Chapter Text
As Blindspot sits atop a building in Chinatown, he thinks about Daredevil, and it leaves a strange grimace on his face. The sky is clear and the weather is perfect for going out, a slight chill that lets him know he won't get too sweaty if he has to fight anyone, but Sam just can't bring himself to be able to enjoy it.
It's not that he's mad at Daredevil, at Matt. He's just—well, he doesn't know, really. What Sam does know is that he'll always pick up the phone whenever Matt calls, for whatever reason, and he supposes that means he can't be too mad.
He just seems to get angry a lot, often for no particular reason. He gets angry, and then he feels bad about that anger, but he just can't help it. He can't seem to help a lot of things. He hates that.
He hates that? Wow. He just proved his own point.
Sometimes he thinks becoming Blindspot and meeting Daredevil is the reason for this all, the big mistake he made. He thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he hadn't decided to make the suit and put it on, he wouldn't be feeling this way. And yet, he knows that if he could go back and redo it, he would still choose to be Blindspot and to know Daredevil. He would still want to be Sam and meet Matt.
Even though he would never say this out loud, he misses what he and Matt had. Before Muse, before China. He misses how it was when Matt would train him, and when he broke his arm and he was Matt's assistant at the D.A.'s office, and when Matt would praise him for something he did and it just felt so good. The part of him that wanted to make Matt proud never really left him. It aches inside him, late at night when he's cold and alone.
When he thinks about Matt, Sam thinks about himself, too. He guesses his anger is really just grief, in a strange way. He misses Matt, and he misses who he was before everything went to shit. He wants to go back, but he knows it would't work. He's not the same Sam he used to be, he's not even the same Blindspot. Isn't that horrible? To want something so badly but know even if you got it, it wouldn't be the same. It's the same puzzle, but he's a different piece now.
Sam breathes in deeply, the night air chilling his lungs. He sighs, getting up to go to the shrine. He needs a distraction.
On nights like these, nights where he has so many thoughts and feelings it's as if he may burst, when the energy is in his bones is like electricity under his skin, he looks past the mundane stuff. He'll get to that later, he thinks. He reads through the notes, looking for something he knows will mean a fight. He needs a real distraction, the adrenaline coursing through him. He needs the focus, the type where thinking about anything else but the now would mean blood.
He reads through all the notes with care. He only has a few left when he reads about a couple of kids from out of Chinatown coming in and harassing the owner of a small shop every night. They steal, they trash, they make fun and then they leave, but they have weapons, and what is a 78-year-old woman going to do about that? "Call the cops" is usually the go-to, but a lot of people here aren't too fond of the men in blue.
Bingo, Sam thinks as he puts the card away for safekeeping.
He'll wait in the shadows until the kids come around. He'll stay visible for a bit, dragging the fight on so it doesn't get over too quickly. Then he'll turn invisible, relishing in the way their eyes go frantic when he vanishes from right in front of them but still manages to get hits down on them.
It's an old story he's done a dozen times before. It's simple, but it's a distraction. Plus, it benefits the community, so it all works out in the end.
He should know by now that nothing seems to work out the way he wants.
He sits on the roof across the street from the shop for over an hour. He hates wasting his time, but he keeps thinking that the second he leaves will be the second the kids'll come to harass the shop owner. It's always five more minutes, then I'll leave, and then the five stretches to 10, and then to 20, and there's still nothing out of the ordinary. It's silly, he thinks.
He's finally, finally ready to get going when he hears a yelp from the alley next to him. A young lady begs her attackers to leave her alone, and Sam can't just ignore that. He looks down, and it's just two guys backing a random lady into the wall.
The guys aren't very muscular, but they're not skinny either. They're maybe a bit smaller than Sam, but they don't look incredibly inexperienced. The one to the right is wearing a green shirt and is a bit taller than the one to the left, who's wearing a brown shirt. They both have ski masks on, which seems like overkill when they're just doing a simple mugging. Neither of them even have guns.
The woman is scared, though. She's small, wearing heels that look horrible to run in, and she takes two steps back whenever the guys take one step forward.
Sam jumps down, landing with his back to the woman and his face to the two guys. He's acting as a sort of human shield, putting space between the attackers and the- the attackees? Ah, whatever.
The shorter one in brown swings at him, a sloppy movement that Sam easily dodges. Is this guy even trying?
"Really, man?" Sam says. He doesn't even think of making himself invisible, thinking that these two guys'll be an easy take-out. Isn't hubris always there when you least expect it?
Right as he sees the guy in brown smirk, he feels something prick his neck. A needle? But where-
The woman. Of course, it's the woman.
She hits the plunger before he can get it out, and Sam feels a cold liquid being injected into him. For a moment, nothing happens, and he thinks they got a dud. Then, he starts feeling sluggish. His limbs feel like they're 100 pounds too heavy, and his thoughts slow to syrup in his brain. He fights to keep his eyes open and his legs stable.
One of them laughs as Sam wobbles and tries to take a step. It's a futile movement and he ends up falling forward, being caught by his armpits. Whoever has him pats him on the back, What the fuck? and he doesn't have enough energy to push himself off or make a snarky comment. He just lets himself be thrown over the guy's shoulder, his stomach and ribs being pressed into a strange position. He can't even fight the black that swarms his vision. He loses consciousness without protest.
When Sam wakes up, every bone in his body aches.
He's laid on the cold hard ground of some random warehouse, three people standing around in front of him. There's a window high up on one of the walls, and the moon is still high in the sky.
One of the people in front of Sam, the taller guy with the green shirt he saw earlier, is on the phone. It takes Sam a bit too long to realize it's his phone. His heart rate picks up, panic is instilled deep within him, and he finally realizes how shit of a situation he's in.
His hands are bound together with barbed wire, he finds out when he tries to move them. It digs into the skin of his wrists and a sound escapes his mouth. He immediately panics. He should be able to keep quiet, it's just a bit of barbed wire. Why did he make such a loud noise? Why couldn't he stop himself? Why does it seem like everything he feels is amplified to such an extreme degree? What the fuck was he drugged with?
The sound was enough to alert the captors of his consciousness. The man on the phone, who Sam begins to refer to in his head as just "Green", walks over to Sam.
"Seems your little friend here is finally awake!" Green says, way too cheerily. Wait, "friend"? Sam would've slapped himself in the face if he could. Face ID is kind of a lousy password alternative if you've been tied up, drugged, and kidnapped.
Sam is taken out of his thoughts when Green yanks him up by his hair. Another grunt escapes from Sam's mouth, and he knows Matt could probably hear that, and he feels so guilty. He should be better than this. He is better than this.
Matt says something over the phone, and Sam can't make out the words but he can hear the concern in Matt's voice. It's the tone of voice Matt has when he's trying not to sound worried, one that you wouldn't be able to pick up on unless you knew him. Sam feels pathetic. He should be better than this.
"M' sorry, th' drugged m-" Sam manages to slur out, right before Green's knee collides with his nose, and blood starts pouring out all over his face. He's let go and his limp body hits the ground. He doesn't try to get back up, he can't. It feels like every single inch of his body is bruised, and he's so scared. The type of scared that leaves you frozen.
"Put a gag in his mouth, will ya? And while you're at it, blindfold him and tie his legs up too. I don't want any funny business until the main event gets here," Green says, and Sam's terrified. He feels like a little kid, completely helpless. His eyes heat up, tears gathering. Humiliating.
Sam doesn't want Matt to get hurt. He doesn't want to be used as some pawn to lure Matt in, take advantage of him, reveal his identity and get him arrested. Especially since it'd all be Sam's fault. He acted cocky, underestimated the wrong people, and now Matt's in danger. God, he hates himself.
Someone else walks over to him, the woman from the alley, now in combat boots, jeans, and a t-shirt. When she puts the blindfold on him he tries to fight it off. It ends up just being the slight shake of his head and a mumble. The woman laughs at him. A cloth is shoved in Sam's mouth and tied around his head.
He hates it, he hates all of it. He hates the fabric in his mouth and he hates how he doesn't even know if it's clean or not. He hates how the darkness reminds him of when he was blind, and he hates how all of it makes him think of Muse, and his studio, and the things he saw, and his eyes being poked out, and-
As the woman moves to tie his legs up, Sam starts hyperventilating. He feels like he could throw up, or maybe have a heart attack, and when he feels something on his ankle, he kicks. It's not even a real kick, more of an instinctual jerk of the leg, a last resort of the body.
"This fucker just- he just fucking kicked me!" she yelps, her voice high-pitched with anger. "You piece of shit, you're gonna regret that. I was waiting for an excuse to teach you a lesson."
And she means it. She kicks Sam in the gut, her boot colliding into his body with a sickening sound. And she keeps kicking. She kicks him in the legs, the chest, the arms. She kicks again, and again, and again, and Sam is reduced to a sobbing mess, his begs unintelligible through the gag in his mouth.
When she's finally done, she wraps the barbed wire around Sam's ankles, and this time he doesn't move an inch. Whatever drug he has in his system has taken away all his anger and defiance and replaced it with helplessness, making him unable to do anything but lay there, shake, and cry. When he fades back into unconsciousness, it comes as a mercy.