Matthew Michael Murdock was a man of shadows and light intertwined. It was not as simple as dividing the two into neatly sliced halves and feeding the darkness into the horned devil he became at night; the light came in such small portions that they were more outbursts of sudden flame than anything else, dying almost as soon as they leapt up, but never quite snuffed out. He was a man running on coal: red-hot, soot-black, rock-solid, and never quite dead.
He remembers one of the nuns at church saying, there will only be darkness when there is light; see the shadows, and think of the sun. He remembers, and he smiles.
The smile is without mirth.
As Wade Wilson aka Deadpool once famously said, life is life. The happiness in between is only thirty seconds worth of commercial breaks. Matt Murdock made a mistake when he collected all his commercial breaks and unconsciously spent almost all of them on his time at Columbia law school. What was left – a meagre handful – he thought he could save; but then Elektra happened and he fell head over heels in love, got drunk on German beer and expensive wine and the depth of her gaze, and the remaining handful splattered out of his lap like bloodred rubies on a mirror.
Elektra happened.
They were the two finest blades paired in a dance to the death, in war and smoke and spilt wine, among the stench of gunpowder and the fragrance of blooming orchids. She was darker than all of his shadows combined and perhaps that was what drew him towards her in the beginning. He still remembered the steely edge of the butter knife as it traced razor-sharp lines across his abdomen when he lay defenseless and vulnerable on the kitchen table, laughing, talking about sex and children and future families with the woman he loved.
That was an entire lifetime ago, when he was still a good Catholic boy who had never dirtied his hands with blood, never heard the small girl being brutally violated by her father blocks away, never put on the mask to deal out justice which he couldn’t achieve in the daylight. He might have still deserved a tiny pinch of happiness then. When he still had dreams. When he still had a soul.
We’re gonna be the best avocados at law, he thinks, and goddamn it because now he’s thinking of Foggy. The two of them, wandering around the campus, totally smashed, at one in the morning, heading somewhere to grab another drink and a cheese burger. It sounded totally insane – he spends his one in the mornings now perched on rooftops, eyes and nose covered with a mask, listening for sirens and screams with a pounding headache. Begging lowly street filth to kill him. Stealing Foggy’s wallet after meeting with him one last time.
Stick would laugh until he croaked if he could see how Matt Murdock ended up now. The Murdocks never give up, eh? He would say, and he would thrust his blade between Matt’s ribs and cut his throbbing heart to ribbons. He would smile as Matt choked and flailed and gripped the ancient handle in terror while life slowly trickled out of him, pooling in a dark sticky puddle around his feet. How about now?
It would be a mercy.
I was wrong to befriend you, he says to Foggy and his heart silently pleads no, you were the best thing that ever happened to me, you were the one foundation I could rely upon in my whole life, you never gave up even when you knew I was broken beyond repair, and then he says to Foggy, I’ll never see you again.
The only thing that stopped him from cutting his throat that night was the thought of his blood congealing, dirtying Foggy’s stolen bar ID, and his once-friend does not deserve another piece of Matt Murdock to clean up after he was long dead.
He stumbled home after the vicious beating he took at the hands of the Albanians, in that prison where everything was cold and rough and smelt of sweat on iron bars. The name of Foggy Nelson took a beating, the body of Matt Murdock suffered, and the soul of the Devil wept for its own death.
He remembers, his fingers sweep over the braille reader on which he had recorded his diaries when he was still young, and he sits in a stupor while he dreams.
Matt Murdock lies on his worn-out couch and blindly presses a number on his phone. There’re two beeps, and the person on the other side picks up.
“Who’s this?”
He opens his mouth to breathe because suddenly there isn’t enough oxygen in his lungs. It had been too long since he heard that voice, since he touched the hands that belonged to him, smelt his scent, bitter like burnt cherries and the metallic tang of blood.
“Me,” he croaks out. There’s a ruffling on the other side, a few seconds of silence, then, “Red?”
“Yeah,” he says. His throat made a dry click as he swallowed. “How’re you doing, Frank?”
There’re a few seconds of indignant silence, like Frank Castle couldn’t believe his nerve. “Son of a bitch,” he finally replies, his voice rough, “I thought you were dead.”
“I thought you were too.”
“Well, I ain’t. And I should’ve known your ass survived that building. Not even killing yourself, eh, Red?”
“It’s more of a, ah, ‘God hath turned His canon against self-slaughter’ type of thing.”
“Great. Catholic bullshit. I don’t care. Okay. What do you want?”
“…Help me remember.”
Three hours later, in a dingy coffee shop with stained glass windows and cracked wooden tables, two men sit across each other over two cups of black coffee. One has a baseball cap on that throws shadows covering the upper half of his face. The other is wearing a black jacket and cheap sunglasses. A white and red cane leans on the side of the table.
Matt Murdock doesn’t address the whispering of cold, gun-shaped metal against the other man’s belt. Frank Castle doesn’t address how he can see Matt’s glassy eyes behind the dark shades, and they look dead like a corpse. It’s their unspoken agreement of sorts.
“You got a memory problem, Red?” Frank asks, and he scans the tired man sitting across from him openly. “Cause if you do, I’m seriously not the man –”
“No.” Matt cuts him off and pass a hand on his brow. “I just need to remember.”
“The good ol’ days, Red? Nostalgia? Really?” Matt can sense Frank’s confusion but he doesn’t want to explain. He throws him a fake smile and sips at his coffee. He’s pretending. The stuff is even more horrible than what Karen Page used to make using Nelson and Murdock’s cranky old machine.
“I need someone else’s version on what I can remember,” he says, sets down the cup. “This…period has twisted my memories into something I don’t recognize. You might think that I’m alive now, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
To his relief, Frank nods, and Matt feels his gaze, hot against his skin. He was a soldier. He understands.
“You remember that night when I tied you to that chimney, Red?”
“Yeah.” The feeling of rough bricks digging into his back, heavy chains binding him expertly against the cold surface, the confusion of waking up, the sharp pain of pulling against the restraints in frenzied attempts to escape. “Yeah, I do.”
“You tried to convince me that killing was wrong.”
“Not that you listened.”
Frank snorts. “Not that you stopped.”
“Fair enough.” Matt says, drums his fingers on the weathered table.
“I forced you to shoot someone.”
“Well, you tried to,” Matt makes a hand gesture and Frank grumbles. “You tied my hand to that gun and pointed yours to the head of that man.”
“No shit.” Frank says, “I tried to make you shoot a man, you somehow fucking shot yourself out from the chains, and escaped.”
Matt rolls the end of his stick between his fingers and banters with Frank Castle over two coffees about their strange relationship. The Punisher and Daredevil. Both believed by the average New York citizen to be dead. Occasionally (“Never,” Frank says gruffly and Matt nearly, nearly cracks a smile) helping each other out. Just one devil having another devil’s back. Because, you know, there are angels to protect in this city.
By closing time Matt can hear the girl behind the bar hesitating to come up to them, the blind handsome duck and the nameless-guy-who-most-probably-has-a-gun, the fabric of her coarse apron and dress rubbing against each other in whispers. So he taps the table and Frank understands.
Frank always understands.
They pay the bill (Matt pays the bill, Frank stands and watches from the door) and goes out into the chilled and empty streets in the dark. This is when they feel most comfortable, hidden in the shadows of Hell’s Kitchen, protecting the city. Ghosts in the night.
“Hey,” Frank says, and he touches Matt’s shoulder – a rare gesture. “I got a mission comin’ up soon. Fucking drug dealers…what’s left of the evil undying magicians. A bit of cocaine, heroin, opium, shit. You wanna…”
He doesn’t have to say it. Matt reads the hidden concern beneath Frank’s rough words and knows that the Punisher is trying to help him, is willing to give up the silence and almost-peacefulness a lone wolf mission has for him. And he can’t help but nod. It is worth it to sense the minute upturn of Frank’s lips at that motion.
“You know my number.” He says, and pats Frank on the shoulder. It’s a goodbye and a promise.
I will see you soon.
And Matt Murdock thinks that, perhaps one day, he will be able to breathe like he's alive.