Chapter Text
March 9th 4:34 PM
A lot of times, when our bodies feel disregulated and we start feeling aggressive or depressed, we’ve neglected a need or a want to help us function. There are differences between our needs and our wants, Dex. Once we meet our basics, we can focus on more complicated needs or wants. Basic needs are things like food, good hygiene, and human connection. We can say that we ‘need’ chocolate right now, or that we ‘need’ a bicycle, but those would typically fall under ‘wants.’
But I don’t like chocolate. And I need my bike to go to the park.
That’s a great point, Dex. Wants and needs are flexible. They can change from person to person. It can be hard for us to distinguish between the two when we make day-to-day choices.
How am I supposed to know that?
Let’s draw up a list of our wants and needs together, okay? You like checklists, right?
Yes.
Good. We’ll make a checklist together, and you can make sure to check it off every day. Let’s go through each one. Food. You should eat at least three times a day.
Sometimes I don’t feel hungry enough to eat three times a day, Dr. Mercer.
When does that happen?
I dunno. Sometimes when I take my pills after breakfast my stomach hurts and I don’t want to eat lunch. But the cafeteria at school is gross anyway.
It’s important that you eat, Dex. It helps you function, and it helps your medication work the best. Even if it’s just a snack, try eating something three times a day.
Okay.
Good. How about hygiene? How often do you take showers?
Every night.
That’s good. Do you ever feel like showering or cleaning yourself is hard to do?
No. I don’t like feeling dirty.
Okay. How about other kinds of cleaning? How often do you change your bed sheets?
Every week. On Sundays.
That’s good. How about your clothes?
I get clean clothes every Friday. I wish I could get clean clothes twice a week. I don’t like re-wearing my dirty clothes to school.
Have you asked Ms. Jones if you can help in the laundry room? I’m sure if you asked, you could clean your clothes more often if you helped her.
I don’t want to wash other people’s clothes. I just want to wash mine.
I understand that, Dex. But sometimes, we need to do things for other people, even if we don’t really want to, because that’s a good thing to do. Does that make sense?
Yes.
That's right. Let’s make that checklist. What color do you want it to be?
*****
Needs: Food. Water. Sleep. Hygiene. Medication. Connection.
Wants:
Dex had no real structure left. No federal job with a pension, no hospital with a rigid medication schedule, not even the monotony of prison, gen pop or solitary. This was not good for him, and he knew that. Without a structure, he didn’t have a purpose, and without a purpose, he made bad choices. What's the saying? Idle hands are the devil’s playthings?
Ha. Ms. Jones was right about one thing, after all.
Since Dex had a lot of downtime, and no structure left, he circled around Matt Murdock for some scraps of routine, something to be able to tell the days of the week apart. They’d meet up, they’d fight, they’d go home. Sometimes they'd fuck. Sometimes Matt gave him something to do, someone to follow or incapacitate without killing, and Dex would do it. Easy tasks to check off. It was good. It was routine. It was even fun, depending what kind of night it was. His latest task was to hand over a collection of findings on Fisk’s assorted Northern Star fuckups to his Mr. Charles, his CIA contact.
Dex had had to stand there and wait while Mr. Charles flicked through the file, nodding at each page. “How’d you get your hands on these?”
“Do you care?”
Charles laughed, letting the file sit open as he balanced his plate of chicken and rice in one hand, stabbing at it with his fork. “Touché. You dug all that up in, what, three days?”
“About.”
Charles thoughtfully chewed a bite, pointing at Dex with his dirty fork. “That’s impressive.”
“Are we done or not?”
“You want a job?” Charles changed the subject so quickly Dex had to blink to absorb it. He scooped another wet forkful. “I mean, your former employer/target’s going up the river, they got an APB up your ass to put you back in Ryker’s. I’m always hiring new talent. Little surveillance, little intense interrogation, little assassination. I run a very tight ship, pun intended. I hate surprises, you’d get all the job details ahead of time. Solo work. And health insurance and travel is included. What do you think?”
Dex didn’t answer.
“I tell you what.” Three rice grains shot out of his mouth and landed on the table next to the file. Charles pulled a card out of his wallet and slid it across the table. “You call that number tomorrow after you sleep on it tonight, cool?”
Dex didn’t have his tapes or his tone flashcards or his blue chart anymore, but he could rattle them off like his military ID or the ABCs. At least once a day, he ran through them to take stock of where he was, just like he’d always practiced.
Food - A peanut butter granola bar and a cup of coffee before going out tonight. Check.
Water - One glass of water after scrubbing the kitchen. Check.
Sleep - About four hours last night. Check.
Hygiene - Shower. Laundry. Check. Check.
Medication - Ha. Hahahaha. He’d taken a painkiller when his spine creaked that morning. Half a check.
Connection.
Dex got his pants back up, dusting the rooftop gravel from his knees. He pressed at a sore spot on his cheekbone, already feeling a bruise start to well up. Good. Sometimes he didn’t leave here with bruises and he’d feel disappointed. But he’d done a good job, so he got a reward. Matt was a few feet away from him, wiping Dex off of his mouth while he leaned over the roof edge to listen for something. This was always the weird part of their relationship, when Dex wasn’t really sure if he should leave right away or not. He preferred it when Matt had a new task for him to go and do, or Matt saying he had to leave to go save puppies from drowning or something else heroic. He didn’t like it when they were quiet like this.
“Charles offered me a job.”
Matt turned back from the cityscape to face him. “Doing what?”
“What do you think he’d want me for?” Dex shrugged, leaning against the brick wall by the radio tower.
It wasn’t visible through the mask but from the slight dip in his shoulders, Matt had definitely rolled his eyes. “Charles isn’t staying in New York long. Once he gets his goods from Fisk’s failures he’s out.”
“I know, he said it’d be a traveling job. Told me to think it over.”
“And what? You’re thinking it over?”
“Yeah.”
Matt snorted like he was surprised. He sighed, stepping back from the roof’s edge “Well. It’s not looking good in the city for you right now. There’s an APB out on you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yeah, I know you don’t, that’s why it’s not good,” Matt told him. He sounded annoyed. Which wasn’t necessarily unusual for him when around Dex, but after a rooftop rendezvous he usually was a little softer around the edges. Once or twice there was a twitch of a smile that could be real. Dex would notice things like that and lock them away into a box in his mind.
Matt clearing his throat brought Dex back to the present. “When’s Charles leaving town? How long’d he give you to think it over?”
“Til tomorrow. He’s going to Madripoor.”
“What the hell does he want you to do in Madripoor?”
“Again, why else would he wanna hire me?”
Matt scoffs at the remark. It was colder on the roof than a typical July night. “You’re really gonna take that job?"
Something felt weird in the air, like when a power line goes down and the air crackles. “I haven’t decided yet. I’d be good at it, though. It would be easy.”
“I guess so. But you’re gonna go all the way out to Madripoor on a whim because Fisk’s old contact has a job for you? After all-” and Matt cut himself off.
Dex’s heart skipped and he knew Matt heard it. He couldn’t help it at the sharp tone that wrapped around his insides. He still wasn’t sure how Matt could do that. Do - do you not want me to go? Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to stay here with you? I will. I’ll stay here if you want me to. I’ll stay with you. I want - I want y- I want to do what you want. I need to do what you want.
Matt turned his head towards the west side of the city, picking something up that Dex couldn’t hear. “Shit. I gotta go.”
Dex swallowed. “Right. Yeah. Me too.”
He had his gun bag slung over his shoulder when he heard Matt’s voice again. It was softer than before, but there was something else to it, something that wasn’t in any of his old tone flashcards in Mercer’s office. “You should take the job, Dex.”
Dex paused, a hand on the doorframe. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. This city’s changing day by day with everything coming to light. You need structure, it’s over there. Not here.” A piece of gravel crunched under his boot. “You should go.”
You need to meet all of your needs before you can focus on your wants, Dex.
Dex nodded to the space in front of him. “I’m gonna go, then.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’ll… I’ll probably be around later. It’s just one job.”
“Right.” Matt was walking to the nearby fire exit, following some sound with a quick turn of his head. “I gotta-”
“Right.”
And then he was gone and Dex was alone in the door frame before fifteen flights of stairs. Each step down pulled at the bruise on his knees. He picked up the pace so the pain stung each nerve as it flexed.
*****
January 16th 4:02
Hi, Dex.
Hi, Dr. Mercer.
How do you feel?
Okay, I guess. I’m tired.
Why are you tired?
I was going to be late to see you, so I had to pedal extra fast on my bike to be on time. I made it three minutes early.
You did. That’s good, Dex, but don’t strain yourself.
Okay.
Did you try to follow your checklist last week?
Yes.
Let’s go through yesterday and see how you did, then we’ll go through the rest of the last week. Did you eat at least three times yesterday?
No. It was cauliflower for dinner. I hate cauliflower. Ms. Jones said if I didn’t finish dinner I couldn’t have dessert. Dessert was chocolate ice cream and I didn’t want it, so I didn’t eat my cauliflower.
So you didn’t like what was for dinner, and you decided you didn’t like the dessert either, so you made the choice to skip both.
I don’t like chocolate ice cream or cauliflower. I don’t need to eat them.
You don’t need your dessert, but vegetables are good for you, Dex. You need to eat them.
I like vegetables fine. Cauliflower tastes like shit. I ate everything else. It was meatloaf with mashed potatoes and I drank two glasses of water with it. That was on the checklist.
It was, that’s good. I want you to work on eating healthy, though, okay? Even if you don’t like it, you need to eat it.
I… I can try.
There we go. So, food, water, let’s go with hygiene. Did you take a shower last night?
Yes. And I talked to Ms. Jones about the laundry. She said I could help and I could wash my clothes twice a week as long as I folded them and cleaned the lint trap and washed everyone’s towels.
That’s great, Dex. I’m proud of you for taking that step. Have you washed the towels yet?
It takes two cycles with the two washers to wash them and then I fold them. It’s not hard. I can stay in the laundry room and do my homework, too. I like that.
You don’t want to do your homework in your room, or the main room?
I don’t like being in the main room. I don’t want to sit at the table with everyone else.
We talked about your socializing, Dex. What if you need help, like you don’t understand the directions on your homework?
I don’t need help. I’m doing really good in math. I got a hundred on my last quiz. Mr. Andrews said if we got a hundred on the quiz we could get a pack of Skittles. I was the first one done.
I like Skittles, too. I like the green ones best. Did you eat the Skittles today?
…
Dex?
…
Dex, is something wrong?
No. I ate… them… in the… park.
Did something happen?
Kind of.
Were you almost late today because you were there?
Yes.
What were you doing at the park? Be honest with me.
I had my Skittles. I was eating them in the grass. There was a squirrel running past and I threw a Skittle at it, Dr. Mercer.
Why did you do that?
I wanted to.
What happened after that?
It ran the other way. I threw a red one at it, and it turned towards the road to keep running.
What did you do, Dex?
I threw another Skittle at it and it ran into the road.
And then what?
There was a mail truck. The driver was going too fast and they didn’t see it in time and they hit it. It died in the road.
You knew that the squirrel could get hurt if it ran into the road, Dex.
Yes.
So, why did you throw that Skittle?
I wanted to.
Wanted to throw it or wanted to hurt the squirrel?
Both.
Dex, you know you can’t do that. We’ve walked about this, with the kittens and with-
I know I’m not supposed to like it but I did. And I - I wanted to do it. It was a want. I ate breakfast and lunch today and drank three glasses of water and slept for seven hours and made my bed and showered and took my pills and told Nancy I was sorry her uncle died even though I don't like her. I did all my needs. You said once I do all of my needs I can focus on my wants.
Sometimes our wants don’t align with what’s right and what’s wrong, Dex.
*****
Three months later
Krrrch.
One perfectly tossed garbage can lid to the traffic light at Adams and Maine effectively shut down the busy intersection. Dex was so busy watching the firefighters have to cut a hole into a taxi to pull out the driver that he missed the sound of footsteps behind him. And in missing the footsteps behind him, he also heard the sound of a billy club whizzing by his ear a second too late before it collided with his temple. Luckily, even stunned, he was able to turn around and throw a flattened soda can at the attacker.
He smiled as Matt ducked it, letting it stick to the big bag of fertilizer on the rooftop. “Hey.”
“What the fuck did you do?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“Dex, it’s a miracle nobody died down there.”
“Miracles are good things.” Dex beamed at the scowl on Matt’s face. He was so easy to piss off. Charles took everything as a joke and his friends took everything too seriously.
Matt yanked the billy clubs back to his side. The scowl still didn’t go away. “You show back up after three months to announce your presence with a five-car-pileup?”
“Did you want me to call?” That was a good joke, because they don’t exchange numbers, they don’t call each other, they don’t text, they don’t do anything except fight and fuck and trade insults.
Matt didn’t laugh at his joke. “ The Madripoor job took three months?”
“No, just two weeks.”
“Where the hell have you - actually, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“I’m full-time, now,” Dex told him, rocking back on his feet. “It’s a good job. I like it.”
Matt scoffed under his breath. “I’m glad you enjoy killing people for the US government again.”
“It’s what I’m good at.” That wasn’t a joke, it was the truth but it got the barest flash of a smile on Matt’s face before it quickly vanished. “I’m on break, though. I don’t have to be anywhere until DC next Friday. And that's a short flight.”
Matt cocked his head, listening to the ambulances below them. “So why are you here, then?”
Dex flicked the tab from another empty soda can at him, smiling when he dodged it, then dodged it again when it ricocheted. It gave Dex enough time to swing on him and get punched in the shoulder. Dex fought back, Matt twisted his arm behind his back until he dropped the knife he’d taken from his holster.
“New suit?”
“Yeah,” Dex gritted out through his teeth, “it’s government-issue.”
“It smells cheap.”
Dex laughed through the pain. “I just got it a month ago.”
Matt kicked the back of his knee, sending Dex to the ground. Dex focused on his bearings as Matt moved to stand in front of him, still holding Dex’s arm in a powerful grip. Dex grinned, his free hand coming up to the waistband on Matt’s suit pants, running his thumb in a small circle. His body was buzzing with wantwantwant.
“I think you should stop talking,” Matt told him, voice rough. “And next time, sweetheart, just call instead of racking up property damage.”
Dex’s mouth watered.
*****
April 18th 3:56
Yesterday, I had cereal for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and chicken with rice and broccoli for dinner. I had five glasses of water, one with my pills. I slept for seven hours. I took a shower and changed all the towels in the bathroom. I thanked Nancy for helping me with my science project. I’m trying really, really hard, Dr. Mercer.
You’re doing very well, Dex. What about for connection? What did we try this week?
I went to Henry’s birthday party.
Wasn’t that nice of him to invite you?
He had to, I told you that. He wasn’t allowed to pass out invitations at school unless they were for everyone. I heard Mr. Andrews tell him that.
Did you have a good time?
I didn’t like the cake. I still ate my piece because Henry said it was his favorite kind.
Did you give him the present we wrapped together last week?
It was a shitty present.
No, it wasn’t, Dex. You said he liked that book series and we got him the next one, right?
He already read it, Dr. Mercer. And I didn’t know that. I felt stupid.
It’s okay that you didn’t know that.
It was a shitty present and a shitty party and I hated being there. I hate him. Nobody’s ever going to invite me anymore.
Dex, breathe. Do your checklist.
I’ve done everything I need to do.
What about your wants?
I want to hurt Henry for laughing at me in front of his friends. I want to snap his bike brake off.
Those are not good wants to have, Dex.
Everything I want is a bad want!
*****
Another three months later
“What the fuck did you do?”
Dex shrugged, looking around the now-silent boardroom. Except for the four corpses around the table and the minimal blood, it was much cleaner than the car pileup from three months ago. “My job.” He smiled as Matt moved closer, sneering under the mask. “I had one in New York for once. So I called.” Of course, Dex had called after the job was done. Maybe that was the problem.
“You can’t show up here and just - decimate a whole board. I was tracking their movements.”
Dex rolled his eyes. “And I got the job three days ago. I just got here first.”
“That’s not what’s important, Dex,” Matt said, truly pissed off. Dex could tell he was truly pissed, because he wasn’t even trying to hit him. That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t how they did things.
“There were only four people on the board,” Dex tried to reassure him. He was bad at that. He didn’t like that Matt was making him do something he was bad at. “That’s nothing.”
“It’s four people that are dead now, Dex!”
“I know that! So what! Do you want to know what I did in Madrid last month? Or Toronto? Or-”
Matt stepped back when Dex moved towards him, and Dex’s spine suddenly felt colder than usual. “Don’t even start that.”
“Start what?”
“You know what? Just go.”
“I-”
“Just go, Dex. I - I have to go, too.”
“But I - I won’t be here that long.” This wasn’t how they did things. They didn’t have to fuck, Dex would take a black eye or another broken tooth, he wasn’t picky. Matt wasn’t supposed to be stepping back from him. “I-I fly out tomorrow morning.”
“And I have to go right now.”
“No, you don’t. You’re lying to me.” You can’t lie to me, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t do that to me!
“Dex, there are sirens and a cop radio coming down East Boulevard right now.”
“But I’m right here and I just killed four people!”
“And I can’t help them or you!” Matt snapped, and Dex suddenly couldn’t move. “Alright? You’re right, you got here first, good for you. You did your job. I’m going to do mine. Goodbye.”
Dex couldn’t move as Matt left, not to break his arm or throw something at his temple or even fall on his knees to beg Tell me what you want me to do. He couldn’t move to try calling him or running up to the roof to see which way he went. He couldn’t do anything at all but stand there alone, surrounded by death created with his own hands.
Four months later
“Hartwrights, Rhys and Mallorie.” Charles punctuated the statement with a loud slurp from a frozen coconut daiquiri. He’d ordered one for Dex as well without asking his opinion, both in plastic cups because they were by the pool bar in the resort. It was a testament to Charles’s lack of seriousness and ultimate authority he could be handing over Dex’s latest targets while wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a streak of white sunscreen across his nose. “Give the signal when you’re done, clean up crew will be in after. We got an afternoon flight tomorrow so we’ll take the conference call here before we hit the road.”
Dex hummed in agreement. He didn’t have much to say. It was a clean order with a clean set of guidelines. That was all he needed.
Another slurp. “This place is great. You know, this town has barely changed since I went here for spring break. God, you don’t even want to know how many years ago that was.”
Another hum.
“It feels like I’m talking to myself again, bud.”
“Yeah. Must’ve been a while ago.”
“Hey, did you spring break in Miami or Vegas back in the day?”
“I was in the military. I went overseas.” A joke that even Dex knew wasn’t very funny.
Charles leaned back, the woven chair creaking under his weight. “You never even went to college?”
“No.”
“Jesus. Really flying by the seat of your pants, huh?”
“I didn’t need it.”
You don’t want to go to college, Dex. College is very unstructured, and a lack of structure sets your progress back. The military will give you that structure. That’s what you need, right?
CRACK!
Dex squeezed his cup so hard that the plastic snapped and frozen slush ran out over his hand and onto the table. It took a full five seconds for Dex to register that the sound and the cold were happening to him. He reached across from Charles for napkins and scrubbed the mess up quick as possible.
“You good?” Charles phrased it like a question but it was clear he wanted one answer.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Uh huh.” Charles cracked a peanut and flicked the shell into the trash pile Dex made in the center of the table. Even through his sunglasses his gaze was condescending. “I think you wanna rest up in your room before the job, yeah?”
“I said I’m fucking fine,” Dex snapped.
“I SAID, I think you wanna rest up in your room before the job, yeah?” Charles corrected him. He was never sharp or angry when he ‘corrected’ him, just talked louder, like Dex had just misheard him instead of disagreeing.
Dex looked away at the lifeguard on duty and imagined knocking them off the chair with a peanut shell so they’d fall into the pool, splitting their head open on the cement bottom. “I… need to get some rest.”
“That’s what I thought you said, buddy. Big job tonight,” Charles smiled at him, bright and sunny like always. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
Every job was a big job. Everything was a big favor. Everything was something someone else needed or wanted.
Dex walked all ten stories up to his hotel room and let the door close on the Do Not Disturb sign, having to re-open the door to adjust it the right way. He breathed out alone in his room, once, twice, three times. The buzz in his blood made his skin itch and his metallic spine wasn’t keeping him cool like usual.
You’re disregulated, Dex. You need to check that you’ve met your needs before you can focus on your wants.
Food - Nothing since pretzels on the plane since his new pain meds made him feel airsick, even pressed against the window. The thought of eating anything right now was enough to turn his stomach. No check.
Water - Dex filled a glass from the sink in the bathroom and downed it, then another. Check.
Sleep - He’d slept exactly one hour on the plane. ‘Slept’ was generous, he’d hovered in that space between awake and asleep for an hour and at one point was confident he wasn’t conscious at all and hadn’t been for years. Check.
Hygiene - Shower as soon as he got off the plane. Check.
Medication - He could swallow every pain pill in that container right now and it still wouldn’t make it all stop buzzing.
Connection.
Dex stared at the phone in his hand, at his short list of contacts and texts, assorted marks and handlers and spam insurance offers and Matt’s number with the last messages between them four months ago and nothing since.
I’m going to kill you the next time I’m in New York, which is sooner than you think. I like my job. I do. It’s easy. I’m good at it. I get paid a lot of money to kill people, which is my job, which I’m good at. I already said that. You knew that anyway. You knew that when you said I should take the job so why are you so pissed that I listened to you? I wish you’d told me to stay. Why didn’t you ask? Because you knew I’d listen to you? Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you so much.
Dex couldn’t turn his phone off in case Charles needed him for something, so he shoved his phone into his suitcase and zipped it shut to avoid typing anything stupid. He turned off the lights in his room, punched an alarm into the bedside clock (6:36 - 6 + 3 + 6 = 15 = 1 + 5 = 6. Divisible by 2 and 3 and 4 and 6 and 12) and stared at the ceiling for an hour and seven minutes before he needed to get ready for the job.
Laughter drifted in through the hallway from the Hartwrights’ honeymoon suite. Dex slipped into the bathtub in their bathroom, pulling the curtain back from where it was to stay hidden. He watched the couple enter the hotel room through the reflection in the shower door, as Rhys put their leftovers in the fridge and Mallorie picked up the ice bucket to head out to fill it. As the door shut again, Rhys walked into the bathroom, whistling some awful song under his breath. He took his tie off, letting it lay on the counter as he scratched his face in the bathroom mirror.
Dex flicked a knife off the shower door and it bounced off the mirror before landing in Rhys’s throat. He was dying slowly as Dex stepped out of his spot and nudged his body to the side, carefully avoiding the blood as he watched through the crack in the door for Mallorie to return. When the hotel room door opened and Mallorie let herself back into the kitchen, Dex threw another knife that landed in her right eye before she could even call out to ask Rhys where he was. Mallorie dropped the ice bucket on the counter, sending the lid and a few stray cubes to the floor with her.
Done.
Charles’s cleanup crew, dressed in hotel whites, worked around Dex as he cleaned off his knives in the kitchen sink. They bundled up bodies and cleaned the surfaces and Dex wordlessly pointed at the single errant bloodstain on the bathroom floor as he opened the fridge and removed the takeout containers. The Hartwrights’ last meals were rigatoni with vodka sauce and ribeye with sweet potato gnocchi and roasted cauliflower. He took the leftovers back to his room, scooting past a housekeeping cart with one of the Hartwrights inside being wheeled down the hallway.
Back in his room, Dex folded his suit into its case, showered, alerted Charles and the client that the job was done, and took his evening pain pills. Those needed food to work properly, so he sat at the breakfast table by the window with the leftovers, putting the room service menu to the side. He checked his new messages, his wire transfer, and scrolled all the way to the bottom to Matt’s number and the last texts from four months ago.
I hate you. I fucking hate you. I’m going to kill you for not letting me die and be done. I’m going to kill you for leaving me. I’m going to… I’m going to…
I want you to know about every single person I’ve killed in this job. I want you to try to stop me and fail. I want you to hurt me. I want you… I want you to understand how I feel so you can explain it to me. I used to know what my needs were and what my wants were and where they all fit on my blue chart and now…
Dex stabbed his shaking fork through an overcooked, cold piece of cauliflower and chewed in the silence of his four-star suite. It didn’t taste like anything at all.
New York, four months and six days later
Four coke dealers walk into a room. One of them says, hey, I thought we sold snow here! The blonde guy replies, is that why you’ve been wearing ski boots to work?
It wasn’t a very good joke, but Dex had smiled when Charles told it because that was his job as much as closing his loose ends. Which was why Dex was in a supply room with four angry coke dealers glaring at him for breaking in. Dex didn’t feel afraid or even energetic at the thought of killing them all. He felt listless.
“Not a good idea,” Dex halfheartedly warned the blonde guy holding the gun on him.
“Fuck you.”
Dex snorted at the remark, turning his back to him at the perfect time and perfect angle as the gun went off. The bullet bounced off his cogmium implant and it ricocheted back between the blonde guy’s eyes and he dropped to the floor with a dull thump.
Dex watched it happen in the reflection of the window and giggled as the other three dealers looked on in shock. Now that had been funny. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
For that remark, he got hit in the jaw with the butt of the other guy’s rifle, making his teeth clatter as he swung back, just to get swung on right in the left side of the ribcage. It hurt, sure, but they were only three guys and only two guns. He’d be fine. Another hit to the helmet and he grinned as one of them pried it off, busying himself with flicking a wrist knife and sticking one of them by the hand, the one wearing the beanie, to the shipping container. He shrieked at the pain while the other two threw Dex down on the table, sending stacks of cash all over the floor. Dex slid so far across the surface he almost fell completely off, catching himself on the corner, getting a hard punch to the face to knock him back. He spit blood onto the floor before the cold metal of a gun was pressed to his forehead with some sort of hissed curse. Dex laughed at the gun, pressing his forehead into it while he started folding a loose hundred dollar bill with his free hand to flick into his left cornea.
THWACK!
A red billy club knocked into the guy’s temple. The gun dropped from Dex’s forehead to the floor, a stray bullet going off and going into the shipping container next to the trapped beanie guy who shrieked again, then one more time before Matt Murdock, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, punched him in his cheek so hard all he could do was squeak out a sorrysorrysorry. “Shut up already.”
Dex pulled himself up to a sitting position, leaning back on his arms as Matt kicked the fallen gun across the room, away from the two dealers still standing. The one in the green shirt that had pinned Dex down was bolder, trying to rush him before Matt ducked the punch and swung back, sending him sliding back on the floor. He got up and rushed him again, and they struggled while his friend picked up a wooden chair from the table and threw it full-force. It ended up splintering against the wall when he missed, and in the scramble to avoid splinter shrapnel Matt felt behind him on the shipping container until he found the crowbar. When the one in the green shirt swung this time, the crowbar collided with his wrist and it snapped like a stalk of celery.
Warmth bloomed through Dex’s whole chest at the sound.
With Green Shirt trying to focus through the pain, Matt turned his attention to his freckled friend attempting to bolt, catching him in the shoulder with the crowbar and sending him down hard to the floor. “Wait,” he pleaded, scooting over loose cash, trying to get his bearings. “Wait, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, it was a routine gig, you gotta believe me, he wasn’t supposed to-”
Matt kicked him back down, stepping on his throat to cut him off. “Save your breath.”
Dex’s mouth went dry and he completely forgot about the blood on his face as he watched Matt turn, foot still cutting off his windpipe as he swung and knocked Green Shirt out cold when he tried one last rush at him, the crowbar ringing as it struck bone. Dex dragged a hand over his mouth as he started to smile for the first time in weeks. His suit was feeling too tight and too warm, so he palmed himself through it as he kept watching.
The beanie guy was trying to delicately wiggle the knife out from between his knuckles, turning white with each nerve pinch. “Stay where you are,” Matt ordered him, lifting his foot off his friend on the floor to let him get air. He fumbled on the floor for a loose wood splinter or metallic shard and tried to stab Matt in the thigh with it (asshole couldn’t hit the femoral artery if it was labeled) and Matt’s response to was to knock three of his teeth loose. Then he swung again and slammed the crowbar and hit him in the collarbone. Then again. Then again.
Dex was worrying his glove with his teeth so hard it started to slide off his hand. He made himself stop as Matt stood up, two unconscious dealers at his feet, panting with exertion as he wiped the sweat dripping down the uncovered part of his face with the back of his hand. He swallowed, and didn’t turn around as he finally spoke to Dex. “You didn’t say you were in town.”
You knew I was, though. Dex felt light-headed. If he could see his eyes he’d swear they were sparkling. “Guess I am.”
“You didn’t call.”
You wanted me to call. Dex had to cover his mouth like Matt would be able to hear his fucking giddy smile. “Oops.”
Beanie guy almost had the knife out of his hand, two inches soaked in his blood with another half inch to go.
“Why are you here, Dex?”
“Had a job.”
Matt sneered, like he always did at the mention of Dex’s job. “Sure your boss will be happy to know you almost died from four no-name coke dealers.”
“I wasn’t going to die,” Dex argued.
“They got the jump on you.”
“I let them.”
“Why?”
Dex shrugged. The lightheadedness was fading. “Just for fun.”
Beanie guy finally wrenched the knife out of his hand and it landed with a clatter as Matt’s sneer curled back to show teeth. He threw the crowbar behind him and knocked beanie guy unconscious after eight seconds of freedom and a shredded left hand. The crowbar bounced where it fell in the new silence of the room.
“What the fuck did you say?” Matt hissed.
Dex swallowed, sourness filling his mouth. “Just for fun, I guess.”
“You guess? You’ve been god knows where for four months and now you just show back up and let them do this to you for fun?”
“It’s a busy job, counselor. Nice and structured.” Dex emphasized that last word, dragging it out until he ran out of air for it.
Matt’s tongue ran over a canine as he smiled in anger. “Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“Is that was this is about?” Matt was still breathing hard from taking out all three men after Dex, to the point he had to swallow in between words.
Suddenly they were in new territory, and for all of Dex’s promises in empty hotel rooms, he found he couldn’t keep any of them. His record of never keeping a single promise was going strong.
Matt stepped over the unconscious men separating them to move closer. That crackling downed-power-line feeling was back. “Oh. It is, isn’t it?”
Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Don’t open that door. “How’d you know I was here?” Dex tried to swerve their conversation into something easier to manage as Matt finally stood in front of him.
“You’re not that hard to find.” Matt wiped the side of his mouth again, smearing sweat and blood.
Dex let the crumpled hundred dollar bill fall out of his hand, a good faith gesture. “Not what the CIA says.”
“I’m not the CIA, though.” Matt mocked him, kicking the rifle away from the floor. “Does the CIA know you have a very distinctive heartbeat?”
Fuck, you can’t… you can’t say shit like that… you’re… you’re still mad and so am I and I want I want I want but I can’t… I need…. I can’t…
“Thought snipers could control that, but you, I could pick it out from the crowd at JFK.” He was so close Dex could feel his breath. “You should work on that. You’re getting sloppy.”
Aw, fuck this.
Dex pulled Matt towards him, crushing his mouth against his, wantwantwant humming through his veins. Matt’s smirk melted away as he kissed back, a hand on Dex’s thigh to angle up to meet him at the table edge. Dex breathed into the kiss, not caring about the awkward angle as he cupped his face in his hands. Matt’s free hand reached out and rested against Dex’s heart, not making any comments about his erratic heartbeat now.
But almost as soon as it started, Matt slowly started to pull away. Even with his hands still on his chest and his thigh, Dex felt the change immediately and any sense of calm the kiss had granted him vanished.
“No. No, no, no,” Dex whined, hands grasping at Matt’s shoulders when his face was too far as he kissed him again. “No, no.”
Matt returned the kiss, slow and steady, and Dex was starting to calm back down when Matt shook his head, pulling back again. “We can’t do this right now.”
“Why not?” Dex didn’t care how desperate he sounded. “Why not?”
Matt didn’t answer his question, just turned away as he let go of him. “We need to leave, Dex.”
Dex’s stomach twisted and he had to clench his teeth to work through the wave of pain. Matt was already heading for the exit and Dex scrambled after him. Neither of them spoke for two flights of stairs down until Dex stopped at the landing. Matt was already three steps down before he stopped hearing Dex’s footprints, so he turned. “What?”
“What?”
“We need to leave.”
“No.” Dex didn’t even know why he wanted to stay where he stood. That was a want. They needed to leave. He wanted to stay. He needed to override the want but the buttons in his brain were jamming. “Why did you find me?”
Matt turned completely around, went back up the three steps to be on equal footing with him. Even through the mask he looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Why did you find me?” Dex didn’t know how else to phrase his question.
“We aren’t doing this right now.”
“Why not?”
Matt breathed out in a rush. “Dex, come on. We’re moving. We - Dex?”
Why won’t you answer me? It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. Why would you try to save me again? Why won’t you tell me what to do? Why won’t you tell me what you want? What do I want? Why won’t you tell me what I want?
SLAP.
Dex heard the noise before he registered the sting across his cheek. Matt’s gloved hand wrenched his chin back to face him. “Dex, you’re spiraling. Can you hear me? You’re spiraling.”
He’d forgotten he wasn’t speaking out loud anymore because Matt grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him. Hit me again. I’ll listen this time.
“Move, Dex. Come on. Move.”
Dex wanted to move. He wanted to run down two steps at a time and be waiting at the foot of the landing like a puppy. But he couldn’t.
Matt sighed, turning away from him to face towards the stairs, and Dex felt something snap behind his eyelids. He moved fast and shoved Matt hard when he had just stepped down onto the first step with a hand still on Dex’s arm. Matt sucked in his breath in shock and Dex wanted to taste it, let it rot in his teeth like a cavity. There was nothing he could do to stop the momentum, he was going to fall down sixteen stairs to the landing before he could steady himself. Good. Good.
Between the millisecond when Matt’s legs gave out and the millisecond before he started down, he squeezed his grip on Dex’s arm and yanked hard. Maybe it was the strong grip or his nail digging into a sore nerve or the fact he was still touching him but Dex found that he was also falling.
They tangled up into each other during the descent. The stairs were unfinished like the rest of the upper floor, and when Dex clipped his chin on a step he could feel the grit scrape at the skin. He slipped on his knees trying to sit up, grabbing the side of Matt’s waist and dragging him back down with him. That effectively stopped Matt’s ascent attempt, and Dex smirked at the sight before Matt used the momentum to flip around, face curled in a snarl. Dex barely got to enjoy it before Matt punched him hard. Blood gushed, flowing the same path as his bleeding chin as Dex lost his balance and fell the remaining four steps to end up on his back on the landing. It knocked the wind out of him, and he wheezed before staggering back to his feet and charging at him on the stairs again. Matt stopped him with a well-placed kick to the knee, knocking his face into the grit again. Dex swallowed the blood in his mouth as Matt dragged him down two steps and flipped him over to slam his head against the stairs edge. It was a hard enough hit that Dex had to blink through the spots in his vision. Something metallic was rattling loud as fuck in the stairwell, Dex wondered what it was and where it was coming from. Matt pinned him down, hand on Dex’s chest as he wiped blood off of his face.
“Jesus. You’re shaking.” Matt’s free hand smoothed Dex’s hair out of his eyes and Dex went limp. The rattling sound stopped.
Dex blinked again, aware of the bits of pain and blood and bruising scattered across his body. Matt was pressing him against cool cement, and he felt himself unclench
“Okay, okay. That’s better. Alright. Let’s-”
“Why did you find me?” Dex still didn’t have an answer and if he didn’t get one he felt like he was going to die.
There was a long pause, with Dex’s heart thumping erratically the only sound in the space. Dex tried to shift under Matt to move closer, and Matt stopped him with a hand on his throat. The cool leather soothed his burning skin. When Dex leaned in so Matt could squeeze harder if he wanted, Matt sighed in defeat, sitting back but still keeping his grip. “You think I ever stopped looking for you?”
Dex could’ve thought of a hundred potential answers to his question and that wouldn’t have been one.
“You think I haven’t wondered where the fuck you’ve been, what you’ve been doing, and hating that I didn’t know? You think I don’t know that you don’t care what happens to you? You think I like that it’s someone else telling you what to do instead of me?”
Dex could barely breathe.
“That's why I needed to find you.” Matt swallowed, muscle twitching in his jaw. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
What I wanted…I haven’t thought about that in years…
“What else do you want, Dex?”
Want? Want. Need? Need. Want. Want. Need? No, want. Want.
“Answer me.”
Want. Want. Want.
“I want-” Dex’s voice cracked on that disgusting word. “I want you. I want you.”
Matt’s hand tightened around his throat, hard enough Dex wheezed. Just this touch was enough to get him hard.
And then Matt said hoarsely, “Oh, sweetheart…” and nothing else for forty-two seconds. Dex was so occupied counting each one that he forgot to kiss back when Matt finally pressed his mouth back to his. “Show me what you want,” he murmured, teeth dragging on Dex’s bottom lip.
You don’t know what that is. It’s - it’s bad. It’s-
“C’mon. It’s okay, Dex. Take what you want.”
Some breaker in the switchboard of Dex’s brain suddenly flipping and Dex had a knee up, switching their positions to put Matt his back on the stairs. Dex moved up to settle in his lap, kissing him while working his gloves off, tossing them to the side. He tried to work Matt’s gloves off as well before he had to breathe but he ended up still having to pull away just enough to finish the job. Once the gloves were away he pried Matt’s helmet off, letting it drop down the stairs. He cupped his face to kiss him again, moaning when Matt’s bare fingers ran through his hair and pulled hard like he dreamed about. Matt deepened the kiss, dragging his other hand down Dex’s spine, snagging it on the small hole from the bullet that bounced off the implant. It just made his grip even tighter on Dex’s hair and fuck, Dex was already gone.
“I want more.” Saying it out loud felt dirty.
Matt huffed a laugh. “Like w-
“I want more.” Dex begged, kissing him again. “Now. Please.”
“Right n-”
“Now, right now, please, please-” Dex snapped out of the whine when Matt broke the kiss to run two fingers against his lips. Dex licked them without any shame before greedily sucking them into his mouth.
“Oh, fuck me. Shit.”
Matt’s voice was raspy. Sometimes he’d sound like that after a brutal fight or or when he was close and giving Dex his version of a warning. And he was already sounding like that right now, groaning just just from Dex’s mouth. His hand still on his back drew a slow circle that lost its shape when Dex tried to take him even deeper, drool dripping from his lips with no way to stop it.
The fingers not in Dex’s mouth stroked across the scar on his cheek. “This what you were thinking about when I had to save you, sweetheart?”
If Dex was in his right mind, he would’ve pulled back and punched him for even implying Dex needed to be saved. But then again, Dex didn’t think he’d ever actually been in his right mind.
“I could hear you breathing - breathing harder, heard you bite your gloves. Touching yourself. You liked that? Me stepping in when I didn’t have to, just for you?”
Dex could barely focus on not choking, let alone shoving his suit pants down.
“Or - fuck, fuck - did you wish you were the one getting hit instead?”
Dex ran his tongue along the pad of Matt’s index finger as a yes and smiled in stupid bliss as he groaned under him. Matt had to keep one hand on the side of Dex’s face to support him as he slowly pulled his hand from his mouth. The second he let go Dex let his face fall into the side of Matt’s neck, licking and then biting there as slowly worked his soaking-wet fingers inside of him. It hurt just the right amount. He sighed the word harder under Matt’s ear as he rocked his hips down. Ignoring his own throbbing dick, he rubbed his hand Matt through his suit pants, tugging at them to pull them down. Matt hissed some other curse with some other pet name and Dex liked making him like this, making him break one more of his rules just for him.
“I want more.” Dex said, barely opening his mouth to speak the words as he kept trailing kisses down Matt's throat. He was fixated on this one want, now, and nothing could’ve broken it. “Want you to fuck me, please.”
“Baby.” Matt sounded winded. “You’re fucking insatiable.”
Dex laughed at the pet name and the praise, nipping at his pulse point. “Am not.” He barely got the jab out when Matt curled his fingers and he trailed off with a loud moan. He had to settle himself back down with his hand down Matt’s pants and his lips on one of his scrapes from the stair fall. “Jus’ want you, ‘s all.”
Matt dragged him to a better position in his lap by his hipbone, sliding his fingers out slowly, making Dex bite at his throat in disapproval that he was stopping. Matt clutched his hair and pulled him back, forcing him into a kiss as he started to slowly help Dex sink down onto him. Dex keened at the stretch, at the way Matt squeezed his fingers hard enough to bruise, at the way his spit-wet mouth slid from Dex’s to bite into his throat. He didn’t give Dex a second to adjust when he was buried to the hilt inside of him, just started fucking up into him over and over. Dex tucked his face into the side of Matt’s face, nose by his ear, as he tried to roll his hips at the same frantic pace. Dex could feel his legs shake and he ignored it as Matt dug his nails into his skin.
“Don’t ever,” Matt snarled at him, thrusting hard enough Dex felt the air get punched out of his lungs, “Don’t ever let upstairs happen again. You want your jaw broken, you want to get knocked out, you want this, I’m the one that does it. I get to do it to you, nobody else.”
Dex drooled out a just you, whining it in his ear as he flexed his hips to a new angle that made Matt grit his teeth in a moan. Dex trailed a hand down between them to feel where they were connected and hummed mindlessly to himself, savoring every second of this
“Fuck, you’re already close, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Embarrassingly, yes, Dex was, even for him, and he couldn’t care less, nodding his head. Evidently, Matt didn’t care about that, either, because he didn’t slow down. Dex adjusted himself in Matt’s lap, unable to even keep his eyes open at this point. He leaned down and planted a kiss perfectly on Matt’s mouth, and the second Matt's tongue slid past his lips again, he came. He moans came out in little ah-ah-ah sounds as his orgasm stretched for what felt like forever. Dex was distantly aware that Matt was still fucking him the whole time, rough like he wanted, like they both wanted, until Matt let go with a bitten-off groan, making Dex shudder through his aftershocks as he pulsed inside of him. They finally broke away from each other’s mouths to pant and try to catch their breath, Matt’s head hitting the cement stair with a loud thud. “Holy shit.”
Dex’s brain was empty. It wasn’t scrambling or checking for needs or shoving down wants he wasn’t supposed to have. It was just empty. He didn’t to move from this spot, or off of Matt. He nuzzled into the side of Matt’s jaw, licking the sweat there, and murmured, “Don’t - a minute.”
“Hmm?” Matt sounded miles away in his own head.
Dex had to focus on words. “Jus’ a minute. Like this. Sssssixty s’conds, I’ll count ‘em.”
Matt put a hand back on Dex’s hair, stroking gently, and Dex let every sensation soak in. The gravel and grit from the stairs, Matt’s nails against his scalp, the scrapes from the fall and the hits, Matt’s bitemarks on his throat and neck, the tears dripping down Dex’s face that he was just now noticing (how long…) the warm weight of Matt making him feel full and anchored and present and content.
Fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight…
“Fifty-nine, sixty,” Dex slurred, only realizing then he’d been counting out loud. He slowly pushed himself up by his hands on the stairs. It took effort to pull himself off of Matt, Matt not helping at all with a low grunt at the sensation. Dex almost stopped to stay like this so Matt could fuck him again, any way he wanted, but he’d said a minute and he’d move, so he did. He barely managed to tuck his dick back in his pants before he rolled onto his back on the stairs next to him.
Dex sniffled and wiped his face with his arm, feeling scattered. Not in a bad way, for once, like he could pick all the pieces back up himself when he was ready. He heard Matt shift next to him, groaning as he moved to sit up on a higher step from where Dex was, before he was reaching a hand out and tugging Dex to sit beside him. Dex curled closer, resting his head on Matt’s thigh and listened to him straighten his muscles and make a low ugh sound when they cracked.
Matt swallowed, wiping Dex’s spit off his face. “Fuck. If we want do that again, your ass and your metal spine is on the sharp staircase.”
Okay. I want to do that again. I want everything.
Matt brushed Dex’s hair out of his face, petting him and bringing him back to himself. “You still with me?”
Dex nodded against his thigh. He didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. “D’you think I was falling asleep?”
Matt pressed a single kiss to Dex’s temple and Dex felt a fresh tear fall from his eyes. Matt wiped it away with his thumb. That rare smile was back. “I’ve never heard your heart beat so steady before.”