Work Text:
Matt's heart was hammering in his chest. He'd confronted his own death, before, sure, but this time — this time it's different. This time will be the end in a way it never had been in the past. Somewhere along the way, everything had changed. Somewhere along the way, he'd lost his faith, and had lost himself as a result.
Thinking about it all, now, feels like a cosmic joke. Questioning his loss of faith when he is about to confront the truths of the universe feels like taking the approach of Pascal's wager — not the bone deep certainty he'd known all his life, until…. Until.
It was not even a sudden thing, no one moment that changed it all. Part of him feels like he could just as easily stumble back into it, not that he'll be stumbling anywhere anymore — not when he's trapped under crumbling rubble in a long-abandoned subway station, not when his left arm is pinned under one boulder and a beam is resting across his thighs, not quite crushing but not something he can shift, weak as he is. From blood loss, maybe, though he's not sure if he's bled quite that much yet. From exhaustion, certainly. From an unyielding world-weariness that started suffocating him, somewhere along the way, that finally caught up to him in the wreckage of this place.
He knows that he can't make Pascal's wager. If the God he believed in all his life was real, that wouldn't be enough. Not in this moment. He can't choose to believe because he's scared of the alternative — it would be fabricated salvation, something that wouldn't truly come to fruition. It won't matter, anyway. Either way, there's either nothing or he's heading down. Up was never an option for him, not really, and he's always known that. But he'd believed anyway, believed in that paradise for others if not for himself.
He coughs, and it feels wet. His mind whirs for a moment, trying to remember how he got here. They were fighting, chasing, what? It was… Hmm.
He can't quite remember. That's not good. But he already knew it wasn't good. Already knew this was the end. He tries harder to remember, because he doesn't want to think about God anymore.
He, Frank, and the kid — Spider-Man. Definitely young, late teens Matt would guess, though he rankles at being called kid. It was an accidental team-up, actually. They were chasing separate leads and converged. Spider-Man was the one who figured it out, who put the pieces together. He'll go far, Matt is sure.
Matt should have known that if Spider-Man was involved, this wasn't a case for him. He didn't figure that out until they all got separated in the subway system, after Spidey had explained that the thugs were using alien weapons. Something he'd encountered years ago, apparently, and dealt with. Matt remembers it vaguely, early reports of Spider-Man pre-Blip. Way back when Spidey was first earning his stripes — and further proof that the kid is young, actually, because he mentioned that he missed homecoming because of it. Something about a downed Stark or Avengers aircraft and damage to Coney Island's stretch of beach. Apparently, all the tech hadn't been as wiped out as they thought back then, and a few pieces made it off the black market and into the streets recently.
Matt is pretty sure the guy who fired the weapon at him in the station died instantly, crushed under the rubble. He's not positive, though, because he was unconscious for a bit, and the heartbeat was gone when he came to. Maybe the guy lingered and suffered for a while. Matt hopes not. Clearly, it was just a kid in over their head. Well, not a kid. The man was in his 20s, at least. But with years of vigilantism and the horrors of his youth and his time as a lawyer in this city, well, most people felt like kids, to Matt. Anyone in their 20s is still young, for all they don't want to hear it or believe it. The guy was young and dumb, and now he's gone, and Matt wants to rage at the universe for ripping away his certainty that there could be more waiting for the guy.
He thinks it started with the aliens, and it got worse with the Blip. How could there be a God like the one he believed in, when there were these other, strange beings? And then, everyone came back, and that should have felt like a miracle from God — but it was just a power humans hadn't quite understood before. Still didn't, and the Avengers — what was left of them — disclosed very little. Only enough to know it had not truly been an act of God.
But it wasn't just seeing how big the universe was that did it. It was seeing how bleak it could be, too. It was in the dark, on rooftops, listening to his city suffer. It was as the world started to fight each other, post-Blip, when people started to kill each other for want of some intangible sense of power or otherness or freedom that could apparently only be obtained through violence. It was amid a genocide, as if the world hadn't had enough of that, as if any people deserved to be slaughtered so en masse for no real reason. It was because, as that stone-etched message lingering from the horrors of the past said, if there is a god, he will have to beg for Matt's forgiveness.
Easier to not believe than to believe in the version of his God that allowed all of this.
But what was Matt, if not a believer? He'd never been perfect, could never be, but as he lies under that rubble, sure that the end is here, he wonders again. Maybe he does still believe, and he's just no longer capable of worshiping. Does that make it worse? Is that a deeper loss of faith?
He's not sure. He can't think.
He's dying, and he can't be mad at Frank and Spidey for leaving him here. Oh, he's sure they know. Spidey, at least, probably heard the cave-in. He can't hear them. For all that his hearing can stretch across the city, a good knock to the head has always been enough to shrink that ability. He can hear blood dripping out of a nearby corpse, can hear the dust settling on the rubble, but that's all. No sound from further reaches him.
It's lonely, lying here, knowing it's the end. Knowing there's nothing for him after this. It's frustrating, too, because he really isn't even that injured. This is something he could survive, if only he could get out. His arm is probably broken, and there's rebar stabbing his thigh, but it didn't hit anything vital, he's sure. He's just…. trapped. And dying, slowly, bleeding out, because he's alone and can't get out.
He feels more alone than he ever has. Every other time he confronted death, he felt the presence of God with him. This time, it's not here. He wonders if that's proof that there is a God, and that he has been abandoned for straying from the path, or if he was just experiencing a delirium all the other times.
Maybe.
He tries again, one last time. Tries to move, to get out from the rubble pinning him down, to free himself. It doesn't work, of course. Hadn't worked any of the other times he tried, either.
It's been hours. If they were coming back, they would have been here by now. He gives up, submits to the ether beckoning him, fades into black wondering if he'll wake up again, still trapped and alone, or if oblivion will take him.
"Mr. Castle, I'm gonna get you out, don't worry!" Peter is panicking, a little bit. They'd gotten separated from Daredevil — who Peter is sure is his old lawyer, Mr.Murdock, even if he can't figure out how — while chasing the guys with Toome's weapons. At some point, the tunnels had rumbled and collapsed. Peter dove away, narrowly avoiding some of the worst hits thanks to his spidey sense, but he did still get knocked in the head. He wasn't sure how long he'd been down — truthfully, he doesn't eat enough anymore. Not since…. Since. That usually means he doesn't heal as fast. But he can hear Mr. Castle under the rubble, still alive.
It takes Peter back, all those years ago, stuck under the warehouse, panicking. He can't just lift the rubble off this time, though. He has to be careful, or the pile could shift wrong and collapse and crush Mr. Castle. He's been working for over an hour, at least, and he's not sure how long he was unconscious. He doesn't know where Daredevil is, but it's a bad sign that the man hasn't come looking for them.
"Kid, where's Red?" Frank doesn't quite shout, might not be able to, but Peter's hearing picks it up, no problem.
"I don't know, he's not here," he shouts back.
"Find him."
"We will, I've almost got you out!"
He keeps working, and within ten more minutes, the Punisher is free. He is, thankfully, whole. "Uh, any, uh, injuries or anything?"
"Think my head got knocked around a bit and I got plenty of bruises, but I'm not a fucking wimp. Where's Red? Can't you listen for him? He does that shit."
"Uh, I can try, but I don't think my hearing is as good as his."
Peter tries anyway, listening to the world around him. He can't tell, not with the rest of the city raging above them. "Sorry, there's too much other input when I try to listen for him."
"You should get Red to teach you, once we get him out. He'd have been here, digging me out with you, if he could have been. Let's go find the fucking idiot."
Peter can tell that the Punisher — the Punisher — is worried as heck about Daredevil. Underneath all the worry he feels himself, something warm burns in him. He's glad that these guys have each other. He misses what it was like, having people.
They head off in the direction of they got separated and, eventually, find another collapsed room. This time, Peter has something to focus on. This time, he can hear it — just barely, true, but it's there. A heartbeat.
"I don't know if it's him, Mr. Castle, but someone is trapped under the rubble. They're alive."
"It's him, alright. And call me Frank, kid."
"Right, Mr. Fra —" he hesitates at the look the Punisher gives him, "Right, Frank."
"Get to work."
And they do. They work is slow and tedious, it takes at least an hour, and Peter has to stop and vomit — though he has nothing but stomach acid in him at this point — when they find a body. One of the criminals they'd been chasing, with the weapon destroyed next to him. The body is cold, but he listens anyway.
"There's still a heartbeat, further in."
"Red is stubborn. Takes more than this to bring him down. You ever hear about Midland Circle?"
"Yeah, 'course."
"He was at the bottom of that, when it all went to shit."
Peter gapes at that, can't quite find the words to comment. They keep working.
Matt wakes to the sound of rubble being shifted. He's confused, at first, but then he hears Frank and Spidey chatting. He listens in, quietly, not moving. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he'd lost faith in more than just God.
He hadn't believed they were coming back for him. Hadn't believed he deserved to be dug out. He'd lost faith in them and in himself and in his God.
Maybe, just maybe, this is how he gets it all back. By being proven wrong, by having them here, digging him out, reminding him that there's always more than he thinks.
He thinks about it quietly, for a while, and feels that presence that's been so absent. He doesn't really know, anymore, what it is. But it feels like God. He thinks, maybe, there's just more to the universe than he can ever hope to understand.
And maybe that's okay.