Chapter Text
{ Six Months Later }
Matt woke to the sound of Jake's heartbeat: slow and steady, the rhythm of deep sleep. He lay still for a moment, orienting himself in the apartment. The body beside him was familiar now, but the presence shifted. He was still getting used to the nuances of Marc's fractured psyche, the unique traits of each alter. They were distinct from each other, yet held a trace of each other. 'We take shifts,' Matt recalls Jake explaining it.
They were simply broken men, finding comfort in familiarity that didn't require them to bleed for it.
Marc mostly took the night patrols. When Moon Knight slept in his room, it tended to be Jake who settled into the bed beside Matt. Who woke up with him was something of a Roulette, though. Most times, it was Jake Lockley. Others, Marc Spector. And sometimes, it was Steven Grant. In rare glimpses, it was a facet Matt didn't think Marc was aware of. Such rare, fleeting moments were hard for him to read, even with his hyper-vigilant senses.
Tonight, it was Jake. Matt knew by the breathing and the heat signature that lay beside him in a relaxed sprawl of limbs, taking up more space than Steven's careful, warmth-seeking cuddling and less rigid than Marc's at-ease posture.
Matt reached out in the room's darkness, his hand finding Jake's shoulder and the scars of his latest resurrection, then drifted lower. His touch ghosted down his back, smoothing along the muscles of his side, to his pecs as his mouth found the scars on his shoulder. His hand groped his pec, then ghosted down to the waistband of his boxers. Jake's breath hitched, still half-asleep. His body responded immediately, with interest and willingness, before he was fully conscious.
"Matt," Jake mumbled, rough with sleep. He turned toward the sound of Matt's breathing, his eyes still closed, grin already forming. "What time is it?"
"Late," Matt said softly against his shoulder. "Or early."
"Mm." Jake stretched out like a lazy cat, turning his head away to peer at the clock beside the bed. Middle of the night. Jake made himself available in that patient, hedonistic way he'd perfected since they'd started mingling. He turned back to Matt. "You plannin' to use me, or just teasin' me?"
Matt slipped his left hand further down Jake's front, slipping beyond the hem of his boxers. He felt him arch into the touch, feeling just how interested he was. He captured Jake's lips in a deep kiss, drawing a groan from his throat. When he broke the kiss, he panted. "Using you."
"Finally," Jake gave a soft moan. "How do you want me?"
"Let's test your endurance out," Matt murmured against his lips. "Can you be good?"
Jake insisted they reclaim a few of the phrases Bullseye used to torment him, twisting them so they no longer unnerved him. Good boy, and pet names, specifically. Jake suggested being a cat because of his typically cunning nature. A street alley cat that Matt rescued.
"I can be," Jake murmured as he shifted, leaning up on an elbow to try and kiss Matt again. "Just tell me what you want."
"Stay," Matt murmured, pressing Jake onto his back with a firm hand against his chest. He felt the vibration of Jake's heartbeat against his palm—not fear, but interest, a steady thrum that said willing, even before Jake's voice confirmed it.
"Stay," Jake repeated, settling into the bedding with that rough grin Matt had learned to read by the shape of his mouth, the tension in his jaw. "Yeah, I can do that. But you gotta tell me the rules, Padre."
Matt's fingers found the waistband of Jake's boxers, already tented with his interest. He tugged, fabric sliding over heated skin, and pulled them off entirely. Jake lifts his hips to help, then settles back naked against the sheets. Matt preferred sleeping without clothes; he liked the direct contact, the honesty of skin against skin. He took himself in hand, slow strokes, showing Jake the state he was in: hard and aching, patient but interested.
"We'll see how long you can last," Matt said, his voice low, controlled. "You come before I say, you lose."
"Lose what?" Jake's hips twitched upward, seeking the friction Matt didn't give him.
"My hands," Matt said. "My mouth. Whatever you wanted after."
Jake groaned, a rough sound that vibrated through his chest under Matt's palm. "That's cruel."
"That's the game." Matt bypassed Jake's cock entirely, ignoring the frustrated huff it earned him. He traced lower, down the crease of Jake's thigh, feeling the muscle tense and release beneath his fingers. With his other hand, he kept stroking himself, slow and deliberate, letting Jake hear the wet sound of it, the catch in his own breathing. When he found Jake's hole with his thumb, just pressing, testing, Jake's breath caught sharply and audibly.
"Inside," Jake said, rough, honest. "C'mon, Padre. Get in me."
Matt reached for the oil on the nightstand. Jake kept it there, within easy reach, ever since they'd established this routine. He slicked his fingers, the sound loud in the quiet room, and used the excess to coat himself, hissing at his own touch, his hips jerking into his fist before he forced himself back to patience. He pressed back against Jake—one finger first, slow, feeling Jake's body yield, the heat and tightness of him, the way his muscles fluttered and then relaxed.
"More," Jake demanded, even as Matt was already working in a second finger, feeling the stretch, the give. "Don't go easy on me."
Matt didn't. He found Jake's prostate with practiced precision—firm, round, pressing back against his fingers—and watched Jake's heat signature shift, his whole body arching off the bed, his heartbeat stuttering from steady to racing. All the while, Matt worked himself with his free hand, grinding his cock into his own fist, the shared rhythm of it building heat between them.
"Fuck," Jake gasped, his head falling back, throat exposed and vulnerable. "Matt…"
Matt set a rhythm. Slow, deliberate strokes against Jake's prostate, his own cock heavy and leaking where he pressed it against Jake's thigh, smearing wetness there, using the friction when he needed it, backing off when he got too close. He listened to Jake's ragged breathing, the way his pulse hammered in his throat, and matched his own strokes to Jake's trembling.
"How close?" Matt asked, pressing harder, feeling Jake's body respond, his muscles tightening, his cock leaking against his stomach where Matt refused to touch it. When his kneading fingers caressed that delicate spot, he felt him clench and quiver on them. Jake's hips jerked.
"Close," Jake growled, the word strangled. "Too fuckin' close."
Matt didn't stop. He kept the pressure firm, steady, his own hips stuttering as he rode the edge of his own orgasm, denying himself even as he denied Jake. He felt Jake's arousal spike, his heartbeat accelerating toward the edge—then Jake's own hand shot down, gripping the base of his cock hard, cutting off the orgasm before it could start.
"Nuh-uh," Jake gasped, his voice wrecked, his grip white-knuckled where Matt could feel the tension in his arm. "Not yet. Not 'til you say."
Matt pressed harder inside him, forcing himself to still his own hand, to breathe through his own need, feeling Jake's body try to override the denial, the tension building with nowhere to go. Jake's face was flushed hot where Matt traced it, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw clenched with effort.
"Good," Matt murmured, and eased off just slightly, resuming his slow strokes on himself. He could feel Jake watching him, hear the way his heart thrummed. "Again."
They played the game four times. Matt brings Jake to the brink, bringing himself there too, both of them panting and sweating and desperate, then backing off just enough to let Jake regain control, to let his own heartbeat slow.
By the fifth, Jake was trembling, sweat-slick, his voice hoarse from holding back. Matt was no better state, his thighs trembling where he knelt between Jake's legs, his cock aching, his stomach muscles jumping with the effort of restraint.
"Can't," Jake gasped, his hand still a vise around his base, Matt's fingers still working inside him, relentless. "Matt, I can't—I'm gonna—"
"Hold it," Matt said, pressing harder, his own voice cracking, his hips chasing his hand. "Just a little longer."
"Please," Jake whimpered, and the word was raw, stripped of bravado. "Ff-fuck me, Matt. Stop playin' an' fuck me—I want you inside, want you to come—"
The begging broke something deliciously in him. Matt pulled his fingers free, slick and trembling, and Jake's legs fell open wider, inviting, his hand finally releasing his own cock to grip Matt's hips instead, pulling him forward.
"Now," Jake demanded, even as he was yielding. "Come inside me. Want to feel you—"
Matt didn't hesitate. He slicked himself with shaking hands, pressed the head of his cock against Jake's hole, feeling the heat, the give, and pushed in. Slow and torturous, both of them groaning at the stretch, the fullness.
"Move," Jake begged, his legs wrapping around Matt's waist, heels digging into the small of his back. "Matt, fuckin' move—"
Matt moved. He fucked Jake with the rhythm they'd built—deep, hard, chasing his own completion now, letting Jake feel how close he was, how desperate he became. Jake met each thrust, arching up, his cock trapped between them, untouched, leaking against his own stomach.
"Gonna—" Matt gasped, feeling it build, inevitable, his prostate throbbing with each snap of his hips.
"Yeah," Jake urged, his hands gripping Matt's ass, pulling him deeper. "Come inside me, cariño."
Matt came with a shout that was almost a sob, his body seized up, cock pulsing deep inside Jake, filling him. The sensation—hot, wet, claimed—pushed Jake over the edge he'd been holding back, and he came too, untouched, his cock spilling between them, his muscles clamping down on Matt, milking him through it.
They collapsed together, trembling, sweat-slick, Matt still buried inside him, both of them gasping, the room smelling like sex and sweat and victory.
After Matt had caught his breath, he pulled out slowly, feeling Jake wince and then relax, feeling his own come spill out with him, obscene and intimate. Jake grabbed his wrist before he could reach for a cloth, pulled him down into a kiss that tasted of salt and the blissful surrender they both shared.
"Good?" Matt asked the same question Jake always asked him.
Jake laughed, breathless, and bit his shoulder gently. "Yeah, cariño," he said. "Yeah, mhh..."
They lay tangled together, Jake's hand finding Matt's hair, rough but not pulling, just holding. Matt listened to his heartbeat slow, the easy rhythm of sated sleep beginning to reclaim him, the wetness between them cooling, the room smelling like them—sweat and skin and safety, claimed and claiming.
"I like that. Cariño, I mean." Matt smiled against Jake's chest, basking in the afterglow of his well-earned orgasm. "Amado."
He heard Jake's heart flutter with excitement, the soft chuckle in his chest.
The phone buzzed.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Jake cursed, reaching for it, but Matt got there first. His thumb finds the screen, the familiar gesture to activate the reader. The mechanical voice filled the dark room, flat and toneless:
"New message from Foggy Nelson. Matt, I just got something. Audio file. I don't—I don't know what I'm hearing. Is this you? It says it's from March. Call me."
Jake went still. Matt felt his heartbeat stutter, then accelerate, the easy post-coital relaxation evaporating into something cold and sharp as he shifted to a sitting position.
"New message from Karen Page. Someone sent photos to my work email. You. In a room I don't recognize. You look... I don't know what I'm looking at. Is this real? Is this now?"
Matt's hand tightened on the phone. The Mission's ambient hum seemed to recede, the room suddenly too small, the air too thin.
"New message from unknown number. They've seen the highlights, Matty. Want the director's cut?"
His breathing was picking up for a different reason, now. He tensed when he felt Jake shift and wrap his arms around his body, burying his face into Matt's back. Jake slowly pried the cellphone from his hand, sitting up further in the bed.
Matt's hands were shaking.
He pressed them against his thighs, feeling the cooling sweat on his skin, the wetness between them where they'd been joined and tried to ground himself. The Mission's walls seemed to pulse, the ambient hum he'd learned to find comforting now thrumming too loud, too close.
"March," Matt said, the word tasting like ash. "That's month two."
"Stop," Jake's tone was soft, but his arm tightened.
"That's before—" Matt fought a wave of nausea that crept up his throat. He fought Bullseye since day one, enough that he had to sedate him to not hurt himself beyond reason. Then, he lost track of time. Gaps in his memory had formed. It was two months before he broke his own nose to spite his captor. Did he break, during those moments of drugged compliance? Did he do everything Bullseye wanted, and did he record proof of it?
The phone buzzed again.
Matt heard the screen of the phone crack in Jake's grip as he held it, and his heartbeat quickened.
"New message," the mechanical voice started, and Matt lunged for it. Jake twisted, keeping the phone away from Matt as he read silently, his jaw working.
"It's a link," Jake said, roughly. "Video hostin'. Needs a password."
"Don't," Matt choked out, not knowing if he meant don't open it, don't tell me or don't let this be real.
Jake didn't open it. He set the phone face down on the nightstand, screen dark, and turned back to Matt. His hands found Matt's face, rough thumbs tracing his cheekbones, forcing him to focus on the heat of him, the solidity, the now.
Matt felt exposed, naked in more than skin, the afterglow soured into something sharp and cold.
"Hey," Jake said, low. "Hey, look at me. Feel me, yeah? I'm right here."
Matt's radar mapped him automatically—Jake's heartbeat, fast but steady, not the erratic panic of his own. He focused on it, counting the beats, feeling the warmth of Jake's palms against his skin, the bare press of their bodies where Jake had pulled him close.
"He waited," Matt whispered. "Six months. He waited until—"
"Until you were happy," Jake finished, bitter. "Until you had somethin' to lose."
Matt's stomach turned. The room smelled different, now. Sex and sweat soured into fear, the safety of the moment shattered. He thought of the burner phone Marc had given him, the one he'd used to text Foggy and Karen, to rebuild his life. Bullseye had the number. Had probably had it for months.
"What do we do?" Matt asked, hating how small he sounded.
Jake's thumbs pressed harder, grounding him. "First? You breathe." He paused, and Matt felt the rage in him, coiled and waiting. "Second? We find out what he has, then we decide how to burn him."
"Jake—"
"I know," Jake said, and pulled him close, wrapping around him like armor, skin to skin. "I know, cariño. Don't worry about it right now. You gotta breathe. I got you, an' he fuckin' waits for a response."
Matt let himself be held, listening to Jake's heartbeat, feeling the phone's presence on the nightstand like a live grenade, the cooling wetness between his thighs a reminder of what they'd had minutes before.
The phone vibrated on the nightstand.
"New message."