Poor Little Lamb
Part 1
Pairing: dark!Matt Murdock x female reader (no use of y/n)
Word count: 2.5K words
Tags/Warnings: Rivals, fear, violence, murder implication, mental games, predator/prey, kidnapping, slight non-con touching (no smut), angst, (please tell me if I forgot to tag something!)
Summary: The Devil decides to fulfill his warning.
A/N: Second part of The Devil’s Hour is here. Matt’s sense of justice, as seen in the first part, is totally different than the canon one so keep in mind that. Feedback is appreciated, enjoy!
English is not my first language, I try not to make grammatical mistakes, but if you see any is because of that.
You had a death wish, he was now sure of it.
Matt really thought you were clever, or at least clever enough to back off and save your skin instead of ignoring the visit he paid you.
His knuckles went white when your scent hit him making an entrance at the courtroom.
Expensive perfume, vanilla body lotion, white wine, and a new addition: tobacco.
You were nervous, he could feel it.
Your heart rate increased more than usual, the sweat on your hands along with the little trembles shaking your body revealed it to him.
Yet you didn’t stutter a single word, moving flawlessly from one side to another giving a persuasive and confident smile. The moment he listened to the heartbeats of the jury and the breathing of the judge he knew it was over.
You had won the case.
He left the courtroom clenching his jaw. His client’s innocence defeated against your stubbornness, pride, and avarice.
Matt was right when he judged you as a wolf dressed in lamb’s skin, and he was a man of his word.
He almost felt sorry for you.
But things had changed and if you had to be the example to all the people siding on the wrong side, dancing between integrity and corruption, then so it would be.
…
You were so eager to play the poor lamb part, Matt would give you a reason.
It had been exciting, he wouldn’t lie.
How he waited to fulfill his warning.
You took a break from cases, even placed a whole security system at your fancy apartment, and wouldn’t abandon it if it wasn’t strictly necessary. When you did you brought a gun and a pepper spray can in your purse as if that would help you save yourself if he decided to go after you.
It made him laugh every time he followed you, whether at light or beneath the darkness.
...
Matt frequently visited your rooftop, sometimes creating specific sounds just to hear your poor pounding heart and your trembling breath at the mere sound of a rock hitting the window beside your bed at night.
It had become a game. To keep an eye on you, spy on your habits and routines, and the challenge of designing new ways of messing with your mind. You entertained him for weeks until he decided that the anticipation was enough, and when you felt safe enough to go out once again, he decided to act.
…
How foolish, he thought when he sensed you taking the last lap of your daily exercise around the park at six pm, the sun already setting.
Matt followed you from behind in his black clothes, deciding he wanted to play a little and fuck with your head for the last time before facing you.
He started breaking small branches, stepping on dried leaves while following you under the cover of the recent darkness, feeling your state of panic rising. Legs speeding up in fear, the heavy breathing of your gasps leaving a thin trace of haze before fading in the air of the fresh night.
Matt decided to let you think it was just your hysteria creating a fake scenario in your head. He chuckled when you rested your back against a tree, calming your palpitations while taking deep breaths.
“It’s not real, ” you murmured. “Not real.”
After hearing those words he couldn’t help it.
He laughed.
Loud enough so you could hear him, so you could know he was there with you.
The effect was instant. He felt you shivering, blood abandoning your face, and heart hammering in your chest. Anxiety spread through your body.
Enough with the foreplay.
Matt decided he had been cruel enough and that the beginning of his warning was just starting.
The park was long empty gone when he grabbed you after you started running away from him. Adrenaline ran through his veins as you put up a fight, trying to get the gun he knew you had on your small workout bag.
Once you found it, he didn’t give you enough time to hold it, taking it away from you and crushing it against the nearest tree.
He held your right arm from behind you, his gloved hand on your mouth like the last encounter. But this time you did something unexpected.
You bit his hand.
Hard.
He shook it, receiving a hard nudge from your elbow in your attempt to set yourself free. It amused him, that you thought your little strength could help you against him.
As a small reward, Matt decided to give you advantage, even though it was mere false hope. The grasp around you lost its force and he stepped a little back, pretending you actually harmed him and let you run a little more.
When you were close to the end of the park he captured you again, this time holding you with his full strength, carrying you inside an empty building he noticed before.
He didn’t waste time, pinning you down against the hard cold ground, surrounded by dirt exactly where you belonged. Busy trying to contain your fists and kicks he wasn’t fast enough to register your head slamming his nose.
He groaned. Blood ran down his nostrils as he finally managed to trap your wrists above your head with his left hand and shove his legs at both sides of your body.
Your heart rated its peak by watching him mapping the fingers of his free hand on his nose and lips, soaking them with his blood and giving you a terrifying smirk. You turned your head to the right side and shut your eyes.
“Poor little lamb, so naïve she thought I wouldn’t come for her as I promised,” he whispered, tracing his bloody and calloused digits on your skin, slowly drawing irregular patterns from your cheeks to your jawline, chin, and throat, brushing the necklace on top of your chest. “So scared, knows what’s coming, don’t you?”
His grip tensed at your lack of words, he grasped your chin between his thumb and forefinger, angling it up towards him so you would look directly to where his eyes were supposed to be behind the mask.
“Look at me,” he commanded. You opened your eyes, driving your pupils down looking at his chest instead of his face. “At me.”
Your eyes traveled up. His bloody lips gave you a sinister smile as he got close, both now sharing your heavy breathing.
Matt could smell the sweat, adrenaline, dirt and his blood on you mixed with your usual scent and heightened emotions. The combination raised his blood pressure, overwhelming him in the same way one gets high, or even better.
He inhaled the air in delight.
“You know, sweetheart, I considered you wise enough to listen to my warning.”
“Warning?” You managed to say, your chest rising up and lowering down in swift motions. Yes, you were terrified, but you also knew there was no way to escape him, and you and your idiotic pride refused to stay silent. “You mean threat.”
Matt scoffed.
“As you wish to call it.”
“It-it was my job! I-I couldn’t…”
“Yes, you could’ve,” he interrupted. “You just decided to sell your soul, exchange your life for your ego and greed by working for shitty scumbags.”
Your breath stuck in your throat.
“I didn’t-”
Before you could finish the sentence he grabbed your mouth. The copper taste of his bloody digits skimmed your lips.
“Lies,” his fingers left your mouth to collect a strand of hair that crossed your face. He tangled and twisted it on his forefinger before putting it behind your ear almost gently. “Such a shame, so much talent wasted protecting criminals.”
Your erratic heart resonated in his ears, the sound of guilt.
Of course you knew some of your clients' true nature, you weren’t an idiot. But life was expensive and those kinds of clients were always generous with their paychecks.
Who could blame you? There were hundreds who worked just like you.
“I’m- I’m just a lawyer, why aren’t you hunting down those said criminals instead of me?”
Matt leaned to your side, placing his head beside yours, the heavy pressure of his chest on yours let you feel the beating of his own heart. His legs kept restraining you as his breath caressed your ear, a slightly soft touch of his lips on your earlobe.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,” he recited. “Matthew 7:15.”
His husky voice echoed in your ears, your mind rushing.
The passage from the bible.
Matthew 7:15
The image of his stubble and red prominent lips from seconds ago.
The steadiness and conviction in his voice.
His voice, you knew that voice.
Matthew.
No, it couldn’t be.
“What?” you let out in disbelief.
His head left the crook of your neck and his face was once again a few inches up from yours, your sight quickened to his features. Sickness set in the pit of your stomach and throat when the connection you tried so hard to deny emerged in front of you.
It couldn’t.
It just could not.
Matthew Murdock was blind.
Matthew Murdock was a lawyer.
A lawyer who was also involved in your case.
But he was blind.
Wasn’t he?
It couldn’t.
It wasn’t happening.
It wasn’t him.
Matthew Murdock was nice.
You were losing your mind.
He felt the change in your breathing, the realization coming to you as you lightly shook your head still in denial. His fingertips started to map your cheeks in smooth circles, a grin appeared once again.
He whispered your name before continue speaking.
“…always hiding behind the facade of a righteous lawyer, playing the innocent woman just so you can later show your claws,” he held other strands of your messy hair, stroking it and placing it on top of your left breast, barely brushing it before repeating the action to your other side. “I already do, and as you can see it’s not enough. If I need to eliminate the criminals in my city I have to remove the poison ivy from its root. People like you, you all contribute to the corruption of this city.”
You swallowed.
“So this is your plan?” you worked to say finding the confident voice you had on you. “Eradicate all people who made mistakes. Well, I have some news to tell you: Hell’s Kitchen, New York, the whole world is full of shitty people.”
“Mistakes?” he bitterly laughed, his tone of voice once more changing from smooth and passive-aggressive to feral enraged. You didn’t know which one was more frightening. “You even have the nerve to call your actions a simple mistake when you ruined someone’s life work and credibility in society.”
Silence. You opened and closed your mouth.
It was the truth. You knew it.
Matt pressed his lips in disappointment.
“I gave you a chance to make this right, if only you had listened you wouldn’t be here tonight.”
His voice sounded tired, almost resigned as if he also didn’t want to be there.
Since the first time he caught you that night you knew you wouldn't get out. You were condemned the day you decided to appear in the courtroom of that trial.
Memories of that day passed through your mind, you tried to remember the ones involving Matthew Murdock. You remembered his tensed lips. You remembered his furrowed brows. You remembered his head pointing in your direction even if he couldn’t see you. You remembered his hand grazing your arm by accident when he passed by you long before you shared a trial. You remembered the first time you two met, the ghost of calloused fingers caressing every inch of you. The same ones that were dancing on your skin just now.
A sour taste placed in your mouth, impotence, acceptance, fear, anger; all of it pounding in your heart.
You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction even if you knew he was partly right.
“Then what are you waiting for? Are you done with your morality speech?”
A combination of irritation and entertainment stroked him as he chuckled.
Maybe you did have a death wish.
“Trying to act fearless, huh? Doesn’t work with me, sweetheart,” he told you with mockery. Matt lowered his tone, this time sounding predatory. “I can smell it in you, your fear, your powerlessness. I kept wondering, you know. All these weeks. Given the time, would you beg me to forgive you? Beg me to spare you?”
His words awakened something inside you, the sourness taste spreading on your tongue. You took a deep breath before spitting up to his face, some of it falling down your mouth and cheeks. A smug look arose on your face.
“Did that answer your question?” you said. He grinned, not even bothering to clean your saliva off his face. His hand traveled to your throat and squeezed it, but you kept talking with struggle, the small smirk you held not leaving your face. “I notified people. If some-something happens to me if I do-don’t appear they will know the De-Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was behind my disappearance.”
Matt scoffed, a trace of bitterness and grudge underneath his voice.
“And the wolf shows the claws again. Poor little lamb, trying to pretend she’s in control,” he mocked, perceiving your lips still curled up, tiny traces of fog from your struggling breathing grazing his face and vanishing up his nostrils. “Then so be it.”
...
Matt passed his fingers through one of his papers, researching for one of the new clients. At his side Foggy let out a yawn, he could sense him covering his eyes, already tired. Karen bit the tip of her pen while writing some notes too much focused to feel Foggy’s fingers pinching her arm.
“Karen, Karen,” Foggy said. Matt detected something else in his voice, his heart was now beating faster. “Unmute the TV.”
“Holy shit.”
Matt felt Karen’s pen falling before the loud voice of the reporter came to his ears.
“…a promising lawyer of Hell’s Kitchen. Police are investigating the last spot she was seen before her disappearance and the possible connection to Mr. John Robertson, owner of Robertson Industries, murdered a few days ago, also one of her clients.” Matt perceived Foggy covering his mouth, Karen’s unsteady breathing while paying full attention. “…an anonymous tip reported The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen as the responsible due to a previous statement from the victim feeling stalked, although the police haven’t confirmed or denied this information.”
“God,” whispered Foggy in incredulity.
“Was that…?” your name falling from his lips left an embittering taste in his mouth.
He already knew the answer.
“Yeah, last seen running at a park before vanishing,” replied Karen before swallowing. “I guess… I guess at the end assholes get what they deserve… one way or another.”
“Okay, that was incredibly heartless,” said Foggy. “I know she was, is, I mean. She’s practically a demon who destroyed or case and probably not a good person, but, but Christ. We need to be careful. I hope she's still alive.”
Matt nodded quietly, rubbing the necklace inside his pocket.
The smell of your scent still lingering on it.