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There are mornings when Buck wakes up and he wonders if he's been transported to another reality, into the life of completely different man. The name 'Buck Cashman' had remained the same as always but the man... no... he had become something else entirely, and somehow that transformation had happened without him completely realising it.
Just as one might expect from a sunrise over the beaches of Northeast Borneo, the sun was strong that morning , its beams glittering tantalisingly behind the shut curtains. In theory, it should have been an easy balm through which he could attempt to ignore the unease that had come at him in waves for the past sixty-three days.
He wandered lazily to the far end of the hotel suite and pulled aside one of the gossamer curtains. Soft sunlight flooded through the window as Buck stared dispassionately out at the ocean beyond.
Holiday.
How odd it was, to travel somewhere purely for pleasure already knowing that you'd leave the place with your hands still clean. He was still looking over his shoulder nevertheless. So many years in the game meant that you never truly got out, even if you believed you'd left it far behind. That, and he knew there were people far too invested in keeping tabs on him, even when he'd filed the necessary paperwork declaring he was using seven of his vacation days.
Rivera had been a fairly effective interim mayor for the past sixty-four days, and one of the first fairly effective things she'd done was to refuse his resignation. In hindsight, Buck was vaguely amused at his lack of fight against her insistence that he stay in his position. He understood Rivera's thinking, for after all, were he in her position he'd have done the same. Friends close, enemies closer.
Whether she had ever understood the full nature of his position under Mayor Fisk was unclear, and thus for the past few weeks he'd been a part of her office playing the role of part bodyguard, part errand boy, and hadn't needed to even so much as punch someone in the face under her tenure, let alone draw his gun at someone.
It was all a test: he knew as much. If she ever suspected the lengths he'd gone to on behalf of Fisk, she never showed it, and indeed was curious that he'd remained untouched and uncharged of any misdemeanours since the day of Karen Page's court case. Yet every so often Rivera gave him a look that made his position clear: behave like you're as clean as a lamb, be useful, and perhaps you won't see the inside of a jail cell.
He was content enough to bide his time, for now. Or at least until the next mayor was voted in, when once again, he'd reassess the lay of the land.
Besides, there were other reasons that made him content to stay in New York for the time being.
"What time is it?"
"Just past six," said Buck, turning to look at the bed at the far end of the hotel room. "You didn't even stir once in the night. Go back to sleep."
He watched as ever so drowsily, Dr Heather Glenn rubbed her eyes whilst she sat up in bed. Her face shifted from exhaustion to mild relief as his words landed in her mind.
"No..." she mused. "I - I really didn't wake, did I?"
"Not a peep," Buck replied, leaning back against the windowsill.
"Colours... that was all," said Heather, her eyes roving as she sorted through her dreams. "Flashes of red and black... that's all. No sign of any - any people."
She looked up at him properly from the bed and smiled.
"Undisturbed in... in how long?" she said, eyes bright.
"Certainly since I've known you," Buck replied.
That was not entirely correct. He'd known Heather for well over a year at this point, had known of her for even longer. But he didn't mean in either of those manners, and they both knew it.
Biblically speaking, he'd spent almost every single night in her company for almost sixty-two days. Almost eight weeks where every Friday he'd buy back groceries, where every week or so they'd go to the cinema or take Sunday morning walks together in Central Park. Between his now painfully predictable desk job and the fact that he'd somehow found himself playing house, he wondered quite just how his life had taken such a drastic, domestic turn.
But that still didn't stop the waves of unease that came and went, as though someone was always watching him... even here, where he was surrounded by naught else but overly wealthy families and couples.
"How's the view looking out there?" he heard Heather ask, and Buck took another cursory glance out of the window.
"Positively idyllic," he replied truthfully.
"Describe it to me."
"Well," he began, as he heard the rustle of bed sheets. "The sea's quiet this morning, blue as can be. It's completely untouched, save for a boat far in the distance. A local boat: if you squint you can see the paintwork, it's not a resort hire. The sun's deep orange this morning, deeper that it was yesterday, and there's not a jot of wind at all... just how you like it. If you want to walk down on the beach we should do it in the early morning, before ten. Or late at night. The sun will be unforgiving past midday and -"
Arms wrapped around his midriff and without even thinking his hands met Heather's own, their fingers interlocking as he felt her lean her head against his back.
"Alright then," she sighed. "Breakfast, then the gym, then a walk?"
"We really don't have to go to the gym, you know?" he chuckled. "This is meant to be a holiday."
"I want to," she said, exactly as she had done the day before. "I don't want to regress."
"Heather," he said, turning around to face her. A loose strand of hair fell in front of her face and he gently tucked it behind her ear. "Missing a day or two isn't going to be an issue."
"But you said my reaction times have been improving, have they not?" she said defiantly.
"They have."
"So has the speed of my punches, no?"
"Almost twofold."
"Then I want to keep it going," Heather insisted, and from the tone of her voice Buck knew that this would go precisely as it had yesterday, with the two of them heading down to the resort gym after breakfast just as she'd suggested.
Either way, improving her self-defence skills under his tutelage seemed to bring her a certain modicum of peace, and who was he to argue with that?
"As you wish," he said, settling into quiet calm as she leant her head against his chest, pleased with his answer. "Breakfast, then gym."
Heather closed her eyes as the hot water of the shower thundered down upon her. Burning hot showers were the only way she took them these days, scalding enough to to feel like it was searing right through her flesh. She inhaled the hot steam like it was a lifeline, cleansing her lungs, driving out whatever pestilence was within.
Pestilence would not do. Not in her body, not in the people she knew, not in the world at all, though sadly she had very little say in that last particular matter.
She looked down at the knuckles of her hands, still slightly pink from the sparring session she'd just come from. With every week that passed the blood sped round her veins with renewed vigour, her confidence building back up, piece by piece.
No matter how hard she wanted to push, Buck never stopped her, save if he thought she'd genuinely hurt herself. For that, she was grateful.
For what felt like the first time in so long she was in the company of a man who knew better than to coddle her, and on occasion, downright even encouraged her fury if he felt it would help her improve.
Heather waited until the pink in her knuckles started to subside, then finally switched off the water and stepped back out into the cold.
She caught sight of him as she made her way out of the changing room, at the far end of the corridor. Heather slowed, observing him as a shadow of a smile played on her lips. Like her, his hair was still wet from the shower, his hands tucked into the pockets of his tracksuit pants as he stared, frowning, at the rack of tour leaflets in front of him.
"Buck," she called out.
No response.
Heather frowned as she approached. There was stil tension in his shoulders, his jaw clenching and unclenching in exactly the manner that hers was also wont to do. He'd been on and off edge for some time, ever since his resignation had been refused by the interim mayor.
Had it been anyone else, she would have chalked up his concern at being followed down to the mental difficulties of coping with the events that had just come to pass, his mind running riot as a result. But Buck was perhaps one of the few people she knew who might genuinely be followed if he suspected as such.
More than anything, she was pleased he made no effort to hide his disquiet from her. She knew he got just as much from training her as she did, that it was one of the few chances to keep himself sharp when he interim mayor seemed determined to dull his senses in this new position as much as possible.
"Buck," she called out gently, as she joined him in front of the tour leaflets.
Her gaze followed his line of sight, to where he was staring fixedly at one leaflet and one leaflet alone.
"Madripoor," she said out loud.
He took a deep breath and turned to her.
"Sorry," he said. "I've many memories of the old place."
"Good ones?"
"It's not the sort of place where that adjective bears much relevance."
"Only an eighty minute flight away," declared Heather, reading off the slogan on the leaflet. "Perfect for a day trip."
"If you're someone who wants to disappear, that is," Buck added darkly
Cracking his knuckles behind his back, he turned to face her, his eyes settling back into the reassuring calm that Heather had become more than used to over the past few months.
"Even if there's anyone present, they won't cause us any trouble," he said quietly.
"I know," she replied, taking his arm. Together, they followed the signs directing them towards the beach. "We'll both be just fine even if they do."
Buck looked at his reflection in the mirror as he adjusted his tie.
In the old days he'd perfected his routine to a T. Get up, take a quick shower... then breakfast, trousers, shirt, suit, tie, socks, shoes and out the door. It was a good, basic schedule for someone in his profession to have, a routine that took up no mental burden whatsoever. He'd run over the schedule for the day as he wandered around his apartment, assess risk factors and take the odd call. Every single piece of the routine was finessed for optimal performance, every element of the suit a carefully chosen piece of armour.
But the man in the mirror was no longer the man with a fixed directive, and part of him did not wish to go back to who had been before Fisk, a nomad wandering from job to job. Now, he felt the constriction of on the tie around his neck more acutely than ever, could not help but notice that his cufflinks glittered far too brightly for no one at all.
"Zip me up, will you?"
Buck gave his reflection one last glance before he turned to see Heather behind him. A red dress cascaded down her person, its zip still open as she stood with her back facing him. Grateful for the distraction, he took a step towards her and gently fastened it closed.
"It's been a while since we both dressed up," she said quietly.
"Are you referring to that courtroom or do you mean the funeral?"
"I meant that dinner," said Heather, turning to face him. Her hands found the tie around his neck and she adjusted it with firm fingers, loosening it just a little.
"I think that's the longest conversation I'd ever had with you up until that day," Buck replied, her eyes meeting hers. "I dare say we've had far longer conversations since."
"Far longer conversations," she murmured back, stepping forward so that their faces were mere inches apart. Her sharp heels clicked against the laminated floors. "Sometimes we're not even talking at all..."
It's when he kisses her that Buck feels most of all like he's an entire lifetime away from the man who had taken up that posting with Wilson Fisk mere years ago.
This was unwise. This was all ridiculously, foolishly unwise... that he constantly made sure she could handle herself was the only feeble excuse he ever bothered to muster in order to pretend this could all not go terribly, horribly wrong.
Daniel, all over again, but many times worse...
This could not, should not, must not be his undoing.
"Our reservation's in five minutes," Heather murmured, when the two of them finally parted.
"After you," he said, following her to the door of their suite.
Reaching the door, Buck turned to take one more glance around the room, a final check that all was as it should be -
The dark shadow came as quickly as it went, a whisper of a ghoul passing in front of the far end curtain, the very same window in front of which he'd preambulated that very morning.
"Buck?" he heard Heather call, from the corridor beyond.
"Just give me a second," he said quickly, his eyes fixed on the far end of the room.
The shadow might have flickered for a mere second... but it only took a mere second to snuff out the candle of one's life.
"You go on ahead," he called back, his hand in his jacket pocket, fingers already curled around the small pistol within. "I'll catch you up."
Heather tapped her fingers impatiently against her thigh as she watched the family in front get ushered to their table.
It was already one minute past their reservation time.
"Hello ma'am," said the young waiter, a winning smiled plastered insincerely upon his face as Heather finally found herself at the front of the queue.
"Glenn," she said at once. "7pm, table for two."
"Glenn... Glenn... Glenn... Ah!" replied the waiter brightly. "Lovely. Yes, we have it here. Ah dear... I'm so sorry ma'am, but I'm afraid the sea view table you requested isn't available at the moment. It won't be available for another hour."
"No," Heather replied shortly. "I booked it for seven. A short wait is fine, of course. But over an hour -"
"I'm truly sorry, ma'am," said the waiter, though the words tumbled out of his mouth as though he were reading a training manual. "We can give you a non-sea view table -"
"The family in front of me were seated in a similar area right away," said Heather. "And there were five of them."
"They were Admiral's Club members, ma'am," explained the waiter, reaching over to a leaflet by his computer and passing it over to her. "If you read here, you'll see for the cost of $500 extra dollars per person there are membership privileges such as priority seating at your preferred table -"
Heather's hand shot out and grasped the man's proffered arm. She dug her fingers into his wrist and he released the leaflet at once, the flimsy thing fluttering weakly to the floor.
She need to have problems with the privilege, humans trying to be bette Ethan others, like those heroes etc
"I would like the table I booked," she said smoothly. "Please."
"I'm afraid that's not possible," stuttered the waiter. "If -"
"So you're telling me that people can buy their way to leapfrog any of your customers that followed the rules? For a measly $500 extra per stay, they can do what they like?"
She attempted to control the snarl that threatened to escape her lips as the waiter squirmed. This was everywhere. People who picked and chose what was righteous, willing to crash through someones life and upend it completely if it meant they could run riot, laughing to themselves as they had the audacity to declare as front of thousands, in front of a whole damn court that they flouted the rules over and over with no regard to the people it destroyed... and people had the audacity to cheer...
"Please, ma'am..."
Heather dug her fingers deeper into the man's skin. His flesh was soft, as soft as a firm pillow. She wouldn't even need to break flesh to leave a mark, Buck had already shown her just how much pressure she needed -
"I don't want to be rude," she said, her voice lowering to a deep whisper. "But as I said, I want our table."
Her fingers applied ever more pressure, her nails now scraping against his skin. Just a little more pressure and she'd pierce his epidermis... a light scratch at first, and then a scratch could all too quickly become an all-out puncture... and then blood, red as scarlet, would be unmissable, and -
"I do hope everything's alright?"
At the sound of Buck's voice she released the waiters arm at once, the young man snatching it back instantly, cradling the wrist that was now red with the marks of her handiwork.
"Heather?" Buck asked, lightly tapping the back of her arm with his fingers, the small way she knew he was asking if she was okay.
"They don't have our table," she explained, feeling like she could breathe again. "Apparently we're not important enough."
The waiter gasped at once, shaking his red wrist in front of Buck as though brandishing damning evidence.
"Your wife grabbed -"
"Whatever she needs, I'm sure there's no problem now, is there?" he said smoothly. Heather smirked to herself.
"But sir, she -"
"There's no problem, is there?" he repeated. She turned to Buck.
A smile lingered upon his face and for a brief moment Heather tilted her head as their eyes met. He understood her clearly. No issues in the room? Everything okay?
In return, a barely perceptible nod: all well, no problems at all.
"Sir, ma'am? A table for you has just opened up," the waiter said quickly, his voice shaking, fingers stil tapping on the computer. "Sea view, as requested."
But Heather wasn't looking at the young man at all. She held Buck's gaze, a smile wide on her face as she saw him offer her his arm. Without a moment's hesitation, she took it.
"Thank you, sir," said Heather, tearing her eyes from his in order to turn back to the young man, the smile now reaching up to her eyes. "So glad you could sort that out for us. Lead the way."
"You know, I've never been partial to cheesecake," Buck confessed, as the two of them walked by the beach some two hours later.
Heather ambled along in front of him, her high heels grasped in one of her hands as she made footprints in the sand, the bun at the back of her head now undone.
"And how did you find the one we had?" she asked.
"Far more sickly than I'm comfortable with."
Heather turned around and raised an eyebrow.
"You still ate half of it."
"What was I going to do? Renege on our agreement?" he smirked back. "Fifty-fifty, as we shook on. I wasn't about to let the side down."
Heather laughed.
"I wouldn't have expected any less of you."
The beach was still fairly busy, even this late into the evening. Buck watched as the couples and families passed them by, most of them no-doubt blissfully unaware of how they were all cogs in the system, playthings one way or another of those fat cats higher up on the totem pole who only saw these ants as a means to an end. A customer, a client, a sitting duck in a pool full of sharks...
It was everywhere he looked, subtle signs of how the underbelly of the world poisoned everything.
In from to him he watched Heather curiously, saw the relative contentment on her face as she gazed out at the beach, drank in the gentle undulations of the sea beyond. For a moment she didn't look like the woman who had been through the sheer levels of horror that she had witnessed, alone and with no-one to turn to. Perhaps this was a snapshot into the life she'd had before, when the world was more carefree.
Then again, she also didn't look like the kind of person who kept the mask of her almost-murderer in her drawer, either. He'd found it by accident a fortnight after he'd started sharing a bed with her, when she'd asked if he might fetch her a fresh pair of tights as her old ones had suddenly laddered out of nowhere.
Given that he was admittedly at sea with women's hosiery in any day-to-day manner, he'd haphazardly pulled open several of her drawers in a vain attempt to find the item.
And there it was, hidden beneath several cashmere sweaters.
It had taken him a split second to register what it was. Then he'd quietly shut the drawer without even needing to touch it, and kept searching until he'd found what she needed.
Over the years he'd seen colleagues go mad from all of the blood that had been spilled before them. Several had been sectioned, a few had gone on rampages which had left them either dead or in prison, or worse: hired to do it all again to someone else. Keeping the mask of your assailant felt like a drop in the ocean by comparison.
So Buck hadn't thought it necessary to bring it up, and if she suspected he knew, she didn't say a word.
Besides, she was feeling better, more confident all the time, wasn't she? He saw it in the way she trained with him, how much clearer of mind she seemed to possess... his mind wandered over to the marks on that waiter's arm, utterly red, fingernail marks dug in so deep that if he hadn't shown up in time perhaps they would have cut right through flesh altogether...
A figure clattered into him and Buck was thrown off his thoughts, spinning around as a skinny kid in a patterned shirt ran past, raising a hand in apology.
"Oi!" Buck called out. "Watch where you're going!"
"Sorry mister!" the kid shouted back, swiftly disappearing out of sight.
"You alright?" asked Heather, doubling back down the path towards him.
"Yeah, fine," shrugged Buck, readjusting his jacket. "Just a careless kid."
"You're describing most of the kids here," she replied knowingly, slipping her hand into his as they continued to walk. Buck felt the smoothness of her palm against his, a stark contrast to the callouses he knew peppered his own.
He ran his thumb across her knuckles. Now these... these were rougher than when he'd first met her.
They shared a comfortable silence as together they walked back to the hotel, all the way up to their suite on the fourth floor.
"I think I'm due a bath," yawned Heather, as the door to their suite drew into view. "Not that I haven't loved this evening..."
"Of course," said Buck absentmindedly.
"You'll join me?"
"If you wish it."
"My answer's the same every time."
"Just checking," he said, smirking to himself as he reached into his jacket pocket for their room key. "A gentleman never assumes. I'll be joining you -"
In the quest for their keycard his fingers had curled around a piece of paper. A piece of paper that Buck knew for certain had not been there before.
Heather leaned against the sofa in the middle of the room as Buck inspected the note.
"What does it say?" she asked, as she watched his eyes read the lines on the paper incessantly, taking the same route to no avail.
"It had to be the kid," he finally said, letting his hand drop to his side, the letter hanging limply within his grasp. "He's the only one bar you that's even come close to me whilst I've been wearing this jacket, and I'm certain this paper wasn't there before we left New York."
He stalked over to the sofa and leaned over the side, his face deep in thought as he racked his mind for memories Heather could not see.
"The pattern of the kid's shirt..." he mused. "That's a Madripoor pattern. Native to the country. I'm certain of it."
Heather reached out a hand and gently tugged on the paper. Buck relinquished it with no resistance.
She almost gasped out loud. In looping, spidery handwriting, one she knew far too well, was written:
"The cuckoo that survives the nest flies highest of all. - TU."
"TU?" asked Heather out loud.
Buck instantly put a finger to his lips, before pulling a pen from his pocket and writing hastily on the paper before passing it back to her.
Fisk. In his younger years he used the term The Undertaker for a brief period..
Heather's eyes widened.
"To choose to... to be in Madripoor would be too on the nose, don't you think?" she whispered, drawing close to him.
One of his hands gently pressed against the small of her back, pulling her close enough so that his lips were at her ear. Most other times when they'd been this close it had lead to... other things, but for once Heather knew this move was of necessity, not one of passion.
"I don't think the client in question is there at all," he murmured back. "But I'm sure they know people who know people, and we're close enough to Madripoor to make it all the more convenient for them."
"It's still a little unnecessarily theatrical if he wants to send you a message, don't you think?"
"Did the client not occasionally enjoy the odd spectacle?" Buck suggested. "A reminder they can reach as far around the world as they want to? Follow whoever they want even when they're forced into hiding?"
Heather leant back a little so that she could see his eyes properly: pensive to a fault, clouded with what was no doubt several dissections over every variable, every possibility. Her suspicions had been similar to his own: that Rivera would want to see if he'd run back to Fisk, that she was waiting for Buck to slip up so that she'd have the perfect excuse to shut him away for good.
"Perhaps it's not your boss following you after all," she whispered.
Their eyes met, the two of them sharing a knowing glance. Heather understood.
Which boss do you mean?
Heather raised her hand, placing it softly against his cheek. Only she knew that beneath the suit and that inscrutable gaze lay waters so deep that there were deadly monsters who had made it their home. The wrong moment, the wrong poke of the eye, the wrong colleague who wouldn't play ball and give up a leak... and they could rear their head to the peril of any opponent unfortunate enough to cross Buck's path.
But they'd never come for her, for she saw them clearly, understood them with no judgement. Yet nevertheless they were there in the darkest caverns of his mind, and it was only the strength and precision of his discipline that kept his waters ever-still.
Running her thumb along his jawline, she pulled him towards her, and kissed him softly on the mouth.
Such a gesture had felt like home for the past few weeks, she could admit that to herself at least. He did not lie to her, and he did not hide from her, and she never needed to search within his kiss for a man eternally destined to remain far beyond her reach.
He was there in his entirety in even in this very moment, and for now, that was enough.
Reaching into his jacket, Heather slipped her hand into his left breast pocket for something she knew was already there. He broke the kiss as she drew the lighter out into the open, already ready for her as he took the letter from her hand and held it up.
The open flame glittered in her eyes as she flickered it on. The paper caught alight almost immediately, and the two of them watched as it burned; his arm still wrapped tightly around her waist, her hand, the lighter clutched within, resting against his chest.
In seconds the paper had all but disintegrated, the last embers of Fisk's message going up in a few black entrails of smoke.
"You'll be alright?" he murmured.
Heather thought back to the waiter from earlier. It would have been so easy to break skin, or perhaps to have reached over with her other hand and shattered bone exactly how Buck had taught her was possible.
Sure, she'd never done it in real life, but there was a first time for everything, was there not?
"I'm getting stronger, aren't I?" she asked him.
"You are," he said, and she saw a glint of pride in his eyes.
"So you know I'll be fine," she replied. "And you?"
"Likewise. At the client's request, my status quo remains."
"Did you know," recalled Heather. "That cuckoos are capable of digesting larvae that are toxic to other birds?"
"Is that right?"
"Mhhm," nodded Heather, her fingers toying with his tie. "They're the only birds that can kill infestations of such insects as a result. Root out the pestilence in the trees and destroy it."
Both his arms were wound about her waist now, and she pressed her forehead against his, all too aware of the way her pulse had started to quicken.
"I see," he murmured. "Exterminators and survivors."
"Yes," nodded Heather. "More resilient than many think."
For a moment he pulled back, and with a finger he carefully tucked her hair behind her ears. His eyes traced over her face and Heather knew what he was doing; always assessing, assessing, assessing. For anyone could be a threat, and anyone could be a killer. That was his way, and he was honest about it, and thus it did not offend her.
Suddenly a flicker of fondness crossed his face, a softness appearing in his eyes that Heather rarely saw there, if ever. Then the moment passed, and he had hidden away it once more.
"Hidden in plain sight," he mused quietly. "They're rather resourceful birds, aren't they?"
Heather nodded.
"So let's be hidden in plain sight together," she whispered.
A grin played upon his lips as he drew her back towards him once more, and for the first time in weeks there was no weight upon his shoulders, no concern about what would come around the corner. Rivera, Fisk, come what may... they could all be watching for all he cared.
"Sounds good to me," he said.