fear can be overcome

I cannot see the LIGHT, so the light I must BECOME.

[projecttirnanog]

❝ because i’m daredevil. villains have come and gone… but there were some battles that never ended. so we push on. and remind ourselves to be fearless when you’re fighting for justice. ❞

daredevil (2014), mark waid & chris samnee

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

A TUX 

Matt decides to be That Guy and wears a tux that he definitely didn’t buy to the party. At least he put a mask on.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

earthquakesgirl‌:

Coming from a SHIELD background, Daisy wasn’t used to bar fights. Sure, she’d been in one throughout her lifetime — okay, one wasn’t that impressive — but it was still foreign territory. Obviously she wasn’t concerned about being outmatched, she had fought several battles, and as inhuman, she had a few advantages. Not only could she shake the ground, but she also had enhanced reflexes and strength. In hand to hand, Daisy didn’t mind the additional perks, although she would never brag about them. Plus, with Matt at her side, none of the panicked New Yorkers posed any threat to either of them. That being said, it wasn’t easy to come up with an effective plan. They were innocent people, just terrified, and they didn’t deserve to be harmed because of fear.

“We can’t be thinking about the same Sandman here,” Daisy informed Matt. “I’m thinking a guy in a weird cloak that gives you bad dreams. Wanna elaborate?” Daisy didn’t typically keep close tabs on street level villains, she didn’t need to, and with SHIELD mostly collapsed, it was a little hard to. Their resources were scarce and her focus was primarily on the Secret Avengers unless she got a really good offer. She figured that was fair! “Were they sand people? Very Star Wars,” she said with a laugh. Her joke was great, thank you. “Dude, I’d be the one charged for accepting the call. You’d be dialling a local number,” she pointed out. It was a weak excuse… or a really technology inept one, Daisy was willing to bet the latter with Matt. “You got any rope?” She asked, glancing around the bar. “Or we could use spare clothes, I guess.”

Matt had known Daisy for longer than anyone else in his life, including his father at this point, and his best friend. She was the one person who had stood by his side while he was growing up, the one person who kept coming back to him regardless of the mistakes that he made, because they both knew that underneath it all, they had good hearts. Being a hero was difficult, it was something both Matt and Daisy strove towards, and that meant there would be losses as well as victories. Fighting alongside her was something that typically ensured victory, whether it was an impromptu bar fight as it was today, or an elaborately planned and highly efficient mission with the Secret Avengers, where they took down bases that were stockpiling weapons to use against innocent people. Defending civilians against outside threats and against themselves was no different, as far as Matt was concerned.

“Well, this guy has definitely given at least a few people bad dreams in his life,” Matt said grimly. “He forms himself out of sand. Literal sand. You could just be standing in a playpark and suddenly the sandpit is growing into a man the size of a skyscraper.” It didn’t take long to work out why that particular villain would be a massive issue to Matt and his radar sense, which is why he typically immediately called Peter rather than running into the fight alone. He was learning! “Guess who’s getting a hundred and one calls next time she’s on a top secret mission, then,” Matt said with a grin. His automatic response was to assume that he had to pay a bill for anything that came his way because in the past, he had! “I’ve got this,” Matt said, pulling his billy club apart to demonstrate the retractable wire in between it. “That might be a better option.” Matt turned around to the bar, where he could hear someone breathing heavily as they hid. “Hey sir, do you mind giving me your leather jacket? It’ll save lives.”

“Fuck you Daredevil,” the man replied. “I’ve had this thing longer than my kid, I’m not giving it up for jack shit.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

hawkguyed‌:

Though he was among heroes now, Clint had spent most of his life uncertain that they actually existed. Like most kids, he’d been a fan of Captain America at one point, but the infatuation had faded as he grew older. It was hard for a kid who grew up like he had to believe wholeheartedly in heroes. Surely if they were out there, one of them would have done something about his situation? Surely they would have shown up to rescue him and Barney from their father’s brutality, to save them from foster parents and orphanages. By the time he began working with the circus, Clint was positive that heroes didn’t exist. At that point, it was something of a relief to consider them fictional. Back then, he’d figured that any heroes who were out there would be against him rather than for him, and he’d been fine avoiding the complication. 

Of course, he’d been wrong. Heroes were incredibly real. Clint was on a team with Captain America now, had movie nights with Iron Man, got lunch with Daredevil. It was weird, but it worked. “Hey, I hear it a lot too,” he shrugged. “Wow, that was beautiful. Did you come up with that on the spot? We should put it on t-shirts.” If Matt could do dry, Clint could do it right back! Take that, Daredevil! “Hey, I got lots of infamy! I got a sidekick who named herself after me. Do you have that? I don’t think so!” He silently apologized to Kate for referring to her as a sidekick, even if she would never actually find out. She’d kill him if she did. “I’m honestly not sure,” he admitted with a shrug. It was probably saying something that even the guy who was actually on the Avengers team didn’t remember how many Avengers there were, but it couldn’t be helped. The team was always growing! Wincing as the sound of sirens hit him, Clint made a face. “Uh, I’d say they’re just regular assholes.” He really didn’t know, but he didn’t love the idea of sticking around and waiting for the cops. “Wanna split?”

Matt had never intended Daredevil to turn into what it ultimately became. He didn’t go out that first night with dreams of being a hero, and the dedication that he had to this city had grown over the years, had developed into something that was a massive driving force even when his personal life fell to the wayside. He was just a man who got sick of hearing people suffer every single night and knowing that there was something that he could do to help. One bad day, just as Frank had said, and Matt was wrapping a scarf around his face and jumping right into the battle, beating a man bloody, having him drink through a straw for the next six months, scars on his chest from the restraining order Matt had pinned to him for good measure. Matt was well aware that another bad day was likely to push that intensity into something far more sinister, but that was where people like Clint and Daisy particularly came in.

Daisy had given him another chance with the Secret Avengers, a chance to be something different than the man New Yorkers solely feared, and Clint was his friend, someone that he could rely on at any moment to pull him back, to remind him who he was. Whether that was in the literal sense or a more metaphorical, with Clint constantly cracking jokes and deadpan quips to remind Matt that they weren’t in the darkness, it hardly mattered - it had the same effect. “Thanks. I wanted to take creative writing in college, but I figured the academics just weren’t ready for my insight.” Matt raised an eyebrow as he dodged another blow, well aware that Clint couldn’t see his scepticism, but recognising that he probably knew Matt well enough by this stage to know it existed anyway. “I don’t want that,” Matt retorted. “Does Iron Man have a sidekick? Black Widow? Thor? They’re all pretty infamous!” Clint’s arguments always had holes, though his stubbornness definitely prevailed often. Matt perked up at the sirens before Clint picked them out of the city sounds, and made quick work of the last guy coming for him. “Great plan,” he said. “Have you got rope arrows in there or something, or are we going to have a Superman and Lois episode?” Please God no.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

hawkguyed‌:

Though fear had been encouraged during shows, Clint’s circus family hadn’t wanted any of it behind the scenes. Fear was only useful when it was being experienced by someone else. If the audience was afraid, you got word of mouth bringing more people to the stands. If the performers were afraid, they froze. It was the same when they were living up to the “of Crime” portion of the Circus of Crime title. They wanted their victims to be terrified, wanted the people they were robbing to think they might die at any moment, but they didn’t want the people doing the robbing to be afraid. Clint had always been worse with fear there than he was during a show. He always trusted Jacques not to slip and toss a knife into his eye, always trusted his own aim not to accidentally shoot whoever was standing next to his target, but that trust didn’t quite extend to innocent bystanders. Clint was always terrified that one of his mentors was going to kill one of their victims, either accidentally or to make a point. It had taken him a long time to feel comfortable going out on jobs with them, longer still for his heart not to pound the whole time they were there. He did a decent job at keeping it to himself, but he was sure Trickshot and the Swordsman had known.

The fear toxin seemed to prey on that fear that had always been inside him, intensifying it mercilessly. Clint knew he wasn’t alone — Natasha, Kate, and Tony had all been there for him — but sometimes, he just wanted to avoid it. Matt was a good person to go to for that. Unfortunately, that avoidance often lead to him doing dumb things, like agreeing to let a blind man drive him around town. Life always had a fair amount of give and take, he guessed. “Uh, I think my doubts are fair. I’ve got some guy’s water bill sticking out of my hair here!” He plucked the envelope out, making a face as he tossed it back towards the house in question. The paper guided smoothly to its destination and landed on top of the demolished mailbox. Clint’s aim had never been in question for a reason! “Man, the Bugle is gonna tear us apart,” Clint sighed mournfully, shaking his head. The headlines were bound to be merciless. Matt’s driving reputation was gonna take one hell of a hit! “I can’t reach it! What, you want me to sit in your lap here?” It made sense that a blind guy didn’t know how to use a blinker, he guessed. It didn’t make sense that a blind guy knew how to drive a car even slightly, but Clint figured he was better off not questioning that one. Grabbing the arrow without looking, Clint fired it towards their pursuers and winced when, instead of releasing putty that would have secured the gangsters’ car to the ground, the arrowhead exploded. “I… probably should’a grabbed my own arrow,” he said sheepishly, squinting through the smoke. He’d been aiming for the tires, meant the resulting explosion flipped the car over onto its roof. “We should probably go check on them, huh?” Daredevil was a no-kill guy, after all.

This situation was basically a perfect example of how Matt got himself into so much trouble over the years. He spent way, way too much time running into the fire when he should have been running away, at least from a logical perspective. After all, the abilities that he had been given didn’t make him a super-human. He wasn’t Captain America, he couldn’t run at thirty miles an hour, he couldn’t jump from a roof and know without a doubt that he could take the damage from the fall and shake it off in time to continue the chase. He was a guy with some special skills and a lot of talent, but that was all he was. There were hundreds who had tried to follow in the Devil’s footsteps and had been killed or injured because of it. Matt wasn’t sure what made him so special, but he figured fearlessness had to have something to do with it, or at least how extensive his ability to repress things he was afraid of. The fear toxin, though, brought all of that to the surface. Matt saw himself paralysed, unable to do anything, useless in a fight that he knew he could’ve won if he could just move. He saw himself standing over Elektra’s grave again, or hearing his father’s last breath, or the gunshot ricochet through the alley two streets over.

Standing still wasn’t going to get him anything now. As Stick had always said, inertia was the enemy, and Matt had taken that lesson to extremes today when he jumped into a car parked on the side of the road. At the very least, he wasn’t alone - he knew that if he was going to do something absolutely insane, Clint would be capable of ensuring he (probably) wouldn’t die. “You could’ve got that walking down the stairs of your building,” Matt argued, never one to let something lie. At Clint’s next words, a wicked grin came over Matt’s face. “Daredevil and Hawkeye: Public Menaces. It has a nice ring to it, right?” Jameson had his fun with everyone, but it was a lot better being in the news for this than when Matt was a suspected murderer and terrorist. “Don’t act like you’ve never wanted to,” Matt retorted. The grin came off his face when he heard the explosion, and smelled the fire. “What happened?” Matt sighed, bringing the car to a screeching halt. “Yeah, probably.” He jumped out of the car, making his way over to the other one, tilting his head as he went. “Four breathing fine. One is having a little trouble, in the front seat. How are we going to lift it?” Captain America would come in handy now.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

reselektred‌:

The source of Elektra’s propensity towards either avoidance or outright denial was easy to speculate about but hard to pin down. Her very birth was marked with a loss, because the world could not welcome her existence without claiming the life of the woman who had created her. Naturally, Elektra didn’t look for signs, she didn’t believe in divine intervention, fate, destiny. Even in the present, after conquering death herself, she thought everything happened because somebody intended for it to happen. And that was that. Her inability to grow close to other people could be blamed on her father, the way he refused to offer her a chance at a normal childhood. She could have gone to boarding school, stayed with the same group of people and learned what it meant to bond with those who weren’t blood. College was the first time she was set to be apart from her father, to live on a campus and try to make friends. And, in truth, she had tried at first. She was friendly, even talkative, but her life was inaccessible to her peers. Her upbringing was not relatable or normal, and in turn, neither was Elektra. Somehow, Matt had never thought of her as strange, or maybe that was why they were drawn to one another. Neither had an average childhood, both were damaged in strange and uncomfortable ways.

For years after she fled New York, she ignored that their connection was one she valued above any other. Never once she did believe that what she chose to fill her time with could compare to their weak attempts at studying together in school. There were times when she might be sipping champagne forty floors up and looking out at the Eiffel Tower, and still she would rather be sitting at the desk in Matt’s dorm, feeling his fingers lightly brush her forehead to move fallen hair from her face as she wrote a letter to her father. She often looked at her life as before and after; before her father died, before she trained with the Chaste, before she became one the world’s most sought after assassins. Then there was the after. For so long, only one after mattered. After she left the city. After Matthew. Now there was after her own death. She still didn’t know what this second life might look like, she only knew that she had wasted too much of her previous lifetime denying herself of the one thing capable of making her happy, among all the feelings of guilt and regret and despair. Those weights weren’t so heavy when she stopped trying to carry them all by herself.

“I hate to admit my mistakes…and so, I won’t, but that was a very nice justification. And besides, only the best alcoholics spend their time smelling like nice wine.” Addictions didn’t make complete sense to her. Elektra detested being anything other than absolutely in control of her faculties, her actions, her choices. Still, at least a dependence on wine would require a fair amount of consideration in how much to spend and what to spend it on. She doubted such addicts actually existed. “But most people are idiots, you do realize. You really think it’s a story that would be best explored through a children’s book?” She asked genuinely. When Elektra considered what life might be like for that spider (which was in this exact moment, exclusively), she assumed it would be fraught with danger, experimentation, pain. If a simple bite could give a man the ability to sling web and climb walls, the creature itself must have a lot going on inside. “And you think crying is the hallmark of a good story for kids. I happen to agree.” Not that she was well-adjusted, but it seemed to her that informing children of the realities of death early on made it easier to face later on. “Ah, of course, I’m enabling you. Well, if positive reinforcement works on you, I’ll have to think of better ways to implement it.” She moved closer to him on the sofa, considering where best to touch him. After a moment, she deliberately reached out towards his face, slowly enough for him to clock the movement, before simply swiping stray hair from his temple. “Not enough money left over for a haircut, hm?” In truth, she liked his hair the way it was. “Matthew,” she said disapprovingly, shooting him a look as if he could feel it. “Top floor, who do you take me for? And I happen to have a remarkably fast elevator.”

Secrecy had been a part of Matt’s life since he could remember. Long before Stick had reaffirmed it, Matt had always believed that having something up his sleeve was the key to feeling as if he was in control of at least one small aspect of an otherwise uncontrollable life. His sight had been taken from him, his life forcibly changed, but the abilities that he had been granted provided him with something that everyone else didn’t know. While the other kids teased him, or worse pitied him, Matt knew that he had something none of them could even imagine. Even his own father had been ignorant of the truth. Yet, within a few weeks of meeting Elektra, within days of finally admitting to himself that he was in love with her, she had figured it out. That was the first sign of many that she had an understanding of him that few others could claim, though he had once fought back against that very notion. Like discovered like, after all, and Matt and Elektra had both had tumultuous childhoods. Years later when Elektra reappeared, Matt only briefly questioned how she knew of his identity - it seemed obvious that her perception would only continue.

Matt had tried since college to change how he was, who he was. He knew that it hurt people, repeatedly and in the same way over and over again, which was worse than making different mistakes each time. He had grown, he had developed, but it had never brought him closer to other people, only further away. There were few that could understand that life, few who could accept it completely. “You wouldn’t be you if you admitted so easily,” Matt said. It went without saying that would be unfortunate. “Really? I’ve been in a government job for a few months now, Elektra, and the only thing I’ve realised is that every other person in this city is a complete genius.” Most of Matt’s workday was preoccupied with cleaning up other people’s messes. It was ironic, really. “My dad read me a story when I was a kid about a grey squirrel that basically murdered a red squirrel and used the Halloween celebrations to cover it up, so I might not be the best judge.” Jack always had the best intentions, but often they didn’t translate to the most appropriate actions.

“I guess I’ll just have to live in suspense until you do,” Matt said with a small smile, reaching to run his thumb against Elektra’s thigh, where he knew one of her scars would be, “or I could offer some suggestions.” He leaned into her touch, laughing lightly. “Clint told me my hair wasn’t terrible,” Matt said. There were certain things that radar sense didn’t pick up particularly well. His hair was definitely one of them. “Besides, it covers this.” He put his hand to the back of his head, pushing the hair aside to reveal a fresh looking scar. While there was a certain amount of bodily injury he could get away with, he knew that it would raise more than a few eyebrows if he had come in with such a visible head injury. “Here I was thinking you had a lowkey apartment out there somewhere.” There were times when Elektra’s wealth was still truly baffling to him, even with a decade to get over it. When he was surrounded by it, though, it was easier to realise it wasn’t that different. Well, yeah, it was. “Great. Even better for visitors to make their speedy entrance.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

antthievery‌:

@manwlthoutfear

To say that Scott often found himself in trouble would be something of an understatement. He’d always had a knack for finding trouble, always been bad at talking himself out of it. Occasionally he could charm his way out of a bind — the FBI agent assigned to his case had been particularly easy to flirt with! — but more often than not, he needed a little bit of extra help. That was where his lawyer came in! If he’d had Matt Murdock the first time he’d been arrested, he was sure his sentence would have been a little less harsh. In any case, he had Matt now!

Showing appreciation for his lawyer seemed more than fair, and since he couldn’t show that appreciation in the same way he’d shown it to aforementioned FBI agent, he was gonna have to use some of his other skills. Unfortunately, most of said skills were a little on the less than legal side, and Scott figured Matt wouldn’t appreciate that much. In the end, he went with one of the many skills being a father had taught him — making brownies. They turned out decent, though they didn’t look like much. Luckily, they were intended for a blind man, so appearance really didn’t matter! Scott was feeling pretty proud of himself as he made his way to Matt’s office, rapping his knuckles against the door once he’d arrived. “Your favorite client is here!” He announced, walking into the office without waiting for an invitation. “With snacks!”

When Matt took his position as ADA, he made a promise that the only person he would represent - except on a pro bono basis, and even that had to be something approved by his boss - would be the state. New York’s interests were the only ones that Matt should be concerned about, but he didn’t find it quite as easy as his colleagues did to pretend that his other clients had never existed. There were still people out there who needed help, and he was determined to give it to them. Keeping it off the books was complex, but ultimately simpler than a lot of things he had been forced to do to maintain his identity as Daredevil. At least when it came to Scott Lang, the state couldn’t argue too vigorously against him being defended - though Matt still didn’t advertise the fact.

The man tended to grow on you, like a fungus with a great sense of humour and an amazing taste in food. That being said, one of his worst habits was how he just seemed to appear from nowhere, Matt’s radar sense occasionally failing him when it came to Scott, which was slightly disconcerting. Last night Matt had been shown a ‘good time’ by one of the local gangs, which meant he had more than a few broken ribs under his suit jacket and an impressive shiner that was difficult to explain. He had managed to avoid everyone else, but not Scott. “Daphne Cole?” Matt suggested, feigning disappointment when Scott walked in instead. He perked up slightly at the smell of the brownies. “Tell me they’re what I think they are,” he said. “I really need something today, Scott. Last night wasn’t great. I, um.” He paused, gesturing to his eye. “Got mugged.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

silkycindys‌:

Facing problems head on had never been something Cindy was great at. Back when her powers first developed, she’d only ever worked to understand them because Ezekiel had insisted on it. Even then, she’d agreed to lock herself away rather than deal with what had happened to her, had kept herself deep underground for a decade with no intention of ever coming out. These days, she pretended she was facing her problems when she went after criminals a little too hard, pretended that punching a mugger in the face over and over and over again was the same thing as coping with what she’d lost. Everyone dealt with things differently, right? Cindy’s method of coping just happened to be through not coping at all.

Ninjas helped with that. Honestly now that she was doing it, Cindy kind of liked facing off against them. There seemed to be an endless supply of people for her to punch, and they provided more of a challenge than the standard street mook offered her. She knew that when she was finished here, her knuckles would be bruised and there’d be blood on her costume. She was kind of counting on it. “I have literally never been to a party where they served entrees. I feel like I’m missing out on something here!” The last party she’d gone to had been in high school, where there were less entrees and more underage kids standing around with plastic red cups of watered down beer. Glancing over at Daredevil, Cindy faltered slightly. “Wait, really? You can track people?” She came back to herself just in time to dodge a punch from a nearby ninja, though she wasn’t fast enough to avoid the blow entirely. It glanced painfully off her shoulder, and she winced before returning it with a high kick. “Could I, like, hire you?” A tracker would be beyond helpful in finding her family, after all. If nothing else, maybe he could at least give her a direction. “You were gonna make me wrap my own present? You’re bad at gift-giving, Double D.” The question was a little weird, but Cindy wasn’t one to judge. Glancing around, she shrugged. “Maybe a dozen more? These guys really bring a lot of friends along, don’t they?”

Matt had been to therapy before, back when trauma counselling was necessary due to his loss of function, and subsequently the murder of his father. It had been imposed on him first by Jack and then by the nuns, and each and every time he had played a role. He had never shown the therapist his true self, had given just enough information that they believed they had gotten through to him and gained his trust, and he had left their care without gaining anything out of it. These days, it almost terrified him to think what a shrink would say if they saw into his psyche. For one thing, he had an overwhelming tendency to run into the thick of things that most sane people would turn away from. At least Matt had good company tonight, though - and it was someone else in a costume, determined to keep their identity hidden, if the fibres he was picking up were anything to go by.

“You need to break into them!” Matt called back, ducking underneath one of the ninja’s blades, hearing the whoosh of it above his head as it cut through the air. “Just being invited takes away a lot of the appeal, even if you find a way to manage it. You need to go in through the back door, work your way through the kitchen, and then slide on up to the bar.” He wasn’t going to give any more specific tips and tricks than that - that would require explaining where the knowledge came from, which was multiple party crashes with Foggy during college, before he’d met Elektra. “I can track people,” Matt confirmed, taking a light graze with one of the ninja’s sais so that he could jump back at the right moment, making him cut a gash along his buddy’s arm. “Hire me? No need. I can just help you out. Who are you going after?” Matt laughed, a brisk and bitter sound against the wind on the rooftop, and kicked one of the ninjas back into the garbage below. “They think safety in numbers still applies. Let’s show them it doesn’t.” God, that was cheesy. Maybe he should leave the talking during fights to Peter.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

hawkguyed‌:

Growing up in the circus, fear had been good for business. Old man Carson wanted to make people afraid, made his money through unsettling things. It was why they’d had tents of carnies with birth defects — and, okay, sometimes clever makeup tricks — that made them look like horror movie monsters, why Madame Yoska often littered her fortunes with theatrical gasps and winces, why the Swordsman had chosen tiny, childish Clint as the person to strap onto his target. People shelled out good money to be terrified, took great thrill in gasping along with Madame Yoska and screaming at the black blood running down Moss’s face and flinching each time a knife embedded itself into the target close enough to Clint’s head to chop through some of his hair. This, though… This wasn’t the sort of fear bored teenagers sought out to make them feel a little more alive, wasn’t the kind of thing housewives took their children to to make them behave a little easier. The fear holding New York hostage now was a real, tangible thing, something no one would ever look for willingly.

It was also the sort of thing no one in their right mind would venture out in, something nobody would ever want to risk. So, naturally, Clint and Matt were out in the thick of it. No one ever accused either of them of having an abundance of common sense. “It sounded like a good idea at the time, but I kinda have my doubts now that we’re doing it,” Clint admitted with a shrug. It was natural to have doubts after letting a blind man drive you through the city, right? He was making sense here! “Daredevil and Hawkeye are real committed to making the city a safer place,” he agreed solemnly. God, he hoped the other Avengers didn’t find out about this one. Somebody was bound to give him an earful if this got out! Clint ducked down from where he stood, gripping the door as Matt turned. “Are you using your blinker? You really gotta use your blinker.” Or maybe not. In a highspeed chase, turn signals probably weren’t much of a help. “I feel like I ought to disagree, but this is kinda fun.” Hey, he had to get his thrills somewhere, right? Standing back up, Clint looked behind them. “I think we might be in the clear!” As if specifically looking to contradict him, a black SUV rounded the turn behind them, and Clint winced. “Never mind, they’re back. Hand me a putty arrow, will you?”

There was an old saying that bravery didn’t come from lack of fear. Bravery came from being afraid and doing whatever the fuck you were going to do anyway. Matt liked that saying. The Man Without Fear was a neat marketing ploy, something to get criminals shaking in their boots even before he got them pushed up against a wall and made them bleed from their mouth, desperate to tell him exactly what he wanted to know. After all, there were few things more terrifying than a human who defied human instinct, human emotion, and that was exactly what the Devil represented. As far as Matt was capable he didn’t allow the city to see him wounded, or bleeding out on the street. After his battle with Fisk he had disappeared to lick his wounds far away, and when he took on the Hand, he ensured that Daredevil vanished so that he could heal. The Devil needed to seem indestructible, otherwise he would be destroyed in a nano-second by the multitude of gangs that were out for his blood at any given time.

This fear toxin was seriously undermining his entire operation, his entire reputation, and that wasn’t something he was going to settle for. Luckily he didn’t have to look far to find support - Peter was there for him as always, and he found himself opening up, defying the habits of a lifetime - or to find someone else who was willing to run away from everything with him. Sure, Clint was a little less appealing than some of his other options for distractions, but here they were. Driving a car. Specifically, Matt was driving a car. “Doubts? I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Matt sing-songed, wincing only minutely as he crashed right into a post box, sending letters flying over the street. “Safety is our number one concern!” he announced to the public, who were currently screaming in fear, probably because Matt was being a little manic with the wheel while his radar re-adjusted. “My blinker? What’s that? You do it!” It seemed like a sighted thing. “A putty arrow? Um … sure, dude, whatever.” Matt leaned over for a minute, keeping the wheel steady with his billy club, and grabbed the first arrow that came to hand from the floor of the car. “Here! It’s, uh, definitely a putty.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

hawkguyed‌:

When someone was like Matt, when they had all the options in the world and still wound up donning a cape (or a devil mask) and jumping from roof to roof until the sun came up, Clint always found himself with a certain level of curiosity. He always wondered what brought them to their decision, wondered if the choice to be a superhero and significantly shorten their expected lifespan was a gradual thing or an overnight decision. It varied from person to person, he’d found. Some people had some defining instant, some moment when something happened and they just knew. Someone they loved got hurt, or a villain attacked them directly, or they stood back and did nothing and someone else paid the price. Those types of heroes threw themselves into the life as a response to whatever thing they were grappling with, and Clint understood that. Other heroes found themselves slowly shifting from normalcy to heroism in a way that was less easy for him to understand. No one made them do what they did, no one goaded or forced them into it. They just became a hero over time. Clint wasn’t sure which category Matt fell into, didn’t know if he’d had some huge event push him over the edge or if he was one of those harder to understand, gradual types. Something told him it was closer to the latter, if only because being difficult to understand seemed to be Matt Murdock’s thing.

“Those two things kinda overlap a lot,” Clint shrugged, and though there was humor in his tone, it was true. Heroes were kind of idiots. He couldn’t exactly judge them for that, of course; few heroes were more idiotic than him, out fighting aliens and robots and evil geniuses with the same tools cavemen had used to catch their dinner. “Oh, yeah. You know me, I don’t really do the ‘halfway’ thing.” There was a time when he would’ve been entirely unable to even have this conversation, a time when his hearing loss was still so raw and so painful that he’d opted to ignore it — and, by extension, the rest of the world — entirely. He liked to think he’d grown out of that when he took the tracksuits down. “Eh, I was already committed to the bow and arrow at that point. People already knew me as the bow guy, I figured if I changed up my brand they wouldn’t recognize me.” His attachment to his signature weapon was an incredibly intimate thing, something Clint wasn’t sure he knew how to explain. It wasn’t like his relationship with Trickshot sounded great in retrospect, even if it had been incredibly important in shaping him into who he was now. “Nah, I’m totally beloved. I’m the world’s twenty-third favorite Avenger, probably.” That was probably only true on a team that consisted entirely of twenty-three Avengers, but still. “I’m right all the time!” He really wasn’t. Clint and being right had a very short, nonexistent type of relationship. Shrugging, Clint turned to the nearest mugger. “Hey, if that guy told you somebody belonged in jail, would you believe him?” The mugger took a swing, and Clint ducked before shoving an arrow into the man’s thigh. “You can’t see this, man, but this guy’s totally nodding his head. He’s definitely on our side!”

It seemed kind of inevitable that people who ended up with super-powers would become super-heroes, or at least that was what the media seemed to push forward. Matt knew differently, though. He knew it from his childhood growing up on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen and later in the orphanage, and he knew it from years of experience in the legal field, fighting for those that most people would be more than willing to completely ignore and overlook if they could at all. Mutants, inhumans, enhanced individuals of all kinds, they were just like anyone else. There were heroes amongst them, there were villains amongst them, and there were normal people like Foggy who just wanted a goddamn break. It wasn’t Matt’s senses that had turned him into whatever he was now (he had started out calling himself a vigilante, but now, hero seemed to be something he was striving for more and more, never one to be a half measure, as Frank had so eloquently put) it was his determination, it was his drive, and it was Stick, mostly. For all of the complications in his life, Matt knew that man had been instrumental in helping to form Daredevil, and showing Matt who he really was.

There was a part of Matt that wondered whether every hero around him had a Stick in their lives. Peter never mentioned a mentor, he seemed to learn entirely from his own experiences, but Daisy had the other agents at SHIELD. Clint seemed far too competent to have only picked it up as a hobby or when he was an adult, but Matt could never be sure. Sometimes, appearances were deceptive. “Wow. You are definitely the first person to tell me that,” Matt deadpanned, vividly reminded of Claire. “Halfway is for those who can’t reach the finish line, anyway.” If you were going to make a bad choice, might as well milk it for all the angst it was worth, that was Matt’s motto! “Changed up your brand? I don’t even need to listen to your heart to know you genuinely believe that you have that level of infamy.” Of course there had been that trick or treater dressed as Hawkeye last year, but Matt was damned if he was mentioning it. “Is that how many of you there are now? God, I missed a few along the way.” The team did seem to be growing substantially, what could he say? “Nobody is ever on our side,” Matt said with a groan. In the distance, true to form, he heard sirens begin to blare. “Not even them.” Matt reached out, grabbing one of the guys by the back of his neck. The guy squirmed, and Matt hit a nerve that had him immediately flopping in his grip. “Do we need intel on who sent them here, or are they just opportunists? You’re the expert.” Was that offensive? Probably.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

neighborhoodwebhead‌:

Everyone claimed that you couldn’t outrun fear, but Peter had never understood just how accurate that was. He’d never had a reason to try, he guessed. Fear was a regular part of his life, he wasn’t numb to terror. The first time he’d jumped off a skyscraper, hoping that his web shooters would work flawlessly, Peter had been scared out of his mind. He’d gotten over it, thankfully, and he continued to conquer his fear on the regular. That being said, he’d never get over the fear of his family and friends being harmed because of Spider-Man — or because of Spider-Man’s failures. That was just ingrained in him.

Naturally, Peter saw a lot of Aunt May and MJ affected by Spider-Man. Aunt May was being held captive by the Green Goblin, and the Green Goblin was cackling, ecstatic that he’d discovered Peter’s true identity. MJ was in a mechanical tentacle of Doctor Octopus, and on and on it went, all creative and horrifying. Uncle Ben was there, too, and god, Peter hated it. Still, he was a lot luckier than his friends. For him, the toxin only lasted for a short period of time, his body fought it off naturally. Johnny wasn’t that fortunate, nor was Matt, and Peter needed to focus on being there for his friends rather than the remnants of his trauma.

“Your mentor used to push you off a roof?” Peter asked, furrowing his brow. Spider-Man had never had a mentor, nor did Peter ever think that would change. Everything he knew was self-taught, learned mostly on the job, and what he lacked in skill he made up for in speed. “That sounds pretty pointlessly reckless,” he replied. “How’d you get through it?” If he ever met Matt’s old mentor, he would have to hit him at least a little bit. Peter was nothing if not protective. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” he agreed quietly. “You wanna talk about it?” Peter pointedly ignored Matt’s question, more concerned about Matt than himself. “Yeah, my body heals faster than most because of the bite. I don’t know how it works, I’ve never gotten anything checked out obviously. Can’t really look into my DNA without revealing my identity, you know?”

Logic was the backbone of the law. You could add in all the charisma, all the passion that you wanted, but if you had a solid case based on precedence and facts to back up your claims, then the judge couldn’t argue with it for long, and neither could the jury. This was a situation in which Matt had to remain logical, too. It was so easy to give into fear, so easy to become paralysed by it, to remain stagnant, to avoid moving because even one wrong step could mean the end. Matt had pushed back against that his entire life, and he would keep fighting back against it now, because fear could be overcome if you only had the will to achieve it. It was one of the few of Stick’s teachings that Matt had never once refuted, purely because his experiences had proven it to be true over and over again.

Logically, Matt knew that he hadn’t been in that alley when his father was shot. He knew that he couldn’t have done anything to prevent Elektra on her own sai. He knew that he wasn’t the cause of the empty feeling in his chest or his gut, and he knew that he hadn’t died when that bullet bounced off his helmet, sending his world into blaring silence. He knew all of that, and he kept repeating it to himself over and over again. As long as he remembered that this wasn’t real, then there was nothing to be afraid of. If it was only in his mind - well, his mind had given him all of the worst case scenarios before, and would surely do so again.

“Sometimes,” Matt admitted. When Peter said it like that, it seemed a lot more fucked up than it had been at the time. “He would argue that it was innovative. I guess I don’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes to pointing out recklessness.” Or even recognising it, for that matter. Matt might be enhanced, but it was hardly in the way Peter was enhanced, or Daisy. “I told myself he was so hard on me because he cared about me,” Matt said with a shrug, still finding it weird to talk about Stick to anyone on what he had long since been taught to see as the ‘outside.’ But Peter had never been like that, so maybe this was a good thing. “A little? I don’t know. I’ve never really talked about it before.” Matt nodded, giving a cursory listen to Peter’s vital signs. They were abnormal compared to others, but distinctly like Peter, which was a good sign. “Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have anyone who knows who you are who can help out with something like that? You deserve answers, too.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

neighborhoodwebhead‌:

Besides when he was properly aiding the Avengers, there were times Peter felt guilty for limiting his masked vigilantism to New York City. There were billions of people in the world, a lot of whom lived in fear because of criminals. That was why he occasionally traveled to New Jersey and Maine. The good he did there wasn’t nearly as sentimental, but it was incredible nonetheless. People were grateful, protected for a moment, and that was the responsibility Peter had taken on the second he donned the mask. Some superheroes didn’t feel as strongly as he did, but Daredevil wasn’t one of them. Peter was pretty sure that was partially what bonded him and Matt, they both felt responsible, they both cared deeply about their city and its inhabitants, and nothing would ever change their super-heroism. They were practically destined to do it, as corny as that sounded, but fate had to have a hand in who got great power.

“Probably a couple hundred,” Peter replied, shrugging a shoulder. Inflation killed! “Dude, do you really think I got five extra dollars?” Honestly, Peter really didn’t. He’d struggled to maintain a career — and a job for that matter — pretty much his entire life. Even with Parker Industries, things weren’t going great, and he had Gwen relying on him. The stress wasn’t ideal, but he had adjusted to carrying a huge weight on his shoulder years ago. “Hey, twenty four hours isn’t bad,” he pointed out. It was more time to relax than Peter had had in ten years, besides when he was seriously injured. “We can do organic,” he agreed. “Do they make organic Mexican? I could go for a burrito,” he said thoughtfully. “Or fish, I think that’s big in Oregon.” He should have paid more attention in geography classes in primary school. “I’m glad it helps,” he replied, making a mental note to buy Matt more Fabreeze at some point. “Uh, does injury count?” Peter asked, beginning to walk towards a main street.

Matt had never been the kind of ambitious that Jack wanted him to be. In his training with Stick Matt had been intense, some might say even ruthless, taking up more and more lessons, pushing his body to its absolute limits, something that continued on for decades even after his mentor left him alone in the middle of that empty warehouse. Outside of that, though, there was no inclination for Matt to push his legal career forward to the point where, say, he could rival the D.A for their position, or get his name up on the wall of a firm. He had never needed the glory, and it extended to his role as Daredevil. He had a responsibility to his city first and foremost, it was the only place he had ever known and his home, he wasn’t prepared to put them in jeopardy just to extend his reach. Of course while he was here, he would do everything in his power to protect the people of Portland too. It was Peter’s humility, his dedication to the little guys, more than anything else that had Matt respecting him intently.

At Peter’s reply, Matt’s face fell. “Damn,” he muttered, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket, feeling around for the folded notes. Folded once was a five, flat was a one, folded twice was a twenty and three a fifty. He never needed to develop a system beyond that - he wasn’t the kind of man to keep hundred dollar bills at any stage. “Yeah, I’ve got ten,” he said. Even as an ADA, he seemed to be hard pressed for cash. Melvin needed reimbursed for making him his suit, after all! “I don’t know! You bought that churro a few days ago. You don’t usually get from that cart, so I thought you’d come into some money.” Not much to go on, but testament to how well Matt knew him! “I think they make organic everything, right?” Matt made a face. “No. No fish. People say fresh fish doesn’t smell like anything, but it does, Peter. It really does.” Matt thought about the answer to that question longer than was probably necessary, but understandable given his history. “No,” he said hesitantly. “Just out of interest, what’s the longest you have been benched before?” Nothing seemed to keep Peter down for long.

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

rescuedmyself‌:

Pepper had always been a perfectionist. As a child, she’d longed for someone to push her, wanted someone to challenge her in the same way she challenged herself. Her parents, ever wary of the stress young girls faced, refused to put an excessive amount of pressure on her, and while some children might have been grateful for the thought, Pepper had only been frustrated. She didn’t want to be praised for average achievements, she wanted to be encouraged to reach higher. She wanted someone to believe she could reach her unattainable goals, and she’d never gotten that in Rhode Island. New York was different. The city demanded perfection from everyone, and Pepper adored it. Some people skirted by with the bare minimum and lived fulfilling lives nonetheless, but for New Yorkers, that wasn’t even an option. It was a city full of perfectionists, a city that bred unrealistic goals. Pepper felt more at home here than she ever had in Rhode Island, and from what she’d read of Matt Murdock’s record, he likely felt that same sense of belonging.

“I do like my compliments to be genuine. I’m glad you’re not a flatterer. I get enough of that from my interns.” It was common practice to suck up to the boss, even if the boss didn’t want to have her ass kissed. Pepper had yet to discover a way to avoid unnecessary brown nosing, but she was relieved to hear she wouldn’t have to worry about it coming from Matt. “It certainly is. I like to think our cause is a good one, and I’ve always found it easy to have faith in. You must believe in what you do, too, right?” From what she’d read of him, he certainly hadn’t become an attorney for the money. Matt seemed the sort of man to fight for people until his dying breath, and that was certainly something Pepper could respect. “I imagine growing up here must have been… eye opening, to say the least.”

Matt had no doubt that he would have been entirely capable of taking that job at Landman and Zach with Foggy when they were offered it and rolling with the punches for years. Maybe by this stage he would’ve been partner, senior partner, or even be considered to have his name up on the wall at some stage. That was, ideally, what Jack Murdock would have aspired to for him. His father had never really had big plans for himself, had always been more than willing to undersell his intelligence and abilities at any given opportunity before others could, but his pride and determination was passed on wholly to his son. Sometimes, Matt figured that he had disappointed his father monumentally, that he was far from the successful lawyer that he had always meant to be despite his latest promotion, but then he remembered all the good he did in those months he was eating nothing but bread and butter four days a week, and it made him realise that was the man Jack had raised him to be after all.

Pepper was hardly one of his usual clients. She was rich, successful, had any number of people she could call for assistance. Usually he would’ve passed her on to someone else, a corporate lawyer, but this wasn’t your typical situation in the slightest. “I can be a flatterer when the situation calls for it,” Matt said with a laugh, “but that’s usually when I’m trying to convince my girlfriend that dollar store wine can actually be good, so long as you pair it with just the right overwhelming flavour of Chinese food.” Enhanced senses be damned, Matt was a man of poor taste, mostly be necessity. “Absolutely,” he said, without hesitation. “The law is here for a reason. Sometimes it gets abused by people who claim to have mastered it more fully, but I get a chance to bring it back to what it was meant to be - justice. It’s pretty great.” Matt laughed again, shifting on his feet. The wound on his side protested with the movement. “Oh yeah, that’s one word for it. It definitely gives people perspective. Are you from far away yourself?”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

earthquakesgirl‌:

The fear toxin wasn’t something that Daisy understood. Fitzsimmons had always been the science experts, she had no comprehension of biochemistry or physics or anything else necessary for solving the answer to a fear toxin. If she were capable, Daisy would obviously be in a lab, slaving away or an answer. Since that wasn’t possible, she was suffering the effects of fear alongside the New Yorkers, and attempting to keep some semblance of peace. Unfortunately, peace wasn’t exactly an easy thing to maintain whilst pretty much everyone was in an irrational panic. It did not take a genius to figure that one out, but Daisy would take all the credit!

Tonight playing at peace keeper had brought Matt and Daisy to Josie’s, a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen. Plenty of New Yorkers were trying to drink their sorrows away, but judging by people shouting and jumping and darting, alcohol hadn’t helped their predicament. “So what’s the roughest then and why wasn’t I invited?” Daisy asked, sniggering as a man lunged for her, shouting ‘Angela.’ It wasn’t a violent grab which implied how tragic the guys fear really was. “I don’t know if anything gets them out of it besides knocking them out, and I don’t want to be responsible for brain damage,” Daisy admitted. “You got any less violent ideas?“

Although Matt knew he was in no way comparable to the role Daisy had forged for herself - he had significant training, was good in a fight, but he had no formal qualifications in the area, or an entire agency filled with people who trusted him and had his back, even if it had only been for a period of time - he realised that a certain self awareness was necessary to do the things that they did every single night. They needed to be aware of their strengths, their limitations, and be realistic about what fights they could and could not win. Did that mean that Matt never got out of his depth? Absolutely not. He had pretty much spent two years being out of his depth, but eventually he had learned how to swim, because he knew he had the strength to get through it.

He would panic more if he didn’t have complete faith that Daisy had that strength too. She was one of the most amazing people in his life, one of the few whose belief in him, too, had never faltered, and she was as close to family as he had left. “The night the Sandman got out of jail,” Matt called over the chaos. “Who knew that guy had so many eager friends waiting to greet him on his return?” Or start bar fights with him. Semantics. “It was an impromptu thing, I didn’t know what continent you were on, and I didn’t want to be charged for international calls! I’m broke!” The term ‘starving lawyer’ almost escaped his lips, but the feeling of the mask on his face prevented that just in time. “Tying them up so they can’t hurt themselves or others?” Matt suggested. “Of course, that could end in a whole lot of rope burns.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

readyrogers‌: 

New York City was Steve’s home twice over, but there were days when it didn’t feel quite so. 

It’d gotten a lot more crowded since he went into the ice, and unfamiliar. He spent plenty of his downtime in the years since waking up relearning it all, piece by piece, corner by corner. He discovered some hideouts and quiet places, when he needed to get away and be relatively unobserved. Fogwell’s was that sort of place, given to him by Nick Fury himself. Thanks to the serum, Steve had the strength to box and not be in danger of breaking his wrists. Now, it was just the bags that broke.

Seemed like someone else wants to get away, Steve saw when he stopped for a break. “Both,” Steve admitted, getting the sense that he was recognized. You always had a greater weight around him since the Chitauri and Loki appeared, almost synonymous with Captain. “It’s not so…busy, around here. The whole city-that-never-sleeps thing gets old.” Nothing wrong with sleep, even though Steve got far too much of it. He just wished the criminal element would take the hint and lay off for awhile.

“The toughest until I finish ‘em,” Steve joked, though he held back lately after it was pointed out to him that the bags were expensive. “Just habit,” he added, wondering just how public Fury’s identity was. He didn’t paid too much attention to that. SHIELD’s reputation wasn’t the best, either, so Steve left it out. “What about you?” He asked, looking him over. He didn’t have the casual blankness of HYDRA’s best agents, but Steve kept the conversation light anyway, just in case. “This place seems like a diamond in the rough—how did you find it?”

The furthest Matt had ever managed to get outside of New York, despite Elektra’s best intentions and those of Daisy and Foggy as well, was Portland. Even when he was away for a week with Peter, the only thing he was thinking about was getting back home to the city that raised him. Fisk would never leave the city, as he had said, and Matt was loath to admit that he was anything similar to the man, but he would give him that linking thread. There was something about New York that stuck in the teeth, that made it impossible to get out of your system, and Matt had never particularly wanted to, even if his life would be made easier by a change.

“Yeah, can’t say I blame you,” Matt replied. Years of expensive education and Matt could never think of a way to explain the changes that he could pick up with his radar sense when it came to enhanced humans. There was just something off about them, a telltale sign that they were more than they appeared. “It can be tiring at the best of times, never mind now. Are the streets still going wild?” It went against every instinct within Matt to stay indoors while people were suffering, but there was nothing he could do to help them face their fears. They had to handle it themselves until an antidote was discovered.

So far, so good, if he did say so himself. He hadn’t made a total fool of himself anyway. “As long as you leave one up for me, I won’t tell a soul,” Matt joked. “Same thing. I grew up coming here, actually. My dad, he was a boxer.” Matt gestured widely to the wall near the door, knowing somewhere on there would be a poster of Creel v. Murdock. “He wasn’t the best, but he could really take a punch. Guess it’s nostalgia, mostly.” Matt shrugged with one shoulder. “I hope you don’t think I’m nuts but -- you sound familiar. I’m pretty good with remembering voices.”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

racingreyes‌:

So this was him. Robbie wasn’t too impressed. The Spirit looked him over, the threat of judgment hanging perilously close. These judgments made Robbie feel like he was reading somebody’s rap sheet, only it came from the person’s first breath instead of their teens to adulthood. This scan was also for the Spirit—it was watching its own back, as always. If there was somebody so powerful that it could hurt it, the two of them would get the hell out of Dodge as fast as the Charger could take them.

He felt the Spirit retreat. A good man, Robbie realized, and that was that. He relaxed, feeling the flames dying out. In the beginning, the continuous strain of gaining and losing the actual flesh from his head terrified Robbie, but he was a pro at this gig now. A little discomfort between one state to the next barely bugged him any longer. Robbie flicked some ash from his shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t stain his jacket.

“He got off once before,” Robbie said at last, street debris crunching under his shoes. He flicked his keys. The Spirit might have decided that this Devil was a hero, but heroes were dangerous, too. Vengeance and self-preservation could blur together at any moment. The other guy wasn’t too picky. “Ten people died because he was too lazy to replace a few plastic boxes. He got what he deserved.”

Robbie laughed. That crew looked much closer to Cirque du Soleil than superheroes. Getting mistaken for the Human Torch was getting old. “And circle gets the square.” 

Living in New York was hard for a lot of people in the best of circumstances. It was loud, there were always sirens blaring somewhere, and it smelled like a foot locker on a good day. For someone with enhanced senses, that was taken up to a whole other level, but out of everything that Matt had ever experienced over the years - and he had heard what it sounded like for a man to be risen from the dead - there was a specific intensity that came only with fire and ash. It never implied anything good, but since when had Matt sensed danger and went the other direction? He had been running towards bad situations since he was a kid, and he wasn’t intending on stopping now, especially with the city he knew and loved in turmoil.

There was every chance that the man he was picking up - if he could call it a man, considering the fact any reading he attempted went haywire - was a manifestation of one of his greatest fears, that he had been affected by the toxin and didn’t know it yet. Just as Matt went to do something, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he could do against something like that, the fear disappeared, and the sound of a beating heart bounded into life.

“Why do you think I’m here?” Matt asked, trying not to breathe through his nose to avoid the smell of burning flesh. It didn’t help, true to form. “No, what he deserved was spending years in jail, fighting back against guys in prison who are a hundred and one times bigger and stronger than he was. That was an easy out.” Of course, it was pretty hard to say that with a straight face considering what Matt had heard. Flames, after all, were the worst way to go out, at least from his experience.

The man didn’t seem to be gearing up to fight back against him, which at least was something. “I try my best,” he deadpanned. “Do I get another name to call you instead, then?”

[manwlthoutfear-blog]

reselektred‌:

The popularly held belief about Elektra, based purely on reputation, was that she fought without feeling. That she was, possibly, incapable altogether. Elektra didn’t care if people assumed she was a sociopath who never thought twice about the implications of her actions, how they affected the world at large. Possibly, if this was true, her job would be easier. It wasn’t necessarily difficult now, but she did sometimes have pesky thoughts that caused hesitation. Ironically, Stick was one of the few people to see her as she truly was. He would have liked her better as a student if she truly was as heartless as she was presumed to be. Unfortunately, Elektra was motivated by her heart a great deal of the time. Most of the time, she was fighting on someone else’s behalf, and this made her far less emotional. But when she fought for herself, her driving force was always driven by her feelings, whether it was lingering sadness over her father, anger over her own death, or the protectiveness she felt for Matthew. Stick had called this weakness but she thought the strength of her emotions was one of her greatest strengths. It was her restraint in communicating her true feelings to others that led to misconceptions.

“Usually when people say you smell like alcohol, it’s an insult.” Of course, that’s not what he had said, and she was aware of that. Rather than accepting obvious compliments, she liked to make people work at them. See if they would even bother before conceding that she made it more effort than it was worth. “Well, sure, why should humans have all the fun? It’s strange how you never hear about the adventures of the radioactive spider itself, don’t you think? I’ve come to believe they don’t have a sense of humor.” Some of their costumes certainly indicated otherwise, though. Unintentionally funny. “Thanks to you, that pizza delivery person probably has more to his name than you do.” Elektra didn’t agree with his reasoning, a fact he could assume well enough without her verification, so she simply exhaled with slight frustration. “Oh, honestly, Matthew, don’t you think you deserve a chance as well? To say more for yourself than simply not being in debt. You are allowed to reward yourself through your own hard work.” In an effort not to harp on the matter too much longer, she avoided commenting that he could, without too much effort, live in a penthouse himself, if he made the sort of financial choices she suggested. “Quite the tall order but I think we can arrange that.”

Emotions were always complicated, no matter who was dealing with them, or what roadblocks were in place to prevent understanding and accepting them. With Matt, though, emotions had always been particularly difficult. At various points he had been intense or cold, overly-trusting or detached. His heart was either unguarded, open for the taking, or as impossible to reach as grace itself. Elektra had been the first exception, and in Matt’s opinion, she was the last as well. Matt had been in love with others since college, but none had burned as brightly, none had been as entrenched or life changing. Falling into others had been easy, something that he could never say about his relationship with Elektra, but the moments when they were together more than made up for any challenges. Some of his best memories consisted of lying on the bed in his dorm room, grinning for no conceivable reason, listening to Elektra read out loud or just the familiar rhythm of her heartbeat. There were times when he wished he had never left that room at all, but then they wouldn’t be here. He would never know that she could defy even death, that she would find herself on his doorstep once again in the wake of her resurrection.

“I suppose it depends on what aspect they’re going for in their comparison,” Matt countered. “I was going for ‘intoxicating’ and ‘expensive,’ but clearly I need to refine my technique a little more.” Again, smiling for no conceivable reason other than the fact that she was there beside him, and that in itself was even more of a miracle than Elektra noticing him in the first place had been. “I’m pretty sure there’s a kid’s book out there somewhere that details the life of the spider. There has to be, right? They’d be idiots not to capitalise on how many kids cried over Charlotte’s Web, I mean.” Matt was part of that category, but to be fair, he cried at most books as a child (and as an adult, if he had time to read them, which he often didn’t). “Ha ha,” Matt deadpanned, even though more than likely it was true. “I am rewarded. I have my own place, I bought a pizza without having to write an IOU to the delivery guy, and I get free wine from you. What else do I need?” Health insurance, perhaps, but with Claire’s help he wished to avoid hospitals entirely. Difficult to explain the scars, after all. “How many floors are they going to have to go up to deliver it? We don’t want cold noodles.”