Kieran isn’t sure exactly when Kilgrave had first cemented his status as ‘arch-nemesis’ in his life. Thinking back on it, the only times he could think about where the bastard could have possibly interrupted his periods of long stretching melancholy was either after poor Arthur Oculus had gone and offed himself at the side of the road, or, during that one commission that had gone horribly wrong and where he was forced to kill three people in the same room with a candy jar.

Probably the former. Bless his brother’s soul.

A glow of light distracts his left as his phone vibrates and he nearly veers off the road, one hand on the steering wheel and groping for the device with his other. With a trembling hand, he swipes for the call and presses it to his ear. Unknown, but- well, he knows who it is.

“Oculus.” He can already smell the godawful breath in his ear.

“Ah,” Kieran drones, feigning surprise. “Kilgrave. How I haven’t missed you.” 


“I’m sensing some animosity.” There’s a pause, a sharp intake of breath that comes out in soft crackles from Kieran’s microphone. “You don’t like me, still.”

“Truisms,” He sighs. “To think that we have spent two hundred years out-doing each other, yet you and I are still only merely acquainted.” 


“What’s there to know?” They speed past an empty parking lot. “My first name?Your love life? What we ate for breakfast and whether we fear the end of the world?”

“The Myers building is getting razed tomorrow.” Kieran only curtly replies before he hangs up. If he looks to his left he can see a smudge of orange sun warped by stroking heat that ripples across a darkening sky but through his sunglasses, the world dims to shades of sadder brown.

The shadow of a building looms over him and he screeches to a stop.

— -

Alta Fair’s eyes settle on the iPhone X in front of her, almost precarious in her movements should it break between her hands. Not perhaps because of the figurative size of its monetary value, though - and she squints at it with distaste - it’s certainly consumerist bullshit, but more so to do with the fact that every bone in her body cannot stop shaking. It hasn’t stopped, not for the past five minutes, ten, thirty, an hour; time stopped still when she tumbled out of Uncle Kieran’s car and continued to stay put as she glued her eyes on that touch screen and tried not to scream.

She looks up now and meets the glowing sign of a fruit idolised by both millennials and Generation Z alike. In turn, the eye of the digital god itself stares unflinchingly back. Her stare wavers, blinded by LED.

I trust you know the way home, don’t you?

With a sharp turn of her heel and an intake of trembling breath, she steps out to greet the evening air.

— -

Fourteen pillars. They don’t futz around.

Which is good, Kieran notes, as Kilgrave’s fist slams into his jaw and pummels him into the floor of the Myer’s building construction site. This is good for me.

“You should retire.” A strong hand seizes his jaw and lifts him into the air, suspended by a single, sweaty forearm rippling with muscle. Kilgrave sizes him up with a single glance before he flicks his wrist and Kieran slams into a pillar to his left. If only the debris could cushion his fall.

He finds himself mouthing words; they come in rattled coughs. “If that was the only pertinent matter at hand,-“ gasping a choke as sharp pain interrupts his thoughts, twitching against the sharp, angular rocks. Something stings his right side but he’ll have to find out later.

Scrabbling around for something stable, Kieran’s hands grind into the hard, stone base of the pillar under him. Kilgrave approaches in thundering footfalls as he breaks into a run.

I suppose this will have to do, Kieran thinks, and lifts.

With a screeching groan, the pillar rips away from the ground in earth-shaking power, white rock dribbling down Kieran’s shirt. Sucking in a harsh breath he thrusts it forward and it soars through the air heavy with momentum, slams straight into Kilgrave’s body and sends him flying backwards. Debris vaporises against his chest in clouds of smoke even as he hits the ground with a sickening crunch; the Myers building thunders with noise and smoke, every creaking groan a sign of its imminent collapse.

Eleven pillars.

Kieran hacks the soot from his system, gasping for breath as he staggers to his feet. Blood drips down his left wrist in twin streams as he loses feeling in his joints, wrist clicking something awful. There’s a thrumming in his ears, the sound of blood thundering under flushed pink skin. Something obscures his vision - Kieran breaks the rock shard embedded deeply into his right side - and as it crumbles in his hands the stone slides out with a squelch of blood gushing under his palms.

I really am getting old, huh.

With a hand at his chest, legs further apart in a frantic attempt to balance himself he watches his body writhe and regurgitate its own fluid, flesh clumsily patching itself together as his regenerative abilities come to a jittering start. Ahead of him he can make out movement from the billowing smoke that bursts into cloudy mushrooms with every erratic thump and scrape of Kilgrave’s fists. Blood pools back into Kieran’s chest, the hole closes, and the broken pillar that had once contained his arch-nemesis breaks into halves.

“Oh, hell,” Kieran says as Kilgrave emerges from the smoke, and he raises his fists again.

He has one thing going for himself: Ju- Alta.

And it’s not as effective a name as his mother’s, or his brother’s or even bloody Miranda’s, but he supposes it’ll be good enough motivation thinking about the girl all alone and at home. Dodging a left jab instinctively, Kieran ducks a right hook as a sweeping foot arches forward to try and catch him off guard, weaving between Kilgrave’s attacks. His body kicks into motion with every sighted movement- every turn of the head as the thrumming, wavering, high-pitched whines become the rhythm to his melody. Kieran swerves behind a pillar-

And Kilgrave’s fist connects with his jaw, ploughing straight through the white column in sprays of dust and shattering rock, rams into his skull and spins him three-sixty to the floor. He lets rip a cry of pain, tumbling across the asphalt as Kilgrave emerges in front of him panting heavily.

“I like this.” He grins, wiping the blood from his knuckles with a gratuitous lick. “Let's let it rip, Oculus.”

“Ah.” Kieran can only reply. His vision blurs, coughing as he shuffles backwards frantically once Kilgrave takes a step forward. To think they were once on equal ground-

His hand closes around loose rocks. Something clicks in his brain.

“I’ll-” he inhales sharply, crunching the debris into a finer powder. “remind you, Kilgrave,” and the fool actually stops to hear it-

“That we’re sparring.”

Rocks crumble to dust in his hands- Kilgrave’s torso ripples with muscle as he swings with his left arm and Kieran blocks with his right, the radius of his forearm screaming agony as it snaps. With gritted teeth he takes the pain and turns to slams his hand past Kilgrave’s open lips, feels the wet slime of his soft palate with bruised fingers as Kilgrave screeches and chokes, staggering back. He inhales with a gag, the outline of his bruised clavicle visible from taut skin, Kieran drawing his hand past jittering fangs-

“Yes?” Kieran pants, grabs Kilgrave’s shoulders and rams his knee into Kilgrave’s stomach with a sickening crunch. Kilgrave screams from the exploding impact, ribs shattered between a kneecap as the screech rips through Kieran’s ears and he tears away. He drops to the floor in agony, hands grappling for balance, blood pooling from his bruised and broken mouth.

“Yes.” Kieran rears his boot and brings it down on the back of Kilgrave’s head- it slams against his occipital bone and pounds his face into the dust with an earth-shattering sound. His eyes shut painfully - there goes the snap of Kilgrave’s nose, the bruises on his forehead split into oozing wounds, the struggling breath that sucks in sweat and blood inside the crater on the floor.

Ten pillars.

Somehow, the Myers building still stands.

— -

“Fucking kill me, Oculus.” Kilgrave wheezes through broken teeth. Kieran rams the tip of his boot into the side of his skull and he screams again, a sharp pain knocking him into the ground once more. He curls up into a ball, somewhat pathetic but definitely helpless, and Kieran rattles out a tired breath as he takes a seat beside the writhing figure.

“No.” He replies.

This would be, Kieran thinks, an excellent moment for a smoke.

“Of course.” His arch-nemesis heaves, chest shuddering. “You’re the fucking Human-Killer. You wouldn’t break the name that built you up.” Even now his bones attempt to heal themselves- through the debris, torn muscle twists into reform and splintered bone across their battleground finds its way to his shattered femur, his ribcage, the glint of large intestine is gone as skin obscures it. Kieran takes out his Glock calmly from an inside breast pocket and shoots him in the spine.

“Fuck!” Kilgrave lets out a grating screech as it splits through his lower vertebrae, spasming on the ground. It’s muted by the sound of crumbling rock, heaving groans, echoes of the dying Myers building reverberating around them.

“Fucking coward.” He seethes through cracked teeth. “Torture fuck.” 


“Please stop.” Kieran stands, looking down at him. “Three-hundred years of experience on your hands and my niece still sounds smarter than you.”

Kilgrave’s roaring insults continue.

“Selena Bovy’s on my clock too, Oculus.” He sneers, dragging a hand towards his face to wipe the snot from it. “You better move fast.”


Kieran takes a moment of consideration, before putting aside his pity as he raises the Glock again.

“No- Oculus!” The sharp bang muffles his cry of pain and Kieran waves the smoke away in disdain. “Goddamnit, you fucking bastard!”

He takes a final look at Kilgrave.

“Get over it, Kilgrave.” Kieran sighs, turning away. “You’ll heal.”

— -

He gets home later than he thought he would.

The door creaks his arrival, just slightly ajar as he slips through the crack. One click and the lights are on- there’s a school bag tossed haphazardly on the sofa, his littered notecards organised into a neat pile on the dinner table. A glass of water sits beside it.

“Alta?” He asks the room; it doesn’t answer. He staggers into the corridor. A faint noise sounds at her door. He rests his head there, leant against the wood. She’s crying.

Kieran closes his eyes, peacefully and painfully, as the rhythm of her wracking sobs lulls him to sleep.

— -

He has a dream. Sitting under the shade of an oak tree, the wind blows low beneath the leaves and rustles his hair.

“It’s nice today,” Someone takes a seat beside him.

“Yes.” He answers. “Springtime.”

“Are you tired?” He turns. The voice is quiet. A hand strokes the back of his head and he leans against bark with a rattling sigh.

“Yes.” He says again.

“You can sleep, Kieran.” The voice whispers. It dances in his ears, a mellifluous lullaby. “We can go out tomorrow, and dance, and you won’t feel tired then.” 


“Yes.” Kieran closes his eyes.

Warm arms hug his waist. They circle spots of skin where scars should have been, and breath ghosts at his neck as he falls deeper into darkness.

“Goodnight, Kieran.” The voice murmurs.

“Goodnight, Judas.” He mumbles back.

And suddenly he lays among the stars, basking in the light of an ethereal ghost, where he feels warmth that doesn’t scald his skin nor cold that freezes on his hands. At his chest, at his core, there sings the word ‘sleep’ so he sleeps

And he dreams,

And he feels,

grief.