~~~
The world was muted and far away in the slices of temporary sound. In and out. Monitor beeps and hazy voices then quiet again, painted with spotty pain and drugged numbness. In and out.
Time passed. Not much of it.
He was aware of low, sweet old music played around him. It was the kind he knew Wilson Fisk preferred and in the brief seconds when he was half-awake, there was an odd comfort to be found in that. An inherent safety in the strains of songstresses singing their hearts out. With one flutter to consciousness, he heard Sister Rosetta preaching about strange things happening every day and then the darkness returned to still silence. Another time some minutes later, he heard Nina crooning about Lilac Wine. Etta lamenting the Stormy Weather. Mingled in the words of love and loss, at one point a familiar heartbeat pounded in it all. Seconds here and there when he was aware before the undertow took him back down again until finally he was able to grasp onto consciousness and hold onto it.
When Matt finally woke and the shadow didn't reclaim him back to unconsciousness, he didn't know where he was but the pieces started to come together. He was alone and there was still music in soft notes played through a metallic speaker with a sweet-voiced singer professing a love lasting until the poets ran out of rhyme. It mingled with some of the overwhelming clatter of a half a dozen machines that were meant to tell the world if Matt Murdock was still alive.
It felt like the jury was still out on that one.
Mixed with it was the lingering scent of antiseptic that was masked with fresh bloomed jasmine and night lilies that sat in vases at the side of the bed. He knew the smell of hospitals, even cloaked with his favorite flowers, though it was strangely quiet. Usually they were chaotic places as a thousand small and grand tragedies played out in halls and rooms but there were only a handful of heartbeats near his room's door. He moved his hand, wrapped in pliable plastic tubes and with an IV taped carefully to his forearm and he noticed that the usual scratchy hospital sheets were replaced by something infinitely softer. Something with a real thread count.
He was pretty sure the city hospitals didn't get that kind of a budget increase. So where was he really? Matt listened to the sound of his breathing in the room and then for the outside. Thick windows, the bulletproof kind that insulated sound, and heavy construction of blast-proof beams robbed him of some touch of the world beyond by creating a minor echo chamber outside of his foggy mind. That was frustrating.
When he moved his arm, he felt artificial weight brought on by whatever drugs were in his system that made his limbs feel like cement. He could smell the chemicals in the IV bag and presumably the painkillers were doing their job. No wonder everything felt far away.
OK. Focus.
It was more difficult than he would have liked with the way that everything felt numb at the edges and like his brain was on a three second delay. The medication dulled his senses at the surface but he could force himself through it. He pulled a deep breath and went step-by-step like a recitation of an old lesson from Stick when he was still a child and needed guidance. Alright. Three heartbeats outside the door and ten more down the halls, which was still an incredibly small number for a New York City hospital. No matter what time of day it might have been, that was unusual. Breathing pulled at the gunshot wound and he could feel the way stitching minutely moved with every time he drew in air. His hand migrated to his collarbone, covered with an oversized hospital gown, and down to where a rough feeling gauze wrapping starting at his shoulder and around his chest masked the injury. He pressed his fingers until he got to where the hidden stitching started.
His shoulder, above his heart. A near hit and a lucky miss.
It wasn't Matt Murdock's first near death experience so he could table the feelings on that part easily enough; he'd survived and he would heal. Simple as that. What mattered was how bad it was and how long it put him down for the count in a time when he couldn't afford it. Shifting to rub his back against the feather-soft pillow to create friction, he didn't feel an exit wound. Dropping his hand down to the mattress to give leverage, he pushed himself up from the prone position and tested the rush of pain that followed. It was illusory, given whatever was pumping through him, but it allowed him some measure of movement and a feeling of only mild stabbing ache.
Apparently his stirring was noticed.
He heard an increased heartbeat on the other side of the glass panelled door on the approach, a pause, and a retreat.
Then ten seconds later, a phone call.
"He's awake, Mr. Fisk."
From the other end of the line was a familiar voice, "Thank you. I will be down shortly."
Matt quietly sighed and settled back against the too-soft-for-a-real-hospital pillow. All of the signs had pointed to Fisk's hand in his care, of course, but in his present state, he could probably be forgiven for not focusing on them too much and being more concerned with the nature of his injury and the status of his recovery. Wilson was nearby and seemingly safe after the attempt on his life so a sense of relief flushed through him, though it couldn't last. Threats had come into crystal focus and they had a lot to talk about.
Matt half-dozed off briefly, tugged at the undertow helpfully provided by the IV in his arm, but it was only a superficial rest that he shook himself from when he heard Wilson Fisk arrive shortly after the call had ended.
The door cracked wide open and Fisk entered the room with slow steps toward a seat near the side of the bed that was too cushioned and too comfortable for a traditional hospital. Matt could smell blood on his tuxedo shirt and he knew it was his. He also knew that it wasn't his first time sitting in that chair; over the din of drugs and everything around him, he remembered hearing his heart and smelling his skin. Matt pushed himself more upright again, slowly so that his face didn't register discomfort. Showing any kind of weakness or pain around Wilson Fisk was still a strange admission and maybe more than that, he didn't want him to worry.
If Matt Murdock was nothing else in this life, he was a survivor, after all.
"I really should have taken you up on that offer for the sunny vacation," Matt declared with an easy grin.
Fisk softly chuckled with a breath that sounded like relief. "It's not too late."
They both knew better and they shared a smile instead.
"Thanks for the flowers," Matt added, "It was nice to smell something besides antiseptic and cleaning supplies when I woke up. I'm sure they're beautiful. I'm surprised you found a florist at this hour."
"I do have some sway in this city, Matthew. I'm pleased that it made things more…comfortable for you." The language was plain but there was something almost sweet in it all the same. An inflection that, along with the act, conveyed the tenderness that it was meant to provide. It was a kind thing to do. Maybe even bordering on romantic, save for the ugly circumstances. How crazy.
"It did, so thank you."
It was strange how the idea of something so utterly ludicrous--Wilson Fisk giving him anything under the pretense of this newly won affection--had become somehow easily accepted in a new gospel that they were writing together. So much had changed so quickly and even knowing what a terrible idea it was while war still threatened at the periphery, there were not the regrets that he had thought he might have by now. It still felt like witnessing a car crash in slow motion but now, Matt wasn't so sure that he wanted to do anything but feel the way they were bound to collide.
A pause. It couldn't all be sweet words.
"Where am I?"
Might as well get down to it.
"A building of mine that houses more than adequate medical facilities that I arranged for your continued care. A private and secure location where you are currently the only patient. A safe house, to use unattractive parlance."
That explained the little luxuries and the quiet. If he was alone under the charge of Wilson Fisk's paid off mob doctors, it was no wonder it didn't feel like a regular hospital. It was an overstep, to say the least, but he couldn't shake the strange acceptance for it.
"That explains the triple pane bulletproof glass and everything being so steel reinforced that it makes it sound like I'm in a fish tank. Why? There are plenty of good hospitals and all of high society saw me get shot. It wasn't a secret that required hiding me away with your mob docs."
"My intention was not to hide you. In addition to the protection that this location offers--which feels particularly paramount at the moment--I have extensive resources and your health and well being is now extremely important to me. You should know that I had the best surgeon treat you and assist in your care. I also felt that doctors with whom I have a…special relationship would be better to treat you as they don't ask uncomfortable questions about the nature of old injuries and scars. Or recent ones that haven't completely healed that you still wear on your skin. Other such healthcare providers might be inclined to try to ascertain their cause and let those sorts of things make it into their written reports."
Wilson Fisk had mapped every scar on his body in the evenings they shared with each other in quiet worship and now he used the knowledge gleaned to make the determination that there would be too many questions. It was logical and Matt found that in the explanation, he couldn't even muster the effort to be annoyed at the way that his extended one night stand was taking particular liberties at his most vulnerable. It was practical and he was grateful for it.
"Thanks for that. My usual 'stumbled into a woodchipper' excuse probably wouldn't hold weight with real medical professionals." He'd deflected such inquiries ever since he put on a mask but he hadn't been in any shape to fabricate a story or explain why he still carried Muse's wounds, including the small stitched wound on his side that Wilson had tended to for him on their first night together. Maybe it was refreshing to not have to lie to the honest and normal world that would be rightly horrified to see the litany of old scars that criss crossed his body written by old wars that he couldn't tell them about. "Feels like I have a new one to add to the list. Entry wound. No exit."
Fisk hummed soft dissatisfaction and leaned forward to press his hand on Matt's bare forearm without an IV line. Large fingers could grip and probably wrap completely around his wrist but instead, it was just a touch with the tips rocking slowly back and forth gently on his arm. As if touching Matt was a necessary reminder that he was still alive.
"Yes. The bullet was removed and it was….worryingly close to your heart by a few inches," Fisk gruffly supplied.
"Mm. My dad used to say that 'close' only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. I'm fine," he deflected. Comparatively speaking to some of the more hideous injuries that he had accumulated, that was true. Nobu's blades had been objectively worse when it came to the untreated agony that followed and obviously so had Midland Circle. By the fucked up comparisons and metrics by which he lived his life under the mask, a single gunshot wound felt manageable by measure.
"You can't see how pale you still are--I assure you that you're not, by any definition, 'fine.'" There was no patience in Fisk's voice for his deflections and his charms.
"Blind jokes at a time like this?" he teased.
"I didn't mean--" Fisk stumbled over the words.
Everyone always fumbled after a line like that. Shooting fish in a barrel.
Matt just laughed when he got Fisk completely on the back foot with the phony accusation, "I know, I know. Low-hanging fruit and I've had a bad day. Sorry. I'm OK. I've had worse. I had a whole building drop on me once. That fucked me up for months but this? I'm good." Maybe 'good' was pushing it a little bit. He still didn't know what the world felt like without the IV drip of what he now knew were going to be the best, most expensive high-end painkillers that money could buy. He couldn't say he was looking forward to that, though he wanted them stopped so he could feel the whole of everything again instead of feeling like he was touching it through a veil.
"I don't feel you're in any position to make such a determination. You required several pints of blood to replace what you lost on the dance floor and so coupled with the surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage, the strain on your heart was not insignificant, I'm told." There was something forceful in Fisk's tone again in order to leave no discussion on either the necessity of his care or the fact that he would not tolerate Matt hand waving his needs away and professing that he was perfectly fine when it wasn't the case. This was Wilson Fisk as a mother hen. It was oddly charming and immediately frustrating.
The nature and severity of his injury wasn't necessarily a surprise once he pieced it together logically. He'd felt his blood pooling around him on the marble floor but it was still something that he needed to take in to recognize that the aftermath had been spotty. It took only a moment to acknowledge the close call, process it and move on to a focus on the idea that Fisk had made decisions about his health. Obviously it hadn't been a wrong one, but it still felt significant under the weight of their new relationship. "And you brought me here. Sounds like you made a lot of choices on my behalf lately," he mentioned mildly. There was no accusation in it, but it was a fact.
"You may call them into question in retrospect, as is your right, but a decision needed to be made for your care and I did learn that you don't have a medical proxy."
Matt instinctively frowned. "Yeah. It was Foggy. I guess I never changed it. I didn't, uh, expect to need it so soon since I thought I was giving this all up."
Foggy. Shit.
There was so much he had to say and so much he had to tell Fisk about what he had learned at the ball and what had been confirmed on the dance floor. Whatever conversations that they could have about flowers and the mayor's choice in hospitals, those were soft distractions from ugly truths and the time for reckoning had arrived.
"Before the shooting--" he began.
Before the world exploded in chaos and pain, he'd found answers.
Fisk waved his hand in dismissal of whatever was coming. He had news of his own. "Benjamin Poindexter. It seems that he escaped from Rikers. The details are unclear as to how but we've confirmed that he was the shooter," Fisk mused.
His new truth about Vanessa died on his lips and instead, his heart dropped in his chest and he tilted his head back to let out a sigh at the declaration. Everything just got monumentally worse. He hadn't had time to clock the shooter's identity in the balcony with certainty but he knew now as flashes played across memory. It had all happened too fast and a bullet had stopped him from piecing everything together in the moment but the weight of that confirmed knowledge made his shoulders sage and a million thoughts raced across his brain.
"And he's still in the wind?" he asked carefully.
"Yes. This is a safe--" Fisk started to assure him while his hand gently squeezed Matt's arm.
Matt quickly interrupted before Fisk could finish the lie. "It's not. You know it's not."
There was nowhere that was safe from Dex if he had his sights set on a kill and to suggest otherwise was the kind of hubris that he would, frankly, typically expect of Fisk. He would have hoped that in all of the lessons he'd learned by now, not to underestimate his foes might have been one of them. Apparently not. If anything, Fisk's arrogance probably only increased now with the safety net of respectability, even if it had nearly been shattered by a bullet that had only been stopped by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
"I chose this building for its privacy and security in addition to its abundant medical facilities. I have men outside and throughout the building. Select members of my task force and the NYPD," he declared evenly.
"I know. Ten, spread across entry points on this floor. Not counting the ones above and below us." It was a lot and it still wouldn't be enough.
"Mm. The men of my task force and the rest of the police are searching for him as we speak. They're well trained in hunting vigilantes."
"Oh, cut the bullshit. They hunt amateurs. Poindexter is a different animal from the people you’ve had them harassing and shaking down. You know that. You know what's out there and what he's capable of more than just about anyone." Fisk mulled that and in doing so, his touch moved from Matt's forearm to take his hand in his own, threading their fingers together. He couldn't tell if it was intended to be encouraging, calming or just a sweet distraction from the warnings that Matt was offering. If it was meant to derail his grievous worries, it only worked in the split second that his lips twitched in an unconscious smile before it fell away for more serious things.
"I recognize the risk that he presents, Matthew. I am aware of what kind of animal he is, as you put it. What kind of feral creature. He nearly cost me you after I've grown so fond of you and he will pay for it with his last breath. I assure you that there will be no second trial for this injustice against you this evening. He and all of those like him will suffer and pay. There will be no safe harbor for vigilantes in New York after tonight and things will change. In the meantime, this building is private and known only to a handful and Benjamin Poindexter is not one of them."
"How about your wife?" he bristled.
Fisk's voice remained calm. Like he had it all figured out. He didn't and he was about to find out just how much control he'd lost. "I thought it best to send her to protective custody until such time as Poindexter is dead or apprehended. A convenient way to remove her for now. She's not a concern at the moment."
"She knows, Wilson. She knows about you and me. She ordered Foggy's murder while you were gone. She still has--or at least had--a direct line to Poindexter. Who's to say she didn't order this one? Or won't order the next one?"
The span of breaths stretched in the wake of a bomb. Matt could hear his pulse increase with the new truth laid before him and he recognized the silence from the aftermath of the assassination attempt at the restaurant. Wilson's rage was quiet and consuming, the kind that Fisk's father had said was the worst kind of all, and there were no words for it. Matt's anger hadn't cooled and they were twin fires burning for different reasons. He didn't delude himself into thinking that Wilson Fisk ever cared if Foggy lived or died but even without the connection to Matt, it was a line that was crossed in an attempt to lay a stake to power. And now, in the aftermath of new fondness, decisions made a year ago had new ramifications.
"I see." His voice sounded like it was in a vice grip, held together by his fury. "I assure you, I didn't know." It was the truth, though Matt required no validation of it.
"How did she know about you and me?"
Fisk remained silent in contemplation. "I intend to find out."
"She had Foggy killed because of a case he was working on. I don't know what she was protecting but I'm going to find out and use it to burn her to the ground," he added evenly with cold certainty.
"She is neutralized for the moment," Wilson assured him but it felt hollow. Even if she was, it meant sitting safely somewhere instead of the prison cell where she belonged. It was no comfort.
"You say that, but how can you really know? She's been steps ahead."
Fisk shifted in the chair with a still simmering rage in how he gripped the armrest with one hand so tightly that Matt heard the wood creak. "Poindexter has created an opportunity for distraction and I've used it to that advantage."
"Have you? Because now a woman that ordered your murder and the murder of my best friend has her favorite assassin out of prison. I need to take Dex off the board and out of the equation because if she hasn't already made that call, who's to say she won't? Then I'll make her pay for it. But right now, he’s a threat you won’t see coming and I need to neutralize him so he can't try again. He belongs back in Rikers. Right now, I'm not sure I care what wing."
The fingers around his own tightened just slightly. Enough to convey disapproval along with a shake of Fisk's head. "You're not in any condition to battle a housefly, Matthew. Let alone Benjamin Poindexter. All you're going to do is get yourself killed."
Matt laughed but it felt a little like showing his fangs. He couldn't just sit by in a nice phony hospital bed with luxurious sheets while Poindexter was still free in the world. "You of all people probably shouldn't underestimate me in a fight," he pointed out. He had a pretty good win-loss record when it came to Wilson Fisk when it mattered, though his numbers against Dex were less impressive and he recognized that even on his best day, victory was far from sure and this was definitely not him at his finest.
"Now is not the time for your ego," Fisk plainly replied.
That earned a bark of a laugh. "Some might call it self-determinism." He removed his hand from Wilson's so he could reach up to tug the cannula from his nose since oxygen was hardly necessary any longer. An ostentatious display of strength he didn't yet have. Next came a tug at the electrodes that clung to his chest with sticky adhesive that stung when he yanked them off. It set off incessant and shrill beeping from the machine to the side of the bed that was meant to monitor whether his heart was still beating. It was a repugnant noise but he felt that he made his point, even as a nurse rushed into the room in a panic that stilled the moment she found her patient removing the devices.
Fisk sighed. "I think you can turn the machines off now. It seems Mr. Murdock has fully rejoined the land of the living."
The monitors stopped their beeping after switches were flipped and buttons were pressed and that was a welcome relief. With the shrill sound of alarms gone along with the steady mimic of his heart, it cleared some of the background noise that allowed him to better concentrate on his surroundings and their safety. The nurse was dismissed with a wave of Fisk's hand and soon they were alone once more.
"Have you sufficiently conveyed whatever point you were trying to make?" Fisk dryly asked without a shred of amusement in his voice for any of Matt's current antics.
"Not completely. I'm going to need you to grab some fresh gauze so when I yank this IV out, it doesn't bleed all over the nice sheets. Egyptian cotton, right? What, 800 thread count?"
"Of course they are. Never anything less."
"Nice."
"This distraction is a futile attempt at lying to yourself and to me and while your charms are considerable, it's not working," Fisk warned, though he rose to his feet anyway to search out fresh gauze from the cabinets lining the wall. Apparently he had learned that it was just easier not to argue with Matt Murdock when he was in the middle of doing something foolish. "I imagine that you will be in a substantial amount of pain rather quickly once the IV stops and the medication is no longer available," he warned, "It will hurt."
"What doesn't?" he asked and Fisk smiled sharply at his own words mirrored back to him.
"Indeed."
When Wilson returned to his side with the wrappings in hand, Matt took them and tugged at the IV needle until it wiggled free from his vein and he could press the gauze down on it while blood bloomed. The smell of new copper filled the room but it didn't bother him; the scent of his own fresh blood rarely did anymore. "I don't like those--the drugs. Fucks with my senses. It sort of makes everything fuzzy and numb around the periphery, like it's on a delay. It makes it easy to miss things."
And he couldn't afford that now.
"And here I thought it was some misplaced masochism," Fisk answered, though he wasn't sure if it was meant to be a joke.
"That's what the Catholicism is for," he smiled as he flexed his elbow to hold the gauze in place.
"You are a delight, Matthew, but also incredibly stubborn," he declared before reaching forward to press his hand down to apply pressure over the IV site for Matt. It wasn't tacit support for what he was doing but he appreciated the gesture all the same since it freed up his other hand to tug off the last of the medical instruments from his body. A blood-oxygen sensor and a blood pressure cuff ended up discarded on the floor so that once the last of them was gone, he felt some measure of freedom again rather than being constrained by devices to the bed. "This means nothing, you realize. The tantrums of a child."
"Let's just see where I am when the drugs wear off," he suggested without addressing the insult.
"Where you will be is still hours removed from getting shot so I fail to see how much difference it will make but suit yourself." Fisk wasn’t happy about it. That much was clear, but Matt couldn’t lie in bed with Dex in the world and Vanessa Fisk there to potentially pull his strings. "You could hear my broken knuckles. What do you hear of your own wounds?" Fisk asked, his voice even and measured like he thought he had hit on a good point.
Matt just grinned faintly. "When I breathe, I hear the pull of thread on my skin. Friction. It sounds like scratching, like a rat in a wall."
“Charming."
Matt merely shrugged his good shoulder. "Is it chaos in the city?" he asked in an attempt to change the subject away from his health. That was an argument he wasn't going to win.
"Benjamin Poindexter escaping Rikers and an attempt on my life have not gone unnoticed." It was a mild response and Matt just lifted his eyebrow. There was something more in Fisk's tone that made it a truth but a stretched one. "People remember what happened in Hell's Kitchen the last time he was free and the press coverage has been…hysterical. As of now, we believe that there have been other bodies tied to Dex, both in his break-in to the ball and his escape, but potentially more in an attempt to avoid apprehension." Lawyers always had a good 'I-told-you-so' expression in their back pockets so when Matt offered it, Fisk just sighed, "My task force is on the streets in earnest so these are affairs that don't concern you. Your worry is recovery. These are matters for the mayor's office and the proper authorities. Not Matthew Murdock, attorney at law."
Matt flashed another sharp smile, "And Daredevil?"
What was the point of talking around it when they were both versed in truth?
"You indicated that you felt my warnings to you were 'boring' and perhaps that's why you chose not to listen but I will reiterate them all the same. My affections for you can only carry so far and protect you from so much and not while you wear a foolish mask. It's the man that has found a place in my heart, not the Devil. I will stop the vigilantes of this city, Matthew. All of them. One tried to kill me tonight and nearly killed you. I will watch them all burn for the slight," he snarled in the first true touch of rage that had reverberated off of him beyond the contained fire of the hottest furnace that came with Vanessa's part.
"Don't set the city on fire just to keep me warm, Wilson," Matt countered smoothly, like maybe honey in his tone would soothe things. It felt like trying to settle a tempest. "I can handle what's coming myself. Once I get out of this bed."
"If you're going to martyr yourself, do it for God and not your ego."
"You know it's not that."
Fisk sighed. The blood on his arm had stopped and the gauze was pulled away to be discarded. Fisk's hand returned to take his again. "Yes, I do. The inscrutable sense of right and wrong and sense of duty of yours is rather annoying. The fact remains that you are in no condition to do much more than protest your care. Rather than fighting with me about it, you would probably do better using that energy to rest and recover for the foolishness I'm certain you will try to seek out." Matt instinctively frowned. He was already feeling a wave of exhaustion starting to creep back, which was particularly annoying both for his preferred cause of extricating himself from the faux-hospital's care and also getting back on his feet to prove he could.
He could also recognize that Fisk would be unlikely to let him leave either the bed or the room in his present state unless he got smart.
"Fine," he acquiesced in phony agreement. "A nap, at least."
Not really. Part of a plan. But let Wilson think otherwise since he couldn't hear the lie.
Matt Murdock had no intention of real rest. Not yet.
"Thank you, Matthew. I always believed you were capable of reason. While you do seem to be getting more color back in your cheeks, and I am pleased to see that, you have a long way to go toward recovery. If it makes you feel better, you have my assurances that I am nearby while you rest." He didn't know if it was an offer for Fisk's protection or if it was an olive branch toward Matt's sense of obligation that he might be around if things went bad.
"It does. Thank you." Still, he frowned his feigned discontent at the idea of being sidelined, "Alright. You win."
A lie. An easy one.
"Music to my ears."
"There really is a first time for everything."
Wilson quietly scoffed, "I don't know if that's how our scorecards read."
No. Definitely not. Wilson Fisk didn't like to lose, even in the vague references to the sums of battles and wars.
Matt offered an effortless smile, designed to charm, and settled back against the pillow. Fisk rose only long enough to tug the sheet over him once again after it had been displaced with the manic removal of equipment from his body. The idea of Wilson Fisk essentially tucking him into bed was a strange one but all things considered, it probably didn't even rank against some of the more incredible changes between them. It felt oddly nice, especially when his large hand found Matt's again and once more folded their fingers together.
"Sorry for being a pain in the ass. I've never been a good patient. Ask the nuns."
Fisk softly chuckled, "You make a better saint than a liar, Matthew. You're not remorseful in the slightest."
"True enough."
"Make it up to me by getting rest."
Matt sighed again on instinct and settled back on the pillow. He closed his eyes and kept his breathing slow and measured. The illusion of sleep. Wilson remained for longer than Matt expected, seemingly content to sit to watch him slumber. His heart was slow and at peace, as if the sight of Matt Murdock placated something in him. Maybe it did. What a strange and foolish thought.
It was steps outside the room--Buck by the cologne and the weight of how he carried himself to compensate for the gun under his expensive tuxedo jacket--that pulled Wilson away.
Fisk stepped out of the room and was greeted with, "Sir, we're ready--"
"No. Not here. Let's not wake him."
Not wake him or let him hear. Matt wasn't sure but he gave nothing away. He laid in the bed with his eyes closed and listened to the world around him while he tried to push aside the pain that flared in his shoulder as time passed and the painkillers stopped working so well. As the effects wore off over the course of an hour, it allowed his mind to stay clear and his senses sharpen some, but that also included feeling the agony of a gunshot wound without anything to temper the edges of it. Still, he could compartmentalize. Focus. There were still ten heartbeats hovering around the floor near what he presumed were the elevators based on how their footsteps bounced off nearby interior metal. The staff for his care had dwindled to two now that he was out of the woods.
The way sound bounced through the building was strange and muted from what he presumed was intended to be bomb-proof construction between floors and walls but he could still hear enough as footsteps approached and departed. Lying in the quiet and feigning sleep, he picked up their schedule. Checking on him every fifteen minutes. The task force monitoring the halls moved in sweeping shifts of similar timelines to make complete circles of the floor. It was a long window, which would bode well for him. He wasn't likely to be able to move as fast as he'd like.
Wilson Fisk was two floors up; he'd listened to the elevator and when he and Buck had departed. Matt presumed that there were meetings to be held in the wake of assassination attempts. Press releases made. Action plans. Politics to be played.
When the next bed check came and went, Matt pushed his hands to the mattress and pulled himself upright. Bare feet silently paced across the floor while he tugged up the too-loose hospital-issue boxer shorts that he'd been given, presumably for a measure of modesty. He tied off the gown as much as he could at his back so it wouldn't make sounds when he moved, faint as they might be. It was a hell of an image, he figured; the nearly naked blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen sneaking around a phony hospital room but he had somewhere to be and a conversation to have along with a point to make.
He stayed quiet behind the door and waited until the hall cleared of the two caregivers--he was unsure if it was a doctor or a nurse or some combination of the pairing--but he did figure out they were sleeping together from their shared whispers so that was an exciting turn of events that got him to crack a smile while he slipped past the door of his room and crept down the hallway.
There was easy plausible deniability in his actions; who would question a confused blind man wandering the halls if they did find him?
A turn would take him toward the bank of elevators and directly into Fisk's security so he went the other way until he found what he was looking for; the emergency stairwell that would take him up and down. There, sound was carried as if through a wind tunnel. There were five men stationed at it three floors down at the ground level but it was a straight shot up inside the stairwell. Matt did consider briefly the idea of going down, getting past the unmoving goons on guard, figuring out just where the hell he was in the city and getting home to put on the suit to hunt Poindexter and Vanessa Fisk but in the end, it didn't feel like a fight Matt Murdock, attorney at law, should be having so logic won out and he headed up.
The pain alternated between a throb when his arm was merely hanging useless at his side and he was standing, waiting for the right moment to move and an active stabbing sensation when he moved it. Climbing the two floors of stairs took an effort that he was unaccustomed to except in the moment of his weakest recoveries and he had to wonder if maybe Fisk was right. Fuck it. He couldn't do anything about it except keep moving forward. The only way out was through. Always.
Once he got to the right floor, he waited in the stairwell for the pair of men patrolling to round a corner. There were similar clusters of them spread out down hallways but it was still too easy to figure out how they made wide sweeps and how long their steps took and if it was simple for him, Dex wouldn't break a sweat. Especially when he wouldn't hesitate to kill to keep his movements silent. He stayed still, listening.
Everything was calm. No hint of Poindexter. So far, anyway.
Down another hall and then to another, he located the source of Fisk's heartbeat behind a door, accompanied by three others inside. Buck and two strangers. Fisk was speaking and giving orders with platitudes. An end to vigilantes in New York. The same old threats with greater vigor now, perhaps, because it had gotten deeply personal once more. A new rage seeped into his tone that was far from practiced campaign trail speeches and televised statements. The orders concluded with one that made little sense but seemed to carry an understanding with the occupants. Meetings with the city council. Determining who would support the mayor's office during this crisis. It sounded like vague politics but he also didn't know why Fisk was ordering Buck to place the 'appropriate call' to Con Edison. Something was going on but his focus was pulled from politics to thoughts of Poindexter and perhaps the potentially invisible hand of Vanessa Fisk.
Two men stood at the door with automatic weapons, of course, but all Matt could think was how easy it would be to kill them. Not by his own hand, of course, but Dex or anyone else with sights on the mayor would find it easy work and then it was just a straight line to the mayor. It wasn't good enough if Fisk wanted to survive and, for the first time, Matt sincerely cared if he did.
Never one to shy from an extravagant entrance, Matt rounded the corner and put on a winning smile, "Hey, so I think I'm a little lost--"
Guns were fixed on him immediately and there were shouts to put his hands up. Clearly unarmed, given his rather unconventional state, he did as demanded.
The double doors pulled wide open at Fisk's hand.
"Jesus Christ!" a young man in a chair seated across from Fisk's makeshift mayoral desk exclaimed and jumped up to peer through the doorway. Buck's hand had gone to his hip, presumably for the gun, but he had enough trigger discipline to drop his arm once again. A woman's heart leapt, perhaps thinking that another attempt at Fisk's life had arrived through the front door this time. It might yet still.
Fisk just smiled fiercely at the absurd scene in front of him.
"Matthew," he greeted.
"Wilson."
"You're underdressed for this meeting. I know this is a makeshift command center but we do have some decorum," he replied with a pressed pacifism as he reached to take his arm to lead him into the room, even if they both knew Matt required no assistance. A visual cover for the presumption that a blind man found his way up to the office for the two strangers and the cops. Buck needed no lies. "Thank you, I can handle it," he told the two guards.
The door closed behind him. "You didn't leave me any clothes," he plainly answered.
"Because you weren't supposed to be doing anything but resting," Fisk exclaimed before reaching to tug his discarded tuxedo jacket, still stained in Matt's blood, from the back of the couch to hand it to him. Matt slipped it over his shoulders without care of the image. It was still somehow better than the gown. "I believe you know Buck," he sighed in resignation, "Sheila, my campaign director. And this is Daniel. He was instrumental in the campaign. Deputy of communications. This is Matthew Murdock. The lawyer from Hell's Kitchen who saved my life tonight and who has, somewhat recently, become…dare I say a friend. A confidant of sorts."
Of sorts. Matt managed not to laugh. Whatever they were, it wasn't friends. Buck shifted in place, apparently displeased to hear such a description as well. Instead of remarking upon the unusual phrasing probably parsed to explain their complexities in simple terms, he tilted his head between the three of them. Daniel's heart was beating fast but he could probably explain that as the surprise of seeing the blind guy shot at Fisk's party burst into the room wearing just a hospital gown, a bandage and boxer shorts. Sheila seemed more stunned than afraid but he couldn't necessarily blame her. He didn't cast an imposing shadow at the moment.
"Nice to, uh, meet you," Sheila tried to put on a steady and respectful tone for someone apparently of importance to the mayor.
"I thought only a select few knew about this location. Is there a neon sign pointing to you that I can't see?" Matt responded with a tilt of his head toward young Daniel. Too young for the room. An outlier.
"Work must still be done and given the nature of the panic in the city that a vigilante is running amuck, communication is key to preserve my message and to instill a feeling of safety while the police hunt for Poindexter and his ilk," Fisk explained. There was still something hidden in his tone that Matt couldn't quite place. Not a lie, but an omission. "Daniel. Profess your loyalty to me for Mr. Murdock, if you would be so kind," Fisk ordered.
Matt faintly smiled while the kid stumbled up to his feet to offer his impromptu test of devotion, "I'm loyal to Mayor Fisk. Through and through, swear to God. I'd do anything for him. He's what New York needs."
Truth. At least as Daniel saw it. That was always the funny thing about lies and truth that it was all about perspective.
He kept his attention on Wilson. "I believe you, Daniel," he vaguely answered before sitting down in the chair that Daniel had vacated. He did his best to repress the wince from the pain or how movement from a standing to a prone position was difficult. Fisk noticed. Of course he did. "You and I really should talk. Alone, please."
"Of course. Sheila, Daniel, Buck. I think that's all for now. It's been a long night and I think I'll retire upstairs soon. We'll have the press conference at 9 sharp."
Matt remained still and passive until the other three left the room and closed the door behind them.
"This was excessive and dramatic, even for you, Matthew," Fisk declared in newfound privacy.
"You know I love to make a scene. Don't let that distract from the fact that I got shot a few hours ago and I still got to you. All I did was stick to corners and the stairwell. If I was Dex, it would have been child's play to get to the endgame. You put too much value in guns and manpower on the first floor and the elevators. The hall patrols were nothing. They swept in logical rounds, making their movements predictable and easy to avoid," he explained like it was a closing argument.
Fisk made a soft, displeased sound as he took in Matt's comments. "I'll pass on your constructive feedback and criticism immediately." There was a pause but it didn't feel particularly uncomfortable, all things considered. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got shot," he replied with a faint grin, "It's manageable. I'm up, aren't I? I've gotten pretty accustomed to pain over the years. Barely ranks among the top 5."
"A regrettable thing to grow so familiar with," Wilson replied as he moved in order to stand directly in front of Matt. There, he extended his hand and Matt sighed before reaching to take it so he could be helped back to his feet. "I'll ensure that security is better. I have little intention of leaving this location until such time as the streets are safer. Vanessa is under surveillance so I'll know if she makes a move."
Those were all very comforting thoughts, even if Matt didn't know that he believed that security was a possibility right now.
"And what about me?" he asked, "I assume you're not going to call me a cab to take me back to my apartment. Making a blind man with a bullet wound pay for his own taxi is rude. I also don't know where my wallet is."
Fisk's hand extended to cup his cheek and on pure instinct alone, Matt tilted his head to find more of the touch that he immediately sought. Maybe he should have been alarmed at just how easy it was to melt in the embrace of what should have been a single mistake and a one night stand. The hallmarks of affection had been all around him, from the flowers to hide the scents of the hospital to Fisk's presence at all in a time like this, and he was not immune to their charms. "You're going to remain here. Where I can keep you safe."
That earned a scoff and a bristle. "Right. I need your 'protection' like I need another hole in the chest. I can take care of myself." On his better days, at any rate.
The ringing of a cell phone interrupted the conversation and Matt tilted his head when Fisk retrieved his phone from his desk, briefly releasing his face to do it. Once the phone was pressed to his ear, he held it with one hand and returned his touch to Matt with the other, sparking a faint smile at the way Wilson was determined to continue to touch him regardless of circumstances. Even when Matt heard the panicked voice on the other end.
Fisk faintly smiled as he spoke, "There's no need to concern yourself. Mr. Murdock found his way up to me. I believe your nursing services are no longer required."
The call was cut short, the phone set back down and Matt flashed an innocent grin now that his absconding had been discovered.
"I probably worried them."
"Mm. I imagine that it was my reaction to your disappearance that worried them," Wilson corrected. His thumb ghosted over Matt's lower lip. "Now, where were we before we were interrupted by news of your daring escape from the infirmary?" Fisk mused. It was a less than stellar line to run but it was tempered by how he seemed more content to touch Matt's face in the ways he'd been denied behind a glass door at the ball before calamity had struck. His strong arm found its way to Matt's waist in a loose hold and it was a nice distraction, but Matt knew that it was intended to pull his focus. Wilson would have been content if he forgot all about what they were really talking about and he just melted into his embrace without worry for the world beyond Fisk's walls. It was tempting. He'd had a hell of a day and there was a simple siren song in it that offered easy affection.
"Not so daring. I just walked up here. And I was reminding you that I don't need protection. Also--what are you planning?"
"A necessity of the moment. These are trying times." A truth, wrapped in more omission. "What would appease your sense of goodness to get you to stay in one place long enough to heal rather than sneaking around like--"
"Like Daredevil?" he interrupted. "I have to take them down, Wilson. Who else is it going to be? The Punisher fanboys that you hired on to act as your personal army of assholes?"
"I've fought Poindexter before. We fought him before together, if I recall."
"That's not how I remember it."
Blows had been traded by all three to one another so Matt couldn't rewrite history to call it a war fought side by side. They hadn't been brothers in arms. It had been chaos born in blood and rage but in the end, Matt had been the one left standing and choices were made. A truce of shared understanding of the lines in the sand until Vanessa Fisk truly shattered it.
"If he arrives at my door, my odds are better with you here."
"That's the line you're trying to sell me now? We team up? You and me? You know how crazy that sounds, given literally everything that has ever happened between us, right?" Matt supplied with a half laugh. "Sleeping together is different from fighting together."
Fisk's thumb traveled over his cheekbone to draw familiar patterns. "Is it crazy, considering current circumstances? Didn't you remind me that insanity is doing the same things repeatedly with the expectation of change? Maybe it is by definition then, but however temporary, that is the crux of my argument."
Matt softly scoffed and shook his head, "I'm sure I can come up with all kinds of reasonable doubt. Right now, I just want a shower and something to eat. I'll dismantle this later."
It was a surrender. They both knew it. Matt's heart wasn't in arguing about it and he was mulling over what Wilson had said about the pair of them being in a better position to handle Poindexter and Vanessa together. There was a fascinating logic to it, but he didn't know if he could actually fight side by side with Wilson Fisk. He could sleep with him behind a curtain of deniability of what they were outside of Matt's apartment but if they fought together, lines would be crossed as moralities clashed. It was a problem. It felt like crossing further into uncharted waters and he didn't like the idea of growing comfortable being on the same side, even as they were now presented with common enemies. That wouldn't last.
He'd also witnessed Fisk's rage when it came to his wife but love was still love and he wondered if he would try to pull the trigger. If he did, Matt would have to stop him. Wouldn't he? Those were the kinds of questions that could drive a man insane and he wasn't up for it.
He'd had a really shitty night. Maybe he could force himself to believe they were safe long enough to get a shower and a meal. Then he could figure out the rest of it.
"Of course. I have a penthouse on the top floor. I'll cook dinner for you and you can clean up," Fisk offered, "It's late."
"If I was Poindexter, I'd come at night and it's still a long time until dawn."
"Yes, it is. But he has to find me and get to me first, if that is even his current goal. Perhaps he thought better of it and decided discretion is the better part of valor. He could be well into Newark by now for all we know," Fisk posited. Matt just faintly smiled in return, repressed the easy New Jersey joke that any native New Yorker would be eager to make and chose to be polite rather than immediately calling him out on his bullshit. No one could truly guess what Poindexter was thinking, even if the idea of a peaceful finale to the night was intriguing. In silent reward, Fisk leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Come on. I'll lead the way." Wilson extended his elbow and Matt took it even if there was no need.
There were still some images to maintain.
The blood splattered tuxedo jacket hung over his shoulders while Fisk led him out of the office and down the hall. Walking sparked new pain in his chest from the jostle of steps but he kept his expression passive, even as they passed Fisk's handpicked cops. The scene was already absurd with how he was dressed and with Fisk leading him to the elevator without any explanation. It seemed that Fisk needed none in the eyes of his task force. No one batted an eye. That was another display of unquestioned power.
They passed more security on the top floor, all heavily armed as would be expected, before getting to the expensive oak double doors. Fisk opened it and soon closed and secured it behind them. A lock was a feeble gesture.
Matt briefly stood still, taking in the space from a thousand sensory inputs to map and learn it. Wilson released his arm and let Matt walk a handful of steps into the expanse of the living room that fed into a kitchen and a dining room. He went to the huge picture window with doors to a balcony and pressed his fingers to it. Two taps to confirm it was the same muting bulletproof glass but more than that, the sound of his knocks sent vibrations across the whole of the room, putting everything into sharper reds and revealing all that the noise touched. "I like the open floor plan," Matt commented, "It's nice."
"You're a wonder," Fisk remarked fondly. "The shower is--"
"Through there. I got it," he interrupted.
"Now you're showing off again."
"I don't get to be truthful too often about what I can do," he answered with maybe a little too much honesty. "It's a little tiring, pretending. It's actually more than that--it's an often exhausting lie and I’m too weary for another act right now."
"I don't want you to be anything other than your honest self, Matthew. Now go on," he urged before dropping a kiss on Matt's forehead.
Matt smiled in return to the fleeting touch and made his way across the living room to turn the corner to the massive bathroom connected to a lavish master bedroom. Everything was, as expected, pristine and he ultimately decided for a bath in a porcelain clawfoot instead of the shower in the interest of not falling over under the weight of pain and exhaustion.
Vanessa had been there, he determined, after filling the tub with near scalding water that, when he reclined, lapped at the bottom of the gauze but not the stitches. Her half used shampoo was still on the shelf beside the tub. He wet his hair but neglected to use it and chose Wilson’s soap instead to clean away a really shitty day. The bath made him feel a little more human again and the heat soothed aching muscles. His eyes closed and he just let himself feel everything for a moment. The pain was palpable, as he expected, but he listened to the sound of a vinyl record player that had come to life under Fisk's hand in the other room. Another vintage songstress' voice floated through the penthouse and it felt like a picture of calm. He still felt dulled by the diminishing medication in his system but he was getting closer to normal as moments passed.
"Matthew," Fisk's voice cut in from the other room. Not a shout. Not a panic. Just spoken calm words that he knew Matt would hear. "I left a shirt out for you. It will be large but the options are limited."
"That's alright. Thank you," he called out, his voice far louder, to be heard over the closed bathroom door, the record and Fisk's rummaging in his kitchen. It was a portrait of domesticity that was all built on a house of cards but he was too tired to care when it might blow over.
Eventually the water started to turn cool so Matt pushed himself up and dried off with an utterly soft towel and put the boxers back on to step out to retrieve the clothes that Fisk had left for him. A soft undershirt that hung loose at his shoulders in extra fabric and went well past his hips. It smelled like Wilson and he found that oddly and profoundly nice.
He padded soft bare footsteps across Fisk's expensive wood floor and walked toward the kitchen. "Let me help?" Matt suggested to the usually imposing presence now standing behind a cutting board grating fragrant cheese. Salted water was coming close to a boil.
"No need. It's cacio e pepe--little work at all. I do add some parsley to brighten it so I recognize that it's not in the original spirit of the dish of solely pepper, pecorino Romano and the pasta itself."
Matt faintly smiled, "I won't report you to the Italian food authorities for such a transgression."
"Thank you. I thought I might pour you a glass of wine but considered it might be an unwise choice, given the medications you were on--which you should still be on, I will remind you. In any event, I would expect that there are warning labels against such combinations for what is still in your system." Fisk sounded apologetic. Apparently it wasn't the image that he'd had in his head of the first meal that he cooked for them.
Frankly, Matt found it fitting.
"Yeah, probably. Everything is still…kind of fuzzy. Muted. It's getting better though. Should be gone soon. You have tea, though. A floral blend," he suggested.
"It's Vanessa's," Fisk answered, his voice clipped and tight at the mention of her.
The sound of her name could shift the mood but Matt deflected away from her and her ever present danger in their lives. The truth he'd found tonight had been true a year ago and it would still be the same tomorrow when he was in a better condition to make her pay for it. So he told himself for the moment, even if the argument didn't take hold in his heart.
"Then I won't feel bad about drinking it. Smells expensive." He moved around Wilson in the kitchen to the cabinet that contained the tea bags in a tin container and set them on the countertop. The kettle on one of the other unused burners was collected and Matt filled it with water.
Fisk hummed his amusement and perhaps slight displeasure. "You should be resting. I can make the tea."
"I am. Comparatively speaking. As opposed to what I want to be doing right now. What I should be doing," Matt reasoned. Making tea while Wilson Fisk cooked dinner for him was a hell of a lot closer to relaxation than what his instincts told him that he should be doing. He felt the intense urge to move, to find Dex, to make Vanessa Fisk regret everything, but his hand had been stilled by the offer of sweetness from his once and probably future enemy. He wrote it off as needing to heal at least a little bit before he faced down his remaining adversaries that were still in the wind but he also recognized that it shouldn't have stopped him. There was a time when it wouldn't have slowed his steps.
It weighed on him at that moment. He'd allowed for distraction born of soft touch and easy words and something was wrong, beyond the obvious, even if he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was the itch of Catholic guilt to be enjoying a faint moment of domesticity while the city was in trouble all those floors below him because Poindexter was still free and Vanessa was surely plotting in the periphery.
Fisk noticed the conflict that probably wrote itself over his expression. Vanessa had said his face was too honest and perhaps her estranged husband agreed. Wilson put down the grater and walked to the other side of the kitchen island to where he stood and cupped Matt's face in his hands to tilt his head up. A faint kiss was pressed to his worrying forehead and those strong arms enveloped him in now familiar tenderness.
"You could have died," Fisk breathed with a trace of lingering concern at the fringe of his voice.
"Horseshoes and hand grenades, remember? Besides, time was, that'd have put a smile on your face. One less thing to worry about. One less enemy in your path. You would've been happy to dance on my grave."
"That time has since passed. My inconvenient fondness for you has grown substantially. Beyond my wildest expectations and faster than I could have imagined. There are sometimes things in life that…you simply know. That, when they reveal themselves, fill holes and spaces. Balm aches. My darkest intentions that were once meant for your destruction are now for your protection," Fisk quietly mused.
The statement clattered around Matt's head with a bright uncertainty but Fisk's mouth found him before he could voice such concerns.
There was nothing so soft as their words in the kiss.
It left his lips aching in the way that dulled everything else on the outskirts in the desperation of their coming together in an embrace once more. Matt liked how Fisk kissed him like he needed it to live and he matched it in kind with the sort of need that pooled deep in his guts. Wilson backed him up against the kitchen counter while they kissed in sloppy and haphazard eager touch. Pauses came only for breath before they came together again and again. The pot boiled. The kettle warmed. Time passed in an eager embrace and Matt paid it no attention because he was lost in a contrasting sea of gentle touch and warring kisses.
And then.
In the quiet swirling in soft breaths, racing hearts, Ella's voice singing about Summertime, he heard the hum above them on the rooftop. A turnover of an engine. The clatter of a machine that shouldn't have been there or, at least, should not have been operating.
"Wilson," he breathed in a whisper, tipping his head up to break the spell of the moment, "Why do I hear a power generator?"
"Nothing to be concerned about, Matthew," he deflected as he brushed his thumb over Matt's lower lip.
"Did you lose power?" Dex. "It's what I'd do too. Take down security systems and--" he began with a rush of concern making his voice rise.
"It's not Poindexter," Fisk assured him softly before ghosting a kiss over his lips. "The power is out throughout the city."
The words, so matter-of-fact, left Matt numb and dumbfounded.
"What?" he frowned, pulling back. He tilted his head, forcing everything away beyond the deafening bulletproof glass and the steel reinforced beams of the construction of a safe house. It was a strain, forcing him to listen through the suppression and the din and the lingering haziness left by the drugs.
He had to cut through what he wanted to hear.
Shit. He'd missed it. He'd completely missed it.
Con Edison. Buck. A meeting declaring the end of vigilantism in New York. Fisk's task force on the streets. Meeting with the city council. The hints in Fisk's words. It all came together in an ugly picture; Fisk was executing a plan and Matt had been caught completely off guard.
"It was you, wasn't it?" he demanded. "What did you do?"
He doubted Fisk would bother to lie.
"I did what was necessary. A means to an end," Wilson's thumb remained on his cheekbone in slow brushing strokes while he remained frozen in new truth. "I assure you that I had no idea what Poindexter was planning but this city is at a tipping point and he merely gave it a final shove. This is not a different life where I am a better man but in the morning, I will be a stronger one so I can make a safer world for all of us."
Matt pulled away immediately and stepped back. Fisk's arm reached for him to slow his steps and intercept him but he dodged it easily and efficiently as he swung around the kitchen island with one destination. Not the front door, but to the sliding patio doors that would take him to the balcony beyond bulletproof glass and repressive architecture to a rooftop where, as he had told Wilson on the top of his own building, all of the sound of New York collected and rose.
He pushed them back and stepped outside to the balcony's edge to listen.
Chaos.
Sirens and smoke carried on the air. He could hear shouts and screams, excited voices and a wall of the songs of fear.
He hadn't heard it. He hadn't wanted to. All he'd wanted to listen to was Wilson Fisk's heartbeat and look what it had cost.
Shit.
Fisk followed behind in slow, measured steps.
"I'm so fucking stupid," Matt lamented from over his shoulder, tilting his head toward Fisk in the balcony doorway. "I actually thought that my presence here might protect you for, what, the third time recently? I was anticipating the wrong threat though, wasn't I? I was waiting for Benjamin Poindexter to come finish what he started or for your wife to try again. I thought I had it all figured out because I stupidly thought you might mean it when you said you wanted to become something more. It wasn't a lie though--just a point of view. Dex isn't the immediate threat. Neither is Vanessa. It was you all along. You used this--you saw a path for a power grab in what he did tonight and you took it. Your own convenient burning of the Reichstag on the back of me getting shot and Dex escaping. The once and always Kingpin Wilson Fisk. You're ripping the city apart. Letting it destroy itself for your agenda. Why? Why would you cut power and let it descend like that? Where is all of that love for New York that you professed to have?"
"Sometimes things must be broken to be redeemed. The shattered pieces will be shaped into something better. Something beautiful. You're right--it wasn't a lie. This is the truth of what I will bring to New York and it will be better for it after it has been reconstructed. I'm saving this city and I'm saving you in kind. You might not yet appreciate my vision but I can show you the way. Now, settle down. We can discuss it over dinner and I will explain everything."
What made it all the more harsh was that Fisk's heart was honest. He really believed it.
A fierce curse and rebuke died on his lips. What could he possibly say?
Wilson Fisk was his enemy. There was no grace to be found in easy whispers and convenient touch.
Matt drew a steadying breath while they felt like they stood in stasis. He tilted his head away from Fisk and in a split second, he knew what he was going to do. The closest building was two floors lower. The balcony railing, to the rusted fire escape, to the next rooftop then up again to the one beyond. An easy means of escape. He wondered if Fisk clocked it or if he wouldn't expect Matt to make a run for it in his current condition. It was a stupid thing to do, so likely not.
Fuck it.
He jumped.
Pain and blood bloomed the moment he rolled to a landing on the new rooftop as the stitches in his chest ripped but he kept moving in shadow without a pause in his steps. He sprinted and leapt through the ache in his heart that felt larger than any wound a bullet might leave. He'd been so stupid. It was a refrain he kept repeating with each step across the expanse of the tops of the city while chaos echoed all around him.
Home wasn't necessarily a safe shelter, even one of last resort. Obviously Wilson Fisk knew his apartment well but it was where the suit was and any hesitation he might have had about putting it on again was long dead now. Daredevil was an mirage of security in a world now crumbling with the smoke in the air.
It took longer than he would have liked to cross the city, slowed by ache and exhaustion.
Once he reached his neighborhood and the most familiar rooftops, his steps slowed and he pressed his hand over his shoulder to gauge the damage he'd done to himself. No doubt his palm was red with blood. It was far from ideal and anguish bloomed across his shoulder and chest. He'd have to stitch it up again at some point but it was a vague need compared to just getting home to the illusion of safety. Given how close he was, he made his way back to the street level and walked in the darkness down the rest of the block through well known alleyways to avoid further strain to an injury that was already taking his breath away in sparks of misery.
The out-of-place van filled to the brim with armed men sitting at the end of his block wasn't even a surprise.
Even if it seemed like an inevitability, he really didn't want to fucking deal with that.
Or what he picked up next.
Matt heard the heartbeat and smelled gunpowder and lousy coffee before he even got in the building. It all painted a picture that he was far too familiar with. He really didn’t need this shit right now.
In Wilson Fisk's prescribed darkness, he trudged up the flights of stairs and opened the unlocked door with a straight line for his couch. He sat down and let out an exasperated sigh to the figure standing silent guard in his kitchen.
“Hi, Frank.”
“Hey, Red.”
~~~