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pandalandalopalis · 2 days ago

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Devil May Cry Wolf - Matt Murdock x Mutant Reader [Chapter Seventeen]

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Story Synopsis: The first time you jumped, it was 2014 and you were nine years old. You were in the back of your parents’ car — then you were in New York, standing on the street … and it was 1992.

The second time you jumped, it was 1998 and you were fifteen years old. You were heading back home to Saint Agnes after school had ended — and then you were knee-deep in snow, in Russia, in 1970. Outside a Red Room facility.

The third time you jumped, you were twenty-five and had spent ten years training as a Red Room agent. Ten years training your body to use your mutation. Jumping in space was easy — jumping in time was not. But you did it. After ten years, you did it. Now you have to live with the trauma.

Five years later, killing is still the only thing you know how to do, and the only thing you do best. In 2016, a vigilante named Daredevil stops you from killing a man who attacked you. He tells you that you can do better. You think maybe he’s right. But in 2017, Matt Murdock is in the darkest place in his life. When you show up to save him, he’s not exactly grateful. And when he finds out that you’re the best friend he grew up with in Saint Agnes that disappeared almost 20 years ago — things get even more complicated.

You’ll have to drag Matt out of the dark while being jaw-deep in it yourself. And you’ll have to try your best to do better — when Matt is trying his best to do worse.

Chapter Synopsis: You help Matt through his panic attack. You get answers about who sent Russo to kill you.

Part 2 - Chapter Seventeen: In the Crook of Your Shoulder, the Horror Cannot Reach Me A/N: WE ARE SO BACK BABY Turns out I have no idea how to write normal-length chapters anymore. This chapter is over 9k words. Enjoy :) And Happy Valentine's Day!!!

When the sun finally came up that morning, you decided that sleep was for the best. Matt was injured and needed the rest and God knows you had a traumatic time of it last night.

So you took Matt back to his apartment and put him to sleep in his bed. Then you laid on Matt’s couch, pulled his blanket to your chin, inhaled his smell, and slept better than you had in weeks.

It was the afternoon when you got back to Avengers Tower. You prepared yourself to speak to Steve, but were surprised to see Natasha on the couch in the living room instead. She stood when she saw you enter.

“Hey,” she greeted. There was worry clear on her face. “Steve mentioned something about your friend being hurt? Is he—?”

“He’s okay,” you said. You weighed how much to say. It always felt strange getting close to Natasha — you figured if anyone could see through your lies, it would be her. Her who knew the Red Room just as you did. Her who was taught how to lie just as you were. And yet, with the memory of last night still clear in your mind, you could not stop the words from leaving your mouth, “It was pretty bad, though. He had a collapsed lung. He. . .” The memory of it stole your breath for a moment — Foggy calling you; believing Matt could die with those horrible words being the last thing you said to him; showing up in Matt’s apartment with him gasping for air and Foggy telling you to do something— “. . .He wasn’t breathing.”

You closed your eyes, your breath coming out in shallow gasps, just trying to remember that Matt’s alive Matt’s okay Matt’s alive Matt’s okay

Those horrible words were not the last thing you said to him.

And then something unexpected happened.

Natasha hugged you.

You opened your eyes as you felt her arms around you. Trying to comfort you. Knowing what you knew about both your pasts . . . it felt odd.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.

Briefly, memories of the other girls in the Red Room flashed behind your eyes. And killing. Enemies. Each other.

If you had gone to the Red Room in your present (your present with Matt, that is, in 1998, not the present you grew up in, in 2014 — fucking time travel for the love of fucking God—), instead of 1970, if you had been in the Red Room with Natasha . . . Would you have been friends? Rivals? Would you have killed her in the tundra like you killed Nina? Would she have killed you? Or would you have told her about Matt . . . Would she have comforted you like this after the worst of it . . . after the red room. . .

You felt a connection to her like you hadn’t let yourself feel before. And so you let her hug you, let her rub your back, even wrapped your arms around her, and for a moment . . . you even pretended like she knew everything.

Widow to widow.

But the moment ended when Steve entered the room. The steel trap separating your two lives slammed back down. Maybe Natasha would understand it all but Steve certainly wouldn’t. There was too much bad there. Too much that you had done — you didn’t want him to see you that way. You wanted to start over. You wanted to be seen as someone good. Someone who could be loved by someone good. Steve was good. Steve was safe.

This was what you wanted. So you put the mask back on.

“Y/N,” Steve said with a concerned look on his face as he approached you, and Natasha pulled away from your hug. “How’s Matt, is he okay?”

You nodded, but the memory of it was choking your words again. You took a moment to compose yourself, rubbing your hands over your face as the scene replayed over your eyes.

It was Natasha who took over, “She said he had a collapsed lung, but he’s going to be okay.”

You felt her squeeze your arm, and you opened your eyes again to see Natasha’s sympathetic smile.

Natasha’s phone suddenly buzzed, and she checked it. “Fury wants me; I gotta go.” She looked up at you again. “Hey, you ever need to talk, I’m here, okay?”

You nodded again, feeling oddly warm by her sentiment, and watched her get into the elevator.

Steve gently ushered you to sit down. “What happened?” Something shifted on his face. “Matt didn’t try to. . . Did he?” You understood his question: Did Matt try to kill himself? And again you felt the flash of guilt for having blurted out to the Avengers that Matt was suicidal.

“No, no,” you reassured Steve. “To be honest, Matt’s too Catholic to actually try anything.” Again. “No, it. . .” You built up a lie on the spot. “It was a car accident. Matt was in a taxi . . . Some guy ran a red light. Both drivers were okay but Matt was . . . in pretty bad shape.” You could feel the emotion beginning to overwhelm you again. “I didn’t know if he was gonna be okay.”

Steve hugged you then, and you let him.

After a few moments, you pulled back and said, “I’m sorry I left in the middle of our date.”

Steve shook his head. “You had a good reason. But I’d . . . like to take you out again. If you want.”

You smiled and nodded. “I’d like that.”

You woke in Matt’s apartment.

It had been a couple weeks since that night, the awful night with the awful phone call from Foggy. A couple weeks since you and Matt finally reconciled.

You’d made a habit of sleeping on his couch whenever you got nightmares. The first week, it was every night. You couldn’t escape the sound of Foggy’s voice (“Matt’s not breathing”), the sound of Matt’s short gasps, the image of him lying on the floor trying to take what could have been his last breaths.

The first night after, when the nightmare of him dying had been so real you couldn’t stand it, you’d found yourself in his apartment, your teleportation taking you where you needed to go. You’d laid on his couch and watched the bright billboard outside change colours. Red, yellow, blue. Red again. You’d held Matt’s blanket tightly in your hands, brought it to your nose and inhaled his scent, and reminded yourself that things were okay.

Matt is alive. Matt is alive. Matt is alive.

After however long of staring at the changing colours, Matt came out from his room.

“Y/N?”

Your head turned to him when he said your name, and you sat up on your elbows. “Did I wake you?” You didn’t mean to. You didn’t come here for him to comfort you — you wanted him to get some rest. To heal.

“No,” Matt said softly, padding over to you with some cringing in his face as he did so. He kneeled next to the couch. “Are you okay?”

Rather than answering, you looked outside to the changing lights again. “Do you know that there’s a huge, bright billboard outside your place?”

“I do, that’s why rent is so cheap,” he answered.

“When you bring women back here, how do they sleep with the brightest light in the entire world shining into their eyes?”

“Well, they typically don’t sleep on the couch.” There was a suggestive lit to his tone.

“Touché.”

“Y/N,” Matt breathed, and you finally looked at him again.

You sighed. There was no running from your pain anymore. No avoiding how you were feeling and leaning on drugs and alcohol instead. You had to face it, head on. As hard as that was. You sat up into a sitting position. “I had a nightmare. About what happened,” you admitted.

Gently, Matt took one of your hands and pressed it against his bare chest, over his heart, his hand covering yours. You could feel his heart beating under your palm.

“I’m okay,” he had reminded you.

After a week of sleeping on Matt’s couch every night, it became every other night, then only every few nights. Matt didn’t say anything about it. He’d make the two of you breakfast if you were still around by morning, and a few times the two of you stayed up in the night talking about nothing.

You spent more downtime with Steve over the past couple weeks, and even went on another date with him. It was nice. It made things feel normal. He’d even kissed you at the end of the date. It was . . . nice. Just nice. But maybe that’s what you needed right now.

“When are you going to let me go back out as Daredevil?” Matt’s voice cut through your thoughts. You hadn’t noticed him in the kitchen as you were waking up from sleeping on his couch once again.

After his injuries, you’d made him sit out vigilantism for the next couple weeks while he healed, not unlike the time-out he gave you after you’d been tortured in that parking lot.

Truthfully, if it had been anyone else who’d asked him to take time off from Daredevil, if it had been Karen or Foggy, Matt probably wouldn’t have listened. He was a big boy, and a little injury wasn’t going to stop him from going out and helping people. But he agreed, because it was Y/N who asked. Because he’d once asked her to do the same thing to keep his own sanity, and now he was returning the favour. Because he knew she was still working through being sober and staying sober and he didn’t want to make things more difficult for her.

And it helped that she was still going out and helping people even if he couldn’t.

But it had been long enough now. He’d given her much longer than he took off the last time he had a collapsed lung. He couldn’t sit around and heal forever.

You sat up and rubbed stars into your eyes, trying to clear the awful memory that was brought up once again. “When I stop seeing you almost die every time I close my eyes.”

You heard Matt approach you, then hands closed around your wrists to bring your hands from your eyes. The stars faded after a moment, and you could look at Matt kneeling in front of you.

“Look, I get it,” he said softly. “Do you know what it was like to find you in that parking lot, when all I could smell was your blood, when all I could hear was you trying to breathe through a broken rib?”

You didn’t like to think about how he must have felt, because it made you feel guilty about keeping up appearances. At the time, you didn’t want him to feel worried, because you didn’t think there was anything to worry about. You’d had much worse injuries, you’d gone through much worse things. But after what happened that night . . . you suddenly understood.

“I know you’re scared,” Matt continued. “But this is what we do, right? We get injured like this all the time. Can’t let it stop us.”

You knew he was right. It was just your sobriety that was making it difficult. Your unfiltered eidetic memory that made you relive that night again and again. You sighed. Matt let go of your wrists as you leaned back. “I know.”

“So you’re going to let me come out tonight?”

You slowly loosed another breath. “I got a lead last night. Could use the back-up.” You paused like you were thinking about it. “Wonder if Castle’s available. . .”

“Y/N.”

“Fine,” you gave in. “Daredevil can come.”

Matt gave you a small smile. But before he could stand, you made yourself admit,

“It’s not just that you were injured, you know. Or that you could have died. I know you’ve dealt with worse — I have, too. Close calls are part of the job. I know I can’t make you stop being Daredevil every time it happens. ‘Cause it’s gonna happen.” You paused, trying not to let emotion creep into your voice. You knew you would fail as soon as you opened your mouth again, “It’s that you could have died when the last thing I said to you. . .”

You couldn’t even continue, the sadness and guilt of it cutting off your voice.

“I know,” Matt said gently.

You sniffed and wiped away a stray tear, opting to change the subject. The two of you had spoken enough about it already. “There’s a cargo shipment going down at the docks again tonight.”

“You’re thinking it’s—?”

“Yeah.” Kids. It was the first tip you’d gotten on the child traffickers in the past few weeks. Whoever their boss was, they must’ve been making an effort to be more careful now that you and Matt were looking into it.

“Okay,” Matt said with a definitive nod. “Then we’ll go take care of it.”

You were outnumbered.

You didn’t expect the ambush that awaited you at the docks. It wasn’t a trap exactly — you didn’t think they knew you were coming, but it was a heavily fortified operation. Designed to protect against any vigilantes coming along.

You used one of Daredevil’s batons to knock out a goon who had Matt pinned in a slog of punches, and helped support him to his feet.

“Still think you missed doing this?” you quipped to him.

He gave you a bloody grin. “Definitely.”

“We need to switch tactics,” you said as you fought a guy off.

Matt kneed another in the face. “What do you suggest?”

“The shipping container with the kids, can you hear them?”

You protected Matt as he took a moment to tilt his head, listening. Then his head turned. “Left.”

You grabbed Matt and teleported in that direction, tugging him along as you began to run. After a moment, Matt began leading the way — You had to pause and fight off some goons as they kept popping up — But eventually Matt stopped at a padlocked container.

“This one.”

You held onto him and teleported the both of you inside. It was pitch black, but the scuffling and crying around you told you you were in the right place.

“How many?” you asked Matt.

“Must be about fifty or so.”

Fuck.

The crying was starting to get to you, too. Memories of trafficking children for the Red Room began flashing behind your eyes—

You took a breath. Another. You were here to save them, not take them away. You weren’t the villain here.

And you never would be again.

Voices outside. You had to hurry.

“I’m going to start teleporting them out,” you said to Matt. “If they open that door, you need to buy me some time, alright?”

“Do it. Go.”

You unfortunately didn’t have time to comfort or prepare any of the children for what was about to happen. You felt your way in the dark, picking up the first child you came into contact with, then teleported to the nearest police station.

You didn’t have time to pay attention to the surprise on the cops’ faces before you were gone again, back in the shipping container, feeling for the next child, picking them up and teleporting them out. And again. And again. By the sixth or seventh child, there was a crack of light in the container as the men had unlocked the doors but Matt struggled to keep them closed. You teleported in and out as fast as you could manage — but by the time half of the kids were saved, the doors were wide open and Matt was fighting to keep the goons out of the container.

But this was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen they were fighting against. He wouldn’t go down so easily.

The last child was finally out and at the police station and you teleported back to the container to help Matt — The effort of teleporting so many others at once had your ears ringing but you needed one last jump — You reached for Matt to teleport the both of you out in retreat—

And nothing.

The pause allowed a goon to kick you in the stomach — you slammed back into the metal wall of the shipping container, then onto the ground, where the teleportation exhaustion overtook you and black encased your vision.

Matt’s whole body hurt.

He slowly swam back to consciousness after the beating he took. They were outnumbered a ridiculous amount, and after Y/N got knocked out, he soon followed.

At least all of the kids were safe.

Y/N’s scent filled his nose. His head was next to hers — was he lying on top of her?

Matt pushed himself up to get off — and banged his head on something above him. Panic struck him suddenly as his senses got a sharp wake-up call — The sounds he was making were confined around him — He put out his hands to the sides to find walls— Walls— Box— They were trapped in a box.

Matt’s breathing quickened, memories of the Midland Circle building collapsing on him filling his mind—

He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t be here, he couldn’t be in such a tiny confined space again— He had to get out, he had to get out—

He couldn’t breathe—

You woke with a heavy weight on top of you, the sounds of heavy, quick breathing filling your ears. When you opened your eyes, you found yourself in a small, enclosed rectangle, barely big enough for two people — and Matt was above you, panicking, pressing on the walls at your sides and above your head.

“Matt.”

“Get us out of here!”

“I can’t; I’m all out of juice.” You just needed to wait. Wait until your powers returned to you. You’d done this before. Lying in a small box and digging yourself out of a grave was one of the many fun exercises the Red Room made you practice. Any sense of claustrophobia was drilled out of you — But not him. “Matt, you have to calm down.”

“I can’t—” His breathing was too quick. “I can’t — breathe—”

You took off your helmet-mask, then took off Matt’s. You held his face in your hands, as if you could will away his panic-stricken expression. “Yes you can. Yes you can. Just — listen to my voice, okay? Focus on my voice. Focus on my breathing. Try to breathe with me.” You made a show of breathing through your nose and out your mouth a few times. “Remember the breathing you taught me? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. C’mon, one, two. . .”

He tried to follow her counting, he tried — but the panic overtook him, was overwhelming him— He banged violently against the wall of the box as if he could break through it but it wasn’t working—

You wished you could just tell him to close his eyes and pretend like he wasn’t here but that could never work for him. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t see where they were, he knew it — all of his senses were telling him he was trapped and you knew he couldn’t just turn them off.

“Matt,” you breathed. “Focus on me. Just focus on me.” You pulled his head forward, urging him to press his face into the crook of your shoulder. You felt his stubble at your neck as you threaded your fingers into his hair; you pulled his arm from where his hand pressed against the wall and instead put it by your side; you gripped his shoulder and squeezed his body where he was lying between your thighs — you tried to engage all his senses, to distract him from this nightmare he had no way to escape.

And although he was a heavy weight on top of you, you didn’t mind. You had plenty of experience learning how to breathe this way — and it was Matt. The pressure was more comforting than it was suffocating.

“I’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”

Pressing his face to Y/N’s neck, Matt tried to do what she said. He focused on her voice. On her breathing. He listened to her heart beat. He inhaled her scent — sweat and blood and something so distinctly her underneath all of that. He felt her fingers tangle into his hair, the slight scrap of her fingernails over his scalp, the grip of it; he felt the pressure of her hand on his shoulder and her thighs squeezing against his sides. He breathed hot breaths against her neck and felt her body shiver. She spoke, telling a story, something about a thing that happened when they were kids — he couldn’t pay attention to the details, only to the cadence of her voice and the vibrations coming from her throat.

(He always did like the sound of her voice. He used to think it was his favourite sound.)

(Maybe it still was.)

And Matt narrowed all his senses to her, just her. The sound of her voice, breath, heartbeat. The feel of her body wrapped around his. The scent of her at the crook of her neck. Even the taste of her skin — his mouth close enough that his heightened senses could pick it up. Salty. Metallic. Sweet.

You were glad when Matt’s breath began to slow. Although the tension did not leave his body, at least he wasn’t having a full-blown panic attack anymore. You continued to talk, just saying whatever, first telling him a shared story about your time together at Saint Agnes, then moving on to some embellished tales of historical figures and events you meddled with. And every minute you kept checking back to your power.

You weren’t sure how long it took, but finally something in you was recharged. You made sure to grab hold of both helmets, then you teleported the both of you out.

Familiar.

This scent is familiar.

The air around Matt was suddenly less heavy; the material below him, below Y/N, was no longer hard metal but now squishy leather.

“Matt,” Y/N breathed, her voice still at a whisper. “We’re home; we’re in your apartment.”

He lifted the top half of his body, angling his head. He gave an experimental push upwards, and found nothing restricting him. When he pushed to the left, he found more squishy leather. The couch. He squeezed it with his hand. She was right. They were back in his apartment.

Matt felt Y/N’s hands cup his face. “Are you okay?” she asked softly.

And the relief Matt felt suddenly was overwhelming — all the adrenaline from the panic had exhausted his strength, and his body felt so very heavy and tired.

He exhaled and let his body press onto Y/N’s again, tucking his face back in her neck. He just needed a moment. He just needed a moment to breathe.

You let Matt rest his heavy weight on top of you again, his body relaxing of tension. This time, he wrapped his arms under you, holding you as he breathed into your neck.

You felt goosebumps raise on your skin. When did you become this . . . sensitive to touch? It hadn’t always felt this way, had it? Like your mind was zeroed in on every movement of him against you.

You had spent years mentally numbing yourself to touch. And then years physically numbing yourself with any substance you could get your hands on. Did touch ever feel this . . . good? You’d had plenty of sex over the years, even sex that you wanted and enjoyed, but when was the last time that you were touched like this? Physical intimacy without sex. You’d been physical with Matt and never given it a second thought before. Touching his face, touching his chest, even sitting in his lap — nothing.

But now.

There was nothing numbing you now.

It felt. . .

It felt.

Ringing.

Y/N’s phone.

Matt lifted his body from Y/N’s embrace and leaned back on the couch to allow her to answer her phone. Only sitting back did he realize . . . how physically intimate that was.

Probably best not to think about that too hard.

“Castle?” Y/N spoke into the phone. That must have been the name on the Caller ID.

“I’ve got Russo,” came Frank’s voice from the other end.

“Where?”

He said an address. “You should get here if you want your answers.”

Matt could tell Y/N’s attention was on him. He heard her mouth, Round Two?

He nodded.

“We’ll be there.” Then Y/N hung up the phone. “. . .Are you sure you’re okay to go?”

“Yeah,” Matt breathed. “. . .Thank you.”

She nodded with a small smile on her face. Then she leaned down and grabbed his helmet from the floor. Handed it to him.

He took it and put it on. “Let’s go get some answers.”

Russo was bloody and tied to a chair by the time you and Matt arrived. It was on the rooftop of an empty building. Secluded. No one around to hear him scream.

You didn’t hesitate to approach and grab the back of Russo’s hair, pulling his face up to look at you. “You look like shit.”

He stared daggers at you, unfazed by your grip. “Ditto.”

“Who hired you to kill me?”

The daggers remained. “Go fuck yourself.”

You met his hard stare, then you reached for one of your knives and plunged it into his leg.

Russo cried in pain and doubled over — You pulled out your knife and gripped the back of his head once again. “Do you know how many languages I speak?” you asked, your tone on the edge of a snarl, dragging the tip of your knife over his chest. The material of his shirt was the only thing separating steel from skin. “Because English doesn’t have to be the only language carved into your chest. And I’ve just been looking for an excuse to hear those screams again. Oh, I’m beggin’ you, Russo. I’m beggin’ you to stay silent.”

The anger you felt here was different from before. It had always been strong, but there was no numbness now. Now the anger felt like a righteous burning pyre and it felt good, it felt good to burn and burn and burn everything with you — You’d understood why Matt did this, but now you really understood why he fed his anger and let it fuel him. There was an energy about it, and intensity, a purity. If I must consume, then I will consume everything in my path. And those in my path will be the ones that deserve it.

There was a flicker of fear in Russo’s eyes, and you knew what he was seeing. Not you who had made the promise not to kill. You the soldier, you the monster covered in blood, you who killed and liked it, you who put the laughter in slaughter and did so with sharp teeth.

“I don’t know who hired me,” Russo answered slowly. But before you could threaten him again, he added, “He wore a mask and used a voice-changer. He wasn’t stupid.”

That description itched something in the back of your mind. Something like dread gnawed on the back of your neck. “What. Kind of mask.”

“Some kind of animal.”

The dread bit down hard but you refused to flinch, not until you knew for sure. “What. Animal.”

Russo paused like he was thinking about it. Then he finally said, “Fox.”

The floor dropped out beneath you.

Your knife clattered to the ground as you stumbled back, the little word having pulled all the air out of your lungs.

Fox.

The Fox sent Russo to kill you. For going after the trafficking ring? No. This was much more personal than that.

The Fox had your knife.

The knife you lost months before you and Matt discovered the ring.

The Fox has been following you.

You didn’t realize you were doubled over, heaving sharp breaths into your lungs, until you felt Matt’s hands on your shoulders and heard Russo’s loud bark of laughter.

You turned your head to look at him, his form blurred with tears.

“I’ve never seen you scared before,” Russo sneered.

Then Castle kicked Russo square in the chest, knocking the chair over and leaving Russo to laugh on the ground.

You felt Castle usher you and Matt inside to the stairwell. Your vision swam with tears and panic and you couldn’t get enough air down—

“Hey, hey.” You felt Matt’s hands cupping your face. He had taken off his helmet in the hall, his expression pleading with you. “Breathe.”

You responded with a hiccupping sob, the fear overwhelming you too much—

There’s a fox following you

Matt slid his hand to cup the back of your neck and brought your face into the crook of his shoulder, keeping you there. You wrapped your arms around him and found purchase in the grooves of his suit, holding so tightly it hurt your hands but fearing you’d be swept away if you let go. You inhaled the leather of his suit covering his shoulder, but when you turned your head, you could nose the bareness of his neck under his ear. Press your cheek against his. His stubble was prickly but not uncomfortable, and his mouth was right next to your ear to reassure you, “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

You let the touch anchor you as your sobs subsided and your breath became yours again.

You finally felt secure enough to pull back, and Matt’s hand slid down to hold your wrist, a silent reminder of his presence and support. You looked over at Castle, who seemed to be uncomfortably looking away, but looked back when you calmed.

“I’m getting you know the guy he’s talking about?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” you admitted. “But this . . . Fox Mask guy is the same guy heading the child trafficking ring.”

Something like anger and absolution flickered over Castle’s face. This was no longer just about you, and you knew he wanted the trafficking ring taken down as much as you did. “You think that’s why he wants you dead?”

“I don’t think so,” you said, slowly, still trying to process all of this. “Something about this is personal. If he sent Russo after me, it’s ‘cause he knows our relationship.”

“Guys like this make it personal when you fuck with their business,” Castle reasoned.

You shook your head. “This is different. He gave Russo my knife to kill me. My knife. The one that I lost months before we found out about the ring. This isn’t about us fucking with him, this . . . this is something else.”

“You think it could be one of the guys in our unit?”

“I don’t know. It’s one thing to want me dead — lots of people do, I’m sure you had your fair share of wanting to kill me as well.” Castle’s expression twitched and you continued, “It’s another thing to run a fucking child trafficking ring. I’m not sure any of the guys in Cerberus Squad are capable of that.”

“I didn’t think Russo was capable of killing my family but he still did it,” Castle argued. You had to give him that. “I’ll look into the guys. See what I can pull up.”

You nodded. “Thank you.” You looked to the door, planning on heading back outside to interrogate the fuck out of Russo and see what else you could find out about the Fox Mask — when Castle interrupted,

“What are you not telling me?”

You looked back at him.

“Russo was right,” Castle said. “I’ve never seen you that scared before. Shit, Wolf, I didn’t even know you could feel fear.”

You gave him a look like Hardy har.

“What’s going on?”

You weighed telling him the truth. While you decided, you began with, “Well, I’m sober. I’m sober now when I haven’t been sober in a long time. And it’s harder to be brave without a swig of whiskey and a side of Percocet.”

Castle took this in, nodding. “Good for you.”

“Thank you.” You studied his face. And you decided, if Castle was going to help you take down this guy, then you needed to let him in on what was going on. Which also meant telling him the truth about you. You took a breath. “Look, I know you think I’m a pathological liar — which, actually, probably a little bit. But for the most part, the majority of the things I said while we were serving together . . . were true.”

Castle chuckled a bit. “Even the part about you being KGB?”

“. . .Yeah, especially that part.”

His amused expression dropped. “What the fuck, Wolf? What do you mean? You were working for the Russians?”

“I got out before I joined the military, don’t worry, okay, relax,” you said evenly. “And if you want to ask me more about that time in my life, then maybe we can talk about it later, but for now— The point is, the reason I was telling the truth about all that crazy shit is because I’m a mutant. One with a particular set of skills. I can teleport . . . and I can time travel.”

You watched the gears turning in his mind as the words left your mouth. Watched the realization hit him.

You speak before he can, “Don’t ask me. I can’t.”

“Wolf—”

“You don’t know what will change if I go back and save your family,” you told him slowly. “You wouldn’t have become the Punisher. All those people you saved? Wouldn’t be saved.”

There was something wild in Castle’s expression. Desperate. “I’d trade all of that to get them back. Hell, Red said he could do a better job saving all those people without killing, right?” He glanced at Matt, then back to you. “Let him save them. If you can give me my family back, I want them back.”

You took a step closer to him, meeting his eyes, needing him to understand. “One of the people you saved was Matt, Frank,” you said slowly, clearly. Matt had told you about Frank saving him on that rooftop with Elektra. “He is someone that I care about. He is my family. And I won’t trade his life to save yours, I’m sorry.”

Suddenly Frank’s hands are on Y/N, shoving her into the wall. Matt didn’t hesitate — he wrapped his arms around Frank’s neck from behind, putting him in a chokehold and pulling him from Y/N.

“Let go of me, Red!” Frank shouted, anguish clear in the gravel of his voice.

Matt knew Frank would never stop. If it was about his family, if it was a chance to get them back, only a grave six feet under would stop him. Maybe not even then. But he also knew Y/N. Knew how stubborn she was. Knew the lengths she had gone to keep him alive, whether or not Matt deserved it.

An unstoppable force and an immovable object. This wouldn’t end without blood.

But as luck would have it, Matt also knew exactly what button to press. “Think of all the times you saved Karen,” he gritted out as Frank fought against his hold. “She’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

Frank spit out a growl, not giving up. “She was in a lot of those situations because of me. She’d be just fine if she had never met me.”

“Are you willing to bet her life on that?”

You didn’t know that Karen had some kind of relationship with Frank. But clearly it meant something to him — you watched the war within his mind, the fight between the family he’d lost and this person in his life that still lived.

He stopped struggling against Matt’s hold, and Matt let go. Frank took a few steps down the stairs.

He shouted, something painful and broken that dug at your heart. He slammed his fist into the wall, then slid down and held his head in his hands.

You got it. What an impossible choice this was. You wondered what you would do if you were put in a comparable position. What if your parents had died instead of losing them to time? What if saving them meant losing Matt? Family against family. What a terrible choice to make.

After a few moments, Frank finally looked up again. “What does this have to do with the Fox Mask guy?”

“When I was a kid,” you began to explain, “I was walking home when I saw two people in the alley next to Saint Agnes. I don’t know if they were arguing or fighting or what. But one of them wore a fox mask. And the other one?” You reached to your side, where your wolf helmet-mask was clipped to your belt. You unclipped and handed Frank the helmet. “Wore this mask.”

He took the helmet from your hands. Studied it. “A wolf.” He looked up at you again.

“At some point in my future, I am going to travel back in time to that moment with Fox Mask,” you said slowly. “I don’t know why. I don’t know who he is, or what he wants with me. And that—” You cut yourself off, struggling against the open vulnerability of those words. It felt uncomfortable, letting anyone else other than Matt see it. The chinks in your armour. The truth that the fearless, bloody beast was only a front. But you took a breath anyway, fought through the discomfort, and let yourself continue, “That scares me. The not knowing.”

Frank sighed, like he didn’t expect the vulnerability from you, either. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “We can’t let this guy get away with hurting these kids. I’ll help you. But understand. If I find him before you do, I’m not putting him in jail.”

You looked to Matt. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t say anything, either. So you looked back at Frank, and nodded.

You took another moment or two to collect yourself, then headed back outside. Matt put his helmet back on and headed out behind you.

Back on the roof, Castle wrenched Russo’s chair back on its legs. Russo’s eyes held you unflinchingly, his smile smug.

“Look at you, Wolf,” he sneered. “Not so scary anymore. Like a fox took out your teeth.”

Like the flip of a switch, the Matt who had comforted you and whispered gentle words into your ear was gone, and in his place was the Devil and his rage. Daredevil grabbed the back of Russo’s chair and pulled it until it was at the edge of the roof, hauled the chair up so the legs would straddle the edge wall, then tipped Russo back. Only Daredevil’s fists gripping Russo’s clothes kept him from falling into the abyss below.

Like so many times before, Matt let his anger loose. Let the Devil out — let Daredevil take the reins.

This Russo had hurt his friend. His family. Tried to kill her. And what Matt knew was worse, Russo betrayed the closest thing Y/N could give to trust. He knew what that meant to her. Daredevil wasn’t going to let that slide.

“You’re going to tell me everything you know about the man who hired you,” Daredevil said slowly, evenly, with a voice like ice. “If you lie to me, I will know. And I will drop you.”

Russo seemed unphased by his threat. “You’re Daredevil, right? I heard you don’t kill.”

“Lying in a coma, breathing through a tube? Isn’t dead,” Daredevil continued in his icy calm.

He sensed Russo’s expression falter. There was a pause of silence, then, “I don’t know anything.”

Daredevil punched Russo hard in the face.

Blood spurted from his nose and a roar of pain and anger ripped from his mouth. “I wasn’t lying!”

And in that quiet, rageful calm, Daredevil said, “I know.” He punched Russo again. “But you hurt my friend—” This time, anger dripped into his voice, and again he bloodied his fist with Russo’s face. “You betrayed her trust—” Each punch was more satisfying than the last. “You tried to kill her.”

The violence was a different kind of comfort. Watching Daredevil, watching Matt, beat Russo’s face into a pulp, for you, was. . .

There was something you liked about it. There was something you liked about it a lot.

To be defended mercilessly. . . To have blood drawn in your name. . . It should have felt wrong but it didn’t.

Russo’s scarred face was barely recognizable now through the blood and swelling. Daredevil, breathing hard, gripped Russo with two hands once more, bringing his face to his. “You’ll find no forgiveness from the Devil.”

And he let go.

You knew Matt had weighed the odds. The fall wouldn’t kill Russo. But it was satisfying as hell knowing Russo would suffer that much more for everything he’d done, not just to you but to Frank and his family. His kids.

Matt finally stalked back over to you, his body still tense with anger. He took your hand in his, and it didn’t bother you that his hand stained yours with blood. “Let’s go home.”

“I’m guessin’ he’s not dead,” Frank said, sounding disappointed.

Matt’s head tilted. Listening. “No.”

“You expect me to clean that up?”

“He’s no use to us now,” you said. Russo didn’t have any more information about Fox Mask. “You decide what you want to do with him.”

Frank took a deep breath through his nose and looked thoroughly annoyed but didn’t say anything else.

“See you around, Frank,” you said as way of goodbye.

“Yeah. . . I’ll tell Liebermann to keep an eye out for the Fox Mask.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded. “I’ll see you around, Y/N. Red.”

Matt nodded back. “Frank.”

You gave Frank a parting grin. “You wanna see a magic trick?” And you snapped your fingers, and for the first time before Frank Castle’s eyes, you disappeared.

As soon as you were back in Matt’s apartment, you collapsed into his couch and leaned your head back. You stared up into his ceiling. You felt defeated. You felt terrified. You wanted to scream, cry, hit something. But exhaustion weighed down your body. You didn’t know what to do.

You felt hands on your thighs and lifted your head to find Matt kneeling between your legs. You leaned forward into his space.

“I’m tired, Matt.”

“I know,” Matt breathed. He knew because he felt it, too. He was scared of what this meant. Why Fox Mask was after her — why he wanted her dead. Why Y/N took them back in time. He wasn’t sure how they were going to fix this. But what he did know was that one of them needed to be strong enough to hold them both up. When Matt was in the darkest place of his life, Y/N did that for him. And he could do that for her, now. “We’ll find a way to take him down; we will.”

“How?”

A small smile crossed Matt’s face. “You trust me?”

You sighed through your nose. “You know that I do.”

“Then it’ll work out.”

That wasn’t the answer you wanted. You leaned back again on the couch, dimly aware of Matt’s thumbs stroking comforting patterns into the insides of your thighs. “Boundless optimism? That’s what you’ve got?”

His smile widened. “Well it could always be worse.”

“Yeah?”

“You could be blind.”

You shook your head, tampering amusement on your face and refusing to laugh at his dumb joke. You leaned forward again as you said, “Y’know you think you're cute when you make your little jokes but really you’re just annoying.”

He just continued to smile at you, and so you sighed and let your head fall forward onto his shoulder. Your groan was muffled by the fabric of his suit.

“It’s been a long night,” Matt said. “For both of us.”

Getting trapped in that box felt like forever ago now. Shit. With all the adrenaline from the panic, you’d forgotten how much your body hurt from the fight earlier.

And it occurred to you now that Matt was probably in worse shape than you. You lifted your head. “Take off your suit.”

His eyebrows pulled together for a second in confusion. “You take off yours.” Like a child saying, No you.

“Buy me a drink fir— Ah. That joke doesn’t work anymore.” You backtracked. “I mean I need to check your injuries. You took a pretty bad beating back there; I need to make sure you don’t need stitches.”

Matt complied. He stood, then peeled off his suit, leaving him in only his boxers.

Nakedness didn’t bother you anymore. It hadn’t for years. You had drilled into your mind that they were only bodies. There was nothing special about looking at someone naked and there was nothing special about being naked in front of someone. If Matt hadn’t been wearing boxers, you don’t think you would have even blinked.

You stood and began scanning over Matt’s body. He was covered in new red splotches that complimented fading bruises of purple and yellow amongst old scars cutting lines into his canvas.

There was beauty in it. It wasn’t the first time you had had this thought.

A violent beauty, yes, but beauty nonetheless.

Your hand ghosted over the nasty bruise on his side. You pressed it gingerly and heard Matt stifle a groan. “No broken ribs,” you reported, something like relief washing over you. It had been a broken rib that had caused his collapsed lung the last time. You knew something like this could happen again, and indeed it had been Matt’s second time getting one, but you just . . . Not this time. Not his first night back. Just for your own sanity . . . you were thankful.

Maybe it was weird that it didn’t feel weird that Y/N was looking over Matt like this, half naked in his apartment. This was just the nature of their relationship now. Vigilante to vigilante. Old friend to old friend. He used to get Claire to do this kind of thing, anyway, and that wasn’t weird. It wasn’t about anything else other than making sure he was patched up. Ready to go out the next night.

“Your hands are cold,” Matt commented after Y/N had finished pressing his side.

Not a second later, Matt could feel two cold hands pressing flat onto his abdomen. He inhaled a sharp breath at the sensation, and was reminded of a memory of her doing something similar when they were kids. Although that had been her hands on his bare arm and not her hands on his bare torso, which was a slightly more . . . adult choice of real estate for her cold hands.

“You’re a child,” he said with a staggered exhale.

He heard her laugh, so at odds with the sobbing panic attack she’d had not even half an hour earlier. It relaxed something in him. And it . . . stirred up a vivid memory for him. Of her laugh when they were young.

It sounded the same. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh like that. Not since before she disappeared. She’d come close these past weeks, since getting sober, but this was the first time Matt heard her laugh and was suddenly thrown back into a younger version of himself, goofing around with his best friend.

He’d missed her. He’d missed her so badly it hurt. For a long, long time.

It didn’t hurt anymore.

Matt felt Y/N’s hands leave him. “No stitches needed. Although those bruises are gonna hurt you worse in the morning.”

“Always do.” Matt tugged gently on her shirt. “Your turn.”

“You know you’re always welcome to use your unseeing eyes to look at my frankly ridonculous body, but I don’t think it’s going to accomplish much here.”

Her use of the word ‘ridonculous’ told Matt that she was spending far too much time with Foggy. “I have hands,” he reminded her.

Mm, yes you do.

You were surprised when the comment came to your mind but did not leave your mouth. You’d never stopped yourself from saying such comments before. They never meant anything. But your eyes had dipped down to his hands, admired their size, the long slender fingers, the red bruises atop his knuckles with the same beauty as his chest and abdomen and back — and the thought came but was unvoiced.

You tried not to think too hard about that.

So you complied with Matt’s request and you stripped down to your underwear and sports bra. Again, it meant nothing. You were just a body. You weren’t even fully naked. You were unfazed.

Matt’s hands (warm, unlike yours) began sliding over your abdomen, gently feeling for injuries. One hand brushed your side and—

Oh. An involuntary shiver. That was— You were just ticklish there, that’s all.

His hands slid up between the valley of your covered breasts, moving over your chest and collarbone and neck and—

Your eyes fluttered closed. Maybe not as unfazed as you thought.

It was that sensation again, like what you’d felt before when Matt was on top of you, recovering from his panic attack. It had been a long time since you’d been touched unnumbed. It— Had you ever? Been touched like this unnumbed?

Maybe there was something to this whole sobriety thing. A secret perk no one had ever thought to tell you. You wondered if sex would feel different now. More intense. And a small part of that idea was . . . kind of scary. Maybe intimidating was a better word.

Matt heard Y/N’s breath hitch slightly as his hands brushed over her neck. His mouth quirked in amusement. “What are you, ticklish?”

He felt her pause. “No, uh. . . Touch feels different, now that I’m sober. Is that weird?”

The amusement faded from Matt’s face and he pulled his hands back, somewhat concerned. “Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not. . . No. It’s okay. You can keep going.”

But Matt paused, thinking over what she said. “Different how?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. She thought about it for a moment. “Less numb, I guess.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It’ll certainly make sex more interesting.”

Matt blew a laugh through his nose, then reached up to continue checking the back of her head for injuries. “I get it, kind of. You know after my accident all my other senses got turned up to eleven. Touch was one of the things I had to get used to. I mean, it’s not the same, but. . .”

“Yeah.”

A comfortable silence followed. After checking the back of your head, Matt moved onto your back — but instead of walking around to your back, he stayed at your front and felt your back from there, flushing your bodies chest to chest. You lifted your arms and rested your hands on his shoulders to give him better access. Pain spiked from his gentle prodding and you winced. You knew there’d be a nasty bruise from slamming into the metal wall of the shipping container.

He suddenly pressed harder than before and you gasped, digging your nails into his skin and pressing your face into his bare shoulder.

“Sorry,” he breathed. “I thought there might be a fracture.”

Matt felt her open mouth on his shoulder as she breathed through the slight shock of pain he’d given her.

“Good news is you don’t need stitches,” he told her. “Bad news is you might want to sleep on your stomach the next few days. Oh, one last thing.” He braced his hands on her sides, over her ribs. “Take a deep breath for me?”

His hands on your sides elicited a sensitive sensation, but you took a deep breath as told. This time, there was no sharp pain in your side. No broken ribs for you, either.

“Good.”

The word was a dismissal, but you didn’t move. Some of the fear from before was leaking back in. You just needed something. Something to hold on to when everything else was so uncertain.

“Promise me we’ll find this guy,” you said, your voice barely a whisper. You wrapped your arms around his back and pressed your cheek against his neck. “Promise me we’ll beat him. Even if it’s a lie. Promise me.”

You heard Matt take a breath. Hesitating. Then,

“I promise.”

And Matt silently promised something else.

For her he’d make it not a lie.

The figure observed the lot of children through the window of a viewing room up above. Their head tilted.

“There are fifty missing.”

The minion next to them fidgeted. “Is there?”

“Are you insulting my memory?”

The minion cleared his throat. “It was Daredevil and that Wolf of Hell’s Kitchen again. But don’t worry, boss, we got ‘em. Put ‘em in a box and buried ‘em six feet under. They won’t be bothering us no more.”

Daredevil. Such a nuisance. The figure would kill him, but they simply couldn’t be bothered. Maybe if there was a good reason to.

There would always be more kids.

“Did you check if they’re still there?” the figure asked.

The minion gave them a confused look. “What?”

Then the figure swiftly took the gun from the minion’s holster and unloaded a single round into his head. The BANG reverberated in the small viewing room, blood splattering the window.

The figure handed the smoking gun to the minion standing at their other side. “Congratulations, you’ve been promoted. Don’t fuck it up.”

The door to the viewing room suddenly slammed open and there was a little shriek of fear that followed it. The figure looked over to find a small girl frozen at the entrance, staring at the dead man on the floor. A minion soon followed behind her and roughly grabbed her by the collar of her shirt.

“There you are, you little—”

“I’ll handle it.” The figure approached the little girl.

The minion blanched a little. “Sorry, boss, she just got away from me, I can—”

“Just go clean that up.”

“Yes, sir.” The minion let go of the girl and passed the figure to take care of the bloody mess behind them.

The little girl stayed frozen in place, staring up at the figure. The figure knew what frightened her. The mask they wore was very intimidating.

The figure led the girl out into the hall and shut the door behind them. Then the figure took off their mask and crouched next to her.

“What’s your name?”

The little girl relaxed a bit at the sight of the figure’s real face and the sound of the figure’s real voice. “Amelia,” she answered. She rubbed tears from her eyes. “I want to go home.”

“I know,” the figure said. They reached out and curled a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’ll be okay.”

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