Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

            The alien heartbeat was too steady, too calm as it sent Luke hurtling into the wall. The bricks broke and crumbled, the fine dust tinkling down onto the unbroken skin. Danny’s thrumming fist was making short work of the Hand, but if they kept rushing him together he wouldn’t last much longer before one of them landed a lucky shot. This fight needed to end soon, before the woman started throwing one of the more breakable vigilantes around the room. Jessica was already bleeding, the copper hanging like a tear in the atmosphere.

            As Luke groaned to his feet the air to Matt’s right whistled with sudden violence, a fist he hadn’t heard punching into his awareness – and then his face. He rolled with it, lip splitting, and retaliated with a decisive kick to the empty space where the man’s gut should be. The victory of his contact was short-lived; two more barely heard warriors materialised around him, weapons slicing through air, aiming for armour. The alien heartbeat was marching closer, their steps resounding with the surety of the invincible while Danny bellowed his rage and swung his fireball fist. A katana screeched across Matt’s shoulders, his armour deflecting the hit more through luck than textile strength; any more than a glancing blow might be enough to break through. Matt silently cursed himself. He had felt his suit weaken months ago, knew it needed Melvin’s attention, especially after the beating on the rooftop –

            Focus, Murdock. Listen and react.

            He swung his club in a wide arc, buying time and space to narrow his world. Luke and Danny could handle themselves, Jessica too. He needed to focus, track the breathing. There. Four of them were on him, two charging his back. Matt smiled.

            A sweeping kick unbalanced one and distracted the other, a well-timed punch crunching a muffled throat into silence, the body landing with an inelegant thwump. A leaping twirl of deadly heels and another breather dropped. The other two were drawing their swords, clearly no longer caring if he heard them. The one he’d unbalanced was quickly regaining his stance. Matt let himself centre firmly in the present, in the immediate world around him. Nothing existed but the three threats, the blood-slicked floor, and his own muscle. He let the room fade into an ignorable background, barely keeping tabs on his comrades, on the heartbeat that was somehow different. Wrong.

            The world shrank and the devil grew, each strike blending into the next as though following a learned dance. Each blow found its mark, and each hit fell dully, as though from far away. The devil had no pain. That would come later.

            Danny’s shout broke through his raging haze. As the last breather fell into irrelevance, the alien heartbeat spiked and both Luke and Danny cried out. Matt turned into the sound, expanding his awareness to encompass the room once more. It took him half a second to take it in.

            Luke – burnished oak and muted honey, skin whose heat was uniquely confined – knocked back and surrounded by susurrating blades.

            Danny – cedar and expensive aftershave, his fist pulsing like a comet – on his back, his heartrate suddenly slower, his breathing a shallow draught, blood like spice intensifying on his temple.

            Jessica – cheap whiskey, leather and lavender – panting but still on her feet, her sawing breath loud with pain and fear, echoing off the wall to her back.

            The heartbeat, the woman with long hair whose smell – lotus and embers – was familiar but tainted with the same wrongness that rang through each beat of her marching heart. Her twin blades, blurred by blood, paced closer to the cornered PI.

            Matt raced forward, skidding slightly on cloth and blood, his already racing heart skipping into a gallop as air sucked past the woman’s teeth.

            “The hell are you fighting us for?” Jessica snapped, retreating, words flying from her hunched frame, carrying the weight of pain.

            “I must.”

            The world stopped, frozen in a flicker. Breath halted. Muscles seized. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

            “Elektra?!” He felt her turn her head to him. Knew she was looking right at him. Her heartbeat didn’t change. It didn’t sound like hers. He inhaled again, needing proof, needing to know. The scent was the same but wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It was a trick.

            “You know my name.” The accent was perfect. The confused tone identical to his fading memories. The melody of her speech could never be duplicated this perfectly. It was impossible. Her voice was as real, as tangible as it had been on the roof that night. It came from an unfamiliar heartbeat, an altered scent, but it was real.

            It was her.

            For one perfect moment, Matt felt the sun shine inside him, piercing through the heavy clouds that had filled him since the night he last wore these horns. Elektra was alive! She was here, with him again, still strong, still beautiful, still –

            The moment shattered.

            Still the Black Sky.

            “E-Elektra, it’s me,” he gasped, his heart dizzy. “It’s Matt. Matthew.”

            He felt her step forward. Her heartbeat as steady as it had been since she arrived. Distantly, the others moved, maybe spoke, but every part of Matt Murdock was focused intensely on the woman who had died in his arms.

            She took another step closer, her heart cloaked in composure. Her smell rolled over him as she stopped and he felt a dazed smile kidnap his lips. He could almost see her. He could hear her hair slide over her shoulder, feel the warmth of her breath twist around her teeth, her lips as they parted, to say his name, to heal the deep fissure in his heart that had crippled him since the day those lips had turned still and cold.

            “I don’t know you.”

            Shock paralysed him. He heard the hilt of the dagger whirl, felt the heat of her fist drawing closer. The force of the blow surprised the tiny part of him that still functioned. It crashed into his temple, sending ripples of blackness through his mind as he struggled to stay conscious, sending him sailing into the damp wall, crumpling into it, sagging down.

            Elektra turned away from him.

            The air stung as it rasped down his throat. Smells, sounds, impressions careened through each other, losing detail and comprehension as he leant against the unyielding slab of concrete, heart silently cracking.

            He raised his head after her, willing himself to see, to make sense of the spiralling sensations. She was pacing back to Jessica, her gait measured, unhurried. In control. Jessica was hurt worse than he’d realised – blood painted the outline of her leg. She was trapped between the wall and the Black Sky.

            A sudden rage whose howl was pain ignited in Matt, flooding through him, steadying him. He pushed off from the wall and leapt, landing clumsily in front of Jessica, whipping his head around to face Elektra. He could taste the two bloods on her daggers. She didn’t slow.

            “Elektra! Listen to me!” It was her, it had to be her, she was Elektra long before she was ever the Black Sky. “It’s me! It’s Matt! You know me, you know me!”

            Her footsteps clicked on, unhindered. Sweat creaked against the hilt as she tightened her grip.

            “You remember me! Roscoe Sweeney, the Yakuza! London, the roof! Nobu - Fogwell’s Gym! You remember me, you wanted to be good, you –”

            She was close enough to touch. Her voice was a caress, rolling over his cheeks and sending an ache through his unhealed heart.

            “I am not good.”

            The blade pushed through his armour with a grating pressure. It sank through his flesh, scraping under his ribs with skilled precision, slicing into him with indifference.

            Icy fire exploded through him. It stole his breath. His strangled gasp rolled past her face, so close to his, close enough to kiss. They were joined by the icicle inside him. She was smiling. Her heart beat steadily on while his began to falter.

            It was a moment, brief and exquisite with two unbearable pains. Then Elektra withdrew her blade and stepped back, vanishing into the descending darkness as the world tilted and Matthew Murdock fell into icy flames.

Chapter Text

            Her leaden arms caught him with inches to spare. His eyes stared through her, the lids fluttering as he fought for consciousness. She felt more than heard the bitch – Elektra – step closer, Matt’s blood dripping from her knife. The glistening blade raised again and Jessica snarled her defiance, her grip tightening on Matt’s armoured shoulders. Elektra’s lips were curled in a smile that wasn’t quite human, her dark, empty eyes fixed on Jessica.

            Which gave Danny the cover he needed. With a roar his glowing fist appeared, shining through the gloom, and Elektra was thrown aside, knives clattering to the body-strewn floor.

            All traces of the loopy kid were lost to lines of fierce, furious certainty as Danny looked down at the dazed woman. His chest heaved, the top of a tattoo visible through his torn shirt. In a flurry of grunting he bent down and grabbed at the stirring woman, lifting her and throwing her bodily away from Jessica and Matt. She crashed into the floor with an audible crack and lay still. Danny’s glowing fist faded as his fingers uncurled.

            Jessica looked down to Matt. His eyes were slits, his teeth bared around ragged breaths. Still conscious. Steeling herself, she turned her gaze to the liquid red shining against the dark suit, camouflaged save the sickly glisten as it oozed determinedly over his stomach. It looked like the armour had saved him from three puncture wounds – only the middle blade had pierced him.

            “Is he alive?” Luke’s panting drowned out Matt’s grating wheeze and he half coughed, half gurgled in response as black blood dribbled over his lips.

            “We need to get him out of here.” She was dimly impressed her voice is so steady; her very bones seemed to quake in horror. What the hell had just happened?

            “I’ll take him,” Luke said, his voice like mountain rock.

            “Wait.” Jessica pulled off her scarf, wincing as the fabric stung her bleeding forehead, and wrapped it tightly around Matt’s middle, hoping, probably vainly, that it would help.

            Luke pulled Matt from her arms into his and lifted him with ease. Matt spluttered, his twitching hands curling into fists, his eyes fluttering briefly open.

            “Hang on, Matt,” Luke muttered as he turned to leave. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine.”

            She watched Luke carry Matt out the way they’d come and knew she needed to get up, to follow, to back him up. Her legs just didn’t seem to want to obey her.

            “Here.” Danny’s voice was soft, his extended hand waiting patiently at eye level. She glanced up at him and for the first time his stupid hair didn’t look so stupid. Automatically scowling at his far too understanding expression, she accepted his hand and stifled a groan as a fresh surge of blood oozed down her calf. Danny eyed her doubtfully. “That looks bad.”

            “I’m fine,” she snapped, stepping over a black-clad Hand asshole and heading after Luke. She managed to hide her limp after three steps. Ignoring Danny’s concerned glances she pulled out her phone and searched for the number she’d only taken down out of courtesy.

            “Who are you calling?”

            “Claire. Matt’s gonna need her.” She glanced at him, her eyes flicking to the dark stain matting his hair. “Okay, we’re gonna need her.”

            Claire arrived less than twenty minutes after they did, and only five after they’d figured out Matt’s suit and gently wrestled the damn thing off him. The wound looked much worse surrounded by pale flesh – too-pale flesh. Her good towel was already crimson and the six ugly scars kept drawing her eye. God, how much punishment could this guy take?

            “How is he?” Claire said breathlessly as her boots clacked over the threshold. “Jesus,” she whispered as she caught sight of Danny, a once-blue tee shirt pressed to his head. He’d been bleary-eyed with exhaustion since he magicked the black death tendrils from Matt’s skin. Who knew the Immortal Chi Fist could glow the poison right out of a guy? Jessica shuddered as the ghosts of Matt’s yells rose unbidden to her ears.

Claire’s eyes moved over to Jessica, who, honestly, looked fine except for the red rag tied around her calf and the admittedly gory-looking scrape on her forehead. But seriously, the woman was a nurse, that shouldn’t shock her. She was fine.

            Then she saw Matt lying still on her bed. Luke looked up at her, his hands pressed resolutely against the injury. Claire swallowed, her jaw clenching. She strode forward, pulling her med bag from her shoulder.

            “I leave you guys for five minutes.”

            “Try twelve,” Jessica mumbled as Claire passed her, dragging herself from her chair to watch.

            “Okay,” she said quietly to herself as she drew level with Matt, reaching out for him. “Matt? Matt, can you hear me?” Not so much as a twitch. “How long’s he been unconscious?” To Luke. She was in nurse mode now, all business. Except for the very familiar fear in her eyes.

            “Maybe ten minutes? He was in and out before, couldn’t say much.”

            “What was he stabbed with?”

            “One of those three-bladed dagger things.”

            “A sai knife,” Danny provided from the doorway. Claire shot him an eyebrow.

            Two minutes of nursey inspection passed with increasing tension. Feeling she was about to jump out of her skin – or maybe the window – Jessica broke it.

            “How bad?”

            Claire leaned back from the worryingly still Murdock. “Bad.” The single word was clipped, certain. Dropped like a bomb. “I can’t –” She stopped, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before looking back to the three of them. “I can’t help him. Not here. This wound, this is serious. The blood at his mouth, it’s black, that means he’s bleeding internally. He’ll have ruptured organs, maybe a broken rib – there might even be bone fragments, the knife scraped against it pretty good.” Her gaze was suddenly far less nursey and uncomfortably pleading as she looked back to Matt. “He needs a hospital.”

            “Shit.” Luke and Jessica almost sounded harmonised.

            “How the hell are we supposed to explain how a blind guy got stabbed in his underwear?” Jessica demanded, her fear sounding more like anger. “Or all those scars, I kinda think the doc’s gonna notice.”

            “I don’t know! All I know is he needs an OR, okay? He needs blood and IVs and forceps and some decent goddamn lighting!”

            Jessica opened her mouth to retort but Danny cut across her.

            “I can get us one.”

            Jessica raised a dubious eyebrow. “What, you’re saying your magic hand can build hospitals out of fridge magnets now?”

            “What? No, I’m saying I’m rich and my company is bound to own a few hospitals and one of them is bound to have a private wing, or, or something.”

            Luke and Claire exchanged a hopeful (if disbelieving) glance.

            “Make the call,” Claire ordered as she reached for her bag again, uncertainty forgotten and nurse mode reengaged.

            Danny nodded – winced – and pulled out his cell phone.

            Jessica was no medical professional – hard though that may be to believe – but she was pretty sure Matt Murdock was dying.

            “Watch it!” she snapped at Luke as the car bucked over another pothole.

            “I’m trying!” he shot back, his fists all but crushing the steering wheel. Danny was slumped in the passenger seat beside him, his face pale and eyes slightly unfocused. By some miracle he hadn’t missed a turn yet, though she was pretty sure he’d collapse the second Matt was safe. Or, in the hospital, at least.

            She and Claire were cradling Matt in the backseat of the car she’d ‘borrowed’, having refused Danny’s offer to call a chauffeur – honestly, that kid – and every bump or swerving turn seemed to reopen the gaping hole in his abdomen, draining yet more colour from his wan cheeks. To her horror Matt had woken back up – if you could call his current state of delirious moaning awake. His eyes were open but they seemed shuttered, like the lights weren’t all on inside.

            Every now and then, if the car stayed steady long enough, he’d try to speak. Jessica knew he was oblivious to their presence, or where he was, because there was no way he would willingly let them hear anything he was barely managing to mumble. Despite Luke’s massive hoodie wrapped tightly around him, his shivering stammered the words, stealing syllables and losing sense. It was all about her, Elektra, but what she could make out wasn’t the vengeful, venomous profanity Jessica would pick in his situation. He kept apologising. As though this was his fault, as though she wasn’t to blame for stabbing him. Whatever their history was it was complicated. Complicated and more painful than she wanted to think about. No one should ever sound that ... lost.

            Claire was keeping up a fairly steady stream of encouragement-slash-instructions, trying to keep Matt stable, keep him from losing too much more blood, keep him awake. It was amazing how sure she sounded, how confident. Especially when she looked every bit as scared shitless as Jessica felt. Despite all her talk about being their “squad doc”, Claire was full of shit, and Jessica knew it. This wasn’t just some calling for her, this patching up stray vigilantes and asocial assholes. She cared. Way more than she let on. The way her knuckles paled around Matt’s lax fingers. The constant crease between her eyebrows. The fact that she couldn’t go more than ten seconds without biting her lip or rubbing her forehead. If Matt died – and on her watch? Jessica really didn’t want to think about what that would be like.

            The hospital wasn’t exactly a hospital. Technically it was only half a hospital, but for their needs it was perfect. No one around, the lower floors manned only by a handful of overtired, underpaid nurses, with nothing but empty ORs and semi-renovated rooms on the upper. Danny led them to the top floor, carefully avoiding everyone on the way. The Hand were gonna be hard-pressed to find them here. She hoped.

            Matt was mostly passed out when they finally laid him on an OR table. The light stabbed right into Jessica’s brain, making her wish she’d either had less bourbon earlier or a bottle with her now.

            “Jess, Luke, get gloves on, I’m gonna need you. Danny? Go find me blood. Lots of blood. O negative. And gauze, and the strongest antibiotic and painkillers you can find.” She unzipped the too-big hoodie, revealing the pale skin and drying lake of crimson.

            “Wait, wait, wait,” Jessica stammered, her brows furrowing as horror welled in her chest. “We have to-”

            “I’m not a doctor!” Claire snapped. “If you want Matt to live I’m gonna need more hands, okay? If you’re okay with him dying then off you go.”

            Jessica didn’t move. There were many, many reasons why she had never pursued a career in medicine. Almost as many as why she’d never considered a career in medicine. Having to mop up blood and poke around in someone’s guts were right up there.

            She glanced to Matt’s wan, sweating face. There was no way she was letting him die. Not now, not here, not when there was something she could do about it. She owed him that.

            She owed him much more than that.

Chapter Text

            “Aren’t you gonna use anaesthetic?” Luke asked in alarm as Claire pulled the sopping bandage free of Matt’s abdomen.

            “No time, none here. Jessica, I need you on suction, keep the blood clear so I can see.” Keeping her eyes fixed on the ragged hole she reached up a hand and adjusted the light.

            Luke secured the oxygen mask while Jessica hovered the narrow hose around the wound. The wet mechanical drone filled the room as blood was whisked into the plastic. Thanking God for her years in the ER, Claire picked up a pair of forceps and set to work.

            She had had this nightmare. Several times, when she first met Matt. It had dogged her waking hours after the bombings in Hell’s Kitchen. She knew, sooner or later, he’d get hurt worse than she could heal with stitches and gauze. She knew one night she’d watch his life drain away while she tried to hold back an angry tide of blood.

            She really hoped this was not that night.

            The stab wound was neat, as far as stab wounds go. The knife had been sharp enough to slice right through him, without causing much tearing. That was good. Tiny tears were a nightmare to stitch up on a good day, with an OR full of trained professionals, never mind in a half-finished floor of a tiny hospital with an ex-con and drunk PI as her extra hands. One clean incision she could handle.

            She was right about bone fragments. She counted semi-visible six slivers and chips, some barely wider than a hair. The rib had cracked along its length and would need careful binding if it wasn’t going to split in two and start puncturing things that shouldn’t be punctured. That could wait until she was finished; first, the bone. Standing out against the fleshy reds of organs they were easy enough to see – just look for shards of burgundy. Bone fragments she could handle.

            The fact that her patient was still semi-conscious, however.

            “Luke, hold him down. Keep him still.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over Matt’s gurgling yells. His knuckles were white around the edges of the table, the veins and muscles in his arms casting shadows in the harsh light as they stood out with the exertion.

            Luke dropped a calliper back onto the tray and laid his arms gently over Matt’s chest, firmly pinning him down. Matt tried deliriously to fight him off, but everything about his movements were weak and feeble. She doubted he could hold his own head up right now.

            Claire clenched her jaw, trying in vain to ignore Matt’s misery and concentrate on ending it. She tried to pull herself away from the situation, forget this was her friend, the person who had changed her life for the dramatic, that he had already shouldered enough goddamn pain to last a lifetime. Instead she let the weakly squirming body become flesh and only flesh. Pretended this was just another night being overworked and short staffed in the ER of Metro-General. Just her and a couple of frightened interns patching up the victim of a knife fight. She ignored the grunts and moans that sounded more like an animal than a human, instead letting the frantic beeping of the heart monitor fill her ears.

            It sort of worked.

            Bit by gut-wrenching bit, Claire pulled out shards of rib. They plinked delicately onto the tool tray, forming a tiny red pool in the corner. Thankfully, blessedly, Matt passed out after the third one was worked free. He lay, dead to the world, every muscle lax in deepest exhaustion, his breaths shallow and faint.

            Claire’s shoulders felt like chorded rock. Where the hell was Danny? Had he been caught? Collapsed? Matt’s pallor was turning greyish in the harsh light. Even if she managed to find all scraps of broken bone and stitch his stomach and spleen back together, he couldn’t last much longer without blood. The IV dripping into his arm could only do so much, and the heart monitor recounted every tiny fall in blood pressure. It’s not like they could suck any of it out of the hoodie.

            Jessica’s near-constant swearing wasn’t exactly helpful either.

            Luke’s almost unshakable calm made up for it. He was like an oasis in this shitstorm. However much he was freaking out inside, he kept it studiously hidden, only the tension in his jaw giving him away. He passed her tool after tool, relaying machine readouts and silently syphoning away some of her muted panic.

            Danny made it back after the seventh and hopefully last shard of bone clattered onto its fellows, arms full of blood bags and bottles. And with a new slender cut above his eye. She raised a questioning eyebrow and he shook his head, nodding to the blood. Returning her attention to the grazed spleen she talked him through hooking it up, keeping half an eye on him as he swayed by the IV pole.

            Thirteen stitches later, the tense silence was shattered by a piercing wail as Matt’s heart flickered into stillness.

            For half a heartbeat, none of them moved. Jessica’s scowl broke, revealing the youth and fear in her eyes. Luke and Danny stiffened with widening eyes and curling fists. Claire’s gaze snapped to Matt’s impassive, lax features as something cold flickered inside her chest.

            Then the moment broke into careful chaos.

            With the speed of OR urgency the defibrillator materialised next to Claire, the machine’s casing buckling as Luke switched it to charge with panicked force. Jessica swept the bloodied clamps aside, clearing Matt’s still chest while Danny took a heavy step back from the table, shadows eroding his features as he left the halo of bright light.

            Then the paddles were in Claire’s sweating but sure hands, the familiar whine announced their readiness, and she punched them into her friend’s chest.

            A silence rife with anticipation warred with the monitor’s insistent wails.

            Luke charged again.

            Claire pressed them carefully into Matt’s skin.

            Matt bucked and twitched and laid still.

            The monitor screamed.

Chapter Text

            The whetstone sailed along the edge of the blade, eliciting a high, clear, ringing note that faded gracefully into the rare silence at the gleaming tip. Another pass and the simple melody returned, filling the room with its purity. It was beautiful.

            Elektra sat on her makeshift bed, savouring her moments alone before Alexandra would call for her again. The blood rage had receded to a low hum deep inside her, content with the day’s exercise. Its acidic fire had been persuaded into glowing embers for the time being, and she relished the relative calm that filled its space. Carefully honing her polished blades completed the serene scene, each careful stroke drawing deeper breaths, soothing the impatient burning in her taught muscles.

            Today had been a good day. The four commoners had provided the liveliest fight she could remember. She was sure she’d see them again, and the prospect intrigued her. She had underestimated the Fist’s companions, her first mistake if memory served. It had been exhilarating to wake up in a room filled of unconscious pawns and known she had been at another’s mercy. If she hadn’t stabbed the devil one, she may have paid dearly for her lax in concentration, far more dearly than a dislocated shoulder.

            The devil. Matthew.

            He had been interesting. Such passion. Such a fool. He may even have been an interesting opponent if he’d fought her. Strange that he hadn’t.

            Stranger still that he knew her name.

            The blade’s music faltered. How had he known her name? Was it possible that he was one of the phantoms?

            But no. That made no sense. He was one of the Chaste, and she had only ever lived and worked with the Hand. They were her family, her life. She had served them since she was a girl and the tall man with white hair and began her training.

            Had they fought before? For a moment she allowed her mind an inch of slack and the half-memories roared with eager attention. Flashes of a red suit and shadows, the iron of a – a train? A chasm stretching down where it shouldn’t be and the ghost of piercing pain. The tingle of a hand against her cheek, of forgotten words with vital weight passing in a stairwell.

            The hilt’s grooves bit delicately into her palm. Gritting her teeth she shoved the phantoms away, burying them and their fear where their whispers were too faint to hear. They were nothing more than remnants from the activation. A side effect from her true fulfilment. Like her amnesia. Nothing to concern herself with. Just echoes of a sacrifice’s past.

            She laid one knife down and delicately picked up its twin. The simple melody sang through the room, settling certainty once more in her mind. It had been a tactic, nothing more. The devil simply wanted to throw her off balance, feign vulnerability to draw her closer, prey on her feeble doubts to save his friend.

            Roscoe Sweeney. Fogwell’s Gym. Irrelevant words plucked from unimportance and flung like throwing stars. To unbalance. To distract.

            Elektra smiled, twisting the blade to hone its far side. She was right to kill him. She would not allow the false memories to challenge that truth. His strategies were without honour, an insult to her and her mission. He was nothing more than an old adversary, someone to be beaten, not listened to. She wouldn’t be seeing Matthew again, and should his friends turn up, she would send them after him.

            The thought tugged her smile wider.

Chapter Text

            The paddles quavered against the pale skin, held fast in shaking hands. Her thumbs pressed the buttons and they recoiled into her palms as Matt’s chest rose involuntarily again. His head lolled to the side, the oxygen mask stained with blood. The heart monitor resumed its horrendous screech.

            Miles away, Luke asked if he should charge again. Slightly closer, Claire felt her head shake without her instruction. The paddles peeled away from Matt’s skin and hung limp in her trembling fingers.

            It had been too long. It wasn’t working. He wasn’t coming back.

            She’d lost him. She’d failed him.

            Matt Murdock was ... was dead.

            The paddles fell to the floor with an explosion of discordant clatters. Somewhere, people spoke. Angrily. Loudly. Sadly.

            Matt was dead.

            The nightmare was real.

            No.

            No.

            Embracing a flare of fury, she leant forward and pounded on Matt’s sternum, both fists beating into him without mercy. The monitor skipped. She paused, levelling Matt’s still face with a glare that far transcended blindness.

            “Matt Murdock you come back to me right now or I swear to God!”

            She brought her fists down on him again, shaking Luke’s too-gentle, too-faithless hand from her arm. She didn’t hear Danny’s soft words, didn’t flinch as Jessica kicked a stand that flew across the room and dented the drywall. Nothing existed. Nothing except Matt and his unmoving chest and frozen heart.

            Then an arm curled around her middle and lifted her away from the table with infuriating ease and Luke was shouting to be heard over her, telling her it was too late, he was gone. She tried to break his grip as he carried her away from Matt’s body, but she wasn’t strong enough. She could only hang there, wishing she weren’t helpless, willing for a miracle.

            She got one.

            The monitor’s aching drone was cut short by a curt, resounding, beautiful note – and then another. And another. Condensation puffed within the mask, obscuring all plastic that wasn’t already covered in a thick spray of blood.

            As one Luke dropped his arms and Claire leaped forward, Jessica almost crashing into the table at the same second. It was no trick, no illusion: Matt’s chest was rising sluggishly with increasing regularity. Blood again pooled in the unstitched wound.

            Three breaths were enough to steady Claire’s hands and, not daring to think about what had just happened – and what had almost just happened – Claire finished the waiting stitch. With a tidal wave of relief, she at last began to sew the wound closed.

            Unbelievably, Matt’s heart grew stronger with every blessed beat. Luke relayed his vitals, checked the flow of fresh blood, his reports punctuated by several barely whispered “Sweet Christmas”’s as the machines became ever more confident that Matt was, somehow, going to live.

            This was, hands down, the best moment of Claire’s career. This was the miracle of miracles, beating the college student with an inoperable tumour who still lived, eight years after her three-month prognosis. It trounced the second twin who’d taken three minutes to revive and seven until she cried. It even outstripped the entire 59^th Fire Department camping out in a seatless hallway in solidarity to their sister fighting to keep her arm in the OR.

            Matt Murdock was alive. This. This was a good day.

            Luke carried dusty beds and abandoned chairs into their corner of the hospital from down the hall (super strength was so convenient), then disappeared to gather supplies: namely Chinese food and several boxes of beer. Once Matt was mopped up and laid carefully in the cleanest bed, Claire exhaustedly bullied Jessica and Danny into letting her stitch them up too. Once his head was bandaged Danny was all but thrown into another bed, his energy completely spent from the fight and drawing the poison from Matt. Jessica volunteered for the first watch, dragging a stool over to the wall opposite the beds and keeping a sullen eye on her comrades.

            Slipping away to the men’s room (the ladies’ was missing some of the finer amenities – like sinks) she coaxed freezing water from the hot tap and allowed its bubbly waterfall to wash over her hands, her neck. When she turned her attention to her face she was surprised by the amount of dried blood caking her features. A pink whirlpool escaped down the drain, draining some of her tension with it.

            None of them spoke while they ate, all too drained from the nightmare day. Jessica refused to relinquish her post and stayed awake, alternating between scowling at Matt’s bed and taking long, parched draughts from her bottle of bourbon.

            Claire curled up in Luke’s arms on the last bed, burying herself in his chest. His lips pressed gently into her hair and, grateful Jessica’s hearing was not one of her enhancements, she quietly fell to pieces.

            The next morning was unseasonably overcast. From their vantage point on the top floor the entire city was variations of grey, a monochrome scene broken only by the muted greens of faraway roof gardens. By unspoken consent, all five of them remained in their makeshift camp, venturing out only twice for more food, bourbon, and clothes. Luke’s hoodie was stiff with dried blood and Matt had nothing but his briefs and Jessica’s jacket draped across his chest to protect him from the building’s chill. Since Danny was the one to volunteer for that particular expedition, they ended up with an enormous red comforter whose softness seemed to defy the laws of blanket physics. As he also brought Jess a tee shirt with a grumpy-looking cat on the front, she and Luke were also treated to a truly impressive sass-off, followed by over an hour of glares and sniggers.

            Matt’s resilience was impressive. Even Claire, who’d seen him back on the streets hours after life-threatening injuries before, couldn’t conceal her admiration. His heartrate was steady and strong considering his ordeal, and he even stirred a few times when she inspected his wound and rewrapped his ribs.

            That evening, the atmosphere of relieved laziness was corroded by questions, curiosity, and the inevitable vocal sparring as Danny’s explanations of the Hand, and in particular the Black Sky, rose several sceptical eyebrows.

            “But what kind of weapon is she meant to be?” Luke asked for the fifth time, his patience eroded by Danny’s unchanging answer.

            “The powerful kind! The kind that can change the face of the earth if left to rampage unchecked!”

            “As opposed to the perfectly acceptable controlled rampages,” Jessica cut in dryly. “They’re no big deal.”

            “You just don’t understand,” Danny huffed, “you can’t grasp what we’re up against.”

            “Which is why we’re asking you to explain it!” It’d been ages since she’d heard Luke raise his voice.

            Unleashing an onerous sigh, Danny stopped pacing and looked at them each in turn. “I’m the Immortal Iron Fist –”

            “Yeah, we got that memo last t–”

            “Shut up Jessica.” Maybe the fourth time she’d heard Luke snap?

            “I’m the Immortal Iron Fist,” Danny continued with a sidelong glare in the detective’s direction. “It’s my job to protect K’un-Lun – and everywhere else – from the Hand. I’m the Chaste’s greatest weapon, the final defence. The Black Sky is theirs. It’s like,” he gestured vaguely as he searched for the term. “Like a nuclear bomb in a war of swords. It’s in a class of its own and I’m the only one who can stop her.”

            “Why?” Jessica again.

            “Why what?”

            “Why are you the only one who can stop her?”

            “Because, I’m the Im–”

            “Yeah, yeah, yeah, ancient dragon man, whatever. Are you saying her only weakness is your magic fist?”

            “Well –”

            “Or can she still be stabbed? Shot? Poisoned? Plenty of ways to kill someone, Danny, seems real unlikely a glow-in-the-dark punch is the only way to stop her.”

            If she hadn’t been so tired the look on Danny’s face would’ve made her laugh.

            “She has a point,” she murmured into the uncomfortable silence. “I mean, you can be killed by a bullet, right?”

            Danny nodded with comic reluctance.

            “So if we’re going to kill her –”

            “Have we decided that?” Luke cut in. “I don’t remember taking a vote, here. She’s a person, isn’t she? Why can’t –”

            “She’s not,” Danny interrupted. “Not anymore.”

            “Sorry if we don’t take that on faith from the guy serving the Cool Aid there, Danny,” Jessica sneered, reaching for another beer.

            “I don’t have any Cool Aid, what’re you – no – look, you don’t understand!” The sudden shout silenced them. “You just don’t get it,” he continued, his voice quieter, calmer. “The Black Sky ceases to be a person once they’re activated.”

            “How can you possibly know that if one’s never been activated before!”

            “Because it is written!”

            “Oh, well, then!”

            “Just – let him explain it,” Luke interjected quickly, taking half a step toward Jess.

            “The activation process is unique, okay? It requires dozens of human sacrifices and more power than you could comprehend. Part of its purpose is to destroy any identity the Black Sky might have created for themselves, it erases it so they’ll be more effective. So they’ll follow orders and focus solely on their mission.”

            “Which is, lemme guess – world domination?”

            Claire wondered if she was fast enough to avoid Jessica’s fists if she stole her bottle. Probably.

            “Look, my point is,” Danny pressed, “whoever this Black Sky might have been – whoever Elektra was – is gone. Dead. Far beyond any aid we, or anyone else, could offer. The change is permanent. Irreversible. The only thing to do is kill her before she has time to ignite whatever wildfire the Hand is planning. That’s it. That’s why she must die. Why I’m going to kill her.”

            “No, you’re not.”

            Claire turned in disbelief to see Matt leaning against the doorframe, his back hunched, one hand held over the red-tinged bandage and his sightless eyes staring into the ceiling.

Chapter Text

            “What the hell are you doing?!” Claire’s shoes squeaked against the linoleum as she ran to him. “How are you even standing, you idiot!” Her warm fingers curled around his wrist and pried it from his side, pulling his arm around her shoulders and taking his weight. She tried to turn him around, back to the bed, but he leaned away from her.

            “I’m fine, Claire –”

            “Like hell you are!”

            “Listen.” He sagged against her, blinking slowly and willing himself to remain upright. “Listen,” he repeated, his voice far steadier than his stance. “You can’t kill her, Danny. None of you can.”

            “Look, Matt, I know you have history with her, but –”

            “Yes, I do.”

            “Listen, man, she’s not who you think she is –”

            “I know that. Elektra would never – never do this.” He nodded, indicating his bandages and crumbling frame, hoping he didn’t look as pathetic as he felt. “The woman I knew –” He paused. The words needed more air to make it out of his mouth. “The woman I buried is dead.”

            “Wait, she was dead?” Jessica almost laughed.

            “Long – long story.” He was panting now, the breath stoking an inferno on his left side and he released the door to brace his hand against the bandages, staggering slightly into Claire.

            “Matt, you really need to lie down, okay?” Claire’s heartbeat spiked, emphasising the worry in her tone.

            He nodded, eyelids drooping. “I will, just ... Whatever, whoever she is now, it’s not who she wants to be. She died –” he took another fortifying breath, wishing the pain in his side was strong enough to drown out the agony in his heart. “She died avoiding becoming what Nobu, what the hand wa-wanted her to be. She knew what the – the Black Sky was, grew up training to kill it. She never wanted that to be her. She wouldn’t –wouldn’t – want –”

            He sagged into Claire, his head drooping dangerously. Luke was there in seconds, pulling his other arm carefully away from his chest and taking his weight.

            “I – I have to do it,” Matt breathed, doggedly refusing to be herded back to bed. “I have to kill her.”

            “Matt,” Luke began quietly, “that’s not your responsibility.”

            He shook his head, immediately regretting it as the world spun sharply for a moment. “It’s not – that. I owe her this. It – it has to be me.”

            He half felt Claire look up to Luke and assumed some silent command was given because she abruptly said,

            “Alright, Matt. None of them will try to – will try anything right now, okay? But listen, you need to lie down, you need to rest. We’ll talk about this later.”

            Confident she meant it, he relented with a world-churning nod. Exhaustion sucked at his awareness, inexorably drawing him into a sleep he knew he needed. Too tired to make sense of where he was or why his chest burned, he allowed them to half-carry him back to the sheetless bed.

            “You pulled out your IVs,” Claire noted with dripping disapproval.

            “Got in ... m’way.” He felt himself sink into the mattress, every muscle pulled unrelentingly down into exhausted stillness. Claire mm-hmm’d above him and he wondered if she was smiling or scowling. Maybe both. Luke pulled something soft and warm over him and might have said something – the air rumbled with the cadence of speech but his eyes were already closed, the world already fading away.

            Claire was sitting next to him when he woke up, her sure fingers pressed into his wrist.

            “Gonna stay still this time?” Hm. He may be in trouble.

            He swallowed, burying a wince as his body’s complaints registered with harmonised roars. “Think so,” he mumbled, hoping his attempt at a smile didn’t hurt his case. Clearly it didn’t, because when she spoke again her tone was softer.

            “How you feeling?”

            “Oh. Fantastic.”

            “Sure,” she half chuckled. “Rate the pain.”

            “It’s fine.” The silence suggested a withering glare. “’S long as I don’t, y’know ... breathe.”

            “You’re about due another dose, anyway.” A clatter of glass on steel and the ghost of a needle being pressed through rubber beside him.

            “Dose of what?”

            “Liquid aspirin,” she replied in a tone that warned him against prying.

            Silence fell between them as she poked the thin metal into the port on the IV to his left. He pushed his senses tentatively away from the bed, ignoring the mild spinning. He could hear three unique heartbeats nearby, smell beer and whiskey and paper. With a sigh he let the indistinct murmurs fade into an ignorable hum, too tired to concentrate on what they were doing.

            “Big day for you, huh?” Claire said quietly, the music of her voice shifting as she sat on a stool with a cracked leg.

            Blinking slowly, he nodded, hoping she wouldn’t make him relive it.

            “I’ve never actually seen you hurt that bad before.”

            He frowned. “Nobu and –”

            “Nobu and Fisk didn’t break your heart,” she clarified. “Or make it stop.”

            “It ... stopped?”

            “Yeah,” she said, almost succeeding in keeping her voice steady. “For a long time, Matt.”

            “Oh.”

            “We really – I really thought we’d lost you. You were ... dead.” Her heart quavered.

            He reached his hand out towards her, searching. She took it and he squeezed her fingers. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

            She took a loud, deep breath. “Just ... don’t ever do that to me again.”

            “I promise.”

            Her fingers squeezed his.

            He tried to think back through the haze of raging pain and roaring blood. Details were lost in the red haze, save the most fleeting of half-grasped impressions. Hands holding him together, cold steel at his back, an incessant pricking stinging in his gut ... And a coldness. He remembered a timeless stretch of icy nothingness. Could that have been it, when his heart stopped? He swallowed hard, trying to reign in his flicking thoughts. It was probably just the blood loss, nothing more. His brain had been starved of oxygen, there was no reason to suspect that coldness, that aching aloneness he thought he remembered meant anything.

            He had a sudden and desperate desire to talk with Father Lantom.

            “Were you serious?” Claire asked suddenly, shattering his quiet panic. “What you said earlier, about ... about killing her?”

            “Yes.”

            “You’d really do that? You? Matthew Christ, himself?”

             He frowned wearily. “Don’t – don’t, Claire.”

            “Sorry. But, have you thought about what that would do to you? I seem to remember the whole ‘thou shalt not kill’ thing being kind of a biggie in church.”

            “It is.”

            “Then ... why?”

            “Because ...” He didn’t know how to articulate what this was to him. He wasn’t sure the words existed and the fog of tethered pain wasn’t helping.

            “Because you love her, right?”

            “It’s more than that. I did love her. More than ... She was the first person to really know me. But ...” He closed his eyes, wondering how to condense months of grief into as few words as humanly possible. “There was a darkness in her. Something that ... something hungry. But when we were working together, she – she fought against it. For me. She didn’t want to be that. What they told her she was. She hated the idea of what they’d do in her name. She wanted – she chose – to be good.

            “She died being good. She died for me. Saving me.”

            Claire let out a low whistle.

            “It was that night, wasn’t it? That night you got shot?” Warm air whirled as she gestured. “In your shoulder?”

            He nodded.

            “I wondered why you never mentioned that one.”

            “I didn’t – I couldn’t –”

            “I know, Matt.” Soft. Gentle. “I know.”

            “When I heard her voice, I thought – I thought it was a miracle.”

            “I know.”

            “But it wasn’t her – it wasn’t – she didn’t know me, she –”

            Heat bubbled in his chest, burning his eyes. He gripped her hand tighter, willing himself to breathe.

            “It’s okay, Matt. I’m here.”

            “She didn’t want to be the Black Sky.”

            “I know.” She wiped away a rogue tear, her fingers trailing through his hair while he struggled to stay calm.

            “She’d rather die. She’d – rather die –”

            In a gush of warm air Claire enveloped him in her slender arms, pulling him – so gently – off the bed enough to tuck his head against her shoulder, her other arm supporting his own. He tried, for a pointless moment, to resist the rising tide of burning heat. It was hopeless. Reaching up, he wrapped his arms lethargically around her and held her close, feeling scorching tears escape onto his cheeks. He took deep breaths, ignoring the fiery flare in his gut, welcoming it even because, dear Lord, it felt far, far better.

            When the tide had ebbed away he let his hands fall away and sank back into the rolled up hoodie that was his pillow. Claire laid him down gently, running her thumbs across his cheek, erasing all traces of the runaway tears. She held his face in her palms for a long moment.

            “You, Matthew Murdock,” she said quietly, her voice firm and resolute, “are the bravest person I have ever met.”

            He tried to look away, frowning, but she held him fast.

            “I mean it, Matt. What you’re saying, what you want to do for her ... You’re trading her hell for your own. That’s ... forget heroes, that’s the stuff of legends.”

            His frown deepened and the burning behind his eyes flared once more.

            “I’m not – I’m no hero.”

            “Yes. You are.” She stroked his cheekbones with her thumbs and leaned forward, her hair falling with a faint murmur past his face, and pressed a gentle kiss into his forehead.

Chapter Text

            They had decided to make the unfinished hospital their unofficial headquarters for the time being. Mostly because they all wouldn’t fit in Luke or Jessica’s apartment without killing each other, and all Danny’s penthouses were too public since the kid had yet to get his head around the whole paparazzi/privacy thing. Apart from being damn cold when the sun went down it worked pretty well; lots of room, no one had yet disturbed them, and there was a decent Chinese take-out only half a block away, beside a liquor store. Plus, they knew all the medical crap was going to be needed when they faced the Hand again.

            If they would only show themselves.

            There hadn’t been a peep from anyone otherworldly diabolical since the tip that led them to the Black Sky. Granted, these weren’t the monologuing, have-the-city-mad-with-fear type of assholes, but even so, you’d think their brawl the other day would leave some clues. But nope. Not so much as a bloodstain.

            Which, honestly, was pretty off-putting. Exactly how powerful were these freaks?

            That question led to a mind-numbing ring of unanswerable questions and usually a renewed urge to punch Danny right in the face. All his years learning fancy fighting and mystic mumbo-jumbo but the guy still couldn’t offer a single hard, rational-sounding detail as to who or what his nemeses were? Unbelievable.

            Right now though Danny wasn’t there to infuriate her. He was off ‘looking into some things’ (because god forbid the boy ever said anything concrete) and since Luke and Claire were away getting supplies and checking police reports, she was left to babysit. A pretty easy gig really; Matt had been asleep for a couple of hours now, which Jess guessed was probably some form of record for him. Two-ish hours without doing anything dramatic, like trying to die again.

            Poking around the boxes of take-out Jessica let out a triumphant hiss as she came across a box of unclaimed egg rolls. Feast of queens. She carried her spoils over to the padded chair they’d set at the end of Matt’s bed and settled down, tugging the cooler full of fancy beer closer. She had to admit, life wasn’t all bad with a corporate high-up bankrolling their booze. Though she’d really have to have a word with Danny about all this German beer.

            She cast an eye over the sleeping figure. It was a relief how much better he was already looking. His colour had returned after the second bag of blood and he’d been resting soundly for over an hour, his breathing regular and steady. Last time he’d woken up he’d refused to lie down until Claire agreed to axe the oxygen mask and Jessica was pretty sure it was pure stubbornness that had erased the slight wheeze that had chased his every breath before the others went out.

            Dropping a half-eaten egg roll back into the box, Jessica stood, wiping her fingers on her jeans and ignoring a passive aggressive twinge from her calf. She stepped carefully around the IV, trying not to make a sound since Superears over here was a fairly light sleeper. She pulled up the blanket, peaking underneath to check the bandages. Still clean. Damn, this guy healed creepy fast.

            She let the blanket fall back around his resting form. She gazed at him for a long moment as memories of the surgery came pounding back, and her fists clenched as his unconscious, delirious screams again echoed through her mind. The way he’d writhed under Luke’s grip, like a half-mad animal caught in a trap ... the way his eyes had rolled and fluttered ...

            Shaking her head with a practiced jerk she stepped away from the bed, tripping over the IV pole’s wheels and kicking the whole thing a foot closer to her chair. Swearing, she grabbed at it, her fingers fumbling, metal hoops clicking, IV bag swaying madly with a faint squeak that sounded like laughter. Goddamnit.

            “Jessica?”

            Shit. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry. The thing ... fell.” She gestured vaguely to the still swinging IV bag. “Go back to sleep.”

            He pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Nah, I’m good.”

            “Here.” She snatched up a duffle bag full of clothes – maybe Luke’s? – and plonked in on the bed behind him. Beating it into a semi-comfortable-looking configuration she stepped back, pleased.

            “Thanks.” He laid back into the bag, tugging the blanket up high enough to cover most of the bandages.

            “Don’t mention it. Egg roll?”

            “Please.” Smiling and everything. This guy was literally dead less than thirty-six hours ago. What the hell.

            She retrieved her partially eaten roll and set the box by his hand, hooking her chair with her foot and dragging it over to the bed’s side. Being sociable. Matt winced as he reached for a roll, pain flicking across his face almost as fast as it was concealed.

            “You okay?” Stupid question.

            “Yeah, I’m fine.” Stupider answer.

            “Y’know, we have painkillers. Pretty good ones.”

            His eyebrows quirked in a sheepish and irritatingly adorable expression. “Maybe some aspirin?”

            Jess snorted. “You’re kidding me, right?”

            “No ...?”

            “Dude, we’ve got actual painkillers. With hard-to-pronounce names.”

            “Aspirin’s fine.”

            She got up to find the bottle. “Claire was right about you. Total martyr.” That earned a tired chuckle.

            “I’m really not.”

            “Well it’s either that or you’re a complete lightweight,” she retorted, grabbing a bottle of water and pushing both into his hands. He smiled as he unscrewed the lid and knocked back the pills.

            “So where’re the others?”

            “Out. Danny’s researching top secret immortal fist stuff and Luke and Claire are getting crap and looking into police files. See if anything helpful comes up.”

            “So no word on the Hand then?”

            “Not since Danny threw their queen bee across the room.”

            Matt’s eyebrows shot up. “He did?”

            “Oh right, you were pretty out of it. Yeah he knocked her out and we got you out of there. Came here. Claire operated on you and Luke and I tried not to barf all over your open wounds.”

            “I appreciate that.”

            “And you owe me a scarf.”

            Jessica’s phone dinged. She leaned on the armrest as she worked it from her back pocket. A text from Trish. You made the news last night. Interview? ;)

            Snorting, she hit reply. You can’t afford me 8)

            “Something funny?”

            She glanced up at him, his tired eyes staring at her shoulder.

            “Just a text from a friend. Apparently we made the news last night.”

            He frowned. “What’d they say?”

            “Dunno. Doubt much. We didn’t see anyone on the way in or out so, it’s probably just some randomer wanting to make a quick buck.”

            He nodded, looking slightly less worried.

            Another ding. Awks I meant the others. Don’t have Daredevil’s personal number :/

            #friendshipgoals

            ;) <3

            “Funny friend?” Matt asked quietly, a half-smile softening his features.

            Jessica shook her head and stowed the phone away, fighting a smile. “She wants to interview us. Joking, I think,” she added quickly as alarm spread across his face. “She’s been doing Trish Talk for years and still hasn’t convinced me to go on air, so, I think we’re good.”

            He smiled and seemed to sink slightly into the duffel bag. Shit, he looked awful. Beaten down and trying to hide it. God, did she know the feeling.

            “Hey, is there anyone you wanna call?” she asked awkwardly. “My cell still has some juice.”

            “No. Thank you.” Somehow smiling made him look even sadder.

            She raised an eyebrow. “No one? Not even work?”

            “I’m freelance.”

            She waited for him to say something more. When he didn’t, she opened her mouth to prompt him – he had to have someone, there had to be at least one person who cared he’d been stabbed half to death and hadn’t checked in anywhere – but then held her tongue. This wasn’t a good time for prying.

            Silence settled between them, save the occasional muted crunch of an egg roll. He didn’t eat much, left the last one for her.

            “You really gonna kill that Elektra woman?” she blurted out, taking herself as much by surprise as Matt. His eyes seemed to shutter as the words reached him.

            “Yes.”

            Jessica frowned. “You love her.”

            “Yes.”

            “So don’t you want to try and, I dunno, bring her back? Undo whatever mystic voodoo they laid on her? Try hypnosis, or have Danny try his glowy magic on her head?”

            “Wouldn’t work.”

            “How do you know?”

            He took a deep, slow breath, his eyes sliding away from her to gaze unseeingly into the ceiling.

            “The woman I loved isn’t there anymore. It’s someone ... else. Not her.”

            “You know this ‘cause she stabbed you?”

            He shook his head, looking drawn and exhausted and miserable. Way to comfort the wounded, Jones. Asshole.

            “I’m sorry, I just don’t get –”

            “Her heartbeat didn’t change.”

            “What?”

            “Her heartbeat. When she saw me. It was completely steady. Didn’t even waver.” She could see him trying to hide the pain, to fit a blank mask over his features. If she wasn’t such a pro at that herself she might’ve bought it.

            “You ... can hear heartbeats?”

            “Yeah. Comes in handy.”

            “I’m sure.” A very awkward pause. “You get weirder the longer I know you.”

            That got her a short-lived smile.

            “So she ... she didn’t react? To, eh, to stabbing you?”

            “No. Her adrenaline spiked when the blade went in.” His voice was hollow, broken. “She enjoyed it.”

            Jesus. “Shit.”

            “Yeah.” Another pause. Then, “Her heartbeat never lied. Even when she did, her body always told me the truth. I’m nothing to her, now. She’s not the Elektra I knew.”

            “You guys have quite the history, huh?”

            “Yeah.”

            Misery was etched into his face, his eyebrows turning up in the middle in a way that made him look very young and very lost.

            “I’m really sorry, Matt. That ... sucks.”

            He gave a tiny nod and tried and failed to smile. “Thanks, Jessica.”

            Even though his gaze was directed at the ceiling she felt the need to avert her eyes, give him a moment to fix his mask. The two scars slashed across his collarbone drew her attention, the circular blobs of scar tissue on either shoulder just visible above the blanket. She glanced down to his side, remembering the thick, ugly ridges of puckered skin that hid there. God, he’d gotten his ass handed to him a lot, hadn’t he? And yet, he kept getting back up and out on the streets again, seemingly no matter what. And he didn’t even have superstrength.

            He was just a guy. Who could hear heartbeats and smell where the ambush was waiting, but still. Just a guy. A guy who’d very nearly died because of her.

            “Hey, uh, Matt?”

            He mm’d, turning his head towards her.

            “What you did, the other night ...” He looked confused. Shit, she was gonna have to be specific. “Elektra – the Black Sky, whatever – she was aiming for me. You ... you didn’t have to get involved.”

            “Of course I did.” He still looked confused.

            “But if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t’ve been stabbed.”

            “And you would’ve.”

            She wondered if he could hear if someone blushed. Hopefully not.

            “Yeah, but ...”

            “At least I had a chance,” he said softly, his eyes kind of crinkled in a way that wasn’t entirely fair. “I figured my armour would at least blunt the blow. And that she mightn’t try to kill me,” he added with an amused exhalation she interpreted as laughter.

            “Still. Just ... thanks. Really.”

            A genuine smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and the eye-crinkle deepened even less fairly.

            “You’re welcome, Jessica.”

            A more companionable silence stretched between them. Jessica gnawed on the last egg roll, measuring her current stores of courage. When she’d swallowed the last bite, and so run out of reasons not to, she spoke.

            “Hey, can I ask you something?”

            “Yeah?” He sounded kinda wary. Good.

            “Why do you do this? The whole Daredevil thing?” She gestured vaguely to his torso. “Those scars, your day job ... seems you’ve got a hell of a lot more to lose than the rest of us.”

            “I don’t have that much to lose.”

            Interestingly cryptic. “But what makes you go out every night? On the streets?” Feeling she should really contribute something halfway personal she grudgingly added, “My friend, Trish, she wanted me to do that. Before I settled on PI work. Do the whole hero thing.”

            “I’m not a hero,” he said quickly. “I’m just a guy who got fed up with ... all of it. Decided to do something about it.”

            “Just like that?”

            “Pretty much.”

            “And all those beatings don’t put you off?”

            He half smiled. “Not so much. Out there,” he gestured to the window – how’d he know where it was, could he smell the glass or something? – his gaze flicking to the sunny day he couldn’t see. “I can be free. No pretence, no act. And I can help people. Make some tiny difference. At least,” he added quietly, “I thought I was.”

            “You are,” she said firmly.

            He glanced to her shoulder, his expression a question.

            “I had this client a while back,” she said. “Just some woman whose asshole husband was cheating on her. Said she found out ‘cause one night she was going out to bridge or mai thai or, I dunno, whatever rich people do. The point is, she was going out to some appointment and got jumped by some asshole with a gun. But then the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen jumps outta nowhere and kicks the guy’s ass. So she’s all shaken and goes home to see her husband – and boom, he’s screwing the neighbour and I’ve got a client.”

            He stared at her (well, in her direction) as though she was mad for a long moment before his eyebrows rose and he opened his mouth to say something – and laughed. She grinned as he shook his head at her. One arm reached up to brace his ribs.

            “You just made that up!”

            “No! Seriously, her name was Jane or Julia or, I dunno, it had a ‘j’ in it – no, really! She needed proof for the divorce papers.”

            “Y-you’re so full of shit,” he laughed, making it sound like a compliment.

            “Yeah, well ... screw you. At least I do my crime fighting in clothes and not some six-year-old kid’s Halloween costume fantasy.”

            “Hey, my suit’s cool.”

            “Yeah, well, you can’t see it, so.”

            “It has horns.”

            “Ears.”

            “Shut up.”

            “Was the tail extra?”

“Shut up,” he repeated, chuckling.

Chapter Text

            It took four difficult days for Jessica’s sleuthing to pay off. One of Danny’s less-than-subtle calls to a surely seedy faction of Rand Enterprises yielded a lead any sane person would have overlooked – something about a work order being inexplicably devoid of workers, buried under layers of bureaucracy and carefully altered forms. Somehow, Jessica caught wind of the indescrepency and within eight hours she had photos which convinced the rest of the team that the Hand – and Elektra – were doing something in a run-down part of town formerly owned by Wilson Fisk. The address didn’t surprise Matt.

            It was the building with the hole.

            “We have to leave now,” he growled yet again, ignoring Claire’s huff of exasperation.

            “Matt, for god’s sake!” Eddies of air swirled in waves of heat as she threw her arms up in frustration, possibly fighting the urge to throttle him. “You cannot go into a fight like this! You won’t last five –”

            “I’m fine, Claire.”

            “The hell you are!”

            “I’ve fought with worse!”

            She took an exaggeratedly deep breath. “I know you have,” she said with deliberate calm, the air around her smoother now as she stepped towards him. “But this isn’t just some fight. You’re up against something we don’t even understand – we don’t know how powerful this Black Sky card is, or even how it works –”

            “Well, I do,” Danny muttered from the corner. A low thump brushed across the room as Jessica punched his arm.

            “ – and you can’t expect to go in all guns blazing when you were clinically dead less than a week ago,” she continued, ignoring Danny’s interruption.

            “I’ll be –”

            “Don’t you dare say ‘fine’!” she snapped, her voice sharper than he’d ever heard it. He felt her press her hands to her forehead for a moment, forcing her spiking heartbeat to slow with a measured breath. Matt paused in pulling on his gloves, cocking his head slightly as he listened to her suddenly not-so-steady beat.

            “Matt,” she began again, a slight waver chasing the word. “You died, for minutes, just a few days ago. You still need bandages. Your stitches haven’t healed and you wince every time you try to straighten up. You cannot run off into the night fighting god knows how many ninjas, and your superpowered ex-girlfriend.”

            “’Bout thirty ninjas,” Jessica muttered. Luke turned his head towards her with what Matt assumed was a withering glare.

            He looked down, keeping his face hidden as her words struck. He really did not want to endure two fights tonight. What was ahead of him was already horrible enough without hurting Claire on top of everything. Especially after all she’d done for him.

            But she didn’t understand. Surviving this fight wasn’t an option. Not for him.

            A deep sigh gushed over his lips and flopped to the floor, drawing a painful twinge from his abdomen, which he buried in the guise of shifting his weight. He couldn’t explain this to her. No matter what happened tonight he knew, if he managed to walk away from the fight, he’d bear wounds she could do nothing to heal. He didn’t want to put that on her.

            “Claire,” he said softly, turning to her. “I get what you’re saying. I do. But this ... this isn’t a fight I can miss. I can’t sub out and let someone else ... do what needs doing. We’re not gonna get another chance after this – believe me, I’ve seen the chasm they’ve dug and there’s no way whatever plan it’s a part of is a good one. Whatever it is, we have to stop it. Before they can make themselves so powerful that we can’t. Tonight is our only shot. Our only shot.”

            A disgruntled silence met his words.

            “Besides,” he added quietly, “this isn’t like before. I’m not going in alone.” He couldn’t tell if that idea was more comforting or bizarre. “Luke, Jess, and Danny, they can take care of the Hand –” he swallowed, his teeth grinding around the words he hoped Claire knew he would never say for anyone else – “I can hang back until they’ve cleared a path. Then I ... I’ll do what needs to be done.”

            Her arms were crossed as she stepped closer, her voice lowering and adopting that steel-rimmed edge that invariably accompanied an unwelcome insight.

            “Even if that worked – if you could hang back while they distract the Hand, and even if you can avoid whatever fighting we both know you’ll have to do to get near the place. Even if all that works as well as you say – which by the way is a major if – do you really think you can kill Elektra? Never mind the fact you’re not as strong as the last time you saw her – or that your movements are gonna be seriously restricted even if you don’t care about ripping out my stitches – do you really think you could take a knife and kill someone you love? You couldn’t even kill a man you hated.”

            He turned his back on her, shielding his face as hurt and anger fought for attention. As if he hadn’t already thought about all this – as if he’d thought of anything else while he was trapped in this goddamn box! As if she had any idea what this really meant to him, what taking a life – any life – meant to him. As if she –

            Of course she knew. She knew him – or at least this part of him – better than anyone else had, even Elektra ... She knew exactly what this would do to him.

            Ignoring the sharp barb tugging in his gut he pressed his hands over his face, pushing his hair back and taking as deep a breath as his cracked ribs allowed.

            “She has a point, Matt,” Luke offered quietly, his deep voice matching the silent cadence of mahogany and marble. “We’ll help you – you know we will – but even so. What if you have the shot, and can’t take it? Like you said, this is our only chance.”

            “I know you’re scared,” he said as he turned back to face the four heartbeats. “Believe me, I do. I know how bad it could get if I missed the shot.” He smiled, injecting as much confidence into it as possible. “But you see – I’m not. I’m not scared. I know what I can do. What I have to do. You’re right,” he nodded to Claire, “I couldn’t kill Fisk. I wouldn’t. Because that wasn’t right. I knew that, and I couldn’t ignore it.

            “I’m not like all of you,” he admitted, gesturing vaguely in Jessica’s direction. “I’ve never killed anyone. I only considered that option once, and I regretted it. It’s not something I take lightly. But this? The idea of killing Elektra it –” He stopped. Breathed through the scorching tightness in his throat. Fought to keep his voice level. “It’s the last thing I want to do. But I have no doubt that I will do it. Because it’s right.” He paused, directing his gaze at the floor in a likely futile attempt to hide his eyes. “It’s the only way I can save her.

            “And I’ll be damned if I let her down again.”

Chapter Text

            He’d known it would go wrong. It had to. Their plan had been too simple, too straightforward for everything to have gone smoothly. Call him pessimistic, but he found a vague comfort in how quickly their attack became an ambush.

            There were more than thirty. A lot more. Matt’s promise to Claire to hang back until Elektra showed herself and was separated from her minions was made redundant when a troop of almost invisible fighters surrounded him, forcing him to retreat inside the run down block. Within moments the atmosphere was bursting with screams, thuds, the slight susurration of finely honed blades, and the occasional, exhilarated laugh as the Black Sky delighted in the bloodshed. She seemed not to care who she fought – which meant that the Hand made an effort to give her a wide birth, forcing those trying to defend New York City into the eye of their storm: they surrounded Elektra, while over a hundred heart-shrouded fighters surrounded them.

            It was not going well.

            His cracked rib had broken not long after he’d been forced back to the group, Hand ninjas pressing on every side. Two more had snapped after a misjudged attack on one warrior who had three friends he hadn’t heard waiting close by. Every breath stung like a brand, flaring the inferno of his half-healed stab wound and sending shards of tenacious agony along his muscles, restricting his moves and forcing him to keep one arm braced against his side. His energy was flagging, burnt away by his battle for breath and the unceasing stream of enemies hell bent on killing him and the others.

            He’d fought in pain plenty of times before, sometimes relying on the dull embers of a bruised rib to keep his punches sharp, ensuring he didn’t waste energy or to motivate him to end the fight as quickly as possible. Sometimes pain even added to his battle rage, its fire fuelling his attacks with insurmountable ferocity. Occasionally it sucked like death on his mind, inexorably pulling him into unconsciousness, meaning whatever fight he was facing gained another front as he fought his exhausted body for control.

            A foot caught him in the spine and his head snapped back as he fell forward. He managed to break his fall but was quickly kicked onto his back, the assailant’s foot landing almost exactly on his surely ripped stitches. Air abandoned him in a compact exodus and he gasped, willing his stunned lungs to expand. Another blow landed on his head, jerking it to the side and blackness winked across his indistinct view of the battle. The air whistled as a sword arced towards him and he threw his arms up to protect his face, hoping Melvin’s patch job would be enough to save him.

            A muffled thud and a gargled grunt interrupted the sword’s whistle as Luke punched the warrior halfway across the room, taking out another two of the Hand judging by the chaotic and painful sound of the impact. Matt allowed his muscles to unclench for a brief moment and air finally surged into his starved lungs. He gulped the air down, his exhalations carrying slivers of pain from his abused middle. He couldn’t last much longer here. If Luke hadn’t made it his mission to stay within saving distance he’d already have at best been knocked out – or into the yawning chasm – long ago.

            “We’re getting hammered in here!” Luke yelled at him as he grabbed a ninja and spun him in a wide arc, clearing a bubble of calm for them. Throwing the man in the direction of Jessica’s furious heartbeat, he leaned down and grabbed Matt.

            “Can you stand?”

            Matt nodded, not at all sure he could, and allowed Luke to haul him to his unsteady feet.

            “How bad are you hurt?” Luke had to shout to be heard over the din of clashing weapons, snapping bones, and Jessica’s truly impressive swearing.

            Spitting out a globule of tangy blood, Matt shook his head. “I’m fine.”

            “Like hell! You’ve gotta get out of here before whatever’s in that hole gets out!”

            He shook his head again, stubbornness rooting him to the spot as he pushed Luke’s supporting arm away. “I’m not leaving! We have to stop it!”

            “Well I’m open to suggestions!”

            Matt turned his head to the hole lurking to the left. It was deeper than the last time he’d been here, closer to sixty stories now than to forty. He’d heard enough Hand fighters screaming through its depths to be sure of that. He felt the faintest tremor ripple up from the giant pit and he snapped in enough air to shout a warning to the others.

            Moments later the earth pitched like a ship at storm, the ground shaking with tremendous force as a deep, racking roar reverberated from the chasm’s core. Vibrations filled the air, knocking several of the Hand off their feet. Thanks to his warning, Jessica, Danny and Luke managed to keep their footing, exploiting the disruption to take out a few more foes.

            The tremor lasted longer this time, the deafening bellow rising in pitch until the air shook with the force of the scream and Matt cried out as the sound stabbed through his brain. He fell to his knees, nausea seizing him. Clapping his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to shield them he added his own scream to the clamour, his eyes screwed tight. The sound was everywhere, pressing into him from all sides, intent on crushing him under its piercing, malicious weight. It erased all else, eclipsing even the vibrations’ detailed impression of the battle until he couldn’t feel anything except its suffocating presence, not even his own hands against the sides of his head. He couldn’t smell anything past the iron and sulphur of the roar, not even the copper tang of the blood he knew must be dripping from his ears. All he could understand, all that existed, was this endless, unbearable torture – this howl from something monstrous, born of hate and black fire and trapped at the bottom of a pit it was ready to climb free of, ready to emerge to sate its raging hunger on New York City. It didn’t matter what it was, didn’t matter that its slow, booming heartbeat carried the same wrongness that kept pace with Elektra’s, it didn’t even matter if it was real or a living nightmare. Whatever it was, Matt could feel the evil pulsing from it in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He had once thought Wilson Fisk was the devil. The idea now seemed laughable. The devil was no mere man, no weak assortment of flesh and bone and ill intent. The devil was whatever was tearing Matt’s head apart from inside that godforsaken pit. The devil was climbing out of hell to claim him and everyone he loved.

            And he couldn’t move.

            He was paralysed on his knees, curling in on himself with his hands pathetically trying to ward off the aural assault, his muscles seizing, his throat cracking around his scream, his gut burning, his world disorientating.

            Without warning the air was suddenly still. In a heartbeat the shaking ceased and the unearthly scream relented. The silence it left was deafening and for one horrifying heartbeat, Matt thought it had taken his hearing with it. But then Luke’s hand clamped onto his shoulder and his shout, distant, faint and warbling, reached him.

            “Matt! Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

            Not trusting himself to speak, Matt nodded – then stopped quickly as his gut tightened and he heaved. Hot, sticky blood poured over his mouth, landing with a too-quiet slap on the concrete. His head was ringing, nausea churning his stomach, pain zinging through him with dizzying speed. He listed to the side and Luke’s other hand materialised on his other shoulder, keeping him on his knees.

            Matt wondered vaguely if the battle was still raging. He couldn’t hear anything past a faint rushing, like highway traffic or fast water. The air was churning in bizarre patterns, temperatures dancing through space without sense or direction. He didn’t understand what was happening.

            Luke shook him. “Matt! Are you with me? Say something!”

            “’M with you,” he slurred, blood dripping over his lips.

            “Fight’s not over, man. We’ve still got work to do. We gotta get you out of here.” Ignoring his admittedly feeble protest, Luke made to drag Matt to his feet.

            “Hold it right there,” the familiar voice rang through the world with blessed clarity and Matt turned his head towards it. “He’s not going anyway, are you Matty? He’s got work to do.”

            Dizziness careening through his mind, Matt latched on to the voice that had always kept him moving, even only as the faint echo he’d been left with for twenty years. He spat out another mouthful of bloody saliva and looked up to the voice as stubborn and infuriating as the asshole possessing it.

            “Stick.”

Chapter Text

            “Why is it,” Stick said with a casual grunt as he whacked his elbow into an almost silent throat, “that every time I show up you’re getting your ass handed to you?”

            “What the hell are you doing here?” Luke sounded more irritated than Matt thought was strictly fair, considering he’d only met Stick once before. Then again, the guy made one hell of an impression.

            “I’m here to save the day, asshole. Now why don’t you get up off your ass and keep these goons away long enough for me to save the kid, huh?”

            After a tense moment, the steadying pressure of Luke’s hand vanished. Matt swayed slightly but kept his stance, his hands hovering for balance. Stick must have knelt down opposite him because when he next spoke his voice was far closer than before.

            “Listen up, Matty. That thing down there, it can’t be let get out, you hear me? What it’s done to you it’ll do to everyone else, only it won’t stop to draw breath.”

            “It ... breathes?” Everything was spinning and lurching in slow motion. Untethered snippets of indistinct sound wafted over his bleeding ears. Jessica’s knuckle cracking as she punched through a Hand man’s bow. Danny’s gasp of pain as his head snapped back from a blow. Elektra’s sai sword slicing through someone’s flesh.

            “In a manner of speaking, yeah, it breathes. But not for long.” Stick’s voice was a lifeline. It took all he had to grab it, to make sense of the words. Something was very wrong.

            “Now, you listen to me, Matty,” Stick went on, speaking as though he was just about to explain another technique they were about to start learning. Slow and calm and with the unhurried confidence of a man without fear – or one whose fear was well trained. “That trick hit you hardest but this ain’t the time for tea and a nice snack. You gotta snap out of it. You gotta centre yourself, y’hear me? Tune everything else out until you find some place inside you that’s steady. Grab hold of it and use it. Get control, Matty. Get control.”

            Matt almost wanted to laugh. Steady? Nothing was steady anymore. Elektra was trying to resurrect some ancient thing and kill him and everyone else in New York City! He and the others were fighting on fumes, outnumbered and alone in a fight they could never hope to win. Matt couldn’t get up, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t see! He was blind. Blind and helpless and bleeding and he was going to fail again, he was going to let Elektra down again, he was going to let his city down again and Karen and Foggy were going to die and he couldn’t do anything about it!

            “Calm it down, Matty.” Stick’s voice was sure as a sharpened katana, slicing through the panic and indecipherable world with infallible precision. “Find your centre.”

            Matt sucked in a deep breath and half-groaned, half-growled as the pain crescendoed and the world spun faster. His centre. His centre.

            Foggy. Foggy’s warm elbow under his fingers, guiding him through the busy streets so he didn’t have to concentrate. Foggy’s familiar tenor filling the space between them with companionable ease.

            Karen. Her warm scent, sunshine and coconut, washing over him as she pulled back her hair. The tentative smile in her voice, her lips, soft and perfect, against his.

            The office of Nelson and Murdock. Coffee and take-out hanging in the air. The wonderful melody of his friends’ laughter; Foggy’s rumbling chuckle harmonised by Karen’s tinkling giggle. The warmth of their steady heartbeats washing over him from across the table. The bliss he hadn’t appreciated before it had all broken into irreparable pieces.

            Matt took another long, slow breath. Fire flared but it was farther away now, its flames cooler, calmer. The quavering air slowed, vibrations melding into one another, clarifying the impressions that sailed through the room. Another breath. Another flare. The world echoed into focus.

            “That’s it, kid.” Pride rounded the words and, despite himself, Matt smiled. “Now what say we go take care of this mess?”

            With a final, bracing breath, Matt took Stick’s hand and together they rose to their feet. Matt wrapped his pain around him, deadening its sting with familiarity, forcing it to work for him.

            “What do we need to do?”

            “What I shoulda done weeks ago. We gotta kill Ellie.”

            “I know.”

            “You do? Huh. Well that’s one less fight I guess.”

            “Will killing her ... will it stop whatever’s down there?”

            “Yep. It’s tied to her, can’t live if she’d dead.”

            Matt nodded, letting his senses fan out to take in the scene. “I got one condition.” Luke had cleared a wide ring for them, Jessica and Danny keeping the perimeter while he rallied. Elektra was stalking toward Danny, one sai knife replaced with a blood-slicked katana.

            “Jesus, Matty! We don’t have time for your –”

            “I do it, Stick. I kill her.”

            It wasn’t often he shocked Stick into silence. Given the circumstances it wasn’t as satisfying as it could’ve been.

            “You are one tough son of a bitch, Matty. You got it.” Someone screamed as they fell into the chasm. “But first we gotta get her away from these assholes. Time to start acting like a team.”

Chapter Text

            She did not sign up for this shit. Sure, the entire city was in peril and millions of people were bound to die if they fucked this up but goddamn it she did not sign up for the final battle in some age-old War of the Assholes.

            Really competent assholes. She was seriously regretting not taking Trish up on her offer to teach her Krav Maga. Everyone else here knew three types of karate or Kung Fu or whatever the hell you called all this fancy flipping around and crazy sword work. Freaking samurais and what could she do? Punch. Okay, yeah, her punches could cave in a guy’s head if she wanted it too, but still. Punching. Versus god knows how many professional warriors who’d probably been training for this since they could walk.

            Like, seriously?

            At least Luke could only punch as well. But then he didn’t have to be careful of all the katanas and arrows and throwing stars flying around the place. They’d break before his skin would. She, on the other hand, had to actually pay attention to what was going on and who was trying to decapitate her.

            God, did she want a drink. She compromised by grabbing at a guy’s chest and throwing him into his buddies. They fell like bowling pins. She smiled.

            It didn’t last long. Three more rushed her at once, trying to overwhelm her with skill and numbers. It almost worked, except that these guys were all about honour and devotion and from what Danny said were essentially fighting with their lord and saviour Elektra Christ, while she, Jessica goddamn Jones, was not.

            She could fight dirty.

            One superpowered kick to the balls sent one guy dropping to the ground and gasping like a landed fish. Dodging another’s sword and pulling him by the mask – how thoughtful of them to essentially cover themselves in handholes – she flung him into the last guy, lashing out a solid kick for good measure. Two heads collided with the concrete in quick, definitive succession. All three were down for the count.

            That put her score up into the forties.

            She glanced over her shoulder in the brief respite before the next gang started for her. Matt was on his feet now, looking far steadier. Damn. That guy did not know when to quit. His stance was slightly lopsided, but she couldn’t see how much blood there was against the dark red suit. Huh. Maybe that explained the colour choice. And here she’d just thought it was his dramatic flair. How he’d recovered so fast from that banshee wail was beyond her. Even with her normal hearing she’d almost thrown up from the volume alone. She didn’t want to imagine what it must’ve been like for someone who could hear a heartbeat three rooms away.

            The creepy old guy who’d try to kumbaya them into one big, crime-fighting family before was back. If they lived through this she was having Murdock explain that guy’s deal. Far as she knew, he didn’t have fancy senses. He was even weirder than Matt.

            “Hey! Defenders, get over here!”

            She saw Danny and Luke glance over to the old man – Stick, right? That wasn’t ironic at all – as he called out to them. How they were supposed to just pause the fight for a pep talk eluded her.

            But not Danny.

            His magic fist was already lighting up like a glow worm on steroids. With a yell he kicked a ninja out of the way and jumped up, bringing his fist down hard onto the concrete.

            It rippled. Like in the movies. A wave of dust and flakes and chucks of concrete rolled into the air from Danny’s fist, throwing everyone off their feet and clearing their entire side of the unnecessarily ominous hole. Once she regained her footing, Jessica jogged over to the two blind weirdos. She had to admit, that was a cool move.

            “So, we’re the Defenders now?” she asked the old man, her derision clear even to the unsighted.

            “Well you’re defending the city, aren’t ya? Listen up, we’re running out of time here.”

            “I’ll say,” Luke panted, his clothes caked in dust and sporting several not-so-stylish slashes. “We can’t keep this up much longer. There’s way too many of them. And what the hell is in that hole!”

            Danny started to answer with a word she was pretty sure he was making up, but Stick cut across him.

            “What’s in that hole doesn’t matter as long as we kill the Black Sky before it gets to street level.”

            “How’re we supposed to get it alone?” Danny asked, running a sleeve across his sweating forehead.

            “By working together.”

            Oh god.

            “The roof,” Matt said suddenly, his head cocked to the side in that way that always preceded a creepy observation. “There’s no one up there. One staircase. Easier to defend. If we force her up there we can hold back the Hand until – until we don’t need to anymore.”

            “You really think that’ll work?” Jessica asked, adding extra scepticism to her tone so he wouldn’t miss out on her complete lack of faith in that way too simple idea.

            “We just need to lure her up there.”

            “How?”

            “She wants us. We go, she’ll follow.”

            “And how the hell do you know that?”

            “Matty has a pretty good read on people.”

            Matty? Oh she was gonna give him so much crap for that if they were still alive tomorrow.

            “Every time she engages one of you her heartbeat rises,” Matty explained. “Adrenaline too. Whatever her mission is tonight she still wants us dead.” He swallowed. “All of us.”

            “So, what, we just make for the roof and hope we make it?” Luke sounded about as convinced as Jessica felt.

            “Pretty much.”

            “What if she doesn’t take the bait?” A fine question, Danny-boy.

            “She will.”

            “Because her heartbeat says so?”

            Matt scowled in her direction. “Yes. Unless any of you have a better plan? The Hand’ll be back on us in about fifty seconds, just FYI.”

            They looked at each other. Well, the three who could look at each other looked at each other. It was a crazy plan. Too simple to be pulled off, surely. There were still too many Hand for them to fight, and she was already feeling slightly woozy from her cuts and blooming bruises. Danny looked no better, and Matt looked seconds away from collapsing.

            Whatever they were going to do, they had to do it soon.

            “What the hell,” she shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”

            “I’m in,” Danny piped, looking more like a puppy with a new toy than a grown ass man fighting for his life and the lives of millions of people.

            “I’ll punch a hole.” Luke flashed a tight-lipped smile before turning to face the oncoming hoard of soon-to-be-toast ninjas.

            “Let’s do this.”

            She wasn’t exactly sure how it happened, but suddenly when they moved, they moved as one. Rather than each of them fighting near each other and occasionally saving another’s ass, they fought like one creature, perfectly harmonised.

            Luke took the point, literally punching people out of the way, occasionally grabbing and throwing those who got too close. Danny covered his left shoulder while she had his right, both of them protecting their little wedge from the sides. Matt and Stick took up the rear, finishing off those left in the wake while Matt shouted directions and tips. Jessica had no idea how he could be in his own fight and be able to tell Danny to watch out for a sword from his back. Talk about a multitasker.

            They made it to the staircase without anyone dying, which counted as an unqualified win in Jess’ book. There was a brief but intense skirmish before they could make their way up the stairs. Danny had to do his floor punch move again to keep Elektra and her minions away. Once they were on the stairs they flew up.

            “C’mon Matty,” Jessica said as she pulled his arm around her shoulders. He wasn’t keeping up with them and she was damned if she was gonna let him fall to the silent hoard surging up behind them like floodwater in a cheap apocalypse movie. His protest was cut short by his own shitty breathing.

            The fresh air of the open roof was like crack. Better than crack. She hadn’t realised how stuffy and stinking the battlefield had been until what felt like clear mountain air washed over her. New York had never smelled so good.

            She, Matt, and Stick ran to the centre of the roof – the bait. Danny and Luke hid either side of the entranceway, ready to push the Hand back once Elektra showed herself.

            They didn’t have to wait long.

            Jessica was not one to be easily intimidated by people who couldn’t control minds. Knowing you could pick someone up and threaten to drop them off a building if they bothered you tended to alter your perspective on a few things.

            That said, Elektra was terrifying.

            The corded muscles of her arms, the sai knife and long, gleaming sword, both dripping with blood, held calmly out from her sides. Her long, raven hair blowing back off her shoulders with the speed of her strut, her complete lack of visible wounds. She was the image of confidence, as deadly as a snake.

            And she was coming right for them.

            Ignoring the rent-a-ninjas pouring out behind her, Jessica, Matt, and Stick ran as one to meet her, Stick’s katana flashing through the night to block Elektra’s while Matt caught her knife on his padded forearm a split second before Jessica slid between them both and punched her, full strength, in the chest.

Chapter Text

            Air sawed through him, punching into his gut with every breath like a physical blow. He couldn’t straighten his back fully, but fought hunched and clumsily alongside Stick’s time-honed precision and Jessica’s inelegant street style. Despite being outnumbered, Elektra wasn’t even giving ground.

            Luke and Danny had managed to push most of the Hand back into the stairwell. Could he spare the precious seconds Matt would’ve been able to hear Luke pounding them down the body-strewn steps, at last finding his fighting rhythm. Danny had managed to swing the buckled door across its yawning frame and used it to pin down the Hand members he was keeping occupied and away from Elektra.

            A near miss of steel on skin brought Matt’s attention firmly back to his own battle. Elektra lashed out with a booted foot and caught Jessica in the chest and he heard two of her ribs crack as she was thrown over ten feet across the roof. She landed with a sickening thump and laid there, gasping for air and groaning. Matt countered with a raging bellow and a roundhouse kick that would’ve knocked most opponents unconscious. Elektra only staggered back a few steps.

            Matt knew Elektra. He knew her better than anyone, even Stick, did. Their crusade against the Hand all those months ago had brought them closer than they ever had been before, affording them both a deep understanding of the other – before it had broken them apart forever. Matt knew how Elektra fought. What hand she favoured, the moves in her repertoire, how quickly she tired and how far she’d go to defend herself. He had never fully trusted the fight in her. It was too hungry, too eager to best itself against any nameless foe. He now realised that that had been the Black Sky’s hunger.

            Whatever they had done to her had unleashed the full fury of her bloodlust. He still recognised the training Stick had given her, could still anticipate how she might strike at him, but his intimacy ended there. She no longer seemed to tire, to even feel pain. Stick had already landed four solid cuts whose blood soaked into her padded clothes, but she didn’t so much as flinch. There was a power behind her blows that Matt had never encountered before, not with Nobu or even Luke. It was as alien as her once-familiar heartbeat.

            And it was costing them the fight.

            Trying to buy Jessica time, Matt and Stick rushed her in unspoken unitison, clubs and sword arcing towards her from three different directions. She blocked both of Matt’s with her sword but Stick’s katana scraped past her sai knife and cut an inch into her ribs.

            Which had clearly been her plan.

            With a twisting kick Matt was forced back and out of range. Elektra pinned Stick’s sword against her torso between two of her knife’s blades and in one impossible moment, had swung her sword through the air and into Stick’s chest.

            “ELEKTRA, NO!” Matt raced forward, horror and rage and stunned grief clamouring for dominance, fuelling his suddenly unwearied body forward. Pouring everything he had into the move he leaped into the air and twisted, landing the heels of both feet into Elektra’s chest. She staggered back, coughing, and Stick’s sword clattered to the ground a heartbeat before Stick himself. Matt managed to hook an arm under the old man’s head before it smacked into the hard ground.

            He could feel Stick filling with thick, tart blood as it pooled around the quivering blade. It crept into his punctured lung, through his ripped organs. The familiar heartbeat, always so steady, so reliably obstinate, was faltering.

            “No, no, Stick, no. Stay with me, Stick. Stay with me.” Matt ripped off his helmet and pressed one hand around the blade, vainly attempting to seal the blood inside. A coughing gurgle ripped through the night, erasing Danny’s roar as he ran to distract Elektra. “You can’t die, Stick, you can’t, c’mon, just breathe, just breathe.”

            The twisted, copper-spiked air gusting through Stick’s lips revealed his smile. His heart was getting quieter, slower with each beat.

            “’S okay, Matty,” the old man rasped. One wrinkled hand clasped with uncharacteristic gentleness around Matt’s elbow. “I told you before, kid ... people die in war.” He paused to wrestle another bleeding lungful of air. “If ‘s not you, it’s ... i’s the guy ... next to ya.”

            “No – shut up, Stick. Just tell me what to do, come on. You know what to do, just t-tell me, please, come on!”

            Stick heaved and a waterfall of thick blood oozed over his lips. This couldn’t be happening. His heart skipped, slowing dramatically like a diving swallow.

            “Stick – please!”

            “M-Matty,” he slurred, his bloodied hand reaching up for Matt’s face. “’M-I’m pr-proud of you. You did ... did good ...”

            The heartbeat that had been his anchor as a child, the only thing that had made sense in a world on fire, the heartbeat that had never wavered no matter the odds against them, stuttered, and flickered into an aching silence.

            “N-no, no. Stick, no.” There was no air. It had been sucked away with Stick’s life, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t –

            Danny cried out as fresh blood stung through the air and Matt heard him slam into the ground, his heart fast as a bird’s. Elektra, sword dripping, stalked towards him.

             The storm of pains raging through Matt stilled. It rushed together to form an icy silence inside him that rendered the world in a new clarity.

            Luke, downstairs – burnished oak and muted honey – unbroken skin pounding through Hand and concrete, his rage roaring from his bared teeth.

            Danny – cedar and sweat-soaked aftershave – his fist pulsing like a star, on his side, clawing at the gash along his chest.

            Jessica – cheap whiskey, leather and lavender – grunting to her feet and swaying, blood trickling from her hairline, over her cheekbone, dripping from her jaw.

            Elektra – lotus, embers, and thrilled adrenaline – standing over Danny with her sword raised, the air slicing past her inhuman smile.

            Matt rose smoothly to his feet, all pain hidden by the storm’s consuming quiet. He stepped over Stick’s body and walked, calmly, after the woman he had loved.

            She heard him coming and spun in a flurry of whistling hair, katana piercing through the night, aiming for his chest. Every second of its flight seemed unnaturally slow to Matt. He knocked it aside with ease, and it clattered to the ground with a high, pure note ringing through the scene. Snarling in frustration, Elektra lashed out with her knife, then her fist, then swung around to catch him with her heel. He dodged them all as easily as Stick had avoided his blows as a child, stepping carefully back towards the old man’s body.

            When they were close enough, he held his ground.

            “Elektra.” He hadn’t expected her to react to his voice. Her furious snarling shout surprised him and he concentrated a moment on blocking her next flurry of hits.

            “Elektra, it’s alright. It’s me. I’m here.”

            “I DON’T KNOW YOU!” she screamed, slashing her blade into his ribs. It glanced off his armour, sending a dull throb through the broken bones. As it bounced to the side he trapped it against his side with his arm, his fingers closing like a vice around her slender forearm.

            “I know, I know.” He dodged her wild punch to his head and trapped her other arm between their chests, his hand on her neck, half tender, half restraining. “It’s okay, Elektra. It’s going to be okay. I promise you. It wasn’t you, I know. It wasn’t you.”

            He tasted the tears before they escaped her long lashes. Her heart was beating fast, racing her fear. He stroked her jawline with his thumb, smiling down at her with all the love he held.

            “I don’t know you,” she breathed, her voice wavering with confusion, the words catching slightly in her throat.

            His thumb slid across her cheek, soothing, comforting. Gentle. Her heart stumbled.

            “Matthew?” It was barely a breath. Barely a whisper.

            Matt’s smile widened as his own tears fell away. He nodded, beaming at her.

            “It’s me, it’s me. It’s me.” With casual ease he released her cheek and reached behind him, focusing on her wonderful, fierce heart pounding with sudden uncertainty against him. Her breath shook through her lips, and for a moment all he could smell was lotus and embers.

            Then his hand found the hilt of the sword buried in Stick’s chest and in one fleeting, fluid motion, he pulled it free of the old man’s ribs, spun it in his hand, and pushed it smoothly through two of Elektra’s once-broken ribs, slicing through her lung and piercing her beautiful, stolen heart.

            She gasped and jerked against him, sagging into his hold as he pulled the blade free and blood flowed calmly down her front.

            “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear, his voice broken. “I love you.”

            With a shuddering sigh, she slumped against him. The silence of her heart consumed him and the waiting storm broke.

Chapter Text

            The aches in her bones, the relentless sting of the cold night air against her blood, the twang of her abused muscles all faded away in the face of Matt’s silent agony. She felt like an intruder just looking at him, kneeling in a lake of shining blood, holding the woman he had killed against his chest. Tears glistened on his cheeks and his mouth was open in a cry that was all the more terrible for its silence. What he was feeling, there was no way to voice that. But Jessica could feel it. She could feel it screaming against her heart. She couldn’t bear it.

            She limped past Matt, giving him a wide birth as she stumbled over to Danny. His hands were bright with blood oozing stubbornly from a gash just under his collarbone. He’d have scars to match Matt’s by the end of this. Glad she’d felt a chill when they set off, she pulled her scarf free of her neck and held it out to him. He pressed it against the wound and nodded his thanks, his gaze slipping past her to Matt and Elektra.

            “It’s not over,” he panted, his eyes looking far older than he was.

            She groaned. “What do you mean?”

            “Help me up,” he evaded, reaching up one red hand. Wishing the day could just end already she grabbed it and hauled him to his feet. They winced in unison.

            She didn’t want to see Matt again, not like this, but Danny was leading her over to him. The way he held her in his arms, like she was the most precious thing in the world, and the most fragile. His ungloved hand was on her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone.

            Danny’s feet scuffed loudly against the rough concrete as he came to a halt above them.

            “Matt.” No reaction. “Matt, it’s not over yet.” Nothing. “Matt,” he tried again, his voice low but firm. “I have to end this permanently. She’ll just come back like this. We have to cut off her head.”

            Jessica stared at him. “You cannot be serious.”

            “It’s the only way to make sure she won’t resurrect again.” Danny leant down and picked up the sword Matt had used to kill her, the tip scraping against the bloody ground with a grating note that sent a sickening tingle up Jessica’s spine. “It’s the only way.”

            They turned as one to Matt. His face was pressed into Elektra’s neck.

            “Matt, we don’t have time –”

            “God’s sake, just give him a minute!”

            With heartbreaking gentleness, Matt laid Elektra tenderly on her back, his face close to hers. He stared unseeingly at her for a long moment, his thumb stroking her cheek. Then he kissed her unmoving lips with careful delicacy. His eyes closed as he pressed another kiss into her forehead. He pulled away then, his expression a torment Jessica never wanted to understand. With aching reluctance, he let his fingers slide away from her skin as he rose, unsteadily, to his feet.

            Jessica moved to his side as Danny stepped forward, gripping the hilt in both hands. Knowing it wouldn’t make any difference, she grabbed Matt’s arm and turned his back to what was about to happen. She busied herself staring at the blood shining on his suit as she heard the tiniest breath of air as the sword swung through it, and then the slick, wet crunching a split second before it struck the ground with a muted, ringing clang.

            A concussion of air punched itself away from the body, knocking them off balance and setting the entire building shaking. A deep grating BOOM resounded from the hole miles below and the shaking intensified, the ground pitching and swaying like a boat and Jessica was sure the entire city must be rattling with the power of it. The thing in the hole bellowed and the sound was a physical blow. Matt collapsed beside her and she scrambled to catch him, her face screwed up against the shrieking barbs digging into her brain.

            “We’ve got to get out of here!” Danny shouted over the din. Jessica looked around, taking in the broken door jammed resolutely into the only exit.

            “How?” she roared back. Faster than it had started, the thing’s roar was cut short, the sudden silence dazzling as the building began to sway.

            “I’ll clear the door!”

            “No.”

            Jessica looked down, startled. Matt was conscious. Blood oozed from his ears and he looked gaunt and grey. She leant closer to hear his rasping mumble.

            “Building’s ... gonna fall.”

            “You’re sure?”

            He nodded sickly.

            “What about Luke?”

            Matt paused, his brows pinching in concentration. “He’s almost th-there. Be okay. N-not hurt.” Matt screwed his eyes shut as the building released a low, creaking groan and Jessica gripped him tighter.

            Okay. Down wasn’t an option. She cast another desperate glance around the rooftop. There.

            “Come on!” She pulled Matt’s arm across her shoulder and dragged him to his dazed feet. He tried to walk but his footsteps were sluggish and unreliable. She wrapped her other arm around his waist and took his weight, ignoring her complaining ribs.

            Danny followed close behind her as she led the way to the far side of the roof. He was hunched over, clutching her scarf against his chest. Red was eating away all traces of silver from the soft fabric.

            Once they reached the edge she snapped at Danny to move. Once he took his place beside her she let go of Matt’s hand and wrapped her arm around Danny’s middle. She took a deep breath, staring at the opposite roof swaying thirty feet away.

            “What the hell are you doing?” Danny yelled, alarmed.

            Jessica grimaced. This was gonna hurt.

            The building gave another frightening lurch and she bent her knees, her grip on the two men tightening. With a grunt she jumped hard, propelling them into the air, arms straining as gravity tried to claim her friends.

            Just in time. Below her, the building gave another deep groan and a series of sharp cracks resounded through the air. Then it caved into itself. The roof bowed like a sinkhole and the whole thing leant precariously to one side before creaking back towards them as the walls gave out and an explosion of dust punched itself free, obscuring the once-sound structure and engulfing them in a choking mist.

            Momentum carried her through the cloud, clear air replacing it seconds before they hit the roof of the neighbouring building. Twisting herself so as to land feet-first Jessica clenched her teeth in anticipation of the impact. They landed with a bone-jarring crash and both men were ripped from her grasp as she was sent tumbling to a crumpled halt several feet away.

            Coughing and moaning against a host of new injuries, she looked up. The city was lost in the mushroom cloud of dust and fine debris, the chaotic rumble of destruction filling the air. Danny groaned to his knees to her right, his hair white with dust. Matt was lying on his back to her left, one hand draped over his ribs. Wincing, she pulled herself to her feet and stumbled over to him, almost falling as the building shook with the force of its fallen neighbour.

            Matt’s eyes were open. His teeth were bared against the pain, and dust clung to his hair and bleeding temple.

            “You alive?” she asked, afraid to lean down lest she stay there indefinitely.

            Matt made a shaking thumbs up with the hand over his chest. She nodded, glancing back to Danny, who had made it to his feet. Clutching her suddenly screaming ribs, Jessica lurched over to the edge of the roof and looked down.

            “LUKE!” She couldn’t see anything through the thick cloud. “LUKE! Answer me you asshole!”

            The tense silence was broken by a distant thud and the chime-like tinkle of small stones pinging off something solid. Jessica waited, hoping it was what she thought it was. Another thud. Then another.

            “LUKE?”

            “WHAAT?” He bellowed back, sounding thoroughly pissed off.

            “Are you alive?” she called back, her smile tugging painfully on the cut across her cheek.

            “Yeah! You?”

            “Yeah! We’re all good!”

            There was a brief pause. “First round’s on me tonight!”

            A wild, manic laugh ripped itself up along Jessica’s throat. Luke was alive. She turned back to the other two idiots she’d fought with. Danny was pulling Matt into a sitting position, bracing him against a low wall. They’d all made it. They’d survived. It was over.

            A final booming concussion rippled its way from the depths of the Hand’s pit, buffeting the cloud of smoke and forcing it higher into the sky.

            They’d done it.

Chapter Text

            Only three hours left. Just six short half hours until he could respectably throw in the towel, crawl home via the nearest place selling tacos, get out of his tie and collapse on the couch with a beer. Almost there.

            God, the last week and a half had been a nightmare. Of course Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz represented half the city’s higher ups, all of whom were freaking out and suing insurance companies who were suing each other. The legal world had been utterly chaotic since the “earthquake”. Foggy had a newfound appreciation for all those lawyers who’d been around after the Incident. He couldn’t imagine the work load they’d had to haul.

            But if he just got through these last few case files he could quit for the day and go eat something cheesy. Maybe call Karen for a drink later in Josie’s. She was bound to have figured out what the real cause of the tremors and electrical shorts had been by now. Maybe she’d have even gotten in touch with Matt ...

            The intercom buzzed and Helen’s ever-serious voice crackled into his office

            “Mr Nelson, I have a Claire Temple here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment.” He could almost feel the disapproval radiating from the other end of the line.

            It took him a second to place the name. He’d never known Claire’s surname but the only Claire he knew was Matt’s nurse friend. He swallowed hard, hoping this wasn’t what he feared it was.

            He pressed a button on the space age phone dock. “Uh, that’s fine Helen, just send her in. And for the millionth time, it’s ‘Foggy’. ‘Mr Nelson’ is my father.”

            “Right away Mr Nelson.”

            He rolled his eyes. One of these days.

            The doorknob rattled slightly as it opened and Foggy rose hurriedly to his feet. Well, the good news was he’d been right about the Claire. She looked exactly as she had the last time he’d seen her, though slightly less haggard. But then, she had just quit her job.

            “Claire!” he greeted warmly, throwing his arms wide and focusing on keeping his smile in place. There was a crease between her eyebrows and a healing cut above one eye. “This is a surprise!”

            “Hey Foggy, thanks for seeing me. Nice hair.”

            “Thanks,” he half-laughed, brushing a hand through his fancy corporate do.

            They stood opposite each other for an awkward moment until Foggy remembered his manners and gestured to the chairs facing his desk. He sat down after her, offering her water and feeling suddenly self-conscious about the affluence of his office. Financial stability wasn’t a part of his relationship with her. Not that they really had a relationship, but still, patching up a bleeding friend tended to bond people.

            Speaking of mutual friends. “So, eh, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Please don’t say it, please don’t say it, please please please don’t say it.

            “I, uh, need to talk to you. About Matt.”

            Oh no. “Is he ...”

            “Oh, he’s alive,” Claire said quickly, seeing his expression. Relief flooded through him and he smiled. Thank god.

            “That’s good.”

            “Yeah. He had another near miss there, but, he’s a fighter.”

            Foggy snorted, deciding it was safer not to ask for details on the ‘near miss’. “That’s for sure. What’s up then? Matt and I aren’t exactly ... in touch anymore.”

            “Yeah, I, kinda figured.”

            “He didn’t tell you?”

            She shook her head. “He got hurt pretty bad a couple weeks ago. Real bad, actually. I asked him if he wanted me to call you, y’know, let you know what was happening and ... he said no.”

            “Oh.” Wow. Things were that bad between them? He wouldn’t even let Foggy know if he was really hurt? So what, he was just supposed to read his obituary in the Bulletin?

            But then, Foggy had made it pretty clear he didn’t want to be involved with that side of Matt. God, what a mess.

            “Yeah ... Look, Foggy, I don’t know what happened between the two of you and frankly it’s not my business. But I do know that you are really important to Matt. He needs you, always has as far as I can tell. And especially now.”

            “Hey, Matt’s the one who told me to take a hike,” he said coolly. “He’s the one who wouldn’t return my calls after that night downtown.”

            “When Elektra died?”

            Wait, what! “How do you know –? Elektra’s dead?!”

            Claire’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. You really haven’t been talking to him.”

            “No, not for months. What the hell happened with Elektra?” That really explained Matt’s stubborn silence. For a (kind of) blind guy he really needed to work on the whole asking for help thing. Foggy thought back to the Castle case, to everything Matt had said about Elektra. Not much, apart from the fact that she was some sort of lying superfighter too.

            “I, eh ... It’s a long and very weird story.”

            “Knowing Matt I’ve kinda gotten used to weird.”

            Claire chuckled. “Wanna bet?”

            It took her ten minutes to tell him a story he would have laughed off as a joke before the Incident, before discovering who the Man in the Mask really was. As he listened he thought back to Matt’s behaviour during the trial, to the bandage on his shoulder at his place. Foggy’d just assumed he was out stopping muggings and crap like that after Castle was in custody. After all, Fisk was put away and from what Matt had said after that whole drama the streets were pretty quiet, kingpin-wise. But instead Matt had been fighting an ancient organisation of brainwashed ninjas. With his ex-girlfriend.

            Well. Foggy felt like a dick. But Matt was at best equally dickish – Foggy could have known all of this at the time. Hell, if he’d known he’d have to fight he Castle case solo it would’ve been way less stressful, not knowing if Matt was gonna make it in, if he could be counted upon.

            He pressed his palms against his face and took a deep breath.

            “So you’re telling me the reason Daredevil hadn’t been heard from in months was because Matt was completely heartbroken after one of like, two women he’s ever really loved died to save him. Died in his arms.”

            “That’s just the background, Foggy.”

            He twitched his fingers into the Vulcan salute so he could stare at her in mild horror.

            “The background?”

            “A lot’s happened. All of it worse.”

            “What the hell could be worse than that!”

            Well, she certainly had a comprehensive answer.

            Foggy sat in his fancy ergonomic chair in his fancy lawyer office with a great view of a fancy roof garden in his fancy law firm where he made enough to pay off some debt and still squirrel some cash away. For god’s sake he had a pension now. Meanwhile Matt, his best friend in the world, had been stabbed mostly to death by someone he loved and buried and then had to freaking kill her?

            Matt had killed someone.

            Jesus.

            “I ... had no idea,” he whispered when Claire had finished her insane account. His voice sounded exactly as hollow and horrified as he felt. He dragged his gaze up to meet Claire’s. “How is he?”

            Her worried frown deepened. “He’s ... he’s really bad, Foggy. The first few days after it happened, we were holed up together in case any Hand survived and wanted revenge – plus everyone but Luke needed some serious wreck time. He barely spoke. Wouldn’t say anything unless you asked him a direct question. Hardly ate, couldn’t sleep. I’ve never seen him like that before, and I’ve seen him when he was pretty damn low. And his eyes ...” She trailed off, her gaze unfocused. “I’ve seen people look like that before, in the hospital. Like they’ve lost the will to live. Fathers whose whole family was killed. Kids whose parents are dead and were looking at growing up in orphanages or foster care. Like they’re drowning and burning and completely alone.

            “He just ... Nothing I could do worked. He got a little better after a while, would at least fake a smile, but he’s ... broken, Foggy. He’s really broken and he’s really hurt and this isn’t something that can be healed with stitches and gauze. And he won’t listen to me. To any of us.

            “He needs you. He needs someone who knows him just as Matt, not Daredevil. Just as a guy whose heart is broken. The four of us, we’ve got his back, and he knows that, but everyone has their own crap to deal with and honestly? Superheroes have ridiculous trust issues. He just ... needs a friend. And I don’t know who else he has. Or, had, maybe,” she finished uncertainly.

            Foggy stared at the pen lying on his desk that had cost more than Nelson and Murdock had spent on electricity in a month. Everything he had heard today, everything Claire had told him ... He hadn’t seen Matt in months. Had given up calling him before he’d even started this cushy gig. He’d had months and blocks of space.

            And he still missed Matt as much as he had that first week. The only difference now was that he wasn’t angry anymore. He’d given this a lot of thought – had talked it over at length with Karen. After her initial shock and understandable fury, her perspective had changed his. She’d seen him in action, out there in the no man’s land of Hell’s Kitchen. She’d seen him save people, take bullets for people. She saw more of the hero in him than the liar. And, in fairness to Matt, he’d never been big on sharing anything personal voluntarily, even when he was drunk. Hell, it had taken months before he’d even mention his father to Foggy.

            Now Claire brought it up, growing up with a bunch of nuns in an orphanage can’t have equipped the guy for sharing much of himself with anyone. Hadn’t Foggy often thought, during their college days, that Matt was surprised by his friendship? Being invited home for Thanksgiving with Foggy’s insane family. Requesting him as his roommate in their second year. Things Foggy had done without needing to think about it, but they’d taken Matt by surprise every time.

            Matt was an expert at hiding things. The only thing he hid better than Daredevil was how spending most of his life alone affected him. Independence was one thing, but this? This was another.

            He’d been on his own long enough.

            “I’m not his only friend. There’s two of us. Me and Karen.”

            A small smile curled Claire’s lips. “You’ll talk to him then?”

            “Yeah. Yeah, I will. There’s a lot of crap I haven’t forgiven him for, but ... But even though it’s been months, he’s still my friend. I’ve missed him,” he shrugged, his smile sad and small. “And I’m the closest he’s had to family since he was a kid. Oh, eh, until you guys I guess?”

            Claire actually laughed. “They have enough trouble with the word ‘team’, I wouldn’t call them a family. Yet.”

            Foggy laughed at the evil glint in her eye.

            “Hey, Claire?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Thanks. For coming to see me. For caring. About Matt.”

            Her smile softened and she avoided his gaze. “Yeah, well. Someone’s got to.”

            “And for saving his life. All the times.”

            “You’re welcome.”

            A warm silence filled the office as they both smiled like idiots. Then it began to feel a little awkward so Foggy reached into this desk drawer and pulled out an opened tray of biscuits.

            “Oreo?” he asked cheerily, holding it out to Claire.

            Apprehension twisted his gut as he paused before the worn door. He took a deep, bracing breath and, not at all sure he was ready for this, knocked on the door.

            No answer. Well, that was hardly unusual. He knocked again, harder.

            Nada. Jeez. One more time.

            “Matt?” he called. “It’s me – em, Foggy.” Another knock.

            He just made out the shuffle of feet before the lock turned and the door swung inward.

            Claire hadn’t been exaggerating. Matt looked like shit.

            “Hey,” Foggy said lamely. Even though Matt’s eyes weren’t looking right at him, just seeing them sent a shiver down Foggy’s spine. They were so ... haunted. Dead.

            “What’re you doing here, Foggy?” He sounded as exhausted as he looked.

            “I just ... thought I’d check in?”

            Matt raised an eyebrow.

            “I just wanted to talk. Is that okay?”

            Matt stepped aside, silently inviting him in. His face was as impassive as ever.

            Foggy sidled awkwardly past him and tracked the familiar path to the couch. The loft looked about the same as it always did. Nothing was broken, which was a good sign. Not that it meant much, though. Matt’s fights rarely happened here.

            “You want a beer?”

            “Sure, thanks.”

            He waited, hovering like a stranger, until Matt returned with the cool bottles, his eyes now shielded by his ruby glasses. They stood facing each other for a too-long moment before Foggy cracked and sat down, occupying himself with a deep draught of beer.

            He gestured to a pick bundle of cloth folded on the coffee table.

            “Updating the suit?”

            “I owe Jessica a scarf.”

            “Huh. She didn’t strike me as the hot pink type.”

            A flicker of amusement ghosted past Matt’s face. “The guy in the store swore it was grey.”

            Foggy chuckled, imagining her face when she saw it. He supposed Matt would be fast enough to avoid the punch.

            “Why are you really here, Foggy?” Matt asked quietly. His knuckles were white around the bottle he hadn’t sipped from.

            “I told you. I wanted to talk.”

            “About what?”

            “Just, y’know ... stuff.” Sometimes he had trouble believing he was a lawyer at a prestigious law firm. Being paid to convince.

            “Why now?”

            “Hm?” Oh sure, feign ignorance to the guy who can hear your heartbeat lying!

            “Why do you suddenly want to talk now?”

            That pissed him off. “What, like it’s the only time I’ve tried? I seem to remember a whole bunch of unanswered calls, Matt. I’m not the one who closed that door.”

            “And, what, you’re here to reopen it?” He was smiling as though the idea was stupid.

            “Well ... yeah.”

            Matt’s eyebrows twitched in surprise. Moving stiffly, he sank into the couch, leaving his beer on the coffee table.

            “Claire came to see you today.”

            “Who told – how do you know?”

            “You hugged. I can smell her on you.”

            Well that was creepy. “Yeah, well, she’s really worried about you, Matt.”

            He heaved a deep sigh. “I know. But she shouldn’t be.”

            “No? ‘Cause I gotta say, man, you look like complete shit. And she told me what happened.”

            Matt froze. Foggy could almost see his walls slamming shut.

            “I don’t want to talk about that, Foggy.”

            “Yeah, well. I didn’t think you would,” he said quietly. He eyed the tension in Matt’s jaw, wondering what to say. He decided for the inadequate truth. “I’m really sorry, Matt. About ... about Elektra. About all of it.”

            Something flickered behind Matt’s red lenses for a moment.

            “Thanks.”

            “I can’t imagine what you must be going through, after all that –”

            “Foggy,” he cut across him. “I ... I really don’t want to talk about this.”

            His expression made him relent. “Okay. Just ... sorry. And not just about the whole averting-the-apocalypse thing, although hey, thanks for that.” Okaaay, humour clearly wasn’t going to be a successful part of this encounter. His tone turned serious once more. “I’m sorry about everything that happened between us. Over the Castle case. And your introduction to – the Hand, wasn’t it?”

            Matt nodded, his face guarded. “I’m sorry too.”

            The weight of things unsaid pressed between them. Foggy couldn’t think how to heal this rift – or even how to set about building a bridge across it.

            Well, honesty was the best idea he had.

            “Look, Matt,” he began haltingly, his eyes fixed on his beer. “I was really mad at you. And I maintain it was with good reason. The whole Daredevil thing is ... complicated. And to be honest I kinda hate it – but not because I don’t ... believe in what you do. Yeah, I think you shouldn’t take the law –” He stopped himself, feeling himself sink into an unproductive rant. “I get that what you do is important. And ... that it’s something you need to do. I’m even ... pretty proud of you.” He hoped Matt couldn’t tell he was blushing.

            Matt could definitely tell he was blushing.

            “You saved a lot of people, stopping the Hand,” he continued, his voice low. “Myself included. Hell, my whole family. You saved Karen twice. And god knows how many more. My point is, a lot of people would be a lot worse off if you didn’t do ... what you do. And I respect that. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but I respect it.”

            He risked a glance at Matt. He was looking down, keeping his eyes hidden from Foggy’s gaze. His hands were curled into fists, though. Foggy wasn’t sure what that meant.

            When Matt didn’t speak, he carried on. “The real reason I was so pissed was ... that you lied to me. Over and over. Like ... I dunno, like I didn’t matter. Like I didn’t deserve the truth.

            “I deserved the truth.”

            “I know,” Matt mumbled. “And ... I’m sorry, Foggy. I didn’t mean to – it’s not – it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, it’s just ... I wanted to keep those halves of my life separate. But it turned out that was impossible. And I, just ... I didn’t know how to deal. What was going on, with ... with E-Elektra –” Foggy didn’t miss the way his voice quavered around her name. “It was bigger than anything I’d been up against before, it was so damn complicated, and I ... nothing else seemed as important.”

            “Not even your best friend.”

            “No,” Matt admitted quietly. “You weren’t in danger. Not directly. So ... no.”

            Foggy nodded. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. “That’s pretty fucked up, Matt.”

            “Yeah. It is.”

            “And what about now?”

            “Now?”

            “Yeah. I mean ...” Oh screw it. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve missed you, buddy.”

            Matt’s chin rose enough for Foggy to see his tiny smile. “I missed you too.”

            A familiar warmth reignited in Foggy’s chest. A non-awkward silence stretched between them for a long moment. Then, suddenly brisk and cheery, Foggy broke it.

            “Well then. I propose an agreement.”

            Matt’s eyebrow rose. “An agreement?”

            “Yeah. A contract, if you will. But, y’know, an imaginary one because I hate drawing those stupid things up – you would not believe the crap I have to add at HCB! But, anyway, yes. A contract. Between you and me. Wherein party the first – that’s you – promises not to lie about stuff like what you lied about before again. I’m not saying I need to hear about every bad guy you punch up, but if there’s something big going on with you,” his voice turned serious again. “I want to know about it. Even if I can’t help, I wanna know.” He reengaged his cheery tone. “And party the second – that’s yours truly – will agree not to freak out about every broken bone and black eye, and to, I dunno, carry aspirin?”

            That got him a chuckle – one that didn’t reach Matt’s eyes.

            “Okay, you got me, I don’t know what you want from me, but my demands are pretty simple. Just stop lying to me, Matt. We’re supposed to be friends. Best friends. Best friends don’t lie to each other. I’m even told they do this crazy thing where they confide in each other. Like, if I had had a fling with Marci that ended in the mother of all pregnancy scares, I would confide that in you, as my best friend.”

            “You got Marci pregnant?”

            “No – thank god no. But that’s a long and terribly dramatic story that requires the ambiance of a certain swill-serving bar to be accurately recounted.”

            There was another pause. Matt still wasn’t looking at him. Well, in his direction.

            “C’mon, Matt. I’m not saying we can just pick up where we left off, but we’ve gotta start somewhere, right? What do you say?”

            He took a long, slow breath. Pain flitted across his face and Foggy remembered Claire mentioning broken ribs. His brow was furrowed and for a second Foggy thought he might actually refuse his olive branch. But then Matt looked up, his sightless eyes staring through the rich ruby into Foggy’s face. A genuine-looking smile tugged at his lips.

            “I think I can agree to those terms.”

            Foggy beamed. He leapt to his feet, setting his unfinished beer down on the coffee table – which, now he looked at it, had a slender gouge missing from its centre. He probably didn’t want to know how that got there.

            “Right then – let’s go to Josie’s!”

            Matt’s expression fell. “Foggy, I can’t –”

            “Yes you can, and you will. It was in the fine print of the contract you just agreed to.”

            “Fine print – Foggy –”

            “And a verbal agreement is binging in the state of New York,” he said fluidly, drowning out Matt’s protests. Matt seemed to deflate slightly, his expression regaining that haunted look. Foggy’s voice softened. “C’mon, Matt. One of the best cures for a broken heart is having a drink with a friend. C’mon. We can call Karen? She’s been on my ass about going for a drink since – well, all week. I know she’d like to see you. It’ll be fun. You could do with some fun.”

            Matt hesitated.

            “Claire’s orders?” Foggy tried.

            Looking unduly apprehensive, Matt gave a timid nod, smiling uncertainly. “Okay, Foggy. Let’s go to Josie’s.”