sunfairyy

27

[mrsgojosatoru]

anyways i think the most important thing to note about these changes from the comics to the netflix show is that they chose to add racism to her character. they really looked at her story and went “okay but like what if we used all these racist asian stereotypes?” 

[sunfairyy]

After looking for this post for over a year, I finally set my eyes on it again 😭 Thank you so much @mylambandmartyr 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

[cherielux]

The Bodyguard FireLord!Zuko x Airbender!Reader

Peace was never meant to last. Not for the Fire Nation. Not for Fire Lord Zuko. And certainly not for you. As Zuko's personal bodyguard, your duty is simple: protect him at all costs. Remain vigilant. Remain loyal. Never let your guard down. Yet the closer you grow to the Fire Lord, the harder it becomes to ignore the man behind the crown-and the secret that could destroy everything between you. After all, your loyalty was never his to claim

Chapter 10: The Cost of Going Back

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter / Masterlist / ao3

The morning had the quality of mornings that did not yet know what they were going to become.

She had learned to read mornings the way she read rooms - in the first few minutes, before the day had fully committed to its direction, there was information available that closed off as the hours progressed. The quality of the light. The particular sound of the wind off the bay. The way the construction site assembled itself back into activity after the night, the first workers arriving with the specific energy of people who knew what they were coming back to.

This morning the light was flat and grey, the bay colour of old pewter, the wind coming from the north with the cold edge of a season changing its mind about how generous it was going to be. She noted all of this on her pre-dawn walk and filed it under weather, developing and kept moving.

She was on the eastern residential section checking the previous day's framing progress - a habit she had developed in the first month, the morning inspection that caught small errors before they became structural ones - when she became aware of someone watching her.

Not the construction workers. She had learned the specific quality of their attention, the glances of people who had come to accept her as part of the site's functional landscape. This was different. The particular quality of attention that had a purpose behind it, that was waiting for something.

She finished her inspection of the current framing joint before she turned.

The woman was standing at the edge of the eastern section, at the boundary between the construction zone and the cleared ground beyond it. Mid-thirties, perhaps. Unremarkably dressed in the kind of travelling clothes designed to pass through places without leaving an impression. Her posture was the posture of someone who had spent significant time moving through difficult terrain and had made peace with all weather long ago.

Y/N knew the posture. She had been trained into similar posture by similar people.

She crossed to the boundary and stopped two feet from the woman and looked at her with the professional stillness of someone waiting.

"Y/N," the woman said. Not a question.

"Yes."

"My name is Lira." She said it with the specific quality of someone giving a name rather than an identity - a label for the duration of this conversation rather than a full disclosure. "I was sent by Kaya."

The name landed the way it always landed. A weight behind the sternum, settling.

She kept her face still. "Walk with me," she said.

***

They walked along the cleared boundary of the construction site, away from the workers and the morning noise of building, toward the northern high ground where the civic building rose in pale stone against the grey sky. She had learned, over the years, that difficult conversations were easier in motion. Moving gave the body something to do and the eyes somewhere to look that was not the face of the person delivering the news.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Two days," Lira said. "I wanted to understand the situation before I approached you."

"And what did you conclude about the situation?"

A pause. "That it is more complicated than Kaya anticipated."

"Tell me what she sent you to say."

Lira walked for a moment in silence, the silence of someone organising a message they have been carrying for a long time and are now required to deliver accurately. "She received Rhen's report," she said. "She received your message. She has been patient - more patient than some in the network think she should have been." Another pause. "That patience is finished."

Y/N looked at the civic building ahead.

"She wants you to come back," Lira said. "Now. Not in a week, not when the situation is less complicated. Now."

"And if I don't."

Lira looked at her sideways. Not unkindly. The look of someone who did not enjoy what they were carrying but understood they had been trusted to carry it. "Then she will take action herself. She has - she has resources here, Y/N. People who have been positioned for months. If you don't come back and resolve this properly she will use them."

Y/N kept walking.

She thought about the construction site behind her. About the survey flags and the foundation stones and the pale stone of the civic building two stories high in the morning light. About what take action herself meant when her mother said it. About the resources her mother had and what they were capable of.

About Zuko, asleep in the camp she had left an hour ago, in the way he slept when the ribs were fully healed and the day had been good, the unguarded way.

"She wants me to come back and explain myself," Y/N said.

"She wants you to come back and choose," Lira said. "She says you know what the choice is. She says she raised you to be capable of making it and she is not going to accept that you have forgotten how."

The northern high ground was close now, the civic building's foundations visible, the pale stone she had walked past every morning for months. She stopped at the edge of the high ground and looked out at the bay, the grey water, the survey markers below.

"She said there will be severe consequences," Lira said. "If you don't come. She asked me to make sure you understood that she means it."

Y/N looked at the water.

She thought about her mother's hands. The way they had felt, when she was small, braiding her hair with the careful attention of someone doing a simple thing with complete focus. The way those same hands had held a blade in demonstration, precise and without hesitation, teaching her daughter what precision looked like.

Her mother's hands had always done everything with that same quality - complete, unhesitating, whether the thing was tender or terrible.

She understood what severe consequences meant.

"When?" she said.

"She wants you on the road within the week."

She looked at the water for a long moment.

She thought about everything she had decided in the courtyard in Yanlin. About the direction that had become clear. About carrying things forward rather than burning them down.

She thought about what happened if her mother moved without her. About the resources positioned here, about what take action meant with a network like her mother's behind it, about the people in this camp who did not know there was a threat they could not see.

She thought about Zuko.

She thought about what she would do to protect him.

"I'll come," she said.

Lira exhaled. The exhale of someone who had prepared for a longer negotiation and was relieved not to need it.

"I'll need three days," Y/N said. "To arrange things here."

"Two," Lira said. "She was specific."

Y/N looked at the bay for one more moment.

"Two days," she said.

***

She did not go back to the camp immediately.

She stood on the northern high ground for a long time after Lira had gone, in the flat grey morning light with the bay moving below and the construction site assembling itself behind her, and she thought about what she had just agreed to.

She was going back.

She was going back to her mother and the network and the conversation she had been composing in her head since Yanlin and had never finished finding the words for. She was going back to the sister she had not seen in over a year and had not been able to talk to honestly for much longer than that. She was going back to the place she had come from and she was going to have to stand in it as the person she had become rather than the person she had been sent out as, and she did not yet know what that was going to look like.

She thought about telling Zuko.

The thought arrived and she stood with it and it was the hardest thought she had had in a long time, which was saying something given the competition.

She breathed.

She went back to work.

She worked through the morning with the focused efficiency she brought to things that were difficult - the concentration of someone who needed her hands occupied and her mind directed at something concrete and solvable. She reviewed the harbour front framing with the foreman. She went over the load calculations for the plaza fountain third iteration with the architect. She walked the residential eastern section and noted three places where the timber quality was below the standard that had been agreed and wrote it up with the specific precision of someone who wanted it on record.

She did all of this and did not think about the conversation that was coming.

She thought about it constantly.

***

She found him at midday.

He was at the civic building site, as he often was at midday - the hour when the formal morning meetings were finished and the afternoon ones had not yet started, the space in the day that he used to be present at the actual work rather than at the management of it. He was talking with the lead architect over a set of drawings spread across a portable table, his coat off in the midday break in the cold, his hair loose, the version of him she found most difficult and most real.

She waited until the architect had gone.

He looked up when the footsteps changed and found her standing a few feet away, and his expression did the thing it did when he found her somewhere he hadn't expected her - the small, genuine warmth of it, the thing she had spent months cataloguing under not relevant and had long since stopped pretending was not relevant.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said.

She crossed to him. He looked at her face with the attention he always gave her face, the attention of someone who had learned to read it and checked it the way she checked construction framing - for the things that were not quite right, for the small deviations from the expected that indicated something worth knowing.

"What happened," he said. Not a question.

She looked at the drawings spread on the portable table. At the plans for Republic City, the careful geometry of something that was going to exist, that was being built stone by stone in the ground behind them.

"I have to go," she said.

The silence that followed had a specific quality - the silence of someone absorbing something they had not expected and were not yet ready to respond to.

"Go," he said.

"Home." The word felt strange in her mouth. She was not sure it was accurate. She was not sure she knew what accurate was anymore in relation to that word. "I have to go back. There are - there are things I have to deal with. Things I've been putting off for too long."

He was very still.

"How long," he said.

"I don't know." Honest. The only thing she had to offer him. "I don't know how long it will take."

He looked at her for a long moment. She held the look because she had learned that looking away from him when things were difficult was a form of dishonesty she was done with.

"Is it safe?" he said.

The question landed in her chest in the way his questions sometimes landed - sideways, through the gap between what she expected and what arrived. Not when are you coming back. Not why. Is it safe.

"I don't know that either," she said.

His jaw tightened. The small, controlled expression of someone receiving information they do not like and are not going to perform not liking. "Then-"

"I have to go," she said again. "I know you don't want me to. I-" She stopped. "I don't want to go. But there are things that will become worse if I don't deal with them. Things that-" She stopped again. "People I care about could be affected if I don't handle this."

He looked at her steadily. She could see him working through it, reading the spaces between what she was saying, his specific intelligence applied to her in the way it was applied to difficult problems - with the patience of someone who trusted the process.

"You're not going to tell me what it is," he said.

"Not yet." She held his gaze. "I will. I promise you I will. When I come back - I'm going to tell you everything. All of it. Things I should have told you a long time ago." She breathed. "But I need to deal with this first. And I need you to trust me."

The word trust landed between them with all its weight.

She felt it.

He felt it.

He looked at her for a long moment that had several conversations in it - the conversation about what she wasn't saying and the conversation about what trust meant between them and the conversation about the eight months before this one that she had still not found the full language for.

"When do you leave?" he said.

"Tomorrow morning."

Something moved through his expression. He reached out and his hand found her jaw, his thumb at her cheekbone, the specific warmth of him. She turned her face into it slightly, the involuntary movement of someone who had found warmth and was not yet done being surprised by it.

"Come back," he said.

"I will."

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it." She looked at him. "I will come back. I promise."

He looked at her for one more moment.

Then he kissed her.

Not the urgent kind, not the kind that happened in the small room in Yanlin. The other kind - slow and complete and warm, the kiss of someone who was saying something they did not yet have words for and had decided this was the most honest available language. His hand at her jaw. Her hand finding the front of his shirt, the fabric warm from him.

She kissed him back.

She meant it with everything she had.

When they pulled back he pressed his forehead to hers briefly, the gesture she had learned was his version of things he couldn't say out loud, and she breathed him in and thought about coming back and meant that too with everything she had.

"I'll be here," he said. "When you come back."

"I know," she said.

She stepped back.

She went to tell the others.

***

She told them at dinner.

She had considered telling them individually but had decided against it - telling them individually would require her to manage each reaction separately and she had learned over the months that this group, for all its individual complexity, was better received as a whole. They held each other. They made each other's responses easier to carry.

She waited until the meal was mostly done and the conversation had reached one of its natural pauses.

"I need to tell you all something," she said.

The table looked at her. She had learned each of their attention over the months - Aang's open and immediate, Katara's warm and assessing, Sokka's sharp underneath the easy surface, Toph's sightless regard that saw more than most.

"I have to leave tomorrow morning," she said. "I need to go home and deal with some things. I don't know exactly how long I'll be gone."

Aang's face did the thing it did when he was receiving something he was worried about and was not going to perform not being worried. "Is everything okay?"

"Not entirely," she said. Because she had committed to honesty and this was part of it. "But it will be. I'm going to deal with it."

Katara looked at her with the direct warm gaze. Then she looked at Zuko, briefly, reading something in the quality of his stillness. She looked back at Y/N. "Do you need anything? Before you go?"

"No." She paused. "Thank you."

"We'll be here," Aang said. Simply. The statement of someone who meant it as a fact rather than a comfort. "When you come back. We'll be here."

She looked at him across the table. At his open face and the tattoos at his temples and the specific quality of his looking at her which had been, since the garden at the Fire Nation palace, the looking of someone who knew more than they said and trusted the person they were looking at to find their way to the saying.

"I know," she said.

Toph said nothing.

Her feet were flat on the ground and her sightless face was tilted in Y/N's direction with the comprehensive quality that Y/N had learned to associate with significant seismic information being received and processed. She did not comment. She did not ask questions. She simply sat with the particular stillness of someone who had already arrived at a conclusion and was waiting for the world to catch up.

After dinner, when the group had dispersed to their evening routines, Y/N was walking back toward her quarters when she heard Toph's voice behind her.

"Hey."

She stopped. Turned.

Toph was standing in the path, feet flat, arms crossed, her expression the neutral one that covered a range of states she declined to advertise.

"Hey," Y/N said.

A silence.

"Be careful," Toph said. Flat. Simple. The tone of someone conveying information rather than sentiment.

Y/N looked at her. "Okay."

"I mean it." Toph's sightless regard held on her with the comprehensive quality. "Your heartbeat does a thing when you talk about where you're going. It's been doing it all evening." A pause. "I don't know what's there. But whatever it is, your body knows it's not safe."

Y/N said nothing.

"Come back," Toph said. The same words Zuko had said, in the same register of someone meaning them as fact rather than sentiment. "You're - annoying. But the frequency thing is interesting and I want to figure it out." She paused. "Also Zuko's heartbeat is disgusting when you're not around and I live here and I don't want to deal with that."

Y/N almost smiled.

She did smile.

"I'll come back," she said.

Toph uncrossed her arms and turned away with the complete lack of ceremony of someone who had said what they came to say and considered the conversation finished. "Good," she said, already walking. "Don't make me come find you."

***

The airship that Lira had arranged was small and fast and functional, the kind of vessel designed for travel rather than comfort, and it left at first light with the grey bay below and the peninsula receding behind them and the construction site diminishing to a cluster of shapes against the land.

She did not watch it go.

She sat with her back to the porthole for the first hour and looked at the wall opposite and breathed carefully and catalogued the things she knew and the things she didn't.

She knew her mother would be there when she arrived. She had not seen her mother in over a year - the longest gap since she was old enough to leave on assignments, and even then the gaps had never been this long, had never been filled with this specific quality of silence.

She knew her sister would be there.

That was the thing she had been avoiding examining, and which now, with the peninsula gone behind her and the journey committed to, she allowed herself to examine.

Her sister.

They had not been close. That was the clean version of it. The accurate version was more complicated - they had been raised in the same community by the same mother in the same circumstances, and had arrived at entirely different selves, and had spent most of their shared life not knowing what to do with each other.

Her sister was two years older. She had her mother's precision and her mother's certainty and none of her mother's patience, which meant she had the architecture of authority without the temperament to wear it well. She had been, for most of Y/N's memory, the standard against which Y/N was measured - not by her mother, who measured both of them against their purpose rather than against each other, but by herself, which was worse.

Her sister who did not like her.

Who had made this clear through the years in the specific ways that people made things clear without saying them: the quality of her silences when Y/N spoke, the particular arrangement of her expression when Y/N was praised for something, the way she had of framing observations as questions that were not questions. Isn't it interesting that you were chosen for this mission when you've never completed a long assignment before. Isn't it interesting that Mother thinks you're ready.

Her sister, who had not bended.

That was the thing underneath everything. Her sister had been born without airbending, which in their community, in their specific lineage, carried a weight that nobody discussed directly and everyone felt. She had compensated with everything else - the physical training, the network work, the strategic intelligence that was genuinely formidable. She had made herself indispensable through sheer accumulation of competence.

And Y/N had been born with it. The thing her sister had not been born with. The thing their grandparents had carried and their mother had not received and that had skipped a generation and landed, apparently arbitrarily, in the younger daughter.

She had kept it hidden all her life. That was supposed to make it neutral - a secret rather than an advantage, a liability rather than a gift. But she knew, and her sister knew, and the knowing sat between them like something that had never been named and therefore could not be addressed.

She looked at the wall opposite the porthole and thought about arriving home and felt, for the first time in months, the specific fear of a person who knows exactly what they are walking into and cannot calculate the exit.

She breathed.

She thought about the wind and the mountain.

She thought about the current that found the way through.

She thought: I am not the person I was when I left.

She thought: I hope that is enough.

***

Lira was not a talker. This Y/N appreciated without reservation - the journey was long and she used the silence to prepare, to think through the conversation she was going to have with her mother and the ways it might go and the things she needed to say and the order in which to say them.

She had been composing this conversation since Yanlin. She had been composing it for months. She had the words - she had had the words for a long time - but words were not the same as the courage to say them, and courage was not the same as the readiness to receive what came after.

She thought about what Aang had said about giving force somewhere better to go.

She thought about carrying things forward.

She thought about what she wanted and what she owed and the difference between them and the way they overlapped.

She thought: I do not want revenge. I never wanted revenge. I wanted to belong to something and the something I was given was built around revenge and I did not know how to want a different thing until I found one.

She thought about Republic City and its foundation of room for everyone.

She thought about telling her mother this.

She thought about her mother's face when she said it.

She breathed through the fear of that and kept breathing and looked at the wall and thought: I will say the true things. Whatever it costs. I will say the true things.

***

They landed two days later at the end of the afternoon, the light going gold and long over the mountain settlement that Y/N had grown up moving through, the familiar shapes of it assembling themselves as the airship descended - the long-house at the settlement's centre, the training grounds to the east, the series of smaller structures built into the mountain face that served as quarters and workspaces and the network's operational infrastructure.

It looked smaller than she remembered.

That was the thing about returning to places you had left - they contracted in your absence, gave back the scale that memory had inflated. She looked at the settlement that had been the centre of her world for her entire life and it was real and recognisable and smaller than it had been.

She picked up her pack.

She followed Lira down the ramp.

The mountain air hit her - cold, clean, the specific quality of altitude air that she had grown up breathing and had been breathing for months on the peninsula, which shared the clarity if not the salt. It smelled of pine and cold stone and the cooking fire that burned in the long-house, the smell she associated with everything that had come before the palace, before the mission, before the person she had been becoming.

She stood at the bottom of the ramp and looked at the settlement.

And then the long-house door opened and her mother came out.

***

Kaya was not a tall woman. This had always surprised people who had not met her - who knew her by reputation and had assembled a picture based on what she had built and what she was capable of. She was slight and composed with the specific quality of someone who had compressed grief into something harder and more purposeful long ago and had been living at that compression for so long it had become structural, part of how she held herself together.

She looked at Y/N across the distance of the settlement's central space.

Y/N looked back at her.

For a moment neither of them moved.

Then her mother crossed to her and Y/N stood still and received the embrace that was given - her mother's arms around her, brief and complete, the embrace of someone who loved their child and had also sent them out to do something and needed to know whether they had done it.

"You came," her mother said.

"I said I would."

Her mother pulled back and looked at her face with the attention she always gave Y/N's face - reading it the way Y/N read rooms, in the first few seconds, before the subject had time to arrange themselves. Y/N held the look without flinching.

Her mother's expression shifted through several things that Y/N watched without being able to name them all. Then it settled into something careful and complex.

"Come inside," her mother said. "We have a great deal to discuss."

***

Her sister was in the long-house.

She was standing at the far end of it when Y/N came through the door, and she had the look of someone who had been waiting with the specific quality of someone who had been told to wait and had found the waiting intolerable. She was Y/N's height but differently built - the broader shoulders of someone who had developed their physical training into something compensatory, a body that worked harder than it needed to because it had decided that working harder was the answer to everything.

She looked at Y/N.

Y/N looked at her.

"Mei," Y/N said.

"You look different," Mei said. Her voice had the quality Y/N had always associated with it - precise and slightly too controlled, the voice of someone managing a great deal underneath the surface and not entirely succeeding.

"It's been a year."

"More than a year." She looked Y/N over with the specific assessment that Y/N had grown up receiving, the look that found the inventory of what was changed and what was the same and made its conclusions. "You look - softer."

It was not a compliment.

Y/N said nothing.

The long-house had the smell and quality of her childhood - the low beams, the long central table, the fire at the far end that had been burning in some form for as long as she could remember. It was familiar in the way of things that had shaped you without asking your permission.

Her mother sat at the head of the table. "Sit down," she said. To both of them.

They sat.

The conversation that followed had the specific quality of difficult conversations that have been preparing themselves for a long time - it started controlled, the way water started controlled before a dam broke, each word careful and precise, and then it stopped being controlled.

Her mother asked her to explain.

Y/N explained.

Not everything. She was not ready to say everything in front of Mei, whose presence made the telling harder in ways she could feel but not fully articulate. She said what she could - that the mission had changed for her, that her understanding of what she was doing and why had shifted, that she believed there was a better way forward than what had been planned, that the cycle of violence would not end by adding to it.

She said this clearly and without flinching.

Her mother listened.

Mei did not listen. Mei's face, as Y/N spoke, went through a process that Y/N watched with the part of herself that was always watching, always cataloguing - the controlled expression cracking in specific places, the anger arriving and being managed and then not being managed, the thing underneath the anger which was something older and more complicated and harder to look at.

"A better way forward," Mei said, when Y/N had finished. Her voice was very controlled. "You spent eight months in the palace of the Fire Lord. You had the access. You had the position. And you are telling us that you decided - what? That we should all just forgive and forget? That the people who destroyed our family deserve to keep what they have?"

"I'm not saying forgive and forget," Y/N said. "I'm saying that killing one person doesn't-"

"It ends a line," Mei said. "It sends a message. It is what we agreed."

"What you agreed," Y/N said. "I was told what the mission was. I wasn't asked."

A silence.

Her mother looked between them with the expression of someone watching something they had been afraid of and had hoped would not happen.

"You were trained for it," Mei said. "You were prepared. You had every resource-"

"I know what I had," Y/N said.

"Then why-" Mei stopped. Her jaw was tight. The control slipping at the edges in the way Y/N had watched it slip her entire life, the specific way her sister's composure deteriorated when she encountered something she had decided was a betrayal. "Why is he still alive?"

"Because I chose not to kill him."

The words sat in the long-house.

Her mother closed her eyes briefly. Opened them. "Y/N-"

"Because he is building something," Y/N said. "Because he is trying - genuinely trying - to be different from what the Fire Nation was. Because Republic City exists because of him and it is designed to make room for people like us. Because I looked at what the plan was and what it would accomplish and I decided it would accomplish nothing except more loss."

"Nothing." Mei's voice had dropped to something lower and more dangerous than the controlled register. "You think the justice we've been working for for years is nothing."

"I think killing him won't bring back what we lost," Y/N said. "I think it won't bring back Grandma or Grandpa or any of the people we lost. I think it perpetuates a cycle that-"

"Don't." Mei's voice cracked. "Don't talk to me about cycles. Don't stand there and tell me about cycles with his mark on you-"

"He doesn't have a mark on me-"

"Don't lie to me." Mei stood up. Her chair scraped back with the specific noise of something being done without care for the sound. "I can see it on you. The way you hold yourself. The way you talk about him." Her voice was rising. "Eight months in his palace and you come back here talking about cycles and better ways and what does that mean? What does that actually mean?"

"It means I'm not willing to destroy something-"

"Something?" The word came out with a specific, sharp quality. "He is not something. He is the heir to the people who murdered our people. He is the Fire Nation. He is everything-"

"He is a person," Y/N said. "He is a specific person who is not responsible for what his ancestors did and who is actively trying to repair what they destroyed-"

"And you know this because you've been sleeping with him."

The long-house went entirely still.

Y/N looked at her sister.

Mei's face had the quality of someone who had said the thing they had been not-saying for the entire conversation and were now watching to see what it did.

"Mei." Their mother's voice was very quiet.

"It's obvious." Mei's voice was still elevated, still carrying the energy of someone who had opened something and could not close it. "You go there as a trained operative with a specific mission and you come back a year later with nothing done and the look of someone who has been - who has been-" She stopped. "You always did think the rules didn't apply to you. You always did think that your bending made you special, made you above-"

"Don't," Y/N said.

"Why not?" Mei said. "It's true. You were born with it and I wasn't and somehow that meant you were the chosen one, the one who got the important mission, the one who-"

"I didn't ask for the mission," Y/N said. "I didn't ask for any of it-"

"You got it anyway," Mei said. "You got it and you wasted it. You went there to do something important and you decided your own - your own feelings were more important. You sold out everything we are for a Fire Nation man who-"

"I didn't sell out anything-"

"You slept your way into his good graces and now you're standing here trying to tell me that's a better way forward-" Mei's voice had lost all its control now, the anger moving through it without management, and she crossed around the table with the energy of someone who had been containing something for a very long time and had finished containing it.

"Mei." Her mother stood up. "Enough-"

"It's not enough." Mei was close now, close enough that Y/N could see the specific quality of her face, the anger and underneath it the thing that was older and harder to look at - the grief, the genuine grief, and the jealousy that had been living inside the grief for years and had shaped itself around it until the two things were indistinguishable. "You were always the one they chose. You were always the one who got the gift and the mission and Mother's - and Mother's faith, and you went there and you threw it away for him-"

"I didn't throw anything away-"

"You're defending him," Mei said. "You're standing in this house where Grandma told us about what they did and you're defending him-"

"I'm defending what's right-"

"You don't know what's right." Mei's voice broke on it, briefly, and then reassembled into something harder. "You've never had to fight for anything. You were born with the bending and everything followed from that and you don't know what it cost the rest of us-"

"Mei-"

"If I had been born with it," Mei said, and the words came out with the specific quality of something that had been sitting somewhere deep and dark for a very long time and was now finally in the air, "if I had been the one and not you - I would have done it. I would have completed the mission. I would have-"

"Done what?" Y/N said. "Killed a person who is trying to build a better world? Felt good about that? Would that have fixed anything-"

"It would have been justice-"

"It would have been revenge," Y/N said. "There's a difference and you know there is-"

Mei's hand moved.

She had not decided to. Y/N could read that in the quality of the movement - the specific quality of something the body did before the mind caught up, the action that came from the place beneath deliberation. The open palm connecting with Y/N's face with a force that came from years of training and the specific energy of everything that had been building in the long-house for the last twenty minutes.

The sound was very loud in the quiet of the long-house.

Y/N's head snapped to the side. She felt the immediate bloom of impact across her cheekbone, the heat of it spreading under her eye, the specific bright pain of a well-landed strike. She had been hit harder. She had been hit by people with more technique. That did not change the quality of this particular impact, which was not about technique.

She turned her face back.

Mei was looking at her own hand with the expression of someone who had done something they intended and were also surprised by.

The anger was still there in her face. So was something else now - something that Y/N recognised because she had seen it in her sister's face at other moments across a lifetime of moments, the specific expression that came when Mei had done something she could not take back and was not going to apologise for but wished had not happened.

Y/N looked at her for a moment.

Then she said, "Don't do that again."

Mei looked at her.

"Don't," Y/N said.

Something moved through Mei's expression - the thing that had always been underneath everything between them, the thing that had no clean name but that Y/N had carried the weight of her entire life. The grief of a sister who had decided she was lesser and had never found a way to put the deciding down.

Mei moved again.

This time Y/N was ready.

She caught the second strike at the wrist and redirected it - the geometry Dov had taught her, force redirected rather than met, the body moving before the mind had finished deciding - and the momentum carried Mei sideways and Y/N stepped out of her own line and brought her free hand up and it was not a gentle thing that happened next, it was the consequence of two people who had been trained to fight and had been fighting each other in every possible way for their entire lives and were finally doing it in the only register they had not yet used.

The table was between them when they separated, both of them breathing hard, Y/N's cheek hot and beginning to swell, Mei's expression showing the specific surprise of someone who had expected a different outcome.

"ENOUGH."

Their mother's voice.

Not raised. That was what made it what it was - it did not need to be raised. Kaya had a quality of authority that had nothing to do with volume, the specific weight of someone who had built something and carried it and had earned the right to end a conversation when she said it was ended.

Both of them went still.

Kaya stood at the head of the table and looked at her daughters with an expression that Y/N had not seen on her mother's face before. Or rather - she had seen its component parts separately, but not assembled like this. The grief and the anger and the love and the specific, terrible weight of someone who had raised two people toward a purpose and was standing in the wreckage of what that purpose had done to the people she loved.

"Sit down," she said. To Mei. "Sit down now."

Mei sat.

Her mother looked at Y/N. At the cheek, which Y/N could feel swelling. Something moved through her mother's expression - pain, quick and genuine - and then it was composed again.

"Go clean that," her mother said. "And then come back. We are not finished."

***

The water from the basin was cold and it helped.

She sat in the small room off the long-house - her old room, the one she had slept in between assignments, that still had the particular quality of a space that had been hers without ever quite becoming her own - and held a cold cloth to her cheek and looked at the wall.

The bruise was spreading. She had looked in the small mirror on the shelf - dark, blooming from the cheekbone to below her eye, the colour of something that was going to be considerably worse tomorrow before it began to get better. The kind of bruise that had a story attached to it and that story would be visible to everyone she encountered for the next week.

She thought about Zuko seeing it.

She thought about what she was going to tell him.

She thought about all the true things she had promised herself she would say when she got back, and felt the specific warmth of having something to go back to, which was a feeling she had not had in relation to any place for most of her life and which she was still getting accustomed to.

She sat with the cold cloth and breathed.

When she went back to the long-house, Mei was gone.

Her mother was at the table with two cups of tea, the steam rising in the quiet of the long-house, the fire burning at the far end. She looked up when Y/N came in and looked at her face and said nothing about it - the nothing of someone who had noted it and made a decision about what to do with the noting.

Y/N sat down.

Her mother pushed one of the cups toward her.

They sat in silence for a moment. The fire cracked. Outside the long-house the mountain settlement had gone quiet in the way of places that ran on purpose - when the day's work was done the energy dissipated quickly, people conserving for the next day's demands.

"I'm sorry," her mother said. Quietly. "About Mei."

"Mei is Mei," Y/N said.

"She's not wrong that she's been carrying things." Her mother's hands were around her own cup, the familiar geography of them, the scar at the first finger. "She's been carrying things for a long time."

"I know," Y/N said.

A silence.

"Tell me," her mother said. "Everything. From the beginning."

And Y/N told her.

Not in the order she had planned - the planned version had dissolved in the long-house argument - but the real version, the one that had the actual shape of what had happened over the past year. She told her about the eight months and the palace and the cold-shouldered corridors and the quality of the silence around her and the one person who had knocked three times at midnight and not assumed welcome. She told her about Aang, and what Aang had said about carrying things forward and the culture belonging to whoever carried it. She told her about Republic City and what it was trying to be. She told her about the courtyard in Yanlin, the cold morning air and the strip of sky going from grey to gold, and the direction that had become clear.

She told her mother what she had chosen.

Her mother listened.

She listened the way she had always listened to everything - completely, without interrupting, with the full weight of her attention. Y/N had always loved this quality in her mother. She loved it now and felt the love alongside the fear of what the listening would lead to, both things true simultaneously, the way things always were.

When Y/N finished, her mother was quiet.

The fire burned.

The tea steamed.

"The Air Nomads," her mother said finally, "were people of peace." Slowly. Carefully. Like someone placing something fragile. "Your grandparents told me this. They told me about the temples - about the philosophy, the way they lived. They told me about the wind and the mountain."

"I know," Y/N said.

"They also told me what was done to them." Her mother's voice did not waver. "What was done to everyone they loved."

"I know that too."

"I built this because of what was done." Her mother looked at the fire. "Because I looked at what happened and I decided it could not stand unanswered. Not revenge - or not only revenge. Refusing to let what they did be the end of the story."

"I understand that," Y/N said. "I understand it completely. And I'm not asking you to let it be the end of the story." She held her mother's gaze steadily. "I'm asking you to consider a different chapter."

Her mother looked at her for a long moment.

Something moved through her expression - the grief and the anger and the love and the complicated architecture of a person who had spent decades building toward something and was now being asked to examine its foundation. Y/N watched it move and did not look away and waited.

"You love him," her mother said.

Not an accusation. A recognition.

Y/N looked at her hands on the table. At the callouses, the specific pattern of someone who had grown up learning to hold things.

"Yes," she said.

Her mother exhaled. Long and slow and controlled, the exhale of someone releasing something they had been holding.

"And he doesn't know," her mother said. "What you were."

"Not yet." She looked up. "I'm going to tell him. When I go back. Everything. Because it's true and I'm done with the cost of not saying true things."

Her mother looked at her for a long moment.

Then, slowly, she reached across the table and put her hand over Y/N's.

Y/N looked at her mother's hand. The familiar geography of it. The scar at the first finger from a training accident when Y/N was four years old, when she had been small enough to be picked up and held and her mother had held her and the scar had been against her cheek.

She felt the warmth of the hand and thought: it is going to be all right.

She thought: she understands.

She thought: I can go back tomorrow.

"I raised you to be a person who chose," her mother said quietly. "Not a person who was told." Her hand tightened on Y/N's. "I thought I knew what you would choose. Perhaps-" She paused. "Perhaps I was wrong about the specific things."

Y/N looked at her mother's face. At the grief in it and the love in it and the thing between them that was complicated and permanent and not going anywhere regardless of what had been said in this room or what would be said after.

"Can I go back tomorrow?" she said.

Her mother looked at her.

Something in her expression shifted.

Y/N felt it before she identified it - a quality change, the specific shift of a room when the thing that was actually happening becomes visible underneath the thing that appeared to be happening. She had spent her entire life learning to read that shift. She had read it in interrogation rooms and market crowds and palace corridors.

She had not expected to read it in her mother's face.

The hand over hers tightened.

Not the tightening of comfort. The tightening of restraint.

"Mom-"

The door behind her opened.

She was already moving when it did - the body responding before the mind had finished processing, the old instinct, the one that had kept her alive in situations that should have resolved differently. She was on her feet and the cup was between her and the door and she had her knife out of her sleeve in the movement she had practiced ten thousand times before she had fully turned around.

Three people in the doorway.

Lira was one of them.

The other two she didn't know - new faces, the faces of people who had been positioned here in advance of her arrival, which meant her mother had planned this before Lira ever arrived at the construction site, which meant the conversation and the tea and the hand over hers had been-

"Y/N." Her mother's voice was very even. The voice of someone who had made a decision and was not going to flinch from it. "Please don't make this harder than it needs to be."

"What is this," Y/N said. Her voice came out completely level. She was grateful for that and furious at herself for the gratitude, for the fact that she was still, even now, cataloguing and controlling.

"You're going to stay here for a while," her mother said. "Until we can find another way forward. Until-"

"You were never going to let me go back," Y/N said.

Her mother's expression did what it did when she encountered something true that she had not intended to be said. A fractional thing, barely visible to anyone who hadn't spent their entire life reading that face.

"I can't let you go back to him," her mother said. "Not as things stand."

"So you manipulated me into-"

"I needed you to lower your guard," her mother said. Simply. The specific simplicity of someone who had made a calculation and was not going to pretend it was something else. "I needed you to think the conversation had gone well enough that you would stop being prepared for everything."

Y/N looked at her mother.

She felt something move through her chest that was not the warmth she had felt five minutes ago - the opposite of that, the cold specific feeling of understanding that you have been read and used by someone who knew exactly how to read and use you because they were the one who taught you how to read and use people in the first place.

"I'm not going to hurt you," her mother said. "You know I would never-"

"You just did," Y/N said.

A silence.

Lira and the two others had moved further into the room. Positioned. She read the geometry of it in the first second - the angles, the distances, the way the three of them had arranged themselves to cover the exits without being obvious about it. They had been briefed. They knew what she was capable of.

They had planned for what she was capable of.

"Your bending," her mother said quietly. "If you use it here - in front of people who don't know-"

"Then I expose myself," Y/N said. "Yes. I know."

"I don't want you to expose yourself," her mother said. "I don't want you to be in danger. That's why I-" She stopped. "That's why I need you to stay where I can see you. Where I know you're safe."

"Safe," Y/N said.

The word sat in the long-house with everything it was carrying.

She looked at her mother and felt all the things she had always felt about her mother - the love and the respect and the grief and the anger that was also love, turned sideways - and felt all of them at once and breathed through them and made a decision.

She ran.

Not toward the door where the three of them were positioned - that was what they expected, the most direct exit, the one they had covered. She ran toward the far end of the long-house, toward the fire, toward the window above the wood pile that she had known about since she was eight years old because she had used it to sneak out on nights when she was supposed to be sleeping.

Lira was fast. She had expected that - you didn't send someone slow on this kind of assignment. She heard the footsteps behind her, the specific rhythm of someone who had been trained to chase and was good at it, and she pushed the wood pile aside with her shoulder and got her hand to the window latch and felt the cold air of the mountain night come through as it opened-

Something caught her ankle.

Not hands. The specific quality of something wrapped around her ankle, a cord, thin and strong, the kind of restraint line her mother's network had been using for thirty years, deployed from somewhere she hadn't tracked in the geometry of the room.

She went down.

Not badly - she turned it into a controlled fall, the way Dov had taught her, taking the impact on her shoulder rather than her hands, rolling to put space between herself and whoever was closest. But the cord was around her ankle and there was someone on the other end of it and the window was above her now rather than in front of her.

She got to one knee.

Lira was there.

The other two were there.

The one she hadn't accounted for - because there were four, not three, the fourth had been in the room the entire time, she had miscounted in the first second and that miscounting had cost her - was behind her with the cord in their hands.

She looked at the geometry of it and ran the calculation and reached the end of the calculation.

Too many.

Too many and no exit she could reach before they reached her, and using her bending would expose her to every person in this settlement, and she would not do that, she had kept it hidden for her entire life and she would not sacrifice that here, not like this.

She looked at Lira.

Lira looked back at her with the expression of someone who had been given an assignment and had completed it and felt the specific weight of what completing it had cost.

"I'm sorry," Lira said. And appeared to mean it.

Y/N looked at the window above her. At the cold mountain night through it, the deep blue of the sky, the stars that had arrived all at once the way they did at altitude.

She thought about the peninsula.

She thought about pale stone in the morning light.

She thought about his hand finding hers in the dark and the specific warmth of it, the certainty of it, the way he had held on.

She thought about Aang's voice in the old garden: the carrying is the thing.

She thought about the wind and the mountain.

She thought about the current that found the way through.

She breathed.

She lowered her hands.

"Fine," she said.

Her voice was completely level.

She was going to need every piece of herself for what came next.

She was going to need to be patient and she was going to need to be smart and she was going to need to remember that she had been trained by the same people who had just captured her and that training worked in both directions.

She looked at the window one more time.

She thought: I promised I would come back.

She thought: I keep my promises.

She thought: they built a city. I can find a way out of a mountain settlement.

The cord was around her ankle and the four of them were between her and every exit and her mother was standing at the head of the long-house table with the expression of someone who had done what they believed they had to do and was not yet sure of the cost of it.

Y/N looked at her mother for a long moment.

She thought about trust and what it cost when it was used the way her mother had used it tonight.

She did not say anything.

She did not need to. Her mother's face told her that her mother already knew.

She sat down on the floor of the long-house with the cold mountain air coming through the open window above her and thought about a peninsula and a bay and everything she was going back to.

She was going back.

She had decided that and she was not undeciding it.

The mountain was not the end of the current.

The mountain was never the end of the current.

She sat in the dark and breathed and waited and planned and thought about the wind finding the way through.

It was already moving.

She just had to find it.

[yawnzshit]

I NEED HIM SO SO BAD. HE'S A NEED.

[sun-hashira]

Guilty as Sin?

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: after cutting Dex out of your life, his spiraling desperation leads you to make your first real choice for yourself instead of everyone else.

𝙬𝙝𝙤: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter/Bullseye x Female!Murdock Reader

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 2.5k

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: soulmate au, hurt/comfort, blood, injury, Dex has a mental spiral. If I have missed any please let me know!

part 4 of the "Glitch" Series

𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧: The Great War

𝙙𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙮: @uzmacchiato

𝗮/𝗻: Part 4 of this series! Like before feedback is welcome!

“They’re gonna crucify me anyway… “ — Guilty as Sin? by Taylor Swift

The silence became unbearable on the fourth day.

It wasn’t Matt’s silence, nor was it Karen’s. Those you could survive because you knew that your brother loved you more than anything, and Karen had never stayed angry at you for long.

You knew that eventually the three of you would have a conversation or another argument or more tears to break the silence and fix this situation.

But what you hadn’t expected was how much Dex’s absence would ache. How the lack of gifts and him not breaking in through your window at night would hurt so much.

You stood in your kitchen staring at your phone while rain hit hard against the windows, exhaustion heavy on your body. Your apartment felt colder now and empty in a way it hadn’t been for a while.

Like something else had quietly left when you told him to leave.

Your fingers brushed unconsciously against your mark again, a gesture that once brought you a small bit of comfort now made tears well up in your eyes.

Sighing softly, you unlocked your phone again despite knowing what you’d see.

23 unread messages.

14 missed calls.

9 voicemails.

All from Dex.

You hadn’t answered a single call, hadn’t listened to a single voicemail, and hadn’t opened a single message. 

Tapping the messages app, you saw that they had started normal the messages had gradually got less coherent as the days passed.

Dex: Are you okay?

Dex: Please answer.

Dex: I’m sorry.

Dex: I’m trying.

Dex: You said leave you alone.

Dex: I’m trying to do that.

Dex: Please answer the phone.

The last message had arrived nearly seven hours ago, and the lack of anything else since has left you feeling more unsettled than relieved. But the ache in your chest still deepened as you locked your phone again and tossed it onto the counter.

Leaning heavily against the counter, you closed your eyes to try to stop the tears from coming because this was what they wanted, wasn’t it?

Distance. Space. No Dex.

So why did it feel like something was broken and bleeding inside you now that he was gone?

Because he had noticed you. You thought to yourself.

Because Dex had noticed everything about you.

He had noticed when your shoulder hurt, when you skipped meals, when you were exhausted, when your smile wasn’t real.

How he looked at you like you mattered, like you were something precious.

And now the silence he’d left behind haunted your apartment like a trapped ghost.

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

Your phone ringing loudly on your bedside drawer startled you awake hard enough that your heart jumped painfully.

Grabbing it with a groan, the brightness of it blinded you before the name flashing on the screen made your stomach twist immediately.

Dex.

Glancing at the numbers on the top of the screen, you felt your heart begin to race again.

2:17 AM.

Dex never called this late. He knew your schedule too well and knew how little sleep you got between the apothecary and the clinic. Your stomach clenched again as the ringtone ended and a ping indicating a voicemail came through a few moments later.

But what made your chest tighten was the notification that showed he had already called four times before this one had finally woken you up.

You knew that you had been tired last night, but tired enough to miss four phone calls? You bit your lip with worry.

Then your phone rang again, and before you could think yourself out of it, you answered.

“Dex?” You asked into the phone.

He didn’t answer, but the sound of heavy, uneven breathing came through the phone.

But it was the sound of something falling somewhere made you worry instantly.

“Dex?” You asked again.

A long pause.

Then finally he spoke quietly, “I’m sorry.”

Your eyes closed briefly as your stomach settled, but hearing those words from him made your chest ache.

“What happened?” you asked softly.

More silence.

“You told me to leave you alone.” His voice sounded wrong. “I was trying to.”

The words hit painfully as you swallowed hard.

“Dex—”

“I can’t think when it’s quiet.” His voice was frustrated now as something crashed faintly in the background.

You straightened up immediately. “Are you hurt?”

Another pause.

“… No.”

A lie, and you could hear it instantly.

“Where are you?” You asked as your fingers tightened around the phone.

“At home.” His breathing stuttered unevenly again. “Baby, I’m trying very hard not to come see you.”

You felt a tear slip down your cheek at his words. Because he had listened, even if it was destroying him.

You stared out at the rain streaking your apartment windows before moving out of bed and through the apartment.

“I’m coming over.” You said sliding on your shoes and then grabbing your coat and keys.

The silence on the other end was immediate.

“You don’t have to.” He whispered.

“I know.”

Another long pause.

“Okay.”

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

Dex’s apartment looked like a war zone.

The moment he opened the door, you immediately froze. Glass littered the floor, a lamp had been shattered against the wall, one of the dining chairs lay broken near the kitchen, there were dents in the drywall, and blood was smeared across the edge of the counter.

And standing in the middle of it all was Dex.

Barefoot, breathing unevenly with his knuckles split open and bloodied.

Your chest tightened sadly because now every unread message felt heavier. More desperate.

Dex’s eyes immediately found yours and stayed there as if he was checking you were real.

“You came.”

The words sounded almost uncertain as your gaze slowly swept over the apartment again.

“What happened?”

Dex looked away for the first time since opening the door.

“I got angry.”

Your eyes dropped to his bleeding hands.

“You punched the wall.”

“Yes.”

Apparently several times you thought to yourself.

You stepped carefully over shattered glass as you entered his apartment and shut the door behind you. The place smelled faintly of blood and something electrical from the broken lamp.

But Dex didn’t move. Didn’t come closer. He was still doing what you’d said that night.

Leave me alone.

“Sit down,” you said quietly, pointing to his sofa.

He obeyed immediately.

You grabbed the first aid kit from where it sat untouched under the kitchen sink before kneeling carefully in front of him.

His eyes never left your face. Not once.

The cuts across his knuckles were messy and swollen already as you gently took one of his hands in yours. The soulmate mark on your collarbone burned faintly at the contact.

Dex inhaled sharply.

You ignored it.

“Why didn’t you clean these?”

Dex watched your thumb brush carefully beneath his split knuckles.

“I couldn’t focus.”

Your chest ached at his words as you carefully soaked a gauze and gently cleaned the blood from his skin.

The apartment remained painfully quiet except for the sound of heavy rain against the windows.

Dex looked exhausted. Like something inside him had been wound too tightly for too long and finally snapped.

“You should’ve listened to the voicemails,” he said quietly after a while.

You glanced up briefly. “Were they coherent?”

“… No.”

Despite yourself, a small, tired laugh escaped you.

Dex’s mouth twitched faintly at the sound and then disappeared again.

“I tried,” he admitted softly.

Your hands stilled slightly against his skin. “I know.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You don’t.”

His jaw tightened once. “I stayed away.”

Guilt twisted low in your stomach.

Not because his spiral was your fault. It wasn’t.

But because you suddenly understood how hard he’d actually tried.

“I know,” you repeated softer this time.

Dex finally looked away again. “I kept thinking about what you said.”

Leave me alone.

The memory made your chest tighten painfully.

“I didn’t mean forever, baby,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.

Dex’s eyes snapped back to yours immediately. Something desperate flickered there so quickly it almost hurt to look at.

You quickly focused back on healing his hands.

Your powers stirred faintly beneath your skin as you carefully brushed your fingers across his bruised knuckles. Warmth spread softly from your touch, easing some of the swelling before the wounds closed.

“All done.” Your hands faintly shook as you pulled them away from him.

Dex exhaled softly as the pain left his hands.

“You’re tired,” he murmured immediately.

Of course he noticed, you thought to yourself. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.”

You snorted quietly. “A little hypocritical coming from you.”

His mouth twitched again. A tiny, almost smile.

God, you had missed that.

The realisation settled heavily in your chest.

Carefully setting the supplies aside, you leaned back slightly against the sofa, Dex still watching you like he was afraid you might disappear if he blinked.

“You destroyed your apartment,” you muttered softly.

“I know.” He whispered.

“You probably scared the neighbours.”

“I know.”

“You called me at two in the morning.”

At that, something conflicted crossed his expression.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

The honesty in his voice hit harder than anything else tonight.

You looked at him quietly for a long moment, then slowly reached out and touched his face.

Dex immediately went still beneath your hand. His eyes fluttered shut briefly as he leaned into your touch.

Your thumb brushed gently beneath the bruise near his cheekbone.

“You should’ve called earlier.”

Dex opened his eyes again slowly.

“You told me to leave you alone.”

God.

The fact he treated every word you said like they were sacrosanct made your chest ache.

You swallowed thickly. “I know.”

A softer silence settled this time as Dex leaned further into your touch almost unconsciously, like he needed it.

Your heartbeat stumbled painfully.

Because this right here felt dangerously close to the tenderness you had wanted for years, and maybe that was what scared you most. Not the violence, not the obsession, but this.

This softness.

“I missed you.”

The words left your mouth before you could stop them.

Dex froze completely as his eyes searched your face like he didn’t trust what he’d heard.

Then something inside him visibly unraveled.

His hand lifted slowly toward your face like he was afraid you might pull away. When you didn’t, his fingers brushed your cheek carefully.

Reverently. Like you were something breakable.

“You did?” he asked softly.

Your chest tightened. “Yes.”

The confession settled heavily between you.

Dex stared at you for one long second before suddenly leaning forward and kissing you.

This kiss felt nothing like the last one.

It wasn’t desperate, wasn’t forceful, and there was no panic like before, just warmth and careful hesitancy in a way that almost hurt more.

Your breath caught sharply.

Then slowly you kissed him back.

The soulmate bond burned warmly beneath your skin as his other hand slid carefully to your jaw, thumbs caressing against both your cheeks like he still wasn’t fully convinced you were real.

And God, you wanted this, wanted him.

The realisation hit hard enough that you pulled back abruptly.

Dex immediately stiffened as panic flashed across his face so quickly it hurt to see.

“I’m sorry,” he said instantly. “I thought—”

“No.”

You cupped his face quickly before he could spiral again.

“No, that’s not—”

But his breathing had already started changing again, sharp and uneven.

You moved closer instinctively.

“I wanted that,” you admitted softly.

Dex stared at you. “But you’re upset.”

“No, baby, it’s—I liked it.”

His expression shifted into something stunned and painfully hopeful all at once.

You let out a shaky breath. “This is complicated.”

“I know.”

“You don’t actually.”

That nearly made him smile again as your thumb brushed carefully across his cheek.

“I just…” your voice softened, “I don’t want this to happen because you’re vulnerable right now.”

Understanding slowly crossed his face before it turned almost unbearably soft.

“You stayed anyway,” he whispered.

The vulnerability in his voice nearly wrecked you as your forehead gently rested against his.

“I’m still here.”

Dex went completely still beneath your touch. Then slowly his eyes closed. Like those words physically settled something broken inside him.

The apartment remained quiet around you, the rain still landing hard against the windows.

Your fingers slid gently through his hair as his breathing finally began to even out beneath your touch.

“You should sleep,” you murmured eventually.

Dex opened his eyes again immediately. “You’ll leave.”

The certainty in his voice hurt. You shook your head softly.

“Not tonight.”

Fragile relief crossed his face then.

⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

The apartment was less like a war zone come morning light after you spent the three hours that you couldn’t sleep tidying it up as best as you could.

You stood in Dex’s kitchen wearing one of his shirts while making coffee as the sun shone in through the windows. Behind you, Dex leaned silently against the counter watching you.

“You stare a lot,” you muttered softly.

“I like looking at you.”

Heat crawled faintly into your face as you turned toward him, holding out his coffee. Dex took it carefully, his knuckles looking significantly better this morning after your healing.

“You didn’t sleep much,” he observed immediately.

“Neither did you.”

“But I slept.”

You blinked slightly at the quiet honesty in his voice before you realised that he meant he slept because you stayed. The thought settled pleasantly deep in your chest as you leaned lightly against the counter beside him.

The silence this morning didn’t feel awkward.

Just…quiet.

“You’re not scared of me.”

The words came suddenly.

You looked at him carefully. “No.”

Dex studied your face closely. “You probably should be.”

You snorted softly. “There’s the self-awareness.”

His mouth twitched slightly, then faded. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache again. “I know.”

Silence stretched softly between you.

Then Dex spoke again. “What do you want?”

The question caught you off guard.

Not because of the question itself. But because no one had really asked you that through all of this.

What do you want?

Not what would Matt want? Or what would Karen think? Or what’s morally right?

Just…you.

Your fingers tightened slightly around your mug.

You. You thought to yourself. 

“I don’t know,” you said quietly. 

Dex nodded once like he understood.

“One date.” He said after a moment.

You looked at him.

His expression remained calm, but there was something careful underneath it now. Something uncertain.

“I’m not asking for anything else,” he said quietly. “Just one date.”

Your heartbeat stumbled.

Because this wasn’t fate demanding something from you, it wasn’t obsession, this was a choice. Your choice. And for the first time since all of this began, you let yourself think about what you actually wanted.

Not what everyone else feared.

Not what everyone else expected.

You thought about the warm takeout left on counters, the flowers at the apothecary, the eye-colored rocks, his gentle calloused hands against your skin, and someone who looked at you like you mattered.

Your lips parted softly “… Okay.”

The word barely left your mouth before something in Dex’s expression softened so completely it almost took your breath away. It wasn’t triumph, not total possession, but quiet happiness.

Real happiness.

Happiness that felt far more satisfying than anything else.

TAGS: @benspoindexter @noisyinfluencerstrawberry @genya1617 @monikastuff @peanutbutterjellytime3000 @hanniesrock @not-the-teen-witch @its-jackie-bb @that1weirdweebgirl @trulovekay @star-yawnznn @snowwythegloww @ethereal-athalia @musicalfan2026 @mewmew222 @scarlet48 @doesanyonereadthis @skylerepost @disappearintofanfiction @floatingintheupsidedown @abbotfan @ancientbeing10 @sarahskywalker-amidala @artistadistrada2002 @kakuchosbff @weallhaveadestiny @hyperfixations-go-brrr @capri-cuntz @bullseyeshandcuffs @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @muffinbrown @cowboylover00 @hearsaygoose @badbishsblog @celleryxo @thecityofspareparts @miixkl @ninajambrich @iangelofmusic @planetevermore @sadest-bookshelf @paige0103 @bury-me-in-the-star @mrsxchase @kkkeeeiiirrraaa @clowninavan @mossmydarling

[emziess]

Dr Shen & Dr Ellis' handshake after night shift crawlers huddle

[sunfairyy]

need them

[samirasystole]

like i get it if you don't think nw's comments are misogynistic, and i respect that. that's a personal judgement and you are well within your right to not think it's problematic. but to say that everyone who (rightfully) does have a problem with it is organising a 'smear campaign' against him does feel like another way to devalue genuine concerns around misogyny. you don't have to agree with it, but the 'smear campaign' is just word for word quotes he said that people have a problem with. it's direct quotes, people are not making stuff up. if you think that's somehow negative to his image, blame him instead of calling a bunch of women stupid for being upset at his words. because he's running his own smear campaign

[hatosyscurls]

for the record op is nicer than I am so even though I'm a fan of hers, I do NOT respect you if you can't identify Noah Wyle's Misogyny 101 shtick. no respect. no man is worth this wilful blindness.

[eyesxxyou]

Dex who never misses a shot meets you, a Domino-esque character who can control probabilities and luck. Who would win? Dex's insane skill or your insane luck? Either way you two fuck about it in the end.

[nothisnorthstar]

Just An Equation

Benjamin Poindexter x ex-FBI female!reader.

summary: She told herself she was over it — over him. Over the version of Benjamin Poindexter she’d invented in her head. Then he ends up cuffed to a bed in their hideout. She realizes he’s not the man she used to know.

tags/warnings: 3rd person pov. Minimal use of “Y/N”(2). Angst? Internal dialogue heavy. Not canon-typical Fisk behavior. Strangulation/choking (non-sexual). Loss of a loved one. Emotional breakdown. Gun violence. Attempted murder. Complex dynamics. Past trauma/assault. Mild sexual tension.

a/n: This is my first ever fanfic. I’m in my bullseye phase and I’ve been scouring Tumbler for some good fics. Found many great ones, but then I saw this and I had to do it. I have no plans in the future to write anything else, but let me know if you guys like this one!

credits: ty @mcrdvcks for the gif <3

She hadn’t been there when it happened.

By the time Matt got Dex to the hideout she was already there, halfway through her workout. Matt had given her the short version —boxing event, Vanessa shot him, Fisk would have killed him, I got him out—

Vanessa’s bullet went through his torso. He’d lost blood getting here. Matt had done what he could on the way.

She doesn’t know why she volunteered. Matt hadn’t asked. She’d just crossed the room and grabbed the kit from her bag. Matt dropped him onto the old military field med bed, some kind of a makeshift bed with cushions that they had, and she crouched beside it without a word.

She cleaned the wound, stapled it, and dressed it, not letting herself think about whose skin she was touching or why her hands weren’t shaking.

She had put the gauze there. The same clean white gauze he’s wearing now, already gone pink at the center.

It’s been 12 hours since Matt dropped him off. The safehouse is quiet except for the sound of a train going by. It rattles the walls on its way past; a low, distant thunder that shakes the dust from the ceiling and disappears just as fast, leaving the silence feeling heavier than before.

She’s been in this chair for an hour.

She had gotten up five times since this morning. Told herself she had things to do, places to be, that sitting here was a waste of time she didn’t have. She even made it as far as the door twice.

She always ended up back in the chair.

She watches the video of him at the boxing ring over and over again. The shaky vertical footage was already circulating before the venue had even cleared out. She watches it four times before she puts the phone down. Then picks it up and watches it twice more.

It isn’t the violence that got her. She had seen violence, she had been in the field long enough.

It was how clean it was.

That was the thing about Dex that nobody who hadn’t worked with him would understand. He doesn’t fight the way other people fought. Dex didn’t have that half second. For Dex, there is no gap between seeing and doing. The target existed and then it was handled.

She watches him move through that crowd and felt something cold settle in her stomach.

Pausing the video on his throws, she zooms in on the grainy footage until the pixels blurred. He’d thrown into a crowd, bodies packed together, movement everywhere, angles shifting by the second, but every single throw landed exactly where he’d intended.

Not close. Not near. Exactly.

Right in the center of their foreheads, every time, clean and precise in a way that defied what a human body should be capable of under those conditions.

No hesitation. No error.

Because for Bullseye, there is no margin of error. There never had been. She’s known that about him ever since he told her stories about his time in the Army. And then she saw it for herself when he saved Fisk from the Albanian’s ambush. The way he dropped those bodies without even having to reload.

She used to find it impressive. Now, it’s just terrifying.

She puts the phone in her pocket and leans back on the chair. She isn’t sure what she’s waiting for exactly.

To see if he remembers her. To see if she feels anything.

He’s been out long enough that she’s memorized the room around him: the rust around the bed frame, the streak of sunlight beaming across the room kissing the ends of his hair, the way the cuffs have left faint marks on his wrists where he must have tested them in his sleep. She’s catalogued every detail because looking at details means she doesn’t have to look at his face.

Not yet.

But then he stirs.

She uncrosses her legs but decides to stay seated. Her foot kicks the frame, not hard but just enough.

“Get up.” Her tone blunt. Rude.

He comes back to consciousness slowly, the way Dex always does everything; measured, controlled, even now. The cuffs rattle as he shifts his weight. He tests the restraints without urgency. Just cataloguing. She watches his eyes travel from the ceiling to the room, and to her.

Something crosses his face.

“Hello, Y/N.”

It lands wrong. Too familiar. Too easy. Like no time has passed, like they’re back in a federal building hallway and he’s holding a door open and she’s pretending she doesn’t notice the way he looks at her sometimes.

“Hello, Benjamin” She says it on purpose. She knows he doesn’t like it.

He grunts, face contorting slightly as he forces himself to sit up on the bed.

She watches him take in the state of himself the same way she did. The staples dotting his torso in a line, the dried blood that’s gone dark and rust-colored across his skin, the gauze on his stomach that she put there.

“Your staples,” she says. “They hurt?”

The sarcasm comes out like muscle memory. Easy and sharp, the way it always was between them, years ago. Almost like she’s forgotten, for half a second, what she’s doing here. Almost like the last few years didn’t happen.

He chuckles softly. Low and coarse. His head lowers and his eyes drifts down to the pistol resting in her lap. He looks up at her, unfazed, and there’s a slight pull at his lips.

“Are you gonna shoot me?”

The silence stretches.

“Probably.” she replies

“Go ahead.” His voice is even. Stripped of everything. “I had to get my mind back.”

He pauses.

For a split second, he almost hesitates to continue “Your friend Foggy paid the price. Foggy for my freedom. Me for Foggy.”

The pause is deliberate.

Surgical.

“It’s just an equation.” He says.

And it slices right through her.

She stares at him.

She thinks about all the things she could say. All the things she’s rehearsed in the dark months since Foggy died, lying awake in rooms that felt too quiet, running through arguments with a man who wasn’t there. She had speeches. She had perfectly constructed sentences with weight and precision and everything she’d ever wanted to say to the man she once knew.

None of them come.

She stands, and instead of stepping back, she steps forward. She sits down on the edge of the makeshift bed, close enough that there’s nowhere else for him to look. The bed creaks and shifts under her weight. She can feel the warmth coming off him even from here.

“He sent someone for me first,” she says. “Before Julie. Did you know that?”

A pause.

His brows don’t furrow. His expression doesn’t collapse into guilt or surprise or any of the things she’d half-hoped for. But something recalibrates behind his eyes.

“I heard.”

Two words. Flat and honest, which is somehow worse than if he’d pretended not to know.

“He thought I was your North Star.” She lets the words sit between them. Watches them land.

She wasn’t his North Star. Dex knows that. Fisk had looked at the evidence and drawn the wrong conclusion, because the evidence had looked convincing from the outside. The closeness. The way Dex had gravitated toward her without entirely meaning to.

But it wasn’t what Fisk thought it was.

Julie had been something he wanted to become: a fixed point, a pattern to mirror, a life he could trace with his finger and follow step by step until it looked like his own. Normal. Good. He didn’t love Julie at all. He had loved the idea of becoming a version of Julie.

She was different. She was something he didn’t have a category for.

He hadn’t been trying to become her. He hadn’t been studying the architecture of her life so he could replicate it. It was simpler than that and more frightening than that.

She made him feel good.

She’d walk into the room and something in the atmosphere would shift and he would notice it before he noticed anything else. The same way he always noticed things other people didn’t, except it wasn’t threat assessment or pattern recognition. It was just her.

He remembers the heat that would crawl up the back of his neck when she complimented him. Something small and offhand that she probably forgot the moment it left her mouth.

Good job out there today.

Your hair looks nice.

She never knew how long he held onto those. He’d turn them over for days, quietly, the way you keep a stone in your pocket just to feel the weight of it.

He remembers the electric shock of her hand brushing his. Reaching past him for a file, or falling into step beside him in a hallway, or that one time when her fingers closed briefly around his forearm when she was laughing and needed something to hold onto. He had felt it in his chest for an hour afterward and hadn’t known what to call it.

He had talked about her in his therapy sessions. They worked together for two years before getting put on Fisk’s detail. And when Fisk wanted to twist Dex into working for him, he had thought she’d be the one to make him vulnerable.

“Sent a man to choke me out in my own apartment. Broke two ribs, punctured my lung, shot me, and left me for dead on my kitchen floor.” She tilts her head, just slightly, and tries to ignore the phantom pain she feels in her abdomen from where the bullet penetrated her.

“Fisk thought that would break you.”

The silence that follows is a particular kind of quiet.

“It didn’t,” Dex says, matter-of-factly.

A lie.

It might not have broken him but it affected him. She’s known Dex long enough to understand the specific stillness that settles over him when he’s performing composure rather than feeling it. She knows the difference. She used to think knowing the difference meant something.

“I know.” The fight goes out of her voice for just a moment. Just a breath. “I know it didn’t.”

Because you didn’t look for me

It was a miracle she survived. And she decided she wasn’t going to go back. They thought she was dead, so she went underground. Laid low in the way only someone with federal training knows how to, knowing exactly which threads not to pull, which corners not to turn, which names not to say out loud.

And then somehow, she had found her way to them. Or they’d found their way to her. Matthew Murdock and his people, the ones who’d been pulling at Fisk’s foundation from the outside for years. Franklin Nelson with his coffee and his unwavering belief that the law still meant something. Karen Page and her particular brand of righteous fury.

She’d slotted in like she’d always been there.

Like she’d been looking for exactly that, not just a mission, but a reason. People worth fighting beside. Something to pour the anger into that didn’t require her to become what she was fighting against.

“Show me,” he says.

She looks up.

His gaze is steady. Open in the particular way Dex gets when he’s not performing anything.

“Show me what he did to you.”

She searches his face. Tries to find the angle, the calculation, the thing he’s getting out of this.

She’s not sure he’s playing at anything. She’s not sure that makes it better.

She should say no. The word sits right there in her throat but she doesn’t say it.

She moves instead — slowly, deliberately, giving herself every chance to stop. One knee crosses over until she’s straddling his lap, careful to keep space between them. His cuffed hands are useless beside him.

Her hand rises toward his face. Her fingertips almost graze his cheek. She watches something in him shift, a microsecond of anticipation, the faintest lean toward her hand like a reflex he catches just before it completes itself.

She moves past it.

Her fingers find the hair at the back of his head and close into a fist. His head jerks back involuntary, the one uncontrolled thing he’s done since waking up, and suddenly he’s looking up at her, chin lifted, throat exposed. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, slow and deliberate, like he’s making sure she sees it. Like he’s offering it.

She searches his face, looking for something she still can’t name. A crack. A tell. Any sign that this costs him something. His eyes find hers from beneath and hold there, open and unreadable, that same stillness she’s never known what to do with.

She still doesn’t know.

Her grip on his hair loosens. His neck relaxes as she moves her hand forward, one palm and then the other hovering just above his throat. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. Close enough that her own hands are trembling slightly in the space between them. She waits for something in her to pull back.

Nothing pulls back.

She closes around his neck.

Dark. Her apartment was dark. She hadn’t turned the lights on when she got home, too tired to bother, just dropped her keys on the counter and turned toward the kitchen. She didn’t hear him. Then the fist was already in her hair, yanking her head back so hard her vision whited out before she even understood what was happening. The wall came up fast. Her face hit it and she tasted blood.

But she was already moving, already fighting. His arm came around her throat from behind. She had training. She knew the move. Her body just couldn’t execute it fast enough, and the air was already going thin. She kept going until she couldn’t. Until her legs stopped holding and the fight went out of her hands.

For a moment, she came back to consciousness on the floor, and Fisk's assassin kicked her down. She felt something crack. Her ribs screamed when she tried to breathe. She’d been on the floor, barely conscious, already neutralized, and he shot her anyway because that was the job. Because Fisk’s people didn’t leave things unfinished.

She felt the bullet before she heard it.

Then she didn’t feel anything at all.

Her grip tightens.

Dex’s jaw shifts. A slow exhale through his nose, deliberate, making room. His breathing changes. Slower, controlled, settling into a rhythm like he’s decided to hold still for her. The tendons in his neck are taut beneath her palms and she can feel his pulse, steady and strong.

He remembers the day she didn’t come in.

Travel duty, someone said. She took leave. He thought she would be back. In reality, they knew. His corrupted boss knew exactly what had happened to her.

Days passed. Weeks. She’d been replaced on the detail by some guy that Dex pushed around all day to go get him coffee.

There was something missing from the air, some frequency gone quiet that he hadn’t even known he was listening for until it wasn’t there anymore. Dex hadn’t asked because asking would have meant admitting the silence was bothering him and he wasn’t prepared to do that. He’d gone through the motions and done his job and told himself it didn’t mean anything.

He was good at telling himself things didn’t mean anything.

But still, she wasn’t his north star. A north star was something you navigated by. Something fixed and distant.

What she was....is....he still doesn’t have the word for it. Something warmer. Something closer. Something he hadn’t known he was capable of, and had never known to protect.

Her breath stutters as she exhales, lips shaking ever-so-slightly as she tries to hold composure. Tears track down her face involuntarily. She isn’t crying yet. She’s just breathing, hard and shallow and broken, like her body is remembering what it felt like to not be able to. Remembering how the air was getting thinner and thinner, the way her vision slowly went dark, and the way she felt helpless in that kitchen.

She looks at Dex.

He’s watching her. Not afraid. Not taunting. Not calculating. Just there, holding her gaze, letting her push against the limit of what he’ll absorb. Something in his face has gone very still, very quiet, in a way she doesn’t have a name for.

Foggy.

She doesn’t know why that came to her mind. She hadn’t been thinking about him, she’d been trying not to think about him for weeks, but suddenly it’s there, vivid and uninvited.

The back of her throat tightens in a way she pretends not to notice.

She’s close enough to feel every exhale he makes against her lips, and he can feel hers. Close enough that if either of them moved forward even slightly it would mean something neither of them could take back. His eyes are steady on hers, not challenging, not cold, just open in that unnerving way and she is suddenly aware of the position she’s in.

Her knees bracketing his hips. Her hands at his throat. Her face inches from his like something out of a fever dream version when she used to imagine what it would feel like to be this close to him years ago, and it was never supposed to look like this.

He doesn’t look away. The cuffs chains rattle. His hands come up almost instinctively, trying to grab her legs that are around him. Not to stop her, but to ground her, keep her there.

Foggy’s dead

Her chin wants to tremble, but she won't let it. She presses her lips together hard against it.

She doesn’t realize how hard she’s squeezing until she sees it; the slow flood of red crawling up from his throat to his jaw, his cheeks, the skin pulling tight across his face. A vein has risen at his temple, thick and visible, pulsing with every heartbeat she can feel thrumming against her palms. His lips have gone from pink to something darker.

And his eyes are completely, utterly steady.

That’s what undoes her. Not the color in his face, not the vein, not the way his body is clearly fighting what she’s doing to it on a purely physiological level, it’s that his gaze doesn’t waver. Doesn’t panic. Doesn’t harden into survival instinct or anger or any of the things a person’s eyes do when someone is taking the air from them.

He just looks at her. Through the redness and the pressure and whatever burn must be building in his lungs, he just looks at her like she’s the only thing in the room worth looking at.

He isn’t fighting it.

He could. She knows he could, cuffed or not, Dex has always found a way when he wanted to. This isn’t helplessness. This is a choice. He is choosing to sit here and take every ounce of it, absorbing her the way he always absorbed everything.

Then slowly, finally, she realizes what this actually is.

An apology.

He hadn’t come for her. When Fisk sent someone to her apartment, when she was left bleeding on her kitchen floor. Dex hadn’t come. Hadn’t known in time, or hadn’t been able to, or hadn’t been Dex yet in the way that would have made it possible.

But he’s here now. Throat exposed. Face red.

Taking it.

All of it.

Like it’s the only thing he has left to offer her that means anything.

Her vision blurs at the edges and she blinks hard, once, twice, and it doesn't help. Her thoughts are tripping over themselves. Flashbacks. Memories. The silence between them carries everything that was never said.

Dex with two coffees every morning. One for her.

A coffee on her desk on a Tuesday morning with a sticky note that said “You look terrible, drink this” and she’d smile at Foggy’s horrible handwriting.

Late nights on the Fisk detail when she’d catch him watching her from across the room and look away before she could think too hard about it. The way she used to invent reasons to be wherever he was. The version of Benjamin Poindexter she’d built in her head

Foggy’s laugh, so hard he couldn’t finish the sentence. Her, Matt, and Karen leaning against the bar table laughing with him, the night at Josie’s. She hadn’t known it would be the last time.

She hadn’t known that a few minutes after that he would be lying on the ground in front of Josie’s, bleeding out. That she’d be a crying mess, hands covered in blood, trying to stop his bleeding.

The thought breaks something loose in her chest. Her face starts to crumble and her hand shakes.

Then she lets go.

The sound that comes out of her isn’t graceful. It’s ugly and sudden and too loud in the quiet of the room, the kind of grief that doesn’t care what it looks like because it’s been held down too long and has forgotten how to come out gently.

Her shoulders cave. Her whole body folds. She drops her forehead against his bare shoulder and her hands find the curve where his neck meets shoulder and she just…stays there. Sobbing against him.

Dex catches his breath. He says nothing.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t offer anything so fragile as comfort. He just breathes, slow and even, and lets her fall apart in his lap like it’s something he knows how to hold.

“Feel better?”

She doesn’t respond. His skin is warm beneath her forehead, his chest rising and falling steadily under her, and she is acutely aware of every point of contact between them like each one is a small, quiet betrayal.

His shoulder is solid. For one terrible moment she feels something close to safe, tucked against him like this.

She didn’t expect this to happen. A ghost of something she thought she’d buried surfacing through the grief. A ghost memory of him smiling like a normal person, like a man with a normal life who did normal things, and her thinking he’s lonely.

Me too, she’d thought.

Me too, like it was something they had in common. Like loneliness was enough to build something on.

She’d been so wrong about that. About what he was. Now the whole architecture of it collapsed and she understood, finally, what she’d actually been looking at.

At exactly this.

A killer. The man who killed Foggy.

She lifts her head.

“Foggy for my freedom. Me for Foggy. It’s just an equation.”

She looks at his face—the dried blood, the little dip in his chin, the old scar on his cheek, the eyes that are watching her with that pretend softness— and something in her goes quiet. Very certain.

She reaches for the gun and presses it to his forehead.

This is it. There’s no version of this where she walks back out that door and returns to her life, half-consumed, going through the motions of fighting Fisk while the grief eats her from the inside.

The man she thought she once loved

no

The man she once knew for two years of her life killed her best friend of seven years.

She’s done negotiating with herself. Done watching the people she loves become losses in someone else’s equation.

She doesn’t care about this man. She doesn’t know this man. She thought maybe, somewhere underneath the anger, she still had the warmth she’d once extended toward him. But looking at him now she finds nothing.

Something moves through Dex’s face.

Not fear.

It was never going to be fear, she’s always known that. Fear requires something to lose and she’s never been sure what Dex has ever truly counted as his to lose. It’s something else. Something almost like the easing of a long tension.

His eyes are steady on hers, and slowly, he leans forward into the barrel. Accepting it.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. His eyes going briefly, uncharacteristically soft, and then catching themselves. The corner of his mouth pulling in a way that isn’t quite a smile and isn’t quite grief.

Relief.

Her finger finds the trigger, shakily.

“Me for Foggy.”

She doesn’t look away.

“It’s just an equation.”

This is the equation. This is what the math gives you, at the end.

Everything narrows down to the inch of space between her finger and the trigger. The sound of his breathing. The pulse she can still feel in her palms from when her hands were around his throat. The way he’s looking at her like she’s doing him a kindness.

She thinks about Foggy.

She pulls the trigger.

A baton hits the gun like a thunderclap. The shot cracks into the concrete pillar beside the bed, debris exploding outward. She yelps and holds her shooting hand against her chest, the gun tumbles 10 feet from the bed.

She stands up in the wreckage of what she was about to do and the rage that fills her is immense and immediate and has nowhere to go except —

“I can’t let you do it, Y/N.” Matt announces. His chest rises up and down, as if he rushed to get here.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She turns on him, closing the distance. “You keep choosing the wrong people. Fisk, him,” She points to Dex “—over the people who love you!”

From the bed, Dex watches. The shot had gone off inches from his head and his ears are still ringing with it, the world slightly tilted, sounds arriving a half second behind where they should. He blinks once, slow, recalibrating. His breathing is even. Still cuffed, still shirtless, still bleeding faintly through the gauze she put there. Everything returns to normal. Like the last ten minutes didn’t happen. Like she didn’t just have her hands around his throat, her face inches from his, and her grief all over him.

“What—” Matt starts.

“Oh my God.” She presses her palm to her face, turns away from him. The grief and fury are inseparable now, braided together so tightly she can’t tell where one ends. “Oh my God, Matt.”

Behind her, she’s aware of Dex watching the two of them.

“How can you say that?” Matt asks, offended.

“Because it’s true.” The crack in her voice is something she can’t control and stops trying to. “Because you let them live and people die.”

She hears the chains shift again.

Not an attempt to break free, just Dex adjusting, making himself comfortable for whatever comes next. The sound of it crawls under her skin. He’s watching her fall apart and she knows that, she knows exactly what he’s doing, and somehow that makes her angrier. She can’t tell anymore if the anger is at Matt or at Dex or at herself for the ten seconds she spent with her forehead against his shoulder feeling something she had no business feeling.

She steps forward. “Please. Please just let me do this. Let me carry this for you. That’s all. That’s all you have to do.”

Matt drops his head and his voice is low. Careful and quiet in the way it gets when he’s trying to reach her.

“What happened to you?”

She laughs. Short and hollow, the sound of it not quite hers.

From the bed, she can feel Dex’s eyes on the back of her neck. Still. Steady. Like he already knows the answer. Like he’s known it longer than she has.

“I grew up.”

The room goes quiet. And Dex says nothing, which is somehow the loudest thing in the room.

She stands there for a moment in the silence. The bullet hole in the pillar. The gun still on the floor ten feet away.

She looks at Matt.

He’s watching her the way he always does, even with the mask on, like he already knows what she’s going to do before she does it.

She grabs her jacket off the chair.

He doesn’t move to stop her. Maybe he knows better.

She doesn’t say goodbye.

She gets to the door and stops with her hand on the frame, not turning around. The air from the hallway is cool. She breathes it in slow.

Behind her, the chains shift again. Quiet and deliberate.

She doesn’t turn around.

She walks out.

[sun-hashira]

I Can See You

summary: you should’ve known Dex would have unusual ways of keeping an eye on you.

who: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter/Bullseye x Female!Murdock Reader

word count: 2.9k (i got carried away again)

warnings: soulmate au, mentions of stalking, break-ins, and blood. If I have missed any please let me know!

divider by: @uzmacchiato

previous chapter: Willow

“I could see you being my addiction…“ — I Can See You by Taylor Swift

It’s been two weeks since you last saw Dex.

Two weeks of pretending that he wasn’t there that night, two weeks of spending your time at the apothecary and the back-alley clinic, and two weeks of smiling at your brother and friends, pretending you still hadn’t met your soulmate.

In those two weeks, Dex never came back to your apartment while you were home.

But he’d been there.

You knew because he left gifts.

Like a book you liked left three days earlier, your favorite snacks in the kitchen, and a smooth rock placed on your coffee table that you still hadn’t figured out the meaning of.

So the pretty red flower sitting on the counter when you and Karen entered the shop for a day of restock and date checking didn’t surprise you as much as it should have.

“What’s that?” Karen asks, already reaching for it before you can say anything.

She turns it between her fingers, brows knitting slightly before a teasing grin grows on her face. “Have you got a secret admirer you haven’t told me about?”

You only shrug in response.

Because you know exactly where it came from and who left it.

“…hun?” Karen asks, now frowning in worry. “You okay?”

“It’s nothing.” You say stepping forward and plucking the flower from Karen’s hand a little too quickly. “Just a flower.”

“A pretty flower,” Karen says teasingly, watching you twirl the flower. “Do you know what type it is? What it mean?”

“It’s a red salvia.” You force a small smile. “It means forever mine.”

But your grip tightens around the stem as you tell her the meaning. 

Karen’s teasing expression softens slightly as she watches you turn the flower between your fingers. “Well,” she says slowly, “that’s either very romantic or mildly concerning.”

You snort quietly. “Probably the second one.”

“Hm.” Karen narrows her eyes at you for a moment like she’s trying to piece something together. “At least your mysterious admirer has good taste.”

You roll your eyes, moving past her towards the shelves lined with herbal teas. “You say that now, but wait until he starts leaving dead animals on my door like an unwanted cat.”

Karen gasps in mock horror. “Are those the standards these days?”

You hum noncommittally, carefully placing the flower back on the counter before throwing an apron towards Karen and putting on yours.

The rest of the morning passes quietly.

You and Karen work your way through the apothecary together, checking dates, organising shelves, and restocking the herbal remedies that always sold quickly once flu season hit. 

Normally, this monthly routine soothed you.

But today every time the shop bell rings, you find yourself tensing, and every tall silhouette outside the frosted window makes your stomach tighten for a second.

It annoys you that he’s affecting you like this.

By the time the shop closes for the night, your feet and head ache.

“You’re distracted today,” Karen says casually while pulling on her coat.

“I’m tired.”

“You reorganised the same shelf three times.”

You pause halfway through locking the door. “… Did I?”

The look Karen gives is filled with worry.

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The warmth of the diner feels welcoming compared to the cold outside.

Sitting across from Matt and Karen, you’re happily stealing fries off your brother’s plate while Karen animatedly tells a story involving a customer she had this morning, and for a little while you manage to relax like everything's normal.

Until the second Karen casually says, “Oh, and someone left a flower for her this morning.”

You nearly choke on a stolen fry.

“What kind of flower, you ask?” Karen continues, clearly enjoying herself.

“Red salvia,” she answers before you can stop her. “It’s romantic.”

Matt’s fork stops halfway on his plate.

“It’s a flower.” You say it with a smirk, ignoring your brother’s stare.

“It’s not just a flower,” Karen corrects, standing with her empty glass. “It's from your secret admirer.”

That makes Matt go quiet, and you can feel his full attention on you.

“You’ve been distracted lately.” Matt comments after a moment.

“It’s nothing,” you reply too quickly. “Just work.”

“You have been working more hours at the clinic recently,” Karen adds concerned. “Are you sure it’s nothing?”

“You’re both making this a bigger deal than it is." You force a laugh, pushing your empty glass towards Karen. “Go get us those drinks, would you.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Matt asks quietly a few minutes after Karen arrives at the bar. “You can tell me anything, remember?”

You glance toward him. Even with the glasses hiding his eyes, you can see the worry written across his face, and for a second you want to tell him everything.

About Dex, about the bond, the break-in, and the gifts. About the way your stomach pleasantly twists every time you think about him.

Instead, you force a smile. “I’m fine, Matty. Really.”

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Dinner with Matt and Karen had left you feeling lighter than you had felt in days as you walked inside your apartment building.

That last Manhattan cocktail had been exactly what you needed, keeping you warm beneath your coat as you rode the elevator upstairs, your cheeks still flushed from shared laughter.

The apartment is warm and cozy when you step inside, making sure to lock all the locks before sliding your shoes off and shrugging your coat onto a nearby chair.

Walking into the kitchen, you pour yourself a large glass of water while already dreading the dehydration you'll have tomorrow morning after tonight’s drinks.

Sipping from the glass, you make your way to the living room for an hour of mindless television before bed when something on the coffee table catches your attention.

A familiar cardboard box sits neatly in the middle of the table.

“Seriously?” you mutter quietly. “What is it this time?”

Because somehow, despite locking every window before leaving that morning, Dex had apparently been inside your apartment… again.

Sighing softly, you place your glass down before grabbing the box and lowering yourself onto the sofa.

Cardboard damp beneath your fingertips as you carefully lift the lid to see what he’s left you this time.

Your brows pull together slightly as you reach inside and pull out the knife resting in it.

It’s smaller than the ones you have in your kitchen, the handle worn in a way that shows it's often been used, and beneath the warm glow of your lamp, you can see the dried blood staining parts of the blade.

“Jesus Christ, Dex.” The words leave you quietly, more exhausted than alarmed. “This is the worst one yet.”

You turn the knife slightly in your hand, seeing where he had attempted to wipe the blood away.

The sight should concern you more than it does, but after everything that has happened over the past few weeks, you often find yourself feeling irritated, in disbelief, and occasionally flattered.

But this? Who leaves someone a bloody knife as a gift?

Setting it carefully back into the box, your mind drifts to the other gifts left in your apartment by Dex when you weren’t home.

A pretty purple hyacinth had been the first thing he left, followed by your favorite snacks, a book you’d wanted to read, and lastly the smooth rock sitting on the table.

Which you’re still confused by.

For a long moment you stare at the knife inside the box before laughing under your breath.

“Next he’ll bring me dead animals like a stray cat,” you mumble to yourself, putting the box back on the coffee table and grabbing your glass of water.

You know you should throw it all away, the knife especially.

But instead, you pick the box back up and carry it towards the hallway cupboard where the others already sit neatly on the top shelf.

The sight of them all lined up together makes something uncomfortable twist in your gut. Because somewhere over the past two weeks, this had become normal.

The gifts. The break-ins. Dex finding his way into your apartment whenever he pleased.

You hate how little it all unsettles you.

Carefully sliding the newest box beside the others, your thoughts lands on the first one he left. A purple hyacinth that has since been pressed and turned into a bookmark.

A bookmark that now rests inside the book that has made itself a home on your coffee table, half-finished after too many late nights spent reading instead of sleeping.

And the flower from this morning now sat in a glass of water beside the till because part of you couldn’t bring yourself to throw that away either.

Instead you close the cupboard door and head towards your bedroom.

The apartment is quiet as you complete your nightly routine, trying not to think about the fact that Dex had once again been inside your home while you were gone.

Outside, the chilly wind had turned into rain that tapped softly against the windows as you finally slide beneath your blankets.

Exhaustion pulls heavily at your body, helped by the drinks and the lingering comfort from dinner with Matt and Karen.

You reach over to switch off your bedside lamp, your thoughts drifting toward the smooth rock in the living room.

“What does a rock even mean?” you mumble tiredly to yourself.

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The next day unusually sunny for New York.

The city moves at a gentler pace than usual, a soft breeze blowing through the park while birds sing through the noise of traffic.

Arms linked with Matt, you two walk at an easy pace that makes it harder to hide how distracted you are.

“You’re quiet today,” he says after a while.

“It’s a nice day for quiet,” you reply, adjusting your grip on the ice cream in your hand.

“I’m serious,” Matt continues, slowing until you both come to a stop. “You’ve been… distant lately.”

“Work, the clinic, life in general.” You let out a small breath that could almost be a laugh if it weren’t so forced. “Take your pick.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

You don’t answer immediately.

Because you know exactly what he means but you don't know how to explain it.

Not the gifts. Not the feeling of being watched. Not the way your apartment no longer feels like just yours.

“It’s nothing,” you say, a little too quickly, gently tugging him to walk again. “You’re imagining things.”

Matt doesn’t respond again.

He just walks beside you, quiet in a way that he usually is when trying to understand you.

For the rest of the walk, you fill the silence. Talking about the apothecary, about how the clinic has been busier lately, about anything that comes to mind.

Anything that doesn’t remind you of him.

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By the time you got home that night, rain had started falling again.

Droplets clung to your jacket as you unlocked your apartment and step inside. Shrugging your jacket off you throw it over the sofa before freezing.

Sitting in the middle of your coffee table was the medium-sized rock. Brows furrowing as you picked it up and admired the unique colours of it again.

Pretty, you think to yourself, running your thumb over the smooth texture before a deep voice speaks from your bathroom.

“It’s the same colour as your eyes.”

You gasp as you turned sharply, your arm now raised in a position to immediately throw the rock in your hand if needed.

There, in the doorway of your bathroom, stood Dex. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he wiped blood from his hands with a damp cloth.

Your eyes immediately scanned him. The healer in you searching for any injuries that might need attention but not finding any.

Good. You were far too hungry to be dealing with that again.

Lowering your arm, your gaze dropped back to the rock in your hand.

“The same colour as my eyes?” you repeated.

Dex threw the cloth into the hamper as he left the bathroom, flicking the switch as he walked out and into the living room. His hair was still damp from the rain as his eyes stayed fixed completely on you.

“Yes.” He said, stopping a foot away from you as his eyes roamed your body.

Your fingers curl gently around the stone. Nobody had ever noticed something like that before. Sure, Matt knew how to read you like a book, but you doubted he remembered the colour of your eyes.

But Dex did.

Your mouth slightly curves before you could stop it.

Dex stilled the second he saw it grace your face, his eyes focusing on your smile like he’d never seen anything more beautiful before. A small smile of his own appeared.

You felt your cheeks flush as you looked away, clearing your throat. “You better have not bled all over my bathroom floor,” you muttered.

Dex’s expression shifted slightly. More teasing this time.

“It’s not much blood.”

“Say that to my sofa.”

“That was also not much blood.”

You snorted softly despite yourself.

Oh God. This was becoming dangerously normal.

Setting the rock carefully back on the coffee table, you walked towards him before noticing the streak of dried blood he’d missed near his jaw.

Without thinking, you pulled the sleeve of your shirt over your hand and gently wiped the remaining blood from his face.

"There," you murmured quietly.

Dex didn’t move, didn’t blink. His eyes focused on you with the same intensity as two weeks ago. The same look that made your chest feel too tight.

Neither of you stepped away.

Your warm fingers still lightly brushing against his jaw as his name on your collarbone tingled pleasantly.

“How did you even get in here again?” you asked softly, taking a few steps away from him.

“The bedroom window.” Dex answered, his footsteps following yours as if the distance was something he couldn’t bear.

Your eyes fluttered closed as you sighed.

“You know I have a door, right?” you ask, turning around to make your way to the kitchen.

“The windows work,” he says, shrugging.

“You keep leaving them open,” you reply, rummaging through your cupboards for a quick meal.

“I close it.” He states, following you.

“Not properly,” you say, now rummaging through the fridge. “My heating bill is going to kill me.”

“Windows are quieter.” He tells you while sitting at the island.

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

Dex’s expression softened at the sound, looking at you like he was memorising it.

Your chest tightened again as you stopped laughing. This is bad, you thought to yourself.

Because two weeks ago Dex had been an escaped prisoner bleeding on your sofa, and now he’s sitting barefoot in your apartment after just using your bathroom to wipe blood from god knows where off his hands and after weeks of him bringing you gifts like a stray cat.

But what was worse was the realisation that you wanted him here.

Dex’s eyes slowly scanned your face as you moved towards the island, a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries in hand.

“You’re exhausted,” he noted quietly, reaching for a strawberry.

“I’m fine.” You dismiss him while grabbing two bowls.

“Your hands are shaking again.”

Your fingers curl slightly. “I worked all day.”

“And then went to dinner instead of resting.” He stated.

You frowned. “Were you following me?”

“No.” The answer came too quickly.

You narrowed your eyes at him, still holding the bowls.

Dex blinked once. “… Mostly no.”

"Dex." You stared at him in disbelief.

“You looked happy.” He commented.

The irritation that was rising quickly turned into something warm that made your stomach clench because the way he said it sounded almost relieved.

Like your happiness was important to him.

For a moment neither of you spoke as you slid a bowl towards him and his growing pile of strawberries.

“You ate the food.” He said, looking towards the empty takeout wrappers.

“I was hungry.” You shrugged, shoving a strawberry into your mouth.

“You forget to eat when you’re tired.” He said, adding more strawberries to his bowl.

“Ugh, you sound like Matt.” You groaned, dropping your head onto the counter.

Dex’s jaw tightened at your brother’s name. “He notices too?”

“Matt notices everything.” You say grabbing a handful of strawberries after noticing how full his bowl was getting.

“I notice more.”

The words landed like a slap. Too honest, too intense, too real, and you think you should’ve shut this down sooner.

Should’ve reminded him that none of this changed what he’d done, should’ve said that none of the gifts were working, and should’ve reinforced the boundaries you created in your head.

“Are you hurt?” You ask instead.

Dex looked down at his bruised hands. “Not badly.”

“You could stop doing stupid shit.” You tell him.

“You’d stitch me up anyway.” He replied.

You hate how right he was.

Dex leaned in closer, his eyes never leaving yours. “You smiled,” he said quietly.

Heat immediately flushed your face.

“It’s just a rock.” You say. 

“It made you smile.” He smirked.

God, you wanted to punch him.

Looking away quickly, you hated how those simple words affected you, how your heartbeat sped up when he smiled, and how a rock, of all things, gave you butterflies.

“You should probably go,” you uttered softly.

Dex stayed quiet for a moment before he nodded once, getting up and putting his empty bowl in the sink.

He moved towards the living room window before pausing. “The flower looked nice by the till.”

Your eyes widened. “You were watching the shop?”

Dex glanced back at you. “I was watching you.” 

Then he disappeared out the window and into the rain.

Your gaze drifted towards the rock sitting on the table, and butterflies filled your stomach again before your eyes lowered to your bowl only to frown.

“Asshole ate my strawberries as well.”

A/N: Part 2 of this series! It should hopefully have main 12 parts total if all goes well 🤞🏻. Like before feedback is welcome! 

@monikastuff @peanutbutterjellytime3000 @hanniesrock @not-the-teen-witch

[aquaticmercy]

The Heart is a Muscle

Summary : Benjamin Poindexter was hired to eliminate you, a former Red Room Widow. Unfortunately, he keeps putting it off because he likes going on dates with you a little too much.

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

Warnings/tags : freak 4 freak (?), Violence, Explicit Content (Dex is a munch and kinda has an oral fixation), Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Manipulation, lowkey gunplay, crying during sex, The Red Room is mentioned to use food as a form of control, alcohol consumption. (Let me know if I miss anything.) set between DDBA s1&s2 (let me know if I missed anything!)

Word Count : 17.7k

Requested by : anon

Notes : This was written before I watched the season finale, and also inspired by a song of the same title by Gang of Youths. Enjoy!

Dex was trying to be good.

It sounded ridiculous, even in his own head. It was as if he had borrowed this part of his conscience from someone else’s life, someone who hadn’t been made into a weapon, manipulated and exploited over and over again. But still, he tried.

Being good, as it turned out, wasn’t something you could just decide. There was no moment where goodness just clicked into place, there was no sudden clarity where he understood how to live without the violence that had always defined him. He didn’t have the tools for that, so he simplified it.

He only knew how to aim, how to follow through, how to kill. So he told himself that if he pointed all of that in the right direction, it would count. It had to count. 

Bad people existed. That much was obvious. And if bad people were gone, then… that had to count for something, right?

The Anti-Vigilante Task Force were easy enough to categorize as bad. They hunted vigilantes, tried to shut down the kind of people Dex had convinced himself were doing something close to good. And vigilantes were good. They had to be. 

So if he removed the ones hunting them, if he cut those threads before they tightened around someone else’s throat, then that meant he was helping. It meant he was balancing something, somewhere, even if no one was there to see it. Even if no one thanked him. Even if the city didn’t change at all.

That was how he justified it. The only problem was that no one paid him for being good.

His rent didn’t care about intention. His bills didn’t pause because he was trying. The notice on his counter sat there, the very proof that the world moved even as he was laying down the foundations of whatever moral framework he was trying to build. Dex had been ignoring it for days, like it might disappear if he didn’t acknowledge it. 

He was staring at it when his phone buzzed.

The sound was unsettling, mostly because Dex knew that people only messaged him for one of two reasons nowadays: to threaten him (best possible outcome, he could handle it) or to give him a job. When he looked at the notification, he knew it was going to be the latter. 

The text came from an unknown sender. It was encrypted, of course. Dex picked it up slowly, thumb hovering for just a second. He frowned. He really shouldn’t. This was the part of his life he was supposed to be moving away from. He opened it anyway. 

The file loaded quickly. As he suspected, it was an anonymous contract labeled high priority, with a bounty of… oh. 

2.5 million dollars.

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose as that figure settled into place. It was much more than rent or bills. This kind of money would give him… breathing room. It would fund his good deeds for years. It would help his progress, right?

His eyes moved down to the target profile: a Former Red Room Widow. 

Objective: extract intel regarding active Red Room operatives. 

Secondary objective: termination upon completion.

Dex’s knuckles shifted slightly as he kept reading, attention narrowing the deeper he went. This wasn't a surface-level hit, like the usual contracts pushed into his number. He usually got the odd job of eliminating a business man’s biggest competitor (he never took those anymore) or a mother giving most of her life savings to him to kill her abusive husband (he did those ones more often than not), but this wasn’t it. Whoever had put this together knew what they were doing. They layered intel, cross-referenced sightings, stitched fragments of reports into something coherent enough to act on.

And then there was the ledger. Not labeled that way, but Dex knew what he was looking at.

Target Activity Log (Condensed): Kiev — 12 confirmed targets, political dissidents turned assets. Execution, no witnesses. Istanbul — Arms broker extraction turned termination. 7 additional casualties during exfiltration. Lagos — Undercover infiltration of rival weapons trafficking ring. Operation successful. Entire network eliminated. Collateral: high. Madripoor — Unverified mission overlap with Yelena Belova. Outcome classified. Buenos Aires — Diplomatic attaché poisoning. Death delayed 48 hours to avoid suspicion. Moscow — Internal Red Room purge survivor. Multiple handlers eliminated. 

Dex’s thumb paused against the screen as he read through it again. The pattern was obvious to him in a way it wouldn’t be to anyone else. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t someone losing control. On the contrary, this was someone who was terrifyingly in control.

This target was a dangerous killer, and Dex didn't arrive at the conclusion lightly.

He liked patterns, needed them. They made the world more predictable to the point where he could sort through without it splintering into noise. And this file was full of patterns.

He scrolled back up, then down again, slower this time, eyes catching on the details most people would skip over: the timings, the methods. 

The target made clean exits where possible and didn’t care much about collateral. Every action fed into the next like it had been mapped out long before the target ever stepped into the room.

Dex’s jaw tightened slightly as he read through the Kiev entry again. Twelve victims. It was not a firefight. It was twelve decisions. Twelve moments where the target could have stopped and didn’t. Istanbul, seven more added during exfiltration. They were not part of the objective, but handled anyway. 

He understood that, and that meant he also understood what it took to do it.

You didn’t rack up a body count like that by accident. You didn’t walk away from operations like Madripoor, with entire networks wiped out and “high collateral” written off like a footnote, unless something in you had already accepted the outcome before it happened.

Dex leaned back slightly, phone still in his hand, thumb hovering but unmoving now.

People liked to pretend there was a line. A moment where someone chose to be good or bad and stuck to it. But that wasn’t how it worked. It was smaller than that. It was in the repetition. And this file read like repetition, over and over. It might happen in different cities and to different victims, but it always had the same result.

Dex couldn’t find signs of deviation or hesitation. There was no indication that the target ever stopped to question it.

His eyes flicked back to the ledger, this time reading the latest additions, entries that hadn’t had time to settle into history yet.

Recent Activity: Prague — Corporate intermediary tied to OXE shell accounts. Interrogation lasted 18 minutes. Target terminated. Two security casualties. No witnesses. DODC Supermax Prison — Perimeter sweep. Three armed contacts neutralized before engagement escalated. Surveillance equipment disabled. Exit undetected. New York — Intelligence courier intercepted en route to New Avengers safehouse. Package recovered. Courier terminated. Civilian exposure: none.

Right. 

The target was still active. 

“Yeah,” Dex muttered, more to himself than anything else.

That was what tipped it for him.

Because even now, even with everything he’d done, Dex felt the resistance. The part of him that tried, however poorly, to redirect what he was into a force for good.  The file didn’t show that.

It showed someone who had been made into a weapon and never really tried to put it down. That meant the target wasn’t in the same place he was. This target wasn’t trying to balance the scales like he was. 

And that made this person not a good person in a way he could act on.

His eyes looked to the image of the target, like he was trying to reconcile the almost fragile and delicate-looking features with everything he’d just read. It didn’t match. It never did. Faces rarely carried the weight of what they’d done. But the file didn’t lie. The patterns didn’t lie.

Dex exhaled slowly, and decided this person was bad.

Not because of one mission. Not because of one mistake. But because of all of it stacked together.

And at this point, in order to preserve what precious progress he had made, he’d rather kill a killer for rent than his landlord. That would be inconvenient.

His thumb moved, tapping the file open fully, letting the image expand across the screen.

And for the first time, Dex really looked at you.

—

Dex expected you to be harder to find.

Most people with a body count like yours didn’t settle. They didn’t usually stay anywhere long enough to be known, didn’t leave behind anything that could be traced twice in the same way. He expected burner phones, rotating safehouses, and multiple fake ids that dissolved the second they were used.

But you hadn’t done that.

You were… easy. He found your address almost immediately. He found your number, your card details, and your passport quite quickly. 

It took him a couple of hours to accept that it wasn’t an error in the data. Financial records were always messy, layered under shells and proxies, but not impossible. He followed the money the same way he followed anything else— patiently, methodically, letting the inconsistencies stand out instead of forcing them to make sense too quickly. One payment turned into a trail, then into repetition.

But still, he found nothing out of the ordinary. You were just a regular person living in New York, paying rent on time. Unlike him this month. 

He stared at the screen longer than he needed today. The more he followed it, the clearer it became that this wasn’t temporary, wasn’t a waypoint or a cover that would disappear in a week. You weren’t passing through. You weren’t hiding. You were living here.

The rest of the records only reinforced it. He found your utility bills, with groceries spaced out in a way that suggested routine. He found nothing excessive, nothing careless. It was almost jarring, how normal it looked on paper, for someone with a history soaked in blood.

Next, Dex visited your building and expected that to be where the illusion broke, maybe an indication that this was all a front.

There wasn’t anything.

It was just a building. Unremarkable, forgettable in the way most of the city was. There were no visible security upgrades, no controlled access beyond the standard high rise. There was nothing that suggested someone with your file should be walking in and out of it every day.

He watched long enough to be sure. You came and went at predictable times, no visible countersurveillance, no adjustments to your movements that suggested you thought you were being watched. You carried your own groceries up the steps. You held the door open for someone once, an older man who thanked you without hesitation, like you were just another tenant, just another face he recognized in passing.

Dex didn’t like that it didn’t fit the rest of you. So he kept digging, because if there was going to be a crack, it would be in the routine and… you had one.

It took him three days to map it out in full, not because it was complicated, but because it wasn’t. You woke early. You jogged through Central Park along the same route almost every morning at the same pace, like it was muscle memory. You didn’t scan constantly, didn’t treat every passerby like a potential threat. You just ran.

After that, you hadcoffee at the same place every time, the same order. 

Dex watched all of it from a distance, writing it down in his little notebook. He told himself it was for this job, that he needed to remember things accurately if he was going to finish the job. 

By the fourth day, he knew watching wasn’t enough. It never had been. Patterns only got you so far before they started turning into assumptions, and assumptions got people wrong. 

The problem was, he didn’t have a plan for that. He wasn’t a spy. He didn’t build relationships, didn’t ease his way into proximity. 

But standing across the street, watching you disappear into the crown like you’d done every morning that week, he understood one thing clearly enough: He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He just knew he had to get closer.

—

The next day, he “accidentally” ran into you on that jogging trail in Central Park.

He already knew the exact time your foot would hit the gravel. All he had to do was figure which way you were going: was it the route you’d take when you wanted to clear your head, or the one you’d take when you wanted a challenge?

He waited outside your apartment today and…. You were taking the hard route.

He followed, and his plan of taking you until you got to the cafè, where he would sit next to you, would’ve been perfect until… Dex timed it wrong.

He knew he did the second he adjusted his pace to match yours and felt the rhythm slip. He was too fast for a clean pass, too close for it to look incidental. 

This wasn’t what he was good at. There was no distance. Only proximity and the vague, uncomfortable awareness that if you were anything like the file said you were, you’d clock him immediately.

You didn’t. You just kept running.

He tried to correct it, cutting slightly across your path like he meant to pass you, like he belonged in your space. The movement was off by half a second, just enough to turn clumsy. His shoulder clipped yours, momentum carrying him forward a step too far. You caught before you could trip and looked at him like, what the hell, man?

“—shit, sorry,” Dex said quickly, breathing unevenly. He turned back, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I didn’t… are you okay?”

Up close, everything went a little sideways.

He’d seen your photo. But a still image didn’t account for the way you actually were when you looked at him. You were focused, yes, but there was no immediate suspicion or recalculation behind your eyes. He could tell you were doing a quick assessment and—

“You’re fine,” you huffed, brushing it off like it really had been nothing.

Dex blinked once, recalibrating, trying to drag himself back to the whole point of this endeavour: Intel. 

Simple, right? 

Except now you were standing there, waiting just long enough that it demanded a response.

Right. Say something. Anything.

“Uh… there’s a coffee place just up ahead,” he heard himself say, the words coming out before he could fully filter them. “I can make it up to you. Buy you one or something.”

There was a lull of silence where even he registered what he’d just done.

That wasn’t part of any plan. That was stupid.

Dex forced himself not to react to it outwardly, even as his chest tightened in irritation. This wasn’t how he should’ve handled a target like you. He shouldn’t’ve improvised like this. What was he thinking, basically asking you out like some idiot who didn’t know what he was doing?

But you were still just looking at him.

And up close, all he could think about was how… disarming you were.

That was the word his brain landed on, unhelpfully. You made him lower their guard without realizing he was doing it. 

Dex swallowed, keeping his expression neutral, like this was intentional, like this was just another step in a plan he actually had control over.

This is for intel, he told himself, firmly. Just intel via proximity. That’s all this is.

You tilted your head slightly, considering him in a way that made him feel, for a split second, like he was the one being assessed.

“Coffee?” you repeated. 

“Yeah,” he said, a little more steady now. “Least I can do.”

“For what?” you managed an amused chuckle, and Dex could’ve sworn that hearing you make that noise lit up the world around him. “bumping into me? Is this a line?”

“I just…” he stammered, and bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ve seen you around.”

I’ve seen you around??? He mentally slapped himself. What kind of fucking stupid explanation is that? What does that have to do with anything?

Surprisingly, though, all you did was tilt your head and said, “Okay.”

Oh?

Dex forced himself to nod once, like he’d expected it, like this hadn’t just gone completely off-script.

“Okay,” he echoed, turning slightly to fall into step beside you as you started moving again.

He kept his focus forward, matching your pace, already running through what he needed to ask, what he could realistically get without pushing too hard, how to steer the conversation where he needed it to go.

And still, somewhere in the back of his mind, something felt off. Dex ignored it, because this was a job. You were a target.

And this was just the easiest way to get what he needed. Nothing more.

—

The café was small, tucked between a bookstore and a laundromat.

On the way there, you exchanged your names— he said he was “Tony,” and you, surprisingly, had given him your real name. You were easy to talk to, and you talked about the weather, the park, the surprisingly little snow last winter.

When you got to the café, Dex was relieved to see that it wasn’t too crowded, just a couple of people on laptops, a murmur of conversation, the hiss of the espresso machine every so often. Fewer variables, Fewer eyes.

You ordered first: iced latte, like you’d done it a hundred times. He followed with an Americano, mostly because he panicked and it sounded normal enough.

Now he sat across from you, fingers loosely wrapped around the glass cup, watching the condensation bead along the outside of your glass as you stirred your drink with your straw. You looked… relaxed.

You took a sip, then glanced at him over the rim, and there was mischief in your expression. A second later, you let out a giggle, tapping the straw lightly against the lid.

“So,” you said, dragging the word out just a little. “Why does Bullseye want to take me out to coffee?”

Dex choked.

It wasn’t subtle. The coffee went down the wrong way, and he had to turn his head slightly, coughing into his fist. For a split second, he thought he might actually spit it out all over you, which—thank fuck—the café being mostly empty made slightly less of a disaster.

His eyes snapped back to you.

“…You knew?” he asked.

You blinked at him like that was the stupidest question you’d heard all day, then shrugged, taking another sip like this was a casual conversation. “Of course,” you said. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”

There was no accusation in it. You said it as if it was a fact.

Dex just stared at you. His brain tried to catch up, running through possibilities, angles, trying to figure out where this had gone wrong. Had you clocked him earlier? On the run? Before that? Had he missed an obvious tell?

You didn’t look alarmed. You didn’t look like you were about to bolt or reach for a weapon. If anything, you looked… curious.

“Oh,” he said, because that was all that came out at first.

Great. Perfect. Real smooth.

He forced himself to take another sip of his coffee, buying a second to gather his thoughts, to shove everything back into place where it belonged.

She’s a target. This is a job.

“Yeah,” he added, steadier now, nodding once like this hadn’t just blindsided him. “I mean—yeah. I just…” His teeth tightened for half a second before he settled on the first thing that felt even remotely usable. “I’m a fan of your work.”

You didn’t react immediately. You watched him over your drink, eyes narrowing slightly.

Dex held your eyes, forcing himself not to overcorrect, to let it breathe. Let it land.

“Right,” you said finally. You didn’t sound entirely convinced, but you let it go.

The silence stretched, but not too uncomfortably. It was just charged. You knew there was no chance of going back to a civilian conversation as you leaned back slightly, exhaling.

“Alright. No, we’re not doing this version,” you decided, more to yourself than him. Then you straightened again, meeting his eyes properly. “Can we start over?”

Dex blinked, thrown just enough to answer honestly. “I… yeah.”

You nodded once, resetting playfully. 

“Hi. You already know my name, so I’m skipping that part,” you said, gesturing vaguely with your cup. “I’m a former Red Room Widow. I live in New York now.”

You said it like a random woman introducing themself as an accountant.

Dex opened his mouth, then closed it to filter through the responses. “Hi,” he tried again, because apparently that was all he had today.

You waited.

“Hi,” he repeated, then dragged a hand down his face, exhaling through his nose. “I’m Dex. Not—” he made a vague, frustrated gesture, “not Tony, I don’t…”

Your lips twitched. “I got that.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nodded once, a bit too quickly. Then, as if he was forcing the words out his throat. “I’m… a good guy.”

The second it left his mouth, he knew how weird it sounded. You blinked at him. Then, to his surprise, you chuckled, and it was not unkind.

“Hi, Dex Not Tony,” you said, teasing him. “That’s a strong introduction.”

His mouth pressed into a thin line, but his shoulder reluctantly eased a fraction. “It’s… yeah,” he muttered. “Workshopping it.”

That earned him a small huff of laughter, and just like that, the tension changed. It was not gone completely, but it loosened enough to breathe around.

“Mm,” you hummed, tapping your straw against the rim of the glass. “Maybe workshop faster.”

That earned you the smallest exhale that might’ve been a laugh.

“So,” you went on, glancing at his drink. “Americano?” 

He looked down at it like he’d forgotten it existed. “Mmm.”

“Do you actually like that,” you took a sip of your own drink, “or did you panic-order?”

Dex hesitated, but decided against lying. “Panic-order.”

You grinned. “Thought so.”

“Yours?” he asked, nodding toward your cup.

“Iced latte. Always.”

He nodded once, filing it away without thinking. “Predictable,” he said.

“Consistent,” you corrected.

“Same thing.”

“Not even a little.” Your smile tugged a little wider, and for a second, it made your whole face look gentle in a way that didn’t match anything he’d read.

The conversation after that was not awkward, even as it came in uneven starts. You both drifted out half-finished sentences, small corrections, circling around what you weren’t saying more than what you were. But eventually, it found a rhythm. 

You talked about nothing, mostly. The weather again, somehow. The park. The café. You made an offhand comment about the coffee being great here but the pastries were better two blocks over, and Dex filed that away without meaning to. He asked a question that sounded almost normal, and you answered it like it was. 

For some reason, he could not bring himself to ask about intel. Still, neither of you got up as time stretched right before your eyes. 

“Okay,” you said after a moment, glancing at your drink, then back at him. “For the record, this is the weirdest coffee I’ve had in a while.”

“Same,” he said.

“And I’ve had coffee in worse places.”

“Same.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, amused. “You’re just copying me now.”

There was that pause again. This time, neither of you rushed to fill it. 

You checked your phone briefly, then sighed, like you didn’t actually want to say what came next. “I should probably…” you started, gesturing vaguely toward the door. “…go.”

Dex nodded immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

You stood, grabbing your jacket, then hesitated just slightly. You looked at him, like you were weighing your options, then reached into your pocket and pulled out your phone. “Give me your number.”

Dex tilted his head. “…What?”

You held it out, unfazed. “In case you decide to bump into me again,” you said. “Might as well schedule it next time.”

He stared at you for a second, like he was trying to find an explanation, a reason not to… 

Then he took the phone.

“Right,” he nodded. “Yeah.”

He put it in and handed it back. After all, he had convinced himself that it was just so he could get the intel he was supposed to do today.

“See you around, Dex Not Tony.” 

“Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “See you.”

You turned, heading for the door. The bell chimed again as you left.

Dex stayed where he was for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space you’d just occupied, the echo of your laugh still sitting somewhere in the back of his mind.

Something about that had gone very, very wrong. Or very right

—

That night, Dex had trouble sleeping.

The apartment was too quiet, the city noise bleeding faintly through the windows, the weight of the day sitting wrong in his chest. He laid there for a while, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in fragments: your voice, your eyes, the way none of it lined up with the file. Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep at all. 

He sat up, reached for the notebook on his nightstand, and flipped it open. The logs he had on you were already there: Times, routes, and observations.

He stared at it for a moment, pen hovering. Then he added a new line, pressing just slightly harder than necessary: 

Likes iced lattes

—

Two days later, Dex’s phone buzzed.

He didn’t get messages he wanted to open. He didn’t need another contract— he got his hands full as is. So for a second, he just stared at it from across the room, letting it vibrate once. Unknown number.

His jaw tightened before he picked it up and unlocked it.

There was a photo of a newspaper, slightly crumpled, held down by what looked like your hand. The headline was clear enough:

THREE ANTI-VIGANTE TASK FORCE AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY

Below it, you had texted: 

is this you?

Dex stared at the screen, figuring out exactly who it was. He read it again, trying to wrap his mind around this. His thumb hovered over the keyboard.

You knew. Or you suspected. Or you were testing him. All three were problems.

Dex exhaled slowly through his nose and typed.

Dex: no. Why would you think that?

He was lying, but then again, he was the one who’s supposed to do the interrogation here. It would be stupid to give anything away. 

He hit send before he could overthink it. Three dots appeared almost immediately.

You: just thought I’d ask

Dex frowned. That was it? No pushback? No follow-up? Did you not think he was interesting enough? 

Dex: You just ask people that? “hey did you kill three people”?

There was a pause this time. Dex found himself watching the screen, shoulders slightly tense without realizing it.

You: not usually, but you don’t usually “accidentally” run into me either so

Dex’s grip on the phone tightened just a fraction.

Right. You weren’t letting that go. Dex: I said I’ve seen you around.

He only had to wait a few seconds 

You: sure

He could hear the tone in it. That same almost-amused voice from the café. Not hostile, but curious. Dex leaned back against the wall, phone still in his hand, mind already thinking about what you knew, what you were pretending not to know.

You sent another message before he could respond.

You: also for the record, if it was you, I know you’d say no anyway

Dex managed a smile.

Dex: Probably.

You texted back just as quickly

You: so I’m choosing to believe you 🙂 You: congrats

He huffed, a dry laugh catching in his throat. This was… strange.

You weren’t pushing. You weren’t backing off either. You were just… there, talking to him like this was normal.

Dex stared at the screen for a moment longer, then typed again. 

Dex: Why’d you actually text me?

The typing bubble came and went once. Then, it stayed.

You: because I wanted to You: ??? You: do I need a better reason than that

Dex frowned slightly. That answer didn’t fit neatly anywhere that his brain could  categorize, 

Dex: People usually have reasons.

This time your reply took longer. Long enough that Dex caught himself rereading the earlier messages, analyzing tone, punctuation, timing, looking for something he might’ve missed.

You: okay, fine You: I was bored You: and you’re interesting You: better?

Dex froze.

Interesting. Was that what you thought of him?

Dex: You don’t seem like you get bored.

He could almost picture you rolling your eyes 

You: wow. you are a fan

He stared at the screen for a second, then forced himself to snap back into place. 

You were a target, he had to remind himself. Nothing more. He needed intel to pay rent, and he could only get that after he eliminated you, so… 

Dex: if you’re bored, we could go on another date

He hit send and immediately had what did you just do moment. This wasn’t part of the job. This wasn’t… date wasn’t the word he should’ve used. 

The typing bubble popped up, disappeared, and came back within three seconds. 

You: is that what that was the first time? a date??

Dex blinked.

“…No,” he muttered under his breath, already typing.

No. It was—

He stopped. What was it?

Dex: maybe?

That was all he could send. Oh, he was never playing spy after this job was done. Not ever again.

You: right You: with a guy who “sees me around”  You: very normal

Dex pressed his lips together.

Dex: Do you want to go or not?

During the wait, Dex felt something unfamiliar settle in his stomach. It was something he could only describe as butterflies. 

You: yeah sure 

His grip on the phone loosened slightly.

You: same place? or are you gonna “accidentally” run into me again?

Dex huffed.

Dex: how about the pastry place you were talking about? 

Oh so now he was paying attention to your recommendations?

You: okay. Friday?

The only thing he had on his calendar was killing task force, and that could wait, so… 

Dex: Friday works.

He tapped on his phone screen, anxiously waiting for confirmation.

You: cool You: try not to kill anyone before then. It ruins the vibe

Dex stared at that one for a second.

Dex: No promises.

There was no reply after that.

That night, in his notebook, he wrote another thing about you:

Initiates contact.

—

The second date felt different before it even started.

You were standing at the counter of the bakery when he saw you, pointing at something in the display case, smiling at the cashier like this was the easiest thing in the world. “Hey, Dex.” 

You ended up at a small table by the window, a couple of plates between you. A flaky and golden croissant, a banana-flavoured donut-like dessert dusted in powdered sugar (his choice), a molten-in-the-middle pain au chocolate, and one with custard that looked like it might fall apart if you breathed too hard near it.

Adorably, he knew you had picked too many things. Dex didn’t comment on it, but he noticed then, how you pointed without overthinking, how you changed your mind halfway through, how you added one more at the last second “just in case.”

It felt indulgent in a small, contained way. Like this was the only thing you let yourself have. 

The plate between you looked excessive now, but you nudged it toward him anyway.

“Try that one,” you said, already reaching for another.

Dex picked it up without arguing. It was… good, but he didn’t say that out loud.

You watched his face anyway, like you were waiting for the reaction.

“It’s fine,” he said.

You snorted. “Liar.”

“I’m not—”

“Don’t pretend it’s just fine,” you rolled your eyes, though you had said it with your mouth full, so it sounded more like downt pwetend it's jusft fwine.

“I’m not pretending.”

“You are.”

He hesitated, then let you win this one. “It is good,” he admitted begrudgingly.

“There it is.”

The conversation slipped into place easily after that. It was not smooth, but it didn’t catch as often. You didn’t circle each other as much. You just… talked.

You even went on for a good fifteen minutes about watching a squirrel in the park yesterday. You said something about how it would grab something, run halfway up the tree, stop, look around like it forgot what it was doing, then go back down and start over. You went on saying, it did this, like, five times, I think it lost the nut at some point but just committed to the bit.

Dex was surprised a former Red Room operative would even concern herself with things as trivial as a little rodent. He was even more surprised that he let you go on and on about it. It was as if he liked listening to you, no matter what you said. 

You reached for the sweeter pastry next, taking a bite, and Dex’s eyes automatically tracking the movement. A small smear of custard caught at the corner of your lip.

You didn’t notice. You kept talking, mid-sentence about the squirrel again, something about it being “committed to chaos, like hoarding random park objects were its hobby,” and—

Dex raised his hand before he could stop it.  “Hold on,” he said, almost a whisper.

You paused. “what…”

His thumb brushied lightly at the corner of your mouth, wiping the custard away, before licking the liquid off on his own tongue. The contact was brief and altogether too gentle for a man like him. For a second, neither of you moved.

His hand dropped back to the table. “You had…” he gestured vaguely. “Custard.”

“Oh.” You blinked once, then let out a small, surprised laugh. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Dex looked down at his hands. That felt… Unfamiliar.

He didn’t know when the last time he’d done something like that was. He didn’t know when the last time he’d wanted to.

There was this strange warmth sitting in his chest now, almost weightless. He didn’t even have a name for it.

And while he wasn’t sure he liked that, he definitely didn’t hate it.

You were the one to break the silence, coughing awkwardly like you couldn’t stand another second of silence. 

“Ummm speaking of hobbies?” you echoed, wiping your mouth just in case. “You… don’t strike me as a hobbies person.”

“I had some,” he said, easing back into the chair. Thank fuck you could carry the conversation for the both of them, because his brain had just fully stalled. 

“Past tense is concerning.” You leaned forward just a little. “What, like, knitting?”

“No.”

“Scrapbooking?”

“No.”

“Be honest,” you taunted, “I can see it.”

He almost smiled, and looked down when he said it. “Baseball.”

You paused, then nodded, like that made perfect sense.

“Yeah, I can see that,” you said, then added casually, “I used to do ballet.”

Dex blinked. He looked at you differently now. like he was trying to fit that into everything else he knew. “Oh,” he managed to say.

You shrugged. “Standard Red Room stuff.”

Dex’s posture shifted slightly, attention narrowing. 

Oh, this was it. This was what he came for. This was the thread he needed. This was the confirmation that you had been trained in HQ, right? If you had survived it, then there were doors inside you that led back to places he couldn’t access any other way. 

These were not guesses, not patterns he had to infer from distance, but direct proximity to the Red Room itself, to its methods, its remnants, its current reach. He just needed to keep you talking, keep you close, long enough to pull it apart piece by piece. So he asked, “What does that mean?”

You froze, as if a flash of memories ran through the back of your eyes. Then shook your head once. “Mm—nope.”

“What?”

“Not here,” you said lightly, but there was an immovable conviction underneath it now. “I’m not getting into that here.”

Dex watched you as held his hazel eyes. Then, just as quickly, you leaned forward, resting your chin lightly against your hand, expression shifting back from dark to a lighter tone. “Come by my place on Saturday,” you said, like it had just occurred to you. “We’ll call it our third date.”

Dex blinked. “What?”

You shrugged, completely unfazed. “If you’re really curious,” you added, a small tilt to your head. “There’s… fewer people.”

He stared at you, his eyes empty and calculating at the saw time, fingers anxiously tapping the underside of the table. This was… this was not in the plan. This was not one of his controlled outcomes. This was not…

“Okay,” he said anyway. The answer seemed to have left his mouth before he fully processed it.

“Okay,” you echoed.

And somewhere between the pastries, coffee, and conversation, he realized, a little too late… 

This doesn’t feel like a job.

—

Dex had expected a decoy. A secondary location, maybe a shell apartment. He was expecting something stripped down and impersonal, designed to be burned the second it was compromised.

Not this. Not the exact place he had already mapped out in his notebook.

So yeah, you had given him your real address.

For just a second, he wondered if this was the play. If you knew how much he knew. If this was some test he hadn’t caught onto yet.

The building was exactly what he expected. It was a high-end high rise. The doorman glanced at him once, then nodded like he’d already been cleared.

“You’re expected,” he said simply.

Dex didn’t respond, already moving past him. The elevator took him straight up.

By the time he reached your door, he had an uneasy feeling in his chest. Was this… a trap? 

He knocked, and the door opened almost immediately.

“Hi,” you said.

Dex opened his mouth to respond, but you interrupted his train of thoughts by pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, right at the scar.

Dex froze. By the time you pulled back, his brain still hadn’t caught up.

You smiled like nothing had happened, stepping aside to let him in. “Come in.”

He couldn’t find words to say, because apparently, his brain was on pause now.

Still, Dex stayed half a step behind you as you pushed the door open, his eyes already scanning past your shoulder and realised…

The place was… expensive.

Not in a loud, gaudy way. You had no gold fixtures or ridiculous statement pieces. It was intentional. It had floor-to-ceiling windows stretching across the far wall with a view that swallowed half the city. It had two bedrooms, if he researched it right.

“How…” he started, then cut himself off. What he meant to say was, how can you afford this? But decided against it. 

You didn’t seem to notice. “Make yourself comfortable,” you said, already shrugging off your jacket and tossing it onto a chair like it wasn’t worth more than half the furniture in his apartment. “I just need the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

And just like that, you disappeared.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, processing everything. 

You lived here. And not as a cover, not temporarily. There were no signs of rotation, no packed bags, no readiness to leave at a moment’s notice.

“That’s stupid,” he muttered under his breath. Or reckless. Or you were just arrogant to a fault. Maybe you just didn’t think anyone could touch you.

Dex stood still for a second, listening to the water running. He heard the slightly delayed pipes and realised you weren’t rushing. Good.

His eyes tracked the room the way they always did, scanning for inconsistencies. He didn’t try to look for what was there, but what didn’t belong. Because people like you didn’t leave things out.

Which meant if anything existed, it would be hidden. His gaze slowed down and shifted… There. A section of the wall paneling near the shelving was barely misaligned. It was not enough for anyone else to clock, but Dex didn’t miss patterns like that.

He stepped closer, fingers brushing lightly over the seam. There must be a pressure point. Eventually the panel gave just enough of a click to confirm it. Dex didn’t hesitate before easing it open.

Inside was a compact hidden compartment.

The first thing he saw was a keycard, worn at the edges. The insignia was barely visible, but he didn’t need it to be clear. He knew what it was the second he saw it: Hydra.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath.

Red Room had a historical overlap with Hydra. Old, but not irrelevant.

It surely was a small enough thing that you wouldn’t miss it, right?

He pocketed it and moved on to the only other thing hidden in the panel: Documents. It wasn’t exactly a full archive, but it was enough.

He flipped through them, scanning fast. Inside were names of Red Room operatives. The dead ones were labeled. He assumed the ones who didn’t have a red Xs on their files were still active. 

You had annotated them too, with locations, partial intel, and movement patterns.

This was the kind of access people killed for.

His thumb moved, grabbing his phone. He flipped through quickly, taking a picture of each page, each note, each annotation. He made sure, of course, that it was legible.

This was high-level access, closer than anything he’d gotten from a distance. This… This was the job.

Then he heard the sound of water shutting off.

Shit. Dex froze. Then, he moved. He closed the folder immediately, sliding it back in.

Everything went back exactly as it was, the panel sealed until the seam disappeared into the wall again like it had never existed. By the time you stepped back into the room, he was already on the couch.

“Sorry,” you said, drying your hands casually, completely unbothered. “That took longer than I thought.”

Dex looked up at you. There was a split second, where something in his expression didn’t line up. The. it was gone.

“You’re fine,” he said evenly.

You nodded, like that settled it, and stepped closer. You dropped down onto the couch beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his, as if this was normal. As if he wasn’t here to dismantle you piece by piece. He didn’t even realise that you had a bottle of wine and two glasses on your hand. 

You leaned back slightly, turning your head toward him, “…So,” you said, more direct. “What do you want to know?”

—

It can’t be this easy right? Dex thought. 

Turns out, it was. 

Which was weird, because people like you didn’t just… hand things over. So either this was the cleanest setup he’d ever walked into, or you really didn’t think he was a threat. Neither option sat right with him. 

His fingers flexed slightly against his knee as he watched you pour two glasses of red. You handed one to him, and Dex took it quickly. “Thanks,” he said, smaller than usual.

He didn’t even usually drink anymore. He turned the stem slightly between his fingers, watching the liquid catch the light. For a brief second, his mind did what it always did: it ran through possibilities. 

It might be a sedative. It could be poison. He could handle most of that, maybe. And if he couldn’t…  Well.

He huffed quietly to himself. What the hell.

Dex took a sip. It burned a little on the way down. Not unusual, just normal wine. 

The first sign that it wasn’t poison was that you were drinking it, too. The second sign was that you didn’t react; you didn’t watch him like you were waiting for something to happen. You just leaned back into the couch and tucked your leg under yourself.

It was cute, Dex thought. You looked like a bird, nesting. He liked it.

Then, he took a deep breath and started asking questions. At first, it was light, like where did you grow up? Where were you trained?

You answered, and you sounded detached for the first couple of sentences. It was as if you were testing the limits and throwing pieces out to see what stuck.

But when the alcohol kicked in and your cheeks turned rosy pink, you spoke more candidly. About the Red Room. About being taken. About being trained.

Even Dex, who was starting to feel more bubbly, didn’t interrupt.

At first, he listened like he always did. He filtered, sorted, and pulled out what mattered. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Because you started giving less intel and more… context.

“You don’t really realize it when you’re in it,” you said, staring into your glass like the answer might be somewhere at the bottom. “It just feels normal. Like this is what life is supposed to be. You don’t question it because there’s nothing else to compare it to.”

Dex’s grip tightened slightly, and you kept going.

“They don’t just train you. They… build you. Strip everything out first. Then put back only what they need.” You gave him a small laugh.“Honestly? It’s basically a cult. You have no idea what it’s like to be manipulated like that.”

Dex looked down, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

You glanced at him then, and your eyes shifted. You were not shocked at all, but you recognised it as well as you would recognise kin. “Oh,” you looked down. “Right.”

Dex poured himself another glass without thinking. You kept talking, but slower now. It was less like you were explaining, more like you were… unloading. Like you didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

That’s when it clicked: This must not be a trap or a strategy, he concluded, because the reason you were telling him all of this on a third date was… because, like him, you had no one else.

You might have neighbors, maybe even actual friends. But surely, you had no one else who could possibly understand you the way he did, because who else could you possibly know in this line of work? 

That was why you decided that he was the safest place to put it.

Dex stared at the rim of his glass for a second too long. That was stupid of you. And dangerous. And—

“…And you?” you said suddenly, nudging his knee lightly with yours. “C’mon.”

He blinked, pulled back into the moment.

“If we’re trauma dumping,” you added, a crooked smile pulling at your mouth, “we might as well commit. This is probably our only chance to say it out like.” You took another sip, then shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly look like either of us go to therapy.”

Dex huffed. “Yeah,” he muttered. His brain caught up half a second later.

He shouldn’t, though, right? He shouldn’t tell you anything about him that could possibly be compromising but… The booze was getting to him. 

And, besides, what harm could trauma dumping to you be? The job ends one way: with you dead after he got all the intel. So did it really matter what you knew about him?

Dex leaned back slightly, exhaling a little. 

And then, before he could stop himself, the extra bit of liquid courage bypassed his brain, and he told you everything. 

The words came out flat at first. But the more he drank, the less he cared about what he gave away and what he did not. 

You didn’t interrupt him. You just listened. And that, more than anything, kept him talking. 

At some point, the wine started to blur the edges for you, too. Your shoulders leaned closer. Your knee stayed pressed against his. Your laughter came easier as he cynically explained being in prison, and because you felt bad when you did, you gasped and covered your mouth. 

Dex didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled, the corner of his mouth warping the pronounced scar on his cheek. At one point, you tilted your head slightly, watching him with an understanding that hadn’t been there before.

“God,” you said, almost to yourself. “We’re so fucked up.”

Then, unexpectedly, you giggled. Dex, for once, cannot help but chuckle himself. 

“Yeah.” He took another sip, “You more than me,” he added, almost immediately.

Your head snapped toward him immediately. “Excuse me?”

A faint smirk pulled at his mouth. “Y’know,” he said, “Child soldier and all.”

You stared at him for a second, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Really?” you shot back, leaning closer, eyes narrowing in mock offense. “I’m more fucked up?”

He lifted a shoulder slightly in a shrug.

You pointed at him with your glass. “Your boss broke your spine and you lived.”

Dex managed to roll his eyes. 

“You got thrown off a roof and you lived,” you continued, leaning in further now, your voice picking up energy. “Sounds like you’re pretty far from normal.”

Dex huffed again. “Didn’t say I was normal.”

“Mm,” you hummed, satisfied. You sipped again. 

The space between you closed without either of you noticing when it happened. Your knee pressed against his. Your shoulder brushed his arm. Neither of you moved away.

The wine kept going. Half a glass. Then another.Words came easier after that, less filtered, less controlled.

You interrupted each other more. You laughed more. You even talked over the ends of sentences like it didn’t matter who finished them. At some point, you were both smiling for no reason.

Dex didn’t realize when the room started to feel warmer. He didn’t realize when your voice started to blur slightly at the edges. He didn’t even realize when he stopped thinking about the job entirely. He just knew, at this point, that you were close. Really close.

And you looked… Pretty.

That was a stupid word. It was too simple. It didn’t cover the gnawing claws that were starting to take over his heart.  

But it was the only word his brain gave him. You were smiling at something (he didn’t even remember what) and it made you look… harmless. 

Dex felt a warmth shift in his chest. As unfamiliar as it was, he didn’t pull away from it. For a second, you looked at him, too.

Dex swallowed the last of the wine, mostly because it was the only distraction that could possibly take up all the space you had started to occupy in his mind.

The room had dimmed at the edges in that deceptive way alcohol always did. The lights seemed warmer. 

Dex didn’t usually get to this point. He knew that with uncomfortable clarity. He also knew he should stop.

You were sitting too close, closer than before, closer than necessary, your shoulder pressed lightly into his as if neither of you had noticed the distance shrinking over time.

Your voice had gone gentler, words starting to come in slower waves instead of quick exchanges. There was less explanation, more confession disguised as conversation. And he was doing the same, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud.

Parts of him he usually kept locked down were just… loosening, one by one, without permission.

You laughed at something he said, he didn’t even remember what it was, and the sound stuck in his head longer than it should have. 

“You’re smiling,” you observed suddenly, tilting your head slightly like it was a fossil discovery.

“I’m not,” he said automatically.

You hummed, unconvinced. “You are.”

He should’ve corrected you. Instead, his eyes drifted without meaning to, down to your mouth when you spoke again. The way your words drooped at the edges when you were tired, or tipsy, or both. For the love of god, he could not get over you the way you kept licking your lip absentmindedly, like you weren’t even aware of it.

It made something in his brain go pop.

You noticed. “…What?” you asked, pouting adorably.

Dex didn’t answer right away. Because, really, there was no tactical reason for him to be looking at you like this. There was no intel angle. No extraction logic. No job framework he could hide behind.

It was just you. And him. And the space between you that didn’t feel like space anymore.

He leaned in before he could reassemble himself. He hadn’t planned on doing it. It wasn’t even a decision he consciously made, really. 

It was, for lack of better word, gravity. As if he was a meteor falling into your orbit. 

For a while, you didn’t move away. 

Your breath caught in your throat, but you stayed there, watching him come closer instead of stopping it. Your eyes flicked down once, like you were considering it too.

Dex stopped just short of you. He wanted, no needed— to know you wanted it, too. 

Still, he was close enough that he could feel your breath now. Close enough that if either of you moved even a fraction—

That would be it. The line would be crossed.

You lifted your hand slowly, but you were not pushing him away. You weren’t pulling him closer, either. Your palm was hovering for a moment against his chest like you were testing whether this was real.

Dex didn’t move. Neither did you.

You exhaled. It was a small, almost reluctant sound. “…Dex,” you murmured, and his name sounded different like that. His eyes flicked to yours again.

Too close. This was way too close.

Your eyes dropped again to his mouth again, and stayed there. For a second, he could clearly see that fraction of hesitation where neither of you could pretend anymore that you weren’t thinking the same thing.

Dex leaned in that final inch… but you didn’t meet him halfway. Gently, your hand pressed into his chest.

“Mm,” you murmured softly, almost like you were trying to convince yourself this was wrong. Then you pushed him back.

“No,” you said, breath hitching slightly, but your smile was still there, playful, light. “It’s only our third date.”

Dex blinked, still a little too close, like he hadn’t fully processed the words.

You laughed under your breath, giving him a small shove to create space.

“Besides,” you added, eyes flicking down to his mouth for just a second before meeting his again, “I want you to kiss me when you’re sober.”

Oh.

He leaned back this time, letting out a deep breath. There was only one way he could describe how he felt, and that was disappointment. 

Oh, well. What else can he do?

“Yeah,” he managed to say. “Okay.”

Still, he didn’t move far, and neither did you.

And of course, his thoughts, intrusive as they always are, decided to ruin the only tender moment he had in years.  

You have enough. Kill her. 

Honestly, he had more than enough intel on the Red Room. Even the old Hydra keycard was a welcome addition to his anonymous employer’s request. It would most definitely make up for anything else they could have possibly wanted. 

What are you waiting for? Kill her. 

It was definitely more than what that had bargained for. So yeah, he could do it now. 

He had clocked many sharp objects he could throw at you— from your vase to a cheese knife you left out on the island kitchen. He didn’t even need a gun. 

Kill her.

And no, you wouldn’t even see it coming. His fingers flexed slightly against his leg.

Kill her.

But then he made the mistake of looking at you. And from there on out, all he could think was… 

I want another date.

No. He shouldn’t want that, right?

Kill her.

He didn’t want that either. 

But… he needed the money, and you had a body count higher than the Empire State Building. Killing you would make sense right? It would help balance the scales, right?

Right? 

Would it still make sense, even after you laid your heart and soul to him? Would it still make sense, even after he realised you were brought up as an enslaved child soldier? 

Kill her. 

No, he told himself, Not yet.

I want just one more date. 

And to Dex, that was reason enough not to kill you. Yet. 

—

Dex didn’t go to rest when he got home.

The second the door shut behind him, he frowned, burying his head in his hands before pulling himself together. He had called forth the part of him that knew what to do, what this was, what it had to be.

He pulled the notebook out before he’d even taken his jacket off.

He sat down, pen moving across paper. It started the way it always did: Structured and efficient. Intel, in detail.

He wrote of the interior of your apartment; top floor, two-bedroom, open sightlines, minimal obstruction points. Entry points limited. Windows large but not easily accessible from exterior. Security: building-controlled, doorman compliant, prior clearance confirmed.

He flipped the page. He wrote about the hidden compartment: wall panel, right side of shelving unit. Pressure point activation. Contents: Hydra-era keycard, confirmed overlap with Red Room operations. Documents: active survivor list, partial intel, movement logs. Photographic evidence captured.

Another page. This was where he started writing about your routine vulnerabilities, your Behavioral patterns. Trust threshold: high. Counter-surveillance: minimal to non-existent. Open, disarming, prone to disclosure under informal conditions.

His handwriting stayed tight. 

2.5 million dollars would only come after you were dead. That would fund his makeshift crusade for years to come. It was important work he was doing, balancing the scales. 

Dex paused, just for a second. Then he kept going.

Timeline: Saturday meeting. Entry granted without resistance. Physical proximity established quickly. Target displays—

His pen slowed to a stop. It hovered there, a warmth blooming in his chest. Dex frowned slightly, staring at the page like it had changed on him.

Then, almost absentmindedly, he wrote… she kissed me on the cheek, right on the scar.

The pen froze again.

That wasn’t— He exhaled, teeth clenching. —this wasn’t important. 

But still, he crossed nothing out. He just moved on.

Target displays lowered threat perception in close proximity. Conversational drift toward—

His handwriting had changed. Not messy, just less rigid.

… her past. She smells like vanilla. not perfume. Most likely clean laundry and sugar from baking.

Dex blinked. He looked at the lines then at the rest of the page.

What the fuck.

He flipped to the next page like that would fix it.

Red wine is her favourite.

His grip on the pen tightened slightly.

He should stop. This wasn’t relevant. None of the last couple sentences was relevant. Dex leaned back slightly in his chair, staring at the notebook in his lap.

He had everything he needed. He didn’t need to write anything else.

Dex scoffed quietly under his breath. Had he gone soft? 

Then, without really deciding to, he added one more line underneath it…

She laughed when she said “we’re so fucked up.”

He stared at it for a second longer than necessary. Then he snapped the notebook shut.

—

The restaurant for the fourth date was nicer than most places he even bothered to go to nowadays. But if this was going to be your last meal, he might as well make it memorable.

It had soft blue lights, a low hum of voices, the whoosh of knives behind the counter. Dex noticed all of it the second he stepped in, cataloguing angles and exits, the reflective panel behind the chef that gave him a partial view of the room without turning his head.

You need to kill her today.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and followed the host to the table.

When you sat down across from him, smiling like you hadn’t just walked straight into the middle of your own funeral, the room blurred at the edges for Dex.

“Hi,” you said with a smile

Kiss her.

He blinked once, forcing his brain back into place. “Hi.”

You tilted your head slightly, studying him like you always did, like you were trying to solve a puzzle with a missing piece. “You look like you’ve been here for a while.”

“I haven’t.”

“You definitely have.”

“Maybe five minutes.” That was a lie. He had been there for more than ten, cataloging what he could possibly use to finish the job.

You smiled, pleased. “Knew it.”

She’s faking it. She actually likes me. Kill her.

Dex picked up the menu just to give his hands something to do. “You’re late.”

“I’m two minutes late,” you corrected, leaning forward slightly to peek at what he was looking at instead of opening your own. “And I brought personality, so it cancels out.”

He huffed, hiding a smile. “That’s not how that works.”

“It is.” You insisted, tapping the menu. “Also, you picked sushi? I didn’t think you were a sushi person.”

“I’m not.” He immediately said. 

You blinked. “Then why…”

“Seemed efficient.” What he meant was; it’s a nice meal. You deserve a nice meal for the last day of your life. It’s efficient for him, who had an array of ceramic and silverware to kill you with.

You stared at him for a second, then broke into a grin. “You picked it based on efficiency.”

“Yes.”

“That is the least romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

He didn’t do either.

“You’re still here,” he pointed out instead.

“Yeah,” you said easily, settling back in your seat. “Because I actually like you.”

Liar. Kill her.

Somewhere between you stealing sushi off his plate and laughing at how aggressively he held chopsticks, you asked, almost casually, “You know anything about the ports here?” Dex paused slightly at that, eyes flicking up to yours over his glass. 

The question should’ve put him more on edge than it did, but you just looked curious, relaxed, like this was normal conversation. “Not much,” he admitted after a second. “Fisk uses them to move things through there sometimes.” 

You hummed thoughtfully, listening closely, and Dex found himself talking a little more than he probably should’ve just because you kept looking at him like that.

After a while, though, he managed to change the topic. Work was getting a little old. He found himself wanting to talk about you. “You always order too much.”

You lit up like he’d just handed you a piece of chocolate. “Oh, we’re judging now?”

“I’m observing.”

“Rude,” you said, already scanning the menu. “Also, it’s not too much, it’s strategic.”

“Strategic how?” He tilted his head, genuinely curious.

You shrugged, but there was a stillness underneath it. “You ever go hungry enough that your brain just… rewires? Like you don’t trust ‘enough’ anymore?”

Dex had never felt that way before. He wondered if you were indulgent because you had gone through missions with little food. Would you have gotten days without it, a week maybe? Your Buenos Aires mission was six days, your Lagos mission was seven days. Was it those missions?

How did you even survive? 

She’s a widow. She’s a weapon. She’s a person.

“…Yeah,” he said anyway.

Your eyes flicked up to his, and recognition passed between you. “Yeah,” you echoed. Then you nudged the menu toward him. “So I’ll over-order. It’s fine. We deserve it.”

We’re so fucked up. Kill her. Kiss her.

He nodded once. “Okay.”

You spent the next ten minutes ordering together, leaning over the table, arguing quietly over rolls like it mattered.

“Okay, this one,” you said, pointing. “We’re getting this.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It has too much…. whatever that is.”

“That is eel,” you squinted.

“Exactly,” he shrugged.

“It’s just eel,” you pointed out. “You’ve eaten weirder things.”

He paused. “That’s not the point.”

You grinned. “I have enough of an appetite for the both of us.”

Kill her. Kiss her.

“…Fine,” he said, pushing his intrusive thoughts away.

You beamed. 

By the time the food arrived, the conversation had settled. You didn’t hold back when you ate, and you never did. You leaned forward, talking between bites, pointed things out like it mattered that he experienced them properly.

“Try this,” you said, holding your chopsticks out toward him without thinking.

Dex looked at it, then at you. You didn’t even realize what he was going to do to you.

Kiss her. Kill her.

He leaned forward and took the bite. Your eyes stayed on his face, waiting.

“It’s good,” he admitted.

“I know,” you said immediately, all too pleased with yourself.

He shook his head slightly.

She’s dangerous. She could kill you. Kill her first.

You wiped a bit of sauce off your thumb absentmindedly and kept talking. “We used to have this thing—training-wise—where they’d reward you with food if you hit certain targets.”

Dex’s attention shifted immediately.

There it is. Focus.

“Targets?” he repeated.

You winced slightly. “Okay, that sounded worse out loud.”

He didn’t respond.

You laughed, a little self-aware. “I mean—it was worse. But at the time it felt like a game, you know? Like ‘hit this, get that.’ Pavlov, but with putting bullets between your classmates' eyes.”

You popped another piece into your mouth like you hadn’t just said that.

She’s a monster. She’s a victim. She’s both. Kill her.

“Do you ever miss that?” he asked before he could stop himself.

You tilted your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the question. “The food or the brainwashing?”

“Either.”

You smiled faintly. “Sometimes I miss knowing exactly what I was supposed to be.”

That…. He understood.

Kill her. Ask her about OXE. Ask her about the DODC. Kiss her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

You didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, you just nudged his foot under the table. “Hey,” you said, lighter now. “At least now we get sushi instead of, like… boiled cabbage or whatever.”

His lips formed the ghost of a smile. “I didn’t get cabbage.”

“Oh, sorry,” you deadpanned. “Did your government program have better catering?”

“No.”

You grinned. “Then you get it.”

He did. He really, really did.

You started talking about stupid things again—bad takeout, a guy you saw trying to fight a pigeon, the way you animated everything just enough to make it feel real.

Dex found himself watching your mouth when you talked.

Kiss her. Kill her. She’s faking it. She actually likes me.

He picked up his chopsticks again, turning them slightly between his fingers. These would be a good weapon to finish you off. He had calculated the angle, trajectory, and distance. He could do it from across the table. It would be clean, straight through the throat.

You wouldn’t even—

You laughed suddenly, bright and unguarded, and it snapped the thought clean in half.

“Earth to Dex?”

He blinked, refocusing on the world around him. 

You were looking at him like you’d caught his mind somewhere far away.

“What?” he said.

“You spaced out,” you said, narrowing your eyes slightly. “That was intense. Should I be concerned?”

Kill her. Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty.

“No,” he said, coughing a little

You leaned forward slightly, studying him. “You do that a lot. Go somewhere else.”

He held your stare, feeling like an utter fucking coward. “I’m here,” he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to.

Your eyes softened. After that, you kept talking, and he kept listening, but the thoughts didn’t stop.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed for corrupt governments. She’s taken down entire networks. She could kill you. Kill her. Kiss her.

He watched the way your fingers curled around your glass, the way you leaned closer when you got excited about a topic, the way your voice softened when you cared. 

He imagined reaching across the table, but this time not to put a piece of cutlery through your windpipe.

Instead, he imagined reaching out with his hand, touching your wrist. He imagined pulling you closer, kissing you.

—

When the bill landed between you, Dex felt his chest pulled tight, like a thread being yanked too hard. 

His hand moved first, grabbing it before you could even look properly. “I’ve got it,” he said, but it came out quieter than he meant, like the words had to push past thorns  lodged in his throat. You started to protest, but he cut in, “I want to.” 

That part slipped out, honest in a way he didn’t like. His fingers fumbled just slightly as he pulled his card out, a barely-there tremor that shouldn’t exist in a man like him, and he focused hard on the motion—insert, wait, sign—because that was simple, and that was something he understood. 

Kill her.

He could do it after this. He would. After all, that was the plan. But when he glanced up, you were watching him. and it threw everything off balance in a way that made his chest feel too full.

His thoughts only sped up after that. 

Kill her. She needs to go. She’s a monster. She’s a widow. She’s a fucking Black Widow. She could kill you. Kill her. She’s faking it. She’s dangerous.

He signed the receipt, but his grip was wrong. It was too tight, the paper crinkling under his thumb. When he set the pen down, his eyes betrayed him. They dropped to your mouth without permission. 

It wasn't strategic. It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct, human and stupid all the same.  

He imagined leaning forward instead of walking away, closing the distance instead of planning your doom, your lips against his instead of blood on his hands.

Focus.

His breath caught, and he looked away like that would fix it, like he could force himself back into the job he was supposed to do. 

He needed to do it. Now. Outside. 

He slipped a metal chopstick into his pocket. 

But the idea of ending it before he knew what your lips taste like made him recoil.

Kiss her. Tell her she’s pretty. Kiss her. Kill her. She’s a bad person. She’s dangerous. She’s so fucking pretty. She actually likes you. Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

He stood too quickly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor, and reached for his jacket like movement might help ground him. It didn’t. You stood too, close enough that your arm brushed his.

He could still do it but his eyes betrayed him again, flicking to your lips like he was starving for something he didn’t deserve.

The realization hit all at once: he didn’t want to kill you before he kissed you. 

He needed that first. Just once. 

“I’ll walk you home,” he said, and the words came out before he could stop them. You looked up at him, surprised. When you said “Okay,” it didn’t make anything easier. It just gave him more time to ruin himself, one step at a time, chasing something he shouldn’t want before he did what he came here to do.

Kiss her. Then kill her.

—

The street outside your building felt eerily quiet, like the world had thinned down to just the two of you and the glow of the lobby lights behind glass. The doorman had the day off, you mentioned. There were no footsteps. No interruptions. 

Good. No witnesses.

Dex barely registered the thought this time. It flickered and passed, swallowed immediately by the thundering anxiety brewing in his mind.

Kill her.

“Hey,” you said. It was absurd, really, how shy you sounded.

He gulped. “Hey.”

His heart melted when a smile tugged at your mouth.

“I think,” you started, stepping just a little closer, your voice lowering like it was meant only for him, “you earned it.”

Dex didn’t get to ask what that meant, because you stepped in, closing that last inch of space like it meant nothing, and your lips met his…and everything in him just gave way.

His hand dropped from his pocket instantly, the weapon forgotten as his fingers caught your waist instead, pulling you closer like he was afraid you’d disappear. The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was only warm for half a second before it deepened, before he leaned into it with a careful urgency that didn’t belong to him.

Kiss her like you mean it.  

When you pulled back slightly, just to breathe, just to smile that pleased smile that made your whole face light up, he followed. He actually chased your lips, closing the distance again before you could get far, like he couldn’t stand the idea of it ending already. His hand slid higher, thumb brushing your jaw, tilting your face just enough to kiss you again. It was slower this time but no less hungry, like he was trying to memorize it.

You tasted… fuck! Sweet.

His brain latched onto it immediately, irrational and completely useless: Strawberries and cream. Probably lip gloss, but it didn’t matter to Dex. 

Kiss her like you fucking mean it. 

He smiled into it. It felt wrong on him, but he couldn’t stop it, not when you leaned into him like that, not when your fingers curled into his jacket like you wanted him just as much.

Kill her.

The thought slammed back in hard enough to almost make him flinch. His hand paused at your side. He knew the metal chopstick was still in his pocket.

Do it now.

He could, theoretically.  You were right there. You were more than close enough. More importantly, you were trusting enough.

One movement, and you would be dead. He would cradle your lifeless body in your arms and the last thing you would ever do was… kiss him. 

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hazily when you finally pulled back, your voice carrying the echo of the kiss.

Dex froze.

You were smiling at him. You were not suspicious or guarded. You were just…  hopeful. And all he could think about was the way you’d kissed him. The way you’d let him.

Kill her.

His fingers curled in his pocket, brushing the metal again. He imagined it: a quick thrust, handled efficiently…

No. Not like that. I can’t kill her like that.

It was too slow, too messy. You’d bleed. You’d feel it. You’d die a slow, painful death…

She didn’t deserve that.

That was it. That was his excuse this time.

You deserved to die a quick, painless death. Maybe a shot in the back of the head when you weren’t looking. Just… bang! 

His chest ached at the thought. He was still leaning toward you, like part of him hadn’t caught up yet, like he might kiss you again if you gave him half a second more.

“I—yeah,” he said, voice, rougher around the edges. “You will.”

You smiled like that was enough. Like he hadn’t just made a decision that should’ve gone the other way.

Dex stood there for a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to memorize you again. He thought about your mouth, your eyes. the way you were still a little flushed… Then he stepped back, because if he didn’t—

Kiss her.

He almost did.

Instead, he let you go. And when he got home, all he wrote in the notebook was:

She tastes like strawberries and cream. 

—

The park on a Sunday felt too bright for what Dex had come to do.

Sunlight filtered through the trees in shifting patterns, the grass warm and uneven beneath the blanket he had brought.

It was your idea, “a picnic!” said so casually over the phone, like it was something people like you did, like it didn’t involve him sitting across from you with a gun tucked under his shirt, pressed against his side like a second heartbeat.

He’d decided before he even got there, that today, he was going to kill you.

It ends today. Kill her.

Then you showed up. And the world tilted for him.

You were wearing a sundress that moved with you when you walked. It wasn’t tactical, it wasn’t anything like the person he’d read about in that file. You looked… beautiful.

Kill her.

He swallowed it down. “You look…” he started, then stopped, like the word wouldn’t come out right.

You tilted your head, smiling. “What?”

His eyes dragged over you again before he could stop himself. “Nice,” he settled on.

It was insufficient. He knew it.

You laughed anyway, pleased, like you hadn’t just undone him.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s a weapon.

He swallowed, hard, forcing himself to look away, to move, to do something before he stood there staring like an idiot. He dropped down onto the blanket he’d set up, hands already busy unpacking what he’d brought.

You noticed immediately. “You brought strawberries and cream?” You asked in disbelief. 

Dex shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like he hadn’t thought about it too much. “You like sweet things.”

You went quiet for a second. “I…” you started, “I do.”

He didn’t look at you. If he did, he’d…

Kiss her. Kill her. Focus.

You sat across from him, smoothing your dress under your legs, and that was so normal it made his chest ache.

For a while it was just conversation, the kind that didn’t feel like work. You started with small things, normal things. Then, maybe out of morbid curiosity, you asked him about Fisk, almost casually, like it was something you were only half-remembering. Dex hesitated before answering, more out of instinct than suspicion.

Red Hook came up next, and that made him pause longer, because it wasn’t the kind of thing people usually asked about in passing. Still, he gave you what he had, watching you the whole time for a reaction that never really came. You just nodded along like it made sense to be talking about it like this, and that made him talk more than he should have.

But how could he focus on any of that when his mind…

Shoot her in the head.

“I’ve never done this before,” you said after a moment, glancing around. “A picnic, I mean.”

That caught Dex off guard. “What?”

You huffed a small laugh, a little embarrassed. “Yeah. Not like this, anyway.” You picked at the edge of the blanket. “We used to pretend, though. In the Red Room.”

You said it so lightly. Like it wasn’t something that should gut him. “In the basement of the facility I was raised in,” you went on. “Some of the girls would lay out scraps of cloth, call it grass.” You smiled, but it was fragile. “We’d share whatever we could steal from the kitchen and pretend it was… nice.”

Dex stared at you.

Kill her. She’s a Black Widow. She’s killed people. She’s—

“You deserved better,” he said.

You looked up at him, surprised. Then you smiled. “Yeah,” you said, after a second of consideration. “I think so too.”

Make it quick, coward.

He grabbed a strawberry just to have something to do with his hands, dipped it into the cream, and held it out toward you. It was an imitation of what you had done with sushi the other night. 

You chuckled, then leaned forward, taking it gently, your lips brushing his fingers just slightly.

Kiss her.

He watched you bite into it, watched the way your mouth curved, the way your eyes closed like you were enjoying it. Cream caught at the edge of your lips, but you didn’t notice. And that was it.

Kiss her. Indulge.

He leaned in because he couldn’t help it. He did it slowly, like he was giving you time to stop him.

You didn’t.

Your lips met his, and it was not rushed, not desperate like before. His hand came up to your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek as he tilted your face slightly, deepening it just enough to feel you respond, just enough to feel you lean into him.

You don’t deserve her. Kill her. Get it over with. 

His chest tightened painfully as he pulled back, breathing uneven, forehead almost brushing yours.

You smiled at him, a little dazed, and he knew. He couldn’t do it here. Not like this.

He leaned back fully, dragging a hand through his hair, trying to put himself back together. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.

You tilted your head. “What?”

He looked at you again, and felt his heart break in real time. “I don’t want to stay here,” he said.

You were now confused and a little unsure. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” he said immediately, more panicked than he meant to. “No. It’s not that.”

Kill her. Do it right.

He let out a deep breath. “Come back to mine,” he said.

Fucking coward. What are you waiting for?  She’s a terrible person. She’s killed more people than you. 

Your brows lifted slightly. “Your place?”

He nodded once.

If he did it there, it would be quiet. He would still make it quick and painless. And afterwards… he could mourn you in peace. He could hold your body as he cried into your neck. And maybe, some part of you would stay with him forever. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice smaller now. “I just… want more time with you.”

That part wasn’t a lie.

You studied him for a second, then you smiled the same trusting smile. “Okay,” you said.

And just like that, you followed him home.

—

The walk should have been simple. It was a straight line, a familiar route, nothing Dex hadn’t done a hundred times before without thinking. 

But inside his head, his thoughts were deafening.

Kill her.

It wasn’t a thought anymore. It was a command, pressing in from all sides until it felt like it might split him open from the inside.

Kill her. She’s dangerous. She’s lying. She’s done this before. You know what she is.

His jaw tightened, teeth grinding together as he kept walking, forcing his steps to stay even. You were beside him, close enough that your shoulder brushed his every few strides, like you hadn’t noticed the tension winding tighter and tighter in him.

Kill her. Do it before she does it first.

The words didn’t fade after they came anymore. They repeated, layered and stacked on top of each other until they stopped sounding like language and started sounding like pressure.

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

But then, another voice cut through.

Kiss her.

It didn’t argue. It pulled.

Kiss her again. Don’t let this end. She chose you. She’s still here.

His breath hitched slightly, chest tightening as the two sides collided, over and over, faster now, louder now, until there was no space between them.

Kill her. Kiss her. KILL HER. KISS HER.

It built and built, escalating into unbearable noise. They clawed and scraped and demanded all at once. His fingers twitched at his side, curling slightly like they were reaching for an answer, like his body was trying to decide for him.

One pull of the trigger. That’s all it would take, that’s—

Then, he felt your hand slip into his.

And for the first time in a long time, his brain was… quiet. 

It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t forceful. It was almost tentative at first, how your fingers trace his thumb lightly before settling into his palm like you’d done it a thousand times before. Like you hadn’t even considered that you shouldn’t.

Dex stopped breathing. His step faltered, just slightly, like his body didn’t quite know how to move without the noise driving it forward.

The commands that had been screaming seconds ago, the overlapping voices, the relentless pressure…they just ceased. As if you had reached inside his head and flipped a switch.

Dex stood there for half a second too long. His mind, which had been a constant storm of instruction and contradiction, felt… clear.

His fingers closed around yours slowly, almost cautiously, like he was afraid the moment would shatter.

You didn’t pull away. You didn’t even hesitate. You just… walked with him. 

And the quiet stayed. Step after step, it stayed.

By the time you reached his building, a fact had already settled into place inside his chest. He didn’t have to argue with himself about it. There was no internal debate, no weighing of outcomes or consequences.

He just knew he wasn’t going to kill you anymore.

Not tonight. Not later. Not at all.

Good person be damned. Bad person be damned. Rent be fucking damned. Whatever fragile system he’d built to justify what he did, none of it held any weight here, not anymore.

He wasn’t looking for redemption, and he wasn’t chasing some shallow kind of bliss that killing you might give him. That had never really been the point, no matter how many times he told himself it was. He just wanted you.

And it was a primal, wild want. 

He wanted your mouth on his again. He just wanted you to kiss him deeply and show him everything he’d missed, everything he’d never been given.

Dex slowed as he reached his door, keys already in his hand, but he didn’t unlock it right away. Instead, his eyes dropped briefly to where your fingers were still threaded with his. Then he looked at you. And there was nothing in his head telling him what to do anymore.

His thumb brushed lightly over your knuckles, a small, almost absent motion, before he finally unlocked the door. “Come in.”

—

His apartment was nothing like yours. In was just one open space, a bed pushed too close to the wall, a kitchen that barely separated itself from the rest of the room. No personality, no indulgence other than you. 

You didn’t say anything, though. No teasing comment, no subtle comparison, just that same acceptance you always gave him, like this was enough. Like he was enough.

Dex barely gave you time to take it in. The second the door shut behind you, he lost any semblance of restraint. 

His hand caught your waist and pulled you into him, his mouth crashing against yours with a kind of hunger that didn’t belong to a man who was ever in control. The kiss was messy, as if he was trying to take something he didn’t know how to ask for.

You gasped against him, your hands coming up to his chest, then his shoulders, leveling him and undoing him all at once. 

He walked you backward without breaking contact. One step, then another, until the back of your knees hit the bed and you fell onto it with. He followed instantly, like space between you was unbearable.

His hands were everywhere, your neck, your sides, your thigh, like he needed to confirm you were real, that you were still here, that you hadn’t disappeared the second he let himself want you this much. And then you felt him shudder just a bit, shoulder shaking. 

You pulled back just enough to look at him, your breath uneven, your hands coming up to his face, thumbs brushing his cheekbones.

“Dex?” you whispered, concern threading through everything. “What’s wrong? ”

“Nothing,” he insisted, almost defensive. “Nothing.”

But his eyes were glassy. He swallowed hard, like he was trying to force it down, trying to push it away before you could see it. After all, he didn’t know how to explain it.

How would he even begin to explain that you made his head quiet? That just being near you feels like something he’s never had before? That he doesn’t know what this is, but it’s too much and not enough at the same time?

“I’m fine,” he added, but it didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.

You said his name again, gentler this time. 

And that was it. That was the last thing holding him together.

“I wanna taste you,” he said honestly, almost reverently. 

You were caught slightly off guard. A small, breathy laugh escaped you. “You’ve kissed me before.”

But he shook his head, his big hands already frantically bunching the fabric of your sundress with an urgency that didn’t feel casual anymore. It felt like a need. Like an instinct he couldn’t hold back even if he tried. One hand gripped on your ass as the other hooked on the waistband of your panties, tugging it down desperately.

“No,” he said, voice deeper now. “I want to taste you.”

Oh.

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t stop him. You didn’t pull away. You let him move closer, let him guide you, let him fall on his knees like he was praying to a goddess in the altar of an ancient temple. You let him take that space between your legs as he wondered how much sweeter you could get. 

Here, he could at least pretend that he hadn’t been thinking about killing you not that long ago.

Dex sank lower, slower now, like he was trying to learn you, not take from you. His hands steadied himself against your thighs, his forehead dipping for just a second like he needed to breathe you in. He felt… wrecked.

His breath hitched softly as he leaned closer, the space between your heat and him shrinking until there was almost nothing left and then—

click.

It was quiet, but unmistakably the sound of safety coming off. 

Every instinct he had lit up at once, snapping back into place so violently it almost hurt. His body froze, breath catching.

He lifted his head slowly. And there you were, with a gun pointed at his head.

It was small, and easy to hide, the red room insignia etched to the side. You probably pulled from that little purse you always carried like it was just an accessory.

Of course.

Dex didn’t reach for anything. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to put space between you. He just… looked at you.

And instead of anger, his chest folded in on itself. What he felt was closer to heartbreak than it was rage. Because for one stupid, moment he had naively believed you felt safe with him.

“…Oh,” he said softly.

The gun wasn’t the most horrifying part. It was the fact that even now, even with the metallic click of the safety still ringing in his ears, even with death staring him directly in the face, Dex could not stop looking at you.

You were sprawled beneath him on his bed, dress dragged up your thighs by his own hands, your breathing still uneven from the way he had kissed you seconds earlier. Your lips were swollen and puffy. Your chest rose and fell too quickly. One of your sandal straps hung loose around your ankle where he’d nearly pulled you apart getting you onto the mattress. And somehow… he still wanted you so badly it physically hurt.

How could he be this fucking stupid?

He should’ve known. Especially with questions about Red Hook. The ports. Fisk. That was why you kept asking.

Every little question over food and coffee and pastries. Every casual mention between laughter. Every moment he thought you were trying to know him better—

No. You were working. Just like him.

Your employer wanted information, and you had been sent to pull it out of him piece by piece while he sat there completely fucking mesmerized by you.

And now you had what they needed. Or maybe they realised he didn’t know enough to be valuable. That was worse, because it meant that he was just another loose end.

His stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Not because you’d played him, because some pathetic, starving part of him had genuinely believed this had stopped being a job somewhere along the way. That maybe the way you kissed him outside your building had been real. That maybe when you held his hand and silenced every screaming voice in his head, it had meant something to you too.

Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

It you had looked cold, detached, amused, even cruel, this would have been easier. He would have known where to put it. Would have known how to hate you properly. But you looked devastated.

Your hand trembled slightly around the weapon pointed at him, and your eyes kept betraying you, flicking down to his mouth before snapping back up again. You looked like you hated this.

“I…” You swallowed. “You’re not useful to OXE anymore.”

He had known something felt off. He just hadn’t cared enough to stop. He just wanted you more than he wanted to survive.

Dex let out a shaky breath that almost sounded like laughter. “Fuck,” he murmured softly, and you twitched, feeling his breath on your naked core. 

You flinched immediately. “No. Don’t do that.”

His eyes flicked back to yours.

“Don’t act like this was just me manipulating you,” you said, and your voice cracked slightly now. “I know there was a contract on me. I know you got sent it. I know about the gun under your shirt. Don’t you dare pretend like you weren’t planning to kill me too.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Because what could he even say? You were right.

The notebook was sitting in his apartment right now, pages and pages documenting your routines, your apartment, your vulnerabilities.

He had memorized the ways to kill you before he ever memorized the sound of your laugh.

And all this time, you had let him follow you, let him think he was in control in that “accidental run in” in Central Park, when you were planning to eliminate him, too. 

And somehow, the two of you still ended up tangled together on his bed, half-dressed and breathing hard from kissing each other like starving people.

Dex’s gaze dropped involuntarily to your thighs, to the skin exposed beneath the ruined hem of your dress. To the way your body was still open for him despite the gun in your hand.

Fuck.

His fingers tightened unconsciously where they still gripped the fabric pooled around your hips.

You looked vulnerable.

And the absolute worst fucking part was that he still wanted to bury himself between your legs so badly he could barely think straight. Even now. Even knowing this was the end.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“You know what’s pathetic?” he asked quietly.

Your brows pulled together slightly.

Dex looked up at you from between your thighs, eyes dark and wet and unbearably earnest. “I still want to taste you.”

Your breath caught audibly.

“There’s a gun pointed at my head,” he whispered in disbelief. “and all I can think about is that I never got to know what you taste like.”

“Dex…” you breathed shakily.

But he shook his head immediately. “No, listen,” he said quickly. “I know what this is. I know what happens next.”

You looked away for half a second. That almost destroyed him, because he realized then that you didn’t actually want to kill him either. And that made him want you even more.

God, I’m so sick.

“I know you’re gonna kill me because it’s the job,” he continued. “Fine. I get it.” His eyes dropped again helplessly to the way your thighs trembled around him, then back up. “But Christ…” His voice cracked. “Just let me have this first.”

Dex looked humiliated and ruined all the same. And still completely sincere.

“I could die happy,” he admitted. “Just… let me taste you first, sweetheart.”

Your hand trembled. Not enough to miss, but just enough that Dex noticed.

The barrel of the gun was pressed against the center of his forehead now, cool metal against flushed skin, and still he didn’t move away from you. 

“Do it, then,” you whispered.

You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself, trying to force your hand not to shake while he knelt there between your thighs looking at you like this was the closest thing to worship he had ever known. Amazed that even like this, you were soaked for him.

“Fucking do it,” you said again, almost pleading now. “Before I…”

Before you what? Changed your mind? Cried? Dropped the gun?

Dex could see every possibility running through your brain all at once.

His hands slid down your thighs reverently.  “You’re shaking,” he murmured quietly.

“So are you.”

That almost made him smile.

The apartment felt impossibly small around the two of you. The warm yellow light above the kitchen sink made you look divine, coupled by the sound of your uneven breathing. The mattress dipped beneath your weight every time you shifted. Dex tilted his head slightly against the gun like he was accepting his fate. Accepting you.

That should have terrified him. Instead, all he could think about was how beautiful you looked above him— dress ruined, eyes glossy with tears you clearly didn’t want him seeing.

He had wanted you from the beginning, even if he hadn’t admitted it. But this was something else entirely. This hurt.

Dex tilted his head just enough to press a slow kiss against the inside of your thigh, and the sound you made nearly destroyed him. 

His eyes flicked up immediately, watching your reaction with awe. He couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you like this. Like he couldn’t believe you were reacting to him this way.

Dex kissed higher, and your hand flew to his hair immediately, fingers tangling there hard enough to pull a rough sound from his throat in return. He moaned against you.

The vibration of it shot through you so suddenly your back arched off the mattress, breath breaking apart, embarrassingly needy.

Dex's eyes kept fluttering shut every time you touched his hair, every time your thighs trembled around him, every time another helpless sound escaped you. He looked less like a man in control and more like a vampire feeding on his first prey. It was overwhelming.

Every time you twitched or gasped or tried to pull away from how intense it felt, he noticed immediately. He adjusted immediately, making you feel good mattered more than breathing. Like your pleasure mattered more to him than the gun pressed to his skull.

And fuck, did his tongue feel so fucking good. You could barely think straight. The room blurred at the edges, your thoughts dissolving one by one. Every nerve in your body felt lit raw, burning hotter and hotter every time he moaned pathetically against you again like he couldn’t help himself.

Dex sounded addicted to you already. He was too consumed by you and the sounds you were making now. They were small broken noises you clearly hated letting out but couldn’t stop anymore. Too consumed by the way your body kept reacting stronger and stronger beneath him despite your obvious attempts to stay composed.

Your hands tightened helplessly in his hair as another wave hit you, harder this time, your thighs trembling violently around his shoulders. “Dex—” you gasped brokenly.

He looked up instantly at the sound of his name. His eyes were blown wide. His lips swollen from kissing your skin. Hair ruined beneath your fingers. 

Then he sank back down, a man eating his last meal. He needed it to be a feast. 

Too much. It was too much.

Your body tightened all at once, every nerve pulling taut as pleasure crashed through you so hard it hurt. A sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, your entire body shaking as you finally came apart beneath him. Dex held onto you through all of it.

Your fingers slipped from his hair eventually, weak now, trembling as you tried desperately to catch your breath. Tears blurred your vision completely by the time the waves finally started easing enough for you to think again.

Dex pulled back immediately the second he realized you were crying harder.

“Hey,” he whispered instantly, breathing unevenly as he came back up toward you. His hands slid shakily to your waist, then higher, like he didn’t know where to touch to make sure you were okay. “Hey— look at me.”

You were still trembling beneath him, chest heaving as you struggled to come down from the drug-like high of the orgasm he gave you, the barrel of your gun on his temple now.

His thumb brushed shakily beneath your eye, catching tears against the pad of his finger. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, like the idea genuinely horrified him.

“Fuck—no,” you sputtered immediately, breath still wrecked as you stared at him through blurred vision. “Dex, fuck! How could you even say that?”

The concern on his face was so raw it physically ached to look at.

You were still shaking, your body trembling, your thighs dripping with spit and arousal like neither of you knew how to stop this anymore. 

You could trace every conversation backward now, see all the moments you carefully guided him toward the information you needed while he sat across from you like some fucking idiot who came to the conclusion you actually liked him. Except… 

You had fallen utterly in love with him.

Somewhere between the pastries and the wine and him writing down your coffee order in that stupid little notebook of his, the job had become real. Somewhere between him kissing you and him looking at you like your body wasn’t shameful or weaponized or ruined… you had stopped wanting this to end. 

And now here he was. Kneeling between your thighs with your gun to his head and your taste still on his mouth, looking at you like he’d die grateful if you asked him to.

It was as if, somewhere deep down, Benjamin Poindexter truly believed that if loving you ended in death, then maybe that was simply the closest thing he would ever get to being loved at all. That thought almost made you vomit from grief.

Your breathing broke unevenly as you stared down at him.

He still had one hand on your thigh, so fucking gentle.

“I don’t understand you,” you admitted shakily.

A sad smile ghosted across his mouth at that. He was exhausted. “I don’t either.”

You let out this awful sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as tears spilled harder down your face. “Fuck, Dex,” you choked out, “you were supposed to be a job.”

“So were you.”

You swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I should kill you,” you whispered suddenly. The sentence sounded wrong coming out now, like it was collapsing under its own weight before it even reached his ears.

Dex lowered his forehead slightly more firmly against the barrel of the gun, offering himself to you. He readjusted it, making sure that if you shot him now, it would be painless, like he was going to do to you. 

“Do it,” he whispered. “It’s what you were sent to do.” He sounded like he genuinely believed his life was worth less than your mission.

Your vision blurred hard. “I can’t,” you whispered.

He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, you can.”

“No!” You shouted out, panicked. “Don’t fucking… don’t even try to make this easier!”

When your finger jerked against the trigger, Dex still wouldn’t move. Fuck, he really trusted you to end it quick, did he? Even with doom pressed cold against his skin.

Your eyes squeezed shut hard enough to ache. You tried to force yourself back into training, back into discipline, back into the little girl who would get extra pieces of scrap food if she finished her mission well enough. 

But all you could feel was him. His mouth on your skin. The way he’d looked at you while you fell apart beneath him. The way he kept loving you despite knowing exactly what you were. “I’m gonna…” you whispered shakily, but you couldn’t finish the sentence.

You didn’t want to kill him. And that was the first truly selfish thing you had ever wanted.

You pulled the trigger anyway, and the gun went off.

The sound exploded through the apartment violently enough to shake the walls, but the bullet slammed into the floor behind him instead. You had missed a point blank shot intentionally. 

Your hand dropped. You stared at the damage of the splintering wood, breathing hard, horror rushing through your body all at once like ice water. “Oh my god,” you choked.

Dex thought he was dead.

For one longs excruciating second. He truly thought you had killed him. When he realised he wasn’t, he said your name immediately, climbing up the bed toward you “Hey, look at me.”

You genuinely couldn’t. Your entire body started shaking harder now, all the adrenaline and terror and grief finally catching up at once. “I can’t fucking do this,” you sobbed. “I can’t… I can’t—”

Dex cradled your face in both hands immediately.

“I’m a monster,” you whispered brokenly. “Dex, I’m a fucking monster.”

Dex said nothing. He only leaned forward slowly and kissed the tears from your cheeks one by one, like guilt itself had become holy.

And suddenly you understood something terrible about him: He does not love cautiously, nor rationally.

Every ounce of affection he gave came directly from the part of him that had been hurt the most. His soul had been beaten bloody and kept reaching anyway. The heart is a muscle, and his had torn itself apart trying to hold both of you afloat.

“You don’t get to say that like you’re different from me,” he whimpered against your skin.

Your breath hitched and that was when he kissed you like he was trying to pour every shattered piece of himself into your mouth before the world took it away again.

When his mouth parted against yours, you could still taste yourself on him. That made it more devastating. This ruined, trembling man was still carrying evidence of your pleasure on his tongue while he kissed you like you were worth saving.

Dex made a small sound against your mouth when you started crying harder, and suddenly his hands were everywhere, trying to hold you together physically because he didn’t know how else to do it.

His forehead dropped against yours when he pulled away. “We’re both monsters,” he whispered.

But it didn’t sound cruel. It sounded heartbreakingly close to love.

—end.

[sunfairyy]

do you even understand what you just did to my brain? love you

[memeorydotcom]

Maybe it's because I just finished watching ddba2. I've been aching for a fic between poly between Benjamin Poindexter x Reader/oc x Jack Abbott. If there's anyone willing to use my idea, please feel free to tag me and some credit 🧎🏻‍♀️

Hear new out fellow writers.

(spoilers for those who hasn't watch any daredevil series - I meant it!!! You have been warned)

Scenario below:

Reader/oc is currently either in their final year of residency or a attending doctor in ptmc, now their secret is that they're a former or rather retired vigilante. Reader/oc also provide a paid services where they could be hired by daredevil or any vigilante/superhero etc for medical aids.

Well you could say that Dex and Reader/oc has a past; Reader/oc could potentially been Dex "Northern Star" and would genuinely help him but it was too late because Kingpin had mentally and physically grasp Dex first and dd s3 happened and then ddba s1 ep 1 happened where our Reader/ofc closest friend died (rip foggy). Which led Reader/oc in ddba S1 to give up their vigilante days and decided to work in a regular hospital under a new name.

Jack enters the plot. Months have passed by as the Reader/oc worked in ptmc with the pitlings. Both Jack and the reader have this situationship that was never official because they're both scared and insecure with themselves about making it official. More angst plot here and there. Maybe some Jack is flirting with Samira to spice things up and add drama and more dramatic and chaos during their shift in ptmc could be nice.

The reunion between Dex and Reader/oc would be interesting. Imagine the jealous Jack would feels when he sees how Dex and Reader/oc interact with each other. Ngl I'm kinda loosing focus on what I should add for the plot and I have no idea how the ending would go saurrrrr 😭 it's up to y'all anyways 💋

[sun-hashira]

Willow

summary: prison was never going to stop Dex from finding you again.

who: Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter/Bullseye x Female!Murdock Reader

word count: 2.9k (i got carried away)

warnings: soulmate au, mentions of blood, injuries, break-in, imprisonment, emotional tension, and obsessive themes. If I have missed any please let me know!

divider by: @uzmacchiato

“Wherever you stray, I follow…” — Willow by Taylor Swift

It was the uncomfortable pain in your shoulder that woke you from your restful sleep.

A pain that was no longer sharp, not like it was that night, but one that still lingers as a pinching, persistent ache that settles deep in your shoulder on cold and wet nights like tonight.

Rolling onto your back, you lie there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and breathing through the pain as you gently massage three fingers against the ache, hoping it will pass and you won’t have to leave the coziness of your warm bed.

Feeling the rough scar beneath your fingers, you lie there trying to ignore the memories of how you got it, but when the sirens pass your apartment building, you find yourself slipping back into your memories of that day.

The day your life changed forever.

You, Foggy, and Karen had just left Josie’s Bar to check on Cafaro when the loud crack of a gunshot filled the air and pain hits you from behind. It rips through your right shoulder, taking your breath away before you fully understand what’s happened, as the force of it sends you stumbling forward.

But what made you stiffen was the blood splatter on Karen’s face as you realised that the bullet had exited your shoulder and hit Foggy, who had collapsed onto the ground as people around you screamed in horror, and for a few seconds you froze in pain and panic before adrenaline kicked in and you were moving before your mind caught up.

Yelling for someone to call an ambulance, you press your hands firmly against Foggy’s wound, willing your powers to stop healing you and to heal Foggy.

To keep him breathing, and to keep him stable. To keep him with you.

You were so lost in your panic that you didn’t even notice when Karen put her hands against your shoulder until she pressed down hard enough to make you gasp in pain as she tried to keep as much of your blood where it should be.

“Stay with me.” Her voice broke as each word filled with more panic. “Both of you, please.”

But you don’t answer. You can’t.

Not when you're forcing everything you have into Foggy. Not when you can hear your brother fighting on the roof of Josie’s Bar, knowing that he’s listening to Foggy’s heartbeat, to your blood dripping onto the street.

With your body begging to heal the hole in your shoulder, your vision blurs as you push through the pain, putting everything you have into Foggy. You hadn’t even realised that you'd been repeating the same things over and over.

“Keep breathing. Just keep breathing. Stay with me.”

But the strain keeps building, becoming sharper with each passing moment, when a heavy impact lands behind you three. Your breath catches as your powers flicker for just a moment as you silently pray that you won’t lose them both tonight. Not Foggy and Matt.

Not your brothers.

Breathing deeply, you steady your hands, channel your powers, and check that Foggy is still breathing as the paramedics that have just arrived rush to help before you turn your head and let out a sigh of relief.

Not Matt.

You slouch into Karen's waiting arms, your pain finally catching up with you as you fully turn to look at Benjamin Poindexter on the ground, barely conscious, and as you make eye contact, it happens.

The pleasant burning feeling on your left collarbone. The sign you've been waiting nearly your whole life for.

The sign that you have met your soulmate.

And yours has just shot you.

Breathing deeply, you push the memory out of your mind, reminding yourself that you’re in your apartment tucked away in your warm bed and not bleeding in the arms of your friend.

But the ache is still there, still pinching, and you realise that no amount of gentle rubbing is going to relieve it tonight. Sighing you toss your covers back, slide your feet into your soft slippers to make your way to your kitchen, where you last put the pain relief balm.

Slowly you push yourself to stand, your aching shoulder throbbing in protest as you put on your fluffy robe, fingers brushing against the scar, and take a deep breath.

Checking your clock that reads 1:44 AM, you tighten the robe and step into the hallway.

The apartment is pitch black except as you make your way towards the kitchen, you don’t bother turning on any lights, using the moonlight to help lead you to the balm left on the center island.

Opening it, you gently massage the soothing gel onto your scar, letting out a sigh of relief as you feel it take effect. Placing the lid back on the tin and tucking it into your robe's pocket, you turn back towards the bedroom when the sound of fabrics moving against each other comes from the darkness of the living room.

Slowly you grab a knife from the wooden block and move carefully towards the sound, slippers gently slapping against the wooden floors. Keeping your breathing as quiet as possible, you slowly crept around the corner and quickly flicked the lamp on, flinching at the brightness and nearly dropping the knife when you saw who was sitting on the sofa.

Benjamin Poindexter was supposed to be imprisoned and serving multiple life sentences. Not casually sitting on your new sofa.

Blood darkening the side of his shirt as one of his hands pressed tightly against it, though a slow trickle of blood slips through his fingers. His head lifts the second the light turns on, and for a moment he doesn’t move; he just stares at you with a look in his eyes that you can’t quite place.

For a few seconds, neither of you speak. You just look at him, cataloguing everything that has changed since you last saw him. He’s bigger and bulkier than before, as if he had nothing to do in prison except gain more muscles. You ignore how it makes your heart stutter.

Dex’s eyes flicker briefly towards the knife clutched in your hand, and a smirk appears on his face as he looks you in the eyes. “Are you going to use that?” he asks quietly.

“Why are you here?” Your voice comes out stronger than you expected. “What do you want?”

Soulmate or not, this is still the man who shot you.

Dex’s eyes lower briefly to the blood staining his side. His hand still tightly clutching the wound. “I needed help.”

Then his eyes lift back to yours. “And I wanted to see you.”

Something tightens in your chest because part of you understands exactly what he means.

For a moment you stay where you are, knife still low at your side, eyes flickering once again towards the blood dripping from his hand and staining your sofa.

“You’re staining my sofa,” you say, placing the knife on the shelf, hands more steady than you feel.

Dex tilts his head, eyebrows twitching in confusion. “What?”

“My sofa is brand new, and you’re ruining it.”

“Oh,” he says, finally noticing his blood soaking the cushions. “So I am.”

You exhale slowly, feeling the last bit of adrenaline leave your body. When your brother told you this morning he was going to see Dex in prison, this wasn’t how you expected your night to go.

“Let me see it,” you say.

Dex stills at your words, his hand moving to his ribs, his eyes slightly hopeful.

“Your injury,” you sharply say, face flushing red. “Not that.”

His eyes stay on you for a second before he slowly moves his hands away from his body. Blood immediately gushes through the tear in his shirt, a stab wound from what you could see and probably a few hours old.

You swear softly under your breath. “You should be at a hospital, especially with those face wounds as well.”

“No.” His answer was quick but certain. “Just you, only you.”

You don’t bother arguing as you step closer, removing your robe and setting it below you on the coffee table. He looks worse up close, pale even in the light of your warm lightbulb, and the left side of his face was bruised.

But his eyes never left you, slowly roaming up and down, taking in your light blue PJs, and smirking at your fluffy cow slippers.

“What?” you ask, reaching for the box of medical supplies you kept in the ottoman. Usually you would have used your powers, but tonight you were too tired and drained from helping out at the back-alley clinic your boss ran.

“Fluffy cow slippers?” His amusement was clear in his voice.

“Shut up,” you say, putting all your supplies on the table beside you. “They were a gift from Karen, and they’re very comfortable.”

Dex snorted. “Sure.”

“Are you armed?” you ask, pulling on gloves and sliding to your knees.

“Yes.” He said, spreading his legs to give you more room.

“… Are you planning on using it?” You ask, facing your supplies.

“No.” His answer was quick and certain again. “Not on you, never on you.”

Again. You couldn’t help but think.

“You’re nervous,” Dex says quietly, still watching you, and you begin to wonder if he’s even blinked.

You snort at that. “You broke into my apartment in the middle of the night and are now bleeding all over my sofa.”

“You’re still helping me.” He says like this means something.

You refuse to answer that as you reach for his shirt because deep down it does.

“Lean forwards.” You say quietly.

Dex obeys immediately and you lift his shirt. The movement exposing his defined muscles, and a few inches above the wound in black letters was your name. Unblemished, like he had done everything to protect it.

You freeze slightly at the sight of it, feeling the rush of emotions that happened every time you thought about him. Shaking the feelings away, you grabbed the disinfectant and soaked a gauze.

Silence settled between you as you dabbed at the wound, soaking up as much blood as you could before grabbing a fresh gauze.

“You didn’t come to see me,” he whispered breaking the silence, his eyes leaving you and going towards his blood-soaked hand.

“Don’t,” you say quietly, pressing the alcohol-soaked gauze harder against the wound than intended.

Dex barely reacts as his eyes move back to you. “Don’t what?”

“Talk like this changes anything.” You whisper, grabbing a new gauze to wipe away the remaining blood.

And for the first time since you walked into the living room, something shifts in his expression. Not anger, not hatred, but something you didn’t expect to see on him.

Hurt.

“I was in prison,” Dex continues quietly. “You knew, but you never came.”

You still at his words because what was there to say? For months you’ve refused to talk about what happened that night, focusing on your family and pushing every thought or feeling about him away.

For months you’ve kept your bond with him to yourself despite how much you wanted to cry and rant to someone about it without being judged or scorned.

You force yourself to keep working, fingers steady despite the sudden tightness in your chest. “Yes,” you say evenly. “I knew.”

The quiet is heavy as it fills the room before you clear your throat, reaching for the needle and thread in the kit. “You need stitches.”

“Sit up properly if you can,” you instruct, pulling all the necessary items closer to you.

Dex watches you for a second longer before pushing himself upright from the cushions, his jaw as he straightens himself up.

“Take the shirt off.” You say, preparing everything that you needed to stitch him up.

Dex drops the blood-soaked fabric onto the table behind you, exposing the full extent of the wound. The weapon grazed more than it pierced, but it still tore enough flesh to make a mess of his side.

Wiping the surrounding area with a fresh gauze, you gently rubbed some numbing cream around the wound and threaded the needle while waiting for it to dry.

“This is going to hurt.” You say, leaning closer towards him.

Dex goes still at your words, his attention once again focused fully on you.

You try to ignore his eyes on you, focusing completely on stitching the wound perfectly and not on how close he was now that you’re kneeling between his legs and leaning against him to get better access to the wound.

“You should’ve had this cleaned hours ago,” you mutter nearly halfway done.

“I was busy.” He answers as his hand gently brushes against your shoulder.

“With?” You ask, eyes still not leaving the wound but not shrugging his hand away.

His eyes scan your face. “Finding you.”

Your hand slips slightly. Not enough to hurt him, but enough for him to notice.

“You already knew where I lived.”

“I wanted to see you.”

There’s that sentence again. So honest, like there was nothing else more important.

Silence settles between you again, broken only by the quiet rattle of paper as you open fresh gauzes and the sound of rain against the windows. Focusing once again on your task, you quickly lose yourself in what is familiar.

Then Dex quietly says, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

You tie off the last stitch before grabbing more gauze and soaking it in antiseptic alcohol. “Most prisoners send a letter.”

“I didn't think you’d like letters from me.”

You couldn’t stop your quiet snort.

“Did you think about me?” he says quietly after a while. Hand tightening on your shoulder like the answer to this question could hurt him more than his wound.

You press the gauze against the stitches, cleaning them and the surrounding area. “You were all over the news, quite hard to miss.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He says cupping your face and forcing you to look at him.

His face is blank, but his eyes are looking at you like he’s already decided you belong in his life.

And maybe you did. But it causes that familiar complicated feeling to twist in your chest.

“You shot me,” you say softly before you can stop yourself. “I waited years for you, and you shot me.”

Your confession settles heavily between you, and for the second time that night, Dex looks away.

“I know.” He says his face filled with something you couldn’t place—guilt, maybe.

The apartment smells faintly of antiseptic, rain, and blood. Outside the storm gets stronger.

Inside the living room, neither of you move.

“You’ll live,” you say, taking off your gloves.

Dex looks down at the neat line of stitches crossing his side before his gaze drifts back to you. “I know.”

Standing up, you move all the soiled items aside so that you can toss them in the kitchen bin. “You should go before the numbing wears off.”

Moving back to the table, you pack up the remaining medical items, making a mental note to restock and place them back in the ottoman.

Leaning down to grab your robe, your breath catches as Dex reaches out his hand, gently grabbing your wrist, his thumb gently pressing against your pulse.

“You’re shaking,” he says quietly.

“I’m tired.” You say, making no move to pull away.

“You’re drained.” He states.

You almost deny it. But what would be the point? He noticed everything else about you tonight.

“I’ve had a long night,” you remind him.

“And you still helped me.” He states like this means something.

Before you could reply, Dex’s gaze drops to your shoulder. To the scar barely hidden by your shirt. His expression shifts into the same look as earlier.

“I didn’t mean to hit you,” he says honestly. “You moved in front of him so quickly I didn’t have time to stop.”

You look away at his admission, part of you wanting to believe him while the other part wants to shoot him to make it even.

Rain hits the windows harder as you begin to feel it again, that persistent and wanting pull between you becoming tighter the longer he stays.

“You need to leave,” you say quietly.

Dex looks at you for a long second. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”

The question hit you like a punch to the gut. Months of knowing exactly who he was to you, and you’d done nothing.

No visits. No letters. Nothing except pretend the name on your skin didn’t exist.

“I was in prison,” Dex continues quietly. “You knew where I was.”

You couldn’t force yourself to hold his gaze. Not when you knew what he was really asking. Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you choose me?

But you can’t answer that. Not honestly. Not when the truth was that every day you wanted to see him, to betray your friends and your family just to get a day with him.

“You need to leave.” You say, instead of spilling the truth, pulling your wrist out of his grip.

For a second, you think he might argue. His stare fixed so intensely on you that you almost cave and spill the truth.

Then he stands, pulling his shirt back over his head, and makes his way towards the window. Pushing it open wider, as storm blows cold air and rain into the living room as he tosses one leg out before he pauses and turns to look back at you again.

“I’m going to see you again.” He states.

Then he disappears into the night, and you’re left standing alone in your living room.

Your fingers slowly brush his name on your skin, and you can’t stop the feeling of wanting to see him again.

A/N: This is my first one-shot written so feedback is welcome!

@benspoindexter @noisyinfluencerstrawberry @genya1617

[i-smoke-chapstick]

'SUPERNOVA, [CHAPTER ONE]

-BENJAMIN POINDEXTER X READER-

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒 ; Bleeding out and hunted, Matt Murdock turns to his last option- the former avenger known as "Angel", whose disappeared after the world took too much from her. When Benjamin Poindexter is placed in her care, healing him becomes more than just physical. The only problem? Some people don't want to be saved.

⋆ tags/warnings. Benjamin Poindexter x female!reader. SLOW BURN!!! Not sure how many chapters this will be yet (but likely a LOT)! LOTS OF PLOT SET-UP!! AGE GAP ROMANCE! LOTS OF EVENTUAL ANGST, FLUFF, AND SMUT! Not much Dex in this chapter. Reader's powers are weird. Warnings for mild body horror. Reader is an ex-avenger, originally an experiment by HYDRA, and naturally has intense trauma (and regenerative/healing powers through her blood! think deadpool just quieter and more depressing). Set during/after the AVTF manhunt for Matt and Dex. Writing this kind of artistically and as character studies for everyone. Dex and reader are doomed soulmates, she becomes his northern star. Basically two characters who do NOT want to be saved consistently being saved by each other...until they learn to live for each other. Eventual smut in later chapters. More about reader is revealed as the story goes on. I'm taking canon out back and beating it with a stick until it stops twitching. You'll be able to find this fic on Ao3 as well once published!

⋆ tag list tba (let me know if you'd like to be added 💙)

♫ “We set fire to these skies for our love and I'd do it all again / 'Cause I'm damned to loving you.” Damned by Miguel

"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

Your eyes track the lettering on the book in your hands. You'd rather be ringing them around your neck, though the thought quickly fades when you digest it would be quite counter-productive.

The cities skyline still feels like an unfamiliar backdrop. New York, New York. If you listen close enough, you think you can hear Frank Sinatra's voice somewhere in the distance taunting you.

The weight of the book feels heavy when you opt to launch it across your bed, falling with a small thud against porcelain white sheets. Set against your porcelain white walls in your porcelain white apartment. Dull. Messy. You really should clean, you briefly think, but you don't own a vacuum.

You don't own anything. You never have.

Sitting up, you sigh at the sound of The Winter Soldier's voice on the end of the line.

"Didn't think you'd pick up." His voice is rough, like the war torn thing he is. Half of a laugh slips out from you, that seems more like a tired scoff.

"Wasn't going too," You murmur, "But I've got nothing better to do."

You lean over, quickly grabbing your remote to switch on the small flat-screen of your television.

The news broadcast flashes bright and stark against the plain setting of your studio apartment. You can hear something shifting on his end- likely his boots against the pristine floors of the newly refurbished Avengers Tower. What a fucking joke.

“Look,” he starts again, quieter now. “I’m...not calling to check in. Not this time.”

The dry laugh you've been holding in finally decides to escape out of you. "Could’ve fooled me."

You’ve been dodging his calls ever since the last one turned into him hovering over you like a paranoid mother bird- checking in every five seconds like you were about to drop dead if he stopped.

You hear him swallow on the line, directing your focus back to your television. The New Avengers. There is something poetically hollow about the group of unfamiliar faces posed heroically together. You make a mental note to thank Sam Wilson if you ever see him again for refusing to endorse this mess.

"You should hate this." You sigh, switching between channels before he gets the chance to grimace.

"I do," He says quickly, almost defensively- voice rising before it softens- "But I'm doing it anyway."

The silence stretches.

"Why?"

There’s a faint exhale on the other end, like he’s already tired of the answer.

"Because walking away didn’t fix anything," he says. “Tried that. Didn’t stick.”

You snort softly, eyes still on the flickering TV. "Yeah? Retirement not treating you well, Barnes?"

"Don’t start," he mutters, but there’s no bite to it. Just habit. "I’m serious. I’m just… there," he says. “Keeping an eye on things.”

More clattering sounds from the other end, a group of loud voices raising at each other, the distinct yell of the name "Bob." You bite your tongue when you realize the peaceful, quiet atmosphere of the natural conversation has dissipated. Of course, he's not alone. He's got his new team right behind him.

He clears his throat, obviously strained. Moving closer to the speaker, his voice lowers into something more private, though no less awkward.

"You coming back would help," he says, more quietly this time. Not pushing. Just putting it out there. "We could...we could use an Angel around this place."

Angel. That moniker has haunted you for as long as you could remember. From the dirty mouths of HYDRA's handlers, to the front-page headlines of The Daily Bugle, to the soft sound on an old friends lips.

You don’t answer right away. The suggestion is the same one he's attempted to ask a million times before.

You flip the channel again and let the buzz settle into white noise. Static. Some late-night rerun, laugh track echoing too loudly in your too quiet apartment.

Your gaze briefly flickers to the discarded book, pages now bent. The suffocating colorlessness of your studio apartment. The increasingly loud shouts on the line that start to sound more warm than cold.

"I-" You cut yourself off. What do you even say? Send me the details? Where do I sign up? Please, get me out of here?

"Um-"

BANG.

You instantly flinch at the loud noise ripping through your apartment like a bullet. Your head snaps towards the door.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Another round. Sharper. Impatient.

“...Is...is someone there with you?” Bucky asks immediately, voice tightening- the rapid fire knocks sounding more like muffled scuffling on his end.

“No,” you say, already standing. “No, I-”

BANG.

“Hey!” you snap, moving toward it. "Door’s still attached, you know-”

“Open it. Now. Please.”

You freeze for half a second. You know that voice.

"You've got to be kidding me-" You huff, cutting yourself off, "I'll call you back, Bucky-"

"Wait-" The line goes dead when you hang up sharply, yanking the door open with a force.

And there he is, Matt Murdock. Just barely holding it together, one arm slung tight around a body that’s very clearly not standing on its own.

Blood. A lot of it.

And...a man. Hanging limp against him, head lolled, soaked through. A blue tactical gear torn, red spreading faster than it should. Completely unfamiliar, though something tells you that you wouldn't recognize him regardless with his face beat in like this.

"Move," Matt says, already pushing past you.

"Who the hell is that?" You gawk, closing the door behind the three of you as Matt, or rather Daredevil, rushes to your bed.

"Who is that?" you demand, sharper now. "What did you do?"

"Nothing I didn’t have to," Matt shoots back, already straining. "He needs help."

"And you thought of me," you say, eyebrows pulled together. "Gee, thanks."

"He’s dying."

“Yeah, I can see that...Matty, you've got to take him to a hospital-”

"No time."

"There’s always time for a hospital-"

“Not for him.”

That finally gives you pause, though it's less about what he says and more about how he says it.

Your gaze lingers on the slow, uneven rise of the man’s chest.

One breath.

Another.

Barely.

"…You’re tracking blood through my apartment," you mutter. The man is thrown in a similar fashion you threw that damn book onto your bedspread.

"I’ll clean it."

"You won’t."

"No," he admits. "Probably not. Please, Angel."

Angel. Fuck you, Murdock. Fuck you, and your catholic guilt. Thinking I'm a damn miracle worker.

"...Do you have something sharp?"

Without question, Matt leans forward to feel around to swipe a throwing knife from the now unconscious man. He flinches when he hears you take it to your own palm, slicing through the delicate flesh. The small gash bleeds in a slow drip, which you hover over the mysterious dying man.

Matt watches in frantic unease as you use the same knife to cut through the mans suit, exposing the bullet wound. You focus in, pressing your now sliced palm to the bloodied, injured skin.

"It went through?"

"...Clean shot." Matt struggles to acknowledge anything past watching your power work. If his mask wasn't on, you're sure his face would be taut with a strict mix of judgement and reverence for you and your power.

You nod, letting out a sigh.

"Is it...Is it working?" He asks, and you clench your jaw. Matt helicopters over you and the man, leaning in and pacing. He finally takes off his mask with chagrin, sweaty and tired.

"...Who is he?" You ignore the question. "What did he do?"

The distant sounds of sirens outside seem to eclipse whatever answer Matt could possibly give you.

"…I’ll tell you later," he says.

You stare at him for a second.

"…That bad?"

He doesn’t answer.

Yeah.

That’s all you needed.

The man violently convulses underneath your touch, body twitching as he strains. As if on instinct, Matt holds him down for you. Something passes between the two of you. An understanding perhaps. It's definitely working.

As Matt works on restraining him to your bed post with cut, bloodied sheets. You begin to feel the familiar, swallowing flatness of your own skin repairing itself.

Then- you hear it. And so does Matt, his head tilting in the direction of your TV.

"Breaking news tonight out of Manhattan: Vanessa Fisk, wife of New York Mayor Wilson Fisk, is in critical condition following what officials are calling a targeted attack at a secured boxing match earlier this evening. Emergency services responded to reports of chaos inside the venue, with multiple injuries confirmed and the scene now under active federal investigation."

You stare slack jawed at the TV you forgot to turn off. The TV you've been previously tuning out since the moment you turned it on.

"Law enforcement sources have identified two suspects in connection with the incident: the vigilante known as 'Daredevil' and the individual Benjamin Poindexter, also known as 'Bullseye'. Authorities are urging civilians to remain indoors as the situation develops, while officials describe the case as ‘highly volatile and ongoing'."

A heavy beat of silence before Matt takes matters into his own hands, breathing heavily, and reaching to turn off the television completely.

Your eyes flash when you direct them between the now black screen and the man...'Bullseye', still twitching underneath your palm. You slowly move to back away, hand completely healed.

The bullet wound looks as though it was never there to begin with.

You turn to Matt in the tense silence. You don't comment on the situation, noting the severity of the pleading, desperate look on his face. You try to process the information. Wilson Fisk. Vanessa Fisk.

"...If she's dead-"

"I know."

"He did this?"

"I know." Matt struggles out, voice raising. A plea for understanding, a show of his own.

You swallow, eyes darting between the man, the mask, your phone left on your nightstand.

"He'll be up in eight hours. We'll...we'll go from there." You whisper.

Matt nods, finally relaxing, taking a much needed seat on the edge of your bed, running his hands over his face.

Your room suddenly seems a lot more colorful with all the blood.

[sunfairyy]

guys, what’s happening?? so many ‘x reader’ pregnancies over here 😬 did I miss something 😭

[icarusignite]

a tangled mess of knots, i confess (ch.1)

Pairing: Fire Lord Zuko x Earth Nation Envoy Reader

Summary: You're a delegate from the Earth Nation, sent to negotiate treaties and arrange a suitable bride from your homeland for the fire lord. Unbeknownst to you, he already has a bride in mind, and he refuses to make your job easy for you.

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: none. Just drunk zuko in this one. No use of y/n

A/N: Zuko propaganda got to me I fear lmao. He's lowkey Jinshi from Apothecary Diaries coded here because his luscious hair reminded me of him. I haven't watched the movie yet cuz school's been beating my ass, and it's been a VERY long time since I watched the series so this is based on vibes and tiktok edits of Zuko alone. Will probably be a series :)

AO3

The Fire Nation's palace gardens were deliberately vast, designed to remind any visiting dignitary of their grandeur, but at this late hour, they felt abandoned. Lanterns burned low along the winding paths, their amber glow softened by drifting night air, and the distant murmur of the capital had faded, like the memory of a sound rather than the sound itself. 

You had not intended to wander this far from your assigned quarters. Having been here for almost three months now, your days followed a familiar pattern—meetings layered atop meetings and tedious negotiations with men who liked the sound of their voice too much. Today was supposed to be your day off, but you had decided not to join your fellow Earth Nation delegates in their eager exploration of the Fire Nation capital. 

Back home, your colleagues liked to joke that you'd rather choose a ledger over leisure, and that even your dreams must be filled with parchment and policy. They weren't entirely wrong. You simply liked to stay ahead of your tasks. Nonetheless, even you needed a break, which is what led you to wander the grounds at this outrageous hour, your eyes burning from hours spent poring over scrolls with a posture so abysmal it would have made your grandmother whack you with her cane. 

That is when you saw him.

At first, he was only a dark shape against the lighter stone of the pavilion steps. The Fire Lord looked nothing like the man you had spent weeks stuck in meetings with. In council chambers, his every word chosen with care, his presence filling the room whether he spoke or not, but here, his posture was unguarded, elbows resting loosely against his knees, hands hanging between them as though he had forgotten what to do with them. His head was tilted back, his gaze fixed upon the sky as though searching for something. 

It was strange, seeing him without the armour of expectation. His hair, usually bound in that precise, formal half-knot befitting his station, had come loose and dark strands slipped free, stirred gently by the night breeze, brushing against his cheek and the sharp line of his jaw. This was the man who had once been a prince in exile, a figure whispered about in war stories and political cautionary tales alike, but right now, he looked rather young and a little forlorn. 

The absence of guards around him was also alarming. You had grown accustomed to the invisible wall that surrounded him during the day, a careful choreography of soldiers and attendants ensuring that no one came too close, but here, there was nothing. No steel or watchful eyes lurking in the shadows. Just him, the openness of the garden, and you, spying on him like some oddity. 

You reminded yourself that you should leave him be, because this version of him was not yours to witness. You were merely a guest here, a representative of a nation that had once stood in bitter opposition to his own, and there were lines that you were meant to respect.

But you couldn't stop yourself from observing him, wondering not for the first time, what it must be like to carry a life so steeped in contradiction. To be both ruler and exile, victor and penitent, feared and respected. He looked rather lonely. 

The breeze shifted then, cool against your skin, and with it came the scent of smoke and night-blooming flowers, an odd but not unpleasant pairing, like the Fire Nation itself. 

You thought to yourself absently that he would make someone a good husband. The notion was absurd because it was so at odds with everything you had been taught to expect. Fire Lords were not meant to be good husbands. They were meant to be the axis upon which an empire turned, but over the course of your endless meetings, you had noticed a hard-earned patience from Fire Lord Zuko. He was a man who listened, even when his advisors spoke over one another in their thinly veiled desperation.

And oh, how desperate they were in their singular goal to see him married. They all circled the matter with varying degrees of tact. The Fire Nation needed a future, they said. The Fire Nation needed continuity.

The Fire Nation needed a queen.

You were unfortunately a part of that effort, and one of your many assigned duties was to review the eligible noble daughters of Ba Sing Se with Zuko and ensure that he picked the one best suited to the future of both your nations. If you succeed and return home having orchestrated such a match, your future will be secured as neatly as his. Promotions, accolades, and the envy of your peers, it would all be yours.

But it was the most difficult of your tasks, because the damned Fire Lord had avoided every attempt of yours to sit down and actually make a selection. 

When you turned to leave, your shoes made a whisper of a sound, but it was enough, and suddenly Zuko was no longer looking up at the sky, but at you. He didn't look particularly angry, and you had half a mind to pull out your scroll of eligible brides and demand he make a choice so you could finally go home. But that would be rather ridiculous. 

You straightened instinctively, your body remembering protocol even as your mind lagged behind it, and you dipped your head politely. "Forgive me, my lord," you murmured, the words smooth from repetition, though they felt strangely out of place. "I did not mean to intrude."

When you lifted your gaze, he simply shrugged with an odd smile. "You need not be frightened," he responded gently. 

His choice of words made sense, you supposed, coming from a boy raised in the shadow of his father, a father you have heard stories of. Perhaps Zuko's gentleness came as a rebellion against what came before. 

"I am not afraid, my lord," you said bluntly. 

"You are not?" There was something boyish in the question that did not quite belong to the Fire Lord, but undeniably belonged to him.

"You're not a particularly frightful sight right now, truth be told..." The pause that followed was long enough for realization to strike, and you added belatedly, "...my lord." 

For a heartbeat, you were certain you had overstepped, and that even his patience could not excuse it. But then he laughed, startling you more than his anger would have. 

"That is good to hear, I suppose."

Only when you were no longer bracing for reprimand, you noticed the slur in his speech, so subtle that you might have dismissed it if not for the hours you had spent listening to him speak with precise, measured clarity. His words now were a fraction softer around the edges, the consonants not quite as sharp. 

Today was your day off because it was his day off too, you remembered. You had been told by his advisors that he had taken leave to meet old companions in the city. Rulers were permitted their reprieves, however rare, but the image of Fire Lord Zuko drinking in a tavern, surrounded by boisterous friends, was a hard one to conjure. 

Not knowing what else to say, you tilted your head back toward the sky and reached for the safest thing you could find. "The moon is quite lovely tonight."

You expected him to offer something equally benign in return, but instead he said, with complete and utter sincerity, "I have a friend whose girlfriend turned into the moon once."

You gaped at him, certain you must have misheard. There was nothing in your training as an envoy that could have prepared you for that, and no diplomatic phrasing that accounted for friends whose girlfriends became celestial bodies. 

Yes, Fire Lord Zuko was most certainly drunk. 

He made that even clearer when he attempted to rise, and his foot caught on a stray pebble. With a flick of your wrist, the stone skittered out of the way, pulled by your bending as easily as breath, but it was too late to prevent his awkward misstep. Zuko pitched forward, and you moved without thinking, your hand darting out to catch the back of his robes, pinching the fabric to halt his momentum before he could meet the ground face-first.

For a brief moment, the two of you were caught in an odd, suspended tableau, him leaning forward just enough to feel the pull of your grip, you standing just behind him, holding a Fire Lord by the back of his clothing like one might a particularly troublesome cat.

When he straightened, his cheeks were aflame, though you were certain half the flush was due to whatever he'd been drinking. 

"Well," he mutters breathlessly, "this is rather undignified."

You released your hold and shrugged. "We all have our moments. Even a Fire Lord cannot avoid the errors of being a mortal man."

Determined to salvage what remained of his dignity, Zuko huffed and turned to walk, but he made it only three steps before he bent forward, one hand braced against his thigh. "Damn you, Sokka," he grumbled under his breath. "I know I shouldn't have had that last—"

He broke off with a hiccup, and you resisted the urge to laugh. 

"Do you want me to get someone for you?" you asked, when you had composed yourself enough. "An attendant, perhaps?"

Zuko waved his hand dismissively. "I am fine. I do not wish to inconvenience anyone."

"You look on the verge of collapsing where you stand...my lord."

"I am fine."

You sighed, debating whether it would be appropriate to leave him be. But then you remembered that if something were to happen to him, your promotion would be out of reach, so in your own selfish best interest, you had to ensure that he returned to his chambers. 

"Very well," you sighed, holding out your arm. "Allow me to escort you."

You hoped he would refuse, likely to preserve whatever remained of his authority in this increasingly compromised state, but he took your arm almost eagerly. At first, your support was merely precautionary, but with each step, he leaned in a little more, and by the time you reached the threshold of the palace interior, you were practically lugging him. 

You had not realized, until now, quite how solid he was, or just how much of him there was to support.

By day, the palace was all order and intention, wide corridors lined with guards, servants and courtiers drifting about like bright fish through a controlled current. You had learned its shape in pieces, the path from your chambers to the council room, the turn toward the library, and the sunlit courtyards where meetings sometimes spilled over. 

But at night, it was a labyrinth. Dimly lit braziers cast flickering light along the halls, and every turn looked like the last, every carved doorway indistinguishable from the next. It might have been manageable if you were not half-carrying the Fire Lord. 

"Where am I supposed to be taking you, my lord?" you demanded brusquely. 

Zuko was draped over you in a way that would have been scandalous if anyone were around to witness it, one arm slung heavily across your shoulders and his breath warm against your temple. 

"I cannot very well wander the palace indefinitely with you in this state."

He made a sound that might have been agreement, or it might have been a laugh. It was difficult to tell.

"Left," he murmured after a moment, one hand pointing in a direction that may or may not have corresponded to reality.

You briefly considered tossing him over your shoulder. It would be a more efficient way to go about this, but the idea of striding through the halls, carrying the Fire Lord like a sack of grain, was ludicrous. 

So you continued as you were, half dragging, half carrying him, your steps uneven as you compensated for his shifting weight while he muttered directions into your shoulder at irregular intervals.

"Not that one," he said once, when you veered toward a doorway that looked identical to the last three. "Other—no, the other other—"

"You are being exceedingly helpful," you remarked sarcastically. 

"Thank you. I try." He sounded smug enough that you had the sudden urge to dump him right there. 

Eventually, by some combination of his vague guidance and your stubborn persistence, you reached his chambers. You knew it before he confirmed it, though he did so anyway with a triumphant hum.

The Fire Lord's private quarters should have been the most heavily attended area in the palace, staffed with guards and attendants alike, ready to respond at a moment's notice, but there was no one around. You glanced around once more, hoping someone would materialize if you looked hard enough, but no one did. 

"Well," you complained, more to yourself than to him, "that is inconvenient."

"You wanted help?" Zuko asked. 

"Yes. That would have been ideal."

"But I am here. Who else could you possibly need?"

"You are why I need help, my lord."

With no one to relieve you, you had little choice but to continue, somehow managing to push the doors open while keeping him upright. His chambers were dimly lit, the glow of a few low-burning braziers casting long shadows across polished floors and rich fabrics. It was spacious, though not ostentatious, far less adorned than you might have expected, though perhaps that said more about him than the Fire Nation itself.

Your focus remained fixed on the singular goal of reaching the bed without collapsing under the effort, thinking that you deserved a promotion for your efforts. Babysitting a drunk Fire Lord was not in your list of expected duties as an envoy. 

However, when you reached the bed, you stumbled, and Zuko's grip on your arm tightened reflexively, pulling you forward enough to disrupt what little balance you had left. The two of you tipped together in a graceless tangle of limbs and fabric, until suddenly you were on the bed. 

Or rather, you were on him. 

Your hands had come down to brace yourself, your elbows planted firmly on either side of his head, caging him in without intention. For a moment, neither of you moved, and then you became aware of everything all at once.

Zuko's robes had shifted in the fall, loosened at the collar, and his breath feathered your chin, close enough to make you curse the gods once more for filling your nights with such inconvenience. 

His eyes were half-lidded, but there was a clarity there that did not belong to a man in his state. He was watching you with an expression that could only be described as mesmerized, and you arched a brow. 

"Would you mind letting go, my lord?" you deadpanned. "I believe putting you to bed is far beyond my scope of duties."

Because his hands were still clutching your arms, and at your words, they tightened slightly. 

"Right," he murmured, the slurred words ghosting against your skin. "Of course. Forgive me for inconveniencing you."

But he still didn't let go. 

If anything, one of his hands slid along your arm, followed by a gentle tug to draw you closer. It was not a decisive movement, as though some part of him had decided, without consulting the rest, that the distance between you was unnecessary.

Then Zuko tipped his head slightly and brushed his nose along your jaw. It was so light it was barely there, but it wasn't something to be dismissed, his breath following in its wake. When he inhaled, you flinched, scrambling to untangle yourself, trying to reclaim distance, propriety, and anything that resembled sense. 

He, too, seemed to realize the position you were in, and his cheeks turned three shades darker. "Oh."

His hands loosened reluctantly, as if they disagreed with the decision, even as he made it.

You shot upright immediately and nodded. "I bid you goodnight, then, my lord."

But when you attempted to depart, Zuko reached forward to snag your sleeve. 

"Must you leave?"

He had pushed himself up onto his elbows, his hair slightly dishevelled and his expression woefully earnest. 

You were at a loss. "Why would I remain in your chambers?"

Zuko let his head fall back against the cushions with dramatic resignation. "It does get awfully lonely."

He meant it as a jest, but you sensed the truth behind it. 

"Well, perhaps you ought to be less picky, then," you said tartly. 

He cracked one eye open to glance at you. "Picky?"

"Yes. Your council seems to be trying quite desperately to find you a wife, if I recall correctly. Someone to keep you company and alleviate this terrible loneliness you suffer from."

"They show me portraits like they're presenting battle strategies," Zuko huffed, rolling his head to the side so he could look at you properly. "This one has a strong lineage. That one has excellent posture. Another plays an instrument I've never heard of."

"And none of that appeals to you?" you demanded. 

"Not particularly."

"How unfortunate. Some of those 'battle strategies' are quite promising, I am sure. You might even find one you like, if you tried."

"Mm," he hummed, his gaze not leaving yours. "Or I could simply wait."

"To grow old and grey while your advisors worry themselves over your future? Sounds like a brilliant plan."

Zuko's responding grin had nothing to do with the fire that burned within him, and he shrugged. "I could wait for someone less diplomatic."

"You are the Fire Lord. I am not certain you are permitted that luxury," you deadpanned. "Might as well do as you're told. Though I suppose you will not. Not as you are, like this."

"And how am I, exactly?" 

"Currently? A great deal of work."

That drew another warm laugh from him. "Why do you remain, then?"

You turned to the door with a roll of your eyes. "Only because it would be highly irresponsible to leave the Fire Lord to fend for himself in such a state. You ought to have a night guard in place."

"How dutiful of you," Zuko drawled. 

"It is my best quality, I am told, my lord."

And then you did leave, despite the odd wistful glance he sent your way. 

[awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce]

Believe (Dex x reader)

(gif by me)

Summary: Things go a little differently in Clinton Church between Karen, Dex, and Matt. 3x10 AU. w/c 3.1k

ao3 link

Warnings: pretty ooc, corny, fluff, angst, guns, talk of death and murder (bc it's Daredevil and Dex, so obviously, but no-one actually dies), allusions to suicide and self-harm, suicidal!Dex (but that's canon, so...), he's just a sad boy, okay! Basically I just wanted an excuse for Dex to be good and not kill too many people and be comforted.

Some dialogue is taken from the show but most of it is my own. 2 references that aren't from Daredevil are in this, let me know if you notice them! Okay so it's not exactly how I planned it but most of the dialogue is and it turned out way longer than I thought it would. Not sure how I feel about it but please let me know what you think. And yeah the title is stupid but that's the way things go.

No Y/N, gn reader.

Please don't post to other sites or into AI.

Anyway, hope you like it! ❤️

“Karen? Karen Page?” The sing-song voice cut through the quiet church like a blade. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Nothing

“I know you’re here,” Dex’s voice dropped, humour gone.

Karen slowly appeared from behind a pew, hands up.

“What do you want?” She asked, voice shaking, even though she knew the answer.

Dex turned around and grinned. He was dressed head to toe like Daredevil, but he himself was nothing like the real one.

“Hello, Karen.” He raised his gun and shot it. The bullet whipped through the space between them, and Karen could feel the breeze it created as it grazed against her hair, embedding itself into the church door behind her.

She gasped, terrified and frozen, whilst Dex just stood there, smirking.

“Nice to see you again.”

Then Matt appeared, knocking Dex to the ground, causing his helmet to come off and his head to crack against the concrete floor. Matt stood protectively in front of Karen.

“Leave her alone, Dex! She has nothing to do with this! It’s me you want, right? You want to kill me? Take me to Fisk? Whatever you want, just do it. But leave her out of it!”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Murdock,” Dex stated, standing up and pointing the gun at Karen again, ignoring the blood slowly trickling down his face. “She has everything to do with this. Fisk wants her dead, so I’m here to kill her,” he shrugged, not bothered by Matt’s showing up.

“Then why didn’t you kill me that night at The Bulletin?” Karen asked, feeling braver now that Matt was with her.

“He didn’t want you dead then. But now,” he paused, “he does.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were listing off a set of instructions.

“Why now?” Karen continued, trying to buy her and Matt some more time.

“You crossed him. Took away something important to him. And now, it’s time you pay the price,” Dex smirked.

“You know that Fisk is using you, don’t you?” Matt interrupted. “Using you to do his bidding. To kill anyone who does something he doesn’t like. He does that to everyone around him. How many more innocent people will he have you kill? Before you’re no longer useful to him. Until he gets someone to kill you? Or does it himself? It’s what he does. It’s only time.”

“Does he always talk this much?” Dex asked Karen, already bored and itching to pull the trigger again.

“D’y’know, he had Julie killed?” Matt continued.

That made Dex pause.

“Yeah. He’s the one who got her the job at the hotel." Dex had assumed, but Fisk hadn't confirmed it. "And then had her shot. So he could replace her. As your North Star,” Matt told him.

“No. You’re lying.” That’s when the buzzing became more noticeable to Dex.

“Am I? Come on, you know him. You know what he’s like. He’s not fond of distractions.”

“Stop it!” The buzzing continued.

“And Julie, well, she was your distraction, wasn’t she, Dex?” Matt chuckled.

“Stop!” The buzzing grew louder.

“And distractions need to be dealt with,” Matt goaded.

“She’s not dead!” The buzzing was almost too loud for him to hear Matt, but not quite.

“Well, I suppose she really just wants you to leave her alone then,” Matt shrugged.

“Shut up!” The buzzing was taking over every part of his body.

“Don’t believe me? She’s in a storage unit. In a freezer. 16 Canal Place. Why don’t you go and see for yourself?”

“SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!”

The buzzing became too much. Dex clutched his head in his hands, the gun waving as his body shook.

In a quick move, he put the gun to his temple, eyes screwed shut as if to make the buzzing stop.

In all of the commotion, no-one had noticed you appear. Not until you spoke.

“Wait.” Your voice was low and soft, but it cut through the air and tension like a hot knife gliding through butter.

“It’s Benjamin, right? Benjamin Poindexter?” His eyes snapped open as he realised that someone new was talking to him. “Can I call you Ben?” He just looked at you, not sure what was going on, but the buzzing dulled slightly.

Matt tried to grab your arm as you walked slowly towards Dex, but you pushed his hand away.

You told him your name, and he repeated it, speaking as if he were tasting the way the letters felt on his tongue.

“We can help you, you know?” Dex tilted his head, still watching you move towards him. “We can keep you safe from Fisk. You don’t have to do this.”

Dex shook his head, mumbling incoherently.

“Just give me the gun, yeah? And we can talk.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” You held out your hand.

“Everything will stop.”

You shook your head. “It won’t. He’ll just find someone new.”

“But the noise will stop. I will stop.”

“Hey, no, don’t talk like that. We can help.”

“You can’t. No-one can help me.” He cocked the gun.

“We can! I promise! Let us help you. Let me help you,” you pleaded.

Dex looked into your pleading eyes. He wanted help. He really did. He wanted out of this hell that Fisk had thrust upon him. He just didn’t know how to let someone in. Not after Dr Mercer. Or Julie. Or even Fisk. He felt that pulling the trigger was the only way out. But what if what you were saying was true? What if you really could help? You looked so earnest and genuine. You seemed good. Even though you knew what he had done, what he was, you still wanted to offer him help. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to believe. In someone. In himself.

The gun lowered a little, but it was still cocked, his finger still on the trigger.

“That’s it. There we go,” you coaxed, reaching one hand out for the gun and the other towards his other hand that was hanging limply at his side. “Nice and easy, yeah?” You could see the fight slowly draining out of him, his body deflating.

Your eyes were locked as he brought the gun down to his side, both of you moving slowly so you didn’t startle the other.

He lowered the gun to his side, and you grabbed it by the barrel, passing it behind you to Matt.

“There we go,” you whispered, grabbing Dex by his upper arms as he slumped to the floor. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. We’ll help you.” You stroked his hair and held him to you as he sobbed.

“I just want to be needed. I want to be good.” His voice was muffled against your chest as he clung to you.

“I know,” was all you said as you continued to comfort him.

When his sobs had started to subside, and you could feel him becoming exhausted, you slowly turned to look at Karen and Matt.

“Can you call Frank?” You asked. “He might be able to help.” They both gave you an incredulous look. “Please?”

They turned to each other and finally nodded. Karen walked away, dialling a number as she went, while Matt listened to you and Dex.

“Who’s Frank?” Dex asked, his head tilting to look at you.

“Don’t worry about that right now. Let’s just get you somewhere safe to rest, yeah?” You gave him a small smile, but his eyes were wide with panic at the thought of someone new. “I’ll tell you later, okay?” That seemed to ease him a little.

“Matt?” You asked, turning back to look at him. “D’y’think we can stay here?”

“Of course,” a new voice spoke, and you felt Dex tense. “Churches are sanctuaries for anyone who needs shelter.”

“Thank you, Sister Maggie,” you replied.

“This way,” she motioned. “There’s a bed and tub downstairs, and I’ll get you some food and clean clothes.”

“Come on. It’s okay,” you soothed, pulling Dex up with you to stand.

“Matthew?” Maggie began, turning to look at him. “Go and tell Father Lantom what’s going on.”

“And what exactly is going on?” Matt raised an eyebrow.

“Now, Matthew.” Her tone left no room for arguing, so Matt sighed and left.

Dex clung to your arm as you followed Sister Maggie in silence through the church and into the cellar.

“Here we go,” Maggie spoke as you followed her deeper into the room. “Apologies for the mess. Matthew has been staying here while he’s been recovering. The tub is over there,” she pointed to a metal tub in one corner of the room behind some clean laundry, “as well as clean sheets and towels. I’ll go and fetch some clothes, soap, and food. Do you need any first aid equipment, Benjamin?” She asked Dex directly.

He just nodded, looking down at the floor as his feet shuffled nervously.

“I’ll be back in a moment.” And then she was gone.

You started towards the tub, with Dex still attached to you, but he didn’t expect you to move and stumbled.

You both muttered an apology, embarrassed.

“How do you like the water?” You asked, but he just shrugged.

You turned the water on so that it was hot with a little cold, so it wouldn’t burn his skin but would ease any aches.

Dex just stood there as you checked the temperature periodically when Maggie returned.

“Thank you, Sister Maggie,” you told her as she wheeled a small doctor-like trolley towards you.

She just nodded and left quickly.

Once the tub was full enough, you switched off the taps and moved the soap and clothes closer.

“I’ll leave you to erm…” You waved your hand in his direction and then towards the tub.

“Could you help with this?” Dex asked quietly, gesturing towards the Daredevil suit he still donned, almost like he didn’t want to be speaking at all.

You nodded, and you both started to peel the layers of the suit away. You knew how it worked, as you had helped Matt numerous times while he was injured.

You gasped as the final layer covering the top half of his body was removed. His chest and arms were covered in bruises, cuts, and many, many scars.

“Ben,” you murmured, fingers going to a particularly nasty-looking scar on his forearm.

“Don’t,” he said, grabbing your wrist.

“Okay,” you replied softly. “Okay.” You curl your fingers inwards as you pull your arm away.

“Don’t call me that,” he continued. “Never that name.”

“Do you prefer Dex?” You asked, and he moved his head in a half nod. “Okay then, Dex.” The corners of his lips twitched slightly upwards as if he approved.

The rest of the suit was removed, and his legs were in pretty much the same state as the rest of his body. Luckily, there wasn’t too much to patch up, and you were confident that you could do it easily if he needed help.

“Do you want me to stay?” You asked, looking towards the tub.

Dex nodded, and you turned around to give him some semblance of privacy while he removed his underwear and got into the water, hissing as it hit the fresh cuts and scrapes.

“Can I?” You asked, moving slowly towards him with the medical supplies.

He just nodded again and was mostly silent as you cleaned, stitched, and dressed the wounds.

When you were done, he tried to wash his hair with the soap, but his body ached, and the buzzing was still sounding in his mind, so he gave up with a scoff.

You held out your hand for the soap, and he looked at you. Really looked at you. You noticed his eye colour as they pierced your own. They reminded you of a green bottle that was held up to the sun and filled with light roast coffee. His gaze unnerved you, but you held your own, not wanting to show anything that might cause him to pull back.

He clearly thought you were safe as he handed you the soap. You massaged it carefully through his darkened tresses, being mindful of any possible cuts or bruises that you hadn't noticed before, along with the fresh stitches.

In Dex’s mind, this was what heaven felt like. He wanted to feel this forever. He wanted the feelings it gave him to never stop. Even as you got him to almost lie down in the tub and filled a cup with water to wash away the suds, you were slow and gentle. Never moving too fast so as not to startle him. You touched him like he was fragile and something you didn’t want to break. Like he was worth protecting. You were wonderful. Maybe you could help make him believe that the world could be good. That he could be good.

When you finished, he got out of the tub and wrapped himself in the warm towels. You noticed that his movements were slow and helped him sit at the small table. The warm water and your touch had relaxed him in a way he didn’t know he could feel. You dried his hair as best as you could and helped him pull a clean shirt over his still-bruised body. He winced slightly when a movement pulled at his new stitches and bandages. He didn’t want to think too much about where some of his injuries had come from and was grateful that you didn’t ask. He knew that you knew, though. The way that you had looked at them. With familiarity. You knew what he had done. He guessed that you had some too. He didn’t like that. Didn’t want you to feel like he does. He tensed at the thought but wondered if he would ever see them. You soothingly smoothed his hair when you saw his face pinch, and he automatically leaned closer into your touch.

You ate the soup that Sister Maggie had brought for the both of you in silence, and you put freshly cleaned sheets on the bed that Matt had once occupied.

Dex felt the weight of the day gradually growing heavier upon him as he put on the rest of the clothes that had been left for him, then made his way over to the bed. His body ached with each step, and you came to his aid, noticing his struggles. With your arm around his waist and his around your shoulders, you helped him shuffle across the room and gently lowered him under the blankets.

Dex sighed with relief, sinking slowly into the mattress. You smiled softly as you stroked his hair, watching the tension ease out of his body.

“What happens now?” He asked, staring at a loose thread on the sheet.

“Now, you sleep. We can worry about tomorrow in the morning.” But your words didn’t seem to placate him.

“But what about–?”

“Rest,” you told him sternly. “I will talk with Matt and Karen, and we’ll come up with a plan.”

He grabbed the sleeve of your shirt.

“Stay?” He whispered, and you nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed, rubbing your thumb back and forth against his hand.

“Will you talk to me? To help me fall asleep?” He asked.

“What do you want me to talk about?”

“Who’s Frank?”

“Frank Castle. You probably know him since you’re FBI and all. You might know him as – ”

“The Punisher?!” He interrupted. “Oh, Murdock was his lawyer, right? But I thought he was dead?” He questioned.

“Nah, not Frank. He keeps on going,” you smirked.

“Like a cockroach,” he muttered, shrugging when you pierced him with a look.

“He’s not a bad person. Could just use a lot of therapy.” Dex chuckled at that, which made you smile.

“Why are you still in touch with him?”

“He’s in love with Karen,” you shrugged, like that explained anything. “And I’m pretty sure she’s in love with him, but of course they’re both too stubborn to say anything.”

There was a slight pause before he spoke again.

“Did you and Murdock date?” The question stunned you for a moment before you laughed.

“I love him, but not like that. He also needs a lot of therapy, and the women he’s with never seem to stick around long. I want to be in his life for a long time, so it’s better if we don’t. He’s great in bed, though,” you winked, and Dex’s face flushed, his eyes widening slightly. “We were drunk.” Dex raised an eyebrow. “It was Comic-Con!” You defended, laughing.

Dex cleared his throat before asking his next question: “So, how did you two meet?”

“I met Foggy first. It was just after we started college. I thought it was a good idea to take a language class. One that I’ve never heard spoken before, let alone looked into,” you began.

“What was the language?” Dex looked curious.

“Punjabi.” Dex let out an actual laugh, and you couldn’t help the grin that took over your face.

“Why?”

“Thought it might be fun and interesting. And it was. I just couldn’t get the hang of it, so I dropped it after the first semester. Foggy and I were partners for the class, and he was really easy to get along with, so we hung out outside of class. Then just after that, I met Matt.” Dex noticed a look in your eyes but couldn’t quite place it. “And like most of the students on campus, I immediately had a crush on him. And of course he knew, although I didn’t know it at the time, so sometimes he would play up the ‘oh I’m just a poor orphaned blind boy, please help me’ thing. I ate it right up! ‘Oh, here, Matt, let me help you carry your books! Hold onto me, it’s icy today! Let me move everything out of the way so you never hurt yourself!’ I’m still a little embarrassed, but I was young, and he was nice.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice of him,” Dex remarked.

“Yeah, well, sometimes Matt is an asshole. But I think that’s sometimes why we love him.”

Dex hummed and then yawned.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are my stories, that you asked for by the way, boring you?” You joked.

Dex started to protest, but saw a smirk curling your lips.

“Tell me something from when you were at college,” he said sleepily, settling down under the covers.

You moved to sit beside him, your hand automatically going to his hair without you being conscious of the action.

“Okay, so there was this one time where…”

But Dex couldn’t concentrate on what exactly you were saying, something about avocados?

He noticed that the buzzing had stopped.

Because of the sound of your voice.

Because of the feeling of your hand in his hair.

And that lulled him to sleep.

And for the first time in a long time, Dex believed.

fin

Hope you liked it!

Tagging some people who I think might like it: @bellaxgiornata @souliebird @sunshine-daydreams0809 @chvoswxtch @poindextergirl @starlord3000 @hellskitchenswhore @vigilantekisser @mcrdvcks

[isa735]

how tf do you write a medical drama fanfic, im a designer, i now how to bitch about adobe, not how to save lifes