As we begin another new year, be like Spidey and take the time to check in on your friends. And as Daredevil put it, in 2026, “May we all find more than we lose.” 🙏
Summary: While sleeping peacefully and deep in your dreams, you jolt awake after hearing a knock on your door just to wake up and find Matt Murdock-- better, The Devil of Hell's Kitchen- barely upright on your treshold
Trigger Warnings: blood, injury and treating medical treatment, crying, trauma, suicidal themes, hostage death (discussed), panic, fear and anxiety, emotional distress, violence.
A/N: DAYUM I'M BACK HELLO?!?!? SO, I actually thought I still needed to edit this, figured out that it was ready to be published so I don't know while it wasn't in my profile yet! Maybe it just didn't convince me.
Probably not one of my best works, but I think it's pretty good. Feedback is always welcome!!
The first thing you hear is a thud coming from the kitchen.
Well– You don’t quite catch it at first. The only thing you know is that you’re getting woken up by a soft noise coming from the front door before even registering that it is a thud.
As soon as your eyelids flutter open, still heavy with sleep, you glance at the digital clock on your bedside table.
2:47AM.
The red text was the only dim light in your bedroom, still immersed in the shadows of the night.
Initially, you didn’t mean to pay attention to that odd thud. But that thud, soon turned into a really off-putting knock on your door.
It sounded wrong, distant. It sounded dragged and weak.
Just then, you decided to leave your warm sheets and padded toward your kitchen. You peeked through the peephole and– Matt?!
Actually– more like ‘The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’ right now. But why would he pay you a visit in the middle of the night?!
That’s when you noticed his ragged breathing, and how he was struggling to keep an upright position.
Your hand flew to the knob without second guessing it.
“Matt what–”
“You should see the other guy.”
“That is not the point!”
He walked past you, still holding his side and stumbling in your living room.
“Do you have a place where I–”
“The couch. Sit down.”
You can’t actually figure out how, since he only entered your living room twice by now, but somehow he managed to find the couch and slumped himself down on it.
A groan of pain left his lips as soon as he sat down. When you returned from the bathroom rushing with an aid kit in your hands, the first thing you did before lifting his shirt was untying his mask with trembling fingers. The scarf that covered most of his beautiful features.
You knew the day you discovered that Matt was The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, consequences were about to come with it.
You knew it. Yet, you didn’t back off.
And this was one of the consequences you needed to deal with.
So now your hands were damp with blood. His blood. Dark and red through your fingers as you tried to stop the hemorrhage with a towel which was useless by now, because soaked in that red liquid.
It was making you nauseous, you didn’t know for how much longer you could hold on.
Your lips were pressed together, eyebrows knitted together as you focused, trying to not let him die on your couch. For a moment, you allowed yourself to look at him. To check if he was holding on alright or if you were pressing down too hard.
His eyes were unfocused, as usual. But there was something deeper beneath them this time. Something more painful and no— it wasn’t just because you were patching him up. There was something more tonight.
“What happened this time?”
Nothing. He didn’t answer you.
You don’t know if it was because he didn’t hear you since he was way too deep in his thoughts or because he was avoiding that question. Maybe he didn’t want to face it.
Maybe he was too guilt-ridden to realize that, whatever happened, it wasn’t his fault.
So you sighed and just kept working on him. Your eyes reluctantly left his features to get your attention back to his wound. When you looked down and removed the damp towel, it was hard to tell if the blood actually stopped. It was way too smudged all around the wound to tell properly.
But it didn’t seem to pulsate anymore, so you took that as a good sign.
“I’m gonna clean it, stay put.”
You stood up from your kneeling position and brought the towel in the kitchen, just to substitute it with a clean one and dip it in warm water to clean the wound. When it made contact with his skin, Matt jumped slightly from the unexpected sensation.
Oh, that was new.
Matt Murdock just flinched when you touched him. Hence, that night must have been really bad for him. Because Matt Murdock didn’t flinch, he always was one step ahead. Always knew where you’d put your hands, where you would touch him… He was incredibly aware of everything all around him that was happening, and that was going to happen thanks to his enhanced senses.
So of course, that was the last thing you expected to happen. But you didn’t second guess reassuring him even if that reaction left you speechless and motionless for a second.
“It’s okay.” You murmured, trying to reassure him. Even if, right now, you were the one who needed reassurances more than him. You swore one day, you would never hear from him again.
And that thought alone terrified you to say the least.
And that wasn’t even the worst thing that could happen. Because he could be alive and not telling you, making you believe he is dead. He did once with Karen and Foggy and if it meant protecting you, then he wouldn’t hesitate a second to do it with you too.
Those thoughts made your lips tremble and your eyes water, but you sniffed up and set those worries aside for now. You had something more serious to take care of right now, anyway.
The next minutes passed while you stitched his side. The room was filled with hisses in pain from him and sweet whispered reassurances from you. Some for yourself, some for him.
When you were about to pass the last stitch through his skin, the tension was cut by his words for once.
“They managed to blind me.”
At that statement alone, your eyebrows furrowed. Blind him? He was already blind how could they—
“They— They hit a tube with an iron bar.”
A beat passed between you two for a second longer than it seemed.
“The hostage died before I could save him.”
Your breath hitched.
Shit.
That’s what was beneath all that. The distance in his gaze, the tears almost falling down that were now striking his cheeks.
“Hey— No, no. Okay, you’re okay. It’s not your fault.”
As soon as you noticed his tears you climbed onto his lap — careful to not straddle the wound— to consol him as best as you could. Your thumbs brushed under his eyes, and his hands came up to your hips almost insintively.
“I couldn’t—”
“No, no— you did everything you could.”
Your hands cupped his cheeks, thumbs caressing his skin and no longer paying attention to the tears that were still staining his cheeks.
Your heart was shattering in your chest and you were sure he could hear it like you were. If not better.
But he still buried his head in your chest to ground himself in some kind of way, trying to focus as best as possible on your hands playing with his hair and running up and down his back eventually.
While he was still wrapped around you, you grabbed the towel and cleaned the wound he had on his temple. The one you kissed every night before going to bed, wrapped in his strong and warm embrace.
Your touch was comforting in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
Soft and grounding exactly when he needed it, stern and strict when he needed to be reminded that he did have someone to come home to.
Because, for as much as he loved you, he sometimes forgot that. Always risking it all, always coming home soaked in blood, always making you worried— but damn, there hasn’t been a single time when he told you that he would’ve returned to you and didn’t.
He barely did. But still, he managed to do it.
And now, what he needed was to not be let go. And you discovered to be surprisingly good at that.
Thank God you were.
Because otherwise Matt Murdock wouldn’t be here, holding you and sobbing into your chest while ignoring the throbbing pain still in his side as he held you closer and closer.
Without you, he probably would’ve let his thoughts take over. Or even worse, his guilt. Which had no reason to be there, but still persisted in his life.
Without you, he probably would’ve ended it that night under the unceasing rain of Hell’s Kitchen.
I like to imagine Matt is Hell's Kitchen's local cryptid, and by that I mean local blind lawyer Matt Murdock and not the suspiciously Matt shaped devil themed vigilante that roams the streets at night.
Yeah Matt's charming, handsome, and kind, but he's also just... a little unsettling. His head twitches at just the slightest noise, even when you swear he couldn't have possibly heard anything. He always seems to notice things, small things, things not even most sighted people notice. He walks with a certain grace and poise, and his steps are near silent in a way only dancers seem to master. He always seems to find the darkest corner to perch in, the shadows blanket him just enough to where you notice. Matt for the most part tries real hard to pretend to be normal, But some things he can never quite mask right, and Hell's Kitchen loves him all the more for it.
