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The fight had not been a clean one. They never were; it was why he had been called in to take care of it. If an end had to be messy, it might as well be quick. He hadn’t broken any bones, and nothing was severely punctured. Just a few cuts that needed to be disinfected. He shifted, testing the range of his musculature to the point where inconvenient pain became a legitimate problem. Besides the bruising that came from blocking an opponent’s blows, he had a cut on his left side that started on his side between his 5th and 6th ribs and travelled up to a point somewhere between his spine and the bottom of his shoulder blade. He knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it without having to test his range of motion.
It didn’t take him long to reach her apartment, not when he had reflexively started moving in that direction as soon as his target was dead. It wasn’t just about his injuries—he was used to patching himself up—but an irrational desire to seek her out, to not return to an empty apartment that held no confirmation that life existed outside of this constant struggle to maintain the moral balance. She seemed to defy it in a way he had not yet been able to place, someone who had done enough harm to be identified as a person of interest to the CIA, but who looked at him in a way that made him believe he might only be capable of good, so long as he stayed within her line of sight.
He stashed his gear behind a dumpster and, left with nothing but the tactical clothes that formed the base of his suit, he climbed the fire escape that led up to her window.
The apartment was dark, the combined kitchen and living room cast in silhouette. No light crept from under her bedroom door. He knocked. Three loud taps followed by two softer ones. It had become a sort of code that confirmed he was the one requesting entry into her apartment in the dead of night rather than a would-be intruder. When her door stayed closed, he counted to 30 and knocked again. And then a third sequence.
He was about to knock a fourth time when light poured from under her bedroom door. It opened a moment later, and he met her eyes through the glass. This was not the first time he had shown up at her window bloody and bruised, but tonight she approached him with the caution of seeing him like this for the first time.
She lifted the window. “Do I want to know?”
He shook his head and pulled himself through the frame. She was already on the opposite side of the room, pulling out a chair for him at the kitchen table with the first aid kit in hand. He dropped himself into the chair, reaching for her as she approached to drop the first aid kit on the table, but she darted out of his reach and back towards her bedroom. “You need a fresh shirt.”
It was then that he remembered the state he was in. Cautiously, he tugged at the hem of his shirt. It clung where the blood had dried, the torn edges pulling at the wound hard enough to make his body protest.
“Let me.” She had returned from the bedroom with a plain charcoal t-shirt of his. How many of those had migrated from his closet to hers over the months? She set it on the table next to the first aid kit. Her fingers replaced his under the hem of his shirt and pulled, carefully maneuvering the fabric over his torn skin. She hissed through her teeth when she took in the sight of his back.
“That bad?”
“Yeah.” Her voice was soft, and rough with sleep.
She knelt on the floor, feet tucked under her for balance, and began to tend to his wounds. He tried to keep his back straight, to stop himself from leaning into her touch. His skin prickled where she passed over it with a wet cloth. She worked in silence, brought on by focus, or exhaustion, or perhaps both in equal measure. He said nothing, just watched her as she worked.
He recoiled reflexively when he felt the sting of the antiseptic against his torn flesh. She paused her ministrations and let him adjust before she resumed. “One of these days, I’m going to ask about these street fights you keep getting into.”
“I live in a bad neighbourhood.” He said, too tired to put any inflection in it. The lie should have been easy. He lied to her every day about most things—who he was, where he worked, that he didn’t mind that she left unwashed cups to gather dust on tables—but this called for a level of creativity that he had never possessed.
“All your neighbours are retirees and students.” She didn’t look at him, just glared at his wound as she covered it with a long strip of gauze. “We’re going to have to talk about this at some point.”
“Fine.” He put a hand over hers, a silent plea to stop what she was doing and look at him. “But not tonight.”
She slid her hand out of his, secured the gauze with a final piece of tape and stood. “You should go. I have to be at the bureau early tomorrow.” His body reflexively followed her to the door even as his mind protested. She had always let him stay, pulled his broken body to hers and stroked his hair until the pain dulled. He would rather she screamed at him, demanded to know what was wrong with him. He would have preferred to fight instead of suffering this quiet resignation that made him feel like there was nothing left to fight for.
She kissed him, but there was nothing to it other than a perfunctory gesture. She stepped out of his hold before he could think to keep her there. “Get home safe.”
He didn’t move away when the door shut behind him. Just stared at the closed door like it might present some answer as to what had just occurred. After fifteen minutes, the light under her door disappeared, and with it any hope of resolving the ache blooming in his chest tonight.
He turned it over in his mind on the walk back to his own apartment.
They had argued before—it was natural for couples to disagree once in a while, or so he had heard—but they never had much bite to them. He couldn’t push her too far, doing so would jeopardize his ability to collect the information Langley wanted from her, but his orders required him to stoke the natural ebb and flows of a relationship. He had started one, once, after she made a comment about how accommodating he always seemed to be—never complained, never disagreed with her. He had thought she might become suspicious, so he “accidentally” knocked a glass off her counter and, after disposing of its shattered remains, had suggested that if she organized her kitchen better it wouldn’t be such a hazard.
She had suggested he didn’t have to stay if he found her apartment inconvenient.
He had been back at her door an hour later with a replacement glass and enough contrition for her to let him back in to repent properly. This was different. Unplanned, with no simple fix. There was no rehearsed script for him to fall back on, no scaffolding to keep himself on track. It was uncharted territory and he fucking hated it.
She watched his shadow pace outside her door for five minutes before cleaning up and going back to bed. He could be out there all night; it wasn’t part of her mission briefing to do anything about it.
The bitter aftertaste of the conversation still lingered on her tongue as she slid back under the covers. It hadn’t been entirely spontaneous. Her handler had been breathing down her neck since the beginning about finding the rationale behind Bullseye’s nocturnal rampages. The CIA provided an end-goal, but not a method. She had slowly been working him open for weeks, pressing her fingers in until she found the sweet spot where motivation became temptation. It was subtle—a carefully placed hand putting just enough pressure on a hidden wound to cause him to wince, stroking her thumb across battered knuckles, pressing her lips to bruise-stained ribs, throwing in a soft how did this happen? when he leaned into the touch. At first, he had excused it as clumsiness, but they both knew the lie was thinner than paper. Eventually, he had admitted that he occasionally got into fights. “Occasionally” had become “frequently” the first night he knocked on her window last month in tactical pants and a bloodstained compression shirt. She hadn’t said anything about how the amount of blood on it didn’t track with his wounds, but they both knew she had noticed it.
He had been more careful after that, fewer fights, less severe marks for her to find. But still there.
Tonight hadn’t even been the worst state she had seen him in, but it had tugged at something in her she wasn’t quite ready to confront. That moment of weakness had been enough to let the facade slip, and for her own frustration to bleed through. It was not the dispassionate move it should have been, but she could convince herself that it was simply an evolution of an earlier strategy. It was natural, healthy even, for couples to occasionally have disagreements. Tests of conflict resolution and communication. It’s not what you fight about but how you fight… For her, it was a way to keep up the ruse against him. Real couples argued, so she would start an argument.
The first test had been small, an evening where he had invited her over, and she had shown up half an hour late, waited for him to mention it, and then gotten a little overly defensive. It had lasted two minutes before she had backed off, apologized, and made some excuse about the stress of a long day getting to her. Superficial. Easy to correct. It was difficult to argue honestly when they both had orders to not do anything that could jeopardize the pretence their relationship provided. So they walked the perimeter, resorted to compromise instead of confrontation; a battleground locked in a perpetual stalemate.
This time was different. She was actually upset with him, she realized. She had read his file, knew what he did when he wasn’t with her. She knew he could take care of himself. But knowing didn’t help to quell the concern. Every time he knocked on her window, begging her not to ask with that hangdog look that he seemed to have perfected for her benefit, she folded.
It wasn’t even a question about the morality of his actions—that wasn’t a commodity she could afford to deal in with him—but the casual way the hurt hung from his shoulders, like he had endured it a thousand times before. She wondered if there had been anyone before her to tend to his wounds. His file held no answers. Some of the uneven scars suggested not.
It said a lot about him, most of which she didn’t like to think about. Not because it was a reminder of what he was capable of, of what he might someday do to her when whoever held his leash decided she wasn’t of use anymore, but because the more time they spent together, the more she realized how similar they really were. The hurt inflicted on others in the name of righteous duty, the isolation, the late nights spent coming home to empty apartments because life was meaningless without the work. It made her wonder if anyone would be left to miss her when she was gone. It also made her wonder whether she would miss him, when all was said and done. She liked having him around. He was still a job—one of her most challenging to date—but it was nice to come home to someone after so many years of keeping people at arm’s length for their own safety. Show no weakness, don’t give them any leverage. Even if they were both playing each other, Dex still made her supper and held her when the bureau ran her ragged; she still cleaned the blood from his face and stroked his hair when the nightmares pulled him from sleep. False gold still glittered. Uprooted trees could still remain upright if they leaned on each other. They were good together, in their own, strange way. He was good for her, as difficult as it might have been to admit.
But there was a job to do, and she couldn’t let sentimentality get in the way. They would resolve this tomorrow, like the good little agents they were. He would take another step closer; she would pry him open another inch. Together they would return to equilibrium, the rope drawn a little tighter than before. She would forgive him with minimal questioning tomorrow. Any lingering concern she held would be hers to bear alone.
Dex waited 16 hours before knocking on her door. He came empty handed—some sort of apology gift would have felt disingenuous, and he didn’t want her to think he was trying to buy his way back into her good graces. Even if this was just a job, even if one day he might get the call to eliminate her, even if this good thing was temporary, he wanted to earn it.
She answered quickly, as if she had been standing close to the door when he’d knocked. She didn’t seemed surprised to see him.
“I was wondering if you wanted to have that talk.”
“Come in, then.” She stepped back into the apartment, allowing him to follow. He shut the door behind him softly. No sudden movements. Hands where she could see them. Sleeves rolled down to hide some of last night’s bruising.
They went through the motions they always did, shoes by the door, the offer of something to drink, his feet taking him to her couch. She followed, but stayed at the opposite end, hip resting against the arm of the couch. He wanted to reach for her, to place her next to him and reinstate the routine they had built up over their months together. He didn’t, just twisted his fingers in his lap. “What do you want to know?”
She levelled him with a look that he had long ago learned meant don’t lie to me, I’m in the FBI.
“Are you in a gang?” He almost laughed. Was that really what she thought of him?
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you in a fight club?”
“No.”
“Are you a vigilante?” He didn’t say anything, it was easier not to. A partial lie by omission was simpler. She let out a long exhale—displeased, but not surprised. “How long were you going to keep it from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Am I in any danger?” A reasonable question. He could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, assessing the threat he might pose to her, that others might pose to them both.
“Not if you don’t know anything.” Not if he could do anything about it.
“Are you in danger? Does anyone else know?”
He shook his head for both counts. “I’m used to getting hurt.” He looked at her, hoping she could see that despite the previous lies, this was truthful. “I’m not so used to having someone else see it.”
She crossed her arms. “Who else is getting hurt?”
“Only people looking for trouble.”
“Sort of sounds like you’re the one looking for trouble.”
“I never start it.” Not technically. Not of his own volition, at least not these days. When Mr. Charles had a job for him, he answered.
“Jesus, Dex.” She scrubbed at her face. “How would you feel if I told you I spent my time picking fights when I’m not with you?” Better, actually. It would feel like they were on more even ground, like she might understand him better, understand why he needed her not to question this too deep.
When the silence stretched without him producing an answer, he saw her brows crumple with disappointment. He didn’t like when her face did that.
“It’s not your responsibility to dole out justice.”
“Sometimes it’s necessary.”
“Because we’re not doing enough?” She glanced over at where her FBI jacket hung by the door.
“It’s not your jurisdiction.”
“Well it’s definitely not yours, either.” There. The slightest twitch at the corner of her mouth. A smile, lifting against the frustration in her voice. “You don’t have to put yourself at risk.”
“I don’t like feeling like I can’t protect you.” It was more honest than he meant it to be, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Her face softened at that; still marred by frustration but laced through with something like understanding.
“Is that all?” The corners of her mouth lifted in earnest, and he felt a surge of unabashed pride at that. It was a tired, half-smile, but a victory was a victory. “You can do that fine from right here.” She had drifted closer to where he sat, the gap between them closing gradually. She wasn’t offering him a complete resolution, but degree of acceptance that promised peace, at least for now.
He reached a hand towards her, a silent request to come back to him. She took it. He pulled her to him, legs shifting to accommodate the additional weight of her as she settled onto his lap. She cupped his face in one hand, the other pushing his hair back. Her eyes roved over his face, and he wondered whether she was looking at the lines that had begun to cluster around his eyes with age, or the scars peppered over them. Maybe the point where the two met, proof that he had survived the latter long enough to claim the former. His hands slid up to grasp her waist, as much to steady himself as her.
“When I hear sirens go by on nights you’re not here, I wonder if they’re coming for you.” Her voice was low, solemn in a way he didn’t recognize.
“They haven’t caught me yet.”
”And if they do?” She gripped him tighter. He could help but do the same. “I don’t want to lose you.” Something ugly curled pleasantly inside him at that. He had successfully infiltrated her life, lodged himself deep enough to be inconvenient to dispose of. It was something to send back to Mr. Charles. He would omit the way he melted into her touch, the way he preened at the idea of being wanted by her—kept not for utility but for his own sake alone, only at the price of claiming some part of her in return.
He leaned forward until his forehead pressed against hers. “You won’t.”