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If all shows and movies were going to be deleted for the rest of eternity, what four shows and what four movies would you save?
i've been thinking about this for longer than i'd like to admit and definitely overthinking it but I think i've finally come to a decision. I had to do 5 though bc 4 was too hard 😭
for movies: scream, empire records, the silence of the lambs, avengers endgame, and the breakfast club
for shows: daredevil, what we do in the shadows, the great british bake off, parks & rec, and criminal minds
summary: matt has a crisis of faith, and the realization of his mistake leads to massive guilt.
warnings: swearing, more angst than me at 11, mentions of physical & psychological abuse, brief mentions of violence
word count: 5.1k
a/n: I won't lie and say I haven't been putting this series off bc there's only four more chapters left, which is insane?? time really flies when you're putting characters through it for fun. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
“Mr. Murdock. To what do I owe this unexpected and highly inconvenient visit.”
Matt stormed out of the elevator when the doors parted, irately folding up his cane as he stalked towards where Fury was sitting at his desk. The man’s demeanor was far too calm for Matt’s brittle temper.
“You knew.”
Fury let out an annoyed exhale through his nose that made Matt grind his teeth so hard he felt the joint in his jaw pop from the pressure. Fury leaned back casually in his chair, interlocking his fingers before resting his palms on his stomach.
“This conversation will move a lot faster if you speak in complete sentences. And speaking of conversation, you mind telling me who the hell gave you clearance to my goddamn office?”
Matt slammed his fist down on the surface of the desk and pointed his index finger towards Fury in accusation, the rising volume of his voice filling the spacious office.
“You knew what she was!”
Fury didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all to Matt’s outburst, which only pissed Matt off even more. Fury didn’t respond immediately. He took a moment to observe Matt with his good eye, noting how rigid Matt’s shoulders were, rising and falling in a rushed staccato rhythm, breathing harshly as if he’d ran up the steps to the top floor instead of taking the elevator.
“I assume you’re referring to Agent Y/L/N’s past as a Black Widow operative.”
The placid tone of his voice made Matt want to jump over Fury’s desk and unleash his anger the best way he knew how. Instead, Matt let out a dry and humorless laugh, shaking his head in disbelief as he tossed his folded cane forcefully into one of the empty leather chairs in front of Fury’s desk. He placed his hands on his hips, dipping his head back slightly before twisting it to the left to crack his neck.
“Christ, how do you manage to keep up with all the lies?”
“I didn’t lie to you about that.”
Matt scoffed, turning to face Fury again as he waved one of his hands in front of him dismissively.
“Just because you didn’t freely tell me that little secret-”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, I did tell you it was personal for her.”
Matt rubbed his palm down his face in irritation, the coarse evidence from days of neglecting his razor scratching against his palm like a brillo pad.
“Personal.”
Matt repeated the word with mockery and disdain, practically spitting it out, eager to get the bastardized connotation out of his mouth.
“You sure it wasn’t opportunity? I mean who better to catch depraved leaders of a child trafficking ring than someone who used to be one. Is that why you put her in charge over Owens? Because she’s the one that knows how to manipulate little girls-”
Before Matt could even finish his wrathful sermon of judgment, Fury abruptly stood from his chair and slammed his palms down on his desk. The sound that echoed from the collision rang in Matt’s ears uncomfortably, cutting off his rant, but Matt was also momentarily stunned by the sudden display of anger. It was as unsettling to witness an emotional reaction from Fury as it had been with her.
“I’m gonna stop you right there before you say something really goddamn stupid, and I advise you not to speak on things you don’t understand.”
The serrated edge in Fury’s voice was unmistakably laced with a threat. Matt clenched his hands at his sides and pressed his lips firmly together, torn between the innate urge to keep arguing and the burning curiosity to uncover what had caused Fury to break his imperturbable composure.
“Now I told you once before you can check that holier than thou shit at the door. I meant it when I said there’s no place for that here.”
“I’m not standing here claiming to be a fucking saint, Fury, but I sure as hell don’t have a history of running around abducting innocent girls.”
“And how exactly do you think she ended up in that position, you self righteous asshole? You think she volunteered?”
Fury pulled his hands away from his desk and stood up straight, rounding his desk quickly to advance on Matt.
“Do you even know what the Black Widow program is, Murdock? What they do to those girls? Do you have any idea what we’re actually up against here?”
Matt had quickly shifted his stance, his hands clenched in tight restless fists. The way Fury had marched towards him, he’d expected the older man to actually take a swing at him. Suspicious confusion fell over Matt when Fury stopped just a few inches away instead. The rise in his internal temperature indicated he was fuming, but Matt couldn’t fathom what the hell he had to be mad about.
“Yeah, I get the gist. They train spies the way you do here, they just don’t bullshit it and say it’s for ‘the greater good’.”
Fury narrowed his eye and clenched his jaw, his voice dropping to an octave that betrayed his own threadbare patience as he took a step forward.
“People come to S.H.I.E.L.D. of their own free will, as adults. Did it seem like those girls made the choice to be in those cages?”
It was such a ridiculous question that Matt felt a whole new ember of indignation ignite within him.
“Of course not! They were kidnapped-”
“Exactly. They were taken against their will.”
“Yeah, that’s what kidnapped means-”
“And they were taken against their will to be brought to the Red Room.”
“Apparently-”
“Which is where Y/L/N told you she grew up.”
“What does that have to do-”
“So I’ll ask you again, Murdock, do you think she volunteered?”
Fury emphasized every word of the question he shouted in Matt’s face, like he was pointing out something frustratingly obvious, a connection Matt wasn’t making. He wasn’t sure if Matt’s momentary silence was from it finally clicking, or if yelling in his face had disrupted the stubborn bastard’s incessant arguing, but Fury didn’t have the patience for Matt’s epiphany to come.
“All over the world, girls are sold, or they’re taken, but they don’t get a goddamn say in joining the program. She was one of those innocent girls, Murdock. That’s why she’s running this operation. Because she knows what hell is waiting for them. She escaped it.”
There it was. The missing piece he’d been looking for, slammed into the final open spot of the puzzle with such force it nearly winded him. Finding those scared young girls in the cages last night had left him feeling horrified and nauseated. He hadn’t been able to sleep. The reality of the nightmare he’d been awake for was far worse than anything his imagination could’ve ever conjured in a terrible dream.
Knowing there was a trafficking ring in his city had been disturbing enough, but the discovery that it was girls had rattled him to his core. All he’d been able to think about in that basement last night was breaking the locks and getting them to safety. But when he got back to his quiet apartment, he’d felt the sudden sensation of drowning in the daunting reminder that the girls they’d saved were a miniscule piece of a global operation, one he had no idea where to even begin dismantling. He hadn’t even been able to find the one in his own city alone, much less take it down without help. The whole thing had made him feel revolted with helplessness and outrage that something so evil could exist, something he felt he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about.
If there was ever a night Matt should’ve gotten down on his knees and prayed for help, it was last night, but he refused. Last night he’d felt nothing but disgusted with God, resentful towards Him. How could He just stand by and allow humanity to fall so deep into an everwidening pit of wickedness? Something like this, something so incredibly vile and immoral, something that maliciously and mercilessly robbed innocence from these girls, did that not warrant divine intervention?
And then her confession on top of the horrific discovery had shocked his already frayed and raw nerves, amplifying his abhorrence, giving him something tangible he could nail his blame to. Matt hadn’t allowed her to present an explanation. He hadn’t stuck around for one. He’d condemned her without mercy, he’d crucified her with the sharp judgement of his tongue and the fiery wrath of his temper. Tarasov, Constantin, those were just names that slipped through his fingers like smoke. But the verity that linked her to the atrocity of the scene gave him something he could wrap his fist around, something that could take the brunt of his anger and his hatred which he lashed against her without a second thought. Without trying to understand what she’d been begging him to.
Standing there with Fury, he suddenly remembered the rage that had radiated off of her during the interrogation with Dimitri. How the name he’d spoken in Russian had straightened her spine with fear. Matt thought back to last night in the basement, how he’d smelled the precursor to her tears when they found the girls, and how hard she’d fought not to let them build along her bottom lash line. Swallowing down her own emotions for the sake of the girls, because they were scared and they needed someone to tell them everything was going to be okay.
No one had come to free her from a cage. No one had put on a brave face and told her she was safe. No one had saved her. All at once, he finally understood everything, and the guilt that followed this revelation was immense and unrelenting like the Great Flood. Matt turned his back to the desk and sank against it, his shoulders sinking under the weight of his colossal fuck up. He wasn't sure he even wanted the answer to the question he was about to ask.
“How old was she?”
The quiet and remorseful tone of his voice made the tension in Fury’s shoulders dissipate, and he let out a deep exhale to expend his lingering frustration before moving to lean against the desk just a few inches away from Matt.
“She doesn’t remember.”
A conversation he’d had with her after their first mission together abruptly surged towards the forefront of his mind, and he turned his head towards Fury.
“She told me she had these…glimpses, of a woman and a…a place with trees? Something about cherry blossoms. She wasn’t sure if they were memories or dreams. She said she thought the woman was her mother?”
“Not cherry blossoms. Jacaranda. They look similar, but they’re more purple. Cherry blossoms don’t grow well in Mexico.”
Matt instantly sat up straighter, angling his body more towards Fury as his brows knit in puzzlement.
“She said she didn’t know where she’s from-”
“She doesn’t.”
There was something in Fury’s voice that almost could’ve been construed as apologetic. He let out a quiet sigh and leaned back further against the desk, resting his palms against the surface on either side of himself.
“Five years ago, we were…on opposite sides of the fence. We were in Italy to interrogate a diplomat about conspiring to purchase a biomedical weapon, and she was there to kill him to protect the seller.”
“What happened?”
“She’s a hell of a shot.”
There was a hint of fondness in Fury’s tone, and he even let out a dry chuckle at the memory.
“She shot through one of my agents. Bullet went right through his shoulder and into the diplomat’s heart.”
Matt tracked the way the ghost of the smile that had twitched at the edge of Fury’s lips slowly faded as he sank further into his reminiscence.
“She should’ve gotten away.”
Matt titled his head to the side, perplexed by the statement and the way Fury said it.
“What do you mean?”
“She had a head start. She was in the building across the street from the hotel. And I know she had an escape plan. But she didn’t even make it to the intersection.”
“What happened? Did she get hurt?”
“No. She just…stopped running.”
Matt was thoroughly confused now. Why would an assassin, who had just taken out a target, not follow through with their escape route? Especially when she knew she was being chased?
“We found her in a garden by a cemetery, halfway down the street from the hotel. She was just…standing there, staring at something. I thought it was some kind of trick. But when I got closer and saw her face…it was like she wasn’t even there. I don’t know why, maybe because she reminded me of…someone, but I called out to her instead of sneaking up on her, and when she looked at me, it was like she’d just woken up from a dream but didn’t remember falling asleep. The first words out of her mouth were ‘help me’.”
“Help me?”
“Turns out the Red Room got a little creative when they realized magic words weren’t working anymore.”
“What are you talking about, what magic words?”
Breaking out of his own memory induced trance, Fury turned to look at Matt and arched one of his brows.
“You think Bucky Barnes was the only victim of brainwashing?”
Brainwashing.
A trickle of dread cascaded down Matt’s spine in tandem with a pit opening in his stomach that his soul seemed to plummet through.
“That’s how they control them.”
“That’s how it started. One in twenty girls survive the program. They’re beaten down, physically and psychologically, so they can be molded into the perfect weapons. But after Rom-”
Fury paused for a moment, pushing himself up from the desk. He rubbed his palm down the lower half of his face as he rounded the desk to go stand in front of the large floor to ceiling windows, staring through the glass as if searching for a ghost.
“After Natasha escaped, they turned to alternative methods. One of their top scientists created a specialized biochemical agent, a synthetic neural control mechanism. Chemical mind control that completely eradicates free will. One command, and the girls would even obediently stop breathing.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Mind control, on top of physical and psychological torture. He felt sick at the thought of what she must have suffered, being manipulated and stripped of her autonomy, but mainly he was sickened by how he’d spoken to her. Calling her a monster because of something that wasn’t even her fault.
“You…you fixed it though. The mind control-”
“We didn’t do anything.”
Matt stood up from the desk, following the path to approach where Fury was standing at the window, his brows knit in puzzlement.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything? She…she’s not under their control anymore, you broke it somehow-”
“She broke it herself.”
Fury clasped his hands behind his back and turned around to face Matt.
“Jacaranda.”
Matt’s features twisted up in confusion.
“What?”
“That’s what she was staring at in the garden.”
Understanding seemed to soften the contortion of Matt’s expression, and he tilted his head to the side faintly.
“The glimpses aren’t dreams. They’re memories. You think seeing the flower helped her break through the chemical control, by triggering a memory?”
“Could’ve been seeing it, could’ve been smelling it, but that’s the only explanation I have. Besides her being more stubborn than a goddamn mule.”
Matt’s lips twitched in a faint smile. It wasn’t entirely implausible to think her unyielding nature could’ve broken through anything, although he suspected the truth was that the sight or the smell of the flower sparked something in her brain. A memory powerful enough to combat complex chemistry. As he processed everything Fury had just divulged to him, he realized the discrepancies between her version and Fury’s. She thought they were dreams, Fury knew they weren’t.
“She doesn’t know they’re real memories.”
Fury let out a deep exhale that dropped his shoulders and his head along with it.
“They told her that she was given away. She never tried to look into her own past. But I had a…professional curiosity. It took a lot of digging to figure out where she came from, but it didn’t lead to anything useful. Her mother was killed when she was three. There was no other family. Even if there had been, no one would’ve been able to claim her. The records of her birth were destroyed so there was no evidence her mother even had her. No record of a child, no child to look for.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell her any of this? You don’t think she deserves to know she was taken, not given away?”
“Murdock, she’s suffered her entire life. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“She deserves to know.”
Matt’s head was pounding with everything his brain was struggling to process. He was trying to make sense of it all while his guilt compounded about how he’d treated her. This woman who had been a complete mystery to him had been a mystery to herself this entire time. He hadn’t been able to figure out who she really was beneath the spy persona because she didn’t even know who she was. She was still trying to figure it out. She’d been stripped of her own identity and autonomy at such a young age, important pieces she had only gotten back five years ago.
“I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re her boss.”
“And?”
“Are you really standing here telling me that you, Mr. I-know-and-see-all, don’t keep track of your employees?”
“You really think she would allow herself to be found if she didn’t want to be?”
Matt pursed his lips in annoyance. She wasn’t the kind of person who would consent to being tracked, and she’d outsmart anyone that even tried. Fury turned to face the window once more, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.
“I think you need to go to church, Murdock.”
“I’m a little preoccupied at the moment.”
“That’s not a very good Catholic boy thing to say.”
Matt rolled his eyes behind his red tinted sunglasses, turning to walk back over towards the chairs in front of Fury’s desk, bending to reach for his folded cane abandoned on the cushion of the one on the left.
“Yeah, well, God and I aren’t on good terms right now.”
“Understandable. But I still think you should go. Maybe you’ll find another lost soul, looking for the same answers to the universe you are.”
Matt was halfway towards the elevators when he abruptly paused. There was something about the way Fury insisted that he go to church that caught his attention. Why was he pushing so hard for Matt to-
Letting out an irritated exhale, Matt turned around to face Fury, clicking his tongue against his cheek.
“Is it a requirement to be a spy to constantly speak in fucking riddles?”
“Nope. Just for fun.”
»»——— ———««
Matt had been standing outside the front doors of his church for the past ten minutes. He could sense that she was inside, sitting in one of the middle pews to the right. He couldn’t figure out why she was there. She hadn’t moved once, not even a twitch of her finger. The sanctuary was completely empty except for her. He wanted to go inside, wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t know what to say. He’d been cycling through different versions of apologies, but none of them felt adequate enough. He didn’t think his tongue could possibly string together any words that could fully communicate his remorse. But he couldn’t stand here all night either. Letting out a deep breath, he quietly pulled open the door and slipped inside.
If she heard him approaching, she didn’t react. She didn’t even look in his direction when he sat down next to her, not that he blamed her. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed for him as he tried to figure out how to right his wrong.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sounded as pained as he did desperate when he turned his head towards her, his fingers aching to reach out and take her hand.
“Would it have made a difference?”
The hollowness of her voice gutted him as much as her defeated body language. This wasn’t her. Or maybe it was. Maybe this was what was really beneath that carefully crafted composure. Either way, he hated it. He’d rather her argue with him until he took his last breath than witness her fire diminish into ash. But the subdued resignation in her tone had confusion creasing his forehead.
“Of course it would have. Why would you think it wouldn’t?”
“Because you were right.”
He heard her try to swallow down the emotion that had gotten stuck in her throat, thickening her voice with solemn submission that sent a pang through his chest. Matt shifted closer to her, nearly on the brink of dropping to his knees to beg her to forgive him for how cruel and unfair he’d been.
“Sweetheart, everything I said-”
“Was true.”
She finally turned to face him, a waver disrupting her cadence as swells of tears that she struggled to maintain blurred her vision.
“I did those things, Matt. I’ve done so many…terrible things. I am a monster-”
“You didn’t have a choice-”
“But I did them. And I remember all of it.”
The way her voice cracked broke him. Matt immediately closed the gap between them and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her as close as physically possible against his side while his other hand cradled the back of her head. He closed his eyes, pressing his lips against her hair, wishing he knew how to exorcise all the demons that held her soul captive.
“It wasn’t your fault, honey. You know what they did to you. You can’t blame yourself for what they made you do, that guilt doesn’t belong to you.”
“But I have it, and I don’t know how to balance it out. I thought…I thought after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. that I could be better. That saving people would make me better. But I still can’t sleep. Nothing feels good enough. And there’s this…this endless pit of loneliness inside me, and I don’t think anything will ever fill it.”
“I know, I know. I feel it too.”
He was forced to loosen his embrace when she pulled back to look at him in complete bewilderment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not the only monster, Y/N.”
“Don’t. Don’t even compare yourself to me. You are not-”
“A saint.”
Matt gave her a tiny sad smile.
“Do you remember what you said to me when I woke up in that room after our first mission together?”
He heard the intake of breath as she parted her lips, and the hesitance that preceded her answer.
“I didn’t mean any of that-”
“No, you did. Your heartbeat was steady. I mean it was a little elevated because you were pissed at me, but you weren’t lying.”
He sensed her pressing her lips together in an attempt to hide her quiet amusement at his retelling of the moment, and he moved his hand down to gently squeeze her thigh.
“I don’t put on the suit to be a hero. I mean, I do it because the system is broken and I can do things other people can’t, but that’s not the only reason why. The truth is…God put the Devil in me, and I like letting him out. The broken bones, the blood, I don’t have to go that far, but I do. Not because I need to, but because I want to. Because it feels like justice. Most of these guys I try to put away, I know the reality is they’re gonna wind up back on the street, some of them don’t even serve any time at all. But I know they remember what I did to them, and honestly, beating the shit out of some asshole in an alley trying to rob or assault people is a lot more fucking satisfying than hitting a punching bag.”
“That doesn’t make you a monster, Matt.”
“It does to me. Because I choose to do these things. No one forces me. No one is controlling me. It’s all my own doing.”
“But you aren’t hurting anyone innocent. You save people-”
“That doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t…fill that void for me either.”
The top row of her teeth sank down into her bottom lip, and her brows knit in thought as she glanced away for a moment. He stayed quiet, giving her a moment to process whatever was going on in her head.
“Do you think we should find therapists?”
The deadpan delivery of her question caught him off guard, and it tore a laugh from his chest that echoed in the empty sanctuary.
“Probably. But I think we might have a hard time finding one we won’t scare off.”
Her hand found its way to his, and he interlaced their fingers immediately, squeezing her hand three times in succession for reassurance.
“So what now?”
Matt let out a deep breath as he leaned back in the pew.
“We keep looking for Constantin. He’ll lead us to who’s actually calling the shots. What did Dimitri call him?”
The second she stiffened, Matt turned his attention directly back to her, alarm bells going off in his head.
“отец.”
Matt hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what she’d told him that word meant.
Father.
She’d called it a moniker, a way to protect the mysterious man’s identity so he couldn’t be incriminated, but an uneasy feeling settled in Matt’s bones that she’d known exactly who Dimitri was talking about. It dawned on him then that since she’d grown up in the Red Room, she’d known exactly who was leading the new operation this entire time.
“You know who he is.”
The air suddenly felt colder, and he detected that same fear in her that he had that day in the interrogation room with Dimitri. She clenched her jaw, gripping onto his hand tighter, and Matt brushed his thumb against her skin gently in an effort to soothe the sudden havoc on her nervous system that only a deep rooted nightmare could evoke. She took a deep breath, as if speaking his name out loud would make him suddenly appear like some dreaded urban legend.
“Dreykov. He ran the Red Room. He…took a special interest in me.”
The implication behind her words didn’t escape him, and his mind instantly filled with every harrowing thing they could mean, each one worse than the last. Every sickening possibility slithered beneath his skin and simultaneously had white hot rage searing his veins. His arm around her shoulder tightened possessively, and he spoke with firm resolve.
“Then we find Dreykov, and we take him down. Cut off the head of the snake.”
“I’m assuming you mean figuratively.”
“I’m assuming you’d prefer literally.”
The edge of her lips quirked up in wry amusement, and she turned her head to look up at him.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After we tear it all down. What happens next? Retire to suburbia, settle down with a quiet life, the whole marriage, dog, white picket fence package?”
Matt’s lips split in a grin, delighted she was back to her usual dry sarcasm.
“I mean, you could at least take me out to dinner before proposing to me, but sure. Although, I’m not much of a pet guy. We could probably just skip straight to kids.”
The way she went abruptly rigid next to him made him feel like his banter had been misunderstood, but before he had a chance to explain he was only joking, she looked down at their joined hands and spoke quietly.
“I can’t have kids.”
Matt’s face softened at how crestfallen she sounded, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“Hey, just because of your past doesn’t mean you’d make an unfit-”
“No, I mean I can’t get pregnant.”
The perplexity must have shown on his face when she looked up at him, his brows furrowed and his head tilted to the side. She swallowed thickly before looking down at their hands again.
“When you…graduate the program, they sterilize you. It…prevents the one thing that could matter more than a mission.”
All at once Matt was filled with fury and despair. God, they’d truly taken everything from her. He was left speechless, uncertain of what the right thing to say was, or if the right words even existed. His mouth parted and closed a few times before he finally spoke gently.
“There’s…other options. If you want that.”
“Do you?”
Matt hadn’t really considered it. Ever since he’d become Daredevil, he’d been prepared to die a martyr, simply accepted the improbability that he’d ever have a normal life. But a lot of time had passed since he’d first become a vigilante, and he hadn’t revisited that conversation with himself.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He sensed the way her face softened when she turned to look at him with an almost tender smile.
“What, you’d wanna suffer through PTA meetings with me?”
“We don’t have to suffer. We could sit in the back and shit talk all the other parents.”
That drew a genuine laugh from her, and the sound loosened something in Matt’s chest.
“I think we’d get kicked out.”
“I’d find a legal loophole.”
“Of course you would. You know, I can see it now. The hot shot lawyer with his own successful law firm that all the other dads are jealous of, but can’t be rude to, because it’s far too impolite to be rude to a blind man. But they all secretly hate you anyway because they suspect their wives want to sleep with you.”
“Mm, and the retired ballerina turned ballet instructor that all the other moms are totally envious of and gossip about, but still pretend to be friendly towards in public, even though they despise you because they know their husbands all want to sleep with you, and they don’t even bother to hide it.”
A smirk tugged at the edge of her mouth as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I think we’d be a hit at career day.”
“Imagine if we showed up in costume.”
Matt grinned as he hugged her close to his side and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.
summary: matt has a crisis of faith, and the realization of his mistake leads to massive guilt.
warnings: swearing, more angst than me at 11, mentions of physical & psychological abuse, brief mentions of violence
word count: 5.1k
a/n: I won't lie and say I haven't been putting this series off bc there's only four more chapters left, which is insane?? time really flies when you're putting characters through it for fun. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
“Mr. Murdock. To what do I owe this unexpected and highly inconvenient visit.”
Matt stormed out of the elevator when the doors parted, irately folding up his cane as he stalked towards where Fury was sitting at his desk. The man’s demeanor was far too calm for Matt’s brittle temper.
“You knew.”
Fury let out an annoyed exhale through his nose that made Matt grind his teeth so hard he felt the joint in his jaw pop from the pressure. Fury leaned back casually in his chair, interlocking his fingers before resting his palms on his stomach.
“This conversation will move a lot faster if you speak in complete sentences. And speaking of conversation, you mind telling me who the hell gave you clearance to my goddamn office?”
Matt slammed his fist down on the surface of the desk and pointed his index finger towards Fury in accusation, the rising volume of his voice filling the spacious office.
“You knew what she was!”
Fury didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all to Matt’s outburst, which only pissed Matt off even more. Fury didn’t respond immediately. He took a moment to observe Matt with his good eye, noting how rigid Matt’s shoulders were, rising and falling in a rushed staccato rhythm, breathing harshly as if he’d ran up the steps to the top floor instead of taking the elevator.
“I assume you’re referring to Agent Y/L/N’s past as a Black Widow operative.”
The placid tone of his voice made Matt want to jump over Fury’s desk and unleash his anger the best way he knew how. Instead, Matt let out a dry and humorless laugh, shaking his head in disbelief as he tossed his folded cane forcefully into one of the empty leather chairs in front of Fury’s desk. He placed his hands on his hips, dipping his head back slightly before twisting it to the left to crack his neck.
“Christ, how do you manage to keep up with all the lies?”
“I didn’t lie to you about that.”
Matt scoffed, turning to face Fury again as he waved one of his hands in front of him dismissively.
“Just because you didn’t freely tell me that little secret-”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, I did tell you it was personal for her.”
Matt rubbed his palm down his face in irritation, the coarse evidence from days of neglecting his razor scratching against his palm like a brillo pad.
“Personal.”
Matt repeated the word with mockery and disdain, practically spitting it out, eager to get the bastardized connotation out of his mouth.
“You sure it wasn’t opportunity? I mean who better to catch depraved leaders of a child trafficking ring than someone who used to be one. Is that why you put her in charge over Owens? Because she’s the one that knows how to manipulate little girls-”
Before Matt could even finish his wrathful sermon of judgment, Fury abruptly stood from his chair and slammed his palms down on his desk. The sound that echoed from the collision rang in Matt’s ears uncomfortably, cutting off his rant, but Matt was also momentarily stunned by the sudden display of anger. It was as unsettling to witness an emotional reaction from Fury as it had been with her.
“I’m gonna stop you right there before you say something really goddamn stupid, and I advise you not to speak on things you don’t understand.”
The serrated edge in Fury’s voice was unmistakably laced with a threat. Matt clenched his hands at his sides and pressed his lips firmly together, torn between the innate urge to keep arguing and the burning curiosity to uncover what had caused Fury to break his imperturbable composure.
“Now I told you once before you can check that holier than thou shit at the door. I meant it when I said there’s no place for that here.”
“I’m not standing here claiming to be a fucking saint, Fury, but I sure as hell don’t have a history of running around abducting innocent girls.”
“And how exactly do you think she ended up in that position, you self righteous asshole? You think she volunteered?”
Fury pulled his hands away from his desk and stood up straight, rounding his desk quickly to advance on Matt.
“Do you even know what the Black Widow program is, Murdock? What they do to those girls? Do you have any idea what we’re actually up against here?”
Matt had quickly shifted his stance, his hands clenched in tight restless fists. The way Fury had marched towards him, he’d expected the older man to actually take a swing at him. Suspicious confusion fell over Matt when Fury stopped just a few inches away instead. The rise in his internal temperature indicated he was fuming, but Matt couldn’t fathom what the hell he had to be mad about.
“Yeah, I get the gist. They train spies the way you do here, they just don’t bullshit it and say it’s for ‘the greater good’.”
Fury narrowed his eye and clenched his jaw, his voice dropping to an octave that betrayed his own threadbare patience as he took a step forward.
“People come to S.H.I.E.L.D. of their own free will, as adults. Did it seem like those girls made the choice to be in those cages?”
It was such a ridiculous question that Matt felt a whole new ember of indignation ignite within him.
“Of course not! They were kidnapped-”
“Exactly. They were taken against their will.”
“Yeah, that’s what kidnapped means-”
“And they were taken against their will to be brought to the Red Room.”
“Apparently-”
“Which is where Y/L/N told you she grew up.”
“What does that have to do-”
“So I’ll ask you again, Murdock, do you think she volunteered?”
Fury emphasized every word of the question he shouted in Matt’s face, like he was pointing out something frustratingly obvious, a connection Matt wasn’t making. He wasn’t sure if Matt’s momentary silence was from it finally clicking, or if yelling in his face had disrupted the stubborn bastard’s incessant arguing, but Fury didn’t have the patience for Matt’s epiphany to come.
“All over the world, girls are sold, or they’re taken, but they don’t get a goddamn say in joining the program. She was one of those innocent girls, Murdock. That’s why she’s running this operation. Because she knows what hell is waiting for them. She escaped it.”
There it was. The missing piece he’d been looking for, slammed into the final open spot of the puzzle with such force it nearly winded him. Finding those scared young girls in the cages last night had left him feeling horrified and nauseated. He hadn’t been able to sleep. The reality of the nightmare he’d been awake for was far worse than anything his imagination could’ve ever conjured in a terrible dream.
Knowing there was a trafficking ring in his city had been disturbing enough, but the discovery that it was girls had rattled him to his core. All he’d been able to think about in that basement last night was breaking the locks and getting them to safety. But when he got back to his quiet apartment, he’d felt the sudden sensation of drowning in the daunting reminder that the girls they’d saved were a miniscule piece of a global operation, one he had no idea where to even begin dismantling. He hadn’t even been able to find the one in his own city alone, much less take it down without help. The whole thing had made him feel revolted with helplessness and outrage that something so evil could exist, something he felt he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about.
If there was ever a night Matt should’ve gotten down on his knees and prayed for help, it was last night, but he refused. Last night he’d felt nothing but disgusted with God, resentful towards Him. How could He just stand by and allow humanity to fall so deep into an everwidening pit of wickedness? Something like this, something so incredibly vile and immoral, something that maliciously and mercilessly robbed innocence from these girls, did that not warrant divine intervention?
And then her confession on top of the horrific discovery had shocked his already frayed and raw nerves, amplifying his abhorrence, giving him something tangible he could nail his blame to. Matt hadn’t allowed her to present an explanation. He hadn’t stuck around for one. He’d condemned her without mercy, he’d crucified her with the sharp judgement of his tongue and the fiery wrath of his temper. Tarasov, Constantin, those were just names that slipped through his fingers like smoke. But the verity that linked her to the atrocity of the scene gave him something he could wrap his fist around, something that could take the brunt of his anger and his hatred which he lashed against her without a second thought. Without trying to understand what she’d been begging him to.
Standing there with Fury, he suddenly remembered the rage that had radiated off of her during the interrogation with Dimitri. How the name he’d spoken in Russian had straightened her spine with fear. Matt thought back to last night in the basement, how he’d smelled the precursor to her tears when they found the girls, and how hard she’d fought not to let them build along her bottom lash line. Swallowing down her own emotions for the sake of the girls, because they were scared and they needed someone to tell them everything was going to be okay.
No one had come to free her from a cage. No one had put on a brave face and told her she was safe. No one had saved her. All at once, he finally understood everything, and the guilt that followed this revelation was immense and unrelenting like the Great Flood. Matt turned his back to the desk and sank against it, his shoulders sinking under the weight of his colossal fuck up. He wasn't sure he even wanted the answer to the question he was about to ask.
“How old was she?”
The quiet and remorseful tone of his voice made the tension in Fury’s shoulders dissipate, and he let out a deep exhale to expend his lingering frustration before moving to lean against the desk just a few inches away from Matt.
“She doesn’t remember.”
A conversation he’d had with her after their first mission together abruptly surged towards the forefront of his mind, and he turned his head towards Fury.
“She told me she had these…glimpses, of a woman and a…a place with trees? Something about cherry blossoms. She wasn’t sure if they were memories or dreams. She said she thought the woman was her mother?”
“Not cherry blossoms. Jacaranda. They look similar, but they’re more purple. Cherry blossoms don’t grow well in Mexico.”
Matt instantly sat up straighter, angling his body more towards Fury as his brows knit in puzzlement.
“She said she didn’t know where she’s from-”
“She doesn’t.”
There was something in Fury’s voice that almost could’ve been construed as apologetic. He let out a quiet sigh and leaned back further against the desk, resting his palms against the surface on either side of himself.
“Five years ago, we were…on opposite sides of the fence. We were in Italy to interrogate a diplomat about conspiring to purchase a biomedical weapon, and she was there to kill him to protect the seller.”
“What happened?”
“She’s a hell of a shot.”
There was a hint of fondness in Fury’s tone, and he even let out a dry chuckle at the memory.
“She shot through one of my agents. Bullet went right through his shoulder and into the diplomat’s heart.”
Matt tracked the way the ghost of the smile that had twitched at the edge of Fury’s lips slowly faded as he sank further into his reminiscence.
“She should’ve gotten away.”
Matt titled his head to the side, perplexed by the statement and the way Fury said it.
“What do you mean?”
“She had a head start. She was in the building across the street from the hotel. And I know she had an escape plan. But she didn’t even make it to the intersection.”
“What happened? Did she get hurt?”
“No. She just…stopped running.”
Matt was thoroughly confused now. Why would an assassin, who had just taken out a target, not follow through with their escape route? Especially when she knew she was being chased?
“We found her in a garden by a cemetery, halfway down the street from the hotel. She was just…standing there, staring at something. I thought it was some kind of trick. But when I got closer and saw her face…it was like she wasn’t even there. I don’t know why, maybe because she reminded me of…someone, but I called out to her instead of sneaking up on her, and when she looked at me, it was like she’d just woken up from a dream but didn’t remember falling asleep. The first words out of her mouth were ‘help me’.”
“Help me?”
“Turns out the Red Room got a little creative when they realized magic words weren’t working anymore.”
“What are you talking about, what magic words?”
Breaking out of his own memory induced trance, Fury turned to look at Matt and arched one of his brows.
“You think Bucky Barnes was the only victim of brainwashing?”
Brainwashing.
A trickle of dread cascaded down Matt’s spine in tandem with a pit opening in his stomach that his soul seemed to plummet through.
“That’s how they control them.”
“That’s how it started. One in twenty girls survive the program. They’re beaten down, physically and psychologically, so they can be molded into the perfect weapons. But after Rom-”
Fury paused for a moment, pushing himself up from the desk. He rubbed his palm down the lower half of his face as he rounded the desk to go stand in front of the large floor to ceiling windows, staring through the glass as if searching for a ghost.
“After Natasha escaped, they turned to alternative methods. One of their top scientists created a specialized biochemical agent, a synthetic neural control mechanism. Chemical mind control that completely eradicates free will. One command, and the girls would even obediently stop breathing.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Mind control, on top of physical and psychological torture. He felt sick at the thought of what she must have suffered, being manipulated and stripped of her autonomy, but mainly he was sickened by how he’d spoken to her. Calling her a monster because of something that wasn’t even her fault.
“You…you fixed it though. The mind control-”
“We didn’t do anything.”
Matt stood up from the desk, following the path to approach where Fury was standing at the window, his brows knit in puzzlement.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything? She…she’s not under their control anymore, you broke it somehow-”
“She broke it herself.”
Fury clasped his hands behind his back and turned around to face Matt.
“Jacaranda.”
Matt’s features twisted up in confusion.
“What?”
“That’s what she was staring at in the garden.”
Understanding seemed to soften the contortion of Matt’s expression, and he tilted his head to the side faintly.
“The glimpses aren’t dreams. They’re memories. You think seeing the flower helped her break through the chemical control, by triggering a memory?”
“Could’ve been seeing it, could’ve been smelling it, but that’s the only explanation I have. Besides her being more stubborn than a goddamn mule.”
Matt’s lips twitched in a faint smile. It wasn’t entirely implausible to think her unyielding nature could’ve broken through anything, although he suspected the truth was that the sight or the smell of the flower sparked something in her brain. A memory powerful enough to combat complex chemistry. As he processed everything Fury had just divulged to him, he realized the discrepancies between her version and Fury’s. She thought they were dreams, Fury knew they weren’t.
“She doesn’t know they’re real memories.”
Fury let out a deep exhale that dropped his shoulders and his head along with it.
“They told her that she was given away. She never tried to look into her own past. But I had a…professional curiosity. It took a lot of digging to figure out where she came from, but it didn’t lead to anything useful. Her mother was killed when she was three. There was no other family. Even if there had been, no one would’ve been able to claim her. The records of her birth were destroyed so there was no evidence her mother even had her. No record of a child, no child to look for.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell her any of this? You don’t think she deserves to know she was taken, not given away?”
“Murdock, she’s suffered her entire life. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“She deserves to know.”
Matt’s head was pounding with everything his brain was struggling to process. He was trying to make sense of it all while his guilt compounded about how he’d treated her. This woman who had been a complete mystery to him had been a mystery to herself this entire time. He hadn’t been able to figure out who she really was beneath the spy persona because she didn’t even know who she was. She was still trying to figure it out. She’d been stripped of her own identity and autonomy at such a young age, important pieces she had only gotten back five years ago.
“I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re her boss.”
“And?”
“Are you really standing here telling me that you, Mr. I-know-and-see-all, don’t keep track of your employees?”
“You really think she would allow herself to be found if she didn’t want to be?”
Matt pursed his lips in annoyance. She wasn’t the kind of person who would consent to being tracked, and she’d outsmart anyone that even tried. Fury turned to face the window once more, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.
“I think you need to go to church, Murdock.”
“I’m a little preoccupied at the moment.”
“That’s not a very good Catholic boy thing to say.”
Matt rolled his eyes behind his red tinted sunglasses, turning to walk back over towards the chairs in front of Fury’s desk, bending to reach for his folded cane abandoned on the cushion of the one on the left.
“Yeah, well, God and I aren’t on good terms right now.”
“Understandable. But I still think you should go. Maybe you’ll find another lost soul, looking for the same answers to the universe you are.”
Matt was halfway towards the elevators when he abruptly paused. There was something about the way Fury insisted that he go to church that caught his attention. Why was he pushing so hard for Matt to-
Letting out an irritated exhale, Matt turned around to face Fury, clicking his tongue against his cheek.
“Is it a requirement to be a spy to constantly speak in fucking riddles?”
“Nope. Just for fun.”
»»——— ———««
Matt had been standing outside the front doors of his church for the past ten minutes. He could sense that she was inside, sitting in one of the middle pews to the right. He couldn’t figure out why she was there. She hadn’t moved once, not even a twitch of her finger. The sanctuary was completely empty except for her. He wanted to go inside, wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t know what to say. He’d been cycling through different versions of apologies, but none of them felt adequate enough. He didn’t think his tongue could possibly string together any words that could fully communicate his remorse. But he couldn’t stand here all night either. Letting out a deep breath, he quietly pulled open the door and slipped inside.
If she heard him approaching, she didn’t react. She didn’t even look in his direction when he sat down next to her, not that he blamed her. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed for him as he tried to figure out how to right his wrong.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sounded as pained as he did desperate when he turned his head towards her, his fingers aching to reach out and take her hand.
“Would it have made a difference?”
The hollowness of her voice gutted him as much as her defeated body language. This wasn’t her. Or maybe it was. Maybe this was what was really beneath that carefully crafted composure. Either way, he hated it. He’d rather her argue with him until he took his last breath than witness her fire diminish into ash. But the subdued resignation in her tone had confusion creasing his forehead.
“Of course it would have. Why would you think it wouldn’t?”
“Because you were right.”
He heard her try to swallow down the emotion that had gotten stuck in her throat, thickening her voice with solemn submission that sent a pang through his chest. Matt shifted closer to her, nearly on the brink of dropping to his knees to beg her to forgive him for how cruel and unfair he’d been.
“Sweetheart, everything I said-”
“Was true.”
She finally turned to face him, a waver disrupting her cadence as swells of tears that she struggled to maintain blurred her vision.
“I did those things, Matt. I’ve done so many…terrible things. I am a monster-”
“You didn’t have a choice-”
“But I did them. And I remember all of it.”
The way her voice cracked broke him. Matt immediately closed the gap between them and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her as close as physically possible against his side while his other hand cradled the back of her head. He closed his eyes, pressing his lips against her hair, wishing he knew how to exorcise all the demons that held her soul captive.
“It wasn’t your fault, honey. You know what they did to you. You can’t blame yourself for what they made you do, that guilt doesn’t belong to you.”
“But I have it, and I don’t know how to balance it out. I thought…I thought after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. that I could be better. That saving people would make me better. But I still can’t sleep. Nothing feels good enough. And there’s this…this endless pit of loneliness inside me, and I don’t think anything will ever fill it.”
“I know, I know. I feel it too.”
He was forced to loosen his embrace when she pulled back to look at him in complete bewilderment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not the only monster, Y/N.”
“Don’t. Don’t even compare yourself to me. You are not-”
“A saint.”
Matt gave her a tiny sad smile.
“Do you remember what you said to me when I woke up in that room after our first mission together?”
He heard the intake of breath as she parted her lips, and the hesitance that preceded her answer.
“I didn’t mean any of that-”
“No, you did. Your heartbeat was steady. I mean it was a little elevated because you were pissed at me, but you weren’t lying.”
He sensed her pressing her lips together in an attempt to hide her quiet amusement at his retelling of the moment, and he moved his hand down to gently squeeze her thigh.
“I don’t put on the suit to be a hero. I mean, I do it because the system is broken and I can do things other people can’t, but that’s not the only reason why. The truth is…God put the Devil in me, and I like letting him out. The broken bones, the blood, I don’t have to go that far, but I do. Not because I need to, but because I want to. Because it feels like justice. Most of these guys I try to put away, I know the reality is they’re gonna wind up back on the street, some of them don’t even serve any time at all. But I know they remember what I did to them, and honestly, beating the shit out of some asshole in an alley trying to rob or assault people is a lot more fucking satisfying than hitting a punching bag.”
“That doesn’t make you a monster, Matt.”
“It does to me. Because I choose to do these things. No one forces me. No one is controlling me. It’s all my own doing.”
“But you aren’t hurting anyone innocent. You save people-”
“That doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t…fill that void for me either.”
The top row of her teeth sank down into her bottom lip, and her brows knit in thought as she glanced away for a moment. He stayed quiet, giving her a moment to process whatever was going on in her head.
“Do you think we should find therapists?”
The deadpan delivery of her question caught him off guard, and it tore a laugh from his chest that echoed in the empty sanctuary.
“Probably. But I think we might have a hard time finding one we won’t scare off.”
Her hand found its way to his, and he interlaced their fingers immediately, squeezing her hand three times in succession for reassurance.
“So what now?”
Matt let out a deep breath as he leaned back in the pew.
“We keep looking for Constantin. He’ll lead us to who’s actually calling the shots. What did Dimitri call him?”
The second she stiffened, Matt turned his attention directly back to her, alarm bells going off in his head.
“отец.”
Matt hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what she’d told him that word meant.
Father.
She’d called it a moniker, a way to protect the mysterious man’s identity so he couldn’t be incriminated, but an uneasy feeling settled in Matt’s bones that she’d known exactly who Dimitri was talking about. It dawned on him then that since she’d grown up in the Red Room, she’d known exactly who was leading the new operation this entire time.
“You know who he is.”
The air suddenly felt colder, and he detected that same fear in her that he had that day in the interrogation room with Dimitri. She clenched her jaw, gripping onto his hand tighter, and Matt brushed his thumb against her skin gently in an effort to soothe the sudden havoc on her nervous system that only a deep rooted nightmare could evoke. She took a deep breath, as if speaking his name out loud would make him suddenly appear like some dreaded urban legend.
“Dreykov. He ran the Red Room. He…took a special interest in me.”
The implication behind her words didn’t escape him, and his mind instantly filled with every harrowing thing they could mean, each one worse than the last. Every sickening possibility slithered beneath his skin and simultaneously had white hot rage searing his veins. His arm around her shoulder tightened possessively, and he spoke with firm resolve.
“Then we find Dreykov, and we take him down. Cut off the head of the snake.”
“I’m assuming you mean figuratively.”
“I’m assuming you’d prefer literally.”
The edge of her lips quirked up in wry amusement, and she turned her head to look up at him.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After we tear it all down. What happens next? Retire to suburbia, settle down with a quiet life, the whole marriage, dog, white picket fence package?”
Matt’s lips split in a grin, delighted she was back to her usual dry sarcasm.
“I mean, you could at least take me out to dinner before proposing to me, but sure. Although, I’m not much of a pet guy. We could probably just skip straight to kids.”
The way she went abruptly rigid next to him made him feel like his banter had been misunderstood, but before he had a chance to explain he was only joking, she looked down at their joined hands and spoke quietly.
“I can’t have kids.”
Matt’s face softened at how crestfallen she sounded, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“Hey, just because of your past doesn’t mean you’d make an unfit-”
“No, I mean I can’t get pregnant.”
The perplexity must have shown on his face when she looked up at him, his brows furrowed and his head tilted to the side. She swallowed thickly before looking down at their hands again.
“When you…graduate the program, they sterilize you. It…prevents the one thing that could matter more than a mission.”
All at once Matt was filled with fury and despair. God, they’d truly taken everything from her. He was left speechless, uncertain of what the right thing to say was, or if the right words even existed. His mouth parted and closed a few times before he finally spoke gently.
“There’s…other options. If you want that.”
“Do you?”
Matt hadn’t really considered it. Ever since he’d become Daredevil, he’d been prepared to die a martyr, simply accepted the improbability that he’d ever have a normal life. But a lot of time had passed since he’d first become a vigilante, and he hadn’t revisited that conversation with himself.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He sensed the way her face softened when she turned to look at him with an almost tender smile.
“What, you’d wanna suffer through PTA meetings with me?”
“We don’t have to suffer. We could sit in the back and shit talk all the other parents.”
That drew a genuine laugh from her, and the sound loosened something in Matt’s chest.
“I think we’d get kicked out.”
“I’d find a legal loophole.”
“Of course you would. You know, I can see it now. The hot shot lawyer with his own successful law firm that all the other dads are jealous of, but can’t be rude to, because it’s far too impolite to be rude to a blind man. But they all secretly hate you anyway because they suspect their wives want to sleep with you.”
“Mm, and the retired ballerina turned ballet instructor that all the other moms are totally envious of and gossip about, but still pretend to be friendly towards in public, even though they despise you because they know their husbands all want to sleep with you, and they don’t even bother to hide it.”
A smirk tugged at the edge of her mouth as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I think we’d be a hit at career day.”
“Imagine if we showed up in costume.”
Matt grinned as he hugged her close to his side and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.
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summary: matt has a crisis of faith, and the realization of his mistake leads to massive guilt.
warnings: swearing, more angst than me at 11, mentions of physical & psychological abuse, brief mentions of violence
word count: 5.1k
a/n: I won't lie and say I haven't been putting this series off bc there's only four more chapters left, which is insane?? time really flies when you're putting characters through it for fun. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
“Mr. Murdock. To what do I owe this unexpected and highly inconvenient visit.”
Matt stormed out of the elevator when the doors parted, irately folding up his cane as he stalked towards where Fury was sitting at his desk. The man’s demeanor was far too calm for Matt’s brittle temper.
“You knew.”
Fury let out an annoyed exhale through his nose that made Matt grind his teeth so hard he felt the joint in his jaw pop from the pressure. Fury leaned back casually in his chair, interlocking his fingers before resting his palms on his stomach.
“This conversation will move a lot faster if you speak in complete sentences. And speaking of conversation, you mind telling me who the hell gave you clearance to my goddamn office?”
Matt slammed his fist down on the surface of the desk and pointed his index finger towards Fury in accusation, the rising volume of his voice filling the spacious office.
“You knew what she was!”
Fury didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all to Matt’s outburst, which only pissed Matt off even more. Fury didn’t respond immediately. He took a moment to observe Matt with his good eye, noting how rigid Matt’s shoulders were, rising and falling in a rushed staccato rhythm, breathing harshly as if he’d ran up the steps to the top floor instead of taking the elevator.
“I assume you’re referring to Agent Y/L/N’s past as a Black Widow operative.”
The placid tone of his voice made Matt want to jump over Fury’s desk and unleash his anger the best way he knew how. Instead, Matt let out a dry and humorless laugh, shaking his head in disbelief as he tossed his folded cane forcefully into one of the empty leather chairs in front of Fury’s desk. He placed his hands on his hips, dipping his head back slightly before twisting it to the left to crack his neck.
“Christ, how do you manage to keep up with all the lies?”
“I didn’t lie to you about that.”
Matt scoffed, turning to face Fury again as he waved one of his hands in front of him dismissively.
“Just because you didn’t freely tell me that little secret-”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell. Besides, I did tell you it was personal for her.”
Matt rubbed his palm down his face in irritation, the coarse evidence from days of neglecting his razor scratching against his palm like a brillo pad.
“Personal.”
Matt repeated the word with mockery and disdain, practically spitting it out, eager to get the bastardized connotation out of his mouth.
“You sure it wasn’t opportunity? I mean who better to catch depraved leaders of a child trafficking ring than someone who used to be one. Is that why you put her in charge over Owens? Because she’s the one that knows how to manipulate little girls-”
Before Matt could even finish his wrathful sermon of judgment, Fury abruptly stood from his chair and slammed his palms down on his desk. The sound that echoed from the collision rang in Matt’s ears uncomfortably, cutting off his rant, but Matt was also momentarily stunned by the sudden display of anger. It was as unsettling to witness an emotional reaction from Fury as it had been with her.
“I’m gonna stop you right there before you say something really goddamn stupid, and I advise you not to speak on things you don’t understand.”
The serrated edge in Fury’s voice was unmistakably laced with a threat. Matt clenched his hands at his sides and pressed his lips firmly together, torn between the innate urge to keep arguing and the burning curiosity to uncover what had caused Fury to break his imperturbable composure.
“Now I told you once before you can check that holier than thou shit at the door. I meant it when I said there’s no place for that here.”
“I’m not standing here claiming to be a fucking saint, Fury, but I sure as hell don’t have a history of running around abducting innocent girls.”
“And how exactly do you think she ended up in that position, you self righteous asshole? You think she volunteered?”
Fury pulled his hands away from his desk and stood up straight, rounding his desk quickly to advance on Matt.
“Do you even know what the Black Widow program is, Murdock? What they do to those girls? Do you have any idea what we’re actually up against here?”
Matt had quickly shifted his stance, his hands clenched in tight restless fists. The way Fury had marched towards him, he’d expected the older man to actually take a swing at him. Suspicious confusion fell over Matt when Fury stopped just a few inches away instead. The rise in his internal temperature indicated he was fuming, but Matt couldn’t fathom what the hell he had to be mad about.
“Yeah, I get the gist. They train spies the way you do here, they just don’t bullshit it and say it’s for ‘the greater good’.”
Fury narrowed his eye and clenched his jaw, his voice dropping to an octave that betrayed his own threadbare patience as he took a step forward.
“People come to S.H.I.E.L.D. of their own free will, as adults. Did it seem like those girls made the choice to be in those cages?”
It was such a ridiculous question that Matt felt a whole new ember of indignation ignite within him.
“Of course not! They were kidnapped-”
“Exactly. They were taken against their will.”
“Yeah, that’s what kidnapped means-”
“And they were taken against their will to be brought to the Red Room.”
“Apparently-”
“Which is where Y/L/N told you she grew up.”
“What does that have to do-”
“So I’ll ask you again, Murdock, do you think she volunteered?”
Fury emphasized every word of the question he shouted in Matt’s face, like he was pointing out something frustratingly obvious, a connection Matt wasn’t making. He wasn’t sure if Matt’s momentary silence was from it finally clicking, or if yelling in his face had disrupted the stubborn bastard’s incessant arguing, but Fury didn’t have the patience for Matt’s epiphany to come.
“All over the world, girls are sold, or they’re taken, but they don’t get a goddamn say in joining the program. She was one of those innocent girls, Murdock. That’s why she’s running this operation. Because she knows what hell is waiting for them. She escaped it.”
There it was. The missing piece he’d been looking for, slammed into the final open spot of the puzzle with such force it nearly winded him. Finding those scared young girls in the cages last night had left him feeling horrified and nauseated. He hadn’t been able to sleep. The reality of the nightmare he’d been awake for was far worse than anything his imagination could’ve ever conjured in a terrible dream.
Knowing there was a trafficking ring in his city had been disturbing enough, but the discovery that it was girls had rattled him to his core. All he’d been able to think about in that basement last night was breaking the locks and getting them to safety. But when he got back to his quiet apartment, he’d felt the sudden sensation of drowning in the daunting reminder that the girls they’d saved were a miniscule piece of a global operation, one he had no idea where to even begin dismantling. He hadn’t even been able to find the one in his own city alone, much less take it down without help. The whole thing had made him feel revolted with helplessness and outrage that something so evil could exist, something he felt he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about.
If there was ever a night Matt should’ve gotten down on his knees and prayed for help, it was last night, but he refused. Last night he’d felt nothing but disgusted with God, resentful towards Him. How could He just stand by and allow humanity to fall so deep into an everwidening pit of wickedness? Something like this, something so incredibly vile and immoral, something that maliciously and mercilessly robbed innocence from these girls, did that not warrant divine intervention?
And then her confession on top of the horrific discovery had shocked his already frayed and raw nerves, amplifying his abhorrence, giving him something tangible he could nail his blame to. Matt hadn’t allowed her to present an explanation. He hadn’t stuck around for one. He’d condemned her without mercy, he’d crucified her with the sharp judgement of his tongue and the fiery wrath of his temper. Tarasov, Constantin, those were just names that slipped through his fingers like smoke. But the verity that linked her to the atrocity of the scene gave him something he could wrap his fist around, something that could take the brunt of his anger and his hatred which he lashed against her without a second thought. Without trying to understand what she’d been begging him to.
Standing there with Fury, he suddenly remembered the rage that had radiated off of her during the interrogation with Dimitri. How the name he’d spoken in Russian had straightened her spine with fear. Matt thought back to last night in the basement, how he’d smelled the precursor to her tears when they found the girls, and how hard she’d fought not to let them build along her bottom lash line. Swallowing down her own emotions for the sake of the girls, because they were scared and they needed someone to tell them everything was going to be okay.
No one had come to free her from a cage. No one had put on a brave face and told her she was safe. No one had saved her. All at once, he finally understood everything, and the guilt that followed this revelation was immense and unrelenting like the Great Flood. Matt turned his back to the desk and sank against it, his shoulders sinking under the weight of his colossal fuck up. He wasn't sure he even wanted the answer to the question he was about to ask.
“How old was she?”
The quiet and remorseful tone of his voice made the tension in Fury’s shoulders dissipate, and he let out a deep exhale to expend his lingering frustration before moving to lean against the desk just a few inches away from Matt.
“She doesn’t remember.”
A conversation he’d had with her after their first mission together abruptly surged towards the forefront of his mind, and he turned his head towards Fury.
“She told me she had these…glimpses, of a woman and a…a place with trees? Something about cherry blossoms. She wasn’t sure if they were memories or dreams. She said she thought the woman was her mother?”
“Not cherry blossoms. Jacaranda. They look similar, but they’re more purple. Cherry blossoms don’t grow well in Mexico.”
Matt instantly sat up straighter, angling his body more towards Fury as his brows knit in puzzlement.
“She said she didn’t know where she’s from-”
“She doesn’t.”
There was something in Fury’s voice that almost could’ve been construed as apologetic. He let out a quiet sigh and leaned back further against the desk, resting his palms against the surface on either side of himself.
“Five years ago, we were…on opposite sides of the fence. We were in Italy to interrogate a diplomat about conspiring to purchase a biomedical weapon, and she was there to kill him to protect the seller.”
“What happened?”
“She’s a hell of a shot.”
There was a hint of fondness in Fury’s tone, and he even let out a dry chuckle at the memory.
“She shot through one of my agents. Bullet went right through his shoulder and into the diplomat’s heart.”
Matt tracked the way the ghost of the smile that had twitched at the edge of Fury’s lips slowly faded as he sank further into his reminiscence.
“She should’ve gotten away.”
Matt titled his head to the side, perplexed by the statement and the way Fury said it.
“What do you mean?”
“She had a head start. She was in the building across the street from the hotel. And I know she had an escape plan. But she didn’t even make it to the intersection.”
“What happened? Did she get hurt?”
“No. She just…stopped running.”
Matt was thoroughly confused now. Why would an assassin, who had just taken out a target, not follow through with their escape route? Especially when she knew she was being chased?
“We found her in a garden by a cemetery, halfway down the street from the hotel. She was just…standing there, staring at something. I thought it was some kind of trick. But when I got closer and saw her face…it was like she wasn’t even there. I don’t know why, maybe because she reminded me of…someone, but I called out to her instead of sneaking up on her, and when she looked at me, it was like she’d just woken up from a dream but didn’t remember falling asleep. The first words out of her mouth were ‘help me’.”
“Help me?”
“Turns out the Red Room got a little creative when they realized magic words weren’t working anymore.”
“What are you talking about, what magic words?”
Breaking out of his own memory induced trance, Fury turned to look at Matt and arched one of his brows.
“You think Bucky Barnes was the only victim of brainwashing?”
Brainwashing.
A trickle of dread cascaded down Matt’s spine in tandem with a pit opening in his stomach that his soul seemed to plummet through.
“That’s how they control them.”
“That’s how it started. One in twenty girls survive the program. They’re beaten down, physically and psychologically, so they can be molded into the perfect weapons. But after Rom-”
Fury paused for a moment, pushing himself up from the desk. He rubbed his palm down the lower half of his face as he rounded the desk to go stand in front of the large floor to ceiling windows, staring through the glass as if searching for a ghost.
“After Natasha escaped, they turned to alternative methods. One of their top scientists created a specialized biochemical agent, a synthetic neural control mechanism. Chemical mind control that completely eradicates free will. One command, and the girls would even obediently stop breathing.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Mind control, on top of physical and psychological torture. He felt sick at the thought of what she must have suffered, being manipulated and stripped of her autonomy, but mainly he was sickened by how he’d spoken to her. Calling her a monster because of something that wasn’t even her fault.
“You…you fixed it though. The mind control-”
“We didn’t do anything.”
Matt stood up from the desk, following the path to approach where Fury was standing at the window, his brows knit in puzzlement.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything? She…she’s not under their control anymore, you broke it somehow-”
“She broke it herself.”
Fury clasped his hands behind his back and turned around to face Matt.
“Jacaranda.”
Matt’s features twisted up in confusion.
“What?”
“That’s what she was staring at in the garden.”
Understanding seemed to soften the contortion of Matt’s expression, and he tilted his head to the side faintly.
“The glimpses aren’t dreams. They’re memories. You think seeing the flower helped her break through the chemical control, by triggering a memory?”
“Could’ve been seeing it, could’ve been smelling it, but that’s the only explanation I have. Besides her being more stubborn than a goddamn mule.”
Matt’s lips twitched in a faint smile. It wasn’t entirely implausible to think her unyielding nature could’ve broken through anything, although he suspected the truth was that the sight or the smell of the flower sparked something in her brain. A memory powerful enough to combat complex chemistry. As he processed everything Fury had just divulged to him, he realized the discrepancies between her version and Fury’s. She thought they were dreams, Fury knew they weren’t.
“She doesn’t know they’re real memories.”
Fury let out a deep exhale that dropped his shoulders and his head along with it.
“They told her that she was given away. She never tried to look into her own past. But I had a…professional curiosity. It took a lot of digging to figure out where she came from, but it didn’t lead to anything useful. Her mother was killed when she was three. There was no other family. Even if there had been, no one would’ve been able to claim her. The records of her birth were destroyed so there was no evidence her mother even had her. No record of a child, no child to look for.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell her any of this? You don’t think she deserves to know she was taken, not given away?”
“Murdock, she’s suffered her entire life. I didn’t want to add to it.”
“She deserves to know.”
Matt’s head was pounding with everything his brain was struggling to process. He was trying to make sense of it all while his guilt compounded about how he’d treated her. This woman who had been a complete mystery to him had been a mystery to herself this entire time. He hadn’t been able to figure out who she really was beneath the spy persona because she didn’t even know who she was. She was still trying to figure it out. She’d been stripped of her own identity and autonomy at such a young age, important pieces she had only gotten back five years ago.
“I need to talk to her. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re her boss.”
“And?”
“Are you really standing here telling me that you, Mr. I-know-and-see-all, don’t keep track of your employees?”
“You really think she would allow herself to be found if she didn’t want to be?”
Matt pursed his lips in annoyance. She wasn’t the kind of person who would consent to being tracked, and she’d outsmart anyone that even tried. Fury turned to face the window once more, keeping his hands clasped behind his back.
“I think you need to go to church, Murdock.”
“I’m a little preoccupied at the moment.”
“That’s not a very good Catholic boy thing to say.”
Matt rolled his eyes behind his red tinted sunglasses, turning to walk back over towards the chairs in front of Fury’s desk, bending to reach for his folded cane abandoned on the cushion of the one on the left.
“Yeah, well, God and I aren’t on good terms right now.”
“Understandable. But I still think you should go. Maybe you’ll find another lost soul, looking for the same answers to the universe you are.”
Matt was halfway towards the elevators when he abruptly paused. There was something about the way Fury insisted that he go to church that caught his attention. Why was he pushing so hard for Matt to-
Letting out an irritated exhale, Matt turned around to face Fury, clicking his tongue against his cheek.
“Is it a requirement to be a spy to constantly speak in fucking riddles?”
“Nope. Just for fun.”
»»——— ———««
Matt had been standing outside the front doors of his church for the past ten minutes. He could sense that she was inside, sitting in one of the middle pews to the right. He couldn’t figure out why she was there. She hadn’t moved once, not even a twitch of her finger. The sanctuary was completely empty except for her. He wanted to go inside, wanted to talk to her, but he didn’t know what to say. He’d been cycling through different versions of apologies, but none of them felt adequate enough. He didn’t think his tongue could possibly string together any words that could fully communicate his remorse. But he couldn’t stand here all night either. Letting out a deep breath, he quietly pulled open the door and slipped inside.
If she heard him approaching, she didn’t react. She didn’t even look in his direction when he sat down next to her, not that he blamed her. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed for him as he tried to figure out how to right his wrong.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He sounded as pained as he did desperate when he turned his head towards her, his fingers aching to reach out and take her hand.
“Would it have made a difference?”
The hollowness of her voice gutted him as much as her defeated body language. This wasn’t her. Or maybe it was. Maybe this was what was really beneath that carefully crafted composure. Either way, he hated it. He’d rather her argue with him until he took his last breath than witness her fire diminish into ash. But the subdued resignation in her tone had confusion creasing his forehead.
“Of course it would have. Why would you think it wouldn’t?”
“Because you were right.”
He heard her try to swallow down the emotion that had gotten stuck in her throat, thickening her voice with solemn submission that sent a pang through his chest. Matt shifted closer to her, nearly on the brink of dropping to his knees to beg her to forgive him for how cruel and unfair he’d been.
“Sweetheart, everything I said-”
“Was true.”
She finally turned to face him, a waver disrupting her cadence as swells of tears that she struggled to maintain blurred her vision.
“I did those things, Matt. I’ve done so many…terrible things. I am a monster-”
“You didn’t have a choice-”
“But I did them. And I remember all of it.”
The way her voice cracked broke him. Matt immediately closed the gap between them and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her as close as physically possible against his side while his other hand cradled the back of her head. He closed his eyes, pressing his lips against her hair, wishing he knew how to exorcise all the demons that held her soul captive.
“It wasn’t your fault, honey. You know what they did to you. You can’t blame yourself for what they made you do, that guilt doesn’t belong to you.”
“But I have it, and I don’t know how to balance it out. I thought…I thought after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. that I could be better. That saving people would make me better. But I still can’t sleep. Nothing feels good enough. And there’s this…this endless pit of loneliness inside me, and I don’t think anything will ever fill it.”
“I know, I know. I feel it too.”
He was forced to loosen his embrace when she pulled back to look at him in complete bewilderment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not the only monster, Y/N.”
“Don’t. Don’t even compare yourself to me. You are not-”
“A saint.”
Matt gave her a tiny sad smile.
“Do you remember what you said to me when I woke up in that room after our first mission together?”
He heard the intake of breath as she parted her lips, and the hesitance that preceded her answer.
“I didn’t mean any of that-”
“No, you did. Your heartbeat was steady. I mean it was a little elevated because you were pissed at me, but you weren’t lying.”
He sensed her pressing her lips together in an attempt to hide her quiet amusement at his retelling of the moment, and he moved his hand down to gently squeeze her thigh.
“I don’t put on the suit to be a hero. I mean, I do it because the system is broken and I can do things other people can’t, but that’s not the only reason why. The truth is…God put the Devil in me, and I like letting him out. The broken bones, the blood, I don’t have to go that far, but I do. Not because I need to, but because I want to. Because it feels like justice. Most of these guys I try to put away, I know the reality is they’re gonna wind up back on the street, some of them don’t even serve any time at all. But I know they remember what I did to them, and honestly, beating the shit out of some asshole in an alley trying to rob or assault people is a lot more fucking satisfying than hitting a punching bag.”
“That doesn’t make you a monster, Matt.”
“It does to me. Because I choose to do these things. No one forces me. No one is controlling me. It’s all my own doing.”
“But you aren’t hurting anyone innocent. You save people-”
“That doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t…fill that void for me either.”
The top row of her teeth sank down into her bottom lip, and her brows knit in thought as she glanced away for a moment. He stayed quiet, giving her a moment to process whatever was going on in her head.
“Do you think we should find therapists?”
The deadpan delivery of her question caught him off guard, and it tore a laugh from his chest that echoed in the empty sanctuary.
“Probably. But I think we might have a hard time finding one we won’t scare off.”
Her hand found its way to his, and he interlaced their fingers immediately, squeezing her hand three times in succession for reassurance.
“So what now?”
Matt let out a deep breath as he leaned back in the pew.
“We keep looking for Constantin. He’ll lead us to who’s actually calling the shots. What did Dimitri call him?”
The second she stiffened, Matt turned his attention directly back to her, alarm bells going off in his head.
“отец.”
Matt hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what she’d told him that word meant.
Father.
She’d called it a moniker, a way to protect the mysterious man’s identity so he couldn’t be incriminated, but an uneasy feeling settled in Matt’s bones that she’d known exactly who Dimitri was talking about. It dawned on him then that since she’d grown up in the Red Room, she’d known exactly who was leading the new operation this entire time.
“You know who he is.”
The air suddenly felt colder, and he detected that same fear in her that he had that day in the interrogation room with Dimitri. She clenched her jaw, gripping onto his hand tighter, and Matt brushed his thumb against her skin gently in an effort to soothe the sudden havoc on her nervous system that only a deep rooted nightmare could evoke. She took a deep breath, as if speaking his name out loud would make him suddenly appear like some dreaded urban legend.
“Dreykov. He ran the Red Room. He…took a special interest in me.”
The implication behind her words didn’t escape him, and his mind instantly filled with every harrowing thing they could mean, each one worse than the last. Every sickening possibility slithered beneath his skin and simultaneously had white hot rage searing his veins. His arm around her shoulder tightened possessively, and he spoke with firm resolve.
“Then we find Dreykov, and we take him down. Cut off the head of the snake.”
“I’m assuming you mean figuratively.”
“I’m assuming you’d prefer literally.”
The edge of her lips quirked up in wry amusement, and she turned her head to look up at him.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After we tear it all down. What happens next? Retire to suburbia, settle down with a quiet life, the whole marriage, dog, white picket fence package?”
Matt’s lips split in a grin, delighted she was back to her usual dry sarcasm.
“I mean, you could at least take me out to dinner before proposing to me, but sure. Although, I’m not much of a pet guy. We could probably just skip straight to kids.”
The way she went abruptly rigid next to him made him feel like his banter had been misunderstood, but before he had a chance to explain he was only joking, she looked down at their joined hands and spoke quietly.
“I can’t have kids.”
Matt’s face softened at how crestfallen she sounded, and he gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“Hey, just because of your past doesn’t mean you’d make an unfit-”
“No, I mean I can’t get pregnant.”
The perplexity must have shown on his face when she looked up at him, his brows furrowed and his head tilted to the side. She swallowed thickly before looking down at their hands again.
“When you…graduate the program, they sterilize you. It…prevents the one thing that could matter more than a mission.”
All at once Matt was filled with fury and despair. God, they’d truly taken everything from her. He was left speechless, uncertain of what the right thing to say was, or if the right words even existed. His mouth parted and closed a few times before he finally spoke gently.
“There’s…other options. If you want that.”
“Do you?”
Matt hadn’t really considered it. Ever since he’d become Daredevil, he’d been prepared to die a martyr, simply accepted the improbability that he’d ever have a normal life. But a lot of time had passed since he’d first become a vigilante, and he hadn’t revisited that conversation with himself.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He sensed the way her face softened when she turned to look at him with an almost tender smile.
“What, you’d wanna suffer through PTA meetings with me?”
“We don’t have to suffer. We could sit in the back and shit talk all the other parents.”
That drew a genuine laugh from her, and the sound loosened something in Matt’s chest.
“I think we’d get kicked out.”
“I’d find a legal loophole.”
“Of course you would. You know, I can see it now. The hot shot lawyer with his own successful law firm that all the other dads are jealous of, but can’t be rude to, because it’s far too impolite to be rude to a blind man. But they all secretly hate you anyway because they suspect their wives want to sleep with you.”
“Mm, and the retired ballerina turned ballet instructor that all the other moms are totally envious of and gossip about, but still pretend to be friendly towards in public, even though they despise you because they know their husbands all want to sleep with you, and they don’t even bother to hide it.”
A smirk tugged at the edge of her mouth as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
“I think we’d be a hit at career day.”
“Imagine if we showed up in costume.”
Matt grinned as he hugged her close to his side and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.
I have seen so many TikTok edits lately of people saying Crush by Ethel Cain is Frank's song and that reminded me that you wrote a fic about this like a year ago and I need everyone to know you did it first and you truly are a visionary 💅🏻
i've seen those too and I eat them up every single time lmao that is his song and no one can convince me otherwise
I don't think I was the first person to have that idea, but I do feel vindicated that everyone is sharing the vision 🙂↔️
So… you know how I told you that I’d seen 518 episodes of shows this year alone? Yeah, about that, I’m now at 583 total episodes. Once I finish A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder I’ll be at 590.
(I have two lists on my Serializd account with every show, every season and every episode that I’ve watched, but I track the specifics on a spreadsheet)
summary: due to your reputation as a renowned criminal psychiatrist, you're assigned to a difficult patient at riker's island. during a session, he makes an offer that tempts the boundaries of your professional curiosity.
a/n: I can't say enough how blown away I am that y'all loved the offer so much. it was just meant to be a slutty lil one off for kinktober, a way for me to play around with an idea that had been lingering in the back of my head for awhile, and a chance for me to try my hand at writing for dex. your excitement made me so excited, and i've been having so much fun with this. thank you thank you thank you again. 🖤
if you'd like to be notified for updates, feel free to join the taglist here!
»— anything marked with an astrik contains explicit content. minors dni.
»— all work is my own. please do not repost anywhere else without my consent.
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summary: breaking news about a new serial killer in the city leaves matt struggling to balance both halves of his life.
warnings: swearing, mentions of gore & violence
word count: 4.8k
a/n: everyone say thank you @quakeismyhero for playing dolls with me and listening to my devious plotting and supporting my chaos 🖤 this could potentially end up being one of my favorite things i've ever done. let the murder mystery commence. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
[series masterlist] | [next act coming soon]
Murder Has A New Muse by B.B. Urich
That was the headline that had enraptured the city last month and caused a ripple of universal alarm. An anonymous source claiming to be close to the NYPD had submitted a copy of a confidential memo to the Bulletin, outlining a string of malevolence that had been staining the streets right under everyone’s noses. Whoever had sent the copy of the memo had also attached copies of the gruesome crime scene photos. They’d been so graphic, the Bulletin had to blur them completely instead of just the victims’ faces, which had been brutalized to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. Even in the pixelated prints, the gore was revolting.
The shocking news that there was a serial killer on the loose was enough to cause hysteria on its own, but it was the nature of the killings that had fear caressing the spines of New Yorkers like the first bitter chill of winter. According to the confidential memo, the NYPD believed the murders were done by a copycat trying to emulate one of New York City’s most prolific serial killers; Bastian Cooper. The biggest piece of evidence they had to support this theory was that the victims had been found with their eyes carved out.
Matt had been getting ready to go to a deposition when he’d heard the breaking news report coming from his tv. The mug he’d been holding had slipped right out of his hand, clattering on the floor and shattering into a dozen jagged pieces. He’d barely felt the scalding splatter of hot coffee that had soaked through the dual layers of his slacks and socks.
The disconcertment had come first. A serial killer. Three victims. And Matt had been completely unaware of the murders. While he’d been investigating arm’s dealings down at the docks and prepping for a corporate negligence lawsuit, people were being attacked and mutilated, and it hadn’t even been on his radar. The revelation had caused a needle of guilt to prick at his conscience. How could something so grisly escape his attention?
The newscaster’s voice had played on a loop in his head even after the broadcast ended, like a needle stuck in the final groove at the end of a record, spinning endlessly.
The NYPD believe these murders were the work of a copycat modeling themselves after the notorious serial killer known as Muse.
That part had caused a pit of dread to split open in his stomach, conjuring the recollection of his first encounter with Bastian. Even from the simple act of his mind crafting the evocation, his senses had instantly become overwhelmed from the memory, transporting him right back to that night he’d found Bastian’s lair underground in the subway tunnels. The damp air that had felt heavy on Matt’s heated skin. The acrid assault of lingering mildew intermingled with the harsh chemicals from paint and epoxy that had burned in his nose and throat. The sharp metallic tang of blood that had been so strong he could taste it in every single inhale. The fading rhythm of Angela’s heartbeat.
Standing in his kitchen the day the Bulletin released that article, Matt had felt an uncomfortable sensation of déjà vu. By the time he and the public had been made aware of Muse, Bastian had already claimed upwards of sixty victims, and even with the DNA that had been found in the blood he’d used for his murals, a lot of the victims still had yet to be identified almost a year later. Matt had immediately felt compelled to track down the copycat, not just because there was a serial killer terrorizing his city, but because it was personal for him. He hadn’t been there to prevent the deaths of Bastian’s victims. He’d nearly been too late to save Angela. And letting Bastian get away that first time had given him the chance to go after Heather. He wanted to stop the copycat before they hurt anyone else.
But a month had gone by since that article had come out, Matt still didn’t have a single lead, and another victim had just been found, bringing the body count up to five.
Matt threw his cowl forcefully at the living room wall with a frustrated yell, the loud echo of the collision setting his teeth on edge. He’d been out tonight, chasing yet another dead end, all while a fifth victim had already been found. Ripping off his gloves and tossing them to the ground, he squeezed his eyes shut and reached out to grip onto the back of the couch, letting his head drop between his shoulders with a heavy exhale.
He’d been going out every single night for the past month, and he hadn’t found a goddamn thing. Matt was no closer to catching the copycat killer than he’d been the day the news broke, and now two more people were dead. He’d been following every update about the case, but the NYPD refused to share any details about the murders or the victims. They were still pissed about the chaos that the Bulletin article had stirred up amongst the public.
Matt had to find a lead. He’d become so consumed by this case that everything else was starting to unravel. He’d barely slept more than four hours a night the last few weeks, he was falling behind on his cases, and Foggy had already chewed his ass out for being late to their last two court appearances. Matt had promised Foggy and Karen both that he wouldn’t let being Daredevil interfere with being Matt Murdock. A promise he’d failed to keep several times over. A promise that was starting to fray again. Karen was already giving him the cold shoulder, and her forgiveness was always harder to win back than Foggy’s. It seemed to get harder to earn again every time he let her down.
He knew he was living on borrowed time when it came to being worthy of their loyalty. Sooner or later, that unwavering patience and understanding would run out, and Matt could hardly blame them. He wasn’t always the friend they deserved. But people were being viciously murdered in cold blood, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Matt had already exhausted two resources and it had gotten him nowhere, but there was one more person who might be able to help him.
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
“Mommy, I can’t find my bunny.”
Matt heard the exhausted intake of breath Jessica subtly took and turned his head to call out over his shoulder before she could respond.
“It’s under the couch, sweetie.”
Danielle knelt down by the couch, stretching her arm out under it, and Matt heard her excited gasp when her fingers brushed against the soft fur of the stuffed toy. She eagerly pulled it out with a grin, hugging it in her arms as she looked over at Matt.
“Thanks Uncle Matty!”
Matt tilted his head to the side slightly and smiled softly in her direction. Jessica’s eyes tracked her daughter as Danielle sat on her knees by the coffee table, propping the stuffed bunny up on top of it to pour it an imaginary cup of tea. The tension in her shoulders deflated with the weight of a wild bunny search now off of them. She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter and turned her attention back to Matt.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Letting out a deep breath, she brushed a strand of her hair away from her face and lowered her voice.
“Why don’t you just put on the horns and talk to B.B.?”
“I did. It was an anonymous submission, and whoever sent it hasn’t sent anything else. She said there was no way to tell where it came from, and believe me, she tried.”
“What about your cop friend?”
“I already talked to Mahoney too. The NYPD is keeping everything locked down even more after that article. They’re trying to field out false tips and confessions, and they still haven’t figured out who leaked the memo and the crime scene photos to the press either.”
“Isn’t he the Chief of Detectives though? He’s done you favors before.”
“Comissioner Matthews called in the Feds. He’s padding his campaign for Mayor, and catching a copycat of one of the worst serial killers this city has ever seen will help him win by a landslide. Mahoney said the task force was hand selected by the Special Agent running it, and his team is watching everyone like a hawk. He can’t take the risk.”
Matt let out a deep breath and reached up to adjust his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
“And he doesn’t want me to, either. He told me to back off on this one with the F.B.I. and the NYPD both out on the streets.”
“But you’re not going to.”
Letting out a sigh, he angled his body closer towards her. He kept his voice low, but the desperation echoed between them.
“I can’t, Jess.”
“Even though Daredevil’s chances of getting arrested and sent to prison are now doubled until the copycat is caught?”
“I think vigilantes are pretty low on their list of priorities right now.”
Jessica inhaled deeply through her nose and let it out slowly as she turned her head to watch her daughter play in the living room. Matt could practically feel her confliction as if it was a force inside his own chest, like the opposing ends of magnets.
“Look, I get why this is important to you, but I can’t get involved. I have to think about Dani. And I’m still…fucking…flickering.”
He could hear the frustration in her voice. Jessica had told him about how her abilities seemed to drop out and come back randomly since she’d had Danielle.
“Hey, I get it, I do. Okay, and I’m not asking you to get involved. I’m here for private investigator Jessica Jones, not…Jewel.”
Jessica immediately turned her head to glare at him, pursing her lips at the sight of the devilish smirk stretching across his mouth. She hadn’t missed the mockery dripping from his tone. Jessica swiftly reached out to smack his shoulder.
“Oh, fuck you, devil boy.”
Matt’s lips spread into a wide grin, a deep chuckle thundering in his chest as he rubbed at the spot she’d hit before he held his hands up in a display of surrender.
“Ow, alright alright. Low blow. But I mean it, all I need is a lead. That’s it.”
Jessica rolled her eyes with a subtle shake of her head, placing her hand on her hip as she looked over at Danielle again.
“I might still have a contact I can reach out to, but I can’t make any promises, Matt.”
“I know. I appreciate you helping at all. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
Matt was sitting at his kitchen island with documents spread out in front of him, his finger tips running over the raised Braille bumps to read over a witness testimony for an upcoming trial. He had one earbud in, playing a voice note Foggy had sent him about finding a new piece of evidence that could help win their case. It was interrupted when his phone started to buzz on the counter, the voice assistance alerting him of an incoming call.
Jess. Jess. Jess.
Quickly removing the earbud, Matt picked up his phone and tapped his thumb on the screen, bringing it to his ear.
“Hey, did you find something?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“I said hey.”
Even on the other end of the line, he could practically hear her rolling her eyes.
“Well?”
“Something is weird about this case.”
Matt’s forehead creased in confusion, and he sat up a little straighter hearing the suspicion in her voice.
“What do you mean?”
“My guy told me all he could get were the autopsy reports.”
“Why is that weird?”
“Because if he doesn’t have access to any of the case files, why the fuck would he have access to the autopsy reports?”
Matt pursed his lips slightly in thought. It was odd, but not an anomaly he could afford to waste time fixating on. There were more important things to investigate.
“Mahoney said the Fed in charge of the task force is watching everyone in the department closely. Maybe he’s allowing people to only have access to specific pieces of the investigation to flush out who leaked the memo.”
“I don’t know, Matt. Something feels off.”
Matt got up from his chair, abandoning the court documents he’d been reading through, walking towards the living room with purpose even though he didn’t have one yet. After a month of nothing but dead ends, the prospect of finally having something to chase filled him with a sense of restlessness that was thrumming throughout his body.
“What did you find out from the autopsy reports?”
“That it seems like a stretch to call this killer a copycat.”
Matt hadn’t even realized he’d been pacing until her words stopped him right in his tracks.
“What do you mean?”
“Muse went after everyone, right? He didn’t discriminate with his victims. And he drained their blood for his fucked up little art project.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then the only thing similar between Muse and his alleged ‘copycat’ is the missing eyes thing.”
Matt was silent for a moment, feeling thunderstruck by Jessica’s assessment of her findings. He’d spent the past month burning the candle at both ends trying to hunt down a copycat killer that…may not even be one? Perplexity and irritation swirled all at once, causing him to feel rooted to a belief that had just been flipped upside down, leaving him dangling with nothing to grasp onto and right himself with.
“Wait, are you saying you don’t think this is a copycat?”
“I only got the reports of the first four victims, but they were all men, and they weren’t bled to death. They were beaten and strangled and carved up.”
He had a thousand more questions now than he did when the article first broke, and not a single answer. Each one appeared quicker than the last, droplets of inquisitions rapidly turning into a heavy downpour that had a headache beginning to throb dully at the base of his skull. He reached up to rub at his forehead, as if that would quell the mounting discomfort working its way up his brain, and let out a heavy exhale while closing his eyes.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“I told you, something is weird.”
Why would the NYPD suspect the killer was a copycat if there wasn’t substantial evidence to support that theory? Removing the eyes from the body was a signature of Muse, but with the evidence Jess had found, that seemed to be the only thing similar between the two killers. Was there something not in the autopsy reports that proved the killer was a copycat? Or had the NYPD jumped the gun with speculation, not expecting a press leak that would cause mass hysteria among the public?
“Was there…anything else? Do you have the victims names? Maybe I can start there, find a connection.”
“Asshole blacked them out before giving me the copies. Certain details are blacked out too.”
“Covering his own ass.”
“I did get one name, though. It looks like all the autopsies were done by the same forensic pathologist. Doctor Y/N Y/L/N.”
Matt perked up instantly, that restless energy returning full force to combat the frustrated tension building in his head.
“Do you have an address?”
“What am I, a fucking amaetur?”
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
Matt had been standing on the rooftop of your building for two hours waiting for you to come home. He’d tried to go by the Medical Examiner’s office Jess said you worked at, but it was under heavy surveillance of both the F.B.I. and the NYPD. It was less of a risk to try and talk to you here, but the issue was he didn’t know your schedule. He didn’t know if you’d even be home tonight. Maybe you worked nights, or maybe a sixth body had been found and it hadn’t hit the news yet. He had no way of knowing. All he could do was wait.
When he finally heard a key slipping into a lock down on the fifth floor where he knew your apartment was, he leapt from the ledge of the rooftop down onto the fire escape platform right outside your living room window. He pressed his back against the brick wall, tilting his head to the side as he listened to you moving around inside. The jingle of your keys being hung up on the hook by the front door, your shoes hitting the hardwood with a soft thump, followed by an exhale of relief, and your bag being carelessly tossed onto your kitchen island.
He reached out to test if the window would budge, both delighted and concerned that it was unlocked. Matt pushed the pane up slowly, and his right foot hit the hardwood first as he swung his leg through the window, slipping inside silently. Just as delicately, he pushed the pane back down to close the window, keeping his ears trained on your movements in the kitchen. The hinges of a cabinet creaked as you opened one, and your nail faintly clinked against a wine glass that you reached for. He took a few soundless steps further inside your apartment, stopping once he was a few feet away.
“Doctor Y/L/N.”
The scream you let out made him wince, and the sharp sound of glass splintering against hard tile was just as painful to his sensitive ears. Your hand flew up to clutch at your chest as you whirled around and backed up against the counter, your heart pounding against your own palm like an erratic drumbeat.
“What the fuck?”
Matt quickly held his gloved hands up in a placating gesture of surrender, taking a half a step backwards.
“Relax, I’m not here to hurt you.”
He could feel your eyes fervently darting over him, assessing the threat of his presence, the fingers on your left hand twitching towards the knife block behind you on the counter. Matt didn’t move. He stood there patiently, keeping his hands where you could see them.
“Do you know who I am?”
Very, very slowly, your heart’s rhythm returned to a semi-normal tempo, but he could still sense the apprehension radiating off you in waves.
“Well there’s a lot of you running around in masks and red underwear these days, it’s not easy to keep track.”
The edge of Matt’s lips twitched in amusement at the dry sarcasm in your tone. He gradually lowered his hands back down to his sides.
“Kinda hard to mix up the devil with a spider.”
“Right. One of you is a friendly neighbor and the other is a fucking menace, I can tell which one you are now. Is this how you start every conversation? Breaking into someone’s place and scaring the shit out of them?”
Matt pursed his lips slightly in a faux expression of thought and then gave a faint shrug of his shoulders.
“Pretty much.”
He caught the subtle clench of your jaw, your heart rate ticking up again, but not out of fear this time.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What could you possibly need to talk to me about?”
“The Muse copycat.”
The slight straightening of your spine and falter in your heartbeat caught his attention. Your hand fell from your chest as you cleared your throat, crossing your arms over your chest instead in a deliberate display of defensiveness.
“And why is that?”
“Because you did the autopsies.”
The joints of your knuckles cracking from the way you clenched your hands into fists sounded like balloons being popped right by his head in rapid succession. In the silence that stretched almost uncomfortably, Matt could feel you analyzing him again, and he assumed it was now in suspicion. Or maybe it was intrigue, based on the way your head tilted a little to the side.
“How do you know that?”
“A friend.”
Another beat of silence passed as you considered him carefully.
“What do you want?”
“Details. The NYPD aren’t releasing any-”
“Yeah, for a reason.”
“I know why they’re doing it, but I can’t help track down the killer without a lead. I’ve spent the past month chasing nothing but dead ends.”
“Why don’t you just let cops and the feds do their job? What can you possibly do that they can’t?”
“A lot.”
Your exasperation was clear as a bell in the way you rolled your eyes and loosely threw your hands up, your palms lightly smacking against the sides of your thighs when they came down.
“What, like break the law? Beat the shit out of people for information? Break into places to find evidence?”
“Sometimes breaking the law saves lives.”
“Spoken like a true vigilante.”
Matt let out a deep exhale through his nose and took a cautious step forward, speaking in a low pleading tone.
“Look, I just need something, okay? Even if it’s small, just somewhere to start.”
“Why? Why do you care about this so much?”
“Because it’s personal.”
This time it was you that took a small step forward, eyeing him curiously.
“What do you mean?”
Matt hesitated for just a moment, weighing the scales of how honest to be. He had a feeling he would get more cooperation out of you if he gave you something in return for what he was asking for.
“I was there when he died. Bastian Cooper.”
A quiet scoff left your lips as you turned to walk towards your pantry, opening the door to reach inside for a broom.
“Yeah, no thanks to you.”
The accusation in your tone made Matt’s brows furrow beneath the cowl, and he cocked his head to the side.
“Excuse me?”
“You know, I read the files from the original case. You were there on two separate occasions when he attacked someone. They both almost died.”
The insinuation was sharp as a steel tipped blade, and it cut exactly where you’d aimed it. A muscle feathered in his jaw, the bones of his teeth grinding together as a defensive flicker of irritation ignited within him.
“I’m not a killer.”
The handle of the broom smacked against the counter you shoved it against before you turned to face him again.
“Well he was. And if he hadn’t been killed, who knows how many more victims he would’ve had.”
Matt stepped closer to you, his voice dropping to a lower octave that was laced with disbelief.
“You think he deserved to die?”
“I think you see the shit I do day in and day out, the kind of things humans are capable of doing to each other, and you get a little jaded.”
He could hear the hint of exhaustion in your voice, but he could hear the anger more clearly. Matt understood where you were coming from. The frustration. The appeal of a path that seemed easier and more effective. But it wasn’t a path he could go down, no matter how tempting it was during the bouts where his faith felt oppressive and hollow.
“He should’ve gone to prison.”
“Prison was never going to reform someone like Bastian Cooper. He wasn’t going to stop.”
“Fine, maybe that’s true, but he would’ve spent the rest of his life in a cage-”
“Like Benjamin Poindexter?”
The jab felt like a punch to the gut and a blade against his throat all at once. His silence had you advancing closer, any lingering trace of your initial trepidation completely absent.
“He was supposed to spend his life in prison, right? And he broke out, what, twice? How many more people have died since then?”
Matt’s hands clenched into fists at his slides, the leather of his gloves creaking faintly in protest under the strain.
“There’s a system-”
“No, there’s a pattern. Everyone you try to take down, Bullseye, The Punisher, Kingpin, Muse, low level criminals, they all get right back up, and they hurt more people. It’s an endless cycle, and it doesn’t make a goddamn difference in the long run, so forgive me if I don’t buy into your hero bullshit.”
The verbal daggers you threw at him landed harshly, piercing through the armor of his suit with their verity. He didn’t have a retort, because he knew you weren’t wrong. His conscience echoed those same thoughts when the weight of his own failure and self loathing weighed on his soul. His defensiveness fizzled out into reluctant resignation that filled his lungs like smoke.
“Sounds like you’re more than a little jaded, Doc. Sounds like a loss of faith.”
A dry laugh that was void of humor escaped your mouth as you gestured loosely at him with your hand.
“You’re gonna preach to me about faith in a devil costume?”
Matt titled his head to the side, offering a dim version of his signature charming smile.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was a Catholic?"
Your eyelashes fluttered like hummingbird wings as you blinked a few times in surprise, looking him up and down once again, one of your brows arching in skepticism.
“I would certainly be thoroughly fucking confused.”
“It's a long story.”
“I guess that explains the no kill rule.”
“I have been tempted. More than once.”
That quiet admission hung in the space between you, and he caught the way his confession had the tension in your shoulders uncoiling gradually. It confirmed his theory that you responded to his honesty. Letting out a heavy breath, he decided to lay his soul bare in a last ditch effort to persuade you to help him.
“Look, I get it. Okay, I do. You think it’s not frustrating for me to believe I've done some good just to see all that effort turn to shit? To think I've saved people by getting someone locked up, just for them to get right back out and do even more damage? To feel like…everything I do means nothing, and real justice doesn’t even exist?”
That was the thing that haunted him more than anything else. That none of it mattered. That nothing he did made a difference. That everything he’d sacrificed, his flesh and his blood and his sweat, it was all in vain for something that wasn’t even real.
“You know, I've lost my own faith before, Doc. Several times, actually. I've even considered hanging up the suit for good more than once because of it.”
Turning to lean back against the counter, you stretched your arms out to rest your palms on the surface of the countertop on either side of you, voicing your inquisition with genuine curiosity.
“Why haven’t you?”
Matt mirrored your action, leaning back against the kitchen island across from you, folding his arms over his chest loosely with a sigh and letting his head drop slightly.
“Because I can’t ignore any of it. I can’t lay in bed at night and hear people begging for help, knowing I can do something, and try to block it out instead. I can’t hear a news report about people being brutally murdered and mutilated and just…go on about my day, hoping the police and the feds do their jobs. And maybe you’re right. Maybe if…if I had acted sooner or done something differently with Bastian, those two people wouldn’t have almost died. I don’t know. I can’t go back and change that. But if this really is a Muse copycat, I don’t want them getting anywhere near his body count. I found Bastian the first time before the cops did. I can find this guy too. I just need your help, please.”
The seconds seemed to pass like molasses cascading down bark, and if you said no, he didn’t know what he was going to do. Matt was already running out of steam. He couldn’t keep throwing everything at this and keep his promise to Foggy and Karen at the same time. He needed a Hail Mary. He needed you.
When he heard your subtle sigh of surrender, it instantly loosened the tightness in his chest, his body seeming to vibrate once again with impatient restlessness. Rubbing your hands down your face tiredly, you shook your head even though you’d already made your decision.
“If I get caught working with you, I could lose my job. I could get sued-”
a/n: i finally watched ready or not 2 tonight and yes I was drunk and it's almost 2am and no I don't know what possessed my fingers and maybe i've never written anything faster in my life but one thing is for sure and two things are for certain, don't ask me the color of NOTHIN. this was literally written in like 20 minutes and it hasn't been edited and tomorrow me may regret posting it at all but as titus says FUCK IT we (le bail) ball. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated.
The sharp crack of your head against the ground feels like a strike of lightning splitting the back of your skull, and you can’t tell if it’s blood or sweat dripping down the back of your neck. The world becomes unfocused, pain diluting the sharpness of your vision to the point where everything is a fuzzy silhouette. It could be a concussion, or it could be blood loss from all the injuries you’ve sustained during this second round of fucked up hide and seek. If you made it out of this alive, it’s a game you’d never fucking play again.
There’s a weight that settles on top of you, almost comforting in your daze. A strong pair of calloused hands caress your neck, but it’s a misconception, a mistake your brain makes in the midst of the blunt force trauma you’d suffered when your head had smacked against the cold hard ground. It’s not a gentle touch, it’s the weaving of fingers around your throat, constricting like a snake coiling around its prey, and your world suddenly snaps back into focus.
Titus is hovering above you, his knees bracketing your hips, and his pupils are blown wide in wild bloodlust, the onyx of them nearly eclipsing the sliver of hazel. The edge of his lips curl in a snarl, or maybe it’s amusement that bares his teeth when your eyes widen in panic and you start to squirm beneath him, clawing at his forearm and his chest despite how weak you should be by now. He likes that you’re a fighter. It makes this more interesting. More fun.
“I told you it would be me that gets you.”
You can’t tell if it's the joints between his knuckles cracking or the vertebrae in your spine when he tightens his grip. Everything starts to get blurry again, the oxygen being denied to your brain combined with your head colliding against the ground causing the edges of your vision to shrink in a vignette like the ending of an old black and white sitcom. Your breathing feels like a futile attempt against the inevitable, a desperate gasping that doesn’t even begin to rival the heavy panting of the man above you, either in exertion or excitement, you’re not sure.
It can’t end like this. After everything you’ve endured, everything you’ve survived, it can’t fucking end like this.
“I can…gurantee…head council…seat.”
Titus doesn’t stop his efforts to strangle you, but he does lessen the pressure of his hands around your throat, just slightly enough to allow you to stay conscious. A dry chuckle escapes from him as he leans closer down towards you, his blood spackled face coming more clearly into view above you. His voice is raspy when it reaches your ears.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, sweetheart, I’m securing it myself.”
“And share…with your…sister?”
That gets his attention. Titus lessens his grip just enough to let you suck in a frantic gasp of air. His head tilts slightly to the side in what could be construed as curiosity, or maybe he’s taking a moment to enjoy this, the kill that single handedly secures his spot in the head seat of the council, taking his father’s recently vacated spot. A spot that should’ve already been his if it weren’t for the stupid fucking archaic rules. The seat he feels belongs to him, and him alone. Seizing the moment, you grip onto his forearm with the strength you have left, leaving crescent indents in his skin with your bloodied nails, your other hand grasping at the front of his sweat soaked shirt. Swallowing down the metallic tang of your own blood, your labored breathing carries your offer.
“That woman said there’s a loophole. A way you get the council seat, and I get to live.”
Titus lifts his chin subtly in defiance, arching one of his brows.
“The woman you killed.”
“I didn’t kill her-”
“You got her killed. Same thing.”
Titus regards you for a moment, his eyes wandering over your battered and bloodied body beneath him. Whether it’s morbid curiosity, or him reveling in giving you a sense of false hope, he indulges your ploy.
“Let me hear it. Give me your best elevator pitch, sweetheart. It’s gonna be your last.”
He’s enjoying this. There’s an unmistakable flicker of exhilaration in his eyes. Titus could’ve killed you at any point during the hunt, easily. He didn’t want to. He likes the chase. The thrill of it all. It’s more exciting to him than the reward of the kill. It’s why he’s entertaining your last ditch offer now.
“Marry me.”
That draws genuine surprise from Titus, his brows lifting considerably up his forehead, creating creases in his blood speckled skin. You don’t waste the moment. You grip tighter onto him, almost subconsciously pulling him in closer, keeping his attention focused on your body beneath him and not the prospect of your death granting him what he wants more than anything.
“If you marry me, you get the seat. You don't have to share.”
Titus seemed to consider this. The one thing that he wanted more than his father’s seat was to not have to share it with his sister. He hated that his father saw Ursula as more capable of carrying on the family legacy. He hated that she treated him like a child. Claiming the seat was more important to his pride than his loyalty to his family.
“And you get to live.”
“It's a win-win.”
It was strange to not believe in any deities even though you'd seen a glimpse of one. Real evidence of something beyond human comprehension. But in that moment, you found yourself begging even Mr. Le Bail to convince Titus to accept your offer. If he refused, you had no other tricks up your bloodied and tattered sleeve.
Titus narrowed his eyes, regarding you in a new light, weighing the payoff of the transaction. He didn't care if you lived or died. All that mattered was that the golden ring was on his finger.
“I don't think we’ll have time to catch a plane to Vegas.”
Titus looked down at you in wicked amusement, his lips stretching in something that was probably meant to be a form of a smile.
How do you come up with your ideas?! I've started to try writing...but it's so hard 😭 Like I never know where to start or what to write about. You always have such good ideas, is there a process you have or a secret?! I won't tell I promise 😉
I don't know if you're old enough to remember that's so raven but if you look up clips when she's having a vision she kinda freezes and sees a glimpse of the future and it's kinda like that but instead it's like what if ✨this character✨ was in ✨this situation✨ and then I basically have a council meeting in my head about if that was just a fun idea or something I actually want to write
writing is hard nonnie! my best advice is to write what you want to write. whatever you feel inspired by, or whatever you'd want to read yourself, go with that. everyone has to start somewhere, and it's okay if your first try isn't perfect. writing is a craft you get better at the more you practice. as for ideas, just run with whatever pops into your head, or bounce ideas off your friends, that's what I do :)
I can't believe you're writing two peak Daredevil series at once you're insane for that and I love you for it. Can I ask what those dots were in the first part? Do they mean anything? Knowing you they do but I don't even know where to begin decoding them 😬
I believe peak is what you youths declare good and if i'm interpreting that right then thank you very much 🥹🖤
the dots are iteotm (in the eyes of the muse) in braille 😌
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summary: breaking news about a new serial killer in the city leaves matt struggling to balance both halves of his life.
warnings: swearing, mentions of gore & violence
word count: 4.8k
a/n: everyone say thank you @quakeismyhero for playing dolls with me and listening to my devious plotting and supporting my chaos 🖤 this could potentially end up being one of my favorite things i've ever done. let the murder mystery commence. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
[series masterlist] | [next act coming soon]
Murder Has A New Muse by B.B. Urich
That was the headline that had enraptured the city last month and caused a ripple of universal alarm. An anonymous source claiming to be close to the NYPD had submitted a copy of a confidential memo to the Bulletin, outlining a string of malevolence that had been staining the streets right under everyone’s noses. Whoever had sent the copy of the memo had also attached copies of the gruesome crime scene photos. They’d been so graphic, the Bulletin had to blur them completely instead of just the victims’ faces, which had been brutalized to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. Even in the pixelated prints, the gore was revolting.
The shocking news that there was a serial killer on the loose was enough to cause hysteria on its own, but it was the nature of the killings that had fear caressing the spines of New Yorkers like the first bitter chill of winter. According to the confidential memo, the NYPD believed the murders were done by a copycat trying to emulate one of New York City’s most prolific serial killers; Bastian Cooper. The biggest piece of evidence they had to support this theory was that the victims had been found with their eyes carved out.
Matt had been getting ready to go to a deposition when he’d heard the breaking news report coming from his tv. The mug he’d been holding had slipped right out of his hand, clattering on the floor and shattering into a dozen jagged pieces. He’d barely felt the scalding splatter of hot coffee that had soaked through the dual layers of his slacks and socks.
The disconcertment had come first. A serial killer. Three victims. And Matt had been completely unaware of the murders. While he’d been investigating arm’s dealings down at the docks and prepping for a corporate negligence lawsuit, people were being attacked and mutilated, and it hadn’t even been on his radar. The revelation had caused a needle of guilt to prick at his conscience. How could something so grisly escape his attention?
The newscaster’s voice had played on a loop in his head even after the broadcast ended, like a needle stuck in the final groove at the end of a record, spinning endlessly.
The NYPD believe these murders were the work of a copycat modeling themselves after the notorious serial killer known as Muse.
That part had caused a pit of dread to split open in his stomach, conjuring the recollection of his first encounter with Bastian. Even from the simple act of his mind crafting the evocation, his senses had instantly become overwhelmed from the memory, transporting him right back to that night he’d found Bastian’s lair underground in the subway tunnels. The damp air that had felt heavy on Matt’s heated skin. The acrid assault of lingering mildew intermingled with the harsh chemicals from paint and epoxy that had burned in his nose and throat. The sharp metallic tang of blood that had been so strong he could taste it in every single inhale. The fading rhythm of Angela’s heartbeat.
Standing in his kitchen the day the Bulletin released that article, Matt had felt an uncomfortable sensation of déjà vu. By the time he and the public had been made aware of Muse, Bastian had already claimed upwards of sixty victims, and even with the DNA that had been found in the blood he’d used for his murals, a lot of the victims still had yet to be identified almost a year later. Matt had immediately felt compelled to track down the copycat, not just because there was a serial killer terrorizing his city, but because it was personal for him. He hadn’t been there to prevent the deaths of Bastian’s victims. He’d nearly been too late to save Angela. And letting Bastian get away that first time had given him the chance to go after Heather. He wanted to stop the copycat before they hurt anyone else.
But a month had gone by since that article had come out, Matt still didn’t have a single lead, and another victim had just been found, bringing the body count up to five.
Matt threw his cowl forcefully at the living room wall with a frustrated yell, the loud echo of the collision setting his teeth on edge. He’d been out tonight, chasing yet another dead end, all while a fifth victim had already been found. Ripping off his gloves and tossing them to the ground, he squeezed his eyes shut and reached out to grip onto the back of the couch, letting his head drop between his shoulders with a heavy exhale.
He’d been going out every single night for the past month, and he hadn’t found a goddamn thing. Matt was no closer to catching the copycat killer than he’d been the day the news broke, and now two more people were dead. He’d been following every update about the case, but the NYPD refused to share any details about the murders or the victims. They were still pissed about the chaos that the Bulletin article had stirred up amongst the public.
Matt had to find a lead. He’d become so consumed by this case that everything else was starting to unravel. He’d barely slept more than four hours a night the last few weeks, he was falling behind on his cases, and Foggy had already chewed his ass out for being late to their last two court appearances. Matt had promised Foggy and Karen both that he wouldn’t let being Daredevil interfere with being Matt Murdock. A promise he’d failed to keep several times over. A promise that was starting to fray again. Karen was already giving him the cold shoulder, and her forgiveness was always harder to win back than Foggy’s. It seemed to get harder to earn again every time he let her down.
He knew he was living on borrowed time when it came to being worthy of their loyalty. Sooner or later, that unwavering patience and understanding would run out, and Matt could hardly blame them. He wasn’t always the friend they deserved. But people were being viciously murdered in cold blood, he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Matt had already exhausted two resources and it had gotten him nowhere, but there was one more person who might be able to help him.
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
“Mommy, I can’t find my bunny.”
Matt heard the exhausted intake of breath Jessica subtly took and turned his head to call out over his shoulder before she could respond.
“It’s under the couch, sweetie.”
Danielle knelt down by the couch, stretching her arm out under it, and Matt heard her excited gasp when her fingers brushed against the soft fur of the stuffed toy. She eagerly pulled it out with a grin, hugging it in her arms as she looked over at Matt.
“Thanks Uncle Matty!”
Matt tilted his head to the side slightly and smiled softly in her direction. Jessica’s eyes tracked her daughter as Danielle sat on her knees by the coffee table, propping the stuffed bunny up on top of it to pour it an imaginary cup of tea. The tension in her shoulders deflated with the weight of a wild bunny search now off of them. She leaned her hip against the kitchen counter and turned her attention back to Matt.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
Letting out a deep breath, she brushed a strand of her hair away from her face and lowered her voice.
“Why don’t you just put on the horns and talk to B.B.?”
“I did. It was an anonymous submission, and whoever sent it hasn’t sent anything else. She said there was no way to tell where it came from, and believe me, she tried.”
“What about your cop friend?”
“I already talked to Mahoney too. The NYPD is keeping everything locked down even more after that article. They’re trying to field out false tips and confessions, and they still haven’t figured out who leaked the memo and the crime scene photos to the press either.”
“Isn’t he the Chief of Detectives though? He’s done you favors before.”
“Comissioner Matthews called in the Feds. He’s padding his campaign for Mayor, and catching a copycat of one of the worst serial killers this city has ever seen will help him win by a landslide. Mahoney said the task force was hand selected by the Special Agent running it, and his team is watching everyone like a hawk. He can’t take the risk.”
Matt let out a deep breath and reached up to adjust his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose.
“And he doesn’t want me to, either. He told me to back off on this one with the F.B.I. and the NYPD both out on the streets.”
“But you’re not going to.”
Letting out a sigh, he angled his body closer towards her. He kept his voice low, but the desperation echoed between them.
“I can’t, Jess.”
“Even though Daredevil’s chances of getting arrested and sent to prison are now doubled until the copycat is caught?”
“I think vigilantes are pretty low on their list of priorities right now.”
Jessica inhaled deeply through her nose and let it out slowly as she turned her head to watch her daughter play in the living room. Matt could practically feel her confliction as if it was a force inside his own chest, like the opposing ends of magnets.
“Look, I get why this is important to you, but I can’t get involved. I have to think about Dani. And I’m still…fucking…flickering.”
He could hear the frustration in her voice. Jessica had told him about how her abilities seemed to drop out and come back randomly since she’d had Danielle.
“Hey, I get it, I do. Okay, and I’m not asking you to get involved. I’m here for private investigator Jessica Jones, not…Jewel.”
Jessica immediately turned her head to glare at him, pursing her lips at the sight of the devilish smirk stretching across his mouth. She hadn’t missed the mockery dripping from his tone. Jessica swiftly reached out to smack his shoulder.
“Oh, fuck you, devil boy.”
Matt’s lips spread into a wide grin, a deep chuckle thundering in his chest as he rubbed at the spot she’d hit before he held his hands up in a display of surrender.
“Ow, alright alright. Low blow. But I mean it, all I need is a lead. That’s it.”
Jessica rolled her eyes with a subtle shake of her head, placing her hand on her hip as she looked over at Danielle again.
“I might still have a contact I can reach out to, but I can’t make any promises, Matt.”
“I know. I appreciate you helping at all. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
Matt was sitting at his kitchen island with documents spread out in front of him, his finger tips running over the raised Braille bumps to read over a witness testimony for an upcoming trial. He had one earbud in, playing a voice note Foggy had sent him about finding a new piece of evidence that could help win their case. It was interrupted when his phone started to buzz on the counter, the voice assistance alerting him of an incoming call.
Jess. Jess. Jess.
Quickly removing the earbud, Matt picked up his phone and tapped his thumb on the screen, bringing it to his ear.
“Hey, did you find something?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“I said hey.”
Even on the other end of the line, he could practically hear her rolling her eyes.
“Well?”
“Something is weird about this case.”
Matt’s forehead creased in confusion, and he sat up a little straighter hearing the suspicion in her voice.
“What do you mean?”
“My guy told me all he could get were the autopsy reports.”
“Why is that weird?”
“Because if he doesn’t have access to any of the case files, why the fuck would he have access to the autopsy reports?”
Matt pursed his lips slightly in thought. It was odd, but not an anomaly he could afford to waste time fixating on. There were more important things to investigate.
“Mahoney said the Fed in charge of the task force is watching everyone in the department closely. Maybe he’s allowing people to only have access to specific pieces of the investigation to flush out who leaked the memo.”
“I don’t know, Matt. Something feels off.”
Matt got up from his chair, abandoning the court documents he’d been reading through, walking towards the living room with purpose even though he didn’t have one yet. After a month of nothing but dead ends, the prospect of finally having something to chase filled him with a sense of restlessness that was thrumming throughout his body.
“What did you find out from the autopsy reports?”
“That it seems like a stretch to call this killer a copycat.”
Matt hadn’t even realized he’d been pacing until her words stopped him right in his tracks.
“What do you mean?”
“Muse went after everyone, right? He didn’t discriminate with his victims. And he drained their blood for his fucked up little art project.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then the only thing similar between Muse and his alleged ‘copycat’ is the missing eyes thing.”
Matt was silent for a moment, feeling thunderstruck by Jessica’s assessment of her findings. He’d spent the past month burning the candle at both ends trying to hunt down a copycat killer that…may not even be one? Perplexity and irritation swirled all at once, causing him to feel rooted to a belief that had just been flipped upside down, leaving him dangling with nothing to grasp onto and right himself with.
“Wait, are you saying you don’t think this is a copycat?”
“I only got the reports of the first four victims, but they were all men, and they weren’t bled to death. They were beaten and strangled and carved up.”
He had a thousand more questions now than he did when the article first broke, and not a single answer. Each one appeared quicker than the last, droplets of inquisitions rapidly turning into a heavy downpour that had a headache beginning to throb dully at the base of his skull. He reached up to rub at his forehead, as if that would quell the mounting discomfort working its way up his brain, and let out a heavy exhale while closing his eyes.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“I told you, something is weird.”
Why would the NYPD suspect the killer was a copycat if there wasn’t substantial evidence to support that theory? Removing the eyes from the body was a signature of Muse, but with the evidence Jess had found, that seemed to be the only thing similar between the two killers. Was there something not in the autopsy reports that proved the killer was a copycat? Or had the NYPD jumped the gun with speculation, not expecting a press leak that would cause mass hysteria among the public?
“Was there…anything else? Do you have the victims names? Maybe I can start there, find a connection.”
“Asshole blacked them out before giving me the copies. Certain details are blacked out too.”
“Covering his own ass.”
“I did get one name, though. It looks like all the autopsies were done by the same forensic pathologist. Doctor Y/N Y/L/N.”
Matt perked up instantly, that restless energy returning full force to combat the frustrated tension building in his head.
“Do you have an address?”
“What am I, a fucking amaetur?”
⠊⠞⠑⠕⠞⡉
Matt had been standing on the rooftop of your building for two hours waiting for you to come home. He’d tried to go by the Medical Examiner’s office Jess said you worked at, but it was under heavy surveillance of both the F.B.I. and the NYPD. It was less of a risk to try and talk to you here, but the issue was he didn’t know your schedule. He didn’t know if you’d even be home tonight. Maybe you worked nights, or maybe a sixth body had been found and it hadn’t hit the news yet. He had no way of knowing. All he could do was wait.
When he finally heard a key slipping into a lock down on the fifth floor where he knew your apartment was, he leapt from the ledge of the rooftop down onto the fire escape platform right outside your living room window. He pressed his back against the brick wall, tilting his head to the side as he listened to you moving around inside. The jingle of your keys being hung up on the hook by the front door, your shoes hitting the hardwood with a soft thump, followed by an exhale of relief, and your bag being carelessly tossed onto your kitchen island.
He reached out to test if the window would budge, both delighted and concerned that it was unlocked. Matt pushed the pane up slowly, and his right foot hit the hardwood first as he swung his leg through the window, slipping inside silently. Just as delicately, he pushed the pane back down to close the window, keeping his ears trained on your movements in the kitchen. The hinges of a cabinet creaked as you opened one, and your nail faintly clinked against a wine glass that you reached for. He took a few soundless steps further inside your apartment, stopping once he was a few feet away.
“Doctor Y/L/N.”
The scream you let out made him wince, and the sharp sound of glass splintering against hard tile was just as painful to his sensitive ears. Your hand flew up to clutch at your chest as you whirled around and backed up against the counter, your heart pounding against your own palm like an erratic drumbeat.
“What the fuck?”
Matt quickly held his gloved hands up in a placating gesture of surrender, taking a half a step backwards.
“Relax, I’m not here to hurt you.”
He could feel your eyes fervently darting over him, assessing the threat of his presence, the fingers on your left hand twitching towards the knife block behind you on the counter. Matt didn’t move. He stood there patiently, keeping his hands where you could see them.
“Do you know who I am?”
Very, very slowly, your heart’s rhythm returned to a semi-normal tempo, but he could still sense the apprehension radiating off you in waves.
“Well there’s a lot of you running around in masks and red underwear these days, it’s not easy to keep track.”
The edge of Matt’s lips twitched in amusement at the dry sarcasm in your tone. He gradually lowered his hands back down to his sides.
“Kinda hard to mix up the devil with a spider.”
“Right. One of you is a friendly neighbor and the other is a fucking menace, I can tell which one you are now. Is this how you start every conversation? Breaking into someone’s place and scaring the shit out of them?”
Matt pursed his lips slightly in a faux expression of thought and then gave a faint shrug of his shoulders.
“Pretty much.”
He caught the subtle clench of your jaw, your heart rate ticking up again, but not out of fear this time.
“I need to talk to you.”
“What could you possibly need to talk to me about?”
“The Muse copycat.”
The slight straightening of your spine and falter in your heartbeat caught his attention. Your hand fell from your chest as you cleared your throat, crossing your arms over your chest instead in a deliberate display of defensiveness.
“And why is that?”
“Because you did the autopsies.”
The joints of your knuckles cracking from the way you clenched your hands into fists sounded like balloons being popped right by his head in rapid succession. In the silence that stretched almost uncomfortably, Matt could feel you analyzing him again, and he assumed it was now in suspicion. Or maybe it was intrigue, based on the way your head tilted a little to the side.
“How do you know that?”
“A friend.”
Another beat of silence passed as you considered him carefully.
“What do you want?”
“Details. The NYPD aren’t releasing any-”
“Yeah, for a reason.”
“I know why they’re doing it, but I can’t help track down the killer without a lead. I’ve spent the past month chasing nothing but dead ends.”
“Why don’t you just let cops and the feds do their job? What can you possibly do that they can’t?”
“A lot.”
Your exasperation was clear as a bell in the way you rolled your eyes and loosely threw your hands up, your palms lightly smacking against the sides of your thighs when they came down.
“What, like break the law? Beat the shit out of people for information? Break into places to find evidence?”
“Sometimes breaking the law saves lives.”
“Spoken like a true vigilante.”
Matt let out a deep exhale through his nose and took a cautious step forward, speaking in a low pleading tone.
“Look, I just need something, okay? Even if it’s small, just somewhere to start.”
“Why? Why do you care about this so much?”
“Because it’s personal.”
This time it was you that took a small step forward, eyeing him curiously.
“What do you mean?”
Matt hesitated for just a moment, weighing the scales of how honest to be. He had a feeling he would get more cooperation out of you if he gave you something in return for what he was asking for.
“I was there when he died. Bastian Cooper.”
A quiet scoff left your lips as you turned to walk towards your pantry, opening the door to reach inside for a broom.
“Yeah, no thanks to you.”
The accusation in your tone made Matt’s brows furrow beneath the cowl, and he cocked his head to the side.
“Excuse me?”
“You know, I read the files from the original case. You were there on two separate occasions when he attacked someone. They both almost died.”
The insinuation was sharp as a steel tipped blade, and it cut exactly where you’d aimed it. A muscle feathered in his jaw, the bones of his teeth grinding together as a defensive flicker of irritation ignited within him.
“I’m not a killer.”
The handle of the broom smacked against the counter you shoved it against before you turned to face him again.
“Well he was. And if he hadn’t been killed, who knows how many more victims he would’ve had.”
Matt stepped closer to you, his voice dropping to a lower octave that was laced with disbelief.
“You think he deserved to die?”
“I think you see the shit I do day in and day out, the kind of things humans are capable of doing to each other, and you get a little jaded.”
He could hear the hint of exhaustion in your voice, but he could hear the anger more clearly. Matt understood where you were coming from. The frustration. The appeal of a path that seemed easier and more effective. But it wasn’t a path he could go down, no matter how tempting it was during the bouts where his faith felt oppressive and hollow.
“He should’ve gone to prison.”
“Prison was never going to reform someone like Bastian Cooper. He wasn’t going to stop.”
“Fine, maybe that’s true, but he would’ve spent the rest of his life in a cage-”
“Like Benjamin Poindexter?”
The jab felt like a punch to the gut and a blade against his throat all at once. His silence had you advancing closer, any lingering trace of your initial trepidation completely absent.
“He was supposed to spend his life in prison, right? And he broke out, what, twice? How many more people have died since then?”
Matt’s hands clenched into fists at his slides, the leather of his gloves creaking faintly in protest under the strain.
“There’s a system-”
“No, there’s a pattern. Everyone you try to take down, Bullseye, The Punisher, Kingpin, Muse, low level criminals, they all get right back up, and they hurt more people. It’s an endless cycle, and it doesn’t make a goddamn difference in the long run, so forgive me if I don’t buy into your hero bullshit.”
The verbal daggers you threw at him landed harshly, piercing through the armor of his suit with their verity. He didn’t have a retort, because he knew you weren’t wrong. His conscience echoed those same thoughts when the weight of his own failure and self loathing weighed on his soul. His defensiveness fizzled out into reluctant resignation that filled his lungs like smoke.
“Sounds like you’re more than a little jaded, Doc. Sounds like a loss of faith.”
A dry laugh that was void of humor escaped your mouth as you gestured loosely at him with your hand.
“You’re gonna preach to me about faith in a devil costume?”
Matt titled his head to the side, offering a dim version of his signature charming smile.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was a Catholic?"
Your eyelashes fluttered like hummingbird wings as you blinked a few times in surprise, looking him up and down once again, one of your brows arching in skepticism.
“I would certainly be thoroughly fucking confused.”
“It's a long story.”
“I guess that explains the no kill rule.”
“I have been tempted. More than once.”
That quiet admission hung in the space between you, and he caught the way his confession had the tension in your shoulders uncoiling gradually. It confirmed his theory that you responded to his honesty. Letting out a heavy breath, he decided to lay his soul bare in a last ditch effort to persuade you to help him.
“Look, I get it. Okay, I do. You think it’s not frustrating for me to believe I've done some good just to see all that effort turn to shit? To think I've saved people by getting someone locked up, just for them to get right back out and do even more damage? To feel like…everything I do means nothing, and real justice doesn’t even exist?”
That was the thing that haunted him more than anything else. That none of it mattered. That nothing he did made a difference. That everything he’d sacrificed, his flesh and his blood and his sweat, it was all in vain for something that wasn’t even real.
“You know, I've lost my own faith before, Doc. Several times, actually. I've even considered hanging up the suit for good more than once because of it.”
Turning to lean back against the counter, you stretched your arms out to rest your palms on the surface of the countertop on either side of you, voicing your inquisition with genuine curiosity.
“Why haven’t you?”
Matt mirrored your action, leaning back against the kitchen island across from you, folding his arms over his chest loosely with a sigh and letting his head drop slightly.
“Because I can’t ignore any of it. I can’t lay in bed at night and hear people begging for help, knowing I can do something, and try to block it out instead. I can’t hear a news report about people being brutally murdered and mutilated and just…go on about my day, hoping the police and the feds do their jobs. And maybe you’re right. Maybe if…if I had acted sooner or done something differently with Bastian, those two people wouldn’t have almost died. I don’t know. I can’t go back and change that. But if this really is a Muse copycat, I don’t want them getting anywhere near his body count. I found Bastian the first time before the cops did. I can find this guy too. I just need your help, please.”
The seconds seemed to pass like molasses cascading down bark, and if you said no, he didn’t know what he was going to do. Matt was already running out of steam. He couldn’t keep throwing everything at this and keep his promise to Foggy and Karen at the same time. He needed a Hail Mary. He needed you.
When he heard your subtle sigh of surrender, it instantly loosened the tightness in his chest, his body seeming to vibrate once again with impatient restlessness. Rubbing your hands down your face tiredly, you shook your head even though you’d already made your decision.
“If I get caught working with you, I could lose my job. I could get sued-”
Omggggg I am so excited for this. You are quite literally one of my favorite writers on here, i’ve lost count of the times I’ve read your Billy Russo ghostface story, it is one of my favs ever so I am thrilled to be able to experience another mystery novel from youuu. I have so many thoughts
It seemed to get harder to earn again every time he let her down.
Matt is a piece of work, it’s honestly surprising Karen keeps forgiving him, I know I wouldn’t. There’s a limit, you know?
Why would the NYPD suspect the killer was a copycat if there wasn’t substantial evidence to support that theory?
Huuuuhhhh. As they say in my country, ahí hay gato encerrado, because everyone knows cops aren’t exactly geniuses but like this is a reach even for them, and also… who benefits from a copycat to a serial killer? Omggg is it going to be all a plot for the campaign????? But like hiring a killer? Or maybe just embellishing the facts
OH DO THEY WANT MATT INVOLVED AND THATS WHY THEY GAVE JESSICA’S CONTACT THE FILES????
So many questions omg I love this.
Right. One of you is a friendly neighbor and the other is a fucking menace
I love her, shed so right. And to meake her the doctor?? That’s so smart, I already know shes gonna keep Matt on his toes.
Everyone you try to take down, Bullseye, The Punisher, Kingpin, Muse, low level criminals, they all get right back up, and they hurt more people. It’s an endless cycle, and it doesn’t make a goddamn difference in the long run, so forgive me if I don’t buy into your hero bullshit.
No, because she is so right. Sometimes i wonder if there’s even a point to all of that. There’s no chance for rehabilitation in the current system, that’s why we advocate for anti punitivism guys
Okay I am so excited to see where this goes!!!! Absolutely loved this first chapter.
Idk if you’re doing a taglist for this series, but if you are would you mind tagging me? If not, no problem I AM SO EXCITEDEED
i'm so honored to be one of your favorites 🥹 also that billy ghostface series was SO much fun for me i'm so happy you liked it and that you're enjoying this too 🫶🏻
I WANNA TELL YOU EVERYTHING BUT I WANT YOU TO BE SURPRISED
