It's Irresistible

“What are you doing under there, Bexley?” Brown hair brushes the floor as the little girl sticks her head out from under the bed, and she smiles up at the older woman.

“I’m hiding from Mister Carmine,” she whispers.

“Why are you hiding from him?” The woman’s dark brown eyes look worried, but the little girl just giggles.

“We’re playing a game, Mama!” The worried look is replaced with relief, quickly followed by apprehension.

“I told you not to bother Mister Carmine, Bexley. He’s a very busy man, and he doesn’t have time to play games.”

“She’s not a bother, are you, Bexley?” Carmine Falcone is standing in the doorway to one of the guest bedrooms, and Rosalyn Barba brushes off her knees as she stands up.

“I’m so sorry, Mister Falcone. I—” Carmine raises his hand, effectively cutting her off, and Bex watches the two grown-ups from her hiding spot under the bed.

“She does not bother me, Rosalyn. It’s nice having a child in the house. Come here, Bexley.” The little girl wiggles out from under the bed and skips over to the man’s side, and the small four year old smiles as a large hand ruffles her already wild hair. “Children are precious, innocent. Your daughter is always welcome here, Rosalyn, and she will be safe.”

“You do too much for us, Mister Falcone.” The woman’s eyes shine with unshed tears, and Bex lightly pokes the man’s knee.

“You’ll never find me this time!”


Victor wakes up to the sound of a screaming alarm and the pungent smell of fire, which wouldn’t be uncommon if he is sleeping in a gutter. He’s in a penthouse, in a king-sized bed, but Bex is gone. Victor slips out of the bed and quickly makes his way downstairs, and a cloud of smoke blocks his view of the kitchen. He can hear light coughing, but there isn’t any fire as far as he can tell. He walks over to the patio doors and opens them both, and the smoke slowly starts to thin. Bex is standing next to the stove and there is a carton of eggs on the counter next to her elbow.

“Explain.” She reaches up to ruffle her hair, which looks like it hasn’t been touched by a brush in years, and there is a small burned spot on the arm of her ridiculously colored robe.

“I was gonna make us a real breakfast, but I, uh, I’m not the best at cooking? I don’t even know what caught fire first,” she shrugs.

“Go get cleaned up. I’ll take care of it.” She slinks out of the kitchen like a whipped dog, and Victor slowly makes his way over to the stove. Cleaning up the mess doesn’t take long, and he looks to see what’s left. Some eggs, bread, sausage. He can make a small breakfast out of that.

By the time Bex returns, everything is done and the patio table is set. Eggs, toast, sausage, and orange juice. Bex’s eyes widen when she sees the food, and Victor braces himself when he sees her tense. Arms lock around his middle a moment later, and he reaches up to lightly pat the top of her head. They sit next to each other, with Bex’s feet in Victor’s lap, and eat breakfast as the weak sun starts to rise over Gotham. Bex hums as she eats, and Victor isn’t sure how she manages to not choke as she shovels food into her mouth.

“Why are you up so early? More plans?” The sun is just now starting to crest over the tallest buildings, and Bex looks like she hardly slept.

“I had a weird dream.”

“Nightmare?” It wouldn’t be uncommon for her to have one after learning that she failed in her first ever hit. Not that he considers it a failure; she did kill a lot of people, so what’s one missing son that no one even knew about? They’ll get him, in time.

“Not to start with. Wanna know a secret?” Her smile looks secretive, and she curls her toes against the inside of his thigh. He nods his answer since he’s just taken a bite of toast and sausage. “I used to play hide-n-seek with Mister Carmine when I was little. Can you imagine that? Terrifying mob boss playing hide-n-seek with a four year old. He’s really good at coloring too.”

"Anything is possible," he says after a beat. His former boss used to color with his new boss; that fact should make him unsettled, but he has the strangest feeling that today is going to be a good day.

“That’s the spirit!” She says it with a laugh, a carefree sound, and toes wiggle against his inner thigh. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that she was an innocent. Just a normal girl with no worries. He’s seen beyond that part of her though; he’s watched her take a life.

“Plans?” he asks again. He’s still in the dark sweatpants and tee shirt from last night, and Bex is finally out of that bright yellow robe. She’s still in her pajamas, unless she’s planning on taking to the streets in her too short white shorts and purple tank top. He’s not sure if he’s ever seen this much of her skin, so many marks…scars and ink. He’s not sure how she’s alive, judging by all of the scars carved into her skin.

“Nothing pressing, at the moment. I’m sure news of Joey’s death has reached Gavin by now, so I imagine it won’t be long before the last Hawthorne heads this way. Don’t worry, I’ll be ready for him. I’ve gotten much better at killing since those first few days,” she says with a wink in his direction. She knows that he’s been looking at her bare skin, so he decides to take another sweeping look. Burns, uneven lines from blades, gouges from bullets…She has to be better, or she’ll die.

“Our plan today is to do nothing?” That’s something he isn’t expecting. He doesn’t like inaction.

“My plan today is to do nothing. Well, maybe some grocery shopping. I should have specified my cereal choices. You, on the other hand, should probably go back to Penguin. We can’t let him get suspicious.” She sighs at the end and then washes everything down with the last of her orange juice. “You should probably go get ready. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“Without setting anything on fire?” She rolls her eyes but smiles at him, and he rests a hand on top of her wild hair before walking off. She did buy some clothes for him during their shopping spree, his usual clothes, and he runs surprisingly gentle fingers over the fine fabric. She takes care of him like a pet but looks at him like she needs him. It’s…strange.

Bex is in the kitchen when he’s completely dressed, weapons and all, and he pauses at the bar to watch her. There’s a dishwasher on her right, but she’s hand washing the few dishes anyway. She’s humming along to the music playing over the speakers, hips lightly swaying, and there’s water staining the front of her tank top and dripping down over the counter. Parts of her hair are flattened and other parts are curled up wildly. There’s soap suds clinging to her cheek, like she reached up to scratch her nose. She must have felt him looking at her, or maybe she heard him walk in, because she turns her head to look at him. There’s a faint trace of a smile on her lips, and it’s nothing like her usual bright smiles.

“I’m gonna miss you today. Weird, huh? We’ve known each other all of forty-eight hours, and I’m already gonna miss you. Why do you think that is?” She bends down to rub her cheek against her shoulder, getting rid of the soap, and he doesn’t know the answer.

“Maybe it’s my charm.” Her laugh is too loud in the open space and causes her head to arch back, and he watches the way that the veins in her neck throb as she laughs.

“Yes, that has to be it. Now come here and give us a goodbye kiss,” she says with an expectant look. His surprise must show on his face, because she adds, “My hands are soapy and that jacket is expensive. So give me a forehead kiss and get out of here.”

“You always this bossy this early in the morning?” he asks while walking towards her. Her lips quirk up into a smile as he stops in front of her, and she still has her arms buried halfway in dishwater.

“Maybe,” she answers in a sing-song voice. She leans up on her toes, because there is a bit of a height difference between them, and he’s not used to this. No one has asked this of him before. He can feel her body pressing against his, is surprised that someone that feels so soft can cause so much destruction, and lightly touches his lips to her forehead. He listens to her hum, something completely different from the upbeat music playing in the apartment, and she tilts up just a little bit more for the extra pressure before rocking back onto her heels.

“I’ll try to come back tonight,” he says after pulling away. He can still feel her against him, can smell the coconut and vanilla that clings to her, and she’s warm. Warmth and softness in a city that is filled with cold and sharp edges.

“Promises, promises. Now, go.” She pushes her forehead against the center of his chest, and he reaches up to ruffle her hair before taking a full step back. She’s smiling again when she looks up, and he takes a moment to commit the way that her cheeks stretch and her eyes shine to memory.

He takes the elevator down to the garage, glances over at Bex’s shiny car, and slips out onto the street behind the apartment building. He keeps to alleys and backways, where it won’t matter if he’s spotted. No one will dare to cross him here, not in the shadows, because they all know who he is. What he is. The lowlifes on this side of Gotham are too scared to even whisper his name most days, and none of them will meet his eyes. It’s all for the better. Bexley is right. He can’t spend too much time dodging Penguin, or the newest crime boss will get suspicious. Suspicious is something he can’t have right now. He wants to help Bex take down the last Hawthorne; the kill will be hers, but he’ll help in any way he can.

“Victor!” He pauses just inside the doorway and feels his jaw clench. He has his own room in Penguin’s palace, which is just on the edge of the darkest parts of the city, but he was hoping that the home’s owner wouldn’t notice him coming in.

“Sir?” The word feels heavy on his tongue, but this is him showing respect. Trying to show respect. Calling Bex “boss” feels almost natural, but calling Penguin any kind of superior term feels wrong.

“Where have you been?” Penguin is standing at the very long table, pouring himself a drink, but he’s looking over his shoulder at Victor now. Isn’t it too early to be drinking?

“Out.” He works for Penguin; he’s not obligated to tell the other man every single movement he makes. Penguin ambles over to him, drink left forgotten on the table, and doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of Victor.

“Out?” Penguin looks skeptical, and Victor watches as he breathes in deep. “Coconut…and a little vanilla. I have to say, Victor, I’m a little surprised.”

“I retrieved Eric Mason’s payment.” He pulls the envelopment out of his jacket, his new jacket, and places it in Penguin’s hand. He looks at the envelope, Victor, and then at the envelope one last time.

“Thank you, Victor. You’re dismissed, for now.” He nods, just a quick dip of his chin, and turns on his heel. He’s in his room in record time, and he takes a moment to breathe in deep and exhale slowly through his nose. His fists are clenched at his sides, enough to make his arms strain, before slowly straightening his fingers out. He raises his hands and lifts his jacket to his nose to take a quick sniff. Coconut and vanilla.


“I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts,” Bex is singing when something knocks into the back of her shoulder. She catches a glance of blonde hair and a bloody face, and it looks like the guy is apologizing with his pretty blue eyes as he runs past. Normally, Bex would take offense at someone knocking into her so abruptly like that. She’ll give Detective Gordon a pass.

She looks down at her grocery bags, notes that nothing has fallen out, and continues her singing. She can hear sirens screaming in the distance, and gunshots had echoed in the air not too long ago. She’d like to investigate, to see why there are so many shots being fired inside of the police station, but it’s none of her business. Her job this time is to stay under the radar, her job is to always stay under the radar, so she is staying away from that clusterfuck.

The old woman in the elevator at her new apartment building glares at her, more specifically at her humming, but Bex ignores her. She likes humming, it keeps her happy and calm, and her hands are starting to go numb from carrying all the bags. The old lady gets off the elevator first, because Bex has the penthouse, and Bex shuffles around so that she can wave goodbye to her. A minute later, she’s back in her apartment. Her big and empty apartment. The remote for the radio system is on the kitchen bar, right where she left it, and she turns on something soft.

Groceries are put away quickly, and she sighs as she looks around. There’s nothing left for her to do, not today. She can go back out canvassing tomorrow night, see if there’s any chatter about a new player coming into town, but that’s tomorrow night. She doesn’t mind doing nothing, but she’s not doing nothing. She’s waiting. She hates waiting. The tight jeans are replaced with a pair of baggy shorts, she keeps the sweatshirt on, and she walks back to the living room in bare feet. She turns down the music as she collapses onto the couch and turns on the TV, and she pushes a pillow under her head as she starts flicking through channels.

And so the waiting begins.


“People like that are the reason why creating order is such a pain,” Penguin grumbles to himself. There’s a redhead on the TV, that’s sitting at the end of the table, and he’s just helped kill a sizable amount of Gotham’s police force. Including the new commissioner. Victor is slumped in his chair, bored out of his mind, and tired of listening to Penguin run his mouth.

“Sir?” The word is drawled out, a mixture of respect and slight laziness, and Penguin looks away from the TV to meet his eyes.

“Did you need something, Victor?” Penguin looks relaxed, which is a good sign.

“Permission to go out?” Pale green eyes narrow, and Victor relaxes his body even further.

“Off to see someone special?”

“No one special, no one particular.” The answer makes Penguin laugh, and he flaps his hand in Victor’s direction.

“Go, have fun, but be prepared to come if I call you.”

“Of course, sir,” Victor says as he stands up. He’s still fully dressed, so all he has to do is walk out the front door. It’s dark out, dark enough that no one can see him as he winds his way through the city, and he’s only breathing slightly out of rhythm by the time he makes it to Bex’s new apartment building. He goes in through the back entrance of the garage, where he knows there aren’t any cameras, and then takes the elevator up to Bex’s apartment. Once he steps off the elevator and into Bex’s apartment, he stops and just breathes. It’s the most relaxed he’s felt all day. Until he hears the scream.


“You thought you could attack us, girl?!” The low level lackeys are idiots, and she’s not quite sure what that makes her since they managed to string her up. Ropes are rubbing her wrists raw, blood is slicking down her arms, and thin whips have torn her shirt to shreds. She clearly didn’t think this through. She’s already killed a few of Hawthorne’s rats, dirty people living on the streets that didn’t fight much, and she thought she was ready to move up the ladder. These guys aren’t very close to Hawthorne, but they’ve done the odd job for him.

“You need to come up with some better dialogue,” she rasps out. Her back is screaming in pain; thin lines are spreading out to cause mass destruction, and it looks like she’ll never wear a backless dress again.

The whip lashes out one more time, and the overhead pipe that she’s tied to collapses. The pipe clangs against the ground as her body thumps against the concrete floor, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on the new scrapes and bruises. The moment she realizes that she’s on the ground and not swaying in the air, she’s running. Loud shouts and heavy footfalls are sounding behind her, but she doesn’t have time to slow down. There’s no time. No time at all. No time. She has to do something. She’s in a kill or be killed scenario now.

The warehouse is filled with giant containers, so she runs around them in a circle. The men chasing her don’t realize that she’s doubling back, and that’s just fine with her. She gets back to their original position, and her fingers are just gripping the pipe when a bullet tears through the meat of her shoulder. She yelps as she goes down, and she tries to keep perfectly still. Listens as the man who shot her creeps closer. When she can see his dirty shoes and smell the rot of his breath, she swings the pipe. It connects with his chin, and she keeps swinging as he goes down. By the time she’s done, he’s got a face that not even his mama would recognize.

The second guy finally catches up to them, and she uses the first man’s gun to shoot him. Her body is screaming in pain, every little nerve ending feels like it’s on fire, except for the parts of her that are going numb. She needs to see a doctor, but she can’t go to a hospital. She knows that there are back alley doctors, but she’s not sure if she can trust them either. They mostly keep to themselves, it’s the only way to stay in business, but there’s no way of telling if one of them belongs to Hawthorne. She hasn’t questioned enough people yet to know who’s guilty.

She can patch herself up. She’s smart enough to do that much at least, right? She uses the pipe as a makeshift walking stick, and she stays close to the shadows as she slinks away from the warehouse. She’s not worried about the cops finding her with two dead bodies; she’s worried about another criminal finding her with two dead bodies. No one can know what she’s doing, or why. She’s doing this for herself. It doesn’t matter how many of them cut her, shoot her, whip her…None of it matters, because she’s going to kill them all. Every last one of them.


Bex is lying on the couch, in a pair of loose black shorts and a purple sports bra, and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Her hair has fallen from the ponytail it was in, just a small section is still restrained, and she’s thrashing. A nail catches at the dip of his throat, and he can feel the quick burn of pain before he can grip her wrists. Her legs are still kicking wildly, one knee connects with his ribcage, so he throws one leg over hers to hold her down.

“Bexley!” The eyes that look up at him are wild, like a rabid animal, and she bares her teeth up at him. This is a side of her that he’s never seen. The smiling girl that dances off-beat is gone and has been replaced with a woman that looks possessed. Her chest heaves as she glares up at him, so much raw anger, and he can feel the way her muscles are straining under him. If she wanted, she could throw him off.

“I…wha…you’re bleeding.” Her voice is rougher than usual, from the screaming, and he looks down at himself.

“I’m not bleeding. You’re bleeding.” There’s a split in her lip, on the right side. Just a small line of blood has marked a path down her chin.

“Your, uh, neck.” He reaches up and touches the skin just above his shirt, in the dip above his collarbones, and feels something sticky.

“Just a scratch. What happened?” It’s a stupid question. He doesn’t like stupid questions, but it just slips out. She obviously had a nightmare, but…what kind of nightmare?

“Old memories. Happens sometimes. You never have bad dreams?”

“Monsters don’t have nightmares.” He’s still straddling her lap and sitting back against her thighs, and she’s stretched out on the couch in front of him. The sports bra leaves most of her torso bare, and it’s getting hard to look away. More dark ink curls around her right ribcage and down across her right collarbone. The left side of her chest is covered with a thick scar, like someone tried to tear her heart out, and there’s four thick slashes across her left ribcage. Scar tissue bubbles down her sternum and lines streak across her stomach; there’s a deep scarred hole over her left hip and a jagged line across her right hipbone that dips down her pelvic bone.

“I think you’re wrong, Victor. Monsters have nightmares. They are the nightmares.” She’s tapping a finger against a gouge on her right ribcage, like someone tore away a chunk of flesh. “I know, I’m ruined.”

“You’re a masterpiece.” He touches the old bullet wound on her right shoulder, and the scarring tells him that this is where the bullet came out. She was shot from behind. It’s years old, faded but still rough, just like all the other ones. He moves from her shoulder to her chest, and fingertips touch the edge of the giant X carved into her skin.

“Such a sweet talker.” She arches her back to help him trace the line, and he can feel her too dark eyes on him. Watching. Waiting. He moves both hands down to her ribs and sweeps them up her ribcage, and she sighs as she arches against the movement. She’s soft between all of the rough edges. “Do you like me like this, Victor? All laid out so that you can see who I really am?”

“I like all your parts.” She tilts her head, and his hands smooth around to her back as she carefully sits up. He can feel more raised scar tissue on her back, thick and long lines as if she’s been whipped, but she’s still so soft.

“Explain.” It’s not a question. This is his boss, demanding an answer, while his fingertips map out the destruction of her body.

“I like the part of you that hums and dances. I like the part of you that can kill with her bare hands. I like the part of you that has ridiculously colored Band-Aids. I like the part of you that doesn’t fear me, that takes care of me. I like this part of you.” He drags his fingers down her back, from her shoulder blades to the top of her shorts, and feels the way she shivers against him.

“Like I said, such a sweet talker. But you mean it, don’t you?” He can feel her hand pressing against his lower stomach, one finger idly flicking the bottom button.

“I will never lie to you.” She walks her fingers up the buttons of his shirt, until she is pressing her index finger against the scratch on the bottom of his throat. Suddenly, she is gripping his throat with one slim hand and has him pushed back against the opposite arm of the couch. Her warm weight presses against his torso and holds him down, and all he can see are her dark eyes. (Is this the real Bex? This woman with too dark eyes and a confident grip on his throat?)

“Because you’re mine?” The question is whispered, and she’s so close that he can feel her warm breath against his chin.

“Because I’m yours.” Her lips touch his just long enough for him to register the heat of her, the softness, and then she’s rolling off of him. When he turns to look up at her, she is gathering her hair back on top of her head. He can clearly see the scars that line her back, exactly like whip marks, and watches as she picks up the discarded sweatshirt next to the couch.

“Come on, let’s go get you cleaned up.” He licks his lips as he gets to his feet and tastes blood, and he follows after her. He’ll always follow after her.


“Did I just kiss you?” She’s pressing an alcohol pad against the bottom of Victor’s throat, to clean away the streak of blood, and he’s smiling at her. He’s leaning back against the bathroom sink with her standing between his spread legs, and it’s like everything is becoming clear. That part with Victor, on the couch, that wasn’t a dream. That was real.

“Not memorable enough for you?” He’s teasing her. Normally she’d be over the moon at Victor teasing her, but her head feels fuzzy.

“I’ve never, I mean, well, you see—”

“Just spit it out.” She loves it when he talks through his teeth and with a clenched jaw; it’s such a demanding tone that it makes her toes curl.

“I’ve never kissed someone just because I wanted to. I’ve had to kiss people while working, but it was just a means to an end. It was…nice.” Her first kiss was with a killer for hire that had a taste for younger girls. It was before the burn that takes up a good portion of her left thigh, so she’d worn a pleated skirt and a pristine white button-up shirt. By the time she was done, the shirt was streaked in shades of red and she’d had her first kiss with her twelfth target.

“Never for fun?”

“I didn’t think it could be fun. Not for me,” she says with a shrug. Wow, she actually kissed Victor. There’s a smudge of red against his bottom lip to prove it. “Was it okay? Because I wasn’t trying to invade your personal space, and I don’t want to take advantage of you. I didn’t know what I was thinking, it just happened, I’m so—”

Strong hands are gripping the sides of her face, but the hold is almost gentle. Fingertips are buried in her hair, and Victor’s teeth lightly pull against her bottom lip. A lick of pain shoots through the right side of her lip, and she leans up on her toes as warmth spreads across her face and down towards her chest. Oh, this is much better than anything she’s ever experienced. Victor’s shoulders are strong under her hands, and he’s being so careful with her. No one has ever been careful with her before.

“Never say sorry, unless you mean it.” His lips brush against hers with every word, slick with blood, and her face feels tingly. Maybe because she stopped breathing?

“Okay.” Normally she’d have a witty retort, but she’s not exactly clear-headed at the moment.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and then go watch the news.” The words don’t really mean anything special, but it feels special to her. Victor’s going to take care of her, and she’s going to take care of him.


They’re back on the couch, and Victor prefers this sitting arrangement to the last one. Bex is a warm weight against his side, tucked under his arm and curled against his ribs, and her hair tickles just under his chin. His hand is under the soft material of her oversized sweatshirt, and his thumb keeps idly tracing around the scar that runs the length of her hip and then disappears into her shorts. The news is on, replaying the same video of the police station massacre, so he’s not really paying attention. He’s already seen it, and the texture of Bex’s skin is more interesting.

“I don’t like senseless violence,” she says once the video cuts off.

“Really?” He saw her with the last man that broke into her other apartment; she enjoyed the kill. She enjoys killing.

“There should always be a reason. Self-defense, self-preservation, passion, money…there should always be a reason.” She tilts her head back so she can look at him, and he looks down into her eyes. The dark look in them has faded, average brown is looking up at him, but he has a feeling that the other Bex is hiding somewhere just beneath the surface.

“They have a reason.” Her brows draw together in confusion, and he raises his other hand to lightly touch against the lines that mar her forehead. “Think of what they’ve done. Throwing people off the roof of the paper. Trying to set a school bus on fire, which failed because of the police. Killing cops on their own turf. There’s a reason for all of it.”

“Panic,” she whispers. He traces his fingers down the side of her face and tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

“Panic,” he agrees. She reaches up to take his hand with both of hers, and she taps her fingers against his knuckles.

“They have to be planning more than just panic. Someone got them out, but they have to have a bigger plan than flooding the city with fear. Don’t they?” The news is still on, but the reporter’s voice sounds like it’s far away.

“I’m sure they do. Should we look into it?” She hums lightly in the back of her throat and ducks down to rub her cheek against his fingers, and she looks up at him with her cheek still resting against his hand.

“I’m not here to clean up Gotham or protect it from maniacs. I’m here to make sure that Penguin doesn’t fail.”

“What about Hawthorne?” He didn’t think her eyes could get any darker than they did earlier, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the shade. There’s a look in her eyes almost like she had after he woke her up; it’s pure, raw anger.

“He’s a side project.”