Clearfear

This is a bit of Matt/Elektra fic which may or may not be modeled on a 2005 thriller comedy. 

…Okay, it’s a Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU. Enjoy! ***

Matt asks her when they’re huddled in the back of a greyhound bus speeding through the night, the verbal and physical blows that Stick flung at them still ringing in both their ears. 

(“We‘re not your soldiers!” she screamed. “We just want a normal life!”

“You aren’t normal and you never will be. You’re meant for the mission,” her father growls. “You think you’ll be satisfied? You were born for the fight.”

“We don’t need it,” Matt said, taking her hand. “We don’t need you.”

Matt threw his staff at Stick’s feet. Elektra’s sai landed on top of it.)

He comforts himself with her hair, rubbing the strands with shaking fingers. They’ve deserted her father’s army for each other, but they’re not so ignorant that they think he’ll let them just leave him, leave his mission, to live peacefully in the outside world. Elektra thinks Matt’s hometown is the first place Stick will search, but he swears that there is no city better for disappearing into than New York. She has to trust him. She does trust him.

“Elektra,” Matt says suddenly. The streetlamps that line the highway make light strobe over his face. “Let’s get married.”

Elektra looks at his face. He’s strong and scared and his grip on her hand feels unbreakable. She feels the world open up for the first time, because they’re free, and they’re together, and they’re invincible. 

She squeezes back. “Okay.”

They’re seventeen. 

***

Twenty years later

The kitchen in their apartment is mostly for show; neither of them like to cook, and they’ve gotten to a point where they don’t have to. 

When Matt comes home with his coat over his briefcase, Elektra’s in her study with a glass of wine, looking over some contracts. 

“Where would you like to eat tonight?” she asks as he passes her door on the way to the bedroom. 

“Wherever you want,” he says, and steps over the sling-backs she’s abandoned in the hallway. She can hear him sigh as he pulls open his tie and unbuttons his shirt—he always did hate the feeling of something tight around his neck. “It’s your choice, honey,” Matt says. 

The 2019 Daredevil, Defenders & Punisher Exchange is ON!

What to do? Sign up here! You will be able to give several prompts (different types of prompts, too! Music, scenarios, one word…) and you will, of course, receive several prompts ^_^

Your job? use at least one of these prompts to create at least one fanwork! You can combine several prompts in one work, use the same prompt for several works… The one hard and fast rule is to respect your giftee’s squicks!

Please get in touch with your giftee anonymously if only to let them know someone is creating something for them, and of course if you have any question :-)

What types of fanwork? Here’s what you can do: Gifsets (6 gifs min), Fanfic (1,000 words min), Fanmix (6 songs + cover min), Fanvid (1 minute long min), Graphics / Fanart.

What’s the timeline? Signups until June 23rd, prompts sent around June 24th (depending on your time zone), fanworks due August, 26th. If you have a schedule issue, get in touch with the blog, we can probably work something out!

Where do I post? Tumblr, DW, AO3 (Exchange collection name: DDE2019 / Daredevil & Defenders Exchange 2019)… let us know where you’re posting so we can share it on our two blogs, DW and Tumblr. If you do not have an AO3 account and want one, please get in touch with the blog (AO3 can’t host video or graphics, but you can still put them up on the Archive as long as they’re already publicly online somewhere else like Instagram, DeviantArt, YouTube, etc)

Posting guidelines are here, please take the time to read them! You will find more important information there. If you do not have an AO3 account and want one, please get in touch with the blog.

                            Spread the word!

#SaveDaredevil Fanworks Initiative  |  Day 3  |  Fanfiction

By @scienceoftheidiot [ AO3 ]

Just a tiny thing I wanted to write, nothing much more than that. I just want the three of them together!

Enjoyed this work? Read more from this author! First Times (Matt/Karen)

We can’t think of a better way to announce our website address change than to share this wonderful gem - our campaign officially got bumped by Vincent D’Onofrio!!

(Link to tweet)

So please update your bookmarks and tell your friends they can find us at www.savedaredevil.com! 

mattelektra week ➜ day five: favorite songs / quotes

@significantowl and I have had SO MUCH FUN celebrating these last 12 days with all of you and we hope you’ve all appreciated this beautiful buffet of new Mattelektra content. Whether you simply enjoyed as a fan of the ship, or you were one of our many EXTREMELY TALENTED creators (shout out to: @beaarthurpendragon, @nelsonsmurdock, @beguilewritesstuff, @titconao3, @elqdieyung, @pixelbypixelfanfic, @elektranhatcios, @dareswitch, @brandywine421-deactivated201812, @incredulousanteater, @idomyballethere, @mathewmurdock) - this doesn’t happen without all of you!

We know the holidays were SUPER busy so if you still have a few Mattelektra goodies up your sleeve, please don’t be shy about posting them later! I’ll continue checking the #12daysofmattelektra and #mattelektraweek tags to reblog - there’s no such thing as late when it comes to Mattelektra content. 

We’ll eventually get around to posting a masterlist of everything that was created for this event so you can all find your favorite posts again, but in the meantime, you can search through the #12daysofmattelektra tag on Tumblr or through the tag on my blog and you should be covered. 

Thank you again and have a very happy New Year!

A w o r d o f e n c o u r a g e m e n t

It is a punch to the gut that dissolves into this “sick-all-over feeling”, not unlike the emotions we’d feel if we found out someone close to us has died. Our first response is anger, followed closely by a feeling of devastation, of helplessness, like a major part of us has just taken a very critical hit, and that’s because it has.

Yet in the VERY MIDST of it we feel guilty for this reaction! We remind ourselves, as often as that sadness hits, “It’s  just a story, get over it.” That becomes our mantra, muttered in the shower over hot running water, uttered as a eulogy while we gloss over the many WIPs and headcanons and story ideas, stories yet to be written, that feel like a waste of time, now.

We’ve convinced ourselves that because it’s fantasy, we do not have the right to grieve.

And sure, eventually, maybe we do get over it. Maybe we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, getting the briefest of hiatuses in return before delving into a new fandom to obsess over. As if that’s possible. As if that other series won’t be lingering in our minds, and the bitterness that comes with feeling like we’ve lost something we can never get back.

So while you are sorting through all of your feelings, and trying desperately to ignore or get over the heartbreak that a cancelled series has caused, I’d like to offer you these words of encouragement. Gentle reminders, that all is not lost, and it never will be.

First and foremost, you have the absolute right to grieve. These are characters that you have adopted into your heart,. You have made friends with them. They have been there for you when perhaps family or a loved one could not be. Those sleepless nights when all you wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die, you were able to turn to that imaginative realm and find solace and common ground where there otherwise may have been none. We grieve because there was something to celebrate here, this was an investment. Of our time, our resources, our money. This was not some fluke. This was real because *you* made it real.

Secondly, the only reason that that series ever existed was because of you. Let me explain. Perhaps it was thought up and created by someone else, and of course we will forever be grateful for that, but the reason that it persisted and had the staying power that it did was because you cared. You took what canon had to offer and flourished it, with art or fic or cosplay or crafts or simply by reading and appreciating fellow fans’ art and fic.

Thirdly, IT DOESN’T HAVE TO END. Look at the die-hard Star-Trek fans of the 70s—still going strong! While every fandom has its highs and lows, there’s still TONS to talk about! Art to draw! Fics to be written! Bracelets and necklaces and pillowcases to be crafted! Stories yet to tell! So get out there AND DO IT!

Lastly—and most importantly— I hope I speak for *everyone*—regardless of fandom, ongoing or not—when I say we have cultivated a lifetime of friendships. The people I’ve met—through fanworks, comic cons, request-taking, commissions, and social media—have made every effort worth it. That alone is something I wouldn’t trade for the world! You are my FAMILY.

So allow yourself to have mixed feelings. Allow yourself to grieve and time to reflect on what this particular series means and has meant to you. It’s not “stupid” to feel loss over something that has been such an integral part of your life. It’s not “fake” just because it’s fantasy.

For the record, my friendship with each and every one if you feels very, very real. I feel blessed to know you. If you need to talk, or just vent, message me. We’re in this together.

I love you all!

In which our bittersweet tale concludes. 

Much gratitude to @fadedtoblue and @significantowl for organizing the 12 Days of MattElektra event, and for reblogging my installments even though they are sad and probably not what anyone had in mind for a happy holiday challenge! Thank you for sharing my work with new readers–I really appreciate it and hope I did some justice to a relationship that I’ve always struggled to understand. xoxo

Read in full on AO3. A taste:

The bed is empty when he wakes up, and he knows immediately that she’s gone.

He’s not entirely surprised. He had laid out a plan that he thought would work—they’d stay in New York and become vigilantes, continuing their studies by day and fighting crime at night. Think of the good we could do here, with skills like ours, he’d said. Think about what it would mean for all these people in need, knowing that they had people as strong as us on their side. You want to be a hero? That’s how you do it.

And she’d listened with an honest heartbeat, asked genuine questions, seemed to get excited about it and offered a few refinements of her own, but even as they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms, he knew it was as much a fantasy as their marriage. She was never going to abandon her mission—Stick would never allow her.

So why is he so disappointed to discover he was right?

He rises and pads into the shower. He stands beneath the hot water until his skin is nearly bleached of all feeling and his fight-sore muscles began to relax. He can’t bear the smell of her on him anymore.

He dresses and goes downstairs, righting overturned furniture and straightening picture frames as he goes, and he gingerly makes his way over to the safe. It’s not locked; the door swings open easily beneath his touch. He removes the passport and finds tucked inside it a note on thick, deckle-edged paper carefully hand-punched in Braille. Just nine words, but it he knows it must have taken her a long time to get right, because the scent of burned paper in the fire tells him what she did with her earlier attempts.

dont worry about the mess i love you e

So this is where my 12 Days of MattElektra start to get dark, my lovelies, as Matt and Elektra confront their competing goals. I’m so sorry. Content warning: This chapter is definitely not safe for work. Or church. or family dinners. Read in full on AO3. A taste:

“Stick needs our help,” she says. “He’s in Argentina. A Hand general named Bakuto has been trying to cook up a coup there ever since the peso crashed and Stick’s trying to stop it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Matt asks, even though he can hear how steadily her heart is beating, how true her words are.

“Like I said, Matthew. It sounds mad, but it’s not,” Elektra says, sipping her tea.

“I can’t just pick up and go to Argentina. Spring semester starts in nine days. I don’t even have a passport.” God, he’s talking like she’s just asked him to go backpacking in South America for a lark, not fight some clandestine war.

“If everything goes right, you’ll be back by then.” She pushes an envelope he hadn’t noticed sitting on the table before toward him. He opens it and takes out a small, smooth booklet, its cover embossed with three words and a seal. He runs his fingertips across the letters: PASSPORT / UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. “It’s not your real name, of course, but it’s clean. I used your student ID photo.”

Matt tosses the passport back to her. She lets it fall on the table. “This is illegal.”

“Sometimes the law isn’t equal to the demands of justice, Matthew. Sometimes you have to find another way.”

Matt rubs his face and leans back against the table with a heavy sigh. “The point of having a system is that it’s an agreement about what kind of society we want to have. That doesn’t mean the system is perfect–God knows it isn’t–but we can’t just decide to go out and decide to singlehandedly remake the world into what we think it should be without the consent of the people who live in it, Elektra. Benevolent dictators are still dictators.”

“You don’t actually believe that, Matthew.”

“I’d be a shitty lawyer if I didn’t.”

Elektra purses her lips and nods. She carefully lifts the passport by the edges and carries it over to her father’s safe, mounted in the wall beneath the footwell of his desk. It’s only after she’s locked it inside that he realizes that she’d held it that way to avoid leaving fingerprints on it.

“What are you doing, Elektra?” Matt asks, standing quickly as anxiety balloons in his chest. “Give that back to me.” If she’s going to use it as leverage, he’s got to burn it.

“We’re like no one else on Earth, Matthew,” Elektra says, facing him across the room. “Our lives should be extraordinary. You want to change the world? This is how you do it.”

12 days of mattelektra  |  day 11  |  heartbeats, pt. 1

To call for hands of above To lean on Wouldn’t be good enough For me, no

12 days of mattelektra  |  day 11  |  heartbeats, pt. 2

For today’s 12 Days of MattElektra prompt, something of an “It’s a Wonderful Life”-type chapter where Matt considers the road not taken. (Also, Anna Nelson is everyone’s dream mom. Carry on.) Read in full on AO3. A taste:

Matt surprises even himself when he changes his mind and says yes. He says yes to dinner and he says yes to dessert and he even says yes to a game of Trivial Pursuit with Candace and Theo. Even quiet little Liam volunteers to join in, shyly appointing himself as Matt’s helper so Foggy can actually play for himself for a change.

Matt realizes with a pang that Liam’s right, that never once in the dozens of times that he’s visited the Nelsons has Foggy ever had a chance to just be with his family, that his concern has only ever been managing Matt’s experience, while all he’s ever offered in return is lie after lie after lie.

The second pang comes about half a minute later when Matt realizes how different Liam is tonight. He’s still very much the reserved, serious boy he’s always been, but he’s less guarded now, less withdrawn. Even his heartbeat seems more relaxed, less prone to anxious skitters into one corner or another when he fears he’s said too much. It turns out this sullen little cipher is actually a sweet goofball with a wicked sense of humor. His mask is off, Matt realizes. He may not be ready to throw it away for good, but at least he doesn’t need it here anymore. It shows.

Meanwhile, Foggy’s having the time of his life. The Nelson siblings have always been tight, but budding adulthood has made them even more so, and Foggy loves that his best friend seems to get along so well with them.

God, he can’t be here anymore, can’t keep smiling and lying to this beautiful perfect family like this. He lets Foggy win as quickly as he can, and then immediately makes his excuses and leaves. He even declines Foggy’s offer to hail him a cab or walk him to the train.

Because by the time Foggy closes the door behind him, he knows he’s not going back uptown. He turns up his collar against the cold and heads east toward 7th Avenue, toward the one person in the world he doesn’t need to wear a mask for.

12 days of mattelektra  |  day 10  |  we’re together

@ijustreallylovedaredevil

Continuing the 12 Days of MattElektra prompt challenge, our hero continues to brood over the sudden turn in their relationship and seeks out some comfort from a couple of familiar faces. (Also: Matt’s take on Christianity may not be your take on Christianity, and that’s OK!) Read in full on AO3. 

A taste:

After another restless day of thinking and trying not to think and walking and walking and walking, he finds himself at 5 o’clock services at St. Michael’s and doubting for the first time in his life if he should take Communion. His last confession had been right before Christmas, and aside from the premarital sex—which Father Lantom was always willing to give a pass on—there technically wasn’t anything on his ledger he hadn’t accounted for. And yet it seemed that communion with Christ seemed fundamentally incompatible with the fact that he might seriously be considering following his girlfriend to join a mystical army to fight evil.

Well, it was no weirder than the Book of Revelations, he reasoned. And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven.

He knew better than to indulge in the kind of Hallmark-card theology that asserted they could be the same dragon—the people of K’un Lun, if they even existed, no more believed in St. Michael than he believed in the Iron Fist. But even if they were the same dragon—even if this was a story so ancient that its differences were merely errors in translation accreted over centuries of telling—it still wasn’t real. Matt knew better than to take the Bible literally, too.

For 13 years he’d been asking God why He’d made him the way he was, why He’d taken his sight and replaced it with powers he couldn’t understand and didn’t dare use in public. Was Elektra’s insane proposition His answer? Was it really any less impossible than anything else that had happened in his life?

“You look like a young man with a busy mind tonight, Matthew,” Father Lantom says suddenly, startling Matt out of his reverie. Communion’s a moot question now because Mass is over and the sanctuary empty. “Want to talk about it?”