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chvoswxtch · 2 years

Text

please don't be mad

pairing: matt murdock x fem!reader

summary: matt’s run in with his ex has you questioning everything about your relationship, and he’s determined to prove himself to you.

warnings: cursing, lots of angst, fluffy ending, matty being a typical dumbass, explicit sexual content (minors dni)

word count: 7.2k

a/n: psa, I am not an elektra anti. I would happily fuck her too. this is once again purely selfish matty content I couldn’t get out of my head. a huge thank you to my darling @yourbucky084 for beta reading, helping edit & providing such helpful feedback. also a big thank you to @pleasurebuttonwrites for helping me figure out what the fuck is behind matty’s bed for this fic lmao. I appreciate you both so much! as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!

[part two]

It felt like I had been staring at the wall in the darkness for hours. My body was aching, begging me to move from my current position lying on my side that I had been stubbornly stuck in for the past forty five minutes, but under absolutely no circumstances would I turn over. I would deal with my body’s stiffness tomorrow. I had tried, and failed, several times to get my brain to just shut off. I silently pleaded for the sweet blanket of unconsciousness to wash over me so that I could get a break from all the noise in my head. Tonight was the worst night to be an insomniac.

“Angel?”

I squeezed my eyes shut when I heard his low voice cut through the silence. Asshole. He knew the effect that his voice had on me, especially at that volume. I tried my hardest to get my aggravated breathing under control to a slow, steady pace. My heart was the one that wouldn’t cooperate. It was still thudding angrily against my chest. I heard a deep sigh cut through the darkness and a rustling of sheets behind me.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re not asleep.”

I felt the bed dip beside me as he turned onto his side to face my back. Despite the coldness of the bedroom, I could feel the heat radiating off his body. Normally, we’d be tangled up together. I always slept best with my head on his chest, leg slung lazily over his hips, completely wrapped up in his arms and warmth. But tonight, I wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

“Honey, please.”

I grit my teeth and flung the covers off my body, shivering slightly as the awaiting cold nipped at my exposed skin and caused goosebumps to appear everywhere. I gripped onto my pillow and ripped it off the bed, hastily rounding the corner towards the refuge of the living room.

“Goodnight, Matthew.”

Before I had a chance to slide the door open, Matt was on his feet and in front of me in a flash. He gently wrapped his arm around my wrist to halt my movements and firmly grabbed onto my hip to hold me in place.

“Y/N…you’re not sleeping on the couch, come on.”

“Fine. You are.”

I shoved the pillow roughly against Matt’s bare chest, grabbing the handle on the door and sliding it back so hard into the track it nearly made the entire apartment shake. Matt winced at the sound, squinting his eyes and turning his head away from the door. Normally I would have felt bad about the noise considering his sensitive hearing, but tonight I didn’t really give a fuck about his comfort. He sighed deeply as he tossed the pillow onto the bed and took a step towards me.

“Sweetheart, I really don’t want to go to bed angry. Please.”

“Well maybe you should’ve thought of that earlier Matthew, before you hooked up with your ex at a fucking party and tried to lie about it.”

“Y/N that’s...that’s not what happened. I told you, we just kissed…and I explained why.”

“Right, and I’m supposed to just take your word for it? After you’ve told me how many lies tonight Matthew?”

“I didn’t-”

“You blew me and Foggy off because you said you had an ‘important meeting’ with your special ‘client’. And then you come through that door, wearing a disheveled tux, with the collar covered in red lipstick I might add, and I find out you actually went to a gala with her.”

“Because she had a lead about information that could help take down the Yakuza!”

I had been seeing violent shades of red ever since Matt walked through the front door. I was pissed when I saw that he was wearing a tux, which was not what he had left Foggy and I’s company in, but the second I spotted the lipstick on his collar, I was fucking livid. Matt must have sensed the shift in my emotions because he immediately pulled off his glasses and raised his hands up slowly in surrender, quickly spitting out an “I can explain”.

My blood only began to boil at the mention of her name. Elektra. Matt had reluctantly, and very briefly, told me about her one night when we had first started dating. The gaps that he left, Foggy unenthusiastically filled in later on. He very clearly had not been a fan of hers, and I grew to understand why.

The more I learned about her, the more my disdain grew for the way she treated Matt. The way she left him..and what she had tried to do to him..what she had tried to make him do before she disappeared. I couldn’t believe he would actually want to be around her again after everything she had put him through. She had almost ruined his life, and after that night, he said he never wanted to speak about her again. I didn’t press it. I didn’t want to upset him, and honestly I didn’t care if I ever heard her name again. All I wanted to do was make up for her faults, and show Matt how much he deserved to be loved. I promised him that I would always accept him for exactly who he was. I never once tried to change him. Not like her.

I was beyond incandescent when her name so easily rolled off his tongue. I had been seething all night since his earlier confession. I was pissed she’d had the audacity to show up after all these years just to torment him all over again. But mainly, I was outraged at Matt for letting her, and for lying to me about it. When he finally came clean about being Daredevil, he swore he would never lie again, no matter what. While anger coursed through my veins, there were hints of hurt and betrayal that made every rush sting even more.

“And that makes it all okay?”

“No, of course it doesn’t. I just..I need you to understand that’s all it was, okay? A mission. That’s it. The last thing I ever wanted was to see her again, but she had something I needed. Something that could help me actually get rid of them, for good this time. I couldn’t pass that up. They’re too dangerous.”

“Then why did you lie about it? If that’s all it was, why couldn’t you tell me the truth? Why couldn’t you tell Foggy the truth?”

Matt averted his head downwards, placing both of his hands on his hips as he stood there silently. His lips parted slightly, taking in a deep breath as if the words he was searching for would be laced within the oxygen hitting his lungs.

“I don’t know. I just..I didn’t want to start a fight. I’m sorry. Please…don’t be mad.”

That rage that had been brewing inside me ever since he walked through that door was suddenly bubbling like molten lava, and I was about to fucking erupt. I grabbed the closest thing on the nightstand and flung it directly at Matt’s head. I knew it wouldn’t actually hit him, not that I really wanted to, but I couldn’t think straight through all my fury. He dodged the vase just in time as the ceramic shattered in cataclysmic pieces against the wall, shock written evidently all over his features by my uncharacteristic outburst.

“Mad? You think I’m mad? I’m fucking furious, Matthew! There aren’t words strong enough for how I feel right now. You lied. Again. And I’m supposed to, what, just be okay with it? Just be okay with the fact that you’re dressing up and running around New York with your ex to lavish galas because it’s for the greater fucking good?”

“Sweetheart, it was just for information, okay? I swear. Look by the time we found the ledger, they already knew we were there. We snuck a floor down and pretended to be a lost drunk couple so that we didn’t get shot. It was strictly a distraction. If they had found us and figured out what we were actually doing, they would’ve killed us.”

“Well if she’s so fucking impressive, why didn’t she go by herself? She didn’t need you there, she wanted you there. And you willingly went. You could have said no.”

Matt ran a hand through his messy brown hair, clearly annoyed that I wasn’t seeing things his way, and rubbed his palm across the stubble on his right cheek. He dropped his hands to place them on his hips once again and shook his head slowly, pointing his chin in my direction.

“You’re right. I should’ve said no. I should’ve let her go alone, and I should’ve told you the truth from the beginning. I just…I really didn’t want to start a fight.”

“I’m done fighting with you, Matthew.”

I felt completely drained, like all the life had been sucked out of me steadily ever since he walked through that door. Our fight earlier was explosive, definitely the worst one we’ve ever had. One of the only ones we’ve ever had. I thought it had depleted all of my energy, but the way he kept trying to justify his actions kept fueling the fire. I was tired of being lied to. I was tired of him disregarding my feelings about this whole situation, and not even trying to understand why I felt the way I did. I was tired of feeling like I had to fight to keep my place in his life. I don’t even remember why I agreed to stay over at his place tonight. I should’ve just gone home.

“Don’t...don’t say that. Please. Your voice makes it sound like you’re giving up.”

“Maybe I am Matthew. This was a mistake. I’m going home.”

“No…no no no. Don’t say things like that, please. Look don’t…don’t go. Please, Y/N. It’s late and you’re upset and I...I don’t want you out walking the streets alone right now-”

“I don’t really care what you want right now.”

Matt quickly snatched my overnight bag out of my hands as soon as I reached for it and tossed it across the room with annoying accuracy. I futilely shoved at his chest when he grabbed onto my arms and pulled me in close, but it was no use. He was a lot stronger than I was, and on top of that I was exhausted. I didn’t have any fight left in me for tonight, and there was no escaping the cage of his embrace.

“Please let go.”

“I can’t. I can’t, sweetheart. I need you, please. Look I fucked up, okay? I know that. I fucked up and I’m so sorry. I know you’re probably sick of hearing me say that, but I am. Just...please don’t leave. I love you, Y/N. Let me..let me make it up to you. Let me show you how much I love you.”

My eyes widened as the words dripping with suggestion left his mouth. I tilted my head back and stared up at him dumbfounded, a humorless laugh leaving my lips as I managed to find a surge of strength to push as hard as I could at Matt’s chest and finally shove him backwards.

“Are you fucking joking? You have some goddamn balls, Matthew Murdock. Are you seriously asking me for sex right now? You think that’s gonna fix this?”

“I’m not asking, I’m offering. I know you need it.”

“You don’t know anything. What the hell makes you think I want anything to do with you right now? Why would I even want to kiss you, knowing all I’m going to be able to taste is her.”

Matthew Murdock was one cocky son of a bitch, and his audacity never ceased to amaze me. He clenched his jaw slightly as spite flowed from my lips, hands balling up into tight fists at his sides as he let out a controlled deep breath. His features morphed into an expression of distress as he took slow calculated steps closer towards me and inhaled, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. His eyes were a shade darker when they opened and his tongue quickly darted out to swipe across his bottom lip as he squared his shoulders. I knew that look, and it caused a shiver to cascade down my spine.

“Then why don’t you let me have a taste, hm? I don’t want you to taste anything else on my tongue except yourself. I don’t want to taste anything else but you.”

Matt tilted his head to the side slightly, his blank honey eyes fixated right in my direction, trying to sense anything that would give me away. He waited silently to taste the effect of his words in the air as they began to seep from my core, and feel the rise of heat that flushed across my chest and the tops of my cheeks. He waited for the anger to dissipate into desire. Matt Murdock was not a very patient man, but the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was when it came to outsmarting his prey. He set the trap, and waited for me to fall into it. He knew I would. It had been too long, and he knew me too damn well. Matt always knew how to melt the icy barrier I hid beneath, rendering me a needy puddle in his capable hands. The twitch of his jaw and fleeting uptick of his lips let me know he had gotten exactly what he was waiting for.

“I can smell you, sweetheart. Your need...your want. It’s palpable. I can feel it in my own veins. I can practically taste you from here. It’s been what…two weeks? Two weeks since I’ve touched you. I haven’t been paying attention to you like I should have been. I haven’t been very good to you lately. I’ve been neglecting you, and I’m so sorry for that. Please...let me make up for it. Use me.”

Use me.

My mouth suddenly felt dry as it clicked in my brain exactly what he meant. Matt knew what he was doing. I was a sucker for his voice, especially when he used his “devil” voice on me, and he never hesitated to use it to his advantage. He knew it would make me crumble. It always did. He knew exactly how to get what he wanted, how to win. He masked every single one of his sinful words behind that velvet voice, and I loved it. Matt took my silence as an invitation to move even closer, his voice becoming dangerously low as he spoke.

“You don’t have to touch me. You can have my fingers, my mouth, whatever you want. I can feel how frustrated you are. I know how badly you need this. So let me help. Take it all out on me. Use me, sweetheart.”

I felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions in my head. A tiny, logical piece of my brain wanted me to smack him. It was yelling at me to not give in. To instead tell him to fuck off, get my things, and just go. The other part of my brain wanted me to just call it a night. Just let go of all the anger, try to get some sleep, and discuss the future of our relationship in the morning when we were both level headed. But both of those thoughts were completely drowned out by the ache beginning to throb uncomfortably between my thighs.

I was just as sexually frustrated as I was...well...regularly frustrated. I couldn’t remember the last time Matt had kissed me, or touched me, or even told me he loved me. He had been so busy lately, I felt like we only saw each other in passing like forgotten ships in the night. My body yearned for him. He knew it better than anyone, sometimes even better than I did. He always knew what I needed.

My renegade eyes traveled over Matt’s exposed muscular chest as I got lost in my inner turmoil, paying extra attention to how his sweatpants and briefs hung treacherously low on his hips. I had spent so many moments mapping out every inch of his skin and every visible scar with my fingers and tongue. If I focused really hard, I could feel the tautness of his abs on my fingertips from whenever he got close to releasing in my mouth. I could hear the gravel in his voice as he whispered vivid dirty details of his plans for me into my ear. I could taste the tanginess of my own release on his lips as he kissed me after bringing me to climax with his skilled tongue.

I felt a warm rush of arousal pool between my thighs. The soft groan that exuded from Matt’s lips let me know he had noticed it. He always knew when I was wet for him. I could never hide from him. His tongue swiped along his bottom lip as he stared just above me, his fists tightening at his sides so hard his bruised knuckles were stark white. I know he wanted nothing more than to rush forward and take me, fuck it all out, and beg for forgiveness when he finally sent me over the edge...but he stayed still. Matt had always been the dominant one in our relationship, and I liked it that way. I never knew I could find so much freedom in completely giving myself over to someone. I trusted Matt. I loved when he took control. I craved being submissive to him, so much so that it would have been embarrassing if it weren’t so fucking satisfying. I didn’t know if I had it in me to be the one in control, especially not with the headspace I was in. I was desperately grasping at the frayed edges of my anger, but the way he was staring at me with those ravenous wild eyes had me letting go without a second thought.

“I..I don’t..I’m not sure if I..”

Matt reached out to gently take my hand into his, brushing his thumb over the back of my knuckles and giving it a soft squeeze. Somehow he always understood me, even when I couldn’t get the words out. He just knew.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you. I got you, sweetheart.”

Matt slowly sunk down onto his knees in front of me, head tilted back to keep his gaze up towards my face. I felt my breath hitch in my throat as he hooked his index fingers under the seam of my panties, pulling them down my legs carefully as he brushed his fingers tenderly along the back of my knee and the side of my calf. He turned his head slightly to place a chaste kiss to my inner thigh and I felt him smile against my skin when I let out an involuntary whine. He tapped my ankle lightly to signal for me to step out of my panties, balling them up into his hand and shoving them into the pocket of his sweatpants.

Matt placed several more scorching kisses up the expanse of my legs and over my thighs as he slowly rose up from his knees, towering over me once he stood to his full height. He gestured his head towards the bed and began to walk backwards.

“Come here.”

I watched him in confusion as he took his place on the bed, glancing down at the spot on the floor in front of me where he had just been.

“What…what um...”

“You’re gonna ride my face.”

I nearly choked on my own spit, my eyes widening in shock as I watched Matt move to lay flat on his back on the mattress. Matt Murdock was no stranger to eating me out. Sometimes I think he enjoyed it almost as much as I did. There were times I had to practically pry him away, nearly in tears from overstimulation because he just kept going and going and going. He’d had his face buried between my thighs countless times, but never like that.

“W-What?”

“You’re gonna sit on my face, you’re gonna ride my tongue until you come, and you’re gonna keep going until you feel satisfied. If you wanna go all fucking night, we will. You don’t stop until you get what you need.”

Even though he was offering to let me take control, there was still a dominant edge to his voice that made my knees weak. Matt reached his hand out for me to take, his eyes blankly moving back and forth as he waited to sense my presence come near. I was frozen with apprehension. I wanted it, God did I want it, but I was nervous. I had seen a picture of Elektra once. We looked nothing alike, figure wise. I had a very curvy figure. I had wider hips and thick thighs, and while I knew Matt was very strong, I also knew I would die of embarrassment if I had to explain how I nearly suffocated my boyfriend from trying to ride his face for the first time.

“Don’t.”

“What?”

I blinked a few times as I stared over at Matt, taking a few cautious steps forward until I stood next to the bed. I reached out slowly to grab onto his hand and swallowed thickly when he tugged me closer, pressing a reassuring kiss to each of my knuckles.

“Don’t think so hard. Just come here and let me make you feel better, please.”

I tried to let go of all my trepidation with a deep exhale, capturing my bottom lip between my teeth as I climbed up onto the bed. I let go of Matt’s hand momentarily to pull my oversized sleep shirt over my head so that it wouldn’t get in the way. I swung my leg over Matt’s waist and straddled his chest. He quickly grabbed onto my hips and pulled me up further with impressive speed, causing me to gasp and brace my hands against the wall.

“Jesus, Matt. Slow down.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I just...fuck...can you get up here? Please, baby?”

I wasn’t used to Matt sounding so needy. That was usually my role. I was always the one begging for him…begging for more. Hearing how desperately he wanted to taste me sent a tidal wave of lust dripping down my thighs, and Matt growled lowly in his throat at that. His fingertips dug roughly into the soft flesh of my thighs and his hips bucked upwards slightly. I stared down at him in awe, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride and confidence from the way he was reacting.

“Sweetheart...please...I’m begging you. Let me make you come until you can’t walk. Come on angel...be a good girl for me and come ride my face, yeah? Let me show you how much I want you. Only want you.”

Between his strained begging and the way he moved his head to get closer to where I was soaked, I couldn’t take it anymore. My pussy seemed to have a mind of its own because before I could stop myself, I was settling my knees on either side of Matt’s head and bracing my hands onto the wall to steady myself, preparing to lower myself languidly. Matt however had other plans. In an instant, Matt had a bruising iron grip on my thighs and had roughly pulled my soaking cunt down on his face. One of my hands immediately flew down to grip at his hair as I moaned loudly when I felt his tongue slip inside me. Matthew Murdock was extremely talented with his mouth, which made him an exceptional lawyer, but an even more sensational lover.

His mouth was so warm as he ravaged me, and I felt myself already having a difficult time staying upright. Matt’s large hand came down hard against my ass and I cried out as it surged me forward, the action causing his nose to bump divinely against my clit as his tongue explored my pussy like it was the first time all over again. It took one more slap for me to get the hint and I slowly started to move my hips against his face. The muffled moan of approval that sounded beneath me only spurred me on to roll my hips back and forth delicately like an easy tide. I gripped tightly onto Matt’s hair and tugged hard which caused a groan to reverberate enticingly against my clit.

I could feel him moving slightly around on the bed behind me and glanced over my shoulder to see him rolling his hips upwards into the air in time with my own pace. I could see the perfect outline of his impressive cock as it strained against the barrier of his sweatpants. There was already a wet patch forming which drove me even more crazy. He was really fucking enjoying this. It never failed to turn me on even further seeing how much Matt got off to getting me off.

My breaths became more jagged and struggled to be released from my chest the closer I got to the edge. I should’ve felt pathetic about being so close to coming undone so quickly, but it had been weeks. I whined loudly as I began to grind my hips down back and forth on his tongue, welcoming the burn of his facial hair rubbing roughly against my inner thighs. I had gotten so used to his touch that I felt like I was completely starving after two weeks without it. I hadn’t even bothered trying to get myself off because I knew it would be no use. I couldn’t come without Matt, not since the first night I let him touch me and make himself at home between my thighs. Nothing compared to him.

“M-Matty...oh god...please...”

Matt clamped both of his large hands down on my thighs to hold me in place, wrapping his plump lips around my swollen clit to suck on it feverishly. I could feel him moaning against my core and it only brought me closer and closer to where I wanted to be. It was so close...so fucking close. My entire body felt tense with anticipation as I waited impatiently to be tossed over the edge into pure ecstasy. It felt like a rubber band within me was being stretched impossibly thin, and I just needed it to fucking snap already.

“Maaaatty…please please please..”

I don’t even know what I was asking for, but he knew. He always knew. Matt granted me mercy as he quickened the pace of his tongue, flickering over my clit like a flame trying to withstand the wind. He gently bit down on my sensitive nub, causing me to explode with pure bliss. I rocked my hips against his face messily as I kept my tight grip on his hair. A high pitched whine left my lips when I felt a growl rip through his chest as I finally came into his mouth. I glanced down just in time to see his eyes nearly roll into the back of his head from my taste hitting his tongue, a satisfied primal groan resonating against my core. Matt wouldn’t let me budge until he greedily lapped up every drop of nectar my body had to offer. My thighs shook aggressively as I tried to ride out one of the most powerful orgasms I’d ever had. My body felt entirely too heavy, and the only reason I hadn’t collapsed was because Matt was still holding me up. He detached his lips just for a split second, baring his teeth in menacing snarl.

“Go for another one, sweetheart. I told you…we can stay here all fucking night.”

I glanced down to see the lower half of Matt’s face completely coated in my glimmering wetness. His lips were swollen and red, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead, panting as he tried desperately to catch his own breath. His hair was sticking up in odd directions from my hazardous gripping and his eyes were blown open so wide, I could see the devil in them, waiting for me to unlock his chains. I whimpered as I felt his tongue teasing at my folds, trying my hardest to pull away from his eager mouth.

“I..I c-can’t..ah fuck Matty…please…let me down...please...”

Matt grabbed onto my hips and lifted me up gently, helping me onto my back on the spot right beside him. My body was still trembling with aftershocks of pleasure when I felt the warm weight of his body on top of mine. His lips left a burning trail of kisses down the column of my neck, between the valley of my breasts, and along my lower stomach. I whined when I felt his warm breath wavering against my clit.

“Shh...let me take care of you, sweetheart. I’ll do all the work. Just lay back and let me make it better.”

“Matty...please. I just want you, please.”

I hadn’t forgiven him. I was still hurt and angry, and there was so much we needed to talk about. But right now, I just needed him. I needed to feel him. I needed to feel our bodies connected together, like they belonged to one another. I needed him to tell me everything would be okay as he held my hand and made love to me. I needed to know he was still mine.

I could feel tears pricking at the corners of my eyes as he hovered over me and I grabbed onto his face to pull him down in a searing kiss. I could feel him sigh in content and relief against my mouth, sliding his hand under my back to pull me up closer so that could press our chests together. I could feel his heartbeat thundering against my own in a perfect symphony. As I pushed at the waistband of his sweatpants, he gently grabbed onto my wrist and broke the kiss to lean his forehead against mine.

“Sweetheart, I told you…you don’t have to touch me.”

“I need to, Matty. I need it, please. I need you.”

Matt stilled at my sobbing plea and brought one of his large hands up to brush the scattered tears away with his thumb, cupping my cheek in his hand as he gazed down at me in pure concern.

“Angel, what’s wrong? Talk to me. Was it too much? Do I need to stop?”

“No...no please don’t. I just...I need you, Matty. I need you here.”

“I am here, sweetheart.”

“I need you to stay here. You can’t...you can’t just ignore me for two weeks and then run off with someone else, Matt. You can’t do that to me...especially not with her. So...if this is it, then I want-”

“Hey, no. This is not it. Don’t talk like that. Listen to me...I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I’ll never do that again, I swear. You mean everything to me, alright? I’m not going anywhere, sweet girl. I’m right here. And I don’t want you to worry about her. She’s on the first flight out of New York in the morning, okay? She’s not coming back. It’s just you and me, my love. I’m right here. I love you.”

“Then show me.”

I didn’t wait for him as I braced my palms against his broad chest and pushed with all the strength I had left, rising up onto my knees as I pushed him down onto his back. I ignored his faint protests, grabbing at the waistband of his briefs and sweatpants to tug them down in one swift motion as quickly as possible. I pressed my palm hard against his chest to keep him down when he tried to sit up, climbing onto his lap and positioning myself over his impatient cock. The tip was swollen with lust and weeping with need, standing proudly at attention above his stomach, waiting for me. I didn’t take my time to slowly lower myself down like I normally did. No matter how many times Matt had been inside me, ruined me, I always had to adjust to his size.

We both cried out in unison when I sank down completely, and his hands flew up to seize my hips. Being on top always required the most accommodation, but I loved having him like this. I could feel him everywhere. All I wanted was to be completely filled to the brim and consumed entirely by him. I winced as the sting of my walls being stretched to their limits pierced through my lower half.

“Fuck, sweetheart. Easy easy…don’t hurt yourself. We can take it slow-fuck!”

I ignored every single one of Matt’s words as I sat up straight and began to swivel my hips in purposeful circles. It burned, God did it burn, but I wanted it. I wanted it all. I didn’t know if I believed Matt’s words. I didn’t know if the love he had for me would ever compare to what he had felt for her, what he might still feel for her. I didn’t know that I believed tonight wasn’t it for us. But all that I wanted was a reminder, that this had been real. That Matt had been real, and he had been mine. I would take the pain willingly if it meant I’d be able to feel him for the next few days. I’d happily be haunted by the ache he left between my thighs to remind myself that this was real.

Every drawn out moan of my name that rang in my ears, every breathless pant, every plea of oh my god and every praise of fuck sweetheart kept me moving even though I felt like my legs were seconds away from giving up. I threw my head back towards the heavens, hoping God would understand my prayers and what I needed through the form of Matt’s name. On my knees above him, I prayed. And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.

I didn’t know if the tears falling freely down my cheeks were from being pushed to my limit physically, or mentally, but I cried out when Matt sat up fully to wipe them away from my cheeks, reaching farther inside me than I ever thought possible. I whined when I felt his hand wrap delicately around my throat, his thumb and index finger holding my chin in a firm grasp as he captured my lips.

“Shh…it’s alright sweetheart. I’m here. I’m right here. Doing so well for me, angel. Always so good to me. Let me take care of you.”

Matt brought my arms up to wrap around his neck, grabbing my hips gently to flip our bodies over and lay me down into the sanctuary of silk covered pillows. He pulled my legs tightly around his waist, locking his own hips in place against mine. One hand came up to intertwine our fingers together, squeezing my hand in reassurance as he placed his other forearm directly beside my head. Pressing our foreheads together, brushing his nose and lips against mine, Matt began to oscillate his hips at a tender speed, allowing me to feel every detailed stroke of him against my tight walls.

“My perfect girl. Can’t you feel how perfect we fit together, Y/N? Can’t you feel how perfect you are for me?”

I couldn’t handle the vulnerability in his featherlight whispers. It tugged so hard on the strings of my heart, I thought they might snap. I tried to whisper his name, respond with something coherent, but all I could manage was a needy whimper. Matt let go of my hand for just a second, slipping his own between our bodies to press down on the bulge in my lower stomach.

“You can feel me here, can’t you sweetheart?”

I grabbed onto the back of his neck urgently, digging my nails into the muscle of his upper back to anchor him in place. I tried to nod, tried to hide my face into the refuge of his neck to escape his inexorable gaze, but he wasn’t having any of that. Matt’s hand was quickly covering my throat again, his hold on my chin a little tighter this time, forcing my eyes to meet his.

“I am not going anywhere. Nothing could ever take me away from you. Not her, not Fisk, no one. Not even God himself could keep me from you.”

His caramel coated eyes were staring so hard down into mine, it knocked the breath out of me. For a second, I felt like Matt could actually see me. His stare only grew in intensity as his thrusts became more precise.

“Listen to me, sweetheart. You are mine. And I am yours. We belong to no one else, but each other. I’m gonna marry you someday, Y/N. Someday soon. I want nothing more than for you to be my wife, my perfect girl. My angel. There’s no one else I want by my side for the rest of my life. No one else who understands me better than you do. No one else that accepts me like you do. No one else that’s as good to me as you are. I will do whatever it takes to prove that to you. I will put a ring on your finger tomorrow. I will put a baby in you tonight.”

A sharp gasp mixed with a breathless moan echoed from my lips at Matt’s words. I knew Matt wanted to get married someday, and I always hoped it would be to me. We had very briefly had a conversation about kids once. He knew that I wanted them, and said that he did too. Someday. While marriage I knew we could make work, I wasn’t sure about the kids part. I didn’t know if I could handle having a child with him when he still needed the other side of him, and I didn’t know if he would ever know when he wouldn’t need that side of him anymore. It was a tricky conversation I wasn’t ready to try and navigate. I didn’t want to risk losing Matt, and I would never ask him to give up something that was so important to him. But the conviction in his voice, the certainty of his words, made me lightheaded. Matt tilted his head to the side slightly, a sense of recognition softening his gaze as a light smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“That what you want, sweetheart? Hm? That what you need? Taking my last name and growing our baby inside you to remind you every day that I’m yours?”

“Matty…”

“You want all of me, don’t you angel? C’mon, tell me. Tell me you want all of me.”

“I…God, Matty…want all of you, please.”

“I love you, Y/N. You love me, don’t you? C’mon baby, tell me you love me.”

“I love you, Matty. I, oh God, love you so much…”

“Say you’ll marry me. Gonna ask properly, I promise, but I need to hear you say it. Tell me, sweetheart.”

“Yes Matty…yes I’ll marry you.”

I knew Matt was listening intently to my heartbeat with every answer that spilled from me, searching for any falter in rhythm that would tell him I wasn’t telling the truth. That I was just obeying his orders. But I wasn’t lying. I meant every word. I knew that Matt knew that from the mouth splitting grin that took over his entire face.

“That’s my girl. My perfect girl. Now, tell me I can come inside. We can start our family tonight, sweetheart. C’mon, tell me you want it, and you’ll be pregnant before the sun comes up. Let me hear it, angel.”

“Please Matty, please. Please come inside me. I want our family. I want it all. Please Matty, make me yours.”

Matt tightened his grip slightly on my throat, silencing my cries of pleasure with his lips. His pace remained gentle and loving, but his thrusts were powerful and meticulous, relentlessly hitting that spot inside me that had me swimming in constellations that appeared behind my eyelids every single time. It didn’t take much longer for me to plunge from the peak of exhilaration, free falling into uninhibited gratification below that was completely and irrevocably Matt.

I felt tingles sparking throughout my extremities as my body spasmed in rolling blackouts of delectation, causing my walls to clench unforgivably around Matt’s cock. I could feel the rhythm of his hips stuttering into short, staccato bursts as he finally reached his own crescendo. The pure satisfaction entangled in the legato moans of his climax wrapped around me like a warm blanket, lulling me into a state of ease. For the first time all night, joy buzzed in my bloodstream, and I was able to silence the roaring of my insecurity.

Matt was here. Matt loved me. Matt was mine.

I hugged him as close and tightly to my chest as I could, refusing to unlock my legs from around his waist when I felt him start to pull back.

“Don’t, please. Just stay. Just wanna stay like this.”

Matt pressed a soft kiss to my forehead and allowed his lips to linger there for a moment before marking my nose, cheeks, and lips in his adoration. He nuzzled his head into my neck and I felt him inhale my scent deeply before sighing in content.

“Alright, sweetheart. We can stay like this.”

I basked in the comfortable silence for a moment, allowing my brain to process every single one of Matt’s words. I felt a childlike sense of giddiness, like when you were a kid and you knew you were getting the exact gift you wanted for Christmas. You had peeked, and spoiled it for yourself, but still felt unfiltered excitement anyway. The gift itself didn’t matter as much as the feeling of knowing that it was what you wanted and it was yours.

Matt Murdock was my gift. The one thing I always wanted, the only thing that mattered, that was all mine.

I threaded my fingers lightly through his hair, occasionally massaging at his scalp and smiling at the hums of gratitude that vibrated against my neck.

“Matty?”

“Hm?”

“You know I’m still on birth control, right?”

“I know, sweetheart. It doesn’t hurt to start practicing though, does it?”

I could feel his smile against my skin. If I closed my eyes, I could see it. I knew exactly which one it was. I couldn’t help but giggle at his response, tightening my arms around his back.

“Well, if that’s the case, then we’ve been practicing for over a year Matty. Sometimes several times a day.”

Matt pulled his head back just enough so that he could face me, bumping his nose against my own as a devilish grin stretched across his soft lips.

“I like to be prepared.”

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x y/n #matt murdock x female reader #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock smut #matt murdock fic #matt murdock x you #daredevil #daredevil smut #daredevil fic #elektra natchios #foggy nelson

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farfromstrange · 1 month

Text

Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3!

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps.

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again.

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable.

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil.

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature.

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving.

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one.

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans.

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist.

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires!

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak.

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire.

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen.

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead.

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real.

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires.

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear.

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes.

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges.

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands.

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market.

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight.

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself.

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into?

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man.

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set.

Yours sincerely,

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure.

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out.

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t.

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire.

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him.

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work?

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you.

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly?

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay.

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person.

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June.

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard.

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there.

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying.

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them.

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it.

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought.

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is.

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire.

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you.

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell.

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run.

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl.

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is.

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous.

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being.

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground.

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed.

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin.

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft.

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful.

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night.

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself.

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel.

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs.

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down.

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out.

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool.

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out.

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose.

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless.

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his.

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died.

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind.

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says.

“I was considering not to.”

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter.

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing.

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste?

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.”

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap.

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.”

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe.

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked.

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to.

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself.

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate.

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says.

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice.

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say.

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say.

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away.

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out.

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask.

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home.

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass.

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says.

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth.

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight.

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–”

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off.

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?”

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says.

He’s amused. You’re amusing him.

“Don’t call me that,” you growl.

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself.

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?”

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body.

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor.

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out.

“Published by Columbia University.”

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.”

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you.

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?”

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers.

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew.

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence.

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep.

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside.

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier.

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him.

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says.

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped.

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down.

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes.

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you.

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word.

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch.

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in.

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says.

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be.

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall.

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights.

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth.

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?”

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal.

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most.

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture.

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes.

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away.

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle.

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want.

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell.

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home.

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you.

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you.

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough.

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake.

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his.

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins.

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal.

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of.

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat.

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you.

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch.

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls.

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you.

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you.

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure.

“Matthew,” you moan.

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.”

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all.

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate.

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come.

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart.

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang.

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes.

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that.

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks.

“Thinking about you,” you murmur.

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop.

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening.

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you.

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death.

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that.

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever.

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you.

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him.

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once.

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine.

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight.

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger.

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this.

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him.

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come.

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days.

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock smut #matt murdock x fem!reader #matt murdock x you #vampire!matt murdock #matt murdock angst #daredevil #x reader #interview with the vampire #charlie cox #alternate universe #reader insert

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petertingle-yipyip · 8 months

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THREE EMPTY WORDS - MATT MURDOCK

Pairing: Matt x Wife!Reader

Word Count: 3,230

Summary (Request): a request like fingers crossed where matty and reader are married and when elektra enters wounded she's sleeping and doesn't realise the situation, so half groggy wifey goes and asks him to sleep. he obviously says no, so she walks away upset.. then stick asks him if he would leave the reader for elektra and he says yes. reader obviously hears this (somehow he doesn't know) but what he does hear is her heart snap in two because of how heartbroken. then he ends up apologising and idk how but its a happy ending

You pushed your laptop away and rubbed your eyes, closing them tightly when you realized just how dry they were. They burned slightly and you knew it was time for bed. You shut your device after saving your lesson plans and tucked it into your bag on the floor. You wandered through the living room for one final check that your boyfriend hadn’t collapsed on the couch before you headed to bed.

It was a few hours later when the commotion started. The loud crashing from your living room woke you with a start, jumping hard enough to nearly fall off the bed. You sat up with eyes squinting through the bright living room lights to see the familiar silhouette of an unmasked Matt, accompanied by an older figure and a limp body.

You fought your way out of the blankets and shuffled across the room to get to the door. The lights were still too bright so you covered your eyes with one hand while holding the door with the other.

“Matty? Is that you?” You asked, the sleep in your voice obviously.

“Yeah.” He answered in a rush. “It’s me, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. Go back to bed, alright? I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, okay.” You nodded, a heavy yawn sneaking through. “Are you coming?”

“Not right now. I need a few minutes but I’ll be there. Just.. Please.”

“Okay.” You shrugged and shuffled back, eyes closed as you dropped back into bed.

After a short amount of tossing and turning, you woke to a loud yank of the dresser drawer. You sat up and pushed yourself against the headboard, eyes still closed as your hands dropped into your lap. Matt was muttering to himself as he fought out of his suit, the heavy protective material getting slammed against the floor.

“What time is it?” You mumbled, blinking quickly to try and acclimate to the light. “What’s wrong, Matty?”

“It’s nothing, Y/N.” He answered, relatively sharply but maybe he was just tired. “I didn’t mean to wake you again.”

“It’s fine… Should I be worried?”

He finally turned to face you and you noticed his hands were covered in dried blood and they were trembling. You swung your legs around and got up, intending to go to his side but he was quick to meet you and turn you around so your back was towards the living room.

“Matt.” You said quizzically, though there was a firmness that demanded an answer. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a mess out there right now, okay?” He sighed. His eyes closed and he dropped his forehead against yours while his hands moved up and down your arms gently. “I’m gonna handle it and then I’ll be right there in bed with you.”

“You promise?”

He gave a small chuckle before planting a sweet kiss on your forehead.

“I promise.”

“Go on then.” You plopped yourself on the bed again. “Go be a hero… I love you.”

“I love you too.”

You laid on your side as you watched him go back into the living room. He hesitated at the doors and your brows furrowed, though you said nothing. You saw his shoulders drop and heard the faint sigh before he turned away and closed the doors the majority of the way.

You quickly realized you weren’t going to be able to fall back asleep anytime soon so you crawled to the edge of the bed. You leaned forward in an effort to peek through the small opening and saw a woman on the couch, eyes closed with Matt at her side. Out of curiosity, you pushed the blanket to the floor and slid down on top of it. When there was no reaction from Matt, you continued forward until you were at the doors.

Elektra.

How long had she been back? Was she okay?

“Matty.” The old man said. You angled yourself to see him and you could only assume it was the old man who had trained Matt when he was younger. “You know you can’t have both.”

“What?” Matt asked quickly, and you had a similar but quieter reaction. “What are you talking about?”

“Look at yourself, kid. You got your girl in the room, sleeping alone, because you’re here with her.”

“She could die, Stick. I just want to make sure she’s alright.”

“There’s nothing you can do for Ellie right now.” Stick said simply. “As much as I disagree with the soft life you built here…” He sighed and turned towards the bedroom. You froze, as if you’d been caught, but then you remembered he was also blind. But that didn’t mean he didn’t know you were there. “Would you leave it all?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“What’s her name? Y/N?”

“Don’t talk about her.” Matt said protectively. “What are you getting at?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically, it’s between Ellie here and that little firecracker in the bedroom… Who do you pick?”

“I’m not gonna play your game.”

“That’s an answer on its own.” He shrugged.

“Shut up, Stick.”

“All I’m saying is that-“

“I don’t care.” Matt cut in sharply. “I don’t care what you have to say about my life or the way I’m living it, alright? She knows what I do is dangerous and she’s fine with it. She knows that I love her and I do this to make sure she’s safe. She gets it, all of it.”

“Does she?” Stick countered calmly. “Does she know about Ellie?”

Matt was quiet.

“She doesn’t.” The old man said quietly. “And you really think she’ll stay once she knows?”

“It doesn’t matter… She doesn’t need to know.”

“Intersting..”

“What are you looking for, Stick? You want some confession about how I feel?”

“I want you to stop lying to yourself, Kid. And stop lying to that girl.” He pointed towards you in the bedroom.

“I’m not lying.” Matt scoffed.

“Okay… So who’s it gonna be?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Ellie or Y/N?”

“That’s my wife, Stick.”

“Just answer the question!”

“Elektra!” Matt yelled suddenly and you felt your stomach twist.

Without much thought you pushed the doors open roughly, earning a quick head turn from Matt and a smirk crossed Stick’s features that made you feel sick. Why he intended on pushing Matt to give an answer, you had no idea. But he did, and Matt gave the exact opposite answer you expected.

“Y/N? You okay?” Matt asked carefully, a small tilt to his head as he listened in to whatever tell your body was giving him. “Your heart’s racing.”

“Yeah..” You said tightly. “Just need the bathroom.”

You hurried into the room and locked the door behind yourself. You leaned against the sink, taking a minute to stare at the tears welling up in your eyes. You felt sick, a twisted knot growing in your stomach. It felt as if it was swelling, crushing your lungs and cramming itself into your throat to the point where it was hard to breathe. Your knees fell weak and you let yourself drop the ground, head in hands as the tears began to fall. You kept quiet to try and hear what Matt said next.

“That wasn’t fair.” Matt said angrily. “You tricked me.”

“Did I?” Stick answered sarcastically. “Did I trick you?”

“Yes, you did.”

“The only person that tricked you is you. Come on, Matty. No one forced you to say Ellie’s name.”

“And no one asked you to come here and start problems. You knew she was listening and you wanted to see if you could play some sick game with her. You don’t even know her!”

“I know that you don’t need her.”

“Get out.”

“All of this over some girl. Wake up, kid!”

“Stop talking about my wife that she’s just some girl.”

“She won’t stick around after that.”

“Get out of my apartment or I will throw your ass out.”

With quiet screams, knees pulled to your chest and arms wrapped around them, you sobbed on the bathroom floor.

Your eyes were closed tightly and your shoulders shook as your lungs fought to fill with air. You turned your head to let the small whine of a sound get muffled by your shoulder while your nose ran and leaked onto your shirt. Your hands gripped your legs tightly and our nails dug into the tender flesh, serving as a physical source of your emotional pain.

You had always known Matt had a soft spot for his old college girlfriend. She was the first person that made Matt feel alive, that didn’t treat him as a porcelain doll. She challenged him and adored him for all he was. Like he said, she understood all of it. But to hear him confess that he’d still choose her over you, after everything you’ve helped him through, it felt like a deep cut to your soul.

“Sweetheart?” Matt asked from the other side of the door as he knocked lightly. “You alright in there?”

You shook your head quickly, despite the fact that he wouldn’t know, but had no voice to offer a response. You knew if you tried to say anything, you’d fall into another fit of sobs.

“Y/N, I can’t tell if you answered… Please talk to me, or open the door.”

“Go away.” You said quietly, a voice hardly above a whisper.

“No.” He said before a small shuffle and his voice came from a lower angle for his next sentence. “Not until you tell me.”

You rolled your eyes and slammed your fist against the door. You assumed it would’ve hit just about where he was so maybe he would get the hint that you didn’t want him around.

He didn’t.

“You heard what Stick said, didn’t you?” He asked gently.

“The important part is I heard what you said, Matt.” You managed, your voice weak rather than sharp.

“What I… Y/N, sweetie, you know I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m crying my eyes out because I know what you meant.” You offered sarcastically. “Just leave me alone.”

“I’m not gonna let you stay in the bathroom all night. Unless you plan to sleep in the bathtub, you have to come out at some point, my love.”

“Why didn’t you tell me she was in town?”

“I didn’t think it would matter… It wasn’t supposed to come to this. It was supposed to be something quick, one-and-done. I never planned on her being here this long.”

“Is that supposed to make it okay?” You sniffled. “Things didn’t go to plan so you continue to hide it? You lied to me, Matt. So many times… I thought you were just out doing Daredevil things but you were going on little vigilante dates with her.”

“Dates? No, no, Y/N, nothing was ever a date.”

“That night you left in your work suit and came back in a tux?” You challenged.

“That..” He said slowly as he searched for a way to explain it. Now you were starting to grow angry, hearing him try to justify what he was doing rather than admit he was wrong. “Wasn’t a date. It was just us-”

“It was you two, getting dressed up and going out.”

“We needed to get into the gala to take a leger. That’s it.”

“If that was it, it should’ve been done. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“No…”

“No, you continued to see her and continued to lie to me and all of your friends... Does she even know that we're married?”

“Yes.” He answered quickly. “Yes, of course she knows. I’d never try to keep you a secret.”

“No, but you’ll keep secrets from me.”

“I thought it would be quick.”

You rolled your eyes and shoved yourself to your feet. You yanked the door open and pushed forward, nearly tripping over Matt, who was still sitting on the floor. You let out a ragged breath as a poor attempt to control your boiling anger but with every hasty step across your living room, every time your peripherals caught sight of Matt’s unconscious ex-lover on your couch, you felt that anger seer through every nerve in your body.

Every inch of your skin tingled and your muscles burned. You didn’t know what to do with yourself. You wanted to scream, to hit something, to throw something. You wanted to cry, to run, and just be alone. But where would you go? It was late. Your friends were likely asleep. You had no escape at the moment, so instead of letting it cook you from the inside out, you directed your anger at the only person you thought would deserve it.

Well, maybe not deserve it, but the only person who could take it.

“I never wanted to lie to you or- or keep anything from you.” Matt tried and all you could respond with was a scoff. You knew the second you let your brain send words to your tongue, they’d flow from your mouth. They’d grow and burn and creep like lava, thick and heavy and painful. So you pressed your lips together and shook your head, letting out sharp exhales through your nose as your angry pacing continued.

“Please, Y/N, you have to believe me.” He nearly begged.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” You asked through gritted teeth, digging nails into your palms so roughly it sent a sting through your hand. “Or was she always going to be your little secret?”

“I never meant to -”

“That doesn't make it any better!” You shouted, throwing your arm widely to gesture to the woman on your now bloodied couch. “You can’t justify this! There’s no scenario or circumstances that make this okay! Do you get that?”

“I know but-”

“Then there is no but!” You continued to scream.

You didn’t care if the neighbors heard. You didn’t care if the whole city heard you. You didn't care if your volume woke Elektra or even woke the dead. You were absolutely livid now that the sadness had worn off. You were initially hurt that he had admitted to preferring Elektra to you, but at the end of the night, Matt came home to you. Matt spent his nights with you. He trusted all of his secrets to you. Elektra may have had his heart in the beginning but he was yours now. You wouldn’t let that go, nor would you ever let her think otherwise.

“I have to find out by accident that my husband is running around town, ditching work, for his ex from college. How do you think that makes me feel? How does that make our marriage look?” You continued, unleashing any thought your brain conjured.

But at that moment, with the notorious neon shining through the living room windows, you refused to let anything slide. You refused to let Matt think he could keep such a secret, especially one with such heavy implications, from you when he had told you - quite literally - everything else.

“How can I make this up to you?” He asked gently, walking to your side and gently reaching for your balled-up hands.

You yanked them from his grip and shoved him instead. He nodded slightly and let you push him again. And again. And again. You reached to do it again but that time, he caught your wrists. You pulled away slightly but he refused to let you go, offering a pointed expression instead.

“Let me go, Matt.” You said firmly.

“No.” He said with a slight shake of his head. “Not until you answer me.”

“You didn’t owe me this explanation. Why would I owe you an answer?” You shot back sharply.

“Because I love you… Because you mean everything to me and I’m not going to lose you because of something stupid that I said.”

“Those three empty words will only make this worse. Say them again and I will throw all of your shit out of that window.”

“Empty?” His brows raised and he let your hands go. He scoffed slightly with a nod as he took a few steps away. “Empty words, huh?”

“What would you call them?” You countered, though seeing the hurt expression seemed to sap the anger from your bones.

You started to feel bad… But didn’t you want to hurt him? Make him feel the way you had, just moments before?

“I won’t keep saying those ‘three empty words’ but I am gonna say something else.” Matt said carefully, as if he had decided to choose his words more intently. “Will you hear me out now?”

“If something doesn’t change, we’ll just keep sinking further.” You warned hesitantly, more scared that you had gone too far than that Matt would cross a line. Granted, he had crossed one already but you had gotten over him hiding Daredevil from you so you figured you’d get over the whole Elektra issue with some time. But maybe you had screwed yourself out of that chance.

“I’m running out of things to say to you to get you to believe me.” He confessed, dropping into one of the armchairs out of defeat. “Just tell me this isn’t broken.”

“You tell me.” You shrugged.

“I’m trying.” He laughed, though there was no humor in the sound. It was a sound of stress, desperation even.

“Are you?” You challenged mindlessly, not even realizing you had said it until you watched Matt’s expression change.

“You, Y/N, are the most important person in my life. I could lose… I could lose everything, but as long as I have you… I can do anything as long as you’re with me.”

“Then why is she here?” You insisted, pointing at her with every word.

“Where else were we supposed to take her?” He asked in quiet resignation. “I couldn’t just leave her to die in that place.”

“Fine.” You gave up, rubbing your hands down your face as the sleep pushed your anger away and took its place across your body, making it grow three times as heavy. “Okay.”

“Don’t do that.” Matt shook his head. “Don’t just conceed.”

“I don’t wanna fight anymore.” You admitted through a yawn. “We’re tired.” You reasoned. “We can’t take it anymore… Let’s just get some sleep. And deal with this tomorrow, probably after we both get off work.”

“Y/N.”

“Matthew.”

“Look, before you go to bed, can I say one more thing?” He jumped to his feet and came to stand in front of you, gently taking your hands in his.

“Yeah, just make it quick.” You shrugged.

He placed your hands over the center of his chest, allowing you to feel his pulse thump steadily under your fingers. His hands stayed over yours and you had to bite down the smile as you looked up at him. You felt the subtle movement of his fingers, ensuring that the wedding ring was still on your finger. His head was tilted towards you and he wore the smallest of smiles when he found it, which would seem normal at any other time.

“You mean everything to me, my love… I never meant to hurt you and I’ll do whatever I can to prove that to you. I’d hate to lose you over something like this.”

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mattmurdocksscars · 2 years

Text

Don’t Let Go

Hello, loves! I’ve got some angst with a happy/hopeful ending for yall! I hope you enjoy!! Thanks to @phoebe-danvers for reading this over for me. You da best 😘 Reposting to see if this fixes the tag issues

Tagging: @darling-ghosts @budcooper @aellynera @shakespeareanwannabe @peachy-aisha @harleywaymustdie @enjoymyloves

Matt and you had been dating for some time. You knew his secret, knew about his time spent protecting Hell’s Kitchen and had accepted every single part of him. You thought that things were perfect.

And then she came.

Like a tornado in the night, Elektra whirled into your lives and left destruction in her wake. Matt and you had never really fought before but now you fought almost daily. You bickered over anything and everything, but especially about Elektra. You trusted Matt, you did, but when he started ignoring his other responsibilities for her, you drew the line. Seeing them together was even worse though. You may have trusted Matt, but you did not trust her. The way she looked at Matt and the way she acted around him told you everything you needed to know. Elektra wanted Matt for herself, and you wouldn’t put it past her to do anything in her power to get him. It made you nervous, but Matt merely brushed off your concerns, saying that even if she wanted him, he no longer wanted her.

And that should have been enough for you. Would have been enough if you didn’t continue to find them in increasingly compromising positions. Not only that, but they looked good together. Hell, they worked well together as well. It got easier and easier to think Matt would be happier without you. Between the fighting and the sight of them together… it wasn’t hard to put thoughts in your head.

Your breaking point came the night Matt came home with Elektra injured in his arms, Stick following close behind. You had immediately jumped up, asking what you could do to help only to be completely ignored. You had to watch as Matt ran around getting whatever Stick asked for, the way he kneeled beside her, her hand clasped in his as he prayed over her. What truly broke you though, was the conversation you heard them have in his bedroom as you sat with Stick.

“When you were hurt, when I thought I might lose you, I- I felt hollow.” The first of your tears had dripped down your cheeks and you heard Stick sigh softly. You stood, ignoring everything else Matt said and walked to the door. You slipped your shoes on and grabbed your keys, hesitating for a minute before taking Matt’s key off your ring and leaving it on the table by the door. You walked out without another word.

You’re unsure of how long you walked for. It was dangerous to walk in Hell’s Kitchen this late at night by yourself, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. When your phone started ringing and you pulled it from your pocket to see Matt’s name, you broke down even harder. You waited for it to finish ringing before you called Karen. It rang a few times before she finally picked up, her voice rough with sleep. There was a beep, indicating another call coming through, but you ignored it.

“Hello?”

“K-Karen… I-I need somewhere to stay. Please. I can’t-“

“What happened? Where are you? Where’s Matt?” At his name, you sobbed again and shook your head, even knowing she couldn’t see it.

“Please, Karen. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” You heard her sigh sadly, before agreeing. She insisted she stay on the line with you as you made the trek to her place, and you were blessedly left alone for the duration of the trip. Karen was quick to open the door when you reached her place and she tugged you into her arms. She let you cry it out and when you finally managed to calm down, she asked you what happened. You knew you couldn’t tell her the whole truth since she still didn’t know about Daredevil so you told her the partial one.

“There was a woman in his bed… He said she was just a friend who needed somewhere to stay but then… then I heard him speaking to her. Karen, the way he spoke to her, I-“

“You don’t have to explain. I get it. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe Matt would do this to you, he seemed so happy with you…”

“I thought so too.” You whispered. The two of you stay up for a while talking until you finally fall into a fitful sleep on her couch.

You’re woken in the morning by a banging on her door and you can hear Matt call desperately through it for Karen. You flinch as Karen comes out of her room and she gives you a look.

“Stay there and I’ll get him to leave. He’s probably just worried about you.” Karen whispered before heading to the door. You sunk down on the couch so you were hidden and so you wouldn’t have to see Matt. Karen answered the door, only opening it a crack. You could hear them speak to each other, though you blocked out what was said until you heard Karen snap Matt’s name.

“She doesn’t want to see you. Matt-“ You peaked over the couch only to see Matt standing in the living room panting. You sunk down so only your eyes were visible. Karen came stomping in after him and opened her mouth to rip Matt a new one, but you stopped her.

“It’s… it’s fine, Kare. Can you give us a minute?” Karen looked between the two of you and you knew she wanted to argue but she finally sighed and nodded.

“Fine. I’ll be in my room if you need me. Behave, Murdock.” She snipped before slipping into her room and closing the door to give the two of you some semblance of privacy. Matt and you were silent for several minutes and you refused to be the one to break the silence this time.

“Why… why did you leave? Do you have any idea how worried I was?” Matt asked, his voice bordering on scolding and causing you to scoff.

“Not worried enough to come looking for me until the morning.” You snapped and Matt flinched.

“You know why I couldn’t come looking until this morning, that’s not fair.” You sighed and shook your head.

“Stick could have easily looked after her. Besides, I heard what you said. You didn’t need me there.” Matt furrowed his brow and cocked his head.

“What do you mean you ‘heard what I said’?” You looked away from him and picked at the blanket still covering your lap.

“I heard what you said to Elektra.” You swallowed thickly, emotion suddenly overwhelming you. “About how you felt hollow when you thought you might lose her. And I saw you, the way you were with her. You still love her.”

When Matt didn’t contradict you, you simply nodded.

“That’s what I thought. We’ve done nothing but fight since she got here and then last night… I refuse to let myself be pushed aside like this. If you don’t want this, if you want her instead, you need to man up and tell me.”

“Sweetheart, please-“ Suddenly angry, you stand and point a finger menacingly at him.

“No. No! You don’t get to call me that after last night.” Matt stepped forward until he was directly in front of you. He tried to put his hands on your arms, but you stepped away from him, shoving his hands aside.

“Listen to me. Please? You didn’t hear everything I said. Please, you have to believe me. I never wanted to hurt you like this.” Matt pleaded, begging you to stop, to listen to him.

“Then explain, Matthew, because I don’t understand how this could be construed any other way.”

“You’re right, okay? I do still love her, and I think a part of me always will. But that doesn’t mean I want her. When I was talking to Elektra last night, I did tell her that I felt hollow when I thought I had lost her, but you know what else I told her? I told her that I didn’t want to feel that way, I didn’t want to care so much about her, because it wasn’t fair to you. Because I love you. I love you in a way that far outweighs my old love for her. I see a future with you, I want a future with you. Elektra and I had our time. I don’t want her, sweetheart, I want you.”

Tears ran unchecked down your cheeks as you listened to his earnest words. Even without his ability to listen to heartbeats and tell when people were lying, you knew every word was the truth. You just had to decide if it was enough.

“But Matt… all the fighting we’ve been doing, all the running around you’ve been doing… are you sure this is what you want? Cause it doesn’t feel like it. It doesn’t feel like you want me.” You sobbed out the last word and Matt could practically feel his heart shatter. He’d done this. He’d hurt you to the point that you genuinely felt he didn’t want you.

“Listen to me.” He breathed earnestly. “You are the only one I want. And I will do whatever it takes to fix this. I will get down on my knees right now and beg for your forgiveness if that’s what it takes. I am so sorry, sweetheart. I am so sorry that I ever made you feel like this. Please, sweetheart. Please give me a chance to fix this even though I don’t deserve it.”

You were quiet for so long that Matt was sure you were going to tell him to go to hell. And he would admit that he would deserve it. Yet when you began speaking, it was with a tentative hope.

“If… if you really mean that, we can work on it. But Elektra-“

“She’s already gone.”

“What?”

“I sent her and Stick on their way before I came looking for you. I had to give Elektra enough time to heal enough to be able to move, but once she was, I told them to leave.” You blinked up at Matt in shock.

“Really?”

“Really. And Elektra knows that any future dealings we have will be strictly professional. But once the Hand is taken care of, she knows to leave.” You didn’t need Matt’s abilities to know he was telling the truth. He really had come prepared to do whatever it took to get you back. So, you took a deep breath and you took a leap of faith.

“Okay, Matt. But you have a lot of making up to do. If you ever do anything like this again, I will leave and I won’t come back. We’re gonna need some ground rules while we sort this out but we can try.”

“Yes, sweetheart, of course. Anything you want or need, I will do. I just want this. I just want you.”

And while it would take you a long time to truly get past what happened, Matt never let you question his feelings for you again.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock angst #matt murdock x you #daredevil x reader #daredevil angst #daredevil x you #matt murdock fanfic

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little-miss-dilf-lover · 1 year

Text

don’t close your eyes (Matt Murdock x f!reader)

summary || Elektra comes back to town with one goal in mind- to get Matt back. She’d do anything to get him back, even harming his girlfriend.

wc || 1.7k

warnings || angst, mentions of blood, death

a/n || from this request. this is quite different to what I usually upload and I feel a little embarrassed in case it’s not good. it might be a little dark for some people, so I won’t be offended if you skip this one. I was listening to sad music while I wrote the last part, so be warned😭

masterlist + rules

taglist

through your eyes (part 2) ->

You and Matt were having a calm morning, quietly enjoying each other's company as you shared breakfast.

“You okay?” You ask, noticing the way he suddenly tensed up.

“Yeah. I’ll be back in a moment.” Kissing your forehead to excuse himself.

Walking out of the apartment and into the hallway where he found Elektra leaning against the wall, waiting got for his arrival.

“What are you doing here?” He whisper shouts, not wanting you to hear while still being able to convey his disgust to her presence.

“I’m here to get you back Matthew.” She said slowly, stalking forward to stroke his arms.

“You need to go.” He says warningly.

“Not until I have you back Matthew.”

“I won’t ask you again.” Gripping onto her forearms.

“I love how rough you are with me… but that’s beside the point. I want you back.”

“No, I have a girlfriend.” He scoffs while ripping his hands off Elektra’s arms.

“That hurts my heart Matthew, but you must know… if I can’t have you… then you can’t have your little plaything.” She flirtatiously taunts.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He grits, growing frustrated with the conversation.

“Hm, well… I’ll kill her.” Pausing to make it seem as though she’s thinking. “Yeah, I will kill her.”

“I don’t believe you.” He spits as he pushes her against the wall.

“My heart Matthew, listen to my heart… you know I never lie.”

He doesn’t reply, but she could tell by his lack of communication that he knew.

“You have until the end of the day to break things with her- oh and make sure to tell her that you love me instead, I want her to hurt.” She smirks. “The longer I have to wait… the more your girlfriend will suffer… so I guess I will see you soon Matthew.” Kissing his cheek before walking away.

All he could do was stand there stunned. Matt knew Elektra was telling the truth and he couldn’t bare the thought of putting you in danger. He knew he had to let you go, he just didn’t want to.

He takes a couple of deep breaths before walking back in, trying to clear his mind.

“Hey? Are you okay?” You ask sounding worried.

“Yeah.” Poking his fork into a potato.

“Matt?” You ask cautiously, sweetly placing your hand over his.

“I’m okay.” Smiling at you disingenuously.

You wanted him to be honest, but you didn’t want to push. You told yourself that he’d come to you when he was ready, so you changed the subject.

“Breakfast was lovely, thank you. What do you want to do today?” Collecting the dishes to put in the sink. “We could stop by that new farmer's market? I think they’ve got some great deals. Or we could get coffee?”

“I don’t know, I’m sorry.” Rubbing the bridge of his nose. Your sweet and nurturing nature made this situation impossibly harder, he adored your pure heart and the thought of breaking it, made him spiral.

“That’s okay, or we can stay here?” You offer, sensing that he might not be in the mood to do too much.

Dropping his head into his hands as he exhaled deeply.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” You ask warmly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t do this.” He sighs.

“Do what?” Slowly pulling your hand away.

“I can’t be with you anymore, I’m sorry…” Dropping his head further into his hands so that they could block his ears, not wanting to hear the way those words destroyed you.

Standing still for what felt like forever, slowly stepping back and into the living room. You didn’t know what to say. Things were going so well, how could he change his mind so quickly? You didn’t want to fight it, it was clear he had made his decision.

“I’ll… uh- um.” You stuttered not knowing how to respond. “Uh- I’ll go get my stuff.” You breathed strenuously, trying not to cry.

He could feel his own heartbreak along with yours, so desperately wanting to reach out and hold you. He knew he couldn’t make this any harder for you, so he stayed away. Listening to every stifled sniffle and every erratic pound of your heart.

Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you leave Matt’s bedroom walking past him and out of the door. You weren’t able to speak right now, too afraid of bursting into tears in front of him. Closing the door behind you.

It had been a few weeks since Matt ended things with you, and quite frankly you’ve been a mess. You’ve not been able to do anything recently so your apartment was in a state. You have been racking your brain trying to think of what you did wrong, what was missing or what you could’ve done differently.

You just truly missed him.

Today has been a slow one but you felt like you were finally getting there. You were able to put some things away in the kitchen, doing little jobs to help you feel accomplished. Doing small things to try to make you feel better.

Pulling your hair into a quick ponytail, and throwing on a cardigan to get the mail from downstairs. Shoving your feet into whatever shoes were closest to the door, making your way to collect the months' worth of letters.

Walking back up to your floor you see Matt standing outside your door.

You couldn’t turn around because you knew he heard you. Slowly strolling forward. “Hi.” You greet politely.

“Hello, Angel. Please can we talk?” He pleads, smiling at you promisingly.

“Okay…” Opening the door. “Sorry about the mess.” Scattering around to awkwardly tidy around him.

“I can’t live without you.” He says quietly to the floor.

“Why’s that?”

“I only love you, I didn’t mean what I said... It was Elektra.” Painfully smiling at you.

“What do you mean?” You meekly ask.

“She threatened you, and I couldn’t let that happen… so I had to let you go- but… I just, I can’t live without you.”

“I’m confused.”

“I’m sorry for throwing this all on you. I just needed you to know.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I love you. You’re the only person I love… and I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” You ask, a slight pang of sadness in your tone.

“It was Elektra. I couldn’t stand being around her… she just isn’t you.” Walking towards you, opening his arms to offer a hug.

You didn’t have to think about it, melting into his embrace. Squeezing each other tighter and not wanting to let one another go.

“I’ve missed you.” You mumble into his chest.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Resting his chin on your head while he stroked over your back. “I’m so sorry.”

The door swings open and clatters against the wall. “Where is she?” A female voice shouted.

He spins you both around so that his back was to the woman, holding you in front of him to protect you.

“We had a deal, Matthew.” She taunts, smashing your photo frames and dropping your vases to the floor.

“Elektra, please just stop.” He yells, gripping you tighter.

“I don’t like when people don’t hold up on their part of the deal.” Stalking forward, slashing her dagger into the back of your sofa and tearing it open. “Remember what I said?” She taunts once more, throwing your books and candles against the wall.

“She’s not a part of this… what can I give you instead? Just please don’t hurt her.” Cocooning your head in his arms, trying his hardest to keep you safe.

“I’m afraid not Matthew. I told you what would happen.” Itching closer to you both. Teasingly brushing her fingers along your hands that were gripping at Matt’s back. She yanks on your arm, separating you apart and pushing you to the floor. Straddling your stomach as she edged her sword along your jaw.

Matt immediately dives to push her from you, dragging her along the floor to get her as far away as possible.

“Go.” He shouts over to you, panic and fear riddled in his voice.

Sliding yourself away to pull yourself up, gripping the sides of the coffee table for support.

“You’re quite the fighter sweetheart.” Elektra taunts you, trying to free herself from Matt’s grip.

She slams him back into the wall behind and runs towards you. Picking up her dagger from the floor and burying it deep in your stomach. Twisting it a couple of times before yanking it out.

Matt stood there paralysed before realising what had just happened. Rushing to your side to hold you, helping you down so you didn’t fall.

“No no no, what have you done?” He whispers, putting pressure on the wound. “No no.” His voice breaks. “I’m so sorry.” Holding your neck to support you.

“It's okay.” You say quietly.

“No, it’s not.” A tear falls and lands on your cheek. “Please don’t close your eyes, just wait okay- we’ll get help. Just please hang on.”

“Someone help!” He shouts, trying to get attention from your neighbours. “Please call an ambulance. She’s losing too much blood, please?” He begs Elektra who was sitting on the armchair indifferently reading a magazine.

“I love you. So much.” Reaching your hand up to stroke his cheek.

“Please don’t go, you’re all I have left… hang on just a little more. Help!”

Resting your head on his leg while he placed his other hand on the wound, firmly pressing and trying to stop the excessive bleeding. “Count with me, Angel. One.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

“Th-“ Your hand dropped from his face.

“No no no, don’t-“ his voice breaks, holding behind your neck as his other hand continued to press onto your stomach. “Please talk to me… We’ll get help, okay?” He reassures you, but he was actually reassuring himself. Leaning over to rest his forehand against yours. “Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me- please? I love you.” Gently shaking your head to keep your eyes open.

He could feel you slip away, tears freely spilling from his eyes and down onto your face. Holding your cheeks with his bloody hands, trying to keep you conscious. Pulling you closer into his lap and holding you tighter.

“No no no no.” He mutters against your skin, hearing your last raspy breath before your eyes flutter shut for the last time.

#matt murdock #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock blurb #matt murdock angst #matt murdock x fem!reader #matthew murdock #matthew murdock fanfiction #matthew murdock x reader #marvel fan fiction #matthew murdock x you #daredevil #request #angst prompt

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thecatduet422 · 2 years

Text

soulmate mark: matt murdock

He could tell when the mark appeared. It came as a small tickle, faint, like the tip of a feather, looping across his wrist in what he could tell was cursive. And even after that tickling feeling was gone he could feel the bumps, the smooth outline on his skin that announced your name.

Except, he couldn't actually see it.

He could feel it, definitely, enough to pick out a letter here and there, to the point where he had a pretty good idea, but without anyone to confirm it with, he was, for lack of a better saying, in the dark.

As much as he'd confessed to Father Lantom it still somehow felt awkward to ask him, and Matt certainly wasn't going to ask any of the sisters. No, that would be just a bit too embarrassing. And he didn't have any friends he could ask, so you remained a mystery, hidden, until one day he could gather the courage to ask.

And eventually he did, to Foggy, after it became clear that they were going to be best friends for as long as time allowed them to be.

Foggy said it with a laugh, finding it funny that Matt never asked anyone till then. Matt told him that he wasn't sure if the person would lie or not, pulling a sick prank on him while Matt lived the rest of his life waiting for the wrong person.

It was really because sometimes, when the darkness hits, and the devil comes out, and there's blood dripping from his knuckles that he thinks- he doesn't deserve to have a soulmate. To have you.

And perhaps it was because of this hidden shame that he tried to hide your name as much as possible, keeping you a shared secret between him and Foggy.

When Elektra came into the picture she found out immediately, slyly grabbing his wrist when he wasn't expecting, too much sensory in the room to expect it, and she pulled back his sleeve.

She said your name like a joke. One she liked to tell to Matt over and over again. He could imagine her face scrunch up, as if the thought of you brought the smell of garbage. Something to be thrown out.

But Matt could hear her heart, hear the odd thump as she ruined your name. She was heartbroken.

And maybe because she was so heartbroken, Matt only told her half-heartedly to stop.

Later on, when him and Foggy opened their own agency, and he became close enough with Karen to tell her, Matt thought- maybe he could have you.

But then the devil would possess him, making him the number one target in all of Hell's Kitchen, and the thought was squashed quickly.

Before, he hid you out of mercy. Now he did it out of protection. It was safer for you to be kept in the dark, and maybe that's how it was always meant to be. You were a secret, a symbol of trust between a small group of friends. Matt was fine with that, and he had a feeling if you knew who he was, you would be too.

Then one day, you walked into Nelson & Murdock, asking for a lawyer. You introduced yourself.

Foggy dropped his pen. Karen just stood there, too shocked to do anything else, but delighted nonetheless.

Foggy continued to react for him, stutteringly asking you to repeat yourself.

You did confusingly.

Confusion, that only grew as Foggy carried on the conversation, saying, "Of course we can help you! Here, let me take your coat. Have a seat. Stay a while!"

And Karen chimed in, going, "Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea? A muffin?"

And when he felt your gaze on him, lighting his soul on fire, all Matt could do was stand there, thinking...

His life just got a bit more complicated.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock x y/n #daredevil x reader #daredevil x you #daredevil x y/n #catduet writes #catduet drabbles

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ro-is-struggling · 1 year

Text

New Love || Bucky Barnes x Reader

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader, past Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: after a long day at work all you want to do is curl up on the couch with Bucky and forget about the existence of the outside world. But things get complicated when the past catches up with you, knocking on your door and asking for your help.

Warnings: mentions of the reader being a nurse, jealousy, talks of insecurities, mentions of blood, reader being afraid to love again, angst with a happy ending

English is not my first language

Word count: 6600

Notes: this is a continuation of You Ruined Me and Lose Myself but I think you can read it as a stand alone, you just have to know that reader and Matt used to date but broke up because he was still I'm love with Elektra and that now she's dating Bucky

You should have known that today was not your day. You had one of the longest and most stressful shifts at the hospital. Two of your coworkers had called in sick and another had started maternity leave which meant you had to cover the work of three nurses plus your usual work. You had to stay and work overtime which ruined your dinner plans with Bucky. Your relationship was still relatively new and you were excited for every date as if it was your first. You loved spending time with him at your apartment or his, but you loved it even more when you went on dates because you got to see a different side of Bucky. He would turn into a complete romantic, giving you flowers and chocolates, opening doors for you and pulling up your chair and taking you to nice places. It was a little old-fashioned, but in a lovely, charming way.

When you called him to cancel your plans, Bucky insisted on seeing you anyway. You made it clear to him that you would be home late, but he said it would be no problem. He assured you that he would be waiting for you with dinner ready and a movie to watch while you snuggled up on the couch so you could relax and forget the stress of the day. You let out a chuckle and thanked him, unable to believe you had found such a wonderful man after all. Bucky seemed to be someone ripped straight out of your dreams, your very own romance novel protagonist written by a woman, and you felt like the luckiest person in the world when you were together.

When you got home Bucky was waiting for you just as he had promised. He used the extra key you had given him in case of emergencies to get in while you were gone and took the liberty of preparing dinner so that you didn't have to do anything but sit and relax when you arrived. You were so tired that you almost cried when you saw the table ready, the delicious smell of freshly cooked food inviting you to sit down. You ran into Bucky's arms, mumbling words of gratitude as you hid in the warmth of his body.

You ate while you told him about some of the things that had happened to you during the day, venting the frustration you felt building up in your shoulders with every word that came out of your mouth. Once you finished, Bucky took charge of clearing the table, refusing to accept your help. He sent you to sit on the couch in the living room and asked you to get everything ready to watch the movie —which was the next one on the list you had made together of all the movies and TV shows you considered an insult that he didn't know about. He joined you a few minutes later, wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you close to him as you pressed play. You nestled your head on his chest, the musky scent of his perfume hitting your nostrils and washing away the remaining stress in your system. You felt as if a great weight had been lifted from your shoulders, light and relaxed as you lost yourself in Bucky's body heat.

But you should have known that the horrible day you'd had could never end on such a positive note. You should have known that things would only get worse.

You were barely thirty minutes into the movie when you began to hear strange sounds. Fearing it was some kind of weird bug that had somehow found its way into your apartment, you paused the movie to listen more carefully. It was silent for a moment. And then a knock on the glass made you turn your head toward the balcony door. Your eyes widened in surprise upon discovering the figure of a badly wounded man leaning against the glass door.

"Matt?"

It was the first time you had seen him since that rainy night when he had once again broken your heart without even realizing it. However, you were unable to feel anything but concern when you saw the state he was in. His beaten and bloodied body had collapsed on the balcony floor. You ran to him, kneeling beside him so that you could examine his wounds closely. He had cuts and bruises on every visible part of his body. When you touched his abdomen looking for serious wounds he let out a grunt of pain. Your fingers made contact with a thick, sticky liquid and it was then that you noticed the pool of blood that had formed on the floor.

"This is Matt?" the voice of Bucky echoed behind you. The comment rolled off his lips with a harsher tone than he expected, but luckily you didn't mention anything about it. He remained in the doorframe, watching you attend to Matt with a mixture of surprise and confusion at the circumstances in which he finally met the man he had heard so much about.

"Help me get him inside" you said without even looking up to meet his eyes.

As Bucky settled Matt on the couch you ran off in search of your first aid kit and a couple of clean cloths to use to stop the bleeding. Kneeling by Matt's side once again, you used a pair of scissors to cut off the shirt he was wearing so you could tend to his wounds more easily. Small cuts and bruises adorned his torso, but the worst injury was the stab wound on the right side of his abdomen. Luckily it didn't seem to be deep enough to have damaged any vital organs, but it was bleeding pretty badly and from Matt's pale and weak appearance you guessed that you didn't have much time to waste.

Struggling to remain calm, you asked Bucky to put pressure on the wound while you checked Matt's vital signs. His breathing was labored and his heartbeat was weak. He had definitely lost a lot of blood, but you were confident that everything would be okay if you could stop the bleeding soon. So you got to work without wasting another second. While Bucky put pressure on the wound, you concentrated on the minor cuts, cleaning and bandaging each one to make sure they didn't get infected. And as you worked, your mind kept imagining the situation that led Matt to such a state, trying to guess what it was that he was working on now. He had many enemies, some too powerful for it to be a fair fight. You just hoped that none of them were the ones who caused his injuries.

When the bleeding finally stopped you relieved Bucky of his duties so you could start cleaning and closing the wound. Matt had fallen unconscious within a second of being placed on the couch, his body succumbing to the blood loss. But at least that made your job easier, you could disinfect and stitch his cuts without having to deal with his body twitching in pain.

At no time did you stop to consider how weird the situation you were in was. You were too worried about Matt's health to realize that you were kneeling next to your ex-boyfriend, treating his wounds with extreme care under the watchful eye of your current boyfriend. Your hands were working on Matt's body with great experience not only from your profession but also from the many times you had tended to his wounds in the past. It was amazing to think how despite all that had happened between you, all the pain he had caused you, you still felt the same fear and concern you felt in those days when you were still together.

"C'mon, Matt. Stay with me, please" you murmured without realizing it, your hand gently caressing his face as you felt a familiar knot forming in the pit of your stomach.

Bucky watched the scene from the door frame not knowing what to do. He understood that Matt was in a delicate condition and that it was perfectly normal for you to be worried about him. You were the kindest and most caring person he had ever met and you two had a pretty intense history so Bucky expected you to react that way, especially considering Matt's condition. But at the same time it was that same history that you shared that worried him so much. Bucky knew how much you had loved Matt and how much it had taken you to get over him so naturally he felt upset to see you so close to your ex-boyfriend.

Maybe it was his insecurities talking, but there was something about the way you looked at Matt that gave him a bad feeling. Your eyes were full of concern as your hands caressed his face with such care, such affection, that it made Bucky wonder if you were really over him. He was now stable, all his wounds had been disinfected and bandaged, yet you were still sitting beside him holding his hand as you murmured words of encouragement in his ear.

Bucky's blood boiled with jealousy. A lump formed in his throat that tightened with every word he heard leave your lips. Cursing to his enhanced hearing, he disappeared into the kitchen before he ended up doing something he would regret when he came back to his senses. He thought about going home, but if there was one thing he hated more than staying there to witness the scene, it was the thought of leaving you alone with Matt. So he concentrated on washing the dinner dishes, struggling to think about anything other than the way his girlfriend —the most wonderful woman he'd ever met— seemed to still have feelings for her ex-boyfriend.

It wasn't fair. Things were going great between the two of you. Sure, your relationship was fairly new and you were still figuring things out, but you had a great time together and there wasn't a moment of the day when you weren't communicating, talking in person, calling or texting. He had even learned to make video calls to see you for even five minutes on days when your schedules didn't match. That was how much you needed each other, how much you enjoyed each other's company.

Bucky had begun to feel more confident recently. The voice of insecurity in his mind had been silenced by the affection you showed him and how well your relationship was working. Matt had no right to suddenly show up and tear down all his confidence in a heartbeat. Bucky knew full well that he was extremely lucky to have you by his side. He knew he probably didn't deserve you, but for a moment he had come to believe that you had a future together. And now all of his dreams and fantasies were threatened by the presence of Matt, a man he had once heard you describe as the love of your life. And even though things between you were going well, he wasn't sure he could compete with that.

Bucky was so deep in thought that he didn't hear you coming into the kitchen. So when he felt the weight of a hand resting on his arm he startled, spattering drops of water in all directions.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in" he apologized for splashing you.

"It's fine" you replied in a soft tone, reaching out to turn off the faucet, indicating to Bucky that you wanted his attention. He got the message immediately and quickly wiped his hands on the rag resting next to the dishes before turning around so he could look you in the eyes.

"How's Matt?" he asked to fill the silence that had formed between you.

"He's stable, for now at least. I think he has a few broken ribs but there's nothing I can do to help him with that now."

"Shouldn't we take him to a hospital?"

"Matt doesn't like hospitals. It's best not to argue with him about it, trust me."

An awkward silence formed between you that took you by surprise. You didn't fall into awkward silences. Well, maybe at the beginning of your friendship when Bucky had not yet broken out of his shell, but it had been a long time since you found yourselves in this kind of awkward situation. You were always comfortable and relaxed around each other. Silences happened, but not like this, not with that strange tension in the air.

You suddenly felt the need to excuse Matt's presence, to make it clear to Bucky that the fact that you had helped him meant nothing. It was ridiculous, Matt had surprised you with his presence and you were pretty sure Bucky understood that your concern was due to the critical state he was in. You trusted him to know that you had eyes for no one else and that Matt was nothing more than a sad memory of something that could not be. Although the tension in the air made you doubt.

"Listen, I wanted to thank you for helping me with Matt," you said with some hesitation, clearing your throat to make sure the words left your lips. "And I wanted to apologize for ruining the night. You were so sweet and caring with everything you did tonight and we couldn't even finish the movie."

"Don't worry about it, doll" Bucky brushed it off. The use of the affectionate nickname made you smile. You loved it when he called you that, it made you feel special. "Matt needed your help. We can finish the movie another day, this was more important."

"You're important too" you were quick to say, a subtle way of reminding him that he was much more important to you than Matt in case he thought otherwise. "I love spending time with you and what you did tonight was really sweet. Our dates are the most important part of my days. And the most fun" you added, reaching out to caress his cheek. Bucky leaned into your touch, letting the warmth of your skin and the love in your words ease the pain in his heart.

"They're the most important part of my days too" he said, and he wasn't lying. The happiest moments of his days were the ones he shared with you. And when you were apart, he looked forward to your reunion. Your company was what kept him grounded, your laughter, a sweet melody that brightened his days every time he heard it. It had been a long time since he had felt a love as intense, as pure, as the one he felt for you. And honestly that scared him a little. You held an immense amount of power over him by holding his heart in your hands and it scared him to think what would become of him if you decided to hurt him.

Taking Bucky's face in your hands, you leaned in to bring your lips together in a quick but gentle kiss that you hoped would convey what you felt. When you parted, Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, your noses brushing as you gazed into each other's eyes. He admired you in silence, trying to convince himself that everything was fine and that he had nothing to worry about. He saw nothing but love staring back at him, your eyes shining with that special sparkle he loved so much. But still the voice of insecurity inside him made him doubt.

Bucky wanted to tell you how he felt. He wanted to tell you that he loved you like he had never loved anyone in his life. He wanted to tell you that he was jealous of Matt and that he was afraid of losing you. He was afraid that one day you would realize the big mistake you had made by agreeing to go out with him. He was afraid to hear you say that you were still in love with Matt. He was afraid you would become a memory, a stranger whose laughter he would recognize in a crowd of people. Bucky loved you too much and couldn't bear the thought of losing you.

He opened his mouth to speak but the words got caught in his throat. And just like that the moment was broken, interrupted by Matt's grunts of pain that warned them that he had regained consciousness. You gave Bucky an apologetic smile, giving him a quick peck on the lips before rushing into the living room to examine Matt. You didn't want to leave him, but you couldn't leave Matt alone either. You just hoped Bucky would understand, that somehow he knew he was the only true owner of your heart.

"For fucks sake, Matt! Lay down, you need to rest" you scolded him as soon as you saw him trying to get up from the couch. He tried to resist you when you tried to force him to lie down, but he was so weak that he wasn't able to put up a fight. "How did you end up like this? I thought you had a suit that protected you."

"I do have one, it's just getting fixed" Matt said with a wince as you checked his wounds to make sure he hadn't opened any stitches.

"You mean you've been running around Hell's Kitchen without any protection all this time?" You spoke with horror in your voice, imagining the kinds of dangers he had been facing without a suit to keep him safe. If even with one he sometimes came home beaten and bleeding you didn't even want to think about how much worse the situation had gotten now that he didn't have one. "Jesus Christ, Matt! Why didn't you come here before?"

"After everything that happened between us I wasn't sure if you would open the door for me."

When you heard Matt's words, you put aside everything you were doing to look at him with a serious expression in your eyes. Sure, you hadn't ended things in the best way. He had made you suffer and yes, for a while you had held a grudge. But that didn't mean you wanted him dead or that you enjoyed his pain. Not even on your worst days would you have thought to slam the door in his face if he came to you for help. You just weren't that kind of person.

"Listen, Matt, I know our relationship didn't end well but I would never refuse to help you with something like this" you said and he was able to hear the honesty in your voice. "I'd rather deal with the tension in the air than have you running around the city wounded and bleeding. You could have died!"

A silence formed as Matt processed your words. You were too good and he definitely didn't deserve you. After everything he had done to you and all the pain he had caused you, you still wanted to help him. Matt felt like an idiot, like the biggest son of a bitch on the planet as your delicate fingers took care of fixing one of the bandages on his chest that had come undone. You were worried about him, inspecting his wounds carefully as you had done so many times in the past. You cared about him despite everything he had done to you.

"I'm sorry" Matt murmured in a calm, sincere voice, resting his hand over yours on his chest. "I'm sorry for everything... for hurting you, for the way I handled our relationship and for the way it ended. You didn't deserve any of that... not a single day goes by without me wishing our story had ended differently.”

You fell silent, taken aback by Matt's words. You had spent many nights imagining this very situation. It was your comfort in your worst moments, fantasizing that he would show up to apologize for how he had treated you. You relieved your frustrations by imagining slamming the door in his face or describing in detail how broken you felt inside so that he would understand the pain he had caused you. But now that it was finally happening you didn't know how to respond. The speeches you had recited over and over in your fantasies no longer matched how you felt.

And that's how you realized that the wounds in your heart had healed, maybe not completely but enough so that you no longer held a grudge against Matt.

"I'm sorry too" you answered at last and you were being completely honest. You were terribly sorry for the way your relationship had ended, but that was all. You no longer felt hatred or crushing anguish, just mild sorrow about how bad your last moments together as a couple were. It saddened you because you knew that things between you could have been very different, but that was all.

The sound of Bucky clearing his throat brought you out of your thoughts. As you looked up you met his figure standing tall in the door frame. His eyes were glued to your hands resting on Matt's chest, trapped under his own hands.

"I'm going home" Bucky declared before disappearing down the hallway to the front door, not giving you time to reply before he vanished from your sight.

"Bucky, wait!" you called after him, chasing him to prevent him from leaving without talking to you first. You wanted to make sure he knew nothing was going on between you and Matt, to tell him that your heart belonged to him and no one else. But you didn't know how to express yourself without sounding too intense, so when you caught up with him–-with one foot already out of your apartment—all you could say was, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, doll, I'm fine" he assured you, but you didn't believe him. He looked tense, his demeanor completely different than it had been a couple of hours earlier as you ate dinner and chatted about your day.

"Are you sure?" you insisted, looking at him with your big eyes full of doubt.

"Yes, I'm sure." Bucky sighed. "I'm just tired, doll, and you're very busy with Matt here so I'm just gonna go home and get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow, okay?" You knew that wasn't true, he was clearly upset by Matt's presence there, but you decided not to press him about it. You figured you'd have plenty of time to talk once you were alone, so you nodded your head in agreement.

You gave him a quick kiss and wished him goodnight before letting him go, closing the door to your apartment as you cursed in your mind. It was all too good to be true. Your relationship with Bucky was going too well so of course something had to happen and mess it up. That was just your luck.

"I'm sorry if I caused any problems with your boyfriend. I didn't know where else to go" Matt spoke from the couch, sensing better than anyone the tension his presence had created between the couple. "He doesn't seem to like me that much so I assume you told him about me."

"It's fine, we just started dating. I'm sure he'll understand. And if he doesn't... Well, he's not the only guy out there. I'll be fine" you said, plopping down on the arm of the couch at Matt's feet. It was a complete lie. You were convinced that Bucky was the last decent man left in the city and losing him would devastate you, but you hoped Matt was too injured to detect your heartbeat.

"Oh c'mon, Y/N! We both know that's a lie. You really like this guy. I recognize the symptoms, you know.... Your body temperature rises when he's close to you, your heart beats faster when he calls your name... Just like it used to happen when we were dating."

The melancholic tone in Matt's voice and his sad words made you think of the happy days you had shared with him. You remembered the tingle that used to awaken inside you at the mere touch of your skin against his or the way your heart would melt at the sight of his smile. You thought of the way his kisses used to make your knees weak and the sense of calm and security that waking up next to him gave you. Those were all things that until recently you thought you would never experience again. You used to think that after Matt you would never be able to fall in love with someone else, either because of the fear of being hurt again or because you thought you would never be able to get over him. But now hearing him say those things about the way your body reacted to Bucky made you realize that wasn't true. You already knew that you liked Bucky, but you had never taken the time to consider how deep your feelings for him were until this moment.

"I really thought you were the only man for me" you broke the silence, speaking as you stared off into the distance while remembering those dark moments in your past. "When we broke up I thought I'd never be able to fall in love again. This thing I have with Bucky feels... weird, like it's something that shouldn't have happened. It's like I've found a way to trick the universe into giving me a second chance. The problem is, I'm not sure I'm ready to start over. I don't know if I can give myself completely to someone again." You confessed letting out a frustrated sigh, not even considering how strange and probably inappropriate it was that you were opening up like that to your ex-boyfriend.

You loved Bucky and trusted him, but still a small part of you was afraid. You'd had a hard time getting back on your feet after Matt and you weren't sure you were strong enough to do it again if things with Bucky ended badly.

"I was never the only man for you, Y/N. I'm not even sure I was one of the valid candidates" Matt muttered, letting out a sour laugh. "I was the one who fooled the universe the moment you agreed to go out with me. You were always too good for me. What we had was an illusion, a product of my selfishness."

"No, Matt-"

"It was," he interrupted you before you could convince him otherwise. "It was. I thought I could get on your level, make things work between us, but I was only lying to myself and I ended up hurting you. So please don't close yourself off from love and happiness because of me. Our relationship was never supposed to happen so don't use it as an example for anything."

You didn't know what to answer so you remained silent, reflecting on Matt's words. You didn't agree with him when he referred to himself as unworthy of your love, and even less so when he claimed that your relationship had been a mistake. The love you had felt for him was one of the most intense emotions you had ever experienced in your life up to that point. And even though your breakup had hurt you just as intensely, you didn't regret it at all. Your story was a sad one because you were two compatible people who had been unlucky enough to meet at the wrong time. In the end when it all fell apart it was because Matt was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, not because he was unworthy of your love or anything like that. That was once again a product of Matt's insecurities, which more often than not took over his mind and acted on his behalf. That was something he and Bucky had in common.

Matt's words kept running through your head even after you retired to your room to let him rest. You laid awake for a while, tossing and turning in bed as you analyzed your situation. You had feelings for Bucky, feelings that only grew with each passing day, and that was something that wasn't going to change. You were already head over heels in love with him. Your fearful mind refused to accept it, but there was no denying the way your heart raced when he was near you. So what was it that made you so scared? Why did you stop yourself every time you were about to confess just how deep your love for him was? You were already screwed so it really didn't make sense to suppress your feelings. Your heart already belonged to Bucky so if things didn't work out between the two of you, you would end up devastated anyway whether you accepted your feelings or not. So the real question you should be asking yourself was, what were you waiting for to do something about it? You were already lost and if you were going to fall you should at least do it right and enjoy the ride down as much as possible.

A wave of confidence suddenly came over you, giving you the courage to get out of bed and leave your apartment in search of Bucky. It didn't matter that it was almost two in the morning or the fact that you were wearing unflattering printed pajamas. All you cared about was communicating your epiphany to Bucky, finally saying out loud what you had been feeling for a long time but had been too afraid to admit.

When you arrived at his door you knocked gently on the wood. You knew he would hear the noise anyway because the super soldier serum coursing through his veins had sharpened his senses. The knocking echoed down the hallway, cutting through the deep silence that filled the stillness of the night. For a moment you thought Bucky was already asleep and wouldn't get up to greet you, but then you heard movement behind the door—a couple of footsteps, creaking wood, a muffled murmur. And then the door opened and the tall, imposing figure of Bucky rose in front of you.

"What are you doing here, doll? Is everything alright?" he asked in a hoarse voice. He looked tired, his hair was messy as if he had just woken up but he didn't have the characteristic expression of having just woken up. He looked at you with relief in his eyes as if all this time he had been waiting for you to show up at his door. You wondered then if maybe he too had spent the night tossing and turning in bed while thinking about your future together.

"I love you" you blurted out without any warning or explanation. You knew that if you struggled to eloquently express your feelings and the thinking path that had led you to that moment you would end up distracting yourself or confusing things. And at this moment you needed to be as clear and direct as possible, so you skipped the unnecessary introductions.

"What?" muttered Bucky with a mix of surprise and confusion in his voice. It wasn't that he hadn't heard you, he had, but he wanted to make sure he had heard you correctly and that it wasn't all the product of some delusion in his brain.

"I love you" you repeated. "I have for a while now, but I was afraid of saying it out loud because, well, I guess it's because that makes it real and you know my history.... Not that I think that you're gonna hurt me like Matt or something, I know you are two different guys with different personalities and all" you rambled. You were nervous and when you got like that you started rambling. It was as if your mouth worked faster than your brain, uttering word after word without having a chance to think about what you were saying until it was too late.

Luckily for you, Bucky already knew you. He had heard your nervous ramblings on several occasions and honestly he found them adorable. So while you talked without stopping to breathe he just smiled. He smiled because you were the most adorable woman on the planet. He smiled because despite what his insecurities told him, you loved him and didn't seem to want to go anywhere. He smiled because he loved you too and had spent the last few weeks biting his tongue to avoid blurting it out at the most inconvenient times, afraid that it would scare you away from him.

"Doll," Bucky interrupted you, placing one of his hands on your cheek to force you to look at him. You immediately fell silent as you felt his touch on your skin, losing yourself in the deep ocean of his eyes. Heat rose to your cheeks as you finally realized you were wandering, though the smile on Bucky's face helped ease your embarrassment. "I love you too."

And with those simple four words he was able to melt away all the fear that was spinning in your head, replacing it with a warm and fuzzy feeling that you could only describe as pure happiness coursing through your veins.

Without another word Bucky stepped forward and closed the distance that separated you, joining your lips in a kiss. Fireworks exploded inside you, multicolored sparkles flashing behind your eyes as Bucky wrapped his arms around you, pressing your body against his bare chest. He was kissing you with the same fervor as always, his lips moving expertly in perfect sync with yours, but somehow it felt different. And it was because it was the first kiss you shared without pressure or doubt, fear or insecurity. There were no questions about what the other felt going around in your heads or doubts about the future of your relationship. You both knew now what the other was feeling. You both knew that you were just as madly in love and that you were willing to do whatever it took to make your relationship work. It was as if a weight had been lifted from your shoulders, freeing you from the chains of fear and insecurity and giving you a sense of confidence and security that was reflected in the way your lips moved.

Soon the kiss that began soft and tender turned passionate and desperate. Your hands explored Bucky's bare chest as you clung to his lips. He used his super soldier strength to lift you up, taking you in his arms unexpectedly and forcing you to entwine your legs around his waist. You didn't break the kiss at any point, your lips caressing each other desperately as Bucky walked blindly into his apartment, kicking the door shut. You clung to his broad shoulders for support as he walked to the living room, dropping onto the couch with you on his lap. You let out a squeak of surprise at the impact followed by a laugh that vibrated against his lips.

Bucky smiled against the kiss, but even that wasn't enough to separate you. On the contrary, you took advantage of the new position to deepen the kiss, letting your curious hands explore every inch of exposed skin you came across. It was as if you were physically incapable of pulling away from each other. You had been in that position several times since you had started dating—your movie nights didn't always end when the credits rolled—, but never before had you felt that way. You were desperate to physically prove that your words were real, to express with your bodies how deep your love truly was.

You used your advantageous position on Bucky's lap to dominate the situation. You buried your fingers in his long chestnut hair, intertwining your fingers in the strands as you caught his lower lip between your teeth and nibbled the sensitive skin gently. He let out a deep moan that awakened a tingle inside you. Tightening your grip on his hair, you tilted his head back to expose his neck. He didn't protest, moving his head to the side to give you better access to his soft spots. You smiled at his predisposition and moved your wet kisses down his jaw to his neck. You already knew his sensitive spots very well so you wasted no time and attacked the soft skin under his ear with your lips. Bucky's hands tightened their grip on your waist, trying to control his urges as you nibbled and sucked on the sensitive skin of his neck.

You continued your torturous path of wet kisses down his neck to his collarbone, gently biting the skin before caressing it with your tongue and sucking to relieve the burning. Without realizing it you moved your kisses to his left shoulder, delicately caressing with your lips the scars that adorned the skin that merged with the metal. You didn't think much of it, you were just showing your love in a physical way to your boyfriend. But Bucky tensed under your touch and carefully pulled you off his body, placing his hand under your chin so you could look into his eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" He asked with caution. Feeling your lips on his scars had reminded him how fucked up he was and how bad it was to drag you down with him. "I'm a mess, doll. I'm broken in ways you can't even imagine and I don't know if I can be fixed." His voice cut off a little as he spoke, his eyes glistening with the tears he was trying so hard to hold back. Your heart broke into pieces as you saw the pain reflected in the blue of his eyes and you swore at that moment that you would do everything in your power to erase it from his gaze forever.

You placed your hand on his cheek, your thumb caressing the soft skin of his face as a small smile formed on your lips. Bucky leaned over your hand, enjoying the warmth of your skin against his. You were looking at him with pure adoration in your eyes, something that made his heart race and at the same time made him want to close his eyes. You had never looked at him that way before so he was not used to the attention. He felt self-conscious under the intensity of your gaze and wanted to escape from it, yet at the same time it made his heart pound with joy as a warm feeling filled him completely.

"Who isn't a little broken inside these days?" you replied to his doubts before leaning in and bringing your lips together again in a kiss.

There was a lot of truth behind your words. Humanity was full of people broken inside. Some were in worse condition than others. Some had more tragic stories than others. But they all had some kind of damage. That didn't mean they were any less deserving of love. On the contrary, they deserved as much as everyone else to find someone to trust, someone to lean on. They deserved to have someone by their side willing to listen to their pain and help them through it. And you were willing to be that someone for Bucky, just as he was willing to be that someone for you.

"I'm just saying" Bucky spoke as you parted, a bright smile plastered on his face. "Because I don't think I can ever let you go."

"I'm counting on it."

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x female reader #matt murdock x reader #matt murdock angst #bucky barnes #matt murdock

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jondrettegirls · 1 year

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[ID: 8 quotes and 2 pieces of art. The quotes read as follows, 1: “‘You’re all I’ve got now,’ he added, ‘Let’s be off. I’ve come to you. We’re cursed together, so let’s take the road together!’ / His eyes were glittering. ‘Like a man insane!’ Sonya thought, in her turn.” 2: “Orestes- Our cause is lost. / Pylades- Then I’m lost too. Friends share such things.” 3: “Why do you wave me off? You fear to pollute me? I don’t care about that. I’ll share your bad luck, I shared your good luck once.” 4: “‘I mean, look: there you go crying and putting your arms round me again - well, why are you doing that? Because I couldn’t hold out on my own and went running off to someone else in order to unburden myself: ‘You suffer too, and then I’ll feel better!’ And you can love a villain like that?’ / ‘But you are suffering, aren’t you?’ Sonya cried.” 5: “Orestes- O my poor man! My troubles are really your troubles, it seems. / Pylades- But I’m no Menelaos. I can bear this.” 6: “Orestes- Oh girl. How I pity the dark life you live. / Elektra- No one else has ever pitied me, you know. / Orestes- No one has ever been part of you grief.” 7: “Theseus- Why does he hide his head in his robe? / Amphitryon- Shame before you eyes. Shame before your kinship. Shame for the blood of his sons. / Theseus- But if I came to share his grief? Uncover him.” 8: “‘You’re a strange one, Sonya,’ he said. ‘You out your arms round me and kiss me after I’ve told you a thing like that. You don’t know what you’re about.’ / ‘There’s no one, no one in the world more unhappy than you are now,’ she exclaimed in a kind of frenzy, oblivious.” The pieces of art are as follows, 1: A painting of two vague, human figures, done in cool colors. They are embracing. 2: 3 human figures in a misty, expressive scene. They are closeby each other, perhaps walking together. End ID.]

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cellophaine · 1 year

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hi, happy new year! first & foremost i love all your work, highlight of my 2021; it always got me giggling & kicking my feet LMFAO i was wondering if you could do a slow burn (the reader could be a vigilante working alongside daredevil), & it’s the enemies to lovers trope, with the italicized oh/ah for realization, angry love confession & all, if you know what i’m talking about. & one of them goes “please-“ in a breath of a whisper & the other just slams their lips into theirs. sorry if this is a lengthy request LMAO do what you want with it!

I'm very sorry for the 10-and-a-half-month-long wait! This was a long request, so I did try to put everything together in a way that makes sense. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Futile Devices

Pairing: Matt Murdock x GN!Reader

Word Count: 8222.

Warnings: Violence. Light angst. Enemies to lovers. A tiny mention of decapitation. Blood. Injuries.

Author's Note: I wrote this with a female reader in mind, but there's no mention or indication of Reader's gender.

Holy shit, this is the longest thing I've ever written. I hope you guys won't be bored to death lol.

*The events in this fic took place after Daredevil season 3*

GIF Credit

The familiar click of the coffee pot registered somewhere in his keen hearing, but he didn't seem to notice. Matt was going through a series of motions, scrambling his eggs, flipping his bacon, getting his plate and mug ready for his breakfast, all while his mind walked on a frenzied march he couldn't keep up in the recollections of that night. That night was long gone, five days into the past, but it was still fresh and present to Matt, no matter the logic he came up with. He tried, and failed. Again and again. It haunted him in his few hours at nights of lying awake, and his days of paperwork and court affairs. Matt had to admit this could be something worse than he initially thought.

The last thing he needed was a new assassin in town.

Thin as a hair thread. That was how close Matt was to failing to save another's life. A criminal's life, but a life regardless. He almost lost it to the hands much more brutal than him. Much more merciless. Even more so than when Matt lost himself, haunted by his mistakes and Elektra's death, tormented by his own malice, of what he would be capable of had he let his pain consume him whole. The fact that someone was out there with such force and cruelty was alarming. It wasn't your ruthlessness that confounded Matt; he was no stranger to it, but everything about you.

You evaded his sweeps and blows as if they were nothing, as if he was only a martial arts enthusiast and not the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. The gracefulness in your moves made you look like a ballerina to his enhanced senses. The sharp gusts of air from your movement cut his skin like a dull blade, and Matt suspected the purpose was not to hurt him, but to warn. You rendered him almost helpless, meeting him for every strike. A good match in all the wrong ways, for all the wrong reasons.

You had the agility and deadliness of the Hand's lifeless soldier, which made Matt think you were one of them. Still, the steady rhythm of your heart said otherwise. It was as real as the sharpness of your dagger when it slid across his forearm. Your mercilessness was not the most fatal part of you. The precise delivery of your weapon almost took a life, and even though Matt prevented that from happening, he felt as if letting your victim live was your decision, not his. He was only a witness who was at the right place, at the right time. Your escape was silent and swift, leaving no trace for him to follow. No matter how hard he tried, he could only detect a subtle scent of wet earth in the air, and nothing else. Since then, Matt had spread himself thin, patrolling the Manhattan area, even as far as Brooklyn, asking for his friends' help in places he couldn't reach, like a confused hound dog on a blind chase. The clues he picked up were only fragments of a bigger picture you were a part of. Days passed, and the seed sprouted from his curiosity of you kept growing, yet his search gave him nothing to attach you to.

Not until tonight, when your ruthlessness struck again.

You took hold of the man's collar, tugging on his tie, making sure that it sat tightly at the base of his throat. His face turned a dangerous shade of red, blending in with the crimson liquid and purple bruises all over his skin. His mouth opened to take in desperate gulps of air as you wrapped the remaining blue-striped tie around his neck, making a noose.

"Pl-please … don't do this. I have a wife an-and … a daughter. I have a family. Please!"

You sighed, bored and fed up with what he told you. In the face of great danger and near death, they always said the same thing. You would know since you had lost count of the men and women who had told you they had families. Unfortunately, none of them was alive to testify that.

"I know you do, Eddie. I had one too, at one point. But they're all gone now …."

You tugged hard on his tie, making him choke on the restricted and precious breaths. His face, stained with tears, only stroked your confidence. You almost had him. Just a little more, and you would have your next victim. Or victims, if he was so generous as to inform you.

"Tell me names. Better yet, point me in their direction, and I just might spare you."

Eddie shook his head, whimpering pathetically.

"I can't. They'll know it's me. They'll kill me."

You ran your beloved weapon along the side of his torso, hinting at the possible chance of you cutting him up at any moment like he was a rag doll. You rested the edge of your blade against his bloated stomach while he tried to stay away from it as much as possible with his legs and hands bound. There was no use in doing that, but he desperately tried, wriggling and struggling against the confines.

"It's either me or them that will end your life. So choose."

You dipped the blade into his side. It wasn't too deep, just enough to draw blood. The metal parted his flesh with little resistance, smooth and easy as if cutting through a leaf. The man before you cried out in pain; his prayers were half screams, half cries and all the agony. He sputtered, choking on the words he desperately tried to get out.

"Imani! Imani Campbell! She's the head of security f-for the Stromwyns. She and h-her team have access to everything!"

You pulled the blade free, patting his face softly as you cooed at him.

"There we go. Wasn't that easy?"

The man sobbed uncontrollably. Blood seeped out from his dress shirt, staining the fabric a dark red. You registered a soft thud from behind; the sound, accompanied by a low voice, made its presence known.

"Let him go."

The deep timbre in his tone was familiar, even though you barely exchanged a word that night. Only grunts of exertion. Twirling the dagger in your hand playfully, you took hold of the hilt once more before slamming it into Eddie's temple, knocking him unconscious. What you might have to say to the man behind you might fall on Eddie's deaf ears since he was only a thin thread away from passing out, but you preferred not to leave that up to chance.

You turned around to face him, fastening your bloody dagger to the strap on your thigh. Your gaze assessed him as you took a few steps forward. The man from the night before returned with a fresh bandage on his forearm, courtesy of your blade.

"I'm sorry. Who are you?"

Your voice was light but alert. You pushed your tongue against the roof of your mouth, keeping the smile off your tone. You wondered what he had to say.

"I should be the one who asks you that."

You chuckled to yourself. An expected answer, but different from what you anticipated from him. You figured as much.

"I thought you should know who I am already, considering what you've been up to lately, Matt Murdock."

The muscles in his body were pulled taut in his straightened posture, locked up in alarm, and you didn't miss that.

"How do you know my name?"

You tsked, shaking your head in mock disappointment.

"Don't feign innocent now. You were looking for me, trying to sniff me out like a dog."

His hands balled tightly to the sides, and you could see the tension in his jaw, even from a safe distance away.

"How do you know that?"

"By doing the same thing as you did. I like to be five steps ahead of everything, you know? That's how I stayed out of your radar."

You were prepared and well-versed to the point it felt like a game. A game of hide-and-seek, catch-and-release. Just simple as that. You spoke over your shoulder as you turned on your heels, returning to the unconscious man.

"Now excuse me, I was in the middle of something."

He was silent and fast. Before you could give Eddie the second slap to his cheek, Matt seized you with his arms around your torso and dominant arm, dragging you away from Eddie. He backed you into the cement railing; the hard and rough texture dug into your back. He pinned your arms back, spiking pain and discomfort along your body. Nothing you could handle. Your heart rattled in your chest as you looked up at him; his laboured breathing reverberated and mirrored your own. You stayed like that for a few moments, studying each other. You felt no fear, yet your heart thundered, your blood pumping for something else.

To your surprise, he smirked as if he had caught onto your wandering thoughts and foreign feelings.

"You're not scared. You're not even frustrated. You're… excited."

You held your tongue, waiting for him to continue his assessment.

"Perhaps this has something to do with me. Having someone on your level."

You huffed a biting chuckle, your eyes trained on the part of his face exposed to you. Plump lips accentuated by light stubble, adding softness to his rugged intricacy. A strong jawline that you wouldn't mind caressing, stroking the scruffy hair on your fingertips. And putting your dagger to it. You would place your fingers on the delicate pulse on his neck while you did that, feeling the panic coursing underneath his skin. But you suspected your foe wouldn't be scared off by a sharp blade that easily.

"Maybe I do like a challenge. At last."

Fearless to the point of arrogance. Matt was dumbfounded, then it clicked: you didn't know who he was. You might be new to this city, its politics and underground scenes. Maybe you were here on a chase for something, someone dangerous, following the trail of blood, corruption and murders. It led you to his territory, which he had slowly but steadily returned to protect. When Matt told you as such, a skip in your heart told him he was right. You went still against him, and goosebumps rose along your skin. Still and rigid, a stark contrast to your confidence and playful manner just moments ago.

Either way, whether you were familiar with the area or not, Matt had to clarify one thing.

"You must stop what you're doing."

"Which is …?"

You dragged your sentence, feigning innocence. The slight lilt in your voice should irk Matt, but to his surprise, it didn't. It glided on his eardrums, soft and soothing, which had started to distract him. Just a little bit, Matt assured himself. He lied some more when he told himself that your body, pressing snugly against his, was not the reason for his slipping focus. Not at all. Your body was warm; Matt could feel it even through your suit. The unconscious man's blood on your gloves enveloped his acute sense of smell, steering him back to the conversation he was having with you.

"Killing those criminals. Taking lives that aren't yours to take."

You fell silent, and Matt could hear the grind of your teeth. The muscles in your jaw grew taut, and he had no doubt that he had struck a nerve. Matt paid extra attention to another scent entering his olfaction. Subtle, yet refreshing, like wet earth … after the rain. And all of a sudden, it made sense to him. Perhaps you used a scent like that to blend into the element around you, becoming one with your surrounding. Leaving no trace. Just like that night when he first met you. The more Matt learned about you, the more fascinated he became. But he wouldn't have known that yet. Not at that moment.

You pushed yourself up, pressing your chest flush with his. Your voice was low in contrast to your guards, which were high and tall, and you hoped they wouldn't topple over.

"Just like you said, they were criminals. I don't kill anyone that doesn't deserve it."

Your answer didn't satisfy him by the way his jaw clenched, his lips curved downward in disapproval.

"What they do is wrong, but that doesn't mean they deserve death. Two wrongs don't make one right."

Your hands tugged on the skin and bone shackles he had on you, but he wouldn't let up. Your skin prickled in frustration.

"I'm weeding the bad out. You should thank me since I'm doing you a favour."

He tightened the hold on you, making an imprint on your wrists.

"They deserve second chances for redemption. How can they change for the better if they're not given a chance to do so?"

Okay, now you were beyond annoyed. Who the hell did he think he was? To walk all over you, to jeopardize your mission. To act as if he was the one with authority.

"Stop with the fucking lectures! Not all of them deserve that."

You thrashed with all you might, desperate to escape his hold. But Matt held on.

"They're humans. They make mistakes, just like you and me."

That snapped something inside you, something that had always been there. You tipped your head back and slammed your head to his face. Matt let you go as he held a hand to his nose. You delivered a sharp blow to the base of his throat, right below his Adam's apple, effectively choking him. He sputtered, taking a few steps back, holding his throat while you followed him like a predator. Anger and grief took over, like a storm waiting to be unleashed.

"Spare me that bullshit!"

You grabbed his shirt, gripping it and pulling him back to you before throwing him against the brick chimney.

"If you know so much about the way this …"

Matt held a hand to his nose, swiping the runny liquid onto his hand. From the feel of it, a small part of his nose was splintered, but other than that, no serious and long-lasting damage. You took hold of him again, throwing him against the bricks.

"… thing works, then tell me. Tell me how it feels to have my entire life stolen from me. To have my family taken away, to have those barbaric so-called human beings abuse me, torture me, put drugs and chips inside of me like I'm no less than a toy? I'm nothing more but a weapon, a tool for their profit. And when I finally escaped and tried to have a normal life with a normal guy, they found me and took that away too?"

You leaned closer, and Matt could sense something other than his own blood. The salt of your tears, the blood rushing in your veins, fueling the rattling rhythm of your pulse.

"Tell me, Murdock. Tell me how it feels like to come home one day, and find your love's decapitated head on the bed you shared, in the only home you've ever known?"

And then there was nothing, only your heavy breathing and his; the wind died down, and the city carried on. Matt thought about the accident years ago, losing his sight, then his father. Stick came as abruptly as he left, and that was how he spent most of his teenage years alone and aloof. Matt couldn't shut out the clamour of crimes happening around him; he was helpless to it. When he decided to do something, to take charge, Matt lost more than he gained. Still, there was Foggy, who brought so much joy to his life. Foggy's presence was a blessing. Then came Elektra, who made him feel heard and understood when no one else could. Being with her was an ever-changing mesh of euphoria and affliction that stuck with him, before and after. The fights he had fought for the better only brought more pain to his life, full of losses.

The words manifested on his tongue, but he didn't say any of them. Your pain was your own, and it was immeasurable. Matt held both hands out in a gesture of peace. And when he spoke, the words were ripped right from his heart.

"I am sorry for everything that happened to you. I won't say that I understand everything what you went through. But I do understand why you're doing this. Trust me, revenge is not everything."

"No, you don't know anything about me."

Your tone was sharp. Final.

"Let me guess, you have some sob stories too?"

He swallowed hard, and you knew you were right.

"I guess that's why we turn out like this, huh? Inflicting pain on others because we can't bear our own."

It hurt more than the healing wound on his arm, than the forming bruise on his throat. It was as if your dagger had sunk into his chest and twisted until his heart was nothing but a mangle of tissues and vessels. He protected Hell's Kitchen; he had kept it safe with his violence. Deep under the overlapping layers of his good conscience, he knew it was another way for Matt not to face his own pain. The past year was the embodiment of that. No matter how much time passed, he knew that time would always stay with him, reminding him of the destruction he had made.

"Stay out of my way if you know what's good for you."

You turned on your heels, stepped onto the ledge and jumped. Your gracefulness landed you on the fire escape as you descended, blending in with the surroundings once more. Matt tipped his head back onto the warm bricks and caught his breath, deep in thoughts and the scent of you lingering behind.

Wet earth. Fresh rain. The saltiness of your tears.

Matt came home to his empty apartment; frustration and pain burned his skin, grating his insides. His throat hurt, the wound on his arm throbbed, and his nose stung, but at least it had stopped bleeding. Matt knew he would have to take it easy for the next few nights. Matt peeled off the dirty suit, undoing the hand wraps quickly. Standing in his boxers, he went to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. The small machine hummed as it heated the water inside as Matt prepared his tea. While waiting for the water, he went to the bedroom and grabbed a zip-up hoodie and sweats before gingerly them on, careful of his injuries. Matt went through the motion automatically because he didn't allow himself to stop and think. Not yet. The kettle whistled a high-pitched note, dragging him to the kitchen. Water was poured, tea steeped, and honey added. Matt settled down at the kitchen table with his mug, hissing softly as his aching muscles voiced their discomfort. Matt closed his eyes, letting the steam of chamomile soothe his eyelids before diving into everything he knew about you. Which was not much at all. But he had more now than he knew of you six nights ago.

Rubbing his throat, Matt took a sip of his honeyed tea. He recalled the sound of your voice, the inflection of it when you were angry. The piercing rawness of it when you cried. He got to learn another part of you that he had tried to reach. You were in the position to knock him out swiftly, to kill him even, but you didn't. You spared him of your own volition. He might not know your name, but he knew your pattern now. You struck precisely, seizing someone on the weaker links and climbing up. However, singling out one of the lawyers on the retainer for one of the most notorious crime families gave him a clue of what you came to New York for. Even though it was out of character for you, it gave him a hint of where you could go next, and Matt wasn't going to pass out on this chance. The crime family you targeted was someone he had an interest in himself. The Stromwyns. They were a force to be reckoned with, and from what he knew of you, you acted alone. It was personal from your history with them, and he suspected you wanted to take them down yourself. Matt would admire your bravery if it wasn't so reckless and incredibly foolish. But on what ground could he judge you, considering that he did the same thing?

Your fist curled tightly, your knuckles drenched in blood and mangled flesh of your own and your victims. But you wouldn't stop, not until you got what you wanted. A swift punch followed another on Imani's broken face. Her bodyguards and associates laid unconscious a few feet away, leaving only your ragged breaths and the woman's pained whimpers echoed in the destroyed meeting room. You usually wouldn't strike them at their base, where they could easily call for backup, which they did, but you felt particularly reckless tonight. You were up for a challenge, and you almost paid for it. The searing pain on your side was the throbbing proof. You wanted to speed your investigation along, too impatient to wait. You had done enough of that. Still, this stubborn woman before you wouldn't give in. You could feel your temper rising, and soon, you wouldn't be able to control it. Imani was a delicate knot in an elaborate scheme that you couldn't solve by cutting her string short. You didn't take out her whole team for nothing, especially when your venture for revenge ended up being something bigger, something more sinister than you thought.

You gave Imani's face a slap. She came to before you, despite her drooping eyelids.

"I know the Stromwyns are planning something big. Tell me what it is."

She gave a bloody smirk, her teeth stained red. She tried to keep her head straight, her eyes bored into you.

"No."

"Should have saved that energy telling me what I want."

Another jab, and she fell to the floor. You propped her up against the table, pulling out the blade concealed on your thigh.

"One last chance. I won't be so lenient this time."

The thumps of his boots made it to your ears, and you felt the air change slightly. Maybe it was just you. His footsteps drew closer on the once pristine marble floor behind you, entering the crime scene. You closed your eyes, already knowing what he would say.

"Don't do this."

You didn't bother standing up to greet him this time.

"I've killed before. This will change nothing."

"Believe me. It will."

His tone was the same. Kind, soft, imploring for the part of you that no longer existed. Yet, he still searched for it, drawing it out. You would lie if you said you couldn't feel the tug of his kindness and patience on your heartstring. It was just that you couldn't afford to follow his call.

"Why are you still trying? Why waste time on me?"

You had to know whether it was his Catholic guilt, and you were his charity case, or it was something else entirely. It wasn't like New York's shady marketplace lacked assassins for hire. You knew that as much.

"I was you before. You think you're irredeemable. But you're not. You still have a chance to turn around …"

Your real name on his tongue sounded foreign to your ears. It affected you in a way you didn't think possible. The sound triggered the alarm going off in your head, screeching in your ears. You slowly rose on your feet, exhaling an unsteady breath. You had isolated yourself and made acquaintance with no one. The shock of Matt finding out shot unnerving prickles along your skin. You used his name in vain to gain an advantage, while he used yours in the hope of steering you back to yourself with such an intricate tenderness. And that made you angrier than ever.

You closed the distance between you, wielding the dagger between your skilled fingers.

"Who do you think you are? Waltzing in here with your talks, when you're doing the same thing as I am–"

"I don't kill–"

"Same - fucking - shit! Just because you don't kill doesn't make you better than me."

Your words were punctuated with each swipe of your weapon, which he easily dodged. You were blinded with rage, with a wave of anger so potent that you could only release it when your blade had sunk into his flesh. You knew deep down if you stopped, your weaker emotions would get the better of you. Your fury consumed you whole, fueling every step as you advanced toward the infuriating figure that seemed to have so much trust in you.

"Stop it! I know you have it in you to stop. I know it feels good to get revenge, but it will ruin you."

Matt only dodged your blows and not once fought back. It only fueled your boiling rampage.

"Shut up! Just … shut up and fight back!"

It was harder to ignore his voice and what he said now. His words were like vines, slipping through the cracks of your control, taking root quickly. But you were broken; no one could mend you. You had long accepted that you would never be someone you once wished to be. This was your life. Full of rage, violence and loneliness. That was how you would die. Your demons would always follow you, then, now, and when it was your time to depart this world. You were beyond saving.

The quiet click of a gun made you whip your head toward the sound. You couldn't see clearly through the veil of tears that had started trailing down your cheeks. That was when you realized that you had been crying. It was such an appalling recognition that you didn't register the bullet leaving its chamber. Everything that happened after that was so fast your mind couldn't catch up. You could only feel. You felt the rough contact of his body against yours when he tackled you, the hard marble floor on your back when you crashed. Matt continued to shield you with his body over yours as a few more shots rang out. He cried out suddenly as a bullet hit him; his body jolted but didn't move an inch. You tried to push him off you so the two of you could run for cover, but he wouldn't budge. Suddenly, it became eerily quiet except for some empty clicks, followed by a sharp cry of pain as Imani got up and took off toward the exit. You pushed Matt off, getting yourself ready to run after her, but you ceased acting on your instinct. Matt tried to rise with one hand braced on the littered floor, his lips parted to expel a pained groan. Your foggy mind replayed the feeling of him lunging for you, saving you from the bullets' line. You blinked, watching as your whole body trembled, the bloody blade unsteady in your hand. Your target had escaped, but that was the least of your concern right now. You looked to your saviour, fixed on the ghastly look on his almost unmasked face. His eyes stared straight ahead, his mouth opened agape, and his movements shaky before he dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.

Matt woke to the unfamiliar surrounding, with strange air and the companion of another's presence. He found himself almost naked, saved for his boxers, nestled between the warm sheets that definitely weren't the silk he used to. Despite its roughness, it was just as nice as his own, as it possessed your scent, earthy and soothing. Matt had grown to like it. A pleasant mix of you and his own blood, which he could sense as he moved to set his feet on the floor. Matt ran a hand through his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and felt no resistance. He seemed to only recognize the missing safety of his mask now, and for a brief moment, he panicked. It was soon washed away when the gentle breeze carried something else in from the open window. A scent of moss, morning dews, and vines seemed to attach themselves to the brick exterior of the building, like soil after the rain. It reminded him of how you always blended in with your environment. And the thought eased his concerns. If you wanted him dead, he wouldn't be alive right now. But Matt was here, in your home. Hurt but alive, the rough gauze on his thigh reminded him.

Matt took a few unsteady steps as he oriented himself, getting familiar with the surroundings. The search for the door was a success, and he opened it to step into a different world. A different feel. The space was warm and pleasant, with sunlight coming from the right side, and the aroma that hung in the air felt homey. Upon further inspection, Matt could smell freshly chopped parsley, rice, and chicken. In the midst of everything were you and your ever-steady heartbeat.

Without turning around, you directed him.

"Take a seat. Food is almost ready."

As soon as the words left your mouth, you bit onto your bottom lip, feeling a little out of place. There was something strangely domestic about the way you told him to make himself comfortable. Even though you did try to kill him just a few hours before.

Matt searched for the seating and sat down, his back resting nicely against the cushion. He closed his eyes, soaking in the warm sun. You let yourself look at him from where you were standing, taking in how peaceful he seemed. How at ease. He seemed different, yet still the same as the person who had followed you, matching your violence with his own just to urge you to turn the other way. Realizing that you had been staring at him for perhaps too long, you whirled around to tend to the steaming food. With the porridge done, you turned the stove off before pouring a good portion of the hot dish into two bowls and sprinkling some parsley on top.

You put the bowl in front of him with a soft thump, and his eyes lazily slid open. The spoon made a small clang on the wooden table as you set it down on his right before going to your seat. Matt picked up the spoon, taking in the dish before him. It was steaming hot with a savoury aroma of rice, chicken, herb and seasonings.

"I didn't poison it, don't worry."

Matt huffed a soft chuckle.

"I trust you."

"You're way too trusting considering what you do."

That made him smile. Matt took a spoonful of the food, blowing it for good measure before giving it a taste. A pleasant and hot feeling engulfed his tongue before it smoothly chased down his throat. The taste was delectable, flavourful and wholesome. It warmed him inside out.

"Seasonings are on your right. Just reach your hand out a little."

That made Matt pause for a moment, but he didn't say anything. You continued your meal in silence, and the air between didn't feel tense or forced. Outside of the enclosed space, New York was a bustle of sounds.

Your spoon made a small clang on the side of the bowl, and it seemed like you decided it was more than enough to start a new conversation.

"I'm guessing from the way you are not panicking or overwhelmed or freaking out, you've been blind for a long time?"

No beating around the bush. He liked that. People walked on eggshells around him, around his disadvantage, for a good reason. But Matt didn't need coddling. He definitely didn't need protecting, either.

"Since I was nine. Freak accident."

"Freaky indeed."

Those two words marked the end of your conversation. Matt occasionally felt your intense gaze, watching him carefully as he cleaned the bowl. Once his and your hunger were satiated, you put the dishes away in the empty sink. Matt stood up to help, but his good intention was quickly forgotten as he hissed lowly in pain. He touched the area around the wound, feeling its mouth crack, allowing the blood to seep into the gauze. Matt winced, and it didn't escape your watchful eyes.

Rummaging around your kitchen, you poured him a glass of water and set two pills in his palm.

"Take these. Or don't. I don't care."

Your halfhearted concern warmed his heart. He knew your intention behind it, and the little spike in your heart never lied. Matt took the pills as you walked away, fetching the medical kit.

"Can I see your wound?"

He nodded after a brief moment. You dragged your chair to settle beside him, and your thighs exchanged accidental brushes. Your touch was careful and tender as your hands worked on his broad thigh to unwrap the bloodied bandage. Matt's jaw clenched, holding back a pained groan as you pressed gently around the tender area. You cleaned up the blood with a clean cloth, precise and swiftly. Not a word passed between you as you secured the wound with a sterile bandage until you asked if you could see the injury on his side. There was something serene, tender and peaceful about the way you took care of him, as if you had done this many, many times before. As if you had known each other for a lifetime.

Once finished, you pulled away with a gentle squeeze on his knee before working on your injured hands. You sighed in exasperation as you undid the hand wraps. The torn skin on your knuckles was red and angry, staring back at you as they throbbed a warning melody, giving you no choice but to listen. You would have to take it easy for the time being.

Lost in your thoughts, your hands pulled on another roll of gauze when Matt's warm hand on your wrist startled you, sending a pleasant prickle to your skin. Your eyes widened as Matt extended an open palm, wordlessly offering to help you dress your wound. You stared at him, your eyes flicked at the upward motion of his brow. Tentatively, you passed the white fabric to him. Matt held you in his hands and quickly assessed your knuckles. Your hands were colder than his, calloused and scarred, like a written memoir of your past that you carried all the time. He tried not to think about the smaller, barely-there scars you probably obtained from your younger years. You were older now, yet, your fight hadn't ended. The path you walked on only led you further into the woods like a prisoner who still fought even though their chains were broken, their prison door unlocked. He wanted to focus on the now, where you were safe, alive and with him.

Judging by the echo of your apartment, it was spacious, cozy and most likely expensive. It was a bold move, living in the heart of Manhattan. You were almost fearless, that much he knew. Matt had no doubt that you knew what you were doing, considering your profession. Maybe your name on the lease was fake, or someone owed you a favour. A very big one.

"How do you afford this apartment?"

Matt kept his voice light, distracting you from the sting of disinfectant.

"How do you?"

You asked him with just as much airiness, if not more. He chuckled softly, shaking his head as you found yourself smiling with him. You continued as the crinkles around his eyes deepened in amusement, remembering that you probably knew where he lived.

"I kill for a living. Sometimes. I'm pretty good at my job, remember?"

Matt took a deep and sharp breath, and you bit your tongue. It was too much, and you felt stupid for making that joke.

"I only take on jobs that target the Stromwyn. Nothing beyond that. Anyone with mutual interest benefits me."

"I know."

"Do you now, smartass?"

Matt could hear a slight smirk in your voice. It was refreshing to see you so relaxed, so … different from what he had known of you. But then, you were full of surprises. Silence fell over you like a thin veil; the only sound left was his movements, wrapping the bandage around your hand.

"Don't you get tired of it?"

The strokes of his hands were soft, certain as he wrapped himself around you. His warmth spread to your hands, making you shiver. Just slightly. You took a long moment to yourself, mulling over what he said.

"I do. But I can't stop. They're still doing it to children, to little kids like … like I once was. I'm a result of them, and I won't be the last."

His grip on your hands tightened, careful of your injuries. Matt brought your intertwined fingers closer to his chest, urging you to look into his unsighted eyes. Upon the near distance, you noticed the hazel gleaming in the bright light of your kitchen, holding more than just your attention.

"What they did to you is not who you are. They don't get to make you into someone you don't want to be."

His words were kind, his touch was soft, and they suffocated you. You jerked your hands out of his as if his touch burned you. A reflection of hurt took shape on his furrowed brows and curved lips, and you felt sorry for pulling away. When did you turn so soft for a man you barely knew?

"My firm can bring attention to their organization. With a big case like this, it can't stay under wraps forever. I have connections, and I can assure you that there will be people looking into this. We can work together. I can help you. Let me. Please."

You swallowed hard, feeling queasy in your seat. You stood up, and Matt followed, but he gave you space when you started pacing. You had known for a long time that you wouldn't be able to do this by yourself. The Stromwyns' influence ran deep. It would take more than an assassin with a want for vengeance infused in her blood to uproot that. To completely dismantle their organization, you would need a miracle. And Matt just might be that miracle you need. You sighed heavily, bringing your nervous pacing to a stop. You held his unseeing gaze, more for your sake than his, as if to seal your fate.

"Fine."

Matt offered a hand to you, initiating a physical agreement. After a brief moment of fleeting contemplation, you held his offering hand and shook. He pulled you closer to him by your skin-on-skin attachment, making you take a sharp breath as the sudden movement grazed your wounded skin.

"No killing."

You tugged on his firm clasp, and he wouldn't let go.

"Fine. No killing."

Matt only released you then, and you were all too eager not to have his hands on you again. That was what you told yourself, even though your heart thrashed unhappily at the traitorous thought. The tingling feeling on your fingers was back, and your mind raced with the possibilities of an uncertain future and foreign feelings.

Matt delivered on his promise. It was a long fight, stretched over two years, but the outcome was victorious and sweet. Nelson, Murdock and Page investigated and gathered evidence with witnesses, bringing the case to New York's district attorney. The ordeal was blown up, which brought in law enforcement from the higher-up. The news of the Stromwyns controlling important assets throughout New York, infesting neighbourhoods with gangs and criminals to secretly collect "protection money" from the residents, was brought to the media, pulling the attention of the whole country. When things began to come to light, the Stromwyns issued a bomb threat in an attempt to bury the whispers. It backfired as the warning was proven real by you and Matt on your investigation at night. The FBI quickly acted on the lead, making arrests for the whole family. The Stromwyns were forced to liquify their assets, and their accounts in foreign countries were seized and frozen by the CIA. Unfortunately, before law enforcement could put all of them in cuffs, some members of the family had already fled to Europe, according to the intel you obtained illegally.

It amazed you how a team of three managed to make such an impact, how relentlessly and tirelessly they worked to get people involved. You were also a part of that team; Matt told you no matter how hard you denied it. He introduced you to his friends and partners, Foggy and Karen. Even though they were skeptical of your relationship with Matt, they took your intel seriously and worked with you. You kept your distance, knowing they weren't comfortable being in the same room with an experienced assassin as in Matt's past, and you were fine with that. You had a working association with them, striving for the same outcome. You weren't there to make friends.

You weren't sure what to make of your relationship with Matt. Something had changed, but you didn't want to acknowledge it. You couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to him when you had to leave eventually. You had each other's back when you scouted for new information, when you infiltrated the Stromwyn's warehouses. Those fights didn't often result in grave injuries; when they did, you took care of each other. Small and big damages. Matt ensured that you looked after yourself and wouldn't agonize over your past. He was there to soothe you in his secure embrace when you had a nightmare. It was almost as if his arms and hands had morphed around your frame, embracing you, making you feel at ease when your grief was too much. You would wake up thrashing in his arms when the needles were too close; the stiffness paralyzing your body felt too real. Eventually, your place or his wasn't a matter since you would always end up in the same bed at the end of everything, whether due to exhaustion or nightmare-filled nights into early mornings. Whenever you woke with a headache, he would have his special tea readied, along with medicine at your request. You were afraid that he would spoil you rotten, and if you got used to his affection and care, you would never be able to leave. You couldn't stay, couldn't allow yourself that one thing. You had shared too much of yourself with him, and you were afraid you would be left with nothing if you kept on giving. You knew you didn't deserve him. So you packed your stuff up and booked a flight to Germany, following the trail of the scattered Stromwyns. You decided to leave without a word, but Matt had another idea.

"Don't do this to me."

Call you sentimental, but you had come to the rooftop of your building one last time to soak in the sound, the feel, and the air of this city. There was nowhere else quite like it, and the reason wasn't entirely due to the man standing behind you. You didn't have to turn around to know it was Matt. Your apartment was empty now, doused in the warm late afternoon light. Matt stood before you, his dress shirt creased, his tie crooked, his hair ruffled, and his face flushed from exertion. He must have run from his office in Hell's Kitchen to your apartment in Midtown Manhattan. You extended your gratitude to Karen and Foggy in person for helping you with the case before Matt got there, nothing else. You guessed they were suspicious of that and told him, even though you didn't show anything out of place. You wanted to get this over with.

"Do what?"

"Leave. Leave New York. Leave me."

The wounded edge in his plea twisted the knife that was already embedded in your heart.

"I told you. I can't rest when they're still out there."

"Let the authority take care of that. Don't be reckless."

The tone in his last sentence was stern, reprimanding as if you were a child out of line.

"Me? Reckless?"

You turned to face him, appalled at his audacity.

"I followed your 'no killing' rule. These bastards are still free because of it."

Your hands helped enunciate each word you threw at him, even though it was fruitless. You were making a point for yourself. An excuse to leave.

"They can't run forever. You've done your part. You've suffered enough."

Matt erased the distance between you, getting close enough that you didn't want to step back. You would miss his warmth.

"Stay. You have friends here."

His tender intention thrummed on your nerves, coaxing your guard like the sweet honey he always put in your tea. His words were so convincing that you felt like you could be fooled.

"No, I don't. I don't have anyone."

You stubbornly turned your head away, unable to look at him.

"You have me. Foggy and Karen, too. They don't say it but they do care about you. And I do, too."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do."

He said it with so much conviction. You wanted to believe him.

"I can't, Matt. I don't know who I am without this."

The constant running, following, chasing. The continuous shutout from people, shielding yourself until you were isolated and all alone. In a way, your violence, pain, and loneliness were a way for you to punish and protect yourself. That was how you stayed anchored to reality, never strayed too far from your cruel fate, and never looked at what you could have been.

"You're still you. The strongest, most stubborn person I know. Even when you don't know yourself, you'll get there eventually. Stop running and allow yourself a chance to live the life that you deserve. To be who you want to be."

"I'm still a murderer. That's all I am and all I'll ever be. I'm only capable of that, and I will only bring you down with me by merely being in your life."

He shook his head.

"Yes, I will, Matt. Nothing good comes with me. Why don't you just let me go?"

Your throat hurt with the stricken cry that was torn from your chest. Your eyes were wide, watching Matt through the thin veil of your tears.

"I love you."

"What?"

"I love you. Everything about you."

Matt inched even closer, and you let him step into your space, knocking down your crumbling barrier. You weren't strong enough to back away. To run. You were exhausted from it.

"Please …"

You had always been careful, five steps ahead of most things. But not everything. You didn't expect to fall for Matt, yet, you did. This was his desperate plea for you to stay, to live your life instead of hiding in the shadows, being a ghost of who you truly were. He had whittled away your defence wall, brick by brick, over the span of time you knew each other. He taught you there was safety in letting go. And you did.

In a swift and clumsy motion, you slammed your lips against Matt's, accepting his promises, love, and everything in between. His full lips were soft and addictive, parting easily to deepen the kiss. Your tongues tangled in a fiery dance, and you felt like you could get drunk on his taste alone. Like the barest hint of salt, a touch of cinnamon spice, and something else that only belonged to him. His hand tangled in your hair, bringing you closer as if it was possible. When he was finally satisfied with the absence of space in between, his hand trailed down to the column of your throat in a soft caress, before stopping at the coursing, delicate pulse. Matt pressed in with his fingertips, acting on the overwhelming need to feel you, to feel the proof as if your woven bodies and intertwined tongues weren't enough. That you were real, and you were here with him. You only parted when you felt like your body could slip away from your consciousness. You heaved hard, feeling the gasps of air on your lips as Matt touched his forehead to yours. He whispered against your lips.

"Please. Stay with me."

You closed your eyes. You were tired of running, of letting your rage consume you. You and Matt were two flames. Similar to a fault, but he brought balance to you in his own way. He soothed that anger inside you and showed you that there was more to you than your past, the deadly intents you carried in the company of your wrath. You had a chance to start over with a future that wouldn't end in solitude, with the man who had so much trust in your potential when you didn't. At last, you weren't afraid to take it for yourself, as long as Matt was with you. You nodded; your face bore joyous tears and a genuine smile.

"I'm all yours."

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