Chapter Text
“Knew it was you.”
You deliver it abruptly, flatly, without plomb or volume before you’ve even closed the door, duffel swinging to a halt on your shoulder.
It’s dark. As it should be, you’ve been out of the city, out of state, out of country, for three weeks.
Left when the air changed, when a shiver crawled up your spine and settled at the base of your skull like a block of ice. Something primal and archaic, and knowing.
He’d escaped not even four days later, broke out of prison, and you were already on foreign soil, breathing eastern air, hot and humid with goosebumps littering your skin.
And you’d waited, watched the news, avid and obsessed, combed every newspaper and news outlet sourced from New York, looking for his signature…scraping every word and grainy picture of murder for his nature. Looking for that brutal, unforgivable precision.
And when you couldn’t find any, when you couldn’t find him among the bloodshed and chaos, you understood. Knew exactly where he was, what he was doing, knew there wasn’t much point in staying gone. Not when his focus was elsewhere.
That warning light in your brain, instinctual, primeval, accurate as his own aim, it had flicked on the first time you met. Stayed on. Flickered as time wore on and he got closer, went belly up to give you his ‘soft spots’, lulled you.
Burned out a few months in, when he became a fixture in your life and not something that could pass as background decoration. Even when devotion began to slide into something that towered, crowded, curled too tightly, scraped along your skin with all the grace of velvet wrapped razors.
Even then, that light stayed dark. Only started to flicker again when innocuous questions were delivered with the starchness of beauracratic interrogation. Each conversation started with a disclaimer, a clear warning, Miranda rights you never took at face value.
When every corner, every street, every moment alone felt like a test, the loosening of the leash, given enough lead and enough time you’d find away to wrap that freedom around your own neck, still that light remained weak, undecided.
It finally clicked when you caught a glimpse of his car loitering outside your work, three rows back in the parking lot, when he was supposed to be working. And from there you feigned intentional blindness, pretending not to realize just how many places he showed up when he shouldn’t.
And perhaps that light should come with a siren…perhaps a color isn’t enough.
Because you went to his apartment when he was ‘allegedly’ working, swamped with a case involving the mafia. You knew he was watching. You counted on it. Counted on him barging in.
Nothing if not dependable. It’s one of his charms.
You left his front door open, you knew he was on your heels, prickles on the back of your neck told you so.
In hindsight, forcing his hand might have been worse than digging it all up yourself: but the melodrama, the desire to high-jack his nervous system and make it dance like an animal in an electric cage…
Swung his bedroom door wide open, and then sat at the kitchen table, brandishing the empty manilla envelope you’d tucked into your jacket to lay as damning evidence on the the cheap wood. It was a guess, really, given his background, his job.
You’d figured he’d put his guilt into something familiar.
And you were right.
He’d glanced at the folder, his bedroom door, your neutral, apathetic gaze and cycled back and forth through each, weighing odds.
He’d confessed, terror-stricken and sad, big, doleful eyes pleading a case for innocence even as his metaphorically blood-soaked hands wrote out all his sins on the table.
The look on his face when you’d finally picked up that folder, pulled it apart down the side and laid the two halves bare…empty.
“If I knew the code to your safe I would have taken the gun that’s in there.”
“You – you don’t need it.”
You’ll give him this, at least: when confronted with the truth he doesn’t prop it with lies.
So, you ask him, you know it’s him, you’d know the shape of him, his silhouette, the pressure in the air. You’d know him, blind, deaf, totally senseless.
You ask him: “I have a gun in my duffle; do I need it?”
You’d had it stashed in the apartment’s lobby bathroom. The slab of wood that makes the windowsill is slightly loose. It can be coerced from the wall where there’s a gap just big enough for a handgun.
He shifts, mostly in the shoulders and his broadness isn’t something you’re prepared for, but you soothe yourself with the idea that now he has more center mass to aim for. Harder to miss. And this close, you shouldn’t.
“You don’t need it.” He says flatly. “Not for me.”
You cut to the chase. “Don’t tell me you’ve been on your best behavior because you’ve been waiting for me to get back?”
He exhales deeply, inherently disappointed, disdainful, hurt. “You weren’t at the trial.”
“No, I wasn’t.” And here, you finally devest. Turn away from him and lock your door, flip the light switch, hang your keys on the rack.
Just another day, another routine, nothing to suggest he’s an inconvenience, harbors any control over your life and the way you move.
“You went to Paris.”
The delivery is supposed to make you angry, the factual pin-drop. The idea that even fresh out of prison he can find you, without money, or contacts or power, he can still find you.
“Mm. Figured now was as good a time as any.” You toss your duffle bag onto your kitchen island and look over your shoulder, see he’s leaned forward over the table, hands clasped together. “Took a croissant up the Eiffel Tower like a proper American – “
“I promised to take you there.”
You smile, gauge the strength of that warning light against the glint in his eyes, reflective and colorless from distance and shadow and say, “Yes, well, multiple counts of murder, a life sentence – kind of puts a pall on the whole thing, you know?”
He frowns, shakes his head. “What are you doing? Why’d you come back? You knew I’d be here.”
“Of course. Where else would you be?”
He huffs, unhooks his hands and runs one of them down his face. “You aren’t an idiot.” He says your name softly, carefully. Says it like a compliment.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Had plenty of opportunities to kill you – “
“You didn’t.” He says easily, shooting you a stern, humorless look.
You aren’t sure you believe him, entirely. Not when you’ve got a mental folder of hundreds of snapshots of him looking too soft, too sweet, too open. Nearly doe-eyed sometimes.
“Y’gonna give me one, tonight?” You ask him earnestly, and he scoffs, giving that duffle of yours a moment’s consideration.
“Probably not.”
“Mm. Pretty decent shot now.”
He smiles, genuinely, and you can’t say from the life of you whether it’s humor or if its pride.
“That’s good. Listen, I’m going to say something – “
“You can’t go after him.” You say, folding your arms and leaning back against your fridge. “Least – if you do, you can’t fuck it up. Gaurantee you he remembers our history. You kick the hornet’s nest – “
He stands, cutting you off and lifts his hands placatingly when your gaze snaps to your duffle so fast he’s sure neurons in your brain have short circuited with the speed of it. “That’s what I’m – here’s – I don’t have to, I’d leave and not look back if – “
You hold up a hand. “You’re making me the ultimatum here?”
“Always have been.” Says that easy as breathing, lips quirking. Forgot how sharp you are. “I go with you…or I get you as far as humanly possible, get you as invisible as someone can be without being dead – “
“Being dead would be safer.”
He says your name again, clipped. “It’s you, or it’s him.”
You snort derisively. “Ive got loose change in my purse – “ you jerk your head towards the hallway and the coat rack you never use for coats, “ – flip a coin.”
Dex sighs again, assumes surrender posture and edges towards you. “This is – I’m serious.”
“Always are.”
He slinks into the light and comes into full view, the entirety of his bulk, roughly thirty extra pounds of muscle he didn’t have the last time you saw him. An even sharper edge to his eyes that dries the color of his dark browns, shimmers them black as pitch.
You can’t help but look at that jagged scar on his right cheek, glance at the one above his left eyebrow. That one you don’t remember seeing during the televised trial. Token from his time in prison, then.
He pauses at the corner of the island, lets you catalog him, familiarize yourself, lets you look.
And he does the same.
You’ve changed. Faced with the animal he’s become you don’t budge, don’t tense in that space between fight or flight. You’re at ease. Not even glancing at escape routes, planning to run, not looking at potential weapons like you used to when he’d get too close.
There’s a coldness in your eyes he’s never seen, a set to your jaw that’s altogether too fearless, unbothered. It isn’t bravery, not necessarily. It’s wrath. Tempered and shaped, melted down, banded, over and over…vengeful.
He’s a little surprised you haven’t already shot him.
“What happened to you?”
You don’t even blink. “You did.”
Dex frowns. The words are there, the denial, the waspish instinct to dart and sting: I protected you, doted on you, took care of you –
- put you in the line of fire with Fisk.
And that’s why he’s been here, why he came here first, disappeared into the crowd and waited for you to show up. He had to be sure you were okay.
He has been on his best behavior waiting for you.
“Not many options here,” He says your name, watches your eyes narrow the slightest bit at its utterance.
“Whose fault is that?”
He sighs, takes a step closer and your eyes sharpen, snap down to the movement, cracks back up to meet his gaze, stalwart and cold. No fear. None.
“They’ll be here soon.” You tell him, flickering your attention across all the knives he has attached to him. “You know that, right?”
He scoffs. Fisk’s AVTF. “I know. Wondered why he wouldn’t just snatch you up at the airport, use you as leverage – “
“Publicity. Make a better story if the AVTF ‘fails’ to save me from my deranged, psychotic vigilante ex-boyfriend – “
“I’m not a vigilante.”
You blink at him. He leans into your island counter, hip cocked, arms crossed. The corner of his mouth twitches.
You shake your head, dispelling the weak urge to snort. “I’m not getting out of any of this unscathed. Been in the net for years, and he doesn’t leave loose ends. I’ve been on borrowed time since you killed those eleven people that night, proved you were a problem that refused to disappear.”
He shifts, fingers curling into his biceps. If he had just died, you’d be safe. He knows it’s what you’re saying and he knows it’s the truth. He killed you the second he showed interest in you, only he was selfish about it and removed the possibility of a quick death because Fisk got involved. Should’ve cut you loose after the first time Fisk talked to him.
Should have. Thought he could protect you, thought he was supposed to protect you, thought he had the right because you were so soft and wide-eyed and scared.
“Fuck him. I’m not some by-line collateral he can use to prop his tyrannical messianic crusade of New York.”
Dex blinks, taken aback. He opens his mouth and is cut off by the sound of tires screeching outside, rumbling engines, slamming doors. He glances at the window in your living room, cracked open an inch. Not from him, he came in the front door, picked the lock.
You leave the window open on purpose, for that reason. You’ve been expecting them.
But of course, you have, that’s what the flash and smoke grenades under the sink are for.
“So, what now?” he asks you, momentarily baffled at the way you relax against your fridge, imminent threat and danger somehow a non-issue.
“I told you,” You pivot and crouch at the kitchen sink, reach into the cabinet for the grenades you know he knows are there, probably has a thought or two about the bowl you have in there catching drips from the plumbing. “You can’t fuck it up.”
When you put them on the counter your hands are steady, and your attention glides over him, towards the hallway, eyes heavy with thought, dart towards the rest of your apartment, your furniture –
Planning strategy, cover, blind spots. His mouth curls. You are different. But you still aren’t like him. So –
“I’ll get you out of here, just stay out of sight and – “
“Spare me.” You unzip your duffle and grab your pistol, turn the safety off, check the chamber. And now you look at him. “They have to die in here, walls are thin, my two neighbors: one’s a night nurse, at work right now, the other’s on vacation. Gotta keep gunfire away from the hallway – “
“Jesus.” He shakes his head, but holds his hands up in surrender, all okay, okay, I got it. Skirts around your island to grab a high-backed chair and drags it to your front door. “You sure you don’t want to just slip out through the window?”
“That’s after,” You say, listening to him jam that chair under the knob, you grab those two grenades and head towards the living room. “Got some climbing rope in the closet behind a false panel – “
Dex’s jaw slackens. There’s a false panel in your closet? How did he miss that?
“ – Tie that to the bed leg, scale the side of the building. C’mere. Help me flip this.”
His pulse is ramping and he doesn’t know why. He knows it isn’t the commotion he can hear making its way up the stairs.
You’re in the living room, crouched at one end of the couch, hands curled under it and Dex follows suite at the opposite end.
“Fuck,” He grunts, shocked at the resistance and readjusts his center, his stance. “This is – this is not from Ikea.” He breathes, and you actually laugh.
“No,” You say, brace your weight, glance over and pretend to not take note about the bulk of his arms, make a joke instead. “All that muscle and can’t even flip a couch. Embarrassing.” That last part is a rasp, nearly a wheeze.
“Stop,” The couch tips enough that he can slip his thigh against it, leverage some more weight. There’s yelling from the hallway, and he smiles anyway, on the cusp of a laugh of his own. “Don’t make me laugh; I’m doing all the work.”
You snort and drop to a knee at your end, twist and get under the lip, shoulder pressed against, and you push. The behemoth of wood and cotton and leather topples over, thudding with an intensity that should have your downstairs neighbor beating a broomstick on their ceiling. But you imagine the sight of the AVTF is enough to have anyone burrowing into their darkest tucked away corner, duct tape their own mouths shut.
The grenades sit between the two of you like mediators, like mute witnesses to whatever paradigm that’s about to be birthed amidst bullets and blood and adrenaline.
Dex can’t help it. “It’s really good to see you.” He means it.
“You don’t get to do that.” You say with a frown and Dex cocks his head.
A dozen footfalls barrel down the hall, struggle to fit in such a small space. Dex turns slightly, faces you as well as he can hunched behind the couch.
“Do what?” Be honest?
“Act like I’m the same person you spiraled out of control for. She’s gone, and if you think you still see her, you’re just lying to yourself. There’s no going back.”
They all pile outside your door, trying to settle and pretend they have the element of surprise. But they’re bulls in a china shop, attempting to dodge broken shards on their way out.
“I’m not going back,” Dex says firmly and he watches your eyebrow quirk from the side, corner of your mouth twitch, and part of him second-guesses because he is trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, trying to let you have the belief that every part of you has changed. But –
“To what? Prison? Pretty sure they aren’t coming in with handcuffs on this one.”
“Still can’t crack a joke with a straight face, sweetheart.”
You shake your head, listen to the AVTF hesitate outside your door. Announce themselves like there’s any kind of institutional righteousness behind what they are.
“You realize I have to try and disappear after this? Probably declare me missing, say you kidnapped me – “
“Could let that be true, you know?” Dex shrugs his shoulders. “Escape from me, find a news outlet, create your own narrative. Turn you into a heartstring story, brave survivor – “
You shoot him a flat look. “That’s insane. He’s got the entirety of New York in his pocket. It would never be my story.”
The AVTF calls your name, as well as Dex’s, claiming intent to reason and negotiate for your safety.
“Yeah,” He nods. “It was a nice thought, though, huh?”
“Figure something out, I’ve got cash saved up.”
Dex says your name, avoids your gaze, reaches over for the flash bang, fiddles with the ring. “I think we should stay together.”
They give you another warning and you look at the smoke grenade between you. You leave it.
“Got me into this mess, Ben.” You can see his head snap up in your periphery and you refuse to meet his eyes, refuse to give him more hope than his name. “You’re getting me out of it.”
His pulse jumps, and there’s shuffling from outside as they ready. And he smiles, full and brightly, turns away to hide it.
“I will. I promise.”
He smiles through all of it. All the bloodshed and bullets and splintering wood, shattering glass, through all the yelling and thrown projectiles. Smiles through every punch and kick he can’t avoid. When an agent has him pinned against the wall and another takes aim at his head, and you throw one of your kitchen stools at him.
Dex laughs, humor spikes to something euphoric when he witnesses you rush that agent, drive your foot into his solar plexus, and follow it up with a point blank shot into the man’s eye. Not even fully slumped before your aim is turned his direction and Dex decides to give you a clean shot just because he wants to see it again.
Hell, even when another agent throws you across your island counter he’s still smiling, watches you stumble and stagger upright, gun lost. Fucking chuffed when you toss the broken leg of one of your kitchen chairs at him blindly.
And you line it up for him perfectly, duck a punch and drive your fist into the man’s ribs, lean away from a jab and kick at his knee and he buckles. You reach in and unclasp his helmet, and that chair leg comes flying, and you’re immediately sending that helmet across the room.
No questions asked, he catches it and follows your line of sight beyond his shoulder and takes aim without seeing.
You find your gun among the mess, but Dex gives you a reprieve and kills this man himself.
It’s a bloodbath. Five minutes. And you keep up. Lean into all of it, unblinking.
And when it settles, when they’re all dead, or near enough, gurgling and fading, only then does he shed himself, revert back.
Marches into your space and grabs your face, tilts your head this way and that despite the glare and venom you give him.
“Just – let me look at you. All this adrenaline, could have a bullet in you and you wouldn’t feel it right now.”
“I’m not bleeding any – “ You argue and Dex rolls his eyes.
“You actually are,” He tugs the collar of your shirt to the side where a patch of dark red has soaked through. There’s a cut, couple of inches long, not too deep. Can’t determine when it happened. “You’ll live.”
“Great.” You say and slap his hand. He readjusts, doesn’t let go. His hand ends up curled around your bicep instead, steady.
“Not gonna check me?”
You roll your eyes. “Standing, aren’t you?” You shove at the inside of his elbow and his grip goes slack.
The smile he shoots you as you brush passed him lets you know it was choice and not force.
He stands for a moment, basking in the afterglow of your teamwork. It’s nowhere near the ‘I’ll wash, you dry’ dynamic the two of you had years ago, but he isn’t picky.
Knowing you’d bloody your hands, get right into the middle of a pack of rabid dogs gnashing their teeth…be there beside him, watch his back – trust him to watch yours…what can he complain about, really?
Wood splinters, and he knows you’re still hopped on adrenaline, no finesse or patience for something like hidden panels. The adrenaline drop is going to be brutal.
He watches you tie a knot around one of your bed’s legs, takes note of the wooden frame. Real. No cheap Ikea chipboard shit. Turned your furniture into instruments of survival. He admires that pragmatism, that foresight. Probably why you survived Fisk’s election to Mayor, probably why you survived him.
You tug on it a couple times, test its torque. Satisfied, you heave your window open, wood screeching and cracking, breaking the relative silence with all the softness of a chainsaw. You toss the rope out, gauge there’s about a ten-foot drop at the end of it.
And then you shove past him again to go to your bathroom, stand on your toilet and remove a ceiling title. He watches you emerge with another duffle bag, strap looped over your shoulder to cross your chest, bag swaying on your back.
His eyebrows pop up, and you shake your head at his shock.
“Got another cache to pick up at 36th and 8th, then we’ll book a motel room by that old shoe factory. Pay for three nights upfront, leave through the bathroom window – “
“Hold on.” He holds up a hand to cut off your rambling. “Motels are the first place they’ll look, especially places that accept cash.”
You adjust your duffle, make sure the zippers are secure. “Yeah. It also has working CCTV in the check-in, and cameras along the patio walkway to the rooms. Doesn’t have any behind back.”
These survival skills…he frowns.
“Chances are AVTF will be on that place before the three days are up. If Fisk has alerted news outlets and plastered my face and name on every flickering screen he can manage, we’ll put in a call through a pay phone – send them up river.”
Dex shakes his head again, jaw completely slack, stares blankly at your darkened closet. “Ok. Where are we really going?”
You grin broadly. “After our little walk?” You jerk your thumb in the general direction of the empty apartment beside you, alluding to farther, of course. “Two blocks that way.”
His eyes narrow, jaw tingles, weakens at the hinge. “Then what?”
“Get an apartment. Blend in. Watch him, follow him, wait for an opening.”
“What about after?”
“After what?”
Dex levels you with a knowing stare. “After he’s dead. What happens after?”
You shrug. “Hadn’t really counted on an after. Let you know if we get there.” You wink.
When you head towards the window, he grabs your arm and coasts in front of you. “Let me go first.”
“For what?”
“There’s a drop, right? You only bought one length, there’s gonna be a drop.”
You scowl at his back as he leans out the window and does in fact confirm that there is a drop. “What, you’re going to catch me?”
“Yeah, I am.” He nods and slips over the sill with an ease that reminds you he’s no stranger to using windows as alternative entrances and exits. “If you let go at the bottom, or if you fall.”
“There’s no way you can – “
He smirks. “May not be able to lift a couch but I can catch you.”
Right. Of course. You remind yourself that’s the very reason you’ve gotten so comfortable with firearms, it’s why you have caches hidden all over the city.
Because he can catch you. And right now, better the devil you do know.
You soothe yourself with that when you reach the end of the rope, toss down your duffle and let him have the satisfaction of thinking you needed him to catch you.
There is some small, sickened portion of yourself that is slightly glad he’s content to stand with you, willing to get in front. Seems calibrated enough to understand that the only way out is through.
A smile plays at his mouth as he hesitates to put you down. He’s never struggled to hold your weight, but you get the distinct impression that it’s hardly a thought now, half believe he could probably throw you up to your window.
“We need to go,” You remind him, slipping your arm from around his shoulders, forcing yourself to ignore their breadth, take absolutely no note of how rugged that stubble makes him look.
“Yeah, I know.”
When he does let you go, his hand coasts along your lower back, hovers there as you pass dark alleys, turn corners, cross the street. Sits firmly there when you finally get to that motel.
“Have to make it look good for the cameras.”
Right.
So, what cameras are watching him grunt and groan and strain to open the bathroom window? Surely, rolling his sleeves to his elbows isn’t necessary for that.
He stands on the other side, reaches for you, like you need assistance.
You hurl your duffle bag at his face and he laughs into the nylon. Peels it away slowly as if he’s revealing a surprise.
“I’ve missed you.” He says brightly.
“It’ll pass.” You deliver evenly. “When the nostalgia wears off.”
Dex shakes his head, takes a step closer, proud when you don’t give up ground, even if it does crane your neck and leave you vulnerable.
“This isn’t about the past.”
“It’s the only thing this is about.” You say sternly, but he only grins.
“I don’t need a North Star, sweetheart. Just an anchor.”
You snort. “Fuck off. Maybe if they do throw you back in prison you can request a ball and chain for your ankle.”
“Like a cartoon?”
“Fits. That’s some Looney Toons shit, surviving a four-story fall.”
Dex grimaces and wrinkles his nose. “I didn’t get up and walk it off.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.” he throws his hands up, turns on his heel and trudges towards the brush line on an incline.
You cock your head. “Where are you going? We need to loop back – “
“I’ve already got an apartment. Fake ID, whole caboodle, sweetie.” He gives you the cut of his cheekbone over his shoulder, his unamused stare. “You didn’t think I spent three weeks moping around your empty apartment? Like some kind of shelter dog?”
“How pissed would you be if I said yes?”
He rolls his eyes, waits a beat. “…you coming or what?”
You huff a sigh, flop your arms at your sides. “Yeah – yeah, alright.”
Halfway there when the fatigue hits you, tilts your vision a little blurry, gets you sluggish and droopy. Footsteps start to drag, slide into one another and you almost trip.
His hand curls around your bicep, steadies you. And then his arm slips around your shoulders, pulls your weight into him.
“Almost there. Just lean - …I gotcha.”
The complex looks like a shithole. You don’t have high hopes about the inside.
He more or less drags you up the stairs, hardly conscious by the time you both cross the threshold. Kicks the door shut.
Lets you sink into his bed without a second thought, resolves himself to a day of laundry tomorrow. Unlaces your shoes, worn and weathered. A pair of Chuck Taylors you’ve had for years, used to be golf-green. They’ve faded to an almost olive shade.
There’s blood in the laces.
“Hey,” he taps you on the hip, and you grunt. His mouth twitches. “Necklace. C’mon.”
It’s something by-gone, something soft and old and safe and shared. One time. One time you went to sleep with a necklace, woke up without air, and ended up with a thin, nearly straight bruise across your windpipe.
“S’a thin chain,” You argue, swatting limply in his general direction.
“That’s nice.” He sits up, watches the steady, deep, rise and fall of your chest and sighs. And then his shadow falls over you, and you growl lazily, a warning more for show than for intent. “Something this thin almost became a pretty noose around your neck – “ He hooks the tip of his finger around the chain, latches it across the zipper of your hoodie. “ – twisted itself into a vicious little knot. Right there.” The pad of his index taps you twice and you huff.
“Fuck off. Jus’ survived a gun fight. Clearance Wal-mart jewelry isn’t going to take me out.”
“Probably not,” he admits, even so, he begins to rotate the chain, tries to decide how he feels about your steady pulse with him this close. If it means something, or nothing. “But you never know.”
When he unhooks the clasp, bundles it all in a hand, he lingers, just looking at you. He lingers too long.
You crack an eye open, frown stiffly.
“Now, go away, Ben.” You shove him by the face, stubble scratching your palm, and you feel the corner of his smile there, nestled in its dip. You frown harder.
He smiles wider. “Good night.”
He lays your necklace on the counter, settles into his armchair, and watches you until he falls asleep, thinking of what life will be like with you after Fisk is dead.