Jessica Jones has his back on LOCK
After everything that went down at Midland Circle, Jessica considered herself lucky. Lucky thta she'd made it out alive. Lucky she had some help down in the basement. Lucky that she didn't choke Danny and Luke in the aftermath. And the before-math. And everything in between.
Suffice to say she wasn't a team player. Jessica wasn't a people-person, and three dudes with major compensation issues were the last group of people she'd want on her team. If anyone, she might've picked that guy with the dog that was running around the city with the gun. He seemed pretty okay. Better than these yahoos at least.
But Misty tried her hardest to single handedly (too soon?) reduce any charges, and Foggy got them off from that 'domestic terrorism' nonsense, and if anything the whole incident got Alias Investigations some much needed PR. So after all, she even considered herself lucky to have met the people she'd met, that kept the whole fiasco from ruining the rest of her binge-drinking days. Plus, now that she definitely wasn't a terrorist, the cases were just pouring in.
More cases meant more billable hours, and more billable hours meant actual paychecks. And while she might not have been rich, she suddenly did have the cash flow to afford both whiskey AND rent, and that was a special kind of bliss.
Despite everything she had to be lucky for, Jessica sometimes found her thoughts lingering on the unluckiest person that had gone to the basement with them that night.
It was months since she saw Murdock. Well, *left* Murdock. Under a building. With his incredibly fuckable, angry, ninja girlfriend. The rage and self loathing Jessica felt hadn't quite faded yet, but she was nothing if not detached and she could handle the grief on her own. Regret wouldn't bring him back, even if it was keeping her up at night.
(As if she'd be sleeping anyway)
She had a dream a while ago, that the Hand had done some kind of memory-whammy on him, and even if Claire insisted that that wasn't biologically possible, Jessica's gut didn't lie. He was alive somewhere out there. She thought about him stumbling around somewhere, all alone, lost in the world. Blind guys don't exactly have a knack for navigation.
Sometimes she even drove by the Catholic church for him. She wouldn't call it praying, hell, she didn't even know how to pray, but it was a gesture she thought Matt might appreciate. In a much more helpful gesture, she had managed to solve a few cases for nurses at the hospital in exchange for notification whenever a blind guy got admitted. She coud live to take a few pictures of some cheating spouses, or hunt down missing dogs or whatever, if it meant she was guarenteed notice on any possible Murdocks.
After months and weeks and nights staring at the ceiling, something paid off. Yet again, she wouldn't dare call it divine intervention, but the unseeing Catholic crusader might, and that was enough for her.
"We had a John Doe admitted just now, blind. They found him somewhere in an alley, with a head lac. He looks okay, he came in all bandaged up, but I don't think he knows where he is."
Jessica was far too cynical to think it could be Matt. She'd received too many false alerts on drunk blind bums stumbling into the ER to delude herself into thinking this one was him.
"What does he look like?"
A pause on the other end of the line. This guy knew how important this was, and yet he took his sweet time answering. People were so fucking annoying.
"Well?"
"I don't know, I can't see him. They're- I think they're having trouble getting him to stay still. Oh jesus, I think he's trying to put up a fight?"
That made her put her boots on.
"Give him space, don't touch him, I'll be there in a minute."
She hung up before the nurse could give her an excuse, and she was out the door seconds after that. She was at the hospital only minutes later. Could he still be alive? After everything? How had he even survived the past few months? Behind the stale walls of the hospital were the answers.
She made it inside the doors, to utter chaos. She could hear shouting coming from a distant corner of the ER, as well as a fair number of onlookers circling around a certain curtain. She didn't waste a minute stomping over to sort things out.
"Give him some space. Fuck do you think you're looking at? Do you feel proud of yourself? For this? Let's all stare at the blind guy, right?" Jessica verbally berated the crowd into dissapating, and took in the scene in front of her. One Matthew Murdock, with a single leather restraint on his left wrist keeping him contained to the bed. He was skinnier than she remembered, kind of sweaty, and his chest was heaving. Poor guys' eyes were skimming all over the room in a panic, like they were trying to focus on something but couldn't find purchase.Did he remember he was blind?
An anxious nurse stood nearby with another cuff in his hands, like he wanted to try putting it on the patient was too nervous. He took a focussed step closer to the bed but Matt flinched back violently, and batted out with a hand to prevent anyone getting closer. It would've been funny if he didn't look so scared.
"Jesus christ, Murdock."
His head whipped towards her, and she thought she saw him relax a little. A thin trail of blood streamed from a cut on his head.
"Jessica? Jessica Jones?"
"Yeah, Matt, it's me. Stop acting like a psycho."
His brow crinkled, and she could see his fist clench from next to the cuff.
"I can't move."
Jessica looked at the nervous orderly.
"Get that thing off him."
The guy hurried to release Matt from the binding, and Matt cradled his freed wrist like a petulant five year old.
"We'll need to put a few stitches in and maybe run a CT scan to check out that head wound. We haven't done any tests but... I think he may be at least partially blind." The nurse looked at her tentatively.
"Blind thing isn't new." Matt growled from his position on the bed. The orderly looked down at him, then back at Jessica to confirm.
"He's a special guy."
"Ok, well, that's good. But ma'am, I'm not sure how you got back here but you shouldn't be here at all. The waiting room is just past that door, and we come get you when we're done running tests." The nurse fiddled with the cuff in his hand, still not completely confident he could boss around the super friends. Jessica looked from the nurse to Matt.
The nurse stepped forward with the cuff still in hand to discuss the matter further with her, but Matt clearly thought the guy was up to something else. His temporary calm dissipated, he lunged himself off the bed, landing on one leg with the other braced behind him for a fight. The orderly, shocked and annoyed, wagged the cuff at Jessica as if to say 'told you so'.
She sighed. Of course he was alive. Of course he was just fine. And of course he was impossible to deal with.
"Here's whats going to happen. I'm going to check him," she gestured to Matt, "out. You," she gestured to the nurse, "are going to go find someone that actually needs help. And you," she pointed at Matt again, "are not going to act like a paranoid, coked up ninja for twenty minutes while we figure the rest out. Kay?"
Murdock brought his feet together and dropped his fists. He even had the manners to look sheepish for a moment. She grabbed his sleeve and turned around to go. The nurse was still looking at them suspiciously, but he didn't seem like he was going to stop her and she could live with the suspicion so long as Daredevil wasn't going to karate chop the guy into the next century.
"Great. Okay."
With that she stomped back out of the ER, this time with one undead grown orphan in tow.
............................................................................................................................................................
They made it back to her apartment/office in record time. By the time she'd crossed the threshold, Danny, Luke, and Claire had all been called to meet them there. Dragging Matt through the door, she plopped him down on the couch and let him take a minute to get his bearings straight.
He was 'looking' all around the small space, doing whatever echo location bullshit he survived on. Jessica couldn't care less. She grabbed a bottle of the good stuff and took a swig. Normally she'd be saving it for when a case went particularly well, but she figured she deserved a little something extra for tonight.
Matt's nose crinkled from his spot on the couch.
"Still drinking like a sailor?" He joked, with almost none of the energy his jabs used to have. It would've made her sad if she'd given a damn.
"Still got a beating fucking heart?"
He withdrew at that one.
"Jessica.", he said quietly.
She looked back over at him. He was curling in on himself, arms crossed in a defensive posture.
"What's the date?"
She squinted.
"It's a tuesday. You miss a bridge tournament?"
"What's the date date? Month, day."
"It's October 3rd. What's the last date you remember?"
Matt's head fell into this hands, shaking in disbelief.
"October?!"
"Murdock. What happened."
"That's impossible. It's been months."
"Earth to Matt, what the fuck happpened?"
"I don't know."