added, awkward and blunt because gentleness was not a language he spoke well yet. “So you know I’m not lying.”

Your breath shook.

You looked at him, really looked, and you squinted your eyes in the smallest, most painful disbelief.

Dex unlocked the cuff.

The metal fell away from your wrist. 

You didn’t move.

You only stared at your freed hand like it belonged to someone else. The skin beneath the cuff was swollen and angry, the bruise already darkening. Dex looked at it for too long.

Then he took off his jacket.

He draped it over your shoulders.

You were shaking so hard the leather fabric around you.

Dex did not ask if you could walk. He already knew the answer. He saw the way your legs failed when you tried to gather them beneath you, saw the way your hand went out blindly toward the pipe, toward the wall, toward anything that would keep the room from tilting.

So he picked you up slowly, one arm under your knees, one behind your back, no grip tighter than necessary.

You went rigid in his arms for half a second, then sagged, exhausted past the point of fear.

“Why are you doing this?” you whispered.

Dex looked down at you.

He didn’t know how to answer out loud.

Because I know what it means to be made wrong for the world, too.

Maybe, now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to be alone anymore. 

He said none of that. But you said, “okay.”

He carried you down from the attic and took you back to his apartment because he didn’t know where else to take you. 

You sat on the edge of his tub in his jacket while he ran the water warm.

Dex kept looking away, not because he was embarrassed, but because he understood, somehow, that being looked at was another kind of noise. He handed you a towel, found some soaps and put a clean shirt on the sink. 

When you could not lift your hands without trembling, he helped.

He helped you into warm water and rinsed dust from your hair, cleaning blood from your bruised wrist. His hand was steady on your skin when you started crying again.

He didn't ask you to stop.

He only said, once, very quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

And because you could read his mind, you knew he meant it.

Benjamin Poindexter had been hired to kill you.

Instead, he took you out of the attic and bathed you.

—

Over the next couple of days, you were mostly good.

Mostly.

Because Dex learned quickly that good didn’t mean cured. It meant you slept more than you usually did. It meant you could sit by the window without pressing your palms to your ears. It meant you could make tea in his kitchen and smile at some thought he hadn’t meant to give you.

Within the first week, his apartment changed because of you. He installed wall panelling first, because the building was old and thin and the neighbors came through the walls too easily when everything felt hollow. Then, he gave you thicker curtains, then rugs. Then a new refrigerator because the old one hummed at a frequency that made you bare your teeth and say it tasted wrong.

Dex didn’t ask what that meant.

He just replaced it.

After all, your mind was already susceptible to being invaded by foreign thoughts, he didn't want you to be overstimulated by your senses, too.

That was how it started with him, really. Not with declarations. Dex loved in corrections, adjustments, and threat assessments. He noticed what hurt you, and then he removed it. He learned the signs of your bad days and built around them, one practical act at a time.

You fell in love with him so fast it should have scared you.

It didn’t, but mostly because you knew he had already fallen too.

You could hear it.

He thought he was being subtle, which was almost funny. Dex, who could control his breathing to take a shot, couldn’t hide wanting you to kiss him for more than a week.

You could hear his thoughts every time you came too close.

Not words, exactly. More like flashes of your mouth, your hands in his mind. The curve of your shoulder when you wore one of his shirts. The split-second image of him leaning in, followed by a disciplined thought-wall of don’t, don’t, don’t, because Dex could kill a man without blinking but apparently touching you first was too much.

You let him suffer with it for six days, mostly because you were giving him time to change his mind. 

He didn’t.

On the seventh, he was fixing one of the new panels in the kitchen, teeth clenched because the wood refused to sit straight. You were sitting on the counter with one of his old FBI academy shirts that had since gotten too small for his bulk now, bare legs swinging, watching him pretend he was not acutely aware of your knees on either side of his ribs when he stepped between them to reach the wall.

You had laughed from where you sat.

He looked over at you. “You think that’s funny?”

You tilted your head. “You’re thinking about shooting the wall.”

Dex stared at you, setting the screwdriver down too carefully.

“You shouldn’t go digging around in my head.”

“I didn’t dig,” you said. “You’re loud when you’re annoyed.”

That should have bothered him. It did, maybe a little.

But then you smiled at him like his mind was not a terrible place to be. Like you could look at all the terrible things in there and still find him underneath. Like understanding him did not disgust you.

Fuck, he thought, don’t do things that make me want to—

“You want to kiss me,” you interrupted his train of thoughts.

Dex went so still it was almost sweet. Then he turned his head. “You shouldn’t listen to that.”

“You know I don’t mean to.” You hooked two fingers in the front of his shirt and tugged him closer. 

His eyes dropped to your mouth, and that was answer enough.

So you kissed him.

Gently at first, just to see what he would do with it. Dex froze under your hands like his body had forgotten every instruction except stay. Then he made this small, ruined sound against your mouth and touched your waist like you were a fragile crystal he had been warned not to break.

After that, neither of you stood a chance.

Neither of you did anything halfway. Dex didn’t know how to want normally, and you didn’t know how to be wanted normally. Kissing turned into touching, touching turned to stumbling into his bed, and being in his bed turned into Dex curling into you afterward like he had found heaven and was furious nobody had warned him it would feel like this.

Sex with a mind reader should have terrified him.

But after the first time he understood what it meant with you. There was no pretending or hiding behind control. He couldn’t pretend to be calmer than he was. He couldn’t hide how badly he wanted to kiss you again, how much he liked your hands on him, how ruined he got when you said his name in that breathless sigh. You knew when he was overwhelmed and you adjusted. You knew when he needed to slow down. You knew when he was thinking too much and when he needed you to pull him out of his own head.

You kissed him through it. You talked him through it. You touched him like his wants were not shameful just because they were intense, like the inside of him was not too much for you.

And you loved him for it.

You loved the strange, violent tenderness of him. The way he checked your face before his hands moved. The way he liked when you told him what he wanted. 

“You love me,” you whispered after the second month, half asleep against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy shapes over his ribs.

Dex went still beneath you.

You smiled into his skin. “Don’t panic. I love you too.”

He didn’t say it back then because he didn’t have to.

But his arms tightened around you like the thought of you leaving had become physically unbearable. His mouth pressed to the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, almost desperate.

He loved you with every ruined, desperate, loyal part of himself. He loved you like gravity, like a fixation, like a religion he had invented alone in the dark and then accidentally found living in your body.

You smiled up at him, eyes wet.

“I know,” you whispered. “I can hear you.”

Dex’s hand came up to the back of your neck and kissed you.

You heard it in him constantly after that, and not  like a normal man thinking I love you in a normal way. 

Still, there were rules.

You didn’t care that he killed AVTF agents and assassination jobs. You had heard enough of their minds to know duty didn’t make most men good. You didn’t hate him for coming home with blood on his hands. 

If anything, Dex loved that about you. Because for once, he didn’t have to explain himself.

He didn’t have to come home and build a careful human-sounding justification for the violence. He didn’t have to say he had no choice, or they were a threat. You already knew. You reached into his mind, found his reasoning, and understood it before he even greeted you.

And you would look at him and say, “That’s fine.”

Not because you were naïve. But you knew exactly what he was.

You knew the terrible things he had done. You knew the sound of his mind when he decided someone had to die. You knew how quickly he could make peace with blood if the reason made sense to him. And somehow, you accepted it.

But proximity to killing was a different thing altogether. A hurt mind was a loud mind and a dying mind was worse. 

You explained it after an agent got too close to the apartment. 

Dex knew that he couldn’t risk a search. He knew he couldn’t risk him writing down the address. He couldn’t risk OXE finding you again.

So he killed him outside, close enough for you to feel the pain. 

By the time Dex came back in, you were on the floor beside the bed, hands pressed to your ears even though that never helped. Your face was pale, eyes unfocused, like you were still hearing dead thoughts long after the body had gone limp.

“A hurt mind tastes like TV static,” you whispered.

Dex stopped with blood drying on his sleeve.

You tried to explain because he needed to understand, and with you, Dex always listened like the answer might save your life later.

“I don’t hear words when they’re hurt. Pain turns everything white and icky. It buzzes behind my eyes.” You swallowed hard, breathing through it. “And dying is worse. A dying mind clings to anything it can. A face, a  smell, a prayer. Some room they were in when they were little. Anything to stay. It’s so loud, Dex. I can’t filter it, I can’t, I-I… can’t.”

Dex didn’t look sorry for the dead agent, that was not how he worked. But he looked… hurt. He was hurt because you were.

“I know why you did it,” you said, eyes wet. “I know he got too close. I’m not mad.”

That was worse, because he could’ve handled anger. He didn’t know what to do with forgiveness. “I just can’t be near it,” you whispered. “Please.”

It had never been easy for him to change rules, but just like that, because you were hurt, he changed it. 

He promised no killing within half a mile of the apartment. He promised there would be no bodies in the building. If danger came near and you were close enough to feel it, Dex would send you away first. 

And if he had no choice, if someone had to die and had to die fast, Dex dragged the body away before the mind finished breaking.

He’d drag them down alleys, around corners, behind dumpsters, far enough that their minds could get loud somewhere it wouldn’t reach you.

For a while, that was enough.

Then one day, Dex came home and you weren’t in the apartment.

The door was locked. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low the way you liked them. The kettle sat cold on the stove, even though it was time you usually had tea. Your blanket was half-folded on the chair, one sleeve of one of his shirts hanging off the armrest where you had left it that morning.

But you weren’t there.

Dex stood in the middle of the studio and listened.

He couldn’t hear bare feet shifting against the floor of the bathroom. He could hear breathing from the corner beyond the bed, where you usually were when you were overwhelmed. 

Nothing.

His body reacted before his mind did.

A bloom of panic opened behind his ribs.

“Sweetheart?”

No answer.

He checked the bathroom, the closet, the fire escape. The bed, even though he could see you weren’t  in it. Then again, because panic didn’t care about logic once it got its hands around his throat.

No.

No, no, no.

For one sick second, all he could think was OXE.

Someone had found you. Someone had gotten in while he was away. Someone had taken you from the little box he had built to keep the world out, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

Then he heard you.

You were… down the hall?

You let out a sob muffled through someone else’s door.

Dex turned toward it so fast the room seemed to tilt.

He knew that sound. He knew every version of your crying by then. The small ones you tried to hide, the sharp ones that meant you were hurt, the breathless ones that meant too many minds had gotten in and you couldn’t find your way back out.

This one was worse.

This one sounded like shock and the beginning of self-hatred.

Dex was already moving.

The neighbors’ apartment door was unlocked.

He pushed it open and found you on the floor.

You were curled up near the kitchen tiles, knees drawn tight, hands pressed over your mouth as if you were trying to hold the sobs in with your fingers. Your whole body shook.  

You were barefoot. Your hair was a mess. One side of your face was wet with tears.

Then Dex saw the bodies around you, and it belonged to the couple who lived there.

The ones who screamed through the walls so often their voices had become part of the building. The ones whose arguments rotted into your apartment at night. The ones whose thoughts were worse than their mouths, according to you. They were bitter and poisoned all the way through.

He knew pieces of them because you knew pieces of them.

You told them they had a son who didn’t live there anymore. The grandparents had taken him in because the father’s anger had become too physical and the mother’s neglect had become too easy to pretend not to see. The child’s room was now turned into storage. 

They had been horrible people.

That did not change the fact that you had killed them.

You looked up at Dex. “I’m sorry.”

Your hands fell from your mouth to your throat, fingers hovering there like you could still feel what you had done.

“They were so loud,” you whispered.

Dex stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Your eyes darted to the bodies, then back to him, wild and wet and ruined.

“I knew it would hurt,” you said, words coming faster now, tumbling out of you before you could stop them. “I knew. I knew dying minds hurt me. I knew it would be loud when they died, I knew it would get in, but they were already so loud, Dex. They were already in my head I couldn’t think.”

Your breath hitched hard.

“They were fighting again. Not just out loud outside, but inside. Inside was worse. He was thinking about what he wanted to do to her, and she was thinking about what she should have done to him years ago, and then they were thinking about the boy, and neither of them even missed him right. They just—”

You choked on it.

Dex took one slow step closer. You shook your head, frantic. “No. Don’t. I’m awful right now. I’m so loud.”

“You’re not too loud for me.”

That made you sob harder. You curled forward, forehead nearly touching your knees.

“I tried to go back,” you whispered. “I tried to go back to our apartment. I tried to shut it out, but they kept going and going and going, and I couldn’t tell what was mine anymore. I couldn’t tell if I hated them or if they hated each other or if the whole hallway hated them, and then I was here.”

Your hands twisted in your lap.

“I was just here.”

Dex understood, because it was you.

Because your mind had been filled past the point of reason by two people who had made a life out of being loud, and by the time you understood what your hands were doing, they were already dying. 

“I made it quick,” you said.

Your voice was so small it barely reached him.

Dex’s teeth tightened. You looked at him like you needed him to believe that one thing, if nothing else.

“I did. I promise. I didn’t want them to hurt. I didn’t want to hear that part for long. I just needed it to stop, and they were going to hurt each other anyway, and they were horrible, Dex, but I—” Your face fell. “I killed them.”

There was no justification, no defence. 

“I killed them,” you said again, and it sounded like you were trying to make yourself understand it.

Dex crouched in front of you, and your eyes flicked to his hands.

Dex knew too much about violence to be shocked by it. But seeing you like this, seeing the toll of it hollow you out from the inside, he understood one thing: The city was killing you.

It was simply too loud, too full for your mind. 

“Look at me,” he said.

You shook your head. “I can’t.”

“Look at me.”

Your eyes lifted.

Dex reached for you then, slow enough that you could stop him.

You didn’t.

The second his hand closed gently around your wrist, you collapsed forward into him with a sound so broken it made his throat tighten. He caught you against his chest, one hand to the back of your head, the other arm locked around you while you sobbed into his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” you gasped.

Dex held you tighter.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be like this.”

“I know, baby.”

“They were so loud.”

“I know.”

And he didn’t mean it the way you meant it. He couldn’t. He would never know what it was like to have a dying mind claw through yours, to feel someone’s last panic splinter behind your eyes. But he knew enough. He knew you. He knew what this had cost you.

He looked over your shoulder at the dead neighbors, and there was no pity in him for them.

Only calculation. He was going to clean up this mess, maybe make it look like a murder-suicide, and make sure the investigation didn’t even look your way. 

You were crying so hard you could barely breathe.

Dex pressed his mouth to your hair.

“You’re okay,” he whispered, more to himself than to you. “You’re okay.”

That night, after he cleaned what needed cleaning and got you back behind your own door, after he tucked you into the bed and sat with you until exhaustion finally dragged you under, Dex stayed awake beside you and stared at the ceiling.

The panelling he put there was not enough. The blackout curtains he installed were not enough.

The quiet refrigerator, the rugs, the rules about killing, the way he had tried to make one studio apartment survivable — none of it was enough if the city could still get to you through the walls.

By morning, Dex had made up his mind.

He started taking bigger jobs after that, better paying ones. 

All with one thing in mind: relocate you from the city.

—

After that, every job had one purpose.

You.

And Dex had always been better when he had a purpose.

Every payment, every account number, every envelope, every favor owed became a way out of the city, a way to buy air your mind could survive.

But money was never quite enough. Money could buy a place, maybe, but money left a paper trail. Dex needed a cleaner solution. 

He got what he wanted when the property mogul came to him.

The man owned half a skyline and wanted another man dead over a development dispute he kept calling “a complication.” He met Dex in the private lounge of a building with marble floors and windows too high above the street for anyone inside to remember people lived below them.

He offered a number first.

Two hundred thousand dollars. 

Dex did not react.

The mogul smiled like he thought he had accepted the offer.

Then Dex gave him his price. “Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and land.”

The mogul blinked. Dex leaned back in his chair.

“Upstate, and no close neighbors within half a mile radius. I want twenty acres at least. I want an existing cabin if you’ve got one. If not, build one.”

The man stared at him for a second too long, like money had made him forget people could ask for things that weren’t numbers. Dex’s expression didn’t change.

“You want him gone by Friday?” he tilted his head. “That’s my payment.”

The mogul laughed uncertainly.

Dex didn’t.

By the end of the week, the man was dead, the dispute was gone, and a plot of land upstate had quietly changed hands through three shell companies and a fake name. 

There was a cabin on it already.

It was small and slightly weathered, far enough from the nearest road that the city couldn’t reach it easily. It was enough from the nearest neighbor that even your mind would have to stretch to find another person.

Dex stood on the porch the first time he saw it and listened.

Nothing but birds and wind through the trees.

Perfect. 

Dex wanted to surprise you, which was adorable, because he had been thinking about the cabin constantly.

Not just the cabin itself, either. He had been fixing and sanding and checking the locks. He had managed to put extra shelves in the kitchen and fixed the creaky steps. He was planning to replace the bedroom window before you ever saw it because the old one rattled when the wind hit wrong and you’d hate it almost as much as he did. 

He wanted it perfect before he brought you there.

So you pretended not to know.

You let him come home with sawdust on his sleeve and plans tucked behind his eyes, let him sit beside you on the bed while thinking very loudly about the porch and curtain rods and whether the trees were far enough from the house to make you feel safe instead of watched.

“You’re in a good mood,” you said.

Dex glanced at you too quickly. “No.”

You smiled into your book. “Okay.”

Then, flatter, he realised, “You know.”

You looked up, trying so hard not to smile because he looked genuinely upset. “I know.”

Dex sighed through his nose. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did,” you said, reaching for the front of his shirt. “I’m surprised you thought you could surprise me.”

And poor Dex, murderous, meticulous, hopelessly in love Dex, let you pull him down into a kiss anyway. 

Of course, when he took you there the week after for the first time with your duffel bags in tow, you loved it.

You loved the curtains. You loved the little fire pit he built after you told him fire felt like the good kind of white noise in your head. You loved watching him chop wood with unnecessary precision. You loved sitting on the porch with a blanket around your shoulders while he checked the perimeter for the third time that day, because Dex couldn’t love normally. He loved like a security system with attachment issues.

And Dex loved that you knew.

He didn’t have to explain the strange shape of his obsession. You could reach into his mind and find the answer before he ever opened his mouth.

Why did he reinforce the back door?

Because if someone comes through it, I want three extra seconds.

Why did he move the bed away from the window?

Because glass breaks inward.

Why did he buy six bags of birdseed?

Because you smiled at the cardinals.

That one made him glare at you.

“You’re not supposed to listen all the time,” he said.

You sat on the porch railing, grinning into your mug. “You’re not supposed to think so loudly.”

“I don’t.”

You shrugged. “You do sometimes.”

Your favorite part, though, was watching him practice.

He set up a target in the clearing behind the cabin, a clean round board nailed to a tree stump far enough away that any normal person would have missed half the time.

Dex never missed.

He would stand there in the cold morning air, sleeves pushed up, knife balanced between his fingers with that beautiful focus he had. Then his hand would flick, quick as a blink, and the blade would bury itself dead center.

Again.

And Again.

You sat on a log nearby, chin in your hand, trying very hard not to smile. “You’re showing off.”

Dex did not look at you. “I’m practicing.”

“You’re showing off because you know I’m watching,” you said, “You’re thinking, She likes when I do this.”

The knife hit the target with a sharp thunk.

Dead center.

Dex turned then, eyes narrowing.

You smiled sweetly.

Poor thing. He was terrifying to everyone else. To you, he was just your murderous little cabin boyfriend who would rather die than admit to liking your sweet little praises.

“You know,” you said, “you don’t have to impress me.”

Dex pulled the knife from the target. 

That one got him.

Dex walked across the clearing toward you, knife still loose in his hand, expression flat in that way that would have scared anyone who didn’t already know his mind was doing the emotional equivalent of tripping over furniture.

“You think you’re funny,” he said.

“You love me.”

Dex stopped in front of you.

The woods were quiet around him. Birds were shifting in the trees. Firewood was stacked by the shed. Morning light caught in his hair and across the sharp line of his cheek. His mind softened before his eyes did, and you felt it bloom warm in your chest before he ever touched you.

I do, he thought. More than anything in the whole goddamn world. 

You smiled up at him. “I know.”

Dex bent downs, caught your chin carefully between his fingers, and kissed you. It was ridiculously gentle for a man called Bullseye. 

When he pulled back, your eyes were still closed.

“You’re going to do it again,” you murmured.

“The knife throwing?”

“No.” You opened your eyes and smiled. “Kiss me.”

Dex managed a smile. And because he never missed, he did.

—

Dex still went back to the city sometimes.

He had scales to level, as he put it. Important vigilante work, in his head. It was the kind of work that involved blood and ledgers and moral math only Benjamin Poindexter could make sound reasonable. You never argued with him about that part. You could read his mind. You knew his reasons. 

Still, leaving you at the cabin always hurt him.

Not because the cabin was unsafe. It was practically a fortress by then, even with enough stored food to survive whatever apocalypse Dex had apparently been personally expecting.

But he still checked everything twice.

“You’ll call if anything feels wrong,” he said.

“I’ll call.”

“If someone comes up the road—”

“I go to the back room.”

“If the radio cuts out—”

“I use the satellite phone.”

“If you hear something near the woods—”

“I don’t go investigate like a stupid horror movie girl.”

Still, he never left for more than three or four days.

Never.

By the second night, his thoughts would start turning back toward you. By the third, they got restless. He’d think about whether you remembered to eat. Whether the firewood was dry. Whether the road was clear. Whether you were wearing his sweater because you missed him or because the house was cold.

Both, usually.

When he came back, it was almost always late.

You never waited inside.

You would be on the porch before he reached the steps, blanket around your shoulders, eyes bright from missing him too much. Sometimes he didn’t even get the Bullseye mask off before you had both hands on him.

“Missed you,” you whispered, then you’d kiss the mask, right over where his mouth should be.

And his brain would go completely, embarrassingly haywire with love, relief, home, you, you, you.

You laughed softly against the fabric surface of it. “You’re loud.”

Dex’s gloved hands found your waist. “I missed you too.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, “I know.”

He would pull the mask off properly after that, just to kiss you properly. And when his mouth finally found yours, you could feel the city fall away from him.

—

This time, Dex was gone for seven days.

He didn’t tell you why, and not because he wanted to scare you. Because in Dex’s mind, silence was kinder than worry. If he told you that he had played a part in killing the mayor's wife and had been injured, and now needed to do one last assassination before signing a contract with a government agency so he could start providing better for you, you would panic before he could get back to you.

So he kept quiet.

And that was worse.

By day five, the cabin stopped feeling peaceful and started feeling empty. By day six, you were sleeping in his sweater, radio in your lap, listening for a voice that never came. By day seven, every crackle of static sounded like him dying.

He had never been gone that long.

So you left.

It took you hours to walk to the nearest train station, but you managed to do it. 

The train, once you got on, was too crowded, and you suddenly were reminded why Dex had moved you away.  There were too many shoulders, too many minds packed into one metal tube, all of them thinking too loudly at once. Fear about Fisk, about Daredevil. Anger at the Task Force. A woman was praying under her breath. A boy was trying not to cry. Someone was watching the footage of the protests on their phone.

You focused.

You filtered.

You had gotten good at that, hadn’t you? Dex had helped you get good at that. One mind at a time. One thought at a time. Find the edge of yourself. Stay there. Don’t let the fear become yours just because you can hear it.

And for a while, you managed.

Even with New York getting louder the closer you came. Even with every station spilling more panic into the train. Even as you got out, as the protests moved through the city like a fever, anger and terror and hope all tangled together until nobody’s thoughts came out clean anymore.

You pressed your nails into your palm and breathed.

In.

Out.

Find Dex.

That was all you needed to do. 

Find Dex and everything would be okay.

You could be overstimulated. You could be shaking. You could have the whole city scraping against the inside of your skull and still make it to him, because you had done hard things before. You had survived OXE. You had survived bad days. You had survived yourself.

You could survive a train ride and a trip to the city.

You were managing.

Barely, but managing.

Until…

Somewhere in the city, a Task Force Agent shot a man.

You felt it.

You didn’t even see it. 

But you felt the impact, the shock, the guttural animal panic of a mind realizing too late that the body was failing. His last thoughts clawed outward, grabbing at anything. He thought about a mother, a kitchen light, the taste of coffee, please, please, please — and it slammed through you so hard you thought you were the one dying. 

Too much.

Too much, too much, too much.

By the time you reached Dex’s apartment, you could barely separate yourself from the city.

You stumbled up the stairs with his sweater twisted in your fists and let yourself in with shaking hands and a spare key he kept in the cabin. The old apartment still smelled like him. The wall panelling he had installed for you was still there. The bed you loved was still there.

So you crawled into it.

You curled up small in the old place where he used to hold you through bad nights, pressing your face into his pillow because it was the only thing close enough to a hug you could get.

And when Dex finally found you, you were shaking in the bed, sobbing like the city had followed you all the way in.

—

Present day…

For a while, neither of them said anything.

The hallway held the two of them in the weak yellow light, close enough to fight, close enough for Matt to hear Dex's slight chatter behind his teeth.

The anger was there.

It moved through Dex like a live wire, and viciously restrained. Matt could hear through his heartbeat how badly he wanted to do something with it. He could hear it in the slight shift of Dex’s weight, in the way his fingers flexed once at his side, in the careful control of his breathing.

But Dex didn’t move.

He stood in front of the broken door like his body could make up for the lock Matt had destroyed. 

Behind him, inside the apartment, you made a small sound.

Dex’s head turned at once, not enough to take his eyes off Matt. But enough for Matt to understand that half of him had never left the room.

It was awful, seeing that.

It was awful because Matt struggled to see past his sins. He didn’t want to see past his sins. 

But the man in front of him was standing outside a bedroom he clearly wanted to return to, choosing not to kill because you had asked him not to.

Matt swallowed. “Does she need help?”

Dex looked at him. His face went cold enough that Matt knew, instantly, he had said it wrong. “She has help.”

Matt’s mouth tightened. “You?”

Dex stepped closer by half an inch. Not a threat, but rather a correction. “Yes.”

Matt let out a slow breath. “I—”

“No.” Dex cut him off. “You don’t get to stand there after kicking my door in, after scaring her half to death, and think you’re the reasonable one here.”

Matt’s jaw flexed. “I heard someone crying in your apartment.”

“And what?” Dex crossed his hand over his chest. “You decided she needed saving from me?”

“You’ve given me plenty of reasons to think that.”

Dex almost smiled. It was a terrible thing. It was humorless, dead before it reached his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”

Matt went still.

Dex didn’t deny it. He didn’t reach for innocence he had no right to hold.

“I know what I am,” Dex said, voice low now. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“I don’t think you do.”

Dex’s eyes sharpened.

Matt took one step forward, careful, measured. “You think because you think you love her, that makes this different.”

Dex’s face changed. Matt heard the hit land.

Dex didn’t hide his agitation well, because in his mind he was thinking how dare you even fucking insinuate that I think I love her. I know I love her. How dare you?

Inside, you must’ve felt the frustration flare, because shifted again, sheets whispering under your trembling body, and Dex turned his head immediately, rage folding down so fast it almost hurt to witness.

His voice dropped toward the door, not Matt. “Sweetheart, I’m okay.”

You didn’t answer, but your breathing slowed.

Matt listened until it settled by a fraction.

“You hear that?” Dex asked with a sigh.

Matt said nothing.

“You hear how she breathes when I’m here?”

Matt’s throat tightened.

Dex leaned in slightly, voice still controlled. “You heard her when you came in. You heard what happened when you kicked the door down. She didn’t run from me. She ran to me.”

Fuck. He had a point.

Matt’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m not trying to hurt her.”

“You already did.”

The words landed flat in his chest and Matt flinched despite himself.

Dex saw it. 

“You came in here loud,” Dex said. “You brought in your thoughts, your judgment, your anger. You dragged all of it into the room with you and dumped it on her while she was already drowning.”

“I—“ Matt shook his head, turning it slightly down, “I didn’t know.”

“No,” Dex said. “You didn’t.”

The accusation wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

Behind the door, you gave another small, broken breath.

Dex’s hand twitched once at his side, like every instinct in him wanted to turn around and go back to you.

“You should go,” Dex said through gritted teeth.

Matt didn’t, at least not right away.

You were quiet now.

Not calm, Matt could hear that much. Your breathing still came unevenly from somewhere beneath the blanket, frayed at the edges, worn thin from crying. But you were quieter than before, and every time Dex shifted even slightly away from the door, your heartbeat changed.

Matt wanted to believe he was looking at Bullseye. At the man who had turned a courthouse into a warzone. At the man whose name belonged on a tip line, in a police report, on every alert system New York still had running after the riots.

Benjamin Poindexter was standing right in front of him.

Matt let him go only a couple of days ago, yes, but hasn’t he been pushing for transparency over the last twenty four hours?

He should believe in the law. Especially now. Especially after what he had said in front of the whole city. He had torn his own mask off for accountability. He had asked New York to believe there was still a line between justice and vengeance and was prepared to pay the price anyway.

So why was he standing here, letting a murderer guard a broken door?

Dex watched him think it.

His mouth barely moved.

“You want to hate me?” Dex said. “Fine. Hate me downstairs.”

Matt’s jaw clenched.

Dex stepped closer. His voice stayed low, but there was nothing soft in it now. “Just don’t do it near her.”

Matt shook his head and Dex shifted towards the door, like keeping Matt’s attention off you was as natural as breathing.

“She isn’t yours to protect,” Matt said quietly.

Dex’s eyes went flat. “No,” he said. “She’s mine to take care of.”

The words should have sounded wrong. Maybe they were wrong. But behind him, your breath hitched at the sound of his voice, and some tiny broken part of it steadied after.

A year ago, Matt would have heard that and called it delusion.

But tonight, he heard the window shut. Dex silenced the phone. Dex killed the lights and unplugged the radio. Dex tucked the blanket over you. He heard love in all the small, practiced mercies Dex had done without needing to be told.

Matt’s hands curled slowly at his sides.

He could still do it.

He could leave the building and call in an anonymous tip. That Bullseye was here, and they could go non-lethal because you were here and there was no way in hell Dex would kill near you. Matt could tell Brent this address, this floor, this door.

He could do it because it would be right.

Because Dex was dangerous.

Because the law had to mean something.

Because Foggy—

Matt’s throat tightened so sharply he almost moved.

But Matt understood, with a sick twist in his stomach, that if he took Dex away tonight, he didn’t know who would be left to tend to you. Who would know how to keep you from drowning in a city full of minds.

Because Matt had heard what one broken door did to you.

If cops came into that apartment with radios crackling, boots pounding, fear and adrenaline spiking out of every mind, you would fall apart. And if they took Dex away, then you would be well and truly fucked. 

He didn’t know what doctors would want their hands on you. He didn’t know who would look at you and see a woman before they saw a weapon.

Dex was dangerous.

But maybe that was exactly why he knew how to keep danger away from you. 

“She asked you to leave,” Dex said again, quieter this time. “So leave.”

Matt stood there a moment longer. Long enough to feel every reason not to. Long enough to know he might regret it. Long enough to know he would think about this hallway again, maybe for the rest of his life.

Then he stepped back.

Dex didn’t relax.

Matt took another step. Then another, until he reached the stairwell and stopped with one hand near the railing. His face angled slightly toward the apartment again, toward the woman he could still hear crying in the dark.

For a second, Dex thought he might come back.

Then Matt said, very quietly, “If she ever asks for help from someone else, don’t stand in her way.”

Dex’s finches flexed.

The answer came immediately. “If she asks, I’ll listen.”

Matt could hear that he was telling the truth.  His fingers tightened once around the railing.

Still, he stayed there for one more second.

Dex waited him out, because if Matt needed to drag his reluctance down the stairs one breath at a time, fine. He could do that. Dex could stand there all night if he had to. He could become the door until morning if he had to.

Finally, Matt lowered his head and made his way down. 

Dex stayed in the hallway until Matt’s footsteps disappeared down the stairs.

Only when the last sound disappeared down the stairs did Dex turn back toward the apartment. The door was ruined, the lock hanging uselessly from splintered wood, the frame cracked where Matt’s boot had forced it inward.

For one second, Dex stared at it.

His anger flared, then he swallowed it down.

Not now.

Not near you.

He stepped inside and pulled the door closed as much as it would go. It dragged wrong against the floor, crooked and broken, but he eased it shut anyway. Then he picked up the kitchen chair instead of dragging it, because the first scrape of wood had made your breathing catch from the bed.

Everything had to be quiet.

He wedged the chair beneath what was left of the handle and pushed once, testing it.

The door held, only barely. It hurt him that it was imperfect, but it had to be good enough for tonight.

Then he turned back to you.

You were still crying, but not like before. Not the full panic that had torn through you until you couldn’t breathe. This was smaller, yet more exhausted. Like your body had run out of strength but your heart hadn’t figured out how to stop breaking yet.

You were curled on his bed under the blanket, face wet, shoulders shaking in little miserable tremors.

Dex  crouched beside you so carefully, like one wrong sound might split you open again.

“Hey,” he whispered.

Your mouth trembled. “I wanted to hurt him.”

Dex went still as your eyes squeezed shut, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks.

“I wanted to,” you whispered, horrified by yourself. “When he scared me, when he thought those things about you, when he came in so loud, I wanted to hurt him, Dex. I did. I did, I—”

“Shh.” Dex’s hand came up slowly, waiting.

You leaned into it before he touched you, and only then did his palm settle against your cheek.

“Shh, baby.”

“I wanted to make him stop.” You shook your head, crying harder now, broken open by the confession.

Dex leaned closer until his forehead almost touched yours. “So did I, baby,” he whispered, rough and aching, “so did I.”

You opened your eyes.

Dex looked at you like it cost him to be that honest and he would pay it anyway if it calmed you. “But we didn’t.”

Your breath caught.

“We didn’t,” he said again, softer. “You stayed with me. I stayed with you. He left. It’s over.”

Your face fell, and Dex shifted up onto the bed then, slow enough not to startle you, and gathered you carefully against him. You folded into his chest with a broken little sound, fingers twisting weakly in his shirt.

He held you like he was trying to put your body back around your soul.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered into your hair. “I’ve got you. I know. I know, sweetheart.”

You sobbed once, small and ruined.

Dex pressed his mouth to your temple. “We’re going back to the cabin first thing tomorrow.”

Your fingers tightened. “Tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” His hand moved over your back, slow and steady. “You can sleep the whole way if you want.”

Your breathing shook against him.

“And my new work doesn’t start for two weeks,” he said, like he was offering you the only miracle he had. “So that’s two weeks, okay? Two weeks of nothing.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

Dex’s thumb brushed beneath your eye.

“Just me and you,” he whispered. “No one else. No noise. No city. Just us.”

Your mouth trembled and he kissed your forehead.

“I’ll chop wood. You can sit on the porch. We’ll keep the fire on. You can wear my clothes and sleep all day if you want.”

Another tear slipped down your cheek before you could help it, and he caught it.

“And I won’t leave,” he said. “Not for two weeks. Not for anything.”

You stared at him through wet lashes, searching his face first. Then, his mind.

He was thinking about…

The cabin.

You sleeping in the passenger seat.

You on the porch.

You wrapped in his sweater.

You, safe.

And underneath it all, over and over, so constant it almost broke you…

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Your breath hitched.

His face softened. “There you are,” he whispered.

You made a tiny sound and tucked your face back into him. “Okay,” you breathed.

Dex’s shoulders nearly gave out with relief. “Okay?”

You nodded against his chest. “Okay.”

He closed his eyes and held you tighter for one second, just one, like he needed to feel the word inside his own body. Then he kissed your temple again. “That’s my girl.”

Your crying slowed after that.

It didn’t stop, but it gentled into little exhausted shudders against his shirt while Dex kept his hand moving over your back, the way he knew helped. He stayed until your fingers loosened. Until your breathing stopped tripping over itself. Until your mind, still bruised and raw, found the steady line of his thoughts again.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

You could focus on it now.

Not the city. Not Matt. Not the broken door.

Just Dex and his thoughts, warm and obsessive and constant, wrapped around you from the inside out.

Finally, Dex pulled back enough to look at your face.

“I’m gonna clean up,” he whispered.

Your eyes opened again, instantly afraid. He shook his head before the fear could grow.

“I’m just going to the bathroom,” he said. “That’s all.”

You swallowed.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he promised. “You should go to sleep, okay?”

You didn’t answer.

Dex kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then your lips, so gently you almost started crying again.

“Try,” he whispered, because he knew you were so, so tired. “Just try for me.”

You nodded, barely.

Dex eventually eased himself away, slowly and careful, leaving the blanket tucked around your shoulders and the chair braced beneath the broken door.

The bathroom light stayed off, and the door stayed open.

Water ran low in the sink. 

You appreciated it more than you could say. The sound filled the little apartment gently, not enough to crowd your head, not enough to become another thing pressing at the inside of your skull. Just enough to give your mind somewhere simple to latch on to.

Dex didn’t need to read minds to know that running water settled you the same way fire did. It had the same white-noise hush. It had the same clear, constant sound that didn’t want anything from you. Fire and water didn’t think. It didn’t feel. It didn’t ask to be understood.

It just moved.

And Dex knew that. He knew you.

So you laid there in the dark, still hurting, still broken in places you could not name, but now, you were present.

You took a shaky breath.

For a while, there was only the water running low in the bathroom sink and Dex moving quietly through the dark.

You could hear him in pieces.

You heard the careful pass of his hands under the faucet, the soft drag of fabric as he wiped his face. The small, practical thoughts he kept lining up for tomorrow.

Cabin first thing.

Full tank of gas.

No tunnel.

Back roads.

Blanket in the passenger seat.

Radio off unless she asks.

Two weeks.

Just me and her.

You focused on him. On the shape of his mind. On the tenderness he had no idea how to say without turning it into a plan, a route, a locked door, a fixed window. Even now, Dex was thinking about firewood and the bedroom window and whether the car heater would be too loud for you in the morning.

It made you smile.

Then… oh.

Something else reached you. Someone else.

It wasn’t Dex; this thought came from outside.

It was a thought that came from out the street, clear and heavy through the thin glass:

I hope I’m doing the right thing.

Your eyes opened. For one second, you lay very still beneath the blanket.

Dex was still in the bathroom. But outside, across the street, Matt Murdock had not gone far.

You got up slowly and turned your head toward the window.

The curtain hadn’t been pulled perfectly shut. There was a narrow gap where city light slipped through, pale and dirty against the floor. You shifted, leaning just enough to see past it.

There he was, across the street, half-shadowed beneath a streetlamp, hood pulled up, face tilted toward the building like he was still listening to the apartments.

Matt Murdock stood there with one foot turned away and the rest of him refusing to follow.

He was hesitating.

His thoughts were still loud, but not loud like before.

It was no longer crashing through you with suspicion and anger and judgment. This was different. His thoughts now were coherent, almost. They came to you in pieces, clear enough to understand.

Benjamin Poindexter is still a dangerous man.

I shouldn’t leave him with her.

But she asked me to leave.

But she’s calmer when he’s near.

Your throat tightened.

Matt’s thoughts vibrated around the shape of Dex, for lack of a better word. There was still blood there, grief there, a wound so deep it had a name you didn’t touch because it hurt even from a distance.

But there was something else in his thoughts now, too.

You.

Because you could read minds, you knew he had heightened senses, and you knew you didn’t have to speak loudly to reach him. You only had to speak clearly.

So you turned your face toward the narrow gap in the curtain, toward the street where Matt Murdock stood beneath the weak glow of a lamp, and whispered into the dark, “I know what he is.”

Across the street, Matt went completely still.

You saw the subtle lift of his head, the tightening through his shoulders. His attention snapping back to your window because he could feel where you were.

He heard you. You knew he did.

You curled your fingers into the blanket.

“But he’s not that to me.”

Matt didn’t move.

You could feel his mind presently listening now. Not as Daredevil. Not as the man who had kicked down the door. Not as someone trying to decide what kind of danger you were.

“He loves me,” you whispered.

Matt’s thoughts shifted.

He does. Even a blind man could see that. 

The thought came so clearly it almost hurt.

You blinked, tears slipping sideways into your hair. “He’s good to me.”

You remembered him now, when it was Dex’s hand that unlocked the cuff, how he put his jacket over your shoulders. You thought about the cabin and the chair beneath the broken door. That man was in the bathroom, washing up with the door open because he promised he wouldn’t leave you alone.

You breathed in, shaky but steadier. “He’s a good man for me.”

Across the street, Matt’s face changed.

It was a small, tiny furrow of the brow. But then you heard the thought that followed.

I believe you.

Your breath hitched

Above all the doubt, above all the grief, above all the things Matt Murdock would never be able to forgive, that one thought came through clean.

I believe you.

Not Dex.

You.

He believed you knew what you were saying. He believed you were not trapped. He believed you understood the man beside you better than anyone else in the city possibly could.

And maybe that was the most Matt could give.

You, behind the glass, exhausted and half-broken in Dex’s bed.

Matt, across the street, carrying a truth he didn’t want and yet couldn’t put down.

Because maybe Benjamin Poindexter was not only defined by violence. Maybe there was something else buried deep under him, warped and wounded and difficult to look at, but human anyway.

A person.

Someone capable of loving. Someone, somehow, worthy of being loved.

Matt didn’t forgive him. But for the first time, he saw him differently.

Then he lowered his head and gave you a small nod.

Then Matt Murdock turned away.

This time, he truly left.

You watched until the dark took him, until his thoughts faded into the rest of New York and you could no longer separate him from the city.

But you knew.

You knew that Matt was starting to look at the man you loved differently.

— end.

Extra Note : Like the reader in this story, we all have good days and bad days. Please remember that needing help doesn’t make you weak, broken, or too much. It just makes you human. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or contact a crisis/support service in your area. You deserve care, patience, and support on your bad days too, lovelies! 🫶💕❤️

buy me a ko-fi here!

Dex taglist : @itsdynotdaddy @diabolicallydownbad @doesanyonereadthis @meicore @pixie2k5 @bibiishin @starlitflora @pearlstiare @glorybeat @stardustworlds @castawaybarnes @supervampireflame @not-the-teen-witch @billybonesxx @ultimatewolverine @treetrees-world-of-imagiation @bitch-spaghetti-o @lostinthes4uce @cotton-eee @weallhaveadestiny @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @moonbug333 @yujyujj @mattdexx @lostfallenangelsblog @bloomsberryfairy @flimsysquid @abbotfan @leonetta2014 @ficcharsimpsblog

(Let me know if I missed anyone)

[pagesfromthevoid]

Fuck I’m sobbing oh my god

[pagesfromthevoid]

Hi i LOVE your Dex series!! There’s not enough fluff or angst about him and you write it soooo perfectly and so good. And i love how you’ve weaved it with canon events from MCU/the show. Keep going!!!! I LOVE IT

AHH THANK YOU SO MUCH

I love this story a lot honestly. Idk what sorcery Wilson Bethel used to make Dex likeable this season but keep it the fuck up

[pagesfromthevoid]

Warming that there “gratuitous violence” while also telling us it’s a domestic life chapter feels like an oxymoron

[pagesfromthevoid]

It Will Come Back | b.p. | 8

Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter x ex widow!reader

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: Gratuitous violence. But that's about it.

Author's Note: Please enjoy "domestic" life with Dex and his widow.

Series Masterlist | Talk to Me! | AO3

"You know," she says from the kitchen while pouring herself a cup of coffee, “The more you break out of prison, the less shocking it becomes.”

Rain drips steadily onto the hardwood floor behind him as Dex climbs through the window. She tries to be annoyed at that, but the truth is that the second she saw his silhouette on the fire escape, her heart practically launched itself into her throat. Relief hit so hard and so violently she almost dropped the coffee mug in her hand.

Dex shuts the window behind himself before turning toward her with that crooked grin he always gets when he's pleased with himself. The stolen clothes fit badly across his shoulders and there's dried blood near the collar of his shirt.

Then he smiles wider.

"What the fuck happened to your mouth?"

Dex touches the side of his mouth absently with his tongue before shrugging.

"Murdock happened."

"Gross," she groans immediately, though she's already moving towards him before she can stop herself.

And it is gross —dental injuries make her skin crawl for some reason. His front canine is straight up gone, and one of the front teeth is visibly cracked. There's dried blood where it's been apparently slicing the inside of his lip for hours. And he still somehow looks unbearably smug about it.

Idiot. Her idiot, but an idiot nevertheless.

"Come here, let me fix it —,"

Dex pauses halfway across the apartment, eyebrows lifting slightly.

"Since when do you know how to fix teeth?"

She stares at him flatly over the kitchen counter, even when while relief keeps buzzing beneath her ribs.

"Ben, baby, I'm a Widow," she reminds him as she meets him in the middle, then pushes him towards the bedroom. "I'm trained to do everything, including fixing teeth. Now go to the bathroom."

That gets a laugh out of him —a real one —and it's warm and familiar enough that something painful twists briefly in her chest. God, she missed hearing him laugh.

A whole year. A whole fucking year.

The only reason she knew what was going on with him was because of the Avenger, who made a point to check in after transfers or riots or whatever nightmare the federal government dumped him into.

But now he's here, dripping water onto the floor because prison couldn't hold him after all.

Dex follows her down the hallway while she mentally catalogs the rest of the damage automatically. Bruised ribs judging by the stiffness in his posture. Split knuckles. Slight limp on the left side. He got into at least one fight after escaping, shocking absolutely no one.

She shoves him down onto the closed toilet seat before opening the cabinet beneath the sink. Inside sits enough medical equipment to qualify as a small emergency room —gauze, sutures, antibiotics, scalpels, painkillers, sterilizers.

"You reorganized," he observes, watching her closely.

She glances up at him briefly, then shrugs. "I got bored."

That's technically true. The AVTF helped with that boredom too.

The widow reaches automatically for the dental repair kit shoved between trauma supplies and spare ammunition while Dex watches silently behind her. The city changed while he was locked up. Fisk became mayor. The task force started cracking skulls in Hell's Kitchen under the excuse of public safety.

And somewhere along the line, she stopped pretending to be a good guy or a bad guy.

The papers started calling her the Widowmaker —ironically, without even knowing she's an actual Red Room Widow —sometime around the fourth dead task force officer.

She steps between his knees, gripping his jaw gently while angling his face toward the light.

"Murdock really rocked your shit, didn't he?"

Her thumb runs over the scar on his cheek and Dex hums softly at the touch her fingers against his face. The sound goes straight down her spine, and she narrows her eyes down at him.

"Now isn't the time," she scolds him.

"I've been gone a year."

"You escaped prison last night."

"Still."

She rolls her eyes again, but she can already feel herself smiling despite trying very hard not to. Because he’s here. Because he came home. Because despite everything —the murder charges, the prison break, the FBI definitely losing their collective minds right now —he’s sitting in their bathroom looking at her like she’s the first thing he wanted after freedom.

She reaches for gauze next while Dex's hands settle automatically against her hips like muscle memory. Possessive and grounding, the same way they've always been.

"Most people," she says carefully while cleaning blood from his mouth. "Would wait at least twenty-four hours before coming back to the most obvious hiding place."

"This is my apartment," Dex reminds her immediately.

"Our apartment," she corrects.

"Our apartment," he repeats with a nod, like he's confirming it again. Making sure it's real.

Finally, she smiles. A real smile, one that tugs at her cheeks and crinkles her eyes. Real enough that Dex looks immediately pleased with himself as his fingers tighten again her hips.

Goddamn, she missed him. Not the crimes or the chaos, but just…him. His voice. His stupid confidence. The way he acts like climbing through windows at the crack ass of dawn is a perfectly normal way to come home to your girlfriend after escaping federal prison.

Just…Dex.

His eyes drift briefly toward the open medical cabinet beside her before narrowing slightly.

"You've been busy."

She just keeps working on his tooth.

"Occupational hazard."

"You have a small ER in the bathroom, sweetheart."

"I do."

"And police radios."

"Yup."

Dex goes quieter after that, watching her carefully now. He knows her well enough to know what she isn't saying.

She finally sighs before pressing sterilized cotton against the inside of his mouth.

"The anti-vigilante task force started getting aggressive,” she explains. “One of them broke a teenager’s arm for recording an arrest.” Her jaw tightens slightly at the memory. “So I started fixing the problem.”

Dex looks…genuinely delighted by this information.

"You were killing cops while I was gone?"

"Corrupt task force officers," she corrects immediately, trying and failing to sound stern.

He grins slowly despite the broken tooth. "You missed me so much you became a serial killer."

She presses harder against his mouth wound, narrowing her eyes. Dex hisses.

"Be serious for five minutes, Ben."

"I am serious," he replies, though he still sounds vaguely thrilled by the whole thing. "I get locked up for a year and you start dismantling Fisk's personal militia by yourself."

She just shrugs one shoulder, unable to full hide the smile tugging at her lips now.

"I'm trying the whole anti-hero thing out."

Dex actually goes quiet for a second after that, thinking. His hands tighten against her hips while he studies her face with that sharp, obsessive focus that always makes her feel like the only person in the room, even when it's full.

The corner of his mouth slowly lifts again.

"I could do that."

She blinks once, brow furrowing. "What?"

"The anti-hero thing."

She just stares at him for a long time, considering what he's saying. There are a lot of things that Dex has said over the years that have been legitimately insane. Dex doing the "anti-hero thing" is one of the crazier things.

"You," she says slowly, "Want to…do the hero thing?"

"Anti-hero," Dex corrects, like it really matters. But he leans back some, looking up at her. "Like…morally flexible."

She laughs at that, short and completely involuntary.

"Morally flexible," she repeats.

"Murdock gets to beat people unconscious dressed like the fuckin' devil and everyone calls him a hero," Dex points out reasonable. "But he doesn't finish the job, so it never ends. Why can't we end it?"

He genuinely believes what he's saying. There's no performance in it, no manipulation. He's looking at her like he's proposing something practical. Like this is a real conversation that two normal people have while fixing a broken tooth.

"You hear how insane you sound, right?" She asks, but she knows he's doesn't.

It's confirmed as he frowns. "No more insane that Fisk becoming the fucking mayor."

She doesn't have a comeback for that, and Dex notices immediately that she doesn’t have a response, and she watches the satisfaction spread slowly across his face as he takes that silence as a victory.

Which, unfortunately, maybe it is.

He leans forward suddenly, one arm wrapping around her waist before pulling her easily down into his lap. The movement is smooth enough that she barely has time to react before she’s straddling him automatically, her hands landing against his shoulders out of instinct. Dex looks entirely too pleased about that.

"You already started," he reminds her.

His hands settle firmly against her waist while rain taps steadily against the bathroom window behind them. Up close like this, she can see the fading bruises beneath his eyes, the healing cuts across his jaw, the crooked edge of the repaired tooth she just fixed.

Murdock really did beat the shit out of him. And somehow Dex still came out of it talking about joining the vigilante community like he’s joining a book club.

"The papers named you, baby," he continues. "The Widowmaker. That's who you've become."

Dex's thumbs move absently against her hips while he watches her think, eyes sharp and attentive.

"You started killing Fisk's people because no one else was stopping them," he says. "That's what the Devil of Hell's Kitchen does."

"Murdock doesn't put bullets through people."

Dex's eyes narrow. "And so Fisk keeps winning."

"Oh my god," she gasps, but it's clearly fake. "You came out of prison with a manifesto."

"I came out of prison with clarity."

Something about the way he says it sends shivers down her spine. The way he says it while looking her in the eyes. He's not talking about Fisk or vigilantes or violence. He's talking like the clarity is her and that she's the guiding star in his choices.

She exhales slowly. "You can't become a vigilante because we're codependent."

"Counterpoint," Dex replies immediately. "It would make us highly effective."

She laughs despite herself. And god, the look on his face as she does nearly kills her. It's pure satisfaction; like hearing her laugh again after a year apart is better than anything he's experienced in his whole life. He's looking at her like she hung the moon and handed him purpose in the same breath.

She nods once, taking his jaw in her hand. Dex's fingers dig into her hips and pulling her as close as he can.

"Let's do it, baby."

*****

The grocery store is apparently Dex's —well, if anyone asks, Tony's —new favorite thing.

She doesn't realize this until she makes the mistake of asking if they need anything from the store. And now she's standing in the produce section at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning while Dex examines a container of strawberries with the concentration of a man diffusing a bomb.

She leans against the shopping cart and watches him pick up another container.

"That's the fourth one."

"They're all…bad," he complains, looking at her.

"Then don't get any?"

"That's not an option," he counters. "They're on the list."

"What list? We never made one," she reminds him.

He stares at her for a moment then sets the container down, pulling out his phone. Then he hands it to her. The widow doesn't even read the first word.

"When the hell did you make a list?"

"When we were walking here."

Then, completely serious, he picks up a different container of strawberries.

She's not sure what prison did to him, exactly.

The obvious answers are easy enough. It made him harder. Sharper. There are new scars she doesn't recognize and old ones that have faded. There are moments where she catches him unconsciously checking exits, tracking movement through a room, or positioning himself where he can see every door. Not because prison taught him to stop doing those things, but because prison —and everything that came before and after —made them impossible to unlearn.

He's still a wanted fugitive. They're still criminals, no matter what label they prefer. Vigilance isn't a habit he's trying to break; it's just part of staying alive.

And yet…somehow, in the middle of all they're doing, he's become obsessed with…errands. Groceries, coffee, laundry. Anything even remotely domestic, Dex throws himself into with alarming excitement.

Which, she supposes, makes sense.

He spent most of his life looking in other people's windows, seeing what everyone else got to have that he didn't. And now he's trying to build that for himself, with her. Don't get her wrong, Dex is profoundly bad at being normal. He wasn't particularly good at it before Fisk got his hands on him, and the prison sentence certainly doesn't help matters. But every mundane thing they do now gets treated like some kind of precious ritual. Grocery shopping. Coffee. Laundry. Arguing over what brand of cereal to buy. The man approaches domesticity with the enthusiasm of a religious convert.

She can't be too annoyed, though. She likes it too. After all, she's never had it either.

Dex tosses the approved container of strawberries into the cart, then immediately picks up a container of raspberries.

"Ben."

"We need these too."

"We really don't."

"They're good for you," he reminds her.

"At least something in this store is," she teases, and the second the words leave her mouth, she regrets them.

Not because Dex looks offended. Because he looks thoughtful. And Dex thinking is significantly more dangerous than Dex being offended. Slowly, he lowers the raspberries and narrows his eyes at her.

"You think I'm bad for you?"

She stares at him for a second, genuinely caught off guard. Of all the conclusions he could have reached, somehow he manages to find the most ridiculous one.

She laughs. "Oh my god, Ben."

"You do."

"I didn't say that," she argues, shaking her head.

"But you implied it, which is worse, I think."

"I implied that you're an escaped convict. Not that you're bad for me."

Dex immediately steps in front of the shopping cart before she can push past him. She raises a brow at him.

"I'm not bad for you," he argues, knuckles turning white as he grips the edge of the basket. "Say it."

People move around them without paying any attention. An older couple compares apples nearby. A teenager pushes a cart overloaded with junk food toward checkout. Somewhere across the store, a child is loudly losing a battle with his parents over candy.

Nobody looks twice at them. Nobody recognizes the wanted fugitive standing in the produce aisle arguing about berries. Nobody recognizes the woman beside him. The anonymity is strangely comforting.

"You're not bad for me, Ben," she promises, giving him a reassuring smile.

His expression doesn't change, and she narrows her eyes at him.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

The man escapes federal prison, is being hunted down by God knows who, and this is what he's worried about? She reaches forward and plucks the raspberries out of his hand, and tosses them into the cart.

"You're not bad for me," she repeats. "Besides, if anyone's bad for anyone, it's me for you."

That earns an immediate and genuinely offended scoff.

"Bullshit."

She laughs at him, pushing the cart forward into his stomach but he holds it in place.

"Ben," she scolds.

"No."

He looks annoyed with her, and she raises a brow. "No what?"

"You're not pulling that shit."

"You'll need to be more specific."

"You know what I mean," he counters, but he finally releases the cart as someone looks at them a little too long.

She does know what he means. Dex falls into step beside her as she starts pushing the cart again. His shoulder bumps hers once in passing, and she catches the way he keeps glancing over like he's still thinking about it. Like he's actually offended by her joke.

"You're not bad for me," he finally says.

"I did encourage you to keep stalking me," she reminds him.

"I would have done that even if you hadn't," he argues. She thinks that if she hadn't encouraged him, one of them would be dead by now. But she doesn't say that.

"I also rearranged your entire apartment just to see what you'd do."

He pauses, recalling the memory. Then he shrugs. "Helped me adapt."

"I tried to kill you when you broke into the apartment."

"I deserved that," he reminds her. "I was wearing a mask. You had no idea."

"I stabbed you," she counters.

"I got better."

"I actively enable you."

"You love me."

She groans, but not out of annoyance. More because she's flustered in a grocery store.

"Stop that."

"What?"

"That thing you do —you make everything sound so romantic."

Dex's expression immediately brightens, and he stops her again, pulling her into his arms.

"Because it is."

"See?" She pushes against his chest but doesn't actively try to get away. "That's exactly what I'm talking about."

Dex grins. Not his Bullseye grin. Not the one that means somebody's about to have a very bad day. The softer one; the one that's only for her.

The worst part of this conversation —well, not the worst but the best —is that he's serious. In Dex's head, getting stabbed because he broke into the apartment isn't evidence that she's bad for him. It's proof that she can defend herself. Following her around Hell's Kitchen for weeks isn't stalking, it's courting. The fact that she rearranged his entire apartment just to see what would happen isn't manipulation. It's her giving him attention.

Every insane thing between them gets translated through whatever strange language his brain uses and comes out the other side as affection. And somewhere along the way, whether it's from her own past or because of him, she started speaking it too.

"You're impossible," she finally settles on saying, pulling away from him to continue grocery shopping.

"You love me," he reminds her. Or maybe he's reminding himself.

"That's not the point."

"It usually is."

She rolls her eyes so hard it almost hurts. Dex immediately looks pleased with himself. She considers countering him again, but honestly, she decides it's not worth keeping up. There are more important things occupying her attention. Like the fact that he's smiling again. Like the fact that he's here.

A year ago, he was locked behind bars. A year ago, she was checking her phone every morning for updates from the Avenger because it was the closest thing she had to hearing his voice. Now he's standing beside her arguing about fruit. It's absurd. It's also probably the happiest she's been in years.

"You're staring."

She blinks once, looking up at him. Dex is watching her now. The strawberries and raspberries have been completely forgotten. His attention is fixed entirely on her, sharp and unwavering in that way it always is.

"You've got that look," she points out.

"What look?"

"The one where you're planning something."

Dex grins down at her, and she can't help it as she smiles back. Not worried. Not suspicious. Interested. Like whatever terrible idea he's considering is something she'd like to participate in.

That's the thing people never understand about them. Everyone assumes Dex is the reckless one, the dangerous one, the unstable one. They're only half right. The real problem is that she'd follow him just as quickly as he'd follow her.

"Date Night?" He asks, because he knows her well enough to know what she's up to.

She glances down at the cart, then back up at him.

"We still need groceries."

"That's not a no."

No, it isn't.

Three hours later, the groceries are unpacked. The flowers Dex somehow snuck into the cart without her noticing are sitting in a vase on the kitchen counter. The raspberries are already half gone because apparently he needs immediate proof that he was right to buy them.

And the two of them are sitting on a rooftop overlooking an abandoned warehouse on the edge of Hell's Kitchen. Below them, three AVTF cruisers pull into the parking lot. Six officers climb out, armed to the teeth.

A tip lead them here, that Daredevil is sniffing around where he shouldn't be.

That's a lie, of course.

She made the call herself frrom a burner phone while Dex was putting away the groceries.

The officers move with practiced confidence as they spread across the lot. Two head for the front entrance while another circles toward the loading dock. The remaining three stay closer to the vehicles, scanning the area with the casual alertness of people who think they're the most dangerous thing present.

They're wrong.

The widow watches them through a pair of binoculars while Dex lies beside her with a rifle settled comfortably against his shoulder. One eye is pressed against the scope. The other remains closed. He looks completely relaxed. Not focused. Not tense.

Relaxed.

Like they're spending an evening watching a baseball game instead of waiting for six armed officers to walk into a trap.

The city stretches around them in every direction. Traffic crawls through the streets below. Neon signs flicker against brick walls. Somewhere nearby, music drifts from an apartment window. The air smells faintly like rain and asphalt and the takeout place three blocks over that somehow never closes.

Beside her, Dex reaches into a bag of trail mix. The rifle doesn't budge.

"There's still raspberries left."

She lowers the binoculars slightly. "What?"

"In the fridge."

She stares at him. Six armed officers are moving through a kill box and somehow he's still thinking about fruit. She's certain she knows that this desire for normalcy comes from more than just being in jail. It comes from the group home, from the killing of his coach. From the bullshit that's been dealt him his entire life.

The first officer reaches the warehouse entrance. The second follows close, while the third and fourth move towards the loading docks. The other two wait by the cruisers, ready for an ambush.

Dex adjusts the scope slightly.

"That one's got coffee. Rookie."

The widow blinks. "What?"

"The guy in the second cruiser."

He points without lifting his head from the rifle. Sure enough, one of the officers is trembling in the back seat, holding a tray of coffees that they clearly picked up before the call.

The widow snorts.

"That's your concern right now?"

"He made a special trip before work."

The first officer calls for the rookie to set the coffee down, insulting him in the process.

Dex nods immediately. "See?"

She laughs. "Oh, we're profiling them now?"

"We're getting to know them."

The answer is so sincere that she laughs harder. Beside her, Dex looks absurdly pleased by the reaction. Like making her laugh is still somehow a victory after all these years.

Maybe it is.

The sound fades into the night air while the city continues moving around them. People are heading home from work. Couples are ordering dinner. Somebody is probably arguing about whose turn it is to take the trash out. Normal lives. Normal evenings.

She watches the officers disappear deeper into the warehouse grounds and feels Dex shift slightly beside her as he settles more comfortably behind the rifle.

The flowers are waiting back at the apartment. The groceries are put away. The raspberries are in the refrigerator. And six —well, seven armed officers are about to die. The strange part isn't the violence anymore. The strange part is how naturally it fits alongside everything else.

Dex nudges her knee lightly without taking his eye off the scope.

"What should we do for dinner?"

The widow turns to look at him. He's completely serious, even though he's not even looking at her. Of course he is.

"I chose last night," she reminds him. "It's your turn to pick."

Dex just grins at her as he pulls back and pulls down his mask. "I'm thinking ramen from that place on the corner."

"Oh, I love that place," she hums, pulling her hood up over her head.

"I know."

Then the first shot breaks the night.

The rookie never gets a chance to set the coffee down. One second he's standing beside the cruiser while his supervisor is yelling at him, and the next the entire parking lot explodes into chaos.

Officers scatter, and weapons are drawn and ready. Somebody starts screaming into a radio.

The widow is already moving before the echo finishes rolling across Hell's Kitchen. Beside her, Dex rises from his position in one smooth motion. The rifle is already slung across his back by the time she reaches the fire escape. He doesn't bother taking a second shot. The rifle is useful. Convenient. Efficient. But rifles create distance. And Dex has always preferred being closer.

She drops the last ten feet from the fire escape and lands lightly in an alley below. By the time she straightens, Dex is already beside her, mask in place and moving toward the warehouse.

Neither of them speaks. They don't need to.

The officers are still trying to figure out where the attack came from. They're looking at rooftops and windows and alleyways. Looking everywhere except the place their attackers are actually coming from.

The warehouse door bursts open almost immediately.

Their months of training tell the officers to move toward the threat instead of away from it, and two of them spill out into the parking lot with their weapons already raised. They're good, the widow will give them that much. Not good enough, obviously, but competent. Fisk doesn't hire complete idiots for the task force.

The first man never gets the chance to bring his weapon fully up.

She hits him at a dead sprint, driving him backward through the doorway hard enough that both of them disappear briefly into the warehouse. She feels his shoulder pop before he even hits the ground. The pistol goes skidding across the concrete floor.

His partner reacts faster than she expects. The officer pivots immediately, bringing his weapon around toward her. Then something flashes through the darkness, and he screams.

A knife is suddenly buried through his hand and into the wooden doorframe behind him.

The widow doesn't even have to look outside to know who throws it. Dex likes guns well enough. But knives? Knives are personal. Knives are fun.

By the time she turns back toward the parking lot, he's already abandoned the rifle entirely. Of course he has. The rifle is just an invitation. The real fight starts when he gets close enough to touch.

Somewhere outside, another officer shouts that Bullseye is here. She watches Dex's masked head tilt slightly at the sound. Even from this distance, she can tell he's smiling. The remaining officers finally understand what they're dealing with. That realization changes things.

Before, they think they're hunting vigilantes.

Now they realize they're the ones being hunted.

The parking lot descends into chaos. Officers dive for cover behind cruisers. Radios crackle. Someone calls for backup while another starts shouting positions. Training takes over, and for a brief moment, she can almost admire it.

Almost.

Then one of them opens fire. The bullets chew through the warehouse doorway where she'd been standing half a second earlier.

She moves deeper into the building, using stacks of old shipping pallets as cover while the officers outside try to pin her down. They're focused on the warehouse now. Focused on her.

Which means nobody is watching Dex.

And that's their mistake.

A scream echoes from somewhere near the cruisers. Then another. The gunfire outside falters.

She can't see him from where she is, but she doesn't need to. She's known Dex too long. Known the rhythm of his violence.

The thing people misunderstand about Bullseye is that they assume it's the accuracy that makes him dangerous.

It isn't.

The accuracy is just the part they survive long enough to talk about.

What makes him dangerous is that once he starts moving, he doesn't stop. Every object becomes a weapon. Every angle becomes an opportunity. Every mistake becomes fatal.

She slips around the side of a shipping container just as another officer enters through the warehouse door. He sees her immediately and raises his weapon.

Too slow.

He hits the ground before he manages to pull the trigger.

Outside, another shot rings out.

Not Dex, but an officer. It's a desperate shot. The kind people take when they can't actually see what they're aiming at.

She emerges from the warehouse seconds later to find the parking lot transformed. One cruiser has its driver's side window shattered. Another has somehow lost a side mirror.

Four officers are down, between the two anti-heroes. The fifth is clutching his arm while backing toward the vehicles. And in the middle of it all is Dex. He moves through the fight the same way other people move through a crowded room. Effortlessly. Casually. Like he's done it so many times that it no longer requires conscious thought.

Officer Six tries to rush him, but the attempt lasts approximately three seconds. She watches the man hit the pavement and immediately decides she doesn't actually want to know what Dex throws this time.

Experience tells her she's happier not knowing.

Sirens begin wailing somewhere in the distance. Not close yet, but they're coming. The surviving officers hear them too. She sees the exact moment hope returns. Backup. Reinforcements. Somebody coming to save them.

She almost feels bad.

Almost.

The sixth officer is smarter than the others.

The moment he realizes he's alone, something changes. The fight drains out of him all at once. His weapon lowers slightly. His eyes dart across the parking lot, taking in the cruisers, the warehouse, the complete absence of reinforcements, and whatever conclusion he reaches clearly isn't one he likes.

For a second, she genuinely thinks he might surrender.

Then he turns and runs.

The widow sighs.

Across the parking lot, she hears Dex laugh. Not because the officer is running. Because she immediately takes off after him.

The man is fast enough to make it out of the lot before she catches him, which is honestly more impressive than most of his coworkers manage. Fear is a powerful motivator. One of the Red Room instructors used to say that terrified people either become incredibly dangerous or incredibly stupid. There was rarely an in-between.

This one chooses stupid as a knife lodges itself through the back of his throat.

A minute later, the parking lot is quiet again. Well, as quiet as it can be with distant sirens growing steadily louder and three abandoned cruisers sitting with their lights still flashing.

The widow adjusts one of the gauntlets on her wrist before turning back toward the warehouse. Halfway there, she notices she's being watched.

Dex is leaning against one of the cruisers, mask pulled off, looking entirely too pleased. Not with himself though —with her. The moment she gets close enough, he pushes away from the car and closes the distance between them.

"What's wrong?" She asks.

But instead of answering, Dex reaches for her. His arms snake around her waist, pulling her against his chest before she can protest —though she certainly wouldn't have. He's spent too long in institutions meant to keep him at bay, so he's always touching her when he can now. A hand on her back, his shoulder against hers, holding her hand. Little reminders that he's still there and she's real.

She lets him pull her in and tilts her head back enough to look at him.

"Ben?"

"Do you know how beautiful you are like this?"

She rolls her eyes instinctively, but she can feel the heat rising to her cheeks at the praise.

"Stop it," she scolds but it comes out weak.

His hands tighten around her waist, and he pulls her even closer, reaching up to pull her mask off. There's someone else's blood on it, and she's pretty sure that only makes Dex happier.

"We need to go," she prompts, trying to pull back from him.

"One more second," he insists, staying rooted in place. "Let me enjoy my girl and good she is at her job."

"You're being ridiculous," she scolds, but doesn't fight him. Truthfully, she likes the praise more than she probably should.

"You were awesome," he counters, grinning down at her. "I knew you were good, sweetheart —but this was inspiring."

She laughs at the sincerity, unable to help herself.

"So instead of watching for their back up, you were watching me?"

"I've never seen you fight."

"Baby, we've fought."

"That's different."

She supposes it is different, isn't it? Watching and experiencing are two different things.

"Think we can find me a suit like yours?" He asks, tugging at the hood on her head to pull it back.

"I like your suit," she reassures, tugging at the holster strapped across his chest. "Could do without the mask, but…,"

"You just like seeing my face."

"It's a pretty face," she confirms with a grin, wrapping her arms around his neck.

The sirens are getting closer now. Close enough that they really need to get out of here, but neither of them move immediately. They're still standing there, wrapped in each other's arms. And for a second, the city feels strangely distant.

Just the two of them, standing in the middle of a warehouse lot, surrounded by bodies while chaos catches up. Then the first flash of red and blue reflects off a nearby building, and reality crashes down around them.

"We should go."

But Dex doesn't let go immediately, and neither does she. They just stare each other down for another moment, both grinning like teenagers on prom night.

"I love you," he promises her, leaning down to capture her lips with his. She sighs into the kiss, pulling herself closer to him as she tastes the blood in his mouth.

"Love you too, killer."

----------

Taglist: @americanadolls @pearlstiare @lettucel0ver

[loveroftoomanyfandoms]

Epiphany

(The Princess and the Bodyguard Series, Part 4)

Pairing: Buck Cashman x Fisk'sDaughter!Reader

Rating: T

Word count: ~2k

Story Summary: You and Buck soft-launch your relationship at the Mayor's Stronger New York fundraiser. Both of you come to a realization.

Tags/Warnings: F!Reader, Dual PoV (both Reader & Buck), Feelings Realization

A/N: For those following along with canon, this is set during Season 1, episode 6!

Tag list: @lillycore @not-the-teen-witch @fiiorii @itsdynotdaddy @bluerobin35 @gh0st-quart3t @oldcrdgans @nerdytrash-panda @pagesfromthevoid @prettyflowerlily

It's okay, it's just New York's elite, you thought to yourself as you got ready in one of the guest rooms at Gracie Mansion for your father's Stronger New York fundraiser. You and Buck had been dating for just over three months and were 'soft-launching' your relationship at the event (as in, you were attending it together even though you and Buck were both technically working) and you were admittedly a bit nervous.

You continued your pep-talk to yourself as you sat at the vanity table to finish up your makeup. What are you even afraid of? You've been around these people a million times. Hell, you even like some of them.

You applied some lip stain to your lips and studied yourself in the mirror. Good as I'm going to get, I guess.

You picked up the diamond and purple sapphire necklaces you had brought as options to accessorize your dress with and held one, then the other to your neck. Hmm…

"—The sapphire, I think."

You turned and smiled as you saw Vanessa in the doorway. "Yeah, you're right, the diamond is too showy for a fundraiser."

You and Vanessa were close — while she had never tried to replace your mother, she had naturally fulfilled the role of maternal figure to the best of her ability, guiding you through all of the circumstances of womanhood that your father either didn't know or couldn't understand how to.

Vanessa walked over to you and squeezed your shoulders in an embrace before leaning down next to you. "Buck is waiting downstairs," she said with a smile.

Your heart fluttered. Since this technically was a work function, you had decided to stay at your parents' that evening so you and Buck could still arrive together (and so you would have him for moral support since it had been several years since you had attended an event that involved your father's rich friends). "Okay."

You paused. There was something you needed clarity on and you didn't want to ask your father for advice. "Before we go… Can I ask you something?"

Vanessa nodded. "Of course, dearest."

"When did you know you loved my dad?"

A small smile spread across Vanessa's face. "Dare I ask if there's a particular reason behind your question?"

You'd had the thought regarding Buck for the past few weeks but didn't want to say anything until you were absolutely sure about what you were feeling, especially since the two of you had only been dating for a few months. "Just asking."

"Mmhmm." Vanessa sighed. "I have to admit that it was very early on. Your father was so… formidable, yet I always felt safe with him. And of course, I saw how wonderful he was with you. How could I not fall in love with a man like that?"

"Did you love Adam?"

You knew about Vanessa's affair — some artist from her gallery that she had sought comfort in whilst your father was off on one of his "business trips" (which wasn't a euphamism, as far as you knew he had never so much as even looked at another woman).

If Vanessa was surprised by the question, she didn't show it. "No," she mused. "Not like I love your father."

"How did you know you loved Dad?"

"That I can't tell you." Vanessa shook her head and straightened. "Love isn't on a schedule, my dear. When you do fall in love, you'll know."

You nodded. You still had a bit of self-reflection to do, but you were pretty sure you were in love with Buck. "Thanks, 'Nessa."

You stood and gathered your purse before following Vanessa out of the room and to the staircase, a smile spreading acrosse your face when you spotted Buck.

He was dressed in a simple black suit that you had seen on (and taken off of) him before, but it never ceased to amaze you just how good he looked in it. He was talking with your father but looked up when he heard you and Vanessa coming, a broad smile spreading across his face as you descended the stairs.

He wrapped an arm around your waist and pressed a chase kiss to your temple. "Darling, you look radiant."

You beamed. "Thank you. You look wonderful too."

"All set?"

You shrugged. "As ready as I can be."

Your father nodded, his own arm wrapped around Vanessa's waist. "Shall we, then?"

You and Buck followed your parents to the SUV waiting outside the mansion.

You got in and sat in the back seat, followed by Buck next to you then your parents in the middle seat.

The driver looked in the rearview mirror. "Good evening, Mr. Mayor, sir, madams. We'll have you at your destination in just a bit."

You buckled your seatbelt then looked over at Buck as he took your hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze, your heart fluttering once again. Yep, definitely in love. Now what do I do with that information?

Buck watched you look out the window of the SUV you both currently were riding in along with the Mayor and Mrs. Fisk as the streets of New York City passed by, your hand in his a comfort.

The past three months had been filled with stolen glances across press conferences, secret smiles in meetings where the other was present, and nights spent naked and wrapped in each other's arms, until finally, finally, you had decided it was time to take your relationship public — or as public as attending the Mayor's "Stronger New York" fundraiser together was.

He sighed as the vehicle approached the Waldorf Astoria and slowed to a stop. While this was technically your first public outing as a couple, you were both still on the clock, so Buck would enjoy every moment you had together. Time to go to work.

He waited while Mayor and Mrs. Fisk got out then followed, turning to extend a hand to you as you also exited.

You smiled as you took it. "Thank you."

The two of you followed behind the Mayor and Mrs. Fisk, stopping every few feet once you were near the private club area to greet one the members of New York's high society.

Buck stayed mostly in the background as you (unfortunately unsuccessfully) tried to shore up support for the Mayor's Red Hook Port Revitalization Project.

Artemis Sledge had scoffed while her husband, Arthur, had listened on. "You don't honestly believe that this is for the betterment of the city, do you?"

"I'm sorry, my hands are tied," another man named Michael (unfortunately Buck hadn't caught his last name) had said as you presented him with facts and statistics you had gathered about the port.

Your final attempt with Jacques Duquesne, a French businessman with ties to some of the biggest businesses in New York, also fell on deaf ears.

"My dear," he had said, "there have been quite a few changes since you'd been away. Your father's authority may not quite reach as far as he thinks, even as Mayor. As I told him, all it would take is one phone call from someone with influence for all of his power to be stripped away from him."

"He's being stonewalled," Buck murmured to you as Mr. Duquesne walked away.

You huffed out a frustrated breath. "Yeah, that's what it seems like. I need to go find Dad, form another plan of action."

Buck nodded. "Okay, let's go."

He paused as Daniel came rushing up to him. "Buck, wait a second."

Buck nodded for you to continue on. "Yes, what is it, Daniel?"

"There's been another murder — two, actually." Daniel pulled up an email on the iPad he carried and tapped to open the attachment. "It's that Muse guy."

Buck sighed as Daniel showed him the photos. So much for a quiet, peaceful night. "We need to show the Mayor. Immediately."

He quickly caught up to you and your parents and placed a hand on the Mayor's shoulder. "Sir."

"There's something you need to see," Daniel added, then looked at you. "You too, actually."

You looked to the Mayor, who nodded then turned to speak to Mrs. Fisk. "Vanessa," he said softly, "I am sorry but there's pressing business. Can you make my apologies for me?"

Vanessa nodded. "Yes, of course."

Buck stepped to the side to let you and the Mayor pass then followed you to the SUV waiting outside the Waldorf.

The Mayor asked the driver for some privacy, after which you and Buck climbed into the front seats while the Mayor sat in the middle and Daniel in the back.

Daniel handed the Mayor the tablet. "There's been more murders."

"These came straight from the forensics team, sir," Buck added as the Mayor swiped through the photos. "Man's obviously mocking the police."

"The community is definitely going to have something to say about this." You shook your head before sighing. "Jesus, those poor girls."

The Mayor looked at you, then at Buck. "We can use this."

"How?" you asked.

The Mayor shook his head. "We'll meet tomorrow. In the meantime, get some rest."

Buck nodded. It looked like it would be an early morning for him. "Shall I go get Mrs. Fisk, sir?"

"I can get her," Daniel said, moving to get out.

Mayor Fisk nodded. "Thank you, Daniel."

Buck and you moved to the back seat while you waited for Mrs. Fisk.

Buck sighed. It didn't seem like Muse had been targeting anyone specific, but with several of his murals depicting the Mayor in a negative light he easily could decide to target you in order to make a statement.

While Buck honestly didn't want anyone to be harmed — or worse, killed — by a psychopath masquerading as a street artist, he would be damned if he let anything happen to the woman he loved.

He blinked in surprise. Wait… the woman I love?

He sat with the thought for a few moments before looking over at you.

You seemed to be lost in your own thoughts, nervously chewing on your bottom lip as you looked out the window.

Buck wanted to take you home and reassure you that he would do everything in his power to keep you safe then show you exactly how he felt about you.

He took your hand, his heart warming as the worry melted off of your face as you looked at him and smiled. Yeah, I'm in love with her.

His thoughts were interrupted as Mrs. Fisk exited the hotel. "Everything alright?" she asked as she got in the vehicle.

"That serial killer," Mayor Fisk replied, "that… Muse person, he claimed another two lives tonight."

Mrs. Fisk made a face. "That's terrible."

Mayor Fisk shook his head. "Fortunately I have a plan."

The ride back to Gracie Mansion was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts.

Buck followed as you, the Mayor, and Mrs. Fisk all climbed the steps leading up to the porch.

You paused near the doorway. "I'll be right in."

Mrs. Fisk nodded and took the Mayor's arm. "Come, dear, let's give them some privacy."

The Mayor nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, Buck."

"Yes, sir," Buck replied.

He waited until the Mayor and Mrs. Fisk were inside before turning to you. "Everything alright?"

You shrugged. "Just not how I expected our first public event together to go. I figured we'd be celebrating tonight, not getting nowhere on gathering support for the port restoration project then finding out that there were more Muse murders…"

You shivered.

Buck shook his head and stepped closer to you before wrapping his arms around your waist. "I know, darling, but I have faith that everything will work out."

You sighed and relaxed into his embrace. "You really think so?"

Buck nodded. If there was anything he had learned in his time working for Wilson Fisk, it was that the man always had a contingency plan. "I do."

He gave you a kiss. "Now, you'd better head inside. We have a long day tomorrow."

You nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Good night, Buck."

"Good night, darling."

Buck waited as you went inside, then sighed and turned to walk back to the waiting car that would continue on to his apartment. While he'd wanted to tell you he was in love with you, now unfortunately wasn't the time.

[pagesfromthevoid]

[pagesfromthevoid]

FINALLY

I have a moment to WRITE

[sentrybites]

i saw someone saying on twitter about a woman who said that her boyfriend was so nervous when propose her that he forgot everything and ended up just getting on his knees saying “please”.

i hope every writer who reads this makes the best of it

[rainformation]

formative years? aren’t they all?

[absolutejamer]

show me a permanent self and i will show you a facade or a corpse

[angel-of-the-lorde]

how it feels to enjoy multiple contradictory headcanons for a character

[bimstown]

[icallshtgun]

oh my god he's beautiful

[girlpointdexter]

This is fbi!dex to me