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Cassie Murdock comes into this world bloody and screaming, to a Hell’s Kitchen on its knees and a war with Fisk that Matt doesn’t know how to win. If he even can.
She is two weeks early, impatient but stubborn. Karen, heavily pregnant and even more stubborn than their daughter, had managed to shoot a AVTF agent in the leg before Matt arrived, knocking out the other two with brutal efficiency. War had spilled out onto the streets of the Kitchen like blood through the cracks of a pavement and Matt will never forget the tremble in Karen’s voice when she drops the gun and hunches over, telling him something is wrong.
He will remember that moment for as long as he lives. The way she said his name despite the fact he was in the suit and she would never normally risk it. The way the city feels around them, as tense as a powder keg about to explode. The fear from her he can taste on his tongue, the trickle of blood he can hear dripping from the gash on her eyebrow.
This war has always been personal for Matt but now, with Karen bleeding and in pain, Fisk might as well have splashed his identity on the evening news.
The gloves are off.
Foggy drives Karen to the hospital through the riots that Fisk has caused and Matt feels every second away from her like a knife ripping through his skin. It kills him to leave her but he knows it’s safer. Every single agent on the street is looking for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and he won’t risk her. He follows from the rooftops, listening to Karen’s pain and Foggy’s panic. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
If the nurses are surprised when Daredevil strides down the corridor, they don’t let it show. They give him a wide berth as Matt finds the first lockable storage cupboard he can to ditch the suit in. When he arrives at Karen’s bedside he is wearing stolen sweatpants and a black t-shirt from a man brought into A&E with a piece of glass through his eye, his knuckles still bleeding when he makes his way into her room. Karen grips his hand for dear life, smearing blood onto her own skin as she labours for hours.
There is something poetic about that Matt thinks, the way he covers her in blood as she tries to give him something pure.
Outside, the city is destroying itself, the citizens destroying each other. Matt can hear the sounds of the chaos every time Karen stops screaming through the contractions to grab a few precious moments of air. Her grip on his hand stings, Matt urges her to hold on tighter. He wishes he could take her pain, that he could hold it so she doesn’t have to. But Karen is a force to be reckoned with, even in pain, especially then and Matt is in awe of her.
The city beyond this room is humming through his blood but his whole entire world is right here and Matt doesn’t know how to be both. The Devil and Matt Murdock. Because the Devil is ready to avenge his city and Matt Murdock never wants to leave her side.
When he first hears that scream, small and shrill, all he can think about is how their daughter is born into a city ruled by Fisk. Even now, the fight continues. The hoards being held off by Frank, Jessica and Luke so Matt can be here. Even now he can hear the violence, the prayers and knows somewhere in a penthouse fit for a mayor, Fisk is rejoicing.
“She’s a real peach.” One of the nurses tells them, her accent southern and warm.
Karen is exhausted, her heart a storm in her chest, “I want to see her.”
He can hear the nurses cleaning the baby up, wrapping her in a blanket that Matt can sense is far too scratchy for her newborn delicate skin. He’ll need to fix that. The air smells of copper, a tang that clings to the back of his throat.
“I’m so sorry, Karen.” He says quietly, “For all of this.”
“This is Fisk.” She replies with no room for argument, “Now, go get our daughter.”
Matt Murdock wins out, the Devil raging inside him.
He goes, releasing his grip on her to stumble in the direction of the tiny heartbeat at the corner of the room. So small and delicate. That’s when he realises she isn’t crying anymore.
The city is screaming but his daughter isn’t.
“What’s happening?” He asks, his senses too overloaded to tell him anything.
“She just needs a little warming up.” The nurse replies and Matt tracks his daughter’s heartbeat as she is lifted into the nurse’s arms, her back rubbed up and down.
He dares God not to test him right now, he is breaking under the weight of everything else. He pleads with the Devil to keep his family safe, promises bloody retribution if only they end this night together.
A shrill cry erupts and it almost sends Matt to his knees.
The nurse guides him on how to take his daughter, giving him more instructions than he needs because all she sees is a blind man who is clearly accident-prone thanks to the litany of bruises on his skin. He doesn’t correct her because he is a little scared about doing it wrong.
His daughter is a solid weight in his arms, her cries settling as Matt cradles her to his chest and tries to remember a time before this. A time before this heartbeat controlled his entire happiness.
He takes her over to Karen, forgetting to put more caution in his step to play his part. He doesn’t care about that right now because he can hear Karen’s heart pick up speed and feel her hand press against the blanket covered bundle.
“She has dark hair.” She whispers to him softly, Matt can hear the smile in her voice.
“She does?” He questions, imagining what their daughter must look like through Karen’s eyes.
When all this is over he will spend hours mapping her face, learning the curve of her nose and the shape of her ears by memory but right now isn’t the time for that.
A fierce protectiveness rises up in him, sudden and unexpected as he hears his daughter’s heartbeat thrum in his arms. His daughter. Born into a war with the resilience Karen would say she gets him from.
She doesn’t, she gets it from Karen.
Matt hears something shift, something inside Karen he doesn’t understand but then the smell of copper in his nose becomes overwhelming.
“What colour eyes does she have?” He asks, wishing for the first time in a long time he still had his sight for just a moment to take in their daughter’s face.
Karen’s words are slow as if she is fading from exhaustion, “Blue… Mine. She’s… perfect.”
He senses the goosebumps breaking out against her skin as if she is cold and tries to remember if that is normal.
He hears the nurses talking in hushed whispers, the beeping of the heart monitor at the other side of Karen’s bed too fast.
“Karen?” He says, clutching their daughter to him as if to shield her because he knows something is wrong.
He hears words like haemorrhage and placental disruption and Matt realises the war isn’t just outside. It’s in here as well.
“She’s going into shock!” The words deafen him, the nurses around the bed springing into action like soldiers as they shout orders and readings at each other.
In his arms, Cassie starts to cry.
“Karen!” He shouts, the blood between her legs still soaking the bedsheets, the scent of it in the air too strong.
There’s too much blood. He knows that. He knows how much blood someone can stand to lose and Karen is losing too much.
His first instinct is to fight this. Then he remembers he can’t. This war isn’t Fisk, it’s medical and Matt is a stubborn son of a bitch but even he can’t control this.
His second instinct is to barter. To make a deal with God or the Devil or whatever demon is listening because something is wrong. He knows it, feels it in every cell of his body.
Something is wrong with Karen.
It opens up a gaping hole inside him, sucking everything towards it as it devours. The nurses' hearts are too fast with worry. He can smell the sweat in the air as it lands down the back of one of them.
Panic. He is listening to them panic.
God, he is listening to them realise they might lose her.
“Call the surgical team. We need to get her down there now!”
Matt hears static, he hears nothing. Not Cassie’s screams or the sounds of the city or Karen’s heartbeat. He is trapped in the realisation of how much blood she is losing.
Surgery.
His fear feels like Frank’s machine gun outside on the street, several blocks west, rapid and furious. It rises up inside him only to try and drown him.
Somewhere he is aware a nurse is speaking to him.
Somewhere he is aware he needs to listen.
Somewhere he is aware he is losing Karen Page.
“Mr Murdock?” The nurse is gripping his arm too tightly, “We need to take her into surgery. We need to find out what’s causing the bleed and stop it.”
Surgery. He imagines Karen on a table being cut open. He imagines her blood draining out of her, making her pale and gray. He imagines her heart stopping, imagines listening to it, knowing no matter how many fights he wins he can never win this one.
He nods mutely, “You need to save her.”
“We will do everything we can.”
Not good enough. Not nearly good enough.
They need to save her because if he loses Karen then he loses everything. He will watch Hell’s Kitchen fall to Fisk and won’t even bother trying to save it. He will walk away from God because any God who deems the death of Karen Page part of his plan is not a God Matt can believe in.
Matt Murdock has never been a completely good person, he has tried but knows he fails on that count more than he would like. But Karen Page is good. Better than he deserves.
Matt has always been more at home in the shadows but Karen brings him into the light. She soothes the Devil in his chest and the war in his bones. Karen is everything he isn’t prepared to lose.
“We can take the baby to…”
“No.” He answers immediately, “You aren’t taking her anywhere. Go and save my wife.”
He can’t lose them both. He isn’t strong enough.
The nurse seems to relent, something in his voice that she doesn’t want to argue with. Maybe part of the devil slipped out. Maybe it’s the fact he is holding Cassie with bloody knuckles like an avenging angel fallen from grace.
Matt doesn’t care but he is thankful for it.
He makes his way to Karen’s bed, the unconscious woman in it that is always so fierce and magnificent and prays this isn’t the end.
“Don’t leave her, Karen.” He whispers as he places a kiss on her cool forehead, “Don’t leave me.”
He won’t allow himself to think about Cassie growing up without her mother because if he does he will fall to his knees and she needs him right now.
Losing Karen isn’t an option.
It’s never fucking been an option for him.
Then the nurses are wheeling the bed out of the room and rushing towards the elevator and Matt is standing there, his newborn daughter in his arms as the world collapses around him.
The fight doesn’t so much as leave him as it follows Karen, because what is the point if she doesn’t pull through?
What is he even fighting for if Cassie grows up without her? If he has to live life without her?
/
Matt lasts about five minutes before the reality of his situation cracks him open. Cassie is fussy in his arms and on the way out to the waiting room three nurses stop him to check he is okay.
He isn’t. Not even close.
They offer to take the baby, to get her a crib. Matt refuses, telling them they are fine and he will let them know if they need anything. There must be something in his face that cautions them from fighting him because they retreat, Matt can hear them muttering behind the nurses station to keep an eye on him though.
Foggy is already on his feet when Matt emerges into the waiting room, his shirt sleeves loose around his elbows and his waistcoat swishing as he rushes to Matt’s side. He is exhausted, the heavy tread of his feet dragging slightly as he walks but he feels so familiar and grounding, Matt knows he is hanging on by a single thread.
“Matt!” Foggy calls, his hands on Matt’s arms which are around Cassie, “Oh, she’s a real looker, Murdock. Those genes are creating a legacy.”
Matt wants to smile but if he does he might cry. Cassie nuzzles against his chest and his heart aches for Karen.
He tries to speak, to say something to fill the silence between them but the words die in his throat and he knows without having to see Foggy is realising something is wrong.
“How’s Karen?”
The thread snaps and Matt stumbles into Foggy’s arms with Cassie between them. Foggy’s heart is a gallop as he holds Matt, careful of the baby who gives a little whimper.
Matt crumbles. Shatters. Breaks. The sobs come without his permission, ripping through him like a tidal wave. Foggy cups the back of his head with one hand, the other keeping Matt and Cassie steady.
He has always been able to be vulnerable with Foggy. Foggy who has seen him drunk and angry and sad and vengeful. Foggy who holds him like they are family and never abandoned him when Matt knows he should.
He trusts Foggy to catch him and Foggy never lets him down.
“She’s in surgery.” Matt manages to get out, “She was bleeding out, Foggy.”
“Hey, listen to me. Karen is strong. She’s stubborn. She’ll pull through this.” Foggy promises and the words don’t soothe Matt the way he wishes they would.
Even Foggy doesn’t offer the comfort he normal does. Even Foggy can’t stop the black hole from caving in Matt’s fucking chest.
“Red.” Frank’s voice gets his attention, Matt didn’t hear him approach, “The shitstorm is heading this way. Fisk knows you’re here.”
Matt pulls back from Foggy, suddenly embarrassed and Cassie whines as if protesting. He can’t turn around, doesn’t want Frank to see his tears or how quickly he is falling apart.
They are coming for him.
Karen is fighting for her life and now Matt has to fight for his and none of this is right or fair or-
“I called the kid in Queens.” Frank continues, “A little more damage control. Luke is helping clear the vulnerable people out. Trying to avoid a bloodbath.”
It’s all white noise to Matt. Things that should matter but don’t. He rocks Cassie in his arms, feels Foggy’s eyes boring into his face.
“Murdock.” Jessica is here as well, Matt really isn’t paying enough attention, “We should move. Get the baby and Karen out of here. Get you out of here.”
Matt laughs, bitter and spiteful. His lungs are full of ash, “Karen’s in surgery. I’m not leaving her.”
“What happened to Karen?” Frank asks, voice like sandpaper and lead.
God, he can’t say it. Not again. He isn’t strong enough for any of this. He has been hiding behind his suit, behind his rage, his fight and now there is nowhere left to hide.
Foggy comes to his rescue as if he can see the utter desperation on Matt’s face.
“She’s in surgery. There were… complications.” Matt knows he is checking his face to gauge his reaction. He can’t even find it in himself to nod, “We aren’t going anywhere until we hear news.”
“Fuck.” Frank mutters, turning his head to the side as he processes Foggy’s words, “Shit, Red.”
Matt’s thoughts exactly.
“Okay.” Jessica replies, quick to diffuse the tension, “Frank, we can set up a defence line at the entrance. Try and keep them back but with their numbers…”
“We’re sitting ducks.”
“Listen Murdock, I get you must be dealing with a lot right now and I get you want to stay but the baby… we should get her out of here.” Jessica tells him, stepping closer, “Luke is bulletproof, he can take her.”
“No.” The word is sharp as a bullet, “He’s bulletproof. She isn’t. She doesn’t leave my arms.”
He cannot let her go. He cannot give her to Luke or Jessica or Frank or anyone else in the hope they will protect her.
Cassie is his to protect. Karen is his to protect.
He cannot even think about giving her to someone else to hold when Karen hasn’t even had the chance yet.
“You can’t do this with her.” Frank says, “You’re not even in your suit.”
“You told me nothing is more important than this, Frank. You said that. Are you of all people telling me to let her go?”
Frank’s heart jolts and Matt knows he has struck a nerve he didn’t mean to. A line he should never have crossed. He can imagine Karen’s disappointment.
“The baby…”
“Cassie.” Matt interrupts Jessica, “Her name is Cassie. Karen… she picked it. She was sold the moment she heard it.”
Matt knows he is worrying them. He can tell by the way they all shuffle on their feet, knows they are exchanging looks right in front of his face like he’s about to lose it.
Maybe he is. Matt isn’t sure anymore. The world feels numb and his heart squeezes painfully against his ribs and fuck, he cannot do this.
Foggy places a hand on his shoulder like a lighthouse in Matt’s storm, “Cassie stays with her dad. Stop as many as you can, we’ll be ready for the ones you can’t.”
God, now Foggy is a soldier too.
This is what Matt does, he trails the fight to their door and makes them complicit.
Frank sighs, “You line them up, I’ll knock ‘em down.”
“Sounds like a party.” Jessica agrees easily, the grim note in her voice doesn’t escape Matt’s notice, “But if this fails and we get arrested for this bullshit, I don’t want you as my lawyer, Murdock.”
“He’s not bad in court.” Frank shrugs, “A bit too preachy for me but gets the job done.”
“Nelson, you’re on retainer.”
“It’s Foggy.”
“Yeah, I’m not calling you that.” Jessica replies dryly, her hair swiping around her shoulders as she pulls off her scarf. Matt feels her shove it into his hands, the end hanging down as he cradles Cassie, “I assume you aren’t willing to put her down long enough to get into your suit.”
He thinks about another lifetime, wearing her scarf over his face to protect his identify against The Hand. He grips it tightly and dips his chin in thanks. Matt hears her boots echo against the floor as she heads back the way she must have come.
He leans down to kiss Cassie’s smooth forehead, listening to her smacking her gums together lazily.
After a painfully long minute, Frank retreats as well.
Matt turns to Foggy, “You should go. It will be safer away from the hospital.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Foggy, I can’t lose… I just can’t, okay?”
“Hey, Karen is my family too. I’m not leaving her and I’m not leaving you to face down Fisk’s cops with a newborn. What kind of godfather do you take me for?”
His voice is firm and Matt knows Foggy will fight him on this, knows Foggy is trying to protect him because this fight isn’t one he is prepared for but Matt feels the weight of Foggy’s life in his hands as much as Karen’s.
So damn much to lose.
Cassie is drifting off in his arms, her breathing evening out as she lets out a sigh that is so familiar to the one Karen does in her sleep sometimes he almost drowns.
“Help me get this scarf on.” He says, wishing he was strong enough to trust the people around him with his daughter.
Wishing he knew how to let go for a moment and feel safe in the fact she will be okay.
But he doesn’t and Foggy doesn’t push the subject as he ties the scarf over Matt’s head with the efficiency that earned him a job at Landman and Zack.
Jessica must have cleared out everyone she could as she and Frank left because they find an empty ward as Matt guides Foggy towards the service wing of the hospital that leads to the boiler room. It’s warmer down here, the air smells a little musty but it’s quiet with only one exit and long corridors that will offer little suprises.
“Where are we going?” Foggy asks exasperated as he follows in Matt’s wake, his breathing hard.
“We need to get away from the main hospital and the patients on life support. If something happens they will need to keep the power on and I don’t trust Fisk’s cops to think about that.” Matt replies, heading further down the empty corridor as he shifts Cassie a little higher in his arms.
She is fussy now, too unsettled to sleep for long, her cries a steady rhythm to his footsteps and Matt doesn’t know what to do when he is wearing Jessica’s scarf over his face so he speaks in shushed tones. Recites criminal law and legislation that he and Foggy used to need to remember for pop quizzes in college. He doesn’t know why that’s the first thing that comes to mind but it is and his voice seems to help soothe Cassie so he doesn’t stop.
Foggy wisely doesn’t comment.
He is about to turn the corner, towards the dead space he senses to his left that opens out into a disused wing when he freezes, his whole body reacting like he has been electrocuted. Foggy almost walks into his back.
“What’s wrong? Do you hear them?” He drops his voice to a whisper, his arm pressed against Matt’s back.
He swallows harshly, bile rising in his throat, “Karen’s in surgery now. They are trying to find the bleed.”
“You can hear that?” He replies, disbelief and disgust lacing his tone.
Matt wishes he can’t but he knows the steady rhythm of Karen’s heartbeat like he knows criminal legislation and the voices of the doctors trying to save her bore into his skull like a migraine.
“I need a pint of O neg hooked up. Get me the number four scalpel.”
God, he can’t listen to this. He can’t listen as they cut into her and stitch her up because of a damn bleed none of them saw coming before it was almost too late.
He thinks he is going to be sick. He thinks he is going to pass out.
Cassie feels too heavy in his arms.
Matt is desperate to move, to get away from the sounds of Karen’s operation and the life she is clinging to. He doesn’t want to hear her die, he realises grimly, he won’t survive it.
The attack comes out of nowhere, Matt’s mind too far away to sense it before it’s here. He ducks the club directed at his head at the very last second, protecting the baby in his arms and shuffling her so he has a hand free. He lodges a kick to his assailant, hard and dirty, right in the gut.
He counts three of them, heavy bulletproof vests and batons at their sides. Their heartbeats are fast, erratic. They weren’t expecting to find him here either. Adrenaline is already flooding their bloodstream, taking over from reason to pure instinct. He can smell sweat in the air, pungent and sharp.
Matt hears the sound of a gun being dislodged from a holster followed by a harsh guttural order, “No, Fisk doesn’t want us to draw attention.”
The gun slides back into place with a grunt and Matt doesn’t have time to be thankful because the baby in his arms does nothing to deter the men coming for him.
He dodges one fist and throws an elbow into someone’s throat, hears the gasp for breath as he swings back round. He is aware of Foggy at his back, his heart too fast as he aims a punch and ends up cursing under his breath when it lands. Matt is pretty sure he has just bruised his knuckles.
A baton whooshes through the air and he blocks it, a sharp pain vibrating up his forearm that makes him growl. To his left, he can hear the sound of the pipes as air rattles through them, one loose one that jaggles more than the rest.
Matt aims a kick to the closest man’s gut, throwing his head down when the guy doubles over to drop him to his knees. He can feel blood trickle from his nose.
Somewhere below them, Karen’s heart flutters.
“We need to stabilize her, blood pressure is dropping!”
He dodges a punch, Cassie crying against his chest as the move disgruntles her and Matt reaches for the loose pipe, ripping it down with a strength that pulls at his muscles.
He swings, vicious and bloody and raw.
One guy is knocked clean out as Matt aims the metal pipe at his jaw. It’s not his billy-clubs, the weight is clunky but he adapts to it. He feels off-kilter, the weight of Cassie in his arms hindering his fighting style but he adapts to that as well. He has to because he will not let her get hurt because of him.
“Shit!” He hears Foggy shout, no doubt eyeing the blood on the floor as the guy goes down. Matt could feel it spray across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, no doubt knocking a few teeth loose.
He can hear anger in the two remaining heartbeats, the spike of adrenaline that tastes like blood in his mouth. Corrupted cops sent to kill him? Bring him back alive? He isn’t sure he wants to know.
“Got it. It will need stitches, tell me if there’s any change in her readings.”
“Pulse is thready.”
“Let’s get this woman back to her family.”
Matt hears Karen’s heartbeat thrumming in his own veins. She is fighting so he is fighting. That’s the rule.
He hears the flick of a switchblade seconds before it slides across the skin of his chest, right over the old scar from Nobu. It stings, the blood dripping down his chest and plastering the fabric to it in a way that makes Matt uncomfortable.
Inches away from his daughter.
Inches away from more loss.
The Devil rattles against the bars of the cage Matt put him in, eager to taste blood. His soul is bleeding, a steady trickle that Matt knows will turn fatal if they don’t end this and Cassie is shrieking in fear.
Matt needs to let the Devil out. He needs to protect her.
He shoves the guy with the blade back, knocking him into the second man who trips against the unconscious body of the third. He had seconds until they come for him again.
Foggy is at his back, panting and Matt reminds himself that Foggy is good and pure and decent. That Foggy is the best man he has ever met, not the enemy and he can trust him.
Cassie’s godfather. The only family Matt had for the longest time. The one who got Matt through some of the hardest times of his life.
He doesn’t think as he shoves Cassie into Foggy’s arms, bleeding sluggishly from his chest, “Hold her!”
“What?”
“Take her. Now.”
For his credit, Foggy doesn’t hesitate a second longer and Matt can hear him settle Cassie against his chest, soothing her with little hushes in a way Matt can’t while people are trying to kill him.
In the back of his mind he realises this is the first time Foggy is holding his goddaughter. The first time any family is holding her aside from Matt. This moment is another thing Fisk has stolen from him. From them. Because he wanted to remember this moment. His best friend and his daughter. He wanted to catalogue every sound so he could paint a picture of it later in his mind.
His arms feel empty, the weight of Cassie already too familiar to him. All he wants is to take her back, keep her safe with him.
“She’s stabilised.”
Karen.
“I’ve stopped the bleed.”
That’s what Matt holds onto as he turns back to face Fisk’s men. Handing Cassie to Karen for the first time and listening to their hearts beat together.
That’s what he holds onto with bloody fists and a battered soul.
Matt does what he does best, he lets the Devil out to play.
And the Devil does the bloody work.
The pipe in Matt’s hand shatters a kneecap, then a collarbone. The crunch of bone music to his ears. He dodges the blade that is already painted with his blood, weaving left then right then letting out a primal scream as he charges. They fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs as Matt climbs over him, knife skittering away as he paints a brutal picture of blood that even Frank Castle would be proud of.
Hit.
Karen.
Hit.
Cassie.
Hit.
Foggy.
Hit.
Stabilised.
Hit.
Hit.
Hit.
Matt’s fingers are slippery every time he hits now, too much blood for a solid blow. His muscles are coiled tightly and behind him he knows Foggy is watching on in horror.
This is the closest he has been to the Devil. A front row seat to the world’s most macabre show.
“Stop.” He whispers, knowing Matt can hear, “You’ll kill him. Stop.”
He won’t. Matt can hear his heartbeat, knows despite the pain he isn’t hitting anything vital.
Cassie wails in Foggy’s arms and that’s what stops him.
He pants, spent and exhausted and bloody. Somewhere to his left, the last guy left is getting to his feet. Matt roars, battered and bruised, as he gets to his feet.
The corrupt cop really doesn’t stand a chance. It’s almost pathetic that he thinks he does. Matt has ash in his lungs and shrapnel in his veins. There is no stopping him now, not when he has so much to lose.
Below, they are closing Karen up. Hands as steady as his own with a needle against her skin.
“BP is rising.”
“I think we’re out of the woods.”
Matt punches the guy coming at him in the face, a snap of bone that might have been a cheek. As if finally realising he is losing, he goes for the gun in its holster. The desperate attempt of a shit scared man.
Except Matt isn’t in his suit, he has no armour to protect himself and behind him Cassie and Foggy are counting on his protection.
He can’t stop a bullet.
Can he?
A bullet fires from a gun. But not the one in the cop’s hand. Matt cocks his head to the side, hearing the brutal rattle in another chest of someone who must have ran to them.
The smell of gunshot residue and gasoline fills his nose. The rattle of a chest he knows. One he has listened to for days on end in a courtroom a lifetime ago.
Not quite a guardian angel, Matt thinks to him, far too bloody for that.
A body lands on the floor between them, no heartbeat.
Matt sighs, “I’m not thanking you for that.”
Frank must lower the gun to his side because Matt tracks the heat of it as it moves, “You never do.”
Behind him Foggy is sweating again, “No. Shit. No. We’re lawyers, Frank. Now, we’re accessories to a murder.”
“I just saved your asses.”
“You didn’t have to kill him.” Matt reasons, wiping his hands against his stolen sweatpants so he can reclaim his daughter from Foggy’s shaky arms. Two heartbeats sound from the floor, Fisk’s men, still alive thanks to Matt’s moral code.
Frank scoffs, “Fucking hero bullshit. It was him or you, Red. I figured Karen would want me to pick you.”
Karen. Just the mention of her name has him checking back in, they are wrapping up. She’ll be out of surgery soon, back on the ward for the sedation to wear off.
Matt rocks Cassie in his arms, “She’s okay.” He tells their daughter, “She’s the real fighter in this family. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”
“Karen?” The note of concern in Frank’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed.
His smile is bloody and brutal, “She’s going to be okay.”
Frank dips his chin and swallows, “That’s good.”
Matt politely ignores the flutter in Frank’s chest that he puts down to relief.
“And we know one thing for sure.” Foggy days as he leans over Matt’s shoulder to adjust Cassie’s blanket, “This little avocado is definitely going to take after her dad.”
“We aren’t calling her a little avocado, Foggy. And I hope she is nothing like me.”
“Maybe you’re not calling her that but I’ve been referring to her as that pretty much since you told me Karen was pregnant.”
Matt lets out a sigh that isn’t quite a laugh, “That explains why you keep buying Karen avocados. I thought it was a craving she wasn’t telling me about.”
“Just reminding her of my godfather status. Now, can we get the hell out of here before more show up?” Foggy asks, a tone of hysteria in his voice that Matt wants to tease him for.
“Jessica and Luke are on it.” Frank tells them, “The hospital is safe for now. Most of Fisk’s guys are running scared with their tails between their legs.”
“It’s not over.” Matt finishes softly.
“It’s never over, Red. Right now, you need to be with Karen.”
“I second that.” Foggy adds gently.
“And get a goddamn change of clothes. She can’t wake up to you like that, she’ll be trying to get out of that bed faster than I can shoot.”
Matt knows if Frank is saying it then he must look a sight, “Foggy, think you can rustle me up something a little less…”
“Offensive?”
“I was going to say bloody.”
“You want me to steal things now?” He throws his hands up in the air and despite the exasperation in his voice, Matt can hear the sheer relief as well.
/
He is back on the ward shortly after Karen, a fresh pair of sweatpants and a zipper hoodie courtesy of Frank rather than Foggy.
“I always keep spares.” He shrugs as he shoves them into Matt’s lap with a grunt and is gone before Matt can thank him.
Foggy is outside, calling Marci and checking in and Matt is so exhausted he wonders if sedation would work on him as well.
The nurses have been in and out, checking Karen’s vitals and checking on Cassie. They brought him a bottle of formula, showing him out to feed and burp his daughter with a hint of worry at the red knuckles and bruised face. Thankfully Foggy had the foresight to find a fresh blanket for Cassie after Matt’s blood got on the old one. He dreads to think how that would have looked to them.
The chair beside Karen’s bed is uncomfortable, padded in the wrong places and cold through the hoodie he is wearing but Matt refuses to move. He listens to the thrum of Karen’s heartbeat as he holds Cassie against his chest. One of the nurses told him skin-to-skin was good for newborns so the hoodie is unzipped, although carefully draped to hide the knife wound on his chest that has been messily patched up by Jessica with stolen supplies from the nurses station and Cassie is sleeping against his own heart. Her tiny breaths puffing out against Matt’s skin like the first flutter of snow in November.
The early sunlight is filtering through the hospital window, Matt can feel the warmth of it against the side of his face. Hell’s Kitchen survived the night as well. Barely.
He can hear the horror and fear of people on the street, waking up to a new day in the Kitchen. He listens as they clean the streets and check on their neighbours and try to rebuild what they can.
It won’t be enough.
He needs to find a way to bring Fisk down.
Karen’s hand lands on his leg, cold but firm and Matt startles, listening to her steady heartbeat as she shuffles in the bed, trying to sit up.
“No, don’t move.” He tells her softly, “You’re still recovering.”
“What happened?” God, her voice. He will never tire of hearing her voice. A part of him wants to find a book, any book, just to have Karen read it to him.
“You were bleeding. A post-partum haemorrhage, they called it. They had to take you into surgery.”
“Well, that explains why I feel like roadkill.” She muses, “Are you waiting for an invitation, Murdock or are you going to hand me our daughter?”
Matt smiles, “She’s been waiting for you.”
He settles Cassie into Karen’s arms as gently as he can, Karen is stiff and he knows she is hiding the pain from him but he can hear the shift in her when she is holding their daughter and Matt can’t find it in himself to complain.
“She’s perfect.” Karen whispers softly, “God, is she really ours?”
“Definitely. She’s already had her first firefight.”
“What?”
Matt swallows, “Fisk attacked the hospital.”
“Christ.” She mutters, “He is always going to be one step ahead.”
“He won’t.” Matt replies, “We’ll beat him, Karen. Together.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Avoiding the question.”
He huffs, “A little. Nothing serious, I promise.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, not a scratch. I would never let anything happen to her, Karen.”
“I know.” It’s so soft, Matt almost misses it.
The baby in Karen’s arms coos softly and Matt takes a moment to listen to them together, the way it should be. His girls, who keep him fighting and scare him half to death.
“Cassie Murdock.” Karen whispers, “I’m going to need you to understand one very important thing. We always stand up to bullies.”
Matt’s heart clenches as he leans forward in his chair, “You know, I was thinking… you picked her first name and we haven’t decided on a middle one yet. I might have something.”
“Oh yeah?” She questions, “This better not be how you tell me about an old family name like Mildred or Mary.” He can hear her wrinkling her nose in distaste.
“Percy.” He replies softly, “For Foggy.”
Her hero of a godfather who kept him afloat in a storm and walked into a fistfight with him because he wasn’t prepared to leave. The man who Matt knew she would be safe with, will always be safe with, when he can’t protect her himself.
He thinks back to the Foggy he knew in college and wonders if he knew then how much Foggy would mean to him. Mostly, Matt remembers being scared about losing him. Those abandonment issues etched on his skin as he searched for a balm to soothe them.
Foggy Nelson is the greatest man Matt has ever known and he wants his daughter to know that as well.
Karen’s heart betrays her joy, “Cassandra Percy Murdock.”
“I know it’s a little unorthodox…”
“We’re a little unorthodox. It’s perfect. You think Foggy will cry when we tell him?”
“Absolutely.”
Matt can hear her settling back into her pillows, “When can I go home?”
“You’ve just had surgery.”
“And I hate hospitals.”
“You need to rest.”
“Matt, if you aren’t breaking me out of here then I’m breaking myself out.” Karen replies, stern and serious, “Especially if Fisk knows where we are.”
“I’ll find a doctor, okay? But you need to listen to their medical opinion.” He says, “I can’t lose you again.”
“You didn’t lose me.”
“It felt like I would.”
He doesn’t tell her that he had to listen to the nurse panic over the blood she was losing or the sounds of her in surgery that he knows will give him nightmares for the rest of his life. Maybe one day he will find a way to convey his fear to her but right now he thinks it will break him.
He hears her swallow, “Matt, I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine what that felt like.”
“The longest year of my life.”
“It was what sixteen hours?”
He leans forward to place a kiss on her forehead, “Not for me.”
Karen softens, her fingers brushing over Cassie’s face, “I won’t make a habit of it.”
“Please.”
“So, what’s the plan with Fisk?”
Matt laughs and it feels good to feel something other than fear, “God, you’re obsessed.”
Hearing her talk like this, with the strength and fire he loves and thought he would never hear again, makes his heart do odd things. But if Foggy is his lighthouse then Karen is his lifeboat and Matt knows even if his wreckage spreads throughout Hell’s Kitchen, he will always have this.
Nelson and Murdock and Page.
Nelson, Murdock, Murdock and Page.
“You can talk!” She is smiling now too, exhausted but happy and already back to calling him out on his bullshit.
The world tilts back into place, a hum in his veins.
“Can we worry about Fisk tomorrow?” He asks, “Just take the day for ourselves?”
“Yeah, we can do that.” She agrees, “Then we go back to destroying the Mayor.”
“It’s a date.”