Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Matt gets angry.

It comes in waves, as it always has. It starts in his chest, a tug on his ribcage. It’s heavy, and fills his lungs in thick clouds until he heaves in breaths open-mouthed and wet. It burns in his throat, coats his tongue with the metallic tang of copper, bites at his teeth until his lips, red and cracked and surely bleeding, split into a snarl.

It overwhelms him, overtakes him until all he can focus on is the thundering in his chest cavity. His hearing bleeds until everything is a backwash of static and heart beats and sirens. (Always sirens, always, no matter what time of day, no matter who he was with or where he was.)

Sometimes, Matt gets angry, and he doesn’t know why.

He’ll be playing with his father, six years old. He’ll be small, and happy, with bruised knees and untied shoes and eyes that still see. He’ll be young, and his dad will be alive, and then he’ll be angry.

So angry.

And he wouldn’t know why, and he wouldn’t want it, so he’d cry.

Cry, until his lungs couldn’t heave anymore, until his eyes, working eyes, couldn’t cry anymore. And still, he’d be angry. So he would collapse to the floor in a jumbled up mess and kick and scream and his dad would hover and worry but he was fine, he was fine, he was just so angry.

So angry.

His dad would collect him into his arms once he had finally calmed enough, would hold him and rock him and bury the boy’s head into his shoulder. His dad always understood, of course he would. Because he’s Battlin’ Jack Murdock, and he’s got the devil in him.

Matty, small and young and powerless, he had cried in the face of his anger. Cried and screamed. Because that was all he could ever do.

Then, he was older, and still so young, but blind, and alone. And now he was learning to fight. Learning how to hold his fist, how to stabilize his wrists and throw his kicks and how to see with no eyes.

He was nine, and he was blind, and he was alone, and he was so angry.

So he picked his fights, stepped into his fury like he was coming home. Made Stick proud, for a time, made the nuns whisper and avoid and made the children look away with bloodied noses and wounded egos.

Then, in a fit of precarious simplicity, he was happy. Not for the first time since his Dad died, but for the longest time. He was happy, and he was young, and he was blind with bruised fists and bloody scabs. Then Stick left, and he was young, and blind, and furious.

So furious. 

He fought and spat and screamed at anything that had the courage to approach him for a long time. He’d wake up in the morning with crescent moons carved in his palms, his knuckles locked up from gripping so tight all throughout the night. He’d spend his days with hunched shoulders and curled lip and grinding teeth. He’d stay awake at night, numb to the sounds of sirens and distant tragedy. 

And he was so angry.

He was a dumb kid, growing up. But he’s fourteen now and Matt’s pretty sure he’s discovered all that the world had to teach him. In school, they would talk about the moments that define a person. The moments that shaped who they would become. 

For most, it was simple things. Their first friend, moving to a different town. For Matt, it was jumping in front of a truck full of acid. It was feeling the slippery copper cooling on his father’s slack face. It was hearing the crush of meticulously crafted paper crumpled in an old man’s hands.

For Matt, it was the sound of sirens. Every night. Every day. Always sirens. 

These moments, these sounds. They changed him. Forced him to grow up, forced him to learn early on that the universe doesn’t like Mathew Murdock.

No, it doesn’t like him at all.

And to be frank, all Matt feels these days is the simmering under his skin. The red in his lungs, the itch on his knuckles. No, to be frank, Matt rather doesn’t give a fuck if the universe likes him or not.

He certainly doesn’t like it.

Matt is fourteen, and every day he feels an anger in his veins like no other. Every day, he hears the people around him, the criminals around him, the victims, the disgusting state of them all, and he hates them.

All of them.

Everything.

He doesn’t know why, has stopped trying to push it down. He doesn’t cry about it anymore, he knows better now. 

No, now he wraps his fists in bandages, covers his eyes in black cloth and beats the shit out of people.

Bad people, mostly. Almost always. (Does Frank Castle count as a bad person? Does Elektra?) He’s young, he knows that. He’s not as strong as he could be. Not as fast as Stick tried to make him become. He’s clumsy, he falls down, he takes the hits he should’ve been able to avoid. 

But he gets back up.

Broken ribs and punctured lungs, split knuckles and bloodied nose, he gets back up. Again, and again, and again. Tired and hurt and with more blood spilled on wet pavement than in his arteries, he gets back up every time.

It scares the assholes he fights. Makes them hesitate to keep hitting the guy that, by all means, should be fucking dead with the amount of knocks to the head he’s taken. Makes them take a step back because, holy shit, the fucker’s laughing. Blood coated teeth and hoarse voice, he laughs and gets back up. 

They hesitate, and Matt gets them.

No one has been able to figure out how young he was, not yet. They’re too busy blocking frenzied fists, too busy getting concussed to remember his height, his skinny limbs and fake vigilante voice.

Castle hasn’t noticed yet in the few occasions where they run into each other, miraculously. 

The first time Castle called him kid, mere seconds after meeting (More as a demeaning insult than any true remark to his character, he is sure of, retrospectively.) Matt had stumbled, throwing his punch and missing by a mile. 

He felt the strange glance Castle threw him, but the weight of the gun smashing directly into his nose reassured his worry that the man had not put two and two together. 

(Matt may not have such limitations, but he knew Frank Castle would never hurt a kid. No matter how much of an asshole they were. Frank Castle may or may not be a bad person, but he was a better man than Matty could ever be.)

It wasn’t the first time he had met the man face to face, fist to fist. But it was the night Matt ended up with a bullet in his helmet, just half a centimeter from his skull. 

Despite himself, the conversation before said shooting had actually been quite riveting for him. Matt has always been interested in the debate, arguing on morality, taking the subject of justice and ripping it to its most basic properties, taking those building blocks and creating a whole new understanding of the term.

Call him a vigilante.

His Dad used to say he would make a good lawyer. But Matt isn’t interested in that.

No, he would rather be on this side of the law. The effective side, the side that gets things done. He’d rather his fists be bloody and his pockets empty than a heavy conscience and a fat bank account.

Castle is the same way, when it all boils down to it. The only difference between the man and the devil is their resolve to kill.

Castle kills. He has no hesitation to put a pistol between a man’s eyes and shoot. Won’t blink an eye at wrapping a steel wire around a crook’s throat and squeezing until their eyes itch red and their scrabbling fingers fall to their sides, until their weight drops and they’re dead, dead, dead.

Matt sees no need for any of that.

Dead men tell no tales, but what is a confession of guilt with no tongue? Matt had no right to weigh the worth of a life. He may be called the devil, but such a thing will always be up to God’s will. And when their time comes, he has faith it will end in flames and brimstone.

The police didn’t see it that way; Castle didn’t, either, but oh well.

(Matt slept easy; on nights where his hearing was blissfully dull, even on the nights his ribs creaked with each breath, he slept still and peaceful with thoughts filled with red and horns and the bitter smell of Hell’s Kitchen’s alleyways.)

“Jesus, you’re like a fuckin’ kid, Red.” 

“All this fightn’ you do don’t make a difference if they just come crawlin’ back!”

“You’ll see.”

Waking up in a pool of blood wasn’t as shocking as it probably should have been.

“Bang.”

When he opened his eyes (unnecessarily, of course, but reflexively) the first thing he was aware of was the itch running down his temple, streaming into a pool under his nose that made him choke and cough in small gurgles.

The second thing was the slow, pulsing satisfaction burning in his chest. Warm and bright and twisted. If he could feel his lips, he would have smiled.

Instead; he groaned, dragging a heavy hand cloaked in torn bandages up to rub at his face. The blood came off in dried out flakes, some of it lingering in wet clumps streaked by his hand. He tasted it on his tongue, copper and dirt.

Matt huffed tiredly and struggled to rip the bandages from his fingers. He bundled them up, furiously ignoring how dirty they were (covered in other men’s blood, covered in his own from where they ripped and his knuckles were punching bare) and pushed it under his nose, other hand following the sticky trail up to where it leaked from under his helmet. 

Matt met Melvin Potter just a month ago. Had convinced him to help him only a week and a half ago. 

Melvin agreed to make him a suit, a good one, a strong one that won’t shatter with one punch or constrict his limbs as he ran or weaved or fought.

“I’ll make you one, but you gotta wait for it.”

Two days after, while Matt was checking in, Melvin had tossed him a helmet.

“You’re crazy. But you won’t stop fighting, so. Someone needs to protect Betsy.”

Last night was only the second time Matt had worn it out, still trying to adjust to the weird way it muffled his hearing, thow he was forced to adjust the way he ducked his head behind his fists in a block. He had been half outside the fire escape of the orphanage when something in his father’s voice had told him, go back. 

His trembling fingers traced the crack in the thick material, catching on the sharp protrusions of plastic that cut into his skin. He smelt it as his blood welled up to the surface of his fingertip, leaking slow and thin and lighter than it would have been if Matt had eaten anything in the past two days.

“Oh my god.”

Matt threw the helmet to the ground (more like it fell from stiff hands, slipped and hit the cement and rolled away). He ducked his head, attempting valiantly to keep his face out of view by tucking it suspiciously into his chest. 

Was he fucking stupid? How could he have not noticed an entire human being approaching him? Stick would’ve laughed. Matt heaved in a shuddering breath, anxiety puddling in his throat. It tasted like copper.

“Holy shit, are you okay? No stop, wait, what kind of question is that- .” A frazzled voice broke out from the mysterious stranger, high pitched and squeaky. Nervous, understandably so. Matt looked like a crime scene.

Fuck. He was so screwed. The man was rambling in front of him, hands slick with the stink of sweat, heartbeat rapid and loud to Matt’s sore ears. Too loud, way too loud, it was the only thing he could focus on. It hurt, he wanted to listen to his words but the frantic pounding in this man’s chest just would not let go of the vice grip it had on Matt’s senses. He couldn’t draw himself out.

The man was coming closer, he could hear his cheap dress shoes (fake leather, hollow soles) scuffing against the cracked cement, small pebbles scraping painfully, too loud.

His words were a blur, overshadowed by the cheap cologne, the dollar store shampoo. Suddenly the man was close, too close, and Matt was finally able to hone back in.

He jerked, face pulling into a wince. The man seemed to take it as a response to whatever the hell he had been talking about before.

“Shit, sorry, not important. I meant- I meant to ask, do you need help?”

Matt tilted his head, brow scrunched. He was still hiding his face from the man; something that must be making the stranger even more anxious, if the overwhelming scent of nervous sweat stemming from him told Matt anything. Even still, his voice was sweet, syrupy and kind sounding in a way that Matt hasn’t heard in a long while. Oh, the charitability of random New York civilians.

“I’m fine.” His own voice, on the other hand. It tore against his throat, tumbled out soft and too fucking meak for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

“Uh, obviously not, because you’re saying you’re fine as though you had a papercut or something and not sitting in a puddle of fucking blood, dude.” (It totally wasn’t large enough to be a puddle, Matt scoffed. A small drop, maybe. Moderately sized spill, perhaps.)The guy laughed, but it sounded strained. He was stepping closer.

Matt moved back, raising his hands a small measure. Fingers curled and knuckles popped, a clear warning. The other’s footsteps stopped, and Matt figured he took the hint.

The man shifted, and Matt could hear the nervous flutter of his heartbeat, could smell the sickly combination of adrenaline and excitement wafting from beneath his cologne. His hair was long, Matt noticed as it swept against the man’s shoulders, wafting the strong scent of his sandalwood shampoo.

“Should I call 911?”

“No.” Matt snipped, too quickly, heart tripping in its beat. God, he’d be so fucked if he landed in the fucking hospital. “No hospitals. I’m fine.”

“Dude. Blood. Everywhere, not fine.”

“Not mine,” Matt said, and immediately wanted to punch himself in the mouth. ‘Not mine’? Who the hell would even say that? He sounded like a murderous psycho.

The stranger opened his mouth; an intake of breath loud enough Matt didn't think he’d need his wacked up senses to be able to hear, but he closed it right after, silent.

An awkward pause, as Matt took the time to repeatedly curse himself.

The throbbing in his temple was getting a bit out of hand. The sounds of New York in the background were all jumbled up, mixing and swirling together into an incoherent mess. (The longer Matt focused on it, the less he understood. The longer he listened, the less he could hear. It dipped and weaved, the sound escaping him. Fading, losing out to the shrill ringing eating away at his ears.)

He must have been focusing on it too long, because suddenly the guy was right up in his face. A quick motion that upset the air by his nose, tingled his skin and whispered against his hair. Too close. Fuck.

“Oh my god, your head!” He yelled, but Matt could barely hear him over the wave of irritation he felt. Why had he allowed the man to get so damn close? 

He needed to back off. It was none of his concern and Matt did not appreciate his efforts whatsoever. And he would tell the guy that if only his lungs would work. It was getting really hard to breathe, all of a sudden. Hard to breathe, and hard to hear.

He pointed his chin into his collarbones, his shoulders curved around the soft shells of his ears.

(How pitiful he must look, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.) He brought bloody hands to cover his face, shielding him from sighted view.

“Shit, sorry- I'm sorry. Didn't mean to scare you like that.” The guy jabbered, and that syrupy voice felt like needles in his head. Too much, too loud, too sweet. Matt wished he would just shut up.

“It's just that I don't think I should leave you here like this, man. You really don't look so good, and- you know what, your head looks pretty fucking bad, actually. Not even gonna lie to you.” Shut up.

“Were you attacked?” Shut up.

“I’m alright.” Matt choked out, and the words hurt to speak. They stuck to his throat in thick bubbles, got mixed into the coating of copper still lingering beneath his tongue. He swallowed, and forced a breath of air into his lungs before pinching his lips and gritting his teeth and pushing himself up onto wobbly legs. His pulse jumped as his balance tipped, throwing him unreliably to the left before he caught himself, cheeks flared a burning red in shame. Stick’s hot disapproval lingered on the back of his neck, immaterial yet so heavy.

The guy was bouncing on his feet anxiously. “Uh, yeah.” He scoffed. “You look like you’re totally fine. Not like you can barely stand on your own two feet, not at all.”

Matt straightened awkwardly, bones creaking reluctantly into place. Cheeks muddy from frustration. “I’m just adjusting.” He excused, fists clenched and skin pulled tight across cuts new and old.

“Adjusting.”

He nodded, stiffly. Nausea bubbled in his throat at the motion, but he swallowed it down.

“I got… kicked.”

“Kicked.” 

“Here,” Matt pointed, raising his bloodied hand to point at his forehead where the bullet had pushed fragments of plastic from the helmet into his skin. He could feel it bruising rapidly, most definitely an ugly picture of purples and blues and the soft brown of dried blood mixing with aggravated red as the wound opened once more.

“You got kicked.” The man said, slowly. “In the head.”

Matt nodded. “Makes it… hard to adjust.” He bit out. “To… standing.”

“And you... don’t want me to take you to the hospital?” Matt grit his teeth in a wince. Not a very effective argument, he’s realizing. (Sue him, he got shot in the fucking head. He’s not feeling like the smartest guy at the moment. Goddamn Castle.)

“Listen, thanks for doing your civic duty and making sure that I wasn’t murdered,” Matt started, his words getting less and less clear the longer he spoke, his tongue thick in his mouth as he tried to pull the vowels from his throat. “But I’m alive, so you can leave me alone, now.”

He paused before shuffling awkwardly, trying to remember where he threw the helmet earlier in his panic. The guy let him stumble around for a few moments, his heart pounding in his chest cavity as he debated what he should do.

Matt felt kinda bad, the guy was pretty nice. He just didn’t need nice right now. 

He needed to go. 

“Here.” 

The man was holding something out to him, holding it delicately with both hands. His senses were going into overdrive, trying and failing to make up for his ringing ears. The image in his mind’s eye was blurred without his hearing, and what was once pinpoint accurate is now simply a general assumption of vicinity. 

Carefully, Matt guessed as to where the man’s hands were and took the object from his grasp. It was his helmet, surface splintered and rough.

“I won’t bother asking why it’s covered in blood.” The stranger said, and he sounded tired. 

Matt bit his lip, tucking the helmet close to his chest. “I ran into some bad men last night.” He offered, and he was distantly aware of the man perking up hopefully. Like a puppy. “They were fighting some guy,” He nodded to the helmet, “and I walked into the middle of it.”

“Fighting?” He repeated. “Like, Devil fighting?” 

Matt shrugged. “Maybe.” The other man made to ask more questions but Matt cut him off. “I need to go, now. I’m going to get in trouble for being out so late.”

“Early, you mean.”

“Both, I suppose.”

The man laughed and waved his hands, probably as an invitation to be on his way. Matt ducked his head, still hiding his eyes from view, and turned to where he had a faint recollection of his exit being.

“Hey, what’s your name?” The man called out, just before Matt was out of view.

He hesitated, fingers strumming nervously along the shattered plastic.

The man was tugging nervously against the stiff cuffs of his cheap suit. His voice was clear against the screeching whistle rattling his brain. 

“Matt.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Matt. Try not to get kicked in the head again.”

He was right.

Matt did, in fact, get in trouble for being out so late. Early. Whatever.

He had ditched the helmet in the forgotten dumpster behind the orphanage that the garbage men always drove past; as safe a place in New York as any other. At least there he wouldn’t have nosey nuns poking into his business.

After hiding the incriminating cowl, he did his best to sneak over St Agnes’ fence as nondescriptly as possible.

The gun shot wound to the temple made it a bit harder for him than usual. In other words, he got caught. Immediately.

One foot securely dug into a notch in the fence and one pulled up to his knee, a wave of dizziness knocked him down straight to his ass. Foot still entwined in the chain link fence, he was even lucky enough to twist his ankle on the way down.

He hissed a curse as quietly as he could, but his ears still picked up on a small group of kids from the other side of the fence whispering about a dirty boy with blood and grime and a twisted foot. And, hey, wait. Was that Murdock? He lay there, foot still captured by the fence-demon, and allowed himself to close his eyes.

They stung.

The noise from the orphanage grounds was getting louder, and Matt brought his hands to his ears. He just wanted to ignore it all. 

Wanted it all to go away.

His head hurt; felt like Frank Castle and his ginormous fists were taking him by the temples and squeezing, hard, hard as he could and harder still. Felt like Frank Castle, and a gun, and a bullet. 

Rage, burning hot.

“Matthew?”

He groaned, and shook his head. When that sent a searing spike of pain through his gun-shot head, he groaned again and banged his fist on the pavement. His knuckles hurt, split skin and scabs and fresh new blood but it wasn’t a gun shot and he could take it. The bruises on his knuckles and the bites of pain they gave him felt miles better than the squeezing pressure behind his eyes.

“Matthew, oh God.” A woman’s voice whispered, choked and wet. A nun. Matt smiled. A nun, and she used the Lord’s name in vain.

Hands caressed his face, brushed the blood on his temple and settled beneath his neck. They smelt like incense and pinewood, like last night’s stew and the musty scent of the orphanage’s small library. Sister Maggie.

He let her hold him close, let her scream to the children to call for the other nuns. When she asked, when she begged him to open his eyes, he did.

He couldn’t see, and his hearing was worryingly quiet, but he did it anyways.

His eyes were dirty again, his lashes sticking together and almost refusing to allow him to open them even at the behest of the panicked nun at his side. But they did, slowly, and he heard Maggie’s heart skip in what might have been relief.

“What happened to you, Matthew?” She asked him, voice low. He smelt salt.

He licked his lips, tugged his foot and winced when it made the fence jostle. Too loud. He tugged it again and it came free with a wave of aching pins and needles down his calf. He swallowed down a grown and twisted his head so his face was buried into the rough fabric of Maggie’s uniform.

She tapped his chin, once, twice, until he angled his face back to her’s.

“What happened.” She repeated, demanded.

He sighed. “I snuck out.” He mumbled. “Got lost. Went somewhere I don’t think I should've.”

His skin was burning. Liar, it called him. His ears rang. Sinner, they sang.

“Oh, Matthew.” Sister Maggie whispered. She grabbed his hand in hers, squeezed.

He thinks he appreciated it. It was hard to tell if it felt good over the way her fingers dug into the cuts on his knuckles, how his bones audibly creaked even to his weakened ears.

She held him silently until the help came. Held his hand even while the other nuns picked up his body and carried him into the orphanage.

He fell asleep to the sounds of hurried feet and soft prayers.

He woke to the sounds of drip, drip, dripping. To the steady beat of a heart monitor.

He opened his eyes, stared into the black for a second too long before his brain caught up to him and reminded him that, no, dumbass. The room wasn’t dark because the lights were off.

He closed his eyes again.

The dripping was steady, too. Steadier than the sound of his heart. An IV, if the soft scent of salty saline and the prickling sensation in his arm told him anything.

His head still hurt, a dull pain that was almost overwhelming simply due to its constantness. It throbbed, and gripped, and whispered to him. 

“All this fightn’ you do don’t make a difference if they just come crawlin’ back!” It told him. 

Joke’s on you, Castle. Shot in the head, and still the devil comes crawlin’ back.

He smiled.

Tried to ignore the way his stomach twisted, how he was unsure if he was actually supposed to survive that little conversation he had last night. How his heart monitor jumped and beeped and stammered at the thought of facing the big bad Punisher one more time.

Matt brought a shaky hand to his head, traced the bandages that wrapped around his wound. The cloth was saturated with blood already, oozing and staining his fingertips with red. He frowned, and took his hand away. 

The problem ceased to exist when his attention was elsewhere.

Frank Castle ceased to exist if he ignored him hard enough.

So instead of lingering on his shot up head or the blood it bled or the way it felt like Castle’s hands were squeezing- instead of all that, Matty just breathed.

He decided to focus on his ears. 

A gun fired point blank is a bit louder than the sound of a whipped bat or slicing knife. His ears were damaged, bad enough he had let some random dude sneak up on him in broad daylight.

He raised his hand once more, but instead of feeling his bandages, he snapped his fingers. Twice, once for his left, and once for his right.

Castle hadn’t shot him straight; toward the lining of his hair and just an inch to the left. His right ear was okay, his left not so bad. It was murky, and it was a little duller than he’s had it since he was nine, but it was stronger than it was this morning, and he had no doubt it would heal just fine.

It had to.

And even if it didn’t, his right ear more than made up for it. It wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t.

“Matthew?”

He snapped his head to the sound of Sister Maggie’s voice.

Slowly, he lowered his hand. Maggie was alone, shifting almost uncertainly on her feet.

He said nothing, and the nun huffed before she stalked forward. She came to stand by the foot of Matt’s bed.

“A hairline fracture, Matthew.” She declared, and her voice sounded angry.

Matt closed his eyes. Ignored her.

Sister Maggie made a sort of growling noise in the base of her throat; a low, guttering thing. “A fracture , Matthew. In your skull.” She scoffed, and Matt heard her as she paced swiftly on the other side of the room. “You got hit with something. Hard enough to split your skull.”

The fabric of her headpiece rustled against her shoulders; she was shaking her head at him.

“You’re lucky to be alive.” She whispered.

Matt remained silent, his fingers picked at the wet scabs on his knuckles. They were unbandaged, and for some reason that surprised him.

“Matthew.” The nun hissed, and rage grew in Matt’s throat.

He wrinkled his nose, “What do you want me to say?” 

She threw her hands in the air, a wave of clean cotton and a scoff in her throat. “What do I want you to say?” She repeated incredulously. “Well, I don’t know, Matthew. How about an explanation? Why in the world- Why would you even-”
The cut herself off, sucked in a breath so large it made Matt’s chest hurt.

“Why did you run away.” She demanded.

Matt bit his lip, tugged on a scab between his fingers and kept on tugging until it ripped away with the tangy scent of fresh iron. “I wasn’t running away. Just needed to get out for a while.” He offered, and ignored the way his heart screamed at him.

Liar, it said.

But he wasn’t. Even without the mask, even without his self-assigned duties as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, he still would have escaped the orphanage at nightfall. There was no way he couldn’t. 

St Agnes was a cage. It suffocated him, gripped his lungs with hands made of stone and chain linked fences and it held on with all its might. The nuns were ever present, the children even worse. They stared at him with their working eyes and they thought he couldn’t tell because he looked back with eyes that didn’t. They stared at him and talked about him and tried to beat on him even after he’s proved that he wasn’t someone who could be beat. 

The orphanage was a cage, and he would be better off living on the streets. The only reason he isn’t is because he knows he needs the warm food St Agnes provided. Warm food he hasn’t touched in days.

“Get out.” Sister Maggie repeated, dumbly, like she couldn’t understand. 

Matt refused to tell her any more. She gave him a chance but he ignored it because there was nothing he could say to her that would get her to understand.

Instead, he stayed still as she shook her head and crossed her arms. She was disappointed in him. He didn’t care.

“Okay,” She finally gave in. “And where did you go?”

“I don’t know. I just followed the sidewalk as long as I could.”

“Did you take a right or left at the entrance of the orphanage?” She asked, and it was a smart start, but Matt wouldn’t have started at the entrance even if this version of events were the full blooded truth.

“Right.” He said, and his blood burned beneath his skin.

She nodded, tightly, and rubbed her chin.

“How long did you walk for?”

“I’m not sure. A long time.”

“Did you leave Hell’s Kitchen?”

“It’s just a neighborhood.” He pointed out. Nothing to distinguish it from any other, no way for a blind boy to be able to tell once he left the small sector and entered a new. “I could have, but I’m not sure.”

“That doesn’t help, Matthew.” She simpered, and he glared.

“Do you want me to lie? Tell you I know exactly where I went? How could I know?”

She sighed, “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you want from me?” The woman remained quiet, and Matt focused on his breaths. His anger was boiling inside him, and he knew it was because she made it easy, but her questioning was pissing him off.

“How did you get hurt, then?” She asked, quietly.

Matt bit his lip. 

“I was walking, and I think I made a turn.” He shrugged, “Wherever I ended up, there was a group of people. I think they were fighting with each other, beating them up.”
He paused, brought his hand to his mouth. 

“Fighting? Like a gang?” The nun asked, stepping closer to the wounded boy. She rested her hand on the bed, close to his knee but not quite touching.

“Maybe.” He agreed. “I think… I think the Daredevil was there.”

He heard her intake of breath, the way her heart skipped a beat. Daredevil was a menace to the church, an insult to their beliefs. Any man working in the devil’s visage was an insult and a sinner and it made Matt laugh because it was true.

“The vigilante?” She asked, voice strained. “Is he the one who hurt you?”
Matt shook his head.

“No, I think they were hitting him with something. A bat, maybe. I guess I got in the way.”

Sister Maggie was silent for a while. Matt let her think. He rested his head back on the pillow. Tried to ignore the way his temple pulsed with each beat of his heart, how the slight change in elevation made his head spin and nausea build in his throat.

It wasn’t working very well.

In the silence, Sister Maggie stepped closer. He let her inspect his bandages, stayed quiet even when she clicked her tongue and went into the small closet to retrieve new ones.

She unrolled the cloth from his wound, pat his shoulder when he hissed in pain.

She was reapplying the bandages when she finally spoke again.

“And your hands?” 

He froze, holding his body still even as a shudder ran across his skin. Chilled fingers grazed the bridge of his nose as Sister Maggie wrapped the fresh cloth around his head. The bandage drooped, scratching unbearably against his cheek bones and tangling in his hair.

His mouth was sealed shut, the weight of his silence settling into place between them like dust.

The woman sighed, and the sound was so tired it made Matt wince. 

“You’re going to get yourself killed, Mathew Murdock.” She whispered, and there was pain in her voice. Her lips trembled, audible against her breath. 

He felt the acidic burn of his sins deep in his throat. They begged him to open his mouth, to tell the truth, to tell another lie, to say anything.

She looked at him and he knew what she saw. A fourteen year old boy. Blind, angry. His father a fistfighting lowlife who got himself shot dead in an alley. She looked at him and he knew she saw a boy stepping right into his father’s shoes. She saw the devil in him. It was impossible to miss.

“We will not punish you.” She said, topic abruptly changed. “This wound is punishment enough. But we will be watching you very intently from now on, Matthew. If we catch you running away again, you will not be let off so easy.”

Matt nodded in acknowledgement, and she left the room in a flurry of fabrics.

He raised a hand to the new bandages, and his fingers shook. Frank Castle squeezed.

Chapter Text

It’s been almost three weeks since Daredevil was last seen fighting crime and Hell’s Kitchen was getting rowdy.

Devil’s been killed, they say.

Shot in the head, is one rumor. Thrown off a building, another.

Foggy doesn’t know what happened to the Kitchen’s resident vigilante, but he does know that he needs to come back. Fast.

He had been walking back to his apartment last night when he heard a very suspicious sound coming from a very suspicious alleyway.

He had stopped in his tracks, looked down the alley with wide eyes. His heart drummed in his chest and his hands grew saturated with sweat at record speeds.
He debated going in, fancying himself a hero just like the Man in the Mask. Then he remembered the last time he was bold enough to play protagonist; when he found that young man with enough blood on the ground to feed an army of vampires.

He wasn’t sure if it was a very young man or if it were a very moody kid, but the guy had been covered head to toe in bruises and blood and dirt and Foggy was very lucky that he had been relatively nice and sane. 

He remembers looking down at the gravel once the boy had gone and finding a bullet laying innocently on the ground. A bullet rid of its case, a bullet that had been shot. A bullet that had been lying right next to a boy that had been covered in blood.

It reminded him that Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t a nice place. There was a reason the Devil was around. The Kitchen was dangerous, and Foggy could have been killed if the person at the end of the blood trail had been anyone other than a beaten up kid. He could be killed if he walked into that alleyway pretending to be a hero.

So Foggy had taken a deep breath and turned his head away. Put one foot in front of the other until he was walking up his front steps, until he was standing numbly under the spray of the shower head. 

Foggy didn’t know what happened to Daredevil. He just knew he would feel much, much better if he came back to work now.

It was almost noon, and Foggy needed a drink.

Not a drink, drink, just a coffee.

Although…

No, just a coffee.

He called out to Karen, took her order and wrote it down on a stray piece of paper before he trampled out the door. 

It was October, now. Four weeks with no sign of Daredevil in Hell’s Kitchen. Each passing day had Foggy more nervous. He carried pepper spray, now. Marci had given it to him, pressed it into his hands like it was something holy.

Maybe it was; he hasn’t used it yet. 

It took not even five minutes to walk his way to his favorite cafe. And by favorite he means closest. A nice little place that doesn’t burn the beans and carries more than ten different flavors to their coffee.

He was staring intently at his own handwriting, trying to decipher what he had written down as Karen’s order, when he saw him.

The boy, the dirty bloody boy from a month ago, he was here. Walked through the tiny front door of the cafe like he had any right entering Foggy’s life again. He was wearing a raggedy old coat that was entirely too puffy and a scarf wrapped tight around his neck, almost covering his nose. 

He looked young.

Too young for a boy found breathless and scared in an alley, bullet shells at his feet.

His hair was red, dark enough to almost classify as brown. He was wearing big dorky glasses with a red tint to them that made him almost look something like a mafia boss if it weren't for the way they were taped together with duct tape and pure strength of will.

Foggy knew he was staring, but the kid didn’t seem to notice him, just stepped straight up to the cashier’s desk without a second glance.

He blinked sluggishly at the boy before glancing back down to his messy handwriting.

If the kid didn’t want to talk to him he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.

The kid placed his order and went immediately to a small booth in the corner. Foggy ignored him and stepped in his place, giving the cashier a small smile as he read his order.

He was about to stand to the side to wait when he noticed the kid staring at him.

He still had his glasses on, so it was a bit hard to tell, but his head was angled right at him, and there weren’t that many people inside the cafe. 

He exhaled with a smile. Maybe the kid just didn’t notice him at first! He smiled and stepped forward.

What did he say his name was? Max? Mark? Matt, maybe?
“Hey, there.” Foggy smiled. He was standing in front of the kid’s little booth, now. The boy just stared at him, mouth a little open. “Can I sit here?”
He watched patiently as the kid fumbled for a second. “Uh.. sure. I guess.” He mumbled, and Foggy sat with a soft laugh.

“Thanks!” He smiled, and unbuttoned his coat. The kid shuffled for a second, fingers playing nervously with his glasses. It was a bit rude to sit inside with sunglasses on, but Foggy wasn’t about to reprimand him.

“It’s...Max, right?”
The boy snorted. “Matt.”
“Ugh, sorry.” He slapped his palm to his forehead before pouting childishly. “I was close, though!”
“Sure.” Matt smirked, regaining his composure.

“How’s your head doing?”
Matt bit his lip and fingered at the large bruise on his forehead. Whoever the hell managed to kick this kid had one hell of a leg. Four weeks later and the bruise was still a sickly greenish-yellow. At least the cut was sealed and whole.

“Uh… Better.” He mumbled. Matt looked away, avoiding his gaze. His fingers slipped away from his face and into the pockets of his coat.

“That’s good.” Foggy replied, and tapped his fingers awkwardly on the table. “Did you get in trouble?”
Matt tilted his head. “Huh?”
“You said you would get in trouble for being out so late. Did you?”
The kid smirked, a devilish little crook of his lips. “Oh yeah. This is the first time I've been able to escape since then.”
“Damn. That’s tough.”
The kid shrugged nonchalantly, like he got in trouble all the time. Foggy stared, took in the dimples in his cheeks and the crack in his glasses. He looked the type. 

“So uh,” Matt started, and Foggy glanced back up. “What’s your name?”
“Shit, I never said?” 

Matt shook his head, and Foggy sighed.

“Sorry man. I’m Franklin, but you can call me Foggy.”
“Foggy?”
“Everyone does.”
The boy smiled and Foggy rolled his eyes.

“Whatever. It’s a manly name.”
“I didn’t say anything!” He exclaimed, throwing his hands up innocently.

Foggy shook his head with a pout. “You were thinking it.”
Matt shook his head, but his mouth was twisted in a big ol’ grin. He was definitely thinking it.

“Matthew?” The cashier yelled out, and Matt angled his head with a tilt before he excused himself and shuffled slowly to the front. Foggy watched as the boy dragged out a rumpled few dollars from his pocket to give to the young lady before accepting his cup.

“Whatcha get?” Foggy asked curiously, but the boy just shook his head with a soft smile.

“It’s just hot chocolate.” He admitted with red cheeks.

“Not a coffee person, eh?”
“Little too strong for me.”
Foggy shrugged, because, honestly, fair enough. It had taken him years to form an addiction to caffeine strong enough to overpower the way most flavors made him straight up gag.

They sat in silence for a moment while Matt sipped on his hot chocolate. With each gulp, the boy pinched his lips, like he didn’t quite like the taste. Maybe the cafe used old milk.

“So, I couldn’t tell from all the blood at the time,” Foggy began, and Matt tilted his head, “but you’re a lot younger than I thought you were.”
The boy shrugged, but kept his mouth hidden behind the rim of his mug.

Foggy bounced his leg. Finally, Matt sighed. “I guess…”

“I know it’s not really my business, but…What happened?”
The boy glowered, and for a moment Foggy thought he was about to get told off, but Matt just bit his lip and turned his head away. “Got lost. Found some bad people.”
Foggy hesitated. “You… said that you thought the Daredevil was there, right?”

Matt curled his nose. Shrugged, and took another sip of his drink. “He might’ve been.”
Foggy leaned forward eagerly. “No one has heard or seen from him since that week. You may have been one of the last to see him.”

The boy shook his head. “I didn’t really…”

“Foggy?”
Foggy shot his head up and the waitress waved to him and set his drinks down on the counter.

He sighed, and looked back to Matt. 

“Sorry, I’ve gotta go. My secretary gets snippy without her coffee.” Matt was looking up at him, mouth twisted in a tiny pout.

Foggy sighed again, hesitated, then fumbled to get his wallet out of his coat pocket. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for. He smiled, and threw it down to Matt.

The boy furrowed his brow and picked up the card with thin fingers. 

“My number is on there. You ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call, okay?”
Matt gaped down at the card for a long minute. 

“Matt?”
He snapped out of his daze, looked up at Foggy through his weird glasses.

“...Sure, Foggy.”

Foggy was a weird man, Matt decided.

He hadn’t even noticed him until he heard the man place his order at the cafe’s front desk. (Not until he heard that voice, so distinct.)

Hadn’t realized Foggy had noticed him until the man was already on his way toward his table.

He was uncomfortable, having this man be able to pick him out of a crowd. To know that Matt was involved in whatever insignificant way to Daredevil. Didn’t like that Foggy seemed aware that he was younger than he liked to portray himself to anyone not involved with St Agnes.

He was...nice, though. Friendly. 

Matt didn’t know what to do with the card Foggy gave him. There was no braille, and the cardstock was rather cheap and his fingers weren’t quite able to make out the print written on the surface.

He debated throwing it out. 

He stuck it in his coat pocket instead.

Matt doesn’t know if Foggy was just really good at not pointing it out or if he was genuinely unaware that Matt was blind. Didn’t know which he preferred. Matt didn’t have any acquaintances that didn’t know.

It was refreshing, in a way. Made him feel more like the Devil and less like Matty.

And anyways, he couldn’t completely blame the man. Matt had ditched his cane at the first possible minute he could. Guess the glasses weren’t enough of a clue.

Was it because they were red?

Sneaking back into the orphanage took more willpower than he had expected.

As he slipped the window shut, a piece of him mourned.

At least he knew he could still do it. For all their eyes, the nuns of St Agnes were only so many. It’s been weeks and they have begun to ease on their protective detail, give him a bit of breathing room.

Matt smiled and collapsed on his bed. 

His fingers itched, his heart raced. The devil wanted out.

He held it back for another week and a half before the itching under his skin drove him to the mask. 

It took two nights back on the streets for Castle to catch up to him.

He was beating one of Fisk’s men in a back alley, burying his fists in a bent ribcage when he smelt the telltale stench of gunpowder and pitbull fur and cheap dollar store cologne. (Not as nice as Foggy’s cheap dollar store cologne, a small part of him noted snobbishly.)

Heard the click of a safety being pulled.

Matt ducked, dragged the thug down with him. The bullet chipped into the brick wall of the building behind them and he heard the lackey whimper in fear.

“Oh God, oh God.” He stuttered. “I don’ know! I don’ know! I don’ know where he is I swear!” Matt rolled his eyes and kicked the man in the ribs. He was telling the truth, and he was useless. Kicked again until he heard a crack, winced when he heard a few more cracks than necessary. The man stayed down.

He rolled his shoulders, straightened them and puffed his chest. Tried to make himself look bigger in any way he could. Castle was smart.

“Thought I killed you.” Castle drawled, humming out the ‘you’ so it drew like a slur.

Mat grit his teeth, open mouthed, a cheap imitation of a grin.

“You didn’t.”

The larger man scoffed, half a laugh. “No shit.”

Matt turned around, tilted his head so his right ear was facing the man and his position on the overhanging rooftop. His heart beat was strong; steady and controlled. He had three guns on him, probably a few knives as well. 

He felt the other man’s eyes peer into him. Assessing him. “Shot you in the head.” He shook his head. “You should be dead. Don’t like dealing with ghosts, Red.”
“I’m not a ghost, Castle.”
“Not yet.”
He ignored that, ignored the way his temple seized; squeezed and throbbed.

Above him, Castle settled so he was sitting on the edge of the roof, legs hanging in the air. Matt tapped his fingers against his thigh. 

They called him the man without fear. And yet, as he stood beneath Castle’s gaze, he knew it wasn’t true. But it needed to be.

Matt shook his head and made his slow way up the fire escape, ears primed for the slightest hint of aggression from the large man.

When he emerged at the top, Castle had put down his gun.

He walked over, sat down next to the man that had shot him in the skull. The pistol sat between them like the mockery of an olive branch.

“Got some type ‘a death wish?” Castle asked, voice like smoke.

“You gonna kill me?”
Castle sucked on his teeth, mulled it over like he was really thinking on it. Matt’s heart beat loud in his ears.

Thud, thud, thud.

(Bang.)

But Castle just drawls out a slow “nahh” and rubs his shaved head.

Matt lets himself relax on the rooftop, releases a breath so heavy his voice shook. Let his body rest before he continues on to the next alley, and the alley after that.

Castle is a steady force beside him, heart beat strong enough to wash out all other noise.

It would almost be nice, the companionship, if only for the underlying sizzle of barely concealed animosity between them.

His fingers tingled, stretched into fists and clenched without him telling them to. 

He needed to hit something.

“Why d’you do this, Red?”

“Do what.”
“Don’t play dumb.”
Matt sighed, loudly. Angled his head away from the murderer beside him.

“Honestly?” Matt asked, curve beginning on his lips. They were cracked, and stained red with cuts and blood.

Castle mumbled a hum beside him.

“Just need to punch something, I think.” Matt whispered, and his blood sang.

Sinner, it said.

Matt leaves the rooftops that night alive and all in one piece.

Castle hadn’t said much more than that and neither had he. But the other man looked less like he thought Matt was some dirty hypocrite and more like he was just a dirty man and Matt supposes that was better than nothing.

Better to be an angry man that shalt not kill than a righteous man with a moral aptitude.

Perhaps Castle just knows what it’s like to be angry.

So angry.

Matt is fourteen, but he feels like a century.

His bones ache and his skin burns and his eyes are dead and he just feels so tired. 

But he wakes up every morning and pastes a docile smile on his face. Greets the nuns of St Agnes and offers his hail Mary’s.

He doesn’t play with the other kids. The ones who have seen his fists avoid him with trembling hearts and nursed egos, beaten and proved lesser than long ago. The others tended to prefer to ignore the quiet blind kid.

He goes to school. Sits through his classes with the nuns like a good little boy. Gets grades good enough to praise but can’t bring himself to put in the effort to excel. 

The skin on his knuckles has woven tight, scarred a paler white than even his natural Irish tint. The sharp edge of a punishing ruler carved its name into his bone, split the broken scabs and gashes etched by the nameless criminals of the streets.

He sneaks out at night. Fishes his suit from the forgotten dumpster behind the orphanage and pulls it over skin painted black and blue. Runs through the night with horns on his head and blood on his fists.

He sleeps in the early morning like a dead man.

His dreams are sweet.

He dreams of the Devil.

Of his hands, clenched into fists. Of his hands, punching through bone and muscle and tissue. Of his mouth, wicked and dark as it curls into a smile.

He dreams that he’s the Devil, and he’s mean. He dreams he’s the Devil and he’s mean and he kills. He bloodies his fists and he smiles and it's sweet.

He wakes up shaking, skin stretched so tight over his body it’s like it's holding something back.

He wakes and is grateful he’s blind. So he doesn’t have to look himself in the mirror.