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punchdrunkdoc · 5 days ago

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Part 4, Chapter 4

Summary: After the events of S3, Matt Murdock is trying to once again balance life as a lawyer and a vigilante. But he’s been scarred by loss and betrayal - will a mysterious new neighbour help him heal? Or will her secrets drag him back into the darkness? Notes: This is a slow burn romance with an original female character, told in 4 parts. There is mystery, intrigue, action/violence and angst - all the good stuff!

Also available on AO3 and Wattpad

Masterlist

Reference pics

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PART 4

Chapter 4

Over the next couple of weeks, the note became Matt's constant companion. His lifeline.

He carried it everywhere - even out patrolling as Daredevil. Each night, he'd brush his fingers over the compartment in his suit where it was hidden, conveniently located just over his heart, as if a piece of Calina was with him during his most dangerous hours. Each morning, he'd put it in his pocket - like a talisman carried for luck - and throughout the day would rub his thumb across the words printed on it. The act became an unconscious habit. A compulsion.

And the idea of Calina's return - promised on that small scrap of paper - kept him going. He thought of her constantly. Of where she was. Why she hadn't contacted him herself. When she would come back to him. Those thoughts distracted him on his patrols, and he spent most of the night hours either focussed on the phone in his pocket - the one that never rang - or itching to return home in case she was there waiting for him. During the day, he shut himself away in his apartment, only venturing outside when necessary - too worried that he’d miss her if she came by. He neglected his visits to his mother. He ignored offers of lunch from Foggy, and turned down further invites from Karen to visit her and Izzy in Long Island.

But as the deadline on the message came and went with no sign of Calina, the note became more of a cursed object than a talisman. One day - almost a month after receiving it - Matt paused in the act of slipping it in his pocket. He smoothed out the crinkles in the paper, and caressed his fingers over the smooth parchment. All the handling and 'reading' over the past few weeks had worn down the raised lettering until the note was almost blank.

Which was fitting, really, Matt thought. Considering the message had been nothing but a lie.

In a fit of frustration, he scrunched the note into a ball, and threw it angrily across his living room.

Where the hell was she?

And how long should he continue like this? Waiting, and waiting. For the phone to ring. For a knock on the door, for another note to find him? It was sapping every last drop of his energy and optimism.

Matt collapsed onto his couch and stared into the corner of the room where the crumpled-up ball of paper resided. He ran his fingers through his hair and tugged on the strands as he debated what to do. At a loss, he dropped his hands to his side, his fingers brushing the cool metal of the laptop resting on the couch cushion.

And an idea sprang forth.

Matt lifted the device onto the coffee table in front of his, booted it up, then opened a search engine.

If Calina wouldn’t reach out to him…maybe he could find a way to reach her.

———

For hours upon hours, days upon days, Matt scoured the internet for news about Calina and the other Widows. Every daytime moment was devoted to scrolling through news reports, social media posts, videos and online rumours, desperately hunting for some clue, some hint, as to where she was.

And if she was okay.

If she was still ‘alive and safe’, as the note had assured him.

If she would ever come back to him…

He read and re-read every article from the last five years about the Black Widows and their exploits. The lives they’d saved, their diplomatic missions, and disaster relief efforts. He learned that in the months after The Vanishing, they became an integral part of the UN peacekeeping force, stemming conflicts in areas ravaged by food and fuel insecurity, and helping to shore up the infrastructure in the hardest hit regions. They’d started out a nameless and faceless faction, but over the years had developed a following. ‘The Dark Angels’ became a hashtag on social media, as people started to recognise the black-clad female soldiers in shaky bystander videos.

Some intrepid reporter noticed their uniforms were similar to that of Natasha Romanov, and broke the story of the ‘Black Widows’. It came as a shock to most that the famous Avenger wasn’t the first or only Black Widow - that there was actually an entire sisterhood of Russian-trained former spies and assassins. In a world desperately seeking hope and optimism, the story of how these young women had overcome their brutal childhoods and mind-controlled servitude was an inspiration. There was no fear from the public, no Cold War throwback of paranoia or suspicion about spies from the East…

Instead, they were embraced.

In some ways, Matt discovered, Earth had become a more open and accepting place while he’d been gone. Borders between countries became less important. Long-held animosities between different cultures fell away as everyone in the world dealt with the same trauma.

Not that it was all sunshine and rainbows. Human beings were still human beings - for good and for ill. There were those who saw The Vanishing as an opportunity to steal resources and power, and the Widows intervened to take down those would-be warlords and despots.

One particular battle from 2021 was captured in bloody detail by a photojournalist, and Matt cursed his lack of sight when he came across the article in question. He wanted to see for himself if Calina was amongst those Widows injured during the skirmish. Vague ‘alt text’ descriptions of a ‘Widow being carried from the chaos on a stretcher’ only served to spike his anxiety. It seemed that, despite their growing notoriety, the individual Widows were still relatively anonymous. They were given nicknames by the public, but their real personas were relatively hidden - which meant he still had no idea what Calina had been up to all these years.

A week after beginning his research, Matt sighed in frustration and tossed the laptop onto the couch next to him. He winced as he stood up to use the toilet, his knee protesting the movement after being in the same position for so long. He shook off the pain and hobbled to the bathroom. After relieving himself, he downed a couple of painkillers and made himself a coffee. He rubbed the bruised skin of his knuckles as he waited for the pot to heat up, knowing that without the protection of his gloves, his hands would be split open and bleeding from all the fighting last night. The criminal element of The Vanished were doing their best to retake possession of Hell’s Kitchen, and Daredevil’s nights were getting busier as a result.

He’d made it home just before dawn and collapsed into bed for another bout of fitful sleep. He still couldn’t rest easy without Calina beside him. He couldn’t seem to find the energy to eat much either. At the moment, his entire existence consisted of only two pursuits - suiting up at night, and spending the day searching for her.

Once the coffee was brewed, he returned to the couch and settled in for another stretch of fruitlessly hunting for clues as to where she was and what she’d been up to.

As afternoon wound down to evening, and just as Matt’s mind started to wander to the contents of his refrigerator - and whether he’d finished the last of the leftovers or not - he found a video clip on YouTube. After wading through hours of conspiracy theories and baseless speculation about the Widows, he came across the two-minute long video from a village on the outskirts of Beirut. The poster had uploaded the footage after witnessing the Widows helping victims of a landslide.

Matt played the clip and, at first, dismissed it as another dead end. It was just filled with the sounds of chaos and screaming - there was no commentary or information about the Widows themselves.

But something tugged at his subconscious. Something convinced him to listen again.

He hit play, and concentrated on the background. He tried to strip away the shouting and the clatter of the rubble being cleared and the whirring of the helicopter overheard…and that’s when he heard it. A soft voice buried beneath all that other audio.

A very familiar voice.

Calina.

He sat up straight and replayed the clip again. He couldn’t understand the words - she was speaking Arabic, or some other language - but he recognised the pitch and cadence of her speech. She was using that soothing, sympathetic tone that she used to deploy with him when he came back from a night as Daredevil, all battered and bruised. Which meant she must have been comforting an injured or scared victim.

Matt listened to that segment of the video again and again. He wished he had the technology and skill to isolate just her audio from the rest of the noise…but after a while, it didn’t matter. After the twentieth, thirtieth, countless time he listened to it, the other sounds just faded away, until all he could hear was her.

He lay down on the couch, headphones in, and listened to her voice. He let it soothe him - as nothing had been able to do since he’d been pulled back into this unfamiliar world almost six weeks ago. He listened to his love from hundreds of miles, and thousands of hours, away.

And he found a tiny moment of peace.

———

Unfortunately, that peace didn’t last.

He still listened to the clip, several times a day, in fact. Every morning when he came home from patrolling, he’d lie in bed and let her voice carry him off to sleep. He used it to centre himself as he meditated. He listened to it as he suited up in the evenings…

But with every repetition of that 10 second clip, a little bit more of his patience chipped away.

He needed more.

More than just her voice. More than just a snippet of her from two years ago. He needed her. And every day that passed without word from her pitched his mood further and further into the black.

Which is why he considered ignoring Foggy’s cryptic message when it woke him from a deep sleep one morning. The three-hour stretch of shut-eye he’d managed between ending his patrol as Daredevil and receiving the text alert was the longest uninterrupted period of rest he’d gotten all week. All he wanted to do was turn back on his side and ignore the world beyond his apartment. He didn’t have the energy to deal with anything or anyone else right now. And he really couldn’t be bothered trying to work out what his friend was up to with his two-line message:

Corner of W 41st + 6th. Noon.

BE THERE, Matt.

Instead, he pulled the covers over his head and shut his eyes, wincing as one of the springs in the mattress dug into the large bruise on his shoulder. In fact, there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t ache from some injury or other. He was spending more and more time in the suit - pretty much from sun-down to sun-up - and was paying the price for it.

But being out as Daredevil gave him some respite from the misery of his daylight hours, shutting off the part of his brain obsessed with finding Calina. Before, he’d been distracted on patrols, eager to cut them short and return home; now, he needed the patrols to distract from his frustrating and so-far fruitless search for Calina. Putting on the suit allowed his more primal nature to take over. It gave him clarity of purpose - a purpose he knew he could fulfil:

Stop crime. Hunt down the bad guys. Punish them.

He barely felt any pain in the moment. He ran on adrenaline and instinct while under that mask, going from one fight to another, not sparing a thought for the consequences that would hit him in the morning.

Consequences like being battered black and blue. Matt groaned as more of his nerve endings woke up screaming. He abandoned the cocoon of his bed and padded out to the kitchen for some painkillers. He shook the bottle and swore as the last two pills dropped on to his palm.

He was out.

He’d have to leave his apartment today, after all. Which meant he may as well see what Foggy wanted - it must be important, seeing as another three text messages had come through in just the last five minutes.

Reluctantly, he dragged himself into the bathroom to start getting ready.

———

Judging by the good mood radiating off of Foggy, the ‘important’ matter was obviously not one of life and death. Which made Matt’s bad mood even worse - especially after he’d had to battle the crowds on the subway to make it here by noon.

“What do you want, Foggy?” Matt asked, unable to hide the irritation in his voice.

“Hello to you too.”

Matt said nothing, just hunched further into his coat. December had just begun, meaning the chill in the air was downright icy.

“I like the beard by the way,” Foggy said. “You’re really committing to the whole hermit aesthetic.”

“Have you been speaking to Karen?”

She’d called him a recluse the other day, in a voicemail she’d left on his phone. She’d sounded worried, but all it did was spark irritation. Why couldn’t his friends just let him deal with this in his own way?

“As a matter of fact, I have been speaking to Karen. I speak to her a lot - its what friends do. They catch up. Socialise. Inquire about each other's lives. They sometimes even leave their apartments and go out into the world.”

“I go out every night.”

“As Daredevil, yes. But when was the last time you were out and about as Matt Murdock?”

There was no Matt Murdock.

He didn’t exist. Legally, or in any other sense really.

Matt Murdock was a lawyer. He had a firm with his friends, and they helped the people of Hell’s Kitchen. He had purpose. He had ambition.

Matt Murdock had a girlfriend, a woman he was desperately in love with and who loved him in return. A woman he slept beside every night, and woke up next to each morning, astounded anew at how lucky he was to have found her…

The man standing in front of Foggy had none of those things. He had no job, no place in this new world, and the woman he loved was nowhere to be found.

“I’m here now, aren't I?”

“Under duress. I basically had to spam your phone to get you to meet me.”

“And why are we meeting, exactly?”

Foggy sighed, and gestured to the bar they were standing outside of. “Don’t you recognise this place?”

Matt cocked his head, concentrating on their surroundings. After a few moments, it came to him, his mind dredging up the memory of this place, with its distinctive smell of pineapple juice and rum, and the tinny sound of 1960s surf rock playing on the speakers. “It’s that tiki bar place you brought me to years ago. When we celebrated passing the bar.”

“Correct!” Foggy replied, with aggravating levels of cheer. “Which is why it’s a fitting location for this.” He pushed a piece of paper into Matt’s free hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s our reinstatement. The New York State Bar Association hereby official recognises that we’re neither missing nor dead, and that we can resume practicing law in this great city.”

“Huh,” Matt replied, slipping the document into this pocket. “I didn’t know you were sorting this out.”

Foggy sounded confused. “Of course I was. What else would I be doing?”

Matt just shrugged.

“Matt, we need to get our lives back on track.”

“And just pretend the last five years never happened? Pretend that the world didn’t move on without us?”

“Move on? Where’s the evidence the world moved on? Things changed, yes, but there was no moving on. If you left your apartment and actually spoke to another human being you’d realise that. Actually, if you looked twenty feet to your right, you’d realise it.”

Matt tipped his head in that direction, but he already knew what Foggy was referring to:

The Memorial.

“Have you been over there, yet?” Foggy asked.

Matt shook his head. He’d noticed it on one of his first nights out as Daredevil - how could he not? The collection of giant stone monoliths - carved with the name of every vanished resident of the city - took up half of Bryant Park.

“Come on,” Foggy said, grabbing Matt by the arm and steering him across the street to the park’s entrance.

“Is this the real reason you dragged me out here?”

“No. It’s just a handy side benefit.”

They reached the first of the granite pillars, and Matt reached up to trace his fingers over the etched letters. There were probably hundreds of names on just this first stone, and the sheer scale of the tragedy hit him anew.

Hundreds of names. On hundreds of pillars. Adding up to hundreds of thousands lost from Manhattan alone.

Millions lost across the country. Billions across the world.

With billions of families and loved ones left behind.

“Apparently, there’s a memorial like this in every town and city around the globe,” Foggy commented, as if guessing the direction of Matt’s thoughts. “It’s proof that the world didn’t forget us. That they didn’t want to forget us.”

By unspoken agreement, they started walking along the rows, skipping the first part of the alphabet until they reached the ‘M’ section. Matt found his name, halfway down the one of the pillars, just one amongst a half-dozen other Murdocks.

“The people that erected these monuments didn’t move on, Matt. They were stuck in their grief. Going through the motions of surviving, but not really living.”

Matt did know that. Of course he did. He’d ‘seen’ the state of the city when he’d first returned - the neglect and desolation of it. And he’d recognised what it meant - that the world had stopped five years ago.

“This may be a memorial, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “But its not a gravestone. You’re still alive. And yes, you’ve lost some time. And yes, that really fucking sucks. But you’re alive. And it's time that you rejoined the world.”

————–

Chapter 5 coming soon...(but probably in 2025!)

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