Enemies

Disclaimer: I am merely borrowing these characters for my own nefarious purposes. One day, I shall take over the world with them, but for now I'm just writing fic. Rest assured, Marvel lawyers!
Pairings: Bullseye/Elektra. Believe it or not...;D
A/N: Yes, it's based on the movie-verse versions of Daredevil and Elektra. And I'm pinching Bullseye's costume from Daredevil, because his costume in the comics was bloody stupid. Anyway, enjoy this brief romp in fantasyland!

The room was dark.

She was asleep, or she appeared to be. Stretched out on the bed, limbs sprawled every which-way, dark hair spread out on the pillow behind her head like wings. She was still, except for the slow rise-and-fall of her chest that showed she was breathing.

The moon cast its silvery radiance over her slumbering form, exploring the delicate play of light and shadow that made up her face and the hollows of her body. Darkness surrounded her like a shroud, never quite touching the edges of her form, the slivers of waning moonlight scaring away the night's gloom.

Her figure was an exercise in human distinction; all sleek lines and powerful, lean muscles. Her tall form was built for fighting, and even as she slept her hands unconsciously curled into fists. Beside her, on the bedside table, a pair of three-pronged daggers rested; the leather wrapped around the hilt looked well worn. These daggers were owned by someone who used them. Frequently, from the looks of the dried blood that had soured the silver metal's pure tint.

Elektra Natchios slept, though her dreams were not peaceful. They had been, for a time, when the anger had drained out of her like so much bad blood. The calm after the storm had descended upon her, taming her reckless seas and turning the ocean of her heart and mind to a flat stillness.

But the weather out at sea was tenuous and unpredictable, much like Elektra's moods. Restlessness had stirred within her, the pull of the tide tugging her away from her nomadic existence. She had returned to civilization, returned to the cities, the familiar desire for vengeance rising up within her once more. She still had unfinished business. There were still ghosts in her past that she needed to banish.

And so she was here, in this house, in this bedroom, on this bed; not exactly sleeping but not fully awake either. Her thoughts drifted aimlessly, images floating through her mind like abandoned shipwrecks. Matt Murdock's blind eyes...A flash of red...Her father, dying...And a sound like the ominous hissing of a rattlesnake. Elektra twitched in her half-awake state, her smooth features creasing into one of unrest.

A few moments passed, the only sounds her breathing and the soft sighing of wind through an open window. Elektra opened her bright green eyes, staring into the darkness. She had closed and locked all the windows before going to sleep that night.

She felt her heartbeat speed up as adrenalin began its journey through her veins, snapping her mind into full awareness. It was times like these that Elektra felt at her most alive.

She rolled onto her stomach, making the movement seem a natural action of a restless slumber. She threw out an arm, casually, and felt her fingers brush against the three-pronged daggers, her sais. They were traditional Japanese weapons, and although Elektra was trained in every form of martial arts weaponry available, the sais were her favourite.

Her fingers curled around the hilt of the sai and she sat up, whirling around to face...

Her dark, empty room. There was nobody there, only Elektra, the bed, the wardrobe pushed up against the far wall and the frantic sound of her heartbeat and the blood rushing through her ears.

Elektra stood slowly, taking hold of both her sais, and crossed the room to the open window. The curtains were fluttering in the breeze, white ghosts in the night. Elektra shivered slightly as the night air caressed her bare skin; her black, sparse nightwear did little to shield her from the cold. She sighed and pulled the window shut, turning to go back to her warm bed.

She found herself face-to-face with her murderer.

Elektra had been a death-dealer, once, with no mercy and no quarter, killing only for the sake of it – and the money she was paid, of course. The only reason she was able to deal out such a fate was the fact she had experienced it herself. She had died once...at the hands of the man now standing not a foot away from her.

"Hey, baby," Bullseye purred, grinning at her and giving a showy swish of his trench coat. A sound not unlike the hissing of a rattlesnake filled the room.

Elektra tightened her grip on the sais she still held. "How did you find me?" It was, perhaps, not the best thing to say in this situation, but it was the first thing that came to her rage-filled mind. All her muscles were tensed; she felt like a cat...ready to pounce on its prey.

"I heard you were back," said Bullseye, his soft, Irish-accented voice a sinister echo in the dark room. "I figured it was only a matter o' time before you came lookin' for me... So I thought I would save you the trouble." He spread his arms, invitingly. "And here I am."

"Yes. Here you are," Elektra said, and leapt upwards, spinning to bring both sais down and plunge them into Bullseye's chest.

But when she landed, Bullseye wasn't there. Elektra landed off-balance and rolled, regaining her footing after a moment of frantic, senseless scrabbling. She was not prepared for this; her mind was telling her she ought to be asleep, even as the adrenalin flooded her system. She heard laughter and turned to see Bullseye standing across the room, leaning against the wardrobe. He looked quite unscathed.

"You killed me once," Elektra whispered. "Now it's my turn." She moved at him in a flurry of adrenalin-fuelled power, sais slicing through the air like bolts of silver lightning. Bullseye dodged aside easily, chuckling as he span across the room in a flurry of rattlesnake-leather. Elektra whirled to face him, hair whipping around her face and sweat beading on her furrowed brow. She had forgotten all her training, all her meditation techniques, in this moment of rage. She was faced with the man who had killed her, after all...

"You expect me to stand still and let you kill me?" Bullseye asked, laughing at her. The rage boiled within Elektra, intensifying in the face of her mortal enemy's mockery. She charged at him with a feral snarl. Although she had prepared for this, trained for this, everything she had taught herself about control, about power, had left her as if it had never been. Bullseye revelled in this – perhaps because he knew, if Elektra had kept calm, she could have killed him easily.

She thrust one of her daggers towards his gut, the other coming down in a vicious sweep towards his throat. With lightning reflexes, Bullseye grabbed her waist and flipped her over him, onto the bed. Before Elektra could do anything, she found Bullseye looming over her, one hand pinning both her wrists to the bed in an iron grip.

"What did I tell you," he said in a voice like the whisper of the devil. "I'm magic, Elektra. You can't beat magic."

Elektra heaved against him, but no amount of flailing with her legs could dislodge the assassin. He grinned down at her, dark eyes flashing in the moonlight.

"I won't kill you until I have to," he said. "Y'see...the Kingpin hired me to kill you. And I did that. Well and truly. Signed, sealed, 'n delivered." His gaze travelled downwards, over the heaving mounds of her breasts, to the vertical scar just below her heart. His free hand traced the line of pink flesh, almost tenderly. But it was not in Bullseye's nature to be tender; Elektra knew that.
"If not to kill me, then why are you here?" She panted, her skin crawling at the very touch of him.

"Do I need a reason?" Bullseye smirked down at her like a vulture that has captured its prey and is waiting for the ideal moment to make the kill. Elektra allowed the anger to fade away, her green eyes clouding slightly as she entered a state of half-trance. If she was to defeat Bullseye, she had to remember her training. She had to remember control.

"You knew I was coming after you," she murmured, feeling her heartbeat slow as she attempted to calm herself.

"That's right," Bullseye said, although he was watching her warily now. He leaned in close, inhaling the scent of her hair, and whispering into her shell-like ear. "It wasn't anything personal, y'know," he said, "When I killed you. It was just a job...like any other job. But you'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

Elektra could feel the power building in her muscles. The cold metal of her sais bit into her palms, sharp and promising. She would keep Bullseye talking and when he least expected it...she would strike. "You kill for fun," she said, "I killed out of vengeance."

"But vengeance is fun!" he laughed. "Mm...You know, I think I did you a favour when I killed you. You seem...much more...alive..." Bullseye moved down her body, and to Elektra's surprise, rested his head on her chest. He maintained his iron grip on her wrists, however. Her fingers were starting to feel numb. "So alive," Bullseye grinned to himself.

"Since when did you care about life?" Elektra muttered. She told herself she was biding her time, waiting until the right moment to strike, but Bullseye was...intriguing, in a way. Insane, possibly. Elektra found herself wondering, despite the current situation, what had led Bullseye on this path, a path of death and misery. "You take it away as if it's of no value at all."

"But it is! And it gives me power. I take away life...and bring death. Power. You understand power, don't you? You've got enough of it. I feel it...pulsing beneath your skin..." Bullseye inhaled through his nose, his eyes widening slightly as he trailed a hand up her body. Elektra shuddered. "You and I," he continued, looking into her eyes. "We're enemies."

"Yes."

"Shouldn't have been that way," he murmured. "Death...it's my business, y'know? My job. But killing you...that wasn't only a job. It was a pleasure."

Elektra decided it was time to act. A maniacal gleam was growing in Bullseye's dark eyes, and she knew if she was going to kill him know would be the time. But just as she gathered all her strength to move, Bullseye did something entirely unexpected.

He pressed his lips against hers.

They were surprisingly warm; Elektra had expected coldness, but he felt...normal. With a sudden shock of insight, Elektra realized that Bullseye, like her, was a human being. An insane one, perhaps, one with no feelings whatsoever; a sociopath, a cold-blooded killer...yet his blood was warm like hers.

"So sweet," Bullseye whispered as he pulled away, his voice gravelly. "So tender." He kissed her again, and in the dim fog of Elektra's mind she wondered why she had not killed him yet. But even this thought did not budge her. The sais were warm in her sweaty palms, yet she made no move even as she felt Bullseye's iron grip around her wrists relax. "So...alive."

The next kiss was violent, hungry, as if Bullseye wanted to devour her very essence. Instead of fighting him off, as Elektra knew she should, she found herself responding to him, returning his passion, though she was not sure if it was passion or mere anger.
Rational thought fled her mind as Bullseye released her wrists and grabbed handfuls of her hair, yanking her body against his. Elektra did not resist. She pushed against him, their mouths engaged in a battle of wills. Elektra felt his teeth bite into her lip and tasted the copper tang of blood.

With his free hand, Bullseye grabbed one of Elektra's discarded sais. She flailed ineffectually at him, a horrible sense of deja vu and foreboding filling her gut. She closed her eyes, expecting to feel the familiar pain of a blade through her soft flesh any moment now.

It never came. Instead, Elektra heard the snick of metal cutting clothing. She opened her eyes. Bullseye was staring at her with the most intense expression she had ever seen.

The spell broke suddenly as she saw the dagger still in his hand. She made to scrabble away across the bed, but Bullseye grabbed her by the hair and jerked her into another kiss. This one was full of rage and sweat and blood, and once again, Elektra did not resist him.

Elektra remembered tearing at Bullseye's trench coat, and hearing the leather whir as it sailed across the room to land in a heap on the floor, soon joined by other items of clothing. The moments that followed were full of roughness, anger, fury; both hers and his, and their bodies met in a battle of strength and force.

When it was over, Elektra lay back, every muscle in her body feeling as if it had been pummelled to a bloody pulp. She could taste blood on her lips. Bullseye had his head on her chest, his breath coming in deep, ragged gasps.

Elektra turned her head away from him, her gaze falling on one of her discarded sais. She reached for it, her bloody fingers curling around the dagger's hilt. She looked down at Bullseye's bare head. It all came down to this moment. She could kill him now. Should kill him now. He had killed her and her father. He deserved to die. She had been waiting for this for so long...

It happened lightning-fast. Bullseye pulled away from her, grabbing the sais from her blood-slicked grip. He plunged the blade into the mattress, inches away from her head. He looked into her eyes, his own wide and wild. Sweat had formed on his brow, outlining the furrows of the peculiar target-shaped scar on his forehead. Elektra had the sudden urge to run her fingers over it, but the look of raw anger in Bullseye's eyes made her hesitate. Still, she reached out, and felt him flinch as her fingers traced the intricate lines of the scar.

"You were like me once, weren't you?" She whispered, her voice hoarse.

Bullseye looked at her, his nostrils flaring. He pulled away abruptly, and Elektra slumped back on the bed. She heard the sound of rustling leather, the clink of metal, and then nothing.

Sitting up, she looked around the room. The window was open, admitting a cold night wind into the darkened room. Bullseye was nowhere to be seen.

There was a dark huddle on the floor. Slowly, Elektra grabbed her sais and shuffled across the bed to look down at it.

She picked up Bullseye's trenchcoat slowly and glanced towards the window, shivering.

Somehow she knew he'd be back.