Chapter Text
5th January 2015
The door of the brothel snapped close behind him. The air outside hit like a slap, bitter and sharp, cutting straight through Anatoly Ranskahov's leather jacket. A thick mist hung low over the sidewalk, curling between trash bins and fire escapes like smoke. The distant wail of sirens melted into the hum of the city.
Anatoly dug through his pockets, searching for a smoke. When he found one, he lit it with a simple flip-top lighter, brushed brass, bearing a small Russian double-headed eagle on one side.
“Fuck this cold”, he muttered in Russian, as he ducked into a narrow side alley, a shortcut to where he’d left the cab.
His boots crunched over a mix of gravel and broken glass. The alley was barely lit, just a sickly green hue from a flickering overhead sign and the dim orange glow of a streetlamp far ahead. The flickering flame of the lighter as he played with it only deepened the shadows along the walls. He’d taken this path a dozen times but tonight would be different.
Halfway down, a figure stepped out from the shadows. Anatoly paused. The man was thin and old and hunched like a question mark, wrapped in layers of tattered fabric. A hood hid most of his head, but Anatoly could see oddly whitewashed eyes in a very old and wrinkled face as well as greasy looking snow-white hair.
“Don’t fight me,” the man rasped with a voice that hadn’t been used in a long time, “and don’t speak.”
The man slowly stepped closer. In fact, he didn't look like moving fast was an option for him, since he had to balance his weight on shaky legs after every step. Anatoly felt a cold rush go down his spine but refused to move. He wasn’t going to show fear because of an old codger. However mentally, he got ready to strike. As the old man reached him, he lifted his hand in a calm manner and placed it on Anatoly's chest. The man zipped Anatoly's jacket open and shoved it off his shoulders letting it hang around his elbows. Suddenly he found himself shoved backward into the brick wall with shocking strength. The lighter dropped to the ground. Anatoly gasped but when he tried to rise his fists, his arms wouldn’t obey.
“What the fuck is this?!” he tried to shout, but nothing came out.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t strike out. His eyes widened in fear as his body betrayed him. The old man pressed closer, now merely an inch away. He stank of something rotten and foul, of something dead left to soak in dirty water. Every instinct in Anatoly’s body screamed danger but he just couldn’t move nor yell. To escape the reeking breath, Anatoly instinctively tilted his head back, exposing his throat. The man sighed like he’d just sunk into a warm bath.
“Ah,” he whispered, his accent like a heavy blanked on every word. “Such a fine thing. So full of life. Finally. After such a long time.”
His voice was slow, each word carved out with careful precision, like a man who’d learned English from dusty books rather than speech. The accent was unmistakably Eastern European, something Slavic, but old, rooted deep in centuries. His consonants were clipped, vowels drawn out with a ghost of reverence, or disdain. Every syllable hung heavy in the air.
Then, without warning, the man’s hand slid between Anatoly’s legs, crude, possessive, and began to rub. Anatoly’s mind recoiled, slamming against the inside of his skull but his body… his body stayed frozen and obedient.
The old man leaned in, his lips grazing Anatoly’s ear: “Enjoy.”
Suddenly heat, sharp and unnatural, rose in him as if dragged up by invisible hooks. His body betrayed him with brutal efficiency, responding not to desire, but to command. A sick, humming pleasure coursed through him, vile in its intensity, cruel in its speed. His skin prickled in revulsion even as the sensation swelled. Horror clawed at Anatoly’s insides. His pulse thudded loud in his ears, rage, shame, disgust, a howl of resistance trapped in a body that would not move.
The old man gave a soft, pleased hum. “You humans are so simple. I can smell your excitement.”
Anatoly bit down hard, jaw clenched to the point of pain. He could feel the man’s sour breath against the hollow of his throat, each exhale turning his skin to ice. His hands shook at his sides, fingers twitching uselessly. He wanted to shove the monster away, to tear at him, to scream but his muscles ignored him, locked in place by something stronger. His breath hitched, sharp and ragged, as the forced pleasure built higher, like poison laced with honey, searing through his veins, dragging him to the brink. All of a sudden, he could feel...teeth. Not the dull scrape of something human, but sharp points pressing slow and deliberate against his neck until they pierced skin.
Pain bloomed through his neck, white-hot and pulsing. His eyes rolled back. He could feel the blood being pulled from him, every heartbeat weaker than the last. His knees gave out, but the man caught him, gently, almost reverently, lowering him to the alley floor as if laying down a lover but never releasing the grip of his teeth in his neck.
Anatoly was shaking now and cold beyond anything he ever felt before. His veins felt hollow, body hollow. He didn’t understand what was happening. Couldn’t think through the numbness. He was going to die. He knew it.
Abruptly, there were no more teeth. For a second he felt like his throat was being caressed by gentle lips. Anatoly forced his eyes open, only then realizing he’d closed them, and blinked through his unfocused vision. The figure step away from him but there was no old man.
In his place stood someone younger. An adult of undefinable age, tall and lean. His back was turned to Anatoly as he was standing in front of an old dark window where he appeared to admire his reflection. He adjusted his coat, smoothing down the fabric with delicate fingers. He ran one hand through his hair, now completely black. He even bent closer to check for wrinkles. Then he turned. Without looking back, he walked down the alley while he whistled a cheerful tune.
Anatoly was left crumpled on the ground, barely breathing, vision swimming. The cold closed in around him, mixing with the blood loss until time lost all meaning.
Then, a sound. His phone causing a vibration against his thigh. With immense effort, he dug into his pocket struggling with the jacket still trapping his arms. His fingers, completely stiff, dropped the phone onto the cobbles close to his face. He managed to hit the button.
“Anatoly?” came his brother’s voice, loud and clipped with annoyance. “Get out of that whorehouse. You need to make sure you catch up with Fisk when he leaves that noble-ass restaurant. Otherwise, we'll have to track him down again. I want this mess fixed before Boris arrives!”
Anatoly tried to speak but nothing came out.
Vladimir repeated, voice more insistent. “Anatoly? What the fuck is this? Did she suck the words outta you?"
Anatoly opened his mouth, tried to force out a word but the effort remained futile. Fear gripped him tighter than the cold now. He couldn’t ask for help, couldn’t even scream.
He broke the call and fumbled the camera open with stiff fingers. Tilting the phone up from the ground, he snapped a picture and hit send.
—
Vladimir stood alone in his office, scowling at the screen.
“That girl must have been good,” he muttered.
The phone buzzed again. He opened the photo he just received and froze. Vladimir’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed his jacket and a gun. Something was wrong. The photo was taken from the ground, looking up.
—
Vladimir brought the cab to a hard stop behind the brothel, tires shrieking against cold pavement. Another cab of the same kind as his own sat nearby, it was the driver he was looking for.
He rounded the corner while smoothly pulling the gun. The alley was almost too narrow for three men to walk shoulder by shoulder, a crack between buildings, hemmed in by rusted fire escapes and high, dripping walls. The air smelled of week-old rubbish bins and piss. Vladimirs breath was visible as white smoke. Up ahead, the glow of the neon green sign buzzed above a boarded-up storefront. It used to be Alex’s Shop, but the ‘L’ had fallen off years ago, and now it was Axe's Shop. That sign was partially shown in the photo he received from his brother. It was how he knew, where he needed to go.
Vladimir crept forward, back to the wall, footsteps slow and deliberate. He listened carefully into the night. New York was a loud city. 10pm on a random Monday night was no exception. Except here… here it was oddly muffled. Like the alley was holding its breath.
He slid past a rank trash bin and crouched behind it. Glancing around the stinky bin he saw a figure laying on the ground. Crumpled near the alley wall like a dropped doll, limbs twisted slightly and completely still. Vladimir looked around one more time before he left his hideout. Gun ready, should any suicidal idiot, masked or not, try to jump on him. The alley remained silent without a threat or movement. Just his brother, laying on his side, skin bone-pale. His jacket was pulled from his shoulders and nestled around his elbows. Like he started to take it off but stopped halfway through the motion. One hand hung down from the trapped elbow, crooked fingers mere inches away from where his phone had slipped from his numb grasp. Vladimir dropped to his knees. Cold soaked through his pants instantly, but he barely felt it. He grabbed Anatoly’s shoulder, rolled him onto his back as far as his tangled arms would allow.
“Brother?” he whispered.
No answer. Vladimir leaned closer. Anatoly’s face didn’t look right, gray, hollow at the temples, lips tinged blue. Vladimir’s hands swept over him, searching for wounds, but came up empty. There was no bullet wound, no stab wound, no broken bones, no blood. He couldn't even see bruises except from the one on his forehead that was a souvenir from the masked coward.
“What is this? Are you drunk?” he demanded, snatching Anatoly’s phone from the ground and slipping it into his pocket before giving him a sharp shake.
A ragged cough escaped Anatoly’s throat.
“There you are,” Vladimir muttered, voice tight as he grabbed his brother’s shirt with one hand while tapping his cheek with the other. “Talk to me. Come on.”
Anatoly’s eyes cracked open like rusted hinges. No light in them, just a flicker of confusion. He made a sound deep in his throat, wet and broken, like a man drowning on dry land. His hand shifted, trembling as it found Vladimir’s leg. Even with is armes tangled, he reached out, needing that touch, that anchor. Vladimir stared down at the familiar crooked, tattooed fingers. This wasn’t a grab for help. It was a silent goodbye. Vladimir felt his throat tighten and pulled his hand from Anatoly’s face. His expression didn’t change. If he let it, something might break. Instead, he reached for his phone in a single, controlled motion. His fingers didn’t shake as he dialed. The line rang almost instantly.
“911. Do you need police, fire, or medical?
—
The ambulance took forever. Vladimir had pulled Anatoly’s jacket back over his shoulders and zipped it shut. Then he shrugged off his own and spread it over the still figure. Still, it wasn’t enough. Snow would come soon. If whatever had happened didn’t kill his brother, the cold damn well would. Vladimir knelt by Anatoly’s head, cradling it in one hand to keep it off the cold ground. His other hand rested against Anatoly’s chest, fingers clenched around his wrist, checking for a pulse. It was there, weak, faint, and hesitant. Maybe it was skipping or maybe Vladimir’s own frozen fingers were too numb to be sure. He couldn’t tell. That uncertainty gnawed at him.
“Hang in there, Братишка,” he whispered. “Hang in there.”
The alley was silent but for their breathing, one shallow, one tight and controlled. Then, at last, the distant sound of a siren. It grew louder, closer, echoing off the brick walls until red and blue lights painted the alley in stuttering flashes. The ambulance screeched to a halt just around the corner.
“In here!” Vladimir shouted in English.
Two paramedics appeared seconds later, turning into the alley with fast, practiced steps, gear bags in hand.
“What happened?” one of them asked as they dropped to their knees beside Anatoly.
“I don’t know,” Vladimir replied, voice low but steady. “I found him like this.”
“How long ago?”
Vladimir thought back to the photo on his phone. The time stamp. How long had it taken him to get here?
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Maybe longer.”
The medic nodded sharply, already at work.
“Sir, can you hear me?” he called, checking for vitals, peeling back an eyelid, feeling along the side of Anatoly’s neck.
Anatoly didn’t respond.
They moved fast, deliberate, focused. No wasted motion. Every touch meant something. One was already fitting an oxygen mask, pushing Vladimir aside, who was still cradling his brother’s head.
“Sir, please step back.”
The other began unzipping the jacket Vladimir had carefully closed.
“They’re going to help you now, брат,” Vladimir whispered in Russian.
One of the medics looked up, catching his eye.
“Do you know this man?”
Vladimir nodded. “He’s my brother.”
The other medic, the one who had pushed him back, looked up as well, his expression softening.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and motioned for Vladimir to come closer again. “What’s his name?”
“A...lexei.”
The medic tried to elicit a response, calling the name again, the wrong name. When Vladimir knelt back down, his knee pressed against something small and hard. He picked it up, it was the lighter.
“Okay,” one of the medics said, “we’re taking him to the hospital. He’s showing signs of severe blood loss. Since there’s no visible bleeding, the source is likely internal. We’ll call ahead so they can prep for an emergency CT scan. Do you want to ride with us?”
Vladimir pocketed the lighter and nodded.
—
Daredevil dropped from the rooftop, landing with barely a sound in the passage below. The city was quiet here, tucked between galleries and shuttered cafés. He was used to following noise, screams, gunshots, the chaos of a fight. But today, it was something else that pulled him in. Silence. New York was never silent. But here, right here, right now, it was. And the nothingness was loud. No heartbeat, no breathing, just stillness. Deep and unnatural. He moved slowly, each step deliberate, head tilted slightly as the narrow sidestreet unfolded for him in subtle vibrations and muted scent. Then he stopped. Something was there. A body, female, mid-thirties. She wore perfume, sharp and citrusy. Cheap, but applied with restraint. Dressed for work. There was something familiar in the scent that clung to her clothes, varnish, old wood, paper, art. Daredevil crouched beside her. His gloved hand hovered just above her form. Her body was cool, not yet frozen, but too cold, too fast. The warmth had bled away unnaturally.
And something was wrong. There was no single drop of blood on her or around her. But he could smell it, faintly, like it had been here and then vanished. Scrubbed from the air. Blood had weight and heat. It had a voice, copper singing in his nose and skull. Here, there was only absence. Her chest lay still. Her muscles slack. No signs of resistance or tension or fear on the contrary...she showed a slight smile. He brushed her wrist. No pulse, no bruises, no broken capillaries, no ligature marks. This women did not die in fear. No scent of adrenaline or exertion. She hadn’t run nor screamed. It was as if her life had been lifted from her, gently and completely. Her body was untouched but empty. Hollow. As if something had reached inside and pulled out what made her alive, then left the rest behind. Daredevil tilted his head, frowning. This wasn’t a robbery nor a crime of passion. He rose slowly, breath held against the stillness. Somewhere far off, a train rumbled across a bridge, iron grating against steel. But here, in this alley, the world held its breath. Whoever had done this had not left a trace.
—
They wheeled Anatoly away the second the gurney burst through the ER doors, the paramedics rattling off clipped sentences in rapid-fire medical terms that meant nothing to Vladimir. Words flew between the medics as they rushed Anatoly down the corridor.
“BP dropping, no visible trauma, possible hypovolemia. Hypothermia setting in.”
None of it made sense to Vladimir. The words hit him like a language he wanted to understand but didn’t, sharp and cold, syllables snapping past his ears too fast to catch. BP dropping. Blood pressure? Probably meant something was going very wrong. Maybe already had. But the rest? Hypo-what? He wanted to ask but new this wasn't the time or place to do so. They were speaking around him, over him but not to him. Like he wasn’t there. Like he was just some tag-along. But that body on the gurney wasn’t just some patient. That was Anatoly. That was his brother. There was just one thing he really wanted to know. Was he going to live?
“Sir, please. Let us work.” one male nurse said firmly
He trailed behind them, just far enough not to be ordered back but close enough to see Anatoly’s hand slide off the gurney rail, limp and pale. Vladimirs own hand twitched. He watched doors slam shut between them and took a step back and then another. Until he hit the wall and leaned there, trying to hold himself upright as his heart pounded inside his chest.
He hovered near the hallway, never still for long. His boots clicked too loudly on the sterile floor, so he kept shifting his weight, trying to muffle the sound. He paced ten steps one way, then doubled back, then stood perfectly still, only to move again seconds later. He couldn’t stay still. Stillness felt like surrender.
Every time a nurse or orderly rounded the corner, he turned his back to them. Faced the wall. Pretended to read a sign. Studied a vending machine he had no intention of using. His fingers kept going to his phone, unlocking it, locking it again. The screen glowed briefly, highlighting the fine tremor in his hands. He couldn’t focus long enough to read the only message in his inbox. Everything blurred. He was waiting for someone to come out and tell him whether his brother was still alive and at the same time, he was bracing for someone else to walk in and recognize him.
It wasn’t only the hospital that unnerved him. It was what it represented. Public space with cameras and witnesses and just too many eyes. Cops moved through hospitals all the time, checking up on arrests, standing guard over patients in cuffs, talking to victims. If someone recognized his face or Alexei’s, then that was it.
So, he kept his head low and shoulders slightly hunched. Eyes flicking back and forth. He hated this helplessness and the waiting, the not knowing. Asking for answers would draw attention to him. It would make people look and pay attention to him. The scar across his eye was unmistakable, a feature easily recognized. So, all he had was silence, and the roaring in his ears that filled it.
Then chaos erupted down the corridor. A family rushed in, four kids, noisy and scared, two breathless parents trying to herd them and a limp elderly man being pushed in a wheelchair by the dad. The children’s voices were shrill, overlapping, panicked. The mother was crying, snapping at the nurse for information she wasn’t getting fast enough. The grandfather’s head lolled to one side, and one of the boys started screaming.
The hallway turned into a wall of noise and confusion. Nurses shouted instructions, phones rang, footsteps slammed against tile. Vladimir pressed himself back against the wall as the crowd spilled forward, blocking the corridor. He was drowning in it, in noise, in fear, in the overwhelming stench of antiseptic and desperation.
And right into that storm, they wheeled Anatoly back out. His face was pale, sunken. He looked worse than before.
Vladimir rushed toward them. “What is it? Can you fix it?”
One of the nurses glanced at him, her voice clipped. “There’s nothing to fix.”
He blinked. “What?”
“There’s nothing, no internal bleeding and we need the scanner urgently for another patient.”
“But he’s dying!” Vladimir shouted, loud enough to silence some of the wailing behind him.
A second nurse approached. Her name tag read Claire and she had some severe bruising on her face that was poorly covered with make-up.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, glancing between Anatoly, Vladimir and the other nurse.
“This patient was brought in for suspected internal bleeding,” the first nurse explained, already stepping away. “But there’s nothing. Claire, would you mind taking over? I have to go.”
She disappeared into the shouting crowd.
Claire grabbed the bed handles and began pushing it into a narrow exam room. “What’s his name?”
This time, Vladimir didn’t hesitate. “Alexei,” he said. “He’s my brother. He’s all I have.”
She gave him a critical look that made his skin itch but nodded and started working fast, checking Anatoly over with clinical precision while firing questions at Vladimir. The harsh Russian accent stirred unpleasant memories in Claire and made here bruises ache. Yet she’d seen neither of the men before her at the taxi garage when she was beaten up and would treat the man on the bed like any other patient.
“Does he use drugs?”
"Not the hard ones."
“Any medical history?”
"No."
“Health issues in the family?”
"Not that I know of."
Vladimir answered the best he could. He explained how he found him and what he could remember from the paramedics while Claire kept examining him. Her voice stayed calm but her hands moved quicker, her steps sharper, as the realization set in, time was slipping away. She hesitated briefly when her fingers brushed over the pale, pitted scars on his inner forearm but she moved on without a word only to pause with her fingertips on Anatoly’s wrist.
“There’s definite blood loss,” she said finally. “A lot of it. I agree with the paramedics, it’s severe. But no trauma, no bleeding site…” She shook her head. “This isn’t by the book, but we’re running out of time. I’m going to give him blood.”
She drew a sample to check for the right blood type and disappeared through the door. Vladimir stayed behind, alone with Anatoly in the dim room. Anatoly lay still beneath the hospital blanket, skin pale and drawn tight over sharp bones. His chest rose in slow, shallow breaths, each one a quiet struggle. An IV pierced the back of his hand, the line trembling slightly with each movement. Even in rest, he looked exhausted, his body was still fighting to stay alive. Vladimir couldn’t sit. His body wouldn’t let him settle. Instead, he stood at Anatoly’s bedside, fists clenched at his sides, then unclenched, then clenched again. The hospital air felt thick and artificial, like it had been recycled too many times.
He glanced at the machines, trying to decode their blinking lights and jagged lines. Trying to tell if they meant anything good. They didn’t. Or maybe they did. He didn’t know. He wasn’t a doctor, he was just the brother who showed up too late.
He whispered things, low and broken in Russian. Mainly crude jokes and insults not directed to anyone specific, until his voice cracked. Then silence again, except for the machines. And Anatoly’s shallow, uncertain breaths.
Vladimir began pacing again like he did in the hallway, five steps forward, five steps back. He stopped to look out the window, though it only showed the side of another building. No sky or stars, just brick and glass and the distorted reflection of a man trying to hold himself together.
He didn't check the time. He didn’t want to know how long it had been. Time felt like the enemy in here, too fast to save but so slow that it turned the waiting into suffering. Waiting and hoping that the beeping didn’t stop.
Claire returned with a unit of blood and connected it quickly. The color began to return to Anatoly’s face. His breathing evened out. The change was small, but it was there, he was moving away from the edge of death, inch by inch.
Claire exhaled slowly. “It’s working.”
Vladimir nodded. “Why was he bleeding?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. We’re going to have to wait for him to tell us what happened. In the meantime, we will do our best to keep him stable.”
She glanced at the clock, then at Vladimir.
“It’s past visiting hours,” she said. “But you can stay. Just don't get into anyone’s way”
He didn’t thank her. He just lowered himself into the chair beside the bed. As soon as Clarie left the room he reached for Anatoly’s cold hand.