series masterlist — introduction — next chapter
matt murdock x vampire!reader
warnings: (18+ minors dni) eventual smut. mention of blood and graphic scenes of violence. blasphemy. constant mention of the catholic religion.
attention: mention of the uterus and its loss! mention of motherhood as something expected, taking into account the context of the 1920s.
clarification: english is not my native language, so i apologize in advance for any mistakes.
Owney Madden hadn't been released yet, but the lethal cadence of unparalleled violence born in the shadow of his existence was more than present in Hell's Kitchen. Now that his release was a reality, it meant it was time to rebuild the foundations of an empire that would later be remembered in the city's history.
The idea was to find key locations in Clinton with enough influence to go unnoticed or to intimidate people. Space was also necessary to safeguard what would later become as precious as gold: alcohol.
Clinton Church had an ideal location to pass itself off as something, and at the same time, it had loyal followers who listened to Father Steven's words without question. The church had an attached orphanage, making it an important hub for future smuggling; the children were easy to train and manipulate, and the young women who took refuge there could be used for many other purposes.
The plan was simple. It wouldn't be the first time a church had joined a criminal network.
The convent refused. It said no to the web of death, corruption, and bloodshed woven by Owney Madden's gang.
The Gopher Gang—Madden's gang—decided that if Clinton Church didn't join them, then they would suffer the consequences.
The police would call it an isolated incident.
The doors of Clinton Church slammed shut behind you with a thud that echoed through the nave, as if the entire building had breathed its last with you. Your hands trembled so much you barely managed to slide the old iron bolt; the metal squeaked beneath your bloodied fingers as your weight finally collapsed against the wood.
Outside, Hell's Kitchen burned.
The gunshots continued to echo through the narrow streets like premature thunder, mingling with shouts that arrived distorted by the distance. You could hear men laughing, boots pounding on the cobblestones, orders shouted with that carefree violence possessed only by those convinced the world belongs to them.
Owney Madden was still in prison.
But his men were already walking the streets as if he had never left the neighborhood.
The Clinton Church had the sacrilege of not bowing to corruption.
It said no to hiding weapons and alcohol. It said no to the corruption of children and to handing over its young novices and girls.
The Church refused to become just another cog in a machine of a city that seemed to have forgotten the difference between faith and fear.
And Madden's men never took no for an answer.
Another gunshot pierced the air.
Then a scream. It was high-pitched. Too young.
You recognized that voice. It had been one of the novices; she couldn't have been more than seventeen. She had arrived just a few months before with a battered suitcase and the hope of finding a place where the world stopped hurting.
On the other side of the wall, separated only by a small stone courtyard, stood Saint Agnes Orphanage. You thought of the children hiding behind the windows, huddled together while the nuns tried to cover their ears so they wouldn't hear the horror unfolding beyond the stained glass.
You prayed they wouldn't come out.
You prayed Madden's men wouldn't cross that courtyard.
Each movement left a new scarlet stain on the wooden floor. The trail of blood snaked between the pews as if another, invisible creature were walking behind you, claiming every drop that left your body.
The incense from the morning mass still hung in the air. It mingled with the iron in your blood and the damp scent of the ancient stone, creating a strange, almost solemn perfume, as if the church had begun preparing your funeral long before you crossed those doors.
Inside, the church remained silent, a silence so ancient it seemed to have outlived all the prayers uttered beneath that vault. Only the ragged rustle of a crawling body broke the stillness. You were fortunate that they presumed you dead and tried to eliminate those outside. They wanted those outside first, so no one could escape.
Your hands left a dark trail across the flagstones as you groped your way to the side altar, away from the front door, away from the overturned pews and the stained-glass windows shattered by Owney Madden's men. Each breath was shorter than the last. The iron of your blood mingled with the harsh taste of dust, and for the first time since you'd learned to hold a rosary between your fingers, you understood the true meaning of agony.
Not there. Not like that. Not at the hands of filthy men who only sought to stain the streets of your beloved, damaged home crimson.
Your fingers found the crucifix hanging around your neck. The silver was warm, soaked with your own blood. You gripped it with the desperate strength of someone who has nothing left to offer.
“Please…” the word barely left your lips.
Then came another. And another.
Not a memorized prayer, but a broken babble, a plea born of fear.
The church didn't answer.
The crucifix remained motionless between your fingers.
It wasn't a sound. It was the complete absence of them all. As if suddenly deafness had engulfed you and the mere presence of despair was all that surrounded you.
The trickle of blood stopped.
The wind ceased to pierce the shattered stained-glass windows.
Even the pain seemed to cease, suspended in a moment that no longer belonged to time.
It didn't descend from the ceiling.
It didn't emerge from the shadows.
Profound. Immense. Powerful.
So ancient that no human language could have claimed it as its own. You didn't understand its language, yet at the same time, you did. You recognized and didn't recognize the voice. It was a strange sensation that clung to the very core of your being, beyond the physical.
Tears streamed down your cheeks before you even realized you were crying.
“There is no salvation without sacrifice.”
The air grew heavy. The cross was still in your hands, but suddenly it felt heavier.
“What protects must first relinquish what it was made to preserve.”
You frowned. Those words echoed in your head, and you turned them over in the brief moment you had, trying to understand them.
It didn't make sense, not entirely.
A dagger lay just inches from you, fallen to the ground where you had left it when you collapsed. That same weapon had repeatedly plunged into your side; violent thrusts that dug into your skin without mercy while your screams of pain adorned the macabre scene of your attacker.
A nobody, a pawn who only followed orders, but at the same time enjoyed the brutality of being the one with power. He plunged his dagger in without a second thought, drove it in so hard that it became embedded in you.
The dagger must have fallen from dragging yourself so much. Or perhaps you pulled it out to try and deny the pain you felt.
You didn't remember it, you didn't remember the movement, but at that precise moment it didn't matter.
The important thing was that it was there.
With an effort that made every muscle in your body tremble, you reached for it; your fingers closed around the dagger's hilt.
“I have nothing, my lord,” you whispered with barely any strength. “I only have this body that is about to perish under your gaze.”
The voice didn't respond right away.
When it did again, it no longer sounded like an order. It sounded like the truth.
“Then offer that from which life begins.”
The whole world seemed to hold its breath.
You looked at your own body, the same one you were about to leave with your last breath. The blood still spreading beneath your legs. You were a pathetic sight, a human being in its final moments.
The womb, so often described by priests and mothers as a sanctuary destined to give life.
Since childhood, you had been taught that the greatest gift bestowed upon a woman resided there. That one day that void would be filled by another life. That motherhood was not just a destiny, but a promise.
Not what the world expected.
A person willing to surrender the future that would never be yours. The future everyone told you you had to achieve.
The tip of the dagger rested on your abdomen.
You closed your eyes. You didn't utter a prayer.
The pain was so immense it ceased to feel like pain. For an instant there was no flesh, no bones, no blood, but a white light that pierced every corner of your consciousness. You felt something leave your body, not torn away by your hands, but claimed by a will infinitely older than your own.
Not empty of organs. Empty of destiny. The destiny imposed or chosen. The destiny implored or cursed.
Empty of possibility. Of all that the world had decided you should be.
The voice spoke for the last time.
“Then rise as that which no longer gives life... but guards it.”
Darkness fell upon you as softly as a blanket.
Your hand went limp, and the dagger struck the floor. The rosary remained trapped between your motionless fingers.
And your heart stopped beating.
For an immeasurable time, the church was deserted once more. The clamor of agony, despair, and violence echoed in the distance, far, far away.
For a few fleeting moments, you were nothing. A being no longer of the living, but one about to ascend to heaven or descend into hell.
You weren't alive; you had left life.
Until, somewhere between death and dawn… a breath broke the silence.
Your lungs filled with air with an unfamiliar force.
They were no longer the same.
Nor was it the thirst that awoke with you.
The first heartbeat didn't reach your chest. It reached the church. It was the wood creaking under the weight of centuries, the stained-glass window barely trembling on the eastern wall, the wax melting with impossible slowness.
Then… came the hunger. It wasn't born in your stomach or your body.
It was an ancient, primal need, hidden in a corner of the universe long before churches, men, or the names of God existed. It surged through your veins like a raging river, filling every space the blood had left behind.
The world has always been this way.
It was you who had never been able to see it.
The darkness ceased to be darkness. The stones breathed centuries. The dampness hidden between the bricks had a scent. The incense still hung over the oratory like a golden cloud, and behind it, you could distinguish each drop of blood that had fallen from your body, each with a different fragrance, a different story.
You sat up with unnatural slowness. Your joints protested for barely an instant before settling as if they had never known the wound that had pierced your abdomen. There was no trace of the pain. Nor of the cold. Nor of the blood that minutes before had left your body to stain the marble red.
Only the rosary remained between your fingers.
“Thank you,” you whispered with the greatest of thanks.
You called, and He answered. God didn't save you.
The church remained shrouded in gloom, but your eyes no longer needed the light. The darkness had become a second skin; you could make out every crack in the stone, every grain in the wood, every breath hidden within the centuries-old walls. Beyond the altar, on the other side of the doors, twelve hearts continued to beat.
You heard them with unbearable clarity.
Each heartbeat pierced the temple like a bell.
Each carried the same scent.
Thirst answered before you did.
You didn't walk toward them. You disappeared.
The first scream tore through the silence of Clinton Church with such violence that even the stained-glass windows seemed to tremble. Then came another. And another. The gunfire began almost immediately, hurried, chaotic, fired at an enemy no one could comprehend.
The bullets found columns.
You moved too fast for human eyes to follow. Barely a shadow crossing the space, an icy rustle between the pews, a black figure appearing where just a moment before there had been no one.
The men began to back away.
They weren't fleeing a person, but a revelation.
Fear changed the scent of their blood. It became more intense, warmer, almost intoxicating. Each racing heart fueled the hunger that burned within you like a prayer uttered in reverse.
The entire church seemed to breathe with you.
The crucifix hung suspended above the altar, motionless, observing everything with the serenity of one who has witnessed centuries of human violence. At its base, blood began to spread slowly between the lines of the wooden floor, tracing a dark river that flowed toward the sanctuary as if seeking to reach it.
Each life taken was another weight on your shoulders.
Each silenced throat was another prayer that would never be uttered again.
the voice did not return.
There was no reproach, no condemnation.
Only the same immense silence that had filled the church when you pleaded for help.
Perhaps that was the answer. Mercy had ended where desecration began. To protect required becoming what men would call a monster.
When the last shot rang out, Clinton Church fell silent once more.
A different kind of silence.
Not the silence of peace.
The silence after judgment.
You stood motionless in the center of the church. Blood trickled slowly down your hands, dripping onto the rosary you still held as if you had never let go. The air smelled of iron, incense, and melted wax. Outside, dawn was breaking.
The first rays pierced the shattered stained-glass windows and illuminated the main altar.
For a moment, the light fell upon your figure. You ignored the pain it caused, which for the moment was minimal, but would soon grow.
The nuns, who were slowly emerging from their hiding places, didn't know what they were seeing.
It was a person who had died defending the house of God and had returned transformed into something capable of making hell fear to cross its gates.
The two weeks since your awakening had been a succession of discoveries, as fascinating as they were exhausting.
The world had kept turning without you for ninety-four years, and now it forced you to catch up with it in a single step.
Electric light was commonplace, not something only big cities usually had; the gadgets you once saw as luxurious no longer roamed the streets of Hell's Kitchen, and instead, a ceaseless river of cars roared even into the early hours of the morning.
From the small windows near the basement ceiling, you could see the reflection of the neon signs coloring the centuries-old stone of Clinton Church, and there were still nights when you would spend long minutes gazing at them with the same fascination as a child. Sometimes you forgot you had awakened in another century until Sister Maggie came down with a cell phone in her hand or Father Lantom left you a recent book to help you understand this world to which you no longer belonged and which, nevertheless, remained determined to welcome you.
That day you were resting on an old wooden chair next to a table covered with anatomy books. You had requested everything the church could get its hands on about modern medicine. The illustrations were different, the techniques too, but the human body remained the same. You continued running your fingertips over the pages as if, by memorizing those new names, you could recover the nurse you had been before becoming something else.
It wasn't thirst that frightened you most since you had awakened. It was the possibility of having forgotten how to save a life.
The measured sound of footsteps descending the stairs broke the silence. You recognized Father Lantom before you even looked up. In those two weeks, you had learned the rhythm of his steps, the calm breathing with which he always approached you, and the soft creak of his knees as he stopped in front of the door. You carefully closed your book as he entered the room, still wearing his coat draped over his shoulders.
“I didn’t expect to find you awake”
“I still find it hard to get used to sleeping when the city doesn’t,” you admitted. “It’s… very noisy. Everything. Kind of overwhelming, both day and night.”
You weren't lying, not entirely. You were tired, but sleep wasn't what would give you the energy you needed.
Lantom let out a low laugh before glancing at the open books on the table.
“I need to remember, Father,” you said softly.
He understood immediately what you meant. There was no need to explain. During those two weeks, he had never tried to convince you to leave behind the person you had been before 1923; on the contrary, he seemed determined to bring it back to you little by little, as if he believed it still remained intact beneath the monster.
For a few seconds, neither of you spoke. Silence was never awkward with him. He had this strange ability to wait until the words came on their own. However, that day something was different. You noticed it as soon as your ear focused again on the rest of the church.
Its beats were weak, irregular.
The smell arrived just a moment later.
You immediately lowered your gaze, ashamed that you had recognized it so easily.
“This is someone who needs help,” Lantom finally said.
You didn't answer. You couldn't. The more you listened, the more clearly you could make out that heart struggling to stay alive. You could hear the blood rushing through exhausted arteries, the breath gasping between lungs, the whole body seemingly clinging desperately to life.
“He is very badly injured. Right now, the sisters are doing everything they can.”
Your hands began to tremble on the edge of the table.
“I’m not the one to… ,” you whispered, shaking your head slightly.
Father Lantom did not answer immediately. He took a step toward you, just enough for the yellowish light of the lamp to fully illuminate his tired face.
“Sister Maggie told me that you bandaged your hand again this morning.”
You glanced absently at the white bandage around your knuckles. It had barely been a tiny cut; it had disappeared in a matter of minutes. Yet you had covered it out of sheer habit, just as you would have done before you died.
“Customs die hard,” you murmured.
Those words made you look up.
Lantom smiled with a serenity you had never been able to comprehend.
“Before you became this, you dedicated your life to caring for others. I don’t think that disappears just because you now have fangs.”
Your throat burned again.
“Father… I can smell their blood from here.”
It wasn't a confession. It was a warning.
“I’m hungry,” you whispered.
You felt ungrateful. They had been prepared for you, in case the demon of Saint Agnes ever awoke again. They fed you, they fed you with the blood of some sacrificed animal.
You clenched your fists until your nails dug into your own palms.
“What if I can’t stop?” you said this time, raising your gaze to face him.
The question hung between them. For a few seconds, only the sound of their hearts beating above their heads existed, slower and slower, weaker and weaker, like a candle silently burning down.
Father Lantom took another step and placed a hand on the back of the chair in front of you.
“Ninety-four years ago you believed that God was asking you to become that which protected this church. Perhaps you were right. Perhaps you weren't. I will never know who answered your prayer that night. But I do know one thing.”
He waited until you looked at him again.
“If you were truly chosen to protect, then it can’t be solely to take lives. It also has to be to save them.”
You felt something slowly breaking inside you.
Because, for the first time since you'd awakened in that unknown century, you understood that Father Lantom wasn't leading you to a dying man to test the monster.
He was trying to give a nurse back the purpose that death had stolen from her.
He had faith in you. You didn't know how he'd been trained to face you if you ever woke up, but you could sense his honesty. Father Lantom saw good in you; he ignored or accepted the monster—you weren't sure.
It scared you, really scared you. What would happen if you let yourself go? What if he or Sister Maggie saw the dark side of you? Would they still accept you as another sheep of God, or would they condemn you as an abomination of the Devil?
“I… can help,” you said slowly. “But… little by little. And I need to know that… that you’re there, that Sister Maggie is there, please.”
Father Lantom said your name. “Of course, you are not alone in this.”
When you returned to the small room with a fresh basin of clean water, you noticed the change even before crossing the threshold. The man's breathing was no longer the same. It had lost the deepness of sleep and now rose and fell with the irregularity of someone struggling to regain consciousness. You carefully placed the basin on the table, trying not to make too much noise, though you doubted it would change anything. His entire body seemed torn between remaining asleep and waking up to a world that, judging by the tense expression on his face, you sensed he never wanted to return to.
For the past few hours, you had cleaned his wounds, changed his bandages, and stayed by his side long enough to learn the sound of his heart. It was a stubborn organ. Even battered, bruised, and exhausted, it clung to life with an almost violent determination.
You could hear it now, throbbing beneath the bandages you yourself had applied, accompanied by the slow flow of blood through exhausted arteries. That, more than anything else, made your throat burn. Human blood still had a scent impossible to ignore; no amount of animal blood had ever managed to silence that call. Yet, you had learned to live with it for a few weeks, to endure it like one endures an old pain that never truly disappears.
The man opened his eyes slowly. It wasn't a sudden awakening, but a cautious one, as if even regaining consciousness required an effort he could barely afford. His pupils remained motionless for a few seconds, lost somewhere on the ceiling, before he began to scan the room with evident bewilderment. He seemed to be searching for something familiar within those stone walls, some explanation for his continued existence.
“Elektra…?” he asked in a voice so raspy it barely seemed his own. “Father Lantom…?”
You had forgotten how grave a throat punished by dust, blood, and smoke could sound.
“Father Lantom will be back shortly,” you replied calmly, trying to maintain a certain distance between you both.
Her head immediately turned toward the exact location from which your voice had come.
Not toward where she thought you were.
Toward where you actually were.
That caught your attention more than you were willing to admit.
“Who are you?” he asked hoarsely, but cautiously.
For a moment you hesitated, unsure what to answer. It was impossible to explain who you were without telling a story that no one in their right mind would accept as true.
“A new novice,” you murmured.
He didn't insist. Perhaps because he was too tired. Perhaps because the pain occupied too much space inside his body to worry about a stranger.
He remained motionless for only a few more seconds before trying to sit up. You saw him tense his abdomen under the blankets, brace his arm against the mattress, and push with a stubbornness that almost brought a smile to your lips. A single movement was enough to realize he was asking too much of a body on the verge of collapse. His muscles gave way immediately, and his balance vanished before he even realized it.
You reacted purely on instinct.
You reached him before he hit the floor.
Your hands found his arms with an ease that forced you to restrain yourself. You barely had to exert any force to support him; had you not been careful, you probably would have lifted him from the ground as if he weighed nothing. You feigned a small effort, just enough to make the movement seem natural, while holding him against you only long enough to restore his balance.
It was then that it happened.
It wasn't the first time you had touched him. You had cleaned his unconscious skin for hours, changed his bandages, sutured wounds that anyone else would have considered fatal. But consciousness seemed to open a different door.
The moment your hands held his awake body, a wave of emotions surged through you with the same violence with which thirst demands blood.
Not the pain of broken ribs or open wounds.
It was something much deeper.
A weariness that seemed to have settled in his bones years ago.
And an immense loneliness, so heavy that for a moment you even forgot hunger. A loneliness that threatened to shut him down completely, mixed with the dread of uncertainty.
He was afraid and felt abandoned.
You had never felt anything like it. You could feel him, literally. You almost felt within yourself the emotions battling inside this man whom Father Lantom called Matt.
A pang of guilt stirred within you, like an intruder entering his inner world, rummaging without permission.
It wasn't your intention; you hadn't even known you were capable of feeling another person in such a way.
Matt also remained motionless. His forehead was just inches from yours, and for a brief moment, neither of you seemed to remember how to break that strange balance. He spoke first.
“You're…” He frowned slightly, as if trying to make sense of a feeling he couldn't quite grasp. “...cold,” he finished, somewhat puzzled. Luckily, he was still a little disoriented.
You lowered your gaze almost reflexively. Of course, you were cold. You'd been dead for ninety-four years.
You helped him lie down more carefully, making the gesture seem more laborious than it actually was, before taking a step back.
“And you’re too stubborn for someone who just woke up,” you muttered.
A barely perceptible exhalation escaped his lips. It wasn't quite a laugh; it was too soon for that. Yet, for a moment, the gesture softened the deep lines of exhaustion etched across his face.
Silence settled between them once more. You remained standing by the bed, watching him with a curiosity you hadn't felt since waking. There was something about this man that defied all logic. Not only because, being blind, he had turned his head precisely toward you. Nor because he had survived injuries that would have killed most men.
Something you couldn't name.
As if suffering had become a second skin for him, just as immortality had become yours. It was strange; for a few moments, you had felt what he had lived through, what he suffered. Just a few moments.
It was terrifying to be able to feel another person in that way.
“Are you still here, sister? I’m not… I can’t…” he murmured, confused. “I need… I need Father Lantom, I need… I need to know if she’s alive,” he said, in a vulnerable tone that you knew didn’t belong to a man like him.
You nodded, but then you remembered he was blind and almost hit yourself for your lack of tact.
“Yes, I’m still here, I…” you salivated. You salivated.
Suddenly, a wave of nervousness washed over you because you could feel his presence growing stronger.
He was alive. His heart was pumping blood, not with the weakness it had been when he first arrived, no, this time… this time it was stronger, and the sound intoxicated your ears like a siren's song to a lost pirate.
You had managed to restrain yourself during the short time you cared for him, even when, sometimes at night, you found yourself fixated on his heartbeat; perhaps to know if he was still alive, or simply because the rhythm tempted you.
But now… now something had suddenly pierced you to your very core. Your throat felt incredibly dry, and he felt so alive. You could not only hear the blood coursing through his veins, but you also knew with certainty that he was suffering.
What had begun as curiosity was now a different kind of feeling, one you longed to eradicate.
You were thirsty. Thirsty for him. Perhaps you could sink your fangs in for a moment. Perhaps scratch his wrist to lick a few drops. Maybe clean an open wound and be content with the scent of his warm blood?
Father Lantom trusted you. Sister Maggie did too. This man trusted this sacred ground to heal, and you… you were thinking of drinking his blood.
You heard him speak, but you turned a deaf ear.
“I’ll look for Father Lantom,” you said quickly, as your feet began to move on their own.
As you walked away, you clearly heard his confused whisper. One that revealed how disoriented he still was.
“I cannot hear your heart.”
notes: so here's the prologue. it ended up being longer than i expected. but i really needed to lay the groundwork for this story.
there are many things about reader's vampirism that will be explained throughout the story. nothing is accidental or a mistake!
the first encounter between you two is quite confusing for matt, but for you… yeah.
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