A Fisk-mas Carol: Chapter 1
A self-indulgent Daredevil fic. Spoilers up to DDBA Season 2!
Summary: Following Vanessa's death, Wilson Fisk is visited by the ghost of James Wesley who tries to warn him of his incoming demise. He arranges for 3 visitors to help convince Fisk to step down as mayor before it's too late.
A Daredevil-themed retelling of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens set during DDBA S2.
Words: 3,595 AO3 Link: [Here!]
A Fisk-mas Carol
Chapter 1: Wesley
Wesley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. Fisk had been present in the warehouse that housed his body, had seen his dead friend with his own two eyes, and had pressed his own two lips against his cold forehead. James Wesley was very dead, and had been for twelve long years.
Fisk was very aware of Wesley’s death. How could he not be? Wesley had loyally stood by his side for years, and Fisk had entrusted so much of both his criminal empire and his personal life to Wesley that they could have been mistaken as partners as opposed to employer and employee. As time had passed with Wesley as his sole confidant, Fisk had allowed him to get closer to him, to know him, and their relationship had evolved. To Wesley, Fisk was his sole employer, his sole priority, his sole partner, his sole friend, and his sole mourner. And Fisk had mourned, deeply, but he also had other matters to attend to as well as other people of great importance in his life.
Vanessa.
(Who was now also dead. Like Wesley.)
The point is that Wesley was very dead, and Fisk was very aware of the fact. He’d tried once or twice to find someone to fill the empty Wesley-shaped void by his side, but they had never truly been able to fill Wesley’s shoes. Stewart Finney had been a useful ally during Fisk’s stay in prison, but he wasn’t Wesley. He lacked Wesley’s drive, his analytical skill, his focused way of thinking, and his devotion to Fisk that spoke of something that Fisk didn’t dare put a name to.
(And the less said about Benjamin Poindexter, the better.)
Fisk was grateful for Buck Cashman. Someone else who had known Wesley and therefore chose to wear similar shoes rather than try to fill Wesley’s own. Fisk trusted Buck as Wesley had trusted Buck and had spoken highly of the man’s own loyalty and skillset. Despite this, Fisk had never let Buck as far into his life as he’d allowed Wesley. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Buck from being the victim of a few slips of the tongue during the early days of his appointment as aide, when Fisk still found Wesley’s name more natural on his lips.
All this to say that Fisk wasn’t heartless. How could he be heartless, if his heart had been broken for Wesley? For Vanessa?
Both the funeral and wake had been large and lavish, as the first lady of New York rightfully deserved. Vanessa had her own circle of friends and allies that mourned her and wished to pay their respects. And yet a selfish part of Wilson wanted to demand they all leave, that he be given privacy, and that no-one deserved to mourn her because no-one had loved her half as much as he had. The guests had kept their distance from him, likely sensing the hostile grief simmering on Fisk’s skin. In turn, Fisk refused to acknowledge them, and any genuine expressions of sympathy fell upon deaf ears. They could never understand.
Then the wake was over and reality crept in again. The city, his city, was in a state of unrest following recent events. It was still his duty as mayor to oversee proceedings and make things right, which is why he didn’t immediately turn Sheila Rivera away as she hesitantly approached him when most of the guests had left, leaving only his innermost circle.
“Sir,” Sheila began, looking up at him with the sadness in her eyes that Fisk was beginning to loathe. She spared him the sympathies at least and went straight to business. “I’m going to be brutally honest with you, the people are… well, divided, for lack of a better term over what happened at Fogwell’s.”
Fisk sighed and Sheila paused as if fearful for a moment, before continuing.
“That being said, there are plans for a community vigil later for your wife. A lot of people are planning to attend, and the organizers sent an invitation to you personally. I think, given the current situation, it would help improve your status in the public eye if you attended.”
“No,” said Fisk, his response immediate and firm.
Sheila looked taken aback. “Sir, I understand that this is a difficult time for you, but you’re still the mayor. You need a good look right now. The vigil is completely legitimate and respectful, and you wouldn’t have to stay long, just as long as you show-”
“I said no!” Fisk repeated with a curl of his fist, stunning Sheila into silence. He spoke on. “They don’t get to mourn her, they don’t get to pretend they knew her. They didn’t! Not for a second!”
Sheila’s voice trembled. “Sir-”
“Sheila,” Fisk interrupted before making an effort to lower his tone and calm himself in front of his few remaining guests. He cleared his throat. “I will not be attending and that is final.”
Sheila frowned, her expression making it evident that she disagreed with Fisk’s decision but also had the sense not to argue.
“Yes, sir,” she said through gritted teeth before walking away, collecting her coat and purse, and leaving the building.
Fisk let out a long sigh as the front door shut behind her, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had appeared. His irritation was quick to return, however, when he noticed Connor Powell approaching him from where he had been standing guard at the edge of the room.
“Couldn’t help but overhear the situation, sir,” Powell said.
Fisk grunted in response.
Powell took it as a sign to continue. “Just thought I’d warn you there’s a solid chance of protests in response to the vigil, and the task force might need-”
“Use whatever you need,” Fisk said quickly. “Men, weapons, resources… take as much as you need.” He met Powell’s eye. “Use as much force as you need.”
A smirk tugged at the corner of Powell’s mouth. “Got it. Thanks, sir.”
Fisk himself walked away this time, satisfied that the AVTF got the message and that he had nothing further to say to Powell. As he crossed the room, he was vaguely aware of a woman giving him her sympathies. Fisk completely ignored her as he made his way toward the stairs leading up to his bedroom. He’d had enough of services and sympathies and now truly, more than anything else, he wanted to be alone.
But of course, he would have no such luck, because sitting on the bottom steps of the stairwell was Daniel Blake.
Fisk would be lying if he said he didn’t hold some form of affection for Daniel. The young man was full of ambition and drive that Fisk admired, and even saw some of his younger self in the man. Fisk was aware that Daniel had even managed to win Buck over, which he considered to be a feat since, like himself, Buck seemed to prefer to hold people no closer than at arm’s length. And yet, Buck liked Daniel enough to try and bring him closer by teaching him the reality of the world they operated in. And the first step was to test the boy’s loyalty.
But Fisk had entrusted that task to Buck, and as much as he liked the boy, Daniel was the last person he wanted to interact with when he was seeking solitude. He didn’t have the time for his naivety. Daniel stood up as soon as Fisk approached.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, sir, I- I didn’t realize everyone left. I’ll get out of your hair- wait, fuck-”
There were dark circles under Daniel’s eyes, Fisk noticed. His deputy mayor of communications held an unfamiliar darkness in his expression that almost took Fisk by surprise.
“Daniel,” said Fisk.
Daniel held his breath and looked up at Fisk with wide eyes. Fisk tried to choose his next words carefully, before finding himself too mentally exhausted for tact or eloquence and opting for a direct approach instead.
“Are you loyal to me, Daniel?”
It was such a simple question and yet it seemed to shake Daniel to his core. He visibly gulped and struggled to find a response. “I…” It was at that moment that Fisk truly ran out of patience. He slammed a fist against the wall.
“Are you loyal?!” he roared.
“Y-Yes!” Daniel exclaimed even as he seemed to shrink into himself. Then, in one purposeful motion, he stood up tall again, though he was unable to mask the fear in his eyes. “I’m loyal. Of course I’m loyal, sir. I’m as loyal as they get, like, Buck-level loyal. I’m loyal, I promise you. I’m here for you, sir. Whatever you need from me.”
Daniel’s response could have been made out of fear just as easily as it could have been genuine, and frankly, Fisk didn’t care enough in this moment to discern which it was. He didn’t care about Daniel (or anyone, really) other than the woman he had just lost.
“Just go,” he snarled, not bothering to watch Daniel as he scurried away.
The remainder of the day granted Fisk very little of the peace he craved. There was only so long he could stand in his empty home before he began suffocating in his grief, so he had Buck take him to his office.
His phone had been buzzing non-stop until he set it to do-not-disturb, where only a very select few would be able to reach him in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately, that select few included Charles, who irritated Fisk beyond belief and stained the rest of Fisk’s day with his existence.
Eventually, having stretched on for impossibly long, the day came to an end and he returned to the mansion. Once Buck left with a promise to return early the next morning to check on him and resume business, Fisk was once again left with only his thoughts and a cold, empty home.
(No. Not home. It wasn’t home without Vanessa.)
Fisk’s melancholy was abruptly interrupted by his phone ringing while he was hanging up his coat. He elected to ignore it. If it was Buck, then the man had only just left and would be close enough to return to his side in the case of an emergency. If it was Charles, then Fisk had nothing to say to him.
Fisk only chose to check the called ID of the missed call once it had finished ringing, and felt his mind still in shock.
‘Wesley’
The name on the screen was as markedly clear as the one on its grave. Fisk blinked and reread it once, twice, thrice, feeling anger begin to accumulate inside him once more at the fact that someone had the audacity to play such a cruel practical joke, today of all days. But the name did not change.
With his fingers shaking (out of anger? Fear? Desperation?) Fisk hurriedly unlocked the phone and opened the app with the intention of calling the number back, only to find Wesley’s name absent from his recent calls. In fact, his call history indicated he hadn’t had a single call since Charles, which had been many hours ago.
Fisk grunted in annoyance. The call must have been his imagination. He was tired and mentally exhausted and his subconscious was torturing him, nothing more. He needed to sleep.
To say that he wasn’t startled, though, or that his blood was not filled with a terrible sensation that he had not felt since when he was a boy, would be untrue. But it simply motivated him to hasten his pursuit to rest. He completed his normal routine of settling before bed the same way as he had without Vanessa, because it was easier to pretend that she was away doing business and would return in the morning than to accept that this could be the final time he would be able to bask in her lingering scent in their bedsheets.
He opted not to turn any lights on, feeling as though the blanket of darkness was more comforting and appropriate. Why would he allow himself warmth or light without Vanessa?
His thoughts drifted back to his cellphone once or twice. Each time, he’d check to see if he had any missed calls. None. He opted to forget about it and place the phone on the mantelpiece of the master bedroom.
Finally settled enough to attempt to fall asleep after a day of nothing but pain, Fisk changed into his silk pajamas, sat down on the foot of the bed, and stared at the lone, wilting rose by the window.
Vanessa had loved roses. Wilson had therefore ensured that her life was surrounded by them. That they adorned her grave.
(It wasn’t fair. Vanessa should not have died, he should never have allowed that to happen. Bullseye would pay, Daredevil would pay, he would make sure that they would never know even a second of peace in the limited time they had alive. He would tear the life out of each of them himself. They would pay-)
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The room suddenly lit up with a faint blue as both the silence and darkness were pierced by the sound of Fisk’s cellphone ringing and rattling on the mantelpiece.
Shocked out of his stupor, Fisk stood up. Cautiously, hesitantly, he stepped toward the fireplace and peered at the buzzing screen.
‘Wesley’
Sluggishly, as if moving in a dream, Wilson picked up the phone, pressed ‘answer’, and held it up to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Sir,”
The voice came not from the phone, but from directly behind him. Fisk snapped his head around to see James Wesley standing in front of the bedroom door.
Fisk dropped the phone in shock.
In response, Wesley tilted his head slightly to the side and peered at him through his glasses. “Forgive me, it was not my intention to startle you.”
“Wesley,” Fisk breathed, his voice tempered by disbelief.
The same face: the very same. He looked exactly as Fisk remembered him. Wesley in his perfectly pressed suit shaping his tall frame, dark curls tamed and combed backwards, designer glasses resting on his nose. A wry smile on his lips.
A deep, primal instinct willed Fisk to back away from the strange figment of his imagination. Instead, he stepped towards it. It was a cruel trick of his mind, to see his friend like this in the midst of mourning his wife. He wished to confront it as such.
“Leave,” Fisk said simply.
In front of him, Wesley scoffed. His smile fell into a frown and his eyebrows shot upwards.
“Seriously? I go through all the effort to see you again, and you turn me away just like that?”
“You’re not real,” hissed Fisk, looking Wesley directly in the eye. “My mind is playing a trick on me. You died, and my subconscious is mixing my grief for… for Vanessa… with my grief for you. I’m exhausted and I need to sleep off this insanity.”
Fisk turned around then with the intention of moving into the bed, completely ignoring the vision of his friend, but something in Wesley’s tone made him pause.
“Aren’t I? Real, that is?”
Reluctantly, Fisk turned around and met Wesley’s cold gaze.
“Ask me why I’m here,” said Wesley.
“Fine,” said Fisk, humoring the dead man. “Why are you here? And if you are real, then how are you here? You’re…” Dead.
“I’m not going to argue that I’m not dead, which I unfortunately very much am. But that’s part of the reason I’m here, actually.”
Wesley smiled again and adjusted his glasses. Even if it was merely a conjuration or spectre, Fisk would be lying if he said it didn’t fill some cold void in his heart with warmth to see his friend and his familiar mannerisms again.
“I’m here because you need me,” Wesley said matter-of-factly. “And I cared about you. I still do. Which is why I’m here to warn you.”
Fisk scoffed. “Warn me? From what? I can take care of myself, you know that.”
Wesley stood up straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. It was a gesture that Fisk was familiar with, despite the years since he’d seen it. It was the stance Wesley assumed whenever he had to deliver bad news to Fisk.
Wesley appeared to take a deep breath and a cold breeze rushed through the bedroom.
“I died in your employ, as part of an attempt to protect you,” he began. Fisk couldn’t help but wince. Over the years, he had come to terms with the fact that his anger at Karen Page was masking his own guilt at Wesley’s demise. Wesley did not acknowledge Fisk’s pained expression and continued speaking. “And while it’s fair to say that I have many regrets about the circumstances surrounding my death, that was not one of them.”
Why not? Fisk wanted to say. Wesley had every right to blame him and to have harbored hatred for him in death. But it was to be expected, he supposed, that Wesley’s loyalty truly had no limits even beyond the grave.
“I’m here to warn you that you are about to lose your city.”
Fisk wasn’t sure when he started believing the man in front of him to maybe, perhaps, be real in some form, because the surge of anger he felt at those words were as though he was speaking to someone alive and well.
“What are you talking about?” he spat down at Wesley.
Wesley was unperturbed. “Your time as mayor is nearly over. It’s inevitable, I’m afraid. But you’re lucky that you’re still in a position to alter the outcome.”
“I can keep my position?” Fisk asked, to which Wesley shook his head softly.
“No, but you can stop yourself from losing everything alongside the city.”
“This city is my everything!” Fisk bellowed, now uncaring that he was screaming like a madman in his empty bedroom. “I have dedicated my life to New York, it has always been my everything! I thought you understood that!”
“This city is your everything?” Wesley echoed. Again, completely unperturbed by Fisk’s outrage. “Not Vanessa?”
Fisk was taken aback.
“No, Vanessa was… She was my everything, but-”
“But she’s dead,” Wesley stated plainly. “And I’m dead. And I’m telling you that you’re about to lose your city, and if you don’t willingly relent your control on it then more people that care about you will end up dead.”
Fisk glared at him. “There is no-one else I care about.”
“That’s not what I said. Either way, are you certain that’s the case?” Emotionally drained, Fisk lowered himself onto the foot of the bed again, looked up at Wesley, and gasped.
Gone was Wesley’s tie and stone-cold expression. His jacket, a different one now, was wide open. Wilson’s eyes were drawn to the red spots on Wesley’s torso. Patches of blood that were slowly spreading and painting Wesley’s white shirt a deep crimson.
His eyes flickered up to meet Wesley’s, who was now looking down at him with a vulnerability that sent a shiver down Fisk’s spine.
“How do you know all this?” he whispered at what was now, undeniably, a ghost.
Wesley sighed. “Being dead does open up a surprising well of information that the living couldn’t begin to understand. I’ve had twelve long years to watch you dig a grave far deeper than mine, one that would leave you with no rest and no-one to mourn you. I would hate for you to meet such a fate, so here, at the final hour, I opted to do something about it.”
He casually adjusted his glasses again, as if there wasn’t blood pooling out of him, as if Fisk wasn’t reliving the moment he found his body again.
“I’ve made arrangements for you to have three visitors tonight,” Wesley said in the same tone he used to present Fisk’s itinerary at the start of the day when he was still alive. “I strongly suggest you hear them out, or else you'll lose your chance at saving what little you’re soon to have left in the world, both in terms of people and power.”
“I’d rather not,” Fisk said. “I’ve already had a horrible day and I would much rather sleep so I have the strength to face tomorrow.”
Wesley shrugged, and Fisk once again noted his nonchalance as it clashed with his corpse-like appearance. “The arrangements have already been made, sir. Get it over with, then you can thank me later. But you’re right, you need to sleep, so I’ll take my leave.”
“Wait!” Fisk rose to his feet just as Wesley began turning around. “Wesley, I…”
Wesley faced him with a quirked eyebrow and patient expression and Wilson felt the words die on his tongue. What was he even going to say? That he was sorry? That he was angry? That he had been haunted by Wesley even before the appearance of his ghost?
That he cared?
“...Thank you,” he settled on instead. “For trying to protect my mother and I back then.”
Wesley just nodded once, his wry smile replaced with a genuine one, his front still covered in blood, before he turned and walked straight through the closed bedroom door.
Once again, Fisk was alone.
And despite the events that had just transpired and his thundering heart, Fisk felt the fatigue of the day overcome him. Without any further thoughts, he all but collapsed into his bed, and fell asleep instantly.
To be continued. Thanks for reading!
