Chapter Text
Terror wrapped around her throat, squeezing.
She couldn't do this. Her body wasn't supposed to bear that. It was the body of a warrior, a deadly scarlet assassin. A complex mechanism of lethal weapons and fatal blades made to kill and erase breaths. Her body had only ever had one unique goal since Stick took her a long time ago, he had made sure of that. She thought she had been so perfectly programmed, a stronghold against men, unwavering and steadfast.
She used to fake love, charm, flirt, trick. It was her nature. She had made love and handled the consequences later. Simple tasks, meaningless to her mind. Maths, equations as easy to solve as stabbing a target. She had done that countless times, and would continue to do so. She loved it, she thrived. She was in control of the play.
Because she was Elektra.
No man would claim her, no man could even think about holding even one fucking percent of power over her.
She wrapped her arms around herself, ignoring when the test still in her hands came clicking against the white marble floor. Shaking fingers squeezed harshly the skin around her waist, leaving dark bruises. God, she needed to feel this pain.
Elektra cried in desperation because she had been finally touched, stained, and marked.
She had ultimately lost the game. Now, she was ordinary, stripped from her singularity.
Because of Matt.
Oh god.
Elektra could already feel the single black tear staining her precious sea of red. It was inside her body, inside what was once her fortress. Now this body was as strong as a sand castle against the tide. She felt wasted, done for. Another sob escaped her lips as she let herself miserably fall onto the floor. Her own hands moved to her face to grasp as tightly as possible what she could.
Instead, you let him change who you are.
She suddenly wanted to scream but she was trapped inside her skin, her own weapon turned against herself. Stick's voice was echoing inside her head, his last words repeating over and over again. Those words he spoke before they parted ways. The voice was annoying, mocking, and taunting.
She had to admit he was right. A sad hysterical laugh finally escaped her.
She had fallen in love with Matthew, and that's why it hurt so much in the present. That was why she couldn't stand up and just end it. She was afraid. She was so afraid of his smug smile, his sweet voice, and most importantly his bleeding heart. It was bleeding inside her. It was slowly merging with her own, drop after drop.
Black tears in her sea of red.
Or was it white?
Yes. It felt more white than black. Or both. Matthew would probably bleed white and black, she thought with a grim smile. She could only remember their last night. He had asked about their future, all naive and hopeful. A luxury home and luxurious life, and she lied to him but hated every second of it. Elektra came to wonder if she could convince Matthew to follow her again, with a little effort, a flirtatious smile, a tiny trick.
Perhaps a child could bring him back in her arms.
Her body jolted and she turned fast enough to empty the content of her stomach in the toilet. It burned. As her eyes closed to save the last of her tears, a shaking hand ripped paper to clean her mouth and she lazily flushed the toilet.
God knew how she needed to feel this ache.
She felt disgusting.
Pathetic.
She wouldn't administer him more pain.
She wouldn't do that to him.
Hands squeezed around her waist painfully. She whimpered.
She hoped she wouldn't hurt whatever was going on inside her too, a penance for what she had done.
Elektra was afraid.
Elektra wondered how long it had been since she daydreamed for the last time. It was perhaps when she was a kid, freshly abandoned by Stick and left in the care of a loving family. She would spend her days dreaming about her mentor coming back and telling her it was a bad joke, a test to figure out if she was ready for the war. She had dreamed so badly about the old man coming back just to hit her with his cane and scold her. She had craved it then. The daydreaming had lasted a few months, but Stick eventually never came back and her younger self managed to move on.
She didn't know how she would move on from this, though. Wrapped in her burgundy silk sheets - Matthew had mentioned loving silk once - Elektra was profoundly trapped in her daydreams. They were day-nightmares too, sometimes, but they were making her feel alive and real.
It always started with Matthew giving the final blow to Sweeney.
He would stab and stab and stab the man again and again and again, red-painting the room beautifully. Her careful hands would stop him with a softness she never imagined having, and they would kiss right after, messy with blood and sweat and tears.
Sometimes her dreams brought her farther into the future. Away from New York City. Sometimes the Hand and the Chaste just didn't exist anymore and on rare occasions, they had all been killed by Matthew and her. She didn't love these scenarios as much.
Most of the time it was just her and him.
On several occasions, her mind liked to trick her by bringing one more soul into the equation.
Those were the most painful dreams. There was no place for this in her life. It would break her. It would destroy her. Every scenario involving this extra soul ended the worst way.
She had to name it. She had to phrase it in her mind. It was not just a soul.
It was a child.
She never survived these scenarios.
Death was mercy.
In her dreams, the strange soul she would finally manage to finally call by its correct term, a child, was ink black. It would come out of her body poisoned, doomed, and sentenced to die. Most of the time, it was already dead when she gave birth. Sometimes it launched at her with full strength to snap her neck and blow up. On several occasions, it even managed to talk to her.
Those were the most painful dreams.
The child retraced every painful hidden memory. The training with the Chaste, her first kill, Stick's abandonment, and Matthew's rejection.
Her treacherous fantasy would picture it with his hair and lips and eyes. The child grieved over her life. She would find herself holding the small body while it howled against her.
She hated the cries. She was so sorry. It was her fault. Please stop crying.
I'll end this soon, I promise.
I'm going to. I need to hold you a bit more. A few more days.
Then you'll be gone.
Elektra wondered when she started to cry again, holding the ink-black child like a lifeboat. It was soothing her and it was so fucking painful.
She was supposed to end this weeks ago. An abortion. She had done this once or twice already. Her fingers tapped against the soft material around her thigh and she sighed. She couldn't force herself to cry anymore. She was dry, unable to even fantasize about him, them, all of them. Elektra didn't feel much of anything anymore these days. She was silent and almost at peace. It was so pleasant not to care. She wondered why she didn't do this years ago.
The pill was right in front of her, seating on the coffee table, available at any moment. She slowly bent forward and moved down on the floor, letting her elbows surround the small medicine as she leaned almost completely against the table. Her mouth opened faintly and she emulated gulping the pill inside her throat.
It was so hard to let go of Matthew.
God, she missed her ties to him.
A soft smile cracked her cheeks and she felt her heartache.
With her lips and an exhale, she blew the pill away from her sight. She closed her eyes and let her cheek rest against the cold coffee table.
Her failure had been her greatest triumph. Fuck Stick. She was finally able to articulate it. Matt Murdock had changed her. He had introduced her to love, and now she knew, how it felt. It felt healthy and untainted. She wanted more. She suddenly craved it. She could feel it build inside her. It was somehow freeing and new and exciting.
She was no Chaste's toy nor Stick's soldier.
She was Elektra, and she didn't need to pick between love or war.