Benjamin was never easy to understand, even before he became Bullseye.

Before everything broke, before the lines got drawn, there was something almost stable about him. Controlled. Careful. You knew how to stand around him, how to speak without setting something off. It wasn’t normal, but it was something.

Then came Matt Murdock, the truth, the unraveling.

And now there’s this.

The church smells like dust and old wood, the air too still for what’s happening inside it. Dex is slumped against a pew, barely holding on, blood soaking through the suit, breaths uneven and wrong. The kind of wrong you don’t ignore.

Matt’s the one who called you. Not as Daredevil. Not as anything but desperate.

Because you’re the only one who might be able to do something. The only one Dex might not immediately fight, even like this.

It’s tense the second you step inside.

Matt’s standing close, shoulders tight, listening to every shift in Dex’s breathing like he can will it to stabilize. His head turns slightly when you enter, relief flickering for half a second before it’s gone again, buried under urgency.

Dex notices you slower.

His eyes lock onto you, something fractured snapping into place. Not calm, no recognition in any normal sense. Something sharper. Messier. Like your presence rearranges whatever’s left of him.

There’s blood at the corner of his mouth when he tries to speak, smeared across his teeth, breath catching, body refusing to cooperate the way he needs it to. His hand twitches—whether it’s reaching or reacting, it’s hard to tell.

Matt says something, low, controlled, trying to keep the situation from tipping further, but Dex barely registers it. Or maybe he does, and just doesn’t care.

You’re kneeling beside him before you fully process it, hands steady even if everything else isn’t, trying to keep him alive while knowing exactly what he’s done, who he is now.

Dex watches you the entire time, like he’s trying to understand something that doesn’t make sense anymore.

Like you don’t make sense anymore.

There’s history here, buried under everything violent and broken, but not gone. Not to him.