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His knuckles hurt. The overwhelming copper tang of blood invaded his senses so strongly that it was impossible to ignore. They were certainly bleeding, he was sure.
The bruises and blood hurt, but the void that resided where his heart once did was a lot worse. The emptiness was a lot worse.
"Matt, you've gotta stop this; you're gonna end up dead!"
He'd been distracted for just a moment, but it'd been enough to change the entire trajectory of his life.
Matt hated himself in that second. This was nothing new, of course; Matt Murdock was never his own biggest fan. But never had he experienced such unadulterated rage towards anyone—or anything like this—before.
And there would never be another before; he'd made sure of that.
"Goddammit Matthew, are you even listening to me?!"
The film of muted buzzing that had wrapped itself securely around him, slowly choking him, seemed to loosen its grip for a minute. Matt deliberately clenched his left hand into a fist; it definitely hurt—the raw skin stretching painfully, sending sharp pangs shooting mildly up his arm. He could feel his helmet pressing into the back of his calf as he uncrossed his ankles. He was on his couch. Back in his apartment.
"Foggy?" he enquired brokenly into the surrounding darkness, his voice scratching his windpipe. It felt so very foreign—speaking. Almost like something he hadn't done in weeks.
He felt Foggy's demeanour soften as his best friend's wounded voice reached him. "What—what're you doing here?"
"This has gotta stop, buddy." came Foggy's soft but stern reply. It wasn't a suggestion, but a statement. The joint symphony of heartbeats and footsteps indicated his best friend was moving towards him—closer, but with measured steps.
The void in Matt's chest only seemed to grow with each passing day, almost drowning him in its depths. In an attempt to fight the darkness pulling at his feet, he had sought to fix the irreparable damage he had done by attempting repayment in blood and bruises, by starving himself of peace, sustenance, and sleep. By carving himself inside out to rectify the irredeemable.
He'd stretched himself thin in the process, to put it kindly. Going after every petty robber that crossed his path and putting all that he had into bringing down the new branches of the Irish crime syndicate that had recently popped up in and around Hell's Kitchen.
It was far from what those who cared for him—at least the ones that were left—had wanted for him, but it didn't matter now. None of that mattered. The void was getting even bigger.
"She wouldn't have wanted you to go on like this." Although the words left Foggy's lips in a whisper, they pierced through Matt's skin with the impact of a thousand knives, embedding themselves between his ribs—a throbbing pain twisting in its place.
The tone of finality, along with the implications of it being something from the past, licked up his ribs like the hottest flames.
It was his fault.
If he'd been quicker, acted a little faster, you'd still be here. You would be the one reprimanding him for not taking care of himself.You would have gently run your fingers through his hair as you scolded him. Afterwards,you would have held him close and pressed kisses to the expanse of his forehead, the button of his nose, and the crook of his neck, as he looked on with adoration, as you told him how much he meant to you. How you loved him.
But you were gone, and the void almost had him now.
"I'm the reason she isn't here now, Foggy." Matt let out dejectedly, his voice quivering. His eyes were empty now as the tears that filled them to the brim—but stubbornly refused to fall—clouded his soul.
"I can't stop seeing it. Every time I close my eyes, it's like I'm right back there, reliving it over and over again. Losing her over and over again."
The past could not be changed, and the present, which led to a future devoid of you, was quickly cementing itself as an event inevitable in Matt's mind.
Matt Murdock's world had been swallowed whole by the void, his heart lost in its jagged crevices.