[ONESHOT] WORD BY WORD
Summary: You are Dex's counselor. A lawyer who REALLY dedicated to thier profession. So, you are not abandoning this case in spite of Matt's warning. You tried your best. However, unfortunately, you have to enjoy breakfast in the evening (It's JUST a metaphor). The end: Dex, you, together?
Relationship: Benjamin Poindexter x lawyer!reader x Matt Murdock (one-sided?)
Words: 8,4k
Tw: Dex is NOT a good guy, canon-typical violence, crisis of faith
"Breakfast" is an activity that marks the beginning, of a peaceful family life.
The room was filled with the smell of damp, moldy paper and coffee grounds that had gone completely cold since the previous afternoon. The Murdock & McDuffie law office was located in a corner of DUMBO, Brooklyn. Looking straight through the old, worn window glass, one could see the gloomy gray Manhattan Bridge, with the roaring sound of the subway rushing across the iron tracks echoing back, creating tiny vibrations on the surface of the oak wooden table whose veneer had already peeled off.
You sat motionless, your fingertips pressing tightly against the edge of the earthen yellow manila folder. Inside were sixty pages of criminal litigation documents from the Federal Department of Justice, stamped in red with the word [CONFIDENTIAL]. The name Benjamin Poindexter sat prominently on the very first line, right under the heading "Level 4 Dangerous Defendant".
Facing you, Matt Murdock was standing by the window.
He did not move. Half of his face was masked behind those dark red, round framed glasses, casting a sightless gaze into the smog filled void of the avenue outside. His metal white cane leaned casually against the side of the steel filing cabinet, shuddering slightly every time a heavy truck rumbled past below.
"You're not taking this case." Matt's voice was low, quiet, and completely devoid of inflection. It was terrifyingly flat, like a frozen lake right before a massive storm.
You let out a long breath, trying to keep your chest from rising and falling too heavily. You knew Matt. He was not just hearing your words; he was listening to the fluttering of your heart valves, the tightening of your shoulder muscles from exhaustion, and probably the rush of blood beneath the skin of your neck under the pressure. In front of a blind man like Matt, trying to hide behind facial expressions was utterly useless.
"The Southern District Federal Court sent a CJA appointment, Matt." You heard your own voice say. "Our office is on the mandatory rotation list this month. If we turn down a Sixth Amendment representation without a documented, legitimate conflict of interest on paper, the court will revoke our panel funding. You know our financial situation right now."
Matt shifted his weight slightly. His hands, which had been buried in his trousers pockets, slowly slid out. You stared intently at his knuckles, as they bore calluses far too thick for a lawyer who did nothing but flip through law books all year, and there were faint, partially healed scars peeking out from beneath the cuffs of his white dress shirt.
"Conflict of interest?" Matt turned around, though his blind eyes behind the red lenses never quite locked onto you. "I will sign a formal withdrawal as partner. You can use my personal history with that former FBI agent as the conflict. Just write down that the firm cannot guarantee objectivity."
Matt shifted his weight slightly. His hands, which had been buried in his trousers pockets, slowly slid out. You stared intently at his knuckles, as they bore calluses far too thick for a lawyer who did nothing but flip through law books all year, and there were faint, partially healed scars peeking out from beneath the cuffs of his white shirt.
"What are you running from, Matt?" You stood up abruptly, your wooden chair scraping backward with a harsh screech against the worn, frayed carpet. "Ever since the name of Poindexter appeared on that list, you have been acting paranoid. He's a dangerous criminal, yes, and he's in solitary at the ESH. He is handcuffed twenty four hours a day, seven days a week to a steel table that is two inches thick. He can not exactly walk out of there and slit our throats!"
Matt said nothing. The silence stretched so long that you could hear the mechanical ticking of your own wristwatch, mark by mark.
You saw a muscle in his jaw twitch. Matt was listening. But he was not listening to you. He was listening to sounds blocks away, or perhaps, he was listening to the horrific memories he had never shared with you about the killer they called Bullseye.
"You don't understand the nature of what he is." Matt said, his voice dropping, sounding more like a quiet confession to himself than a reply to you. He took a single, short step toward the desk. His long fingers brushed the corner of the manila folder, tracing over the name Benjamin Poindexter as if touching white hot iron. "He's not a normal criminal in need of a lawyer. He's a black hole, and if you step into that cell trying to save him, he'll swallow you whole. He looks for a legal structure to latch onto, and then he'll use your own integrity to break you."
You watched the hand of Matt grip the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white. His concern for you was real, the protective worry of a man who constantly carried the darkness of this entire city on his shoulders. But within you, the pride of a lawyer and the harsh reality of overdue New York rent bills won the fight.
You reached out, decisively snatching the folder away from his grasp.
"I'm going to the federal penitentiary tomorrow morning." You said. "As the legal counsel of Benjamin Poindexter. I'm going to follow due process, Matt. No more, no less."
Matt did not stop you. He stood there, as still as a statue, as you brushed past him to grab your coat hanging from the back of the door.
You quietly packed the files into your briefcase and slipped out of the office just as dusk fell. You were practically running to escape the suffocating air of DUMBO.
But you could not escape yourself.
The subway ride carrying you back from Brooklyn to your loft apartment in Hell’s Kitchen stretched on like a fever dream. As the train rumbled out of the dark tunnel and climbed onto the steel bridge, crossing the pitch black, freezing East River that divided the boroughs, you sat huddled in the corner of an empty subway car.
The federal solitary confinement facility, ESH, was located on the outskirts of New York, where grey concrete blocks swallowed the meager winter morning light. The air inside reeked of strong chlorine bleach mixed with the stale sweat of long damp walls.
You walked down a long, narrow corridor lit by flickering fluorescent bulbs that buzzed like dying insects.
To enter this special deposition room, you had to pass through three tiers of steel doors. Each time a door slammed shut behind you, a heavy metallic clang echoed, tearing through the space and serving as a reminder that the free world outside had just receded another mile. Your expensive fountain pen, your phone, and even your small metal tie clip were confiscated by the guards. However, because this was a federal petition that required a signature in blue ink for system archiving, the officer handed you a disposable plastic ball point pen from the prison.
"Thirty minutes." The escorting officer with a cold square face said, his voice muffled through his protective mask. He slotted a massive mechanical key into the lock, the sound of the gears turning sending a shiver through the quiet space. "Keep three paces away from him. Whatever happens, don't touch him."
The heavy iron door let out a long screech, slowly creaking open.
Inside, the cell was empty, without any windows. In the middle of the room stood a solid stainless steel table welded directly to the concrete floor. The opposite chair was also a cold block of iron.
Benjamin Poindexter was sitting there.
Dex sat with a completely rigid posture, his square shoulders locked in place. His bright orange prison jumpsuit seemed too loose for his coarse frame, yet the rippling muscles of his arms were still starkly visible. His wrists were cuffed tightly to a thick iron chain bar anchored directly to the center of the table. Whenever he shifted, even slightly, the chains clinked against the steel surface, producing a soft metallic ring.
He did not move as you entered. His head was slightly bowed, short strands of hair partially obscuring his forehead. Yet the atmosphere in the room condensed instantly. The invisible pressure radiating from the man sitting there tightened your chest, as if the oxygen in the room had just been completely drained.
You pulled out the opposite chair, the sound of the iron legs scraping against the concrete floor creating a screeching noise that shattered the silence. You sat down, placing the thin censored folder on the table.
Only then did Dex slowly raise his head.
He looked at you. Not at your eyes, but at the hollow of your throat, where the blood was pulsing rapidly under the pressure of fear.
The room fell into an absolute, terrifying silence. You could hear the very faint breath of Dex through his nostrils, and the rumbling of your own stomach contracting because you had not yet eaten breakfast.
Dex shifted his weight slightly. The clanking of the iron chains dragging against the steel table echoed sharply off the four concrete walls. He leaned his body forward, the distance between your faces suddenly narrowing, close enough for you to feel his freezing breath blowing against your tense facial muscles.
"Haven't you had breakfast yet?" His voice was low, flat, and mechanically monotonous.
"Mr. Poindexter, we are here to..."
"Your stomach." Dex cuts in, his voice locking into a terrifyingly flat, unyielding pitch. "It has contracted three times in the last two minutes. This room is well-insulated, but I can hear it perfectly. The speed at which you were just flipping through those files was fifteen percent faster than that of a clear-minded individual. There is a slight tremor in your right index finger, a two millimeter amplitude. Your blood sugar is crashing. And you are afraid of me."
That feeling of being completely exposed initially made the back of your neck run cold.
The fear built up from the extreme warnings of Matt Murdock back at the office, the pressure of the overdue bills, and now the condescending words of this madman transformed into a sudden flare of anger.
You did not back down. You also leaned forward, closing the fragile distance left between the two of you, looking directly into his lifeless pupils, and set the pen down on the table.
"Yes, I haven't eaten breakfast." You raised your eyebrows, a mocking smile briefly playing on your lips. "Because I had to stay up all night reviewing sixty pages of your medical files and your previous transfer schedules. I'd to find a loophole in the detention order of the Department of Justice so that your head doesn't get crushed by the men of Fisk the moment you step into the general population area. So, Mr Poindexter, stop this ridiculous FBI detective act. It doesn't impress me."
Dex did not blink. But you noticed a very subtle change. The sides of his temples twitched slightly, and his grey pupils, which were as still as a dead lake, suddenly contracted.
With a decisive movement, you turned the folder around and pushed the document straight toward his handcuffed hands, the sound of the paper scraping against the steel table.
"Murdock didn't send me here. The law of America and your Sixth Amendment right sent me here." You crossed your arms over your chest, leaning back in your chair. "Cooperate with me, sign this transfer petition so I can save your miserable life. Or you can continue sitting here acting as my free heart rate monitor, and then wait for the men of Fisk to come in here and finish you off. Make your choice. I don't have all day to listen to you read my medical stats."
He looked down at the ball point pen lying isolated on the steel table, and then slowly looked up. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, pulling into a thin smile.
"A lawyer with teeth." Dex's voice dropped, the iron handcuffs clinking softly as he slightly raised both cuffed hands, his index finger tapping rhythmically on the tabletop at a precise frequency. "Murdock likes people like you. Delusional fools who believe the law is a cage that can contain a wild beast. Do you really think this transfer petition will save me?"
"It is the only thing keeping Fisk from turning you into a lifeless corpse in general population, Mr Poindexter." You fired back. "I have no illusions. I only work with reality. And the reality is, if you do not sign, tomorrow I'll be attending my client's funeral. That would be very bad for my track record."
Dex let out a soft scoff through his nose. He tilted his head, messy strands of hair falling over his forehead. He was looking into your eyes, trying to find the smallest crack of insincerity, but you stood your ground.
"You're not afraid of death." Dex remarked, his voice flat. "But you're afraid of failure. You're afraid you're not good enough to control everything. That's why you stayed up all night over a psychopath's file. What are you trying to prove? To me? Or to Murdock?"
"I don't need to prove anything to anyone. I only need you to pick up the pen, sign the defendant line, and let me do the rest of my job. My time is almost up, and the guards outside do not have the patience to listen to your lectures."
Dex stared at you for three more seconds.
Then, the iron chains suddenly let out a screeching sound as he decisively leaned forward, grabbing the ball point pen with his cuffed hands. The metal tip of the pen pressed hard against the federal petition form, making harsh scratching sounds. He signed his name, Benjamin Poindexter, with handwriting that was square, sharp, and straight to an extreme degree.
To sign the federal document, he had to use both hands, which were cuffed tightly to the iron ring welded to the center of the steel table. His range of motion was extremely limited. Because of this, throughout his writing, you had to keep your fingertips pressed against the bottom edge of the manila folder to keep the paper from moving under the tugging of the iron chains.
As his final stroke ended, Dex did not pull back immediately. In a movement that seemed like a mere mechanical accident, he let go of the pen. Because the short chain under the table jerked back when he pulled his shoulders back, the back of his rough hand, heavily calloused and as cold as stone, slid slowly, grazing lightly against the back of your hand. Under the gaze of the guards through the observation window, it was just a normal accidental contact of two people working in a narrow desk space.
You did not pull your hand back.
The coldness of his flesh touching yours was sudden and so real that it sent goosebumps down your skin, yet some invisible gravitational pull pinned your hand in place.
The pupils of Dex suddenly contracted. A fiery light flared deep within his eyes. He no longer looked at your neck. He locked his gaze onto your eyes, motionless, desperate, and glassy, like a drowning man who had just spotted the single light of the North Star in a chaotic night sky.
"I have signed." Dex whispered.
He slowly pulled his hands back, leaving the pen on the table.
"I agree with your structure, counselor. But remember this well. If Fisk can still get to me, if this petition of yours fails... I will create my own structure with my own hands. And when that happens, the first person I come looking for to reclaim my breakfast... will be you." He let out a satisfied sigh, the iron chains lowering.
The slam of the heavy steel door of the ESH prison echoed behind you, yet the cold from the fingers of Benjamin Poindexter still seemed to cling tightly to your skin.
You carried the folder with the signature back to the law office in Brooklyn. You had to deposit it into the secure safe before the workday ended.
When you pushed open the door and entered the office in DUMBO as dusk was falling, Matt Murdock was still standing in the exact same spot, right next to your desk.
The moment you stepped over the threshold, he froze.
His ears twitched slightly. With a sense of hearing and smell that went far beyond those of ordinary people, Matt did not just hear your rapidly beating, unusually agitated heartbeat. He smelled it. On the fabric of your coat, on the skin on the back of your hand, there was the scent of cheap chlorine soap from the prison, the rust of federal handcuffs, and the distinct scent of the breath of Benjamin Poindexter.
"You met him."
"Matt, I already told you, this is my job..."
Matt took two short steps toward you, his guiding cane leaning loosely against the side of the desk. He stood at a distance that was typical for two colleagues, yet his hand reached out, finding your wrist with absolute precision. He held your wrist gently but firmly, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand, precisely where Dex had grazed it moments before.
You could feel the hand of Matt trembling very slightly.
"Don't do this case anymore." He said, his voice dropping, like a silent plea full of helplessness. "He is not like other clients. He is looking for a structure to cling to, and when he finds you... He will drag you down with him. Let me take over this case on paper. Please."
Matt held your wrist tightly for another second, his thumb still pressing firmly against your skin, before letting go in utter helplessness.
Eleven in the evening. The sound of heavy rain pelting against the window of your loft apartment in Hell's Kitchen pattered, bringing a damp cold through the gap of the warped wooden door. You sat with your legs curled up on the sofa, the light from the desk lamp casting down on the open federal case files. Beside the cold cup of coffee was a brown administrative envelope sent from the Southern District Federal Prison. The corner of the envelope was stamped with a bright red seal. [ATTORNEY CLIENT PRIVILEGED: UNOPENED]. The guards had no right to touch it. It had gone straight from the hands of Benjamin Poindexter, through the secure mailbox, and onto your desk late this afternoon.
You reached out, your fingertips hesitating slightly before peeling open the adhesive seal.
Inside, there was not only the court response document. Falling out along with the stack of papers was a small yellow sticky note the size of a palm, hastily torn from the edge of an inmate notebook. The handwriting on the paper was square, sharp, pressed so hard that it left deep indentations on the back of the sheet. "You listened to me today. Your stomach is no longer rumbling. Your signing speed on the handover report also decreased by eight percent. The glucose was enough to keep you more alert."
You gripped the edge of the sticky note tightly with your five fingers. Your chest tightened. A chilling sensation ran down your spine, just like the cold graze of his hand on the steel table yesterday. He did not have a camera. He was locked behind four concrete walls of the most secure solitary confinement unit in the state. How did he know?
Bullshit... You flipped to the next page of the document to search for case information, but a second note fell out. This time, the black ink seemed to be written more hastily, the corners of the letters sharp like nail heads. "The guard standing at the door of the interrogation room today is named Thomas. He has an eagle tattoo on his left wrist. He stared at your hemline for three minutes. He is one of Fisk's men. I do not like the way he looked at you. Your structure has been compromised by an outsider, counselor. Be careful."
Dex was not watching you from the outside. He was using the very system of eyes and ears that Wilson Fisk installed to monitor everything around you in reverse.
Thunder rumbled outside, casting a flash of white light through the window glass, silhouetting you alone in the middle of the room.
The small diner located on the edge of Clinton was filled with the clattering of utensils and the smell of burnt grease. Outside, the rain continued to pour relentlessly, turning the window glass into a blurry screen that obscured the pale yellow street lights.
You sat at a secluded corner table, the two notes written by hand by Benjamin Poindexter tucked securely in your inner coat pocket. Opposite you, Karen Page was using her slender fingers to gently rotate the porcelain cup of chamomile tea. Her face was gaunt, her eyes carrying a deep, lingering sorrow that had not faded since the day Foggy Nelson passed away. She had just flown back to New York from San Francisco this week to finalize the last estate procedures for Foggy and pack up his old apartment.
You pushed the metal binder clip holding the stack of white documents toward her.
"I need the entire record of the testimony of Dex from his federal trial three years ago, Karen. Especially the list of inmates associated with the crew of Fisk serving sentences in the general population of the ESH facility. I need to prove to the judge that transferring him next week is equivalent to an execution without a trial."
Karen froze. Her fingers tightened around the rim of her tea cup to the point that her knuckles trembled. She raised her eyes to look at you, a gaze that held no anger, only an absolute shock and utter disgust spreading through her pupils.
"What the hell are you doing?" Karen's voice was a whisper, trembling but sharp. "Matt told me the Murdock & McDuffie office was assigned this case by the court, and I thought you were just going through the motions on paper. But look at you... Are you frantically trying to save that monster's life?"
"I'm following proper criminal procedure, Karen." You refuse to back down. "Wilson Fisk is using his mayoral power to turn a federal prison into an auction house for human lives. He bribed the system to indirectly murder a defendant before the trial could even take place. If I let him do that, then the rule of law in this city is dead. I would rather protect a demon by the book than let Fisk stand above the law."
Karen let out a bitter chuckle through her nose.
"Law?" Karen grated, her voice trembling but sharp. "Are you talking about rules to a psychopath who shot Foggy right in the chest right in front of my eyes? A man who turned the entire New York Bulletin newsroom into a slaughterhouse? You’ve never seen him when he goes mad, lawyer. He is not a client for you to show compassion to!"
She reached out and firmly grasped your wrist.
"He is not like other clients." Karen whispered, her eyes piercing into me as if wanting to expose the two yellow pieces of paper hidden in my coat pocket. "Dex is a black hole. He is always looking for a clean woman, someone with principles to act as a moral anchor for his madness. Before, it was his psychiatrist, then Julie, the poor girl he shot dead and then kept her corpse in the house. And now, he is seeing that in you. He doesn't need a lawyer. He is turning you into his next Julie."
You freeze for a moment, feeling as if a bucket of ice water has been thrown in your face. Karen's words cruelly coincided with what Dex had written on the note. He was slowly, step by step, wrapping his invisible chains around your ideals.
But your stubborn ideals would not allow you to back down. You resolutely pulled your hand away from Karen's grasp and took the stack of files.
"I am not Julie, Karen." You said as you stood up. "And I am not anyone's anchor either. I am the legal counsel of Benjamin Poindexter. Tomorrow morning, I'll still stand before the court to file this petition. Even if the opponent is Wilson Fisk... or your own paranoia."
Unsuccessful, you turned and walked away, leaving Karen Page sitting alone in the diner, while the darkness of Hell's Kitchen outside was churning, waiting for the emergency hearing tomorrow.
In the following days, the decisive clicking of your keyboard echoed regularly in the office, mixed with the rustling of federal procedural law documents. You began to lose track of time, forgetting even the breakfasts that the former agent in that solitary confinement room had warned you about. You did not realize that you were forcing yourself into a perfect routine, allowing no mistakes, just to keep that emergency petition flawless before the mayoral office of Fisk.
Matt Murdock often stood in the corner of the room, silent as a shadow. His dark red, round glasses were always turned toward you whenever you flipped through papers. He did not stop you anymore, nor did he use warnings.
On some mornings, when you walked to your desk, a warm sandwich box and a cup of tea were always sitting ready in the corner of the table.
The emergency hearing was postponed.
The notice stamped with the blue seal of the Department of Justice that arrived at the office at three in the afternoon was like a direct slap to your face. Wilson Fisk had won a political chess move. The official transfer order was approved. At nine tomorrow morning, Benjamin Poindexter would step out of the ESH solitary confinement unit to transfer to general population. The place where dozens of inmates belonging to the crew of Fisk were already sharpening their shivs, waiting for him.
You entered the cell to meet Dex one last time with a buzzing head and a chest tight with anger. You threw the stack of rejected motions onto the steel table, letting out a deafening crash that echoed off the four concrete walls.
"They postponed the hearing..." You said. "Tomorrow you have to be transferred. Fisk has bought off the administration. My process... has been broken."
Dex sat there, the iron chains still locking his wrists tightly to the center of the table. But unlike the madness or panic in the face of imminent death that you anticipated, the former FBI agent was completely still. He looked at the scattered documents on the table, and then slowly shifted his gaze to the expression on your face.
He subtly shifted his handcuffed hands, his rough fingertips lightly touching the bottom edge of the stack of papers, slowly arranging them neatly and perfectly aligned with the steel table. He looked directly at you. His eyes, which had been empty, suddenly lit up with a dull yet profound light.
"You didn't fail, counselor." His voice was flat. "Your structure is perfect. Your lines are straight. It's just this prison that Fisk has corrupted."
His gaze locks onto yours like a vow. "Tomorrow morning, I will step into that general population yard exactly as your transfer order dictates. I won't resist, I will follow the exact process you set up. I am putting my life in the hands of your law."
He pauses, a faint smile appearing on his lips. "But you must promise me one thing. Tomorrow morning, you must stand in the high observation room, watching me walk. Be the witness to our process. Don't let go, counselor."
This serial killer was not afraid of death; he was only afraid of losing the structure that you provided.
Eight in the morning on the day of Benjamin Poindexter's transfer. You sat at your desk, your hands gripping the imitation leather briefcase containing the files, your eyes staring blankly into space. The promise Dex made last night still echoed in your mind.
The wind chime at the main door rang.
You raised your head. Heather Glenn stepped into the office, bringing a bright and warm breeze from the high society world outside. She wore an elegant cream colored wool coat, her voluminous blonde hair still holding a few drops of early morning dew, her gentle smile characteristic of a psychologist. Heather represented everything peaceful, clean, and full of light, a normal life that Matt Murdock always craved but never managed to touch.
Matt immediately turned around from the sink. His face relaxed, a rare flash of warmth appearing behind his dark red lenses. But that peace did not last for three seconds.
"Matt, I need to talk to you. This is urgent." Heather's voice dropped, full of anxiety. She glanced at you, then turned to Matt. "From the therapy files of the mayoral office this week... Wilson Fisk has approved a covert plan. The moment Benjamin Poindexter steps into general population tonight, Fisk's men will stage a riot. They will eliminate him right inside cell number four. The old man wants to completely erase that name."
The briefcase in your hand fell onto the carpet, the metal clasp popping open and causing the stack of files to slide a long way across the floor. Your chest tightened, your breath catching. Dex would die. The structure you stayed up all night to protect, the legal process you used your entire honor to build, was about to be crushed into dust by Wilson Fisk with a single political snap of his fingers. Your usual decisive calmness vanished completely, replaced by a surging panic. You bent down to hurriedly gather the papers, your fingers trembling violently.
Matt stood motionless in the middle of the room. He heard your short, breathless gasps over a killer. The contrast at this moment appeared stark and cruel. Heather stood there, worrying for Matt with selfless innocence; meanwhile, you and Matt were tied fast, dragged deep into the dark mire of this city. He knew the mind of the girl in front of him was completely locked by the invisible chain of Dex. She was stepping into the trap of the devil herself, and he could not stand by and watch her be destroyed.
Matt slowly turned toward Heather, his voice steady, gentle yet firm. "Thank you, Heather. I need to handle an urgent procedure with the court office right now. Please go home first, I will call you later."
After Heather stepped out the door, taking the last bit of morning light away with her, the office immediately fell back into its inherent gloomy.
Matt took two short steps straight to your desk. He bent down, picked up the final petition form that had fallen at your feet, and gently placed it into your hand. His fingers touched your cold fingertips, transferring a steady, protective warmth. He did not blame you, nor did he question why you were panicking over Dex. He chose to lower his ego, choosing to step completely into the mire with you to pull you back before it was too late.
"I will go with you into the ESH facility." Matt Murdock whispered, yet it carried the heavy weight of a desperate decision that had been thoroughly considered. "As Co-counsel. We will personally go into that cell block for an emergency intervention before the riot breaks out. You want to uphold due process, I will help you uphold it."
The smell of sterile alcohol and fresh blood mixed in the cramped space of the medical treatment room of the ESH Federal Prison.
Benjamin Poindexter was sitting on the edge of the iron hospital bed. His head was wrapped in a layer of stark white gauze, but fresh blood had already soaked through the fabric, staining a patch near his temple red. That was the result of the ruthless head strike by Matt, driven by a sudden outburst of extreme anger when Dex mocked the death of Foggy right inside the interrogation room a few minutes ago. You bent the rules to follow them into the medical room to check on the condition of your client. Matt had used his super hearing to calculate the exact force of the impact, enough to create a serious fake injury to force the administration to postpone the transfer order and bring Dex to the medical unit, but not enough to cause damage to his brain.
Dex raised his head. Strands of brown hair matted with blood hung over his forehead. He did not look at Matt. His glassy eyes scanned the void, locking onto your figure in the corner of the room. That creepy smile appeared on his bruised lips.
"You has arrived." Dex whispered, his voice hoarse, filled with reverence. "You stood in the surveillance room watching me. You followed the exact protocol. You didn't let go."
"Shut up, Poindexter." Matt interrupted in a low voice, stepping in front of you. "I created this wound to keep you alive and safe from Fisk's men. Now, answer my question. Did Fisk hire you to kill Foggy Nelson?"
Dex let out a soft scoff through his nose, the iron chains at his ankles scraping against the bed leg. He did not care about the question of Matt. To him, Matt was just a disruptor of the process. He tilted his head, trying to see past the shoulder of Matt to find his North Star again.
"Murdock thinks he is saving me," Dex said, his gaze glued to your fingers. "But he just opened your cage with his own hands, counselor. He just created a new structure... for me."
Suddenly, an escorting officer and two armed guards pushed the door open to prepare the procedure to escort Dex back to his solitary confinement cell after the bandaging was finished.
"Interrogation time is up, counselors. Step back now," the officer ordered coldly, his hand resting loosely on the pistol holster at his hip.
Everything happened in less than three quarters of a second.
Dex suddenly opened his mouth. A sharp spitting sound echoed. He bared one of his own bloody incisors right inside his mouth, turning it into a razor sharp projectile, and launched it straight out.
The tooth embedded itself exactly into the left pupil of the escorting officer with a terrifyingly precise force. Before the panicked scream of the guard could escape his throat, Dex lunged forward like an orange phantom. The iron chain between his wrists wrapped tightly around the neck of the officer, snapping it completely.
The remaining two guards frantically drew their guns, but Dex was faster. He used the corpse of the officer as a shield against the bullets, while simultaneously snatching the metal signing pen pinned to the pocket of the nearby on duty doctor to stab directly into the throat of the second guard. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, staining the stack of documents in your hands red.
In the chaos, Matt Murdock decisively pushed you behind the emergency exit door, shielding you from shattered glass and stray bullets. Yet through the narrow crack of the door, you still saw everything.
Dex stood in the middle of the pool of blood from the three corpses, his orange prison uniform drenched in red. He leisurely stripped the officer jacket from the guard, disguising himself as a member of the prison staff. Before stepping out into the corridor to make his escape, Dex stopped. He turned his head, his eyes looking at you through the glass pane of the emergency exit door. He raised the bloody ball point pen, pointing it toward you, flashing a fierce smile full of absolute satisfaction.
He had successfully escaped prison, using the very medical loophole that Matt Murdock created, and using your own pen. The demon was officially out of its cage, and the first person he would look for... would undoubtedly be you.
The howling sirens of federal police cars echoed against the glass walls of the ESH Prison, tearing the rainy New York night into chaotic fragments of sound. Flashing red and blue lights swept across your face, casting cold streaks of illumination. You sat inside an NYPD patrol car, your hands gripping the grey wool blanket that a firefighter had just wrapped around your shoulders. Your clothes were still stained with the streaks of blood that had sprayed from the throat of the guard in the medical room. The entire detention facility was placed under complete lockdown. According to the security protocols of the United States Department of Justice, a lawyer who witnessed a level four federal massacre like you could not move about freely. You were immediately placed under emergency witness protection.
However, the FBI and the Department of Justice task force would absolutely not release Matt immediately. Therefore, he had to sit in an interrogation room, pretending to tremble and panic under the guise of a blind lawyer suffering from psychological trauma after the massacre.
"You only have five minutes to gather your clothes and essentials, counselor," the police officer sitting in the passenger seat said, his voice muffled through the rear view mirror. "After that, we will take you to a heavily guarded safe hotel in Midtown."
The car stopped in front of your building in Hell's Kitchen. Two NYPD officers stepped down first, their hands resting loosely on their holsters, escorting you through the dark lobby and the ancient elevator. Arriving at the apartment door, one of them motioned for you to turn the key.
"We'll wait in the hallway. Hurry up."
Hurriedly unlocking the three mechanical locks, you pushed the door open and stepped inside. The heavy slam of the wooden door behind you brought a small, false sense of security. The room was pitch black, with only the occasional flash of lightning outside casting pale streaks across the floor. You did not turn on the ceiling lights, only reaching out to switch on the small desk lamp in the corner of the living room. The weak yellow light was just enough for you to see the path into the bedroom.
You walked quickly toward the closet, but your footsteps suddenly froze mid step. Your sense of smell, already strained after a night of horror, suddenly caught an out of place scent. It was not the damp rain of New York, nor was it the rotting wood smell of the apartment. It was the pungent scent of chlorine bleach mixed with the metallic rust of iron handcuffs, the exact smell of the disinfectant from the solitary confinement unit.
A soft clink of porcelain echoed from the pitch black corner of the kitchen. You slowly turned your head, your heart leaping straight into your throat.
Benjamin Poindexter was sitting right there. He had stripped off the orange prison uniform and was wearing a dark black turtleneck sweater that he had obtained from somewhere. However, the two iron handcuff rings were still clamped around his wrists, and the sawed off chains dangled, clinking gently every time he moved.
On the dining table, a butter omelet, perfect to an extreme degree, was steaming hot under the streetlights filtering through the window pane. It was a flawless standard American breakfast.
"Dex... you..." You trembled, lowering your voice to the softest whisper, your eyes constantly glancing towards the front door. "The police... they're in the hallway! They only gave me five minutes to pack!"
"The two cops out in the hallway... they are the men of Fisk." Dex said in a low voice, flat and mechanically even, without a single hint of breathlessness from a man who had just escaped prison. "I checked their name tags through the gap in the window when your car just parked. They have no intention of taking you to a safe hotel, counselor. Your protection process... Fisk is pulling the strings."
He stood up. The iron cuffs dragged against the wooden floor as he took a short step toward you.
"Your petition failed." Dex whispered, smiling faintly. He stopped right at the edge of the safe distance, his freezing breath blowing against your face. "Murdock broke your straight line. Therefore, I had to create my own structure to survive. And as we agreed... I came to claim my breakfast from you, counselor."
The plate of eggs sat there, pale yellow and greasy, oozing a buttery liquid that glistened like the cold sweat of a dying man. Beside it, the angular face of Dex remained as still as a statue.
The legal system you once worshipped like a religion, the sacred ideal you spent your entire youth protecting, turned out to be nothing more than a rotting machine. It had betrayed you. It had cast you into the darkness without a shred of hesitation.
A cold emptiness expanded in your chest. As it turned out, your faith was nothing but a farce.
You dragged your cold toes toward the dining table. The sound of the metal spoon scraping against the porcelain plate shrieked with a piercing, razor sharp edge.
You scooped a corner of the egg. It was soft, slimy, and trembling on the tip of the spoon.
Under the unblinking stare of Dex, his deep eyes locking onto your throat like two gun barrels, you forced the gelatinous mass into your mouth.
The warm, thick, liquid butter immediately flooded your oral cavity, clinging tightly to every taste bud like a persistent layer of dead grease. It carried the faint, pungent, sulfurous odor of an overcooked egg yolk, blending with an artificial, sickly sweet taste that made your entire body shudder. Instantly, a violent self-defense reflex surged within you; your throat contracted severely, your esophagus clamping shut, firmly refusing to tolerate this humiliating food granted by the enemy. You wanted to vomit, desperately craving to spit this disgusting, slimy mess straight into his mocking, chiseled face. But you could not. Under the pinning, nailing gaze of Dex, you were forced to strain your neck, using the last fading remnants of your will to force your throat muscles to contract, laboriously pushing the slimy mass down into your esophagus.
Dex watched you swallow, the corner of his lips curling into a trace of absolute satisfaction. Balance had been established.
Right then, the door handle of the apartment subtly moved.
Exactly three minutes and twenty seconds. They did not wait for the full five minutes. The two corrupt police officers outside the door were using a master key to pick the lock.
"Stand still right there." Dex whispered.
He glided through the darkness, as silent and swift as a ghost. The iron handcuffs on his wrists made absolutely no sound due to the way he flexed his knuckles to secure the chain.
The apartment door cracked open. The two police officers slipped inside, their gun barrels already aimed.
"Lawyer, time is o-"
Before the leading officer could finish his sentence, Dex acted. With a terrifying reflex, he swung his arm and hurled the metal fork from the dining table. The fork embedded itself straight into the back of the first man's gun hand, piercing through flesh and bone, pinning his hand firmly to the wooden door.
Before the second man could comprehend the situation, Dex closed the distance. The iron chain between his wrists wrapped tightly around the officer's neck, jerking it violently backward. Snap. The second man collapsed onto the floor like a sandbag.
While the first officer was frantically trying to pull the fork out, Dex had already picked up the Glock from the floor, slamming its heavy butt straight into the man's temple.
Everything ended within four seconds. Two corpses lay motionless on the floor, blood beginning to pool onto the carpet.
Dex stood in the middle of the pool of blood, his breathing not rushed by a single beat. He leisurely used the white napkin on the table to meticulously wipe away the blood splatters on his hands, then turned back to look at you, who was now crouching in the corner of the wall, your hands trembling violently.
He stepped over the two corpses, walked up to you, and bent down to look straight into your eyes, which were vacant with horror. He raised his hand, lightly pressing the backlight button on the wristwatch of the police officer who had just died on the floor.
The green digital numbers lit up in the dark. 04:15.
Dex looked up, flashing a bright smile that sent a chill down your spine.
"You still have exactly forty five seconds of that 'five minutes', counselor. Finish the rest of the egg, and then we will leave."
The metal fork clattered onto the porcelain plate, the tiny sound swallowed by the thunder that had just ripped across the Hell's Kitchen sky. You could not swallow any longer. The rich taste of butter was now bitterly stagnant.
Time was up. Your clean lawyer facade had officially shattered along with the two NYPD corpses lying on the floor.
Dex did not wait for you to stand up on your own. He stepped forward, his large, cold, and rough hand grabbing your wrist. His grip was so powerful that it felt as if it would break bone, resolute and unshakeable. He pulled you up, snatched the coat off the hanging rack, and draped it over your shoulders.
"Go through the back door." Dex ordered, his voice as flat as a programmer reading code. "The patrol car driver on the outer perimeter will radio for a check in in thirty seconds. When there is no response, he will sound the alarm for the entire area."
He pushed you toward the floor to ceiling window leading to the fire escape balcony. The sawed off iron cuff on his wrist clinked against the glass door frame.
You were pushed out first. The wind and rain of New York immediately battered your face, freezing and stinging. The torrential rain washed away the fresh blood stains still clinging to the hem of your coat, but it could not wash away the heavy guilt weighing down your chest. You were fleeing. You were complicit with Bullseye.
The ancient, rusty fire escape stairs of the building were slippery under the downpour. You trembled as you descended each step, both hands gripping the freezing handrail. Right behind you, Dex moved with a strange rhythm. Due to his rigid steel spine after his injury, he could not bend his body flexibly; he walked with his entire upper torso kept absolutely straight, yet the speed and precision in every footstep of a former FBI assassin were still terrifyingly swift.
He held the captured Glock in one hand, while his other hand constantly gripped the fabric of your coat, keeping you at a distance of no more than half a meter.
"Watch the fourth step ahead." Dex whispered right against your neck, his voice cutting through the sound of the rain. "The iron bar has a loose bolt. Do not step on the center."
You subconsciously complied. What else could you do now? He knew the structure of your building better than you did yourself.
When both of you landed in the dark alley behind the building, the water was ankle-deep. The pale yellow streetlights at the end of the alley were fractured into blurry streaks of light by the curtain of rain. Right at that moment, the rapid blare of sirens echoed from afar. The local police had begun to surround the area.
"Dex... where are we going?" You screamed into the howling wind, your entire body shivering violently from the cold and panic. "This entire city is Fisk's territory! The police, the FBI, every single corner..."
"Fisk checks the main routes. He monitors the administrative camera systems." Dex stood shielding your body, his pale grey eyes scanning the darkness of the alley, searching for the blind spots of the security cameras. He curled his lips, a wild, maniacal smile appearing in the rain. "But he can not check the straight lines that I draw myself. Follow me."
He pulled you into an underground passage leading down to the old technical piping system of Hell's Kitchen, a place abandoned by cable workers from the previous decade. The thick darkness swallowed both of you.
At the Special Investigation Room of the ESH Prison.
Matt Murdock slammed both hands heavily onto the interrogation table, causing the paper coffee cup to topple over, the brown liquid staining across the stack of reports.
"I told you! I am a fucking blind man!" Matt gasped, his voice cracking from extreme agitation and outrage, his eyes trembling behind the dark red lenses. "I heard the scuffle, the sound of iron chains, then the sound of spraying blood! You're the FBI, why did you let such a dangerous inmate access the medical room?! Where is my co-counsel? Has she been taken to a safe place?!"
"Mr. Murdock, calm down. Two of our finest NYPD officers have taken her home to pack her things before heading to Midtown..." The federal agent sitting opposite said coldly.
Matt did not listen to him anymore. He completely ignored the reality in this room.
Daredevil's hearing was frantically pushing to its absolute maximum, despite the splitting headache caused by the sirens surrounding the prison. He filtered through the sound of the rain, filtered through the car engines, fixing the frequency onto your specific heartbeat, the heartbeat whose every rhythm he had memorized during those long days working together in DUMBO.
And then, Matt caught it.
Your heartbeat was racing at a frequency of 150 beats per minute, agitated, terrified, flooded with adrenaline. But it was not in a patrol car heading toward Midtown. It was moving underground. It was fleeing.
And right beside your heartbeat was another entity. A heartbeat so monstrously flat, slow, and steady like a machine. The heartbeat of Benjamin Poindexter.
Matt Murdock froze. His hands clenched tightly together under the table to the point that his knuckles cracked, blood from the old wound on the back of his hand oozing out, soaking his shirt. A terrifying sense of helplessness crashed down. He was being detained here under the guise of a poor blind lawyer, while the most vicious demon in New York had officially kidnapped his colleague, the one he had silently protected for so long, and plunged into the darkness.
"Murdock? Do you hear what I am saying?" the agent asked.
Matt slowly raised his head, his trembling shoulders subtly reshaping. This lawyer guise... was not going to hold him much longer.
