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The sun through his bedroom window was too goddamn bright. Next time he had a little bit of cash he was buying fucking curtains. No matter how hard Jack tried to squeeze his eyes shut he couldn’t seem to shut it all out. It kept poking through the seam of his eyelids, stabbing him directly in the brain. Great. It was going to be a great day, Jack could already tell.
He pawed at his side, eyes still hopefully closed, looking for the damn blanket. It was scratchy as hell but nice and thick. If he could just get it over his head he’d be golden, at least until Matty came tumbling in, hip-checking the doorway, expecting breakfast. Jack thought he must have rolled straight off the mattress while he was sleeping - it wouldn’t be the first time that happened. His bleary scrabbling came up empty, and fighting disappointment he cracked his eyes open to squint at the sun.
Or, what he had thought was the sun.
It was white. Everything he could see was a blinding, seamless white. The ground underneath him bled seamlessly into the white of the air around him. He could see no walls but still felt penned in. He wanted to shiver but felt no cold. No heat either. He didn’t feel much at all if he was being honest with himself.
“Ah, excellent.” There was a voice. Jack assumed it was a voice, but it sounded like nothing he had ever heard in his life. If God had any mercy he prayed he would never have to hear it again. It came from no direction, but Jack cast his eyes around anyhow, looking for a source.
Unfortunately, he found it.
Whatever it was, he couldn’t look at it directly. It burned at his eyes when he tried, left a ringing in his ears, and left him feeling like his brain was trying to vibrate right out of his skull. His teeth ached with it, his fingers curled from it. He physically cringed away from the sight of it.
“Now, none of that. I still have work to be done with you, Jonathan.” It chided. It had a voice like a thunderclap. Like a whisper in a library. It sounded like the bark of a dog and the creak of old hinges and the shuffle-clack of hundreds of shoes. It sounded like a gunshot, like the dull roar of a crowd. The voice sounded like his mother, and the old man who ran the bodega down the block, and it sounded a bit like Matt.
Oh god, where was Matty?
“He’s fine, it’s you who should be worried.” Oh no, the voice was in his head. This must all be in Jack’s head. This was terrible news. He didn’t have the time or the money for things to be going on in his head. “No, the real news is that you’re quite dead, Jonathan.”
Shit. That’s a different problem, isn’t it? How the hell did he end up dead? There was a vague memory of a fight, because there was always another fight, but he didn’t remember much at all after that. Did he win? Either way, he must have packed his bag, checked in with Fogwell, and left the gym. He always went straight home after a fight - Matt would be waiting up and the kid had school in the morning.
“Now, usually I keep well out of these sorts of things, but you make a special and rather compelling case.” The voice said. Its formless shape in the corner of Jack’s eye looked to swell for a moment, before simmering down. His eyes ached with the strain of looking away. “I’ve seen how this all plays out and I find I don’t much care for the ending.”
This was exhausting. If someone told him this was Hell Jack would have believed it. He could feel the Thing’s disapproval of his wandering thoughts in the air. He really couldn’t help himself - it talked like a fucking wizard and seemed to be gearing up for a lecture worthy of a nun.
“Pay attention, Jonathan, I’m giving you options.” Jack wished it would stop calling him by name. Its voice was unsettling, but the way it said his name made all the air escape his lungs. He felt like a deflating balloon. His head ached .
“Usually this wouldn’t be a discussion. You’d be off to wherever you’d be going anyhow, and I wouldn’t care. However,” and It paused here, making a considering hum, like the flicker of a thousand fluorescent lights. “As I said, I wasn’t happy with how this went the first time. If I’m going to change that I’ll need a representative for my own ends.”
They sat in silence for a moment, evidently giving Jack time to think this over. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be considering here. He wasn’t entirely sure anything had been actually offered.
“I’m giving you a chance to try all of that again, as long as you do something to help me out while you’re at it.” Ah, ok, that was more clear then. There was a nagging voice in the back of his head that sounded an awful lot like his priest that said making deals of this type was a little fishy. The voice sighed like wind through laundry, hung on a line.
“It’s simple, I think you’ll even like it.” Yeah, right, that’s exactly what a demon would say, isn’t it? A demon inside his head would say that. The demon had another thing coming if it thought he would be convinced so easily - not when he had a devil of his own to fight off every day.
“You get to try living your life one more time, and in exchange, you’ll spend a portion of your time weighing the balances for me.” Ok, nice, very cryptic. Also very unconvincing, no matter how badly he would love to try again. To be better for Matty, to do better, more. “You see, you’re not listening to me. You’d be fighting for the innocent, protecting the little folk, and all that. You’ll get to see men like Roscoe Sweeney taken off the streets. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
Sweeney. That name was very familiar. The kind of familiar that made his fists curl up tight and something cold and dark roll over in the back of his head. No doubt, if Jack Murdock was dead, Roscoe Sweeney likely had something to do with it.
Part of him reasoned that he’d still be alive if he had just taken the dive when ordered. The less rational portion of his mind reminded him that Matt was orphaned by Sweeney’s order. His fists shook at his side.
Alright, he could see the appeal. “You see?” But what the hell could a worn-down boxer from Hell’s Kitchen do for the forces of good? “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. I’m sure you can figure out how to put a little more good out there in the world.” Its voice kind of shivered through the word good, like that was funny. “Humans have all sorts of methods for these things. Pick one and run with it. Pick multiple. I don’t care.”
Jack, feeling a dawning sense of dread, realized he really couldn’t refuse this. Not when it meant he got to go back home to Matt. Not when it meant his son wouldn’t have to grow up an orphan. Selfishly, not when it meant he’d have the opportunity to lay Sweeney and his goons flat on their backs.
“Do we have a deal?” The voice was expectant, and its presence was heavy. No matter where he looked he couldn’t avoid that bright arc of light. The air felt heavy, like it was pressing down on him. He smelled ozone.
“Yes.”
“Dad, Dad I can’t see.” Jack was going to throw up. “Dad help, I can’t see!” He couldn’t live this day again. Not again.
“Matty, Matty, it’s ok, it’s ok kid I’ve got you,” Jack fumbled over Matt’s prone body, feeling at once taken off guard and like he’d done this a thousand times. Which he had, in his nightmares. Not like that made him any more prepared to do it all over again. His hands still shook like it was the first time.
Jack looked around at the people gathering around, murmuring lowly to each other. “Someone call 911!” He growled, snagging Matt’s hand before it could reach his face. He remembered the burns on his fingertips from the last time. “Matt, don’t move, we’re gonna get you some help soon pal.” Tears welled up in his eyes as he watched Matt’s sight burn away for the second time. He couldn’t even spare a glance at the man who had the poor sense to walk in front of a car twice in Jack’s fucking overinflated lifetime.
As Matt’s hands, smaller than he remembered them being, grasped searchingly at the sleeves of his jacket, Jack felt something simmer to life in his chest. It was hot, angry, and caught in his throat, choking him into silence. He held his trembling son close and prayed to whatever was listening that he could make this count.