Matt regained consciousness face-down in a puddle, coughing and choking on the thick fog of dust or powder that seemed to fill the air around him.
He shifted slightly and winced. At the moment, he felt like one large bruise.
A moment later, he remembered fighting Elektra, and the building collapsing, and he realized he must still be buried under the rubble, judging by the total silence surrounding him.
He couldn’t hear anything, not even his own heartbeat, and he realized that, somehow, he’d been resurrected just like Elektra and the five fingers of the Hand had been-- and wasn’t that a surprise, and not a welcome one, considering his intentions to either live or die with Elektra.
He shifted again slowly, the sounds made by his movements informing him that the only reason he hadn’t been completely crushed was the strange structure they’d been fighting in.
Bones, he’d heard them referred to as, although from what his sense told him, they were certainly stronger and denser than any creature’s he knew of.
Smaller chunks of rock fell off of him as he moved painfully into a standing position, and he strained his senses again, listening for Elektra.
Nothing.
When pressing the limits of his abilities, he could just barely sense sounds above him, most likely policemen and construction crews working to clear up the wreckage, but there were no other sounds of movement in the hole with him.
Considering how he’d been holding Elektra when the building fell, he didn’t know if that meant she was alive, somehow, too, or if she was--
He paused and breathed, trying to hold himself together.
If she was really dead, once again, he-- well, he would have to deal with it all over again.
But if there was even a chance she’d somehow lived, he needed to get out out the hole.
He knew waiting for anyone above to unbury him would take too long, and he hoped they wouldn’t be able to dig that deeply anyway, else they would expose the world to the very dangers they’d hoped to prevent by blowing up the building in the first place.
So he started listening and feeling for a way out alone.
---
It took Matt three sleepless days of shifting bone and rock and metal, carefully checking before each move whether or not it could cause a collapse, before he reached the surface, taking even longer since he had to ensure no one would be able to reopen his route of egress.
When he knew he was getting close, he waited until the workers stopped for the night before making the final few feet of progress, making sure no one saw him leave the site.
Then he slowly made his way first to Karen’s apartment, then Foggy’s, checking they were both okay. Each were sound asleep, maybe not sleeping completely peacefully, but at least they were alive.
He checked on Claire next, and found her and Luke Cage both sleeping soundly. When his shadow left their windowsill, he heard Claire stir for just a moment before settling more deeply into sleep.
Matt wasn’t sure where he could find Danny Rand, the Iron Fist, but to his surprise, before the end of the night he heard the distinctively odd hum that his fist generated whenever it-- according to the others-- glowed.
He followed the sound, stopping a few rooftops away, and he could tell the other man was perched on another rooftop, looking over the city and waiting for something.
Matt couldn’t tell what he was waiting for, and was debating getting closer when he overheard the familiar sounds of the start of a mugging.
He tracked the sound to about a block away from Danny, and he was shifting to intervene before realizing the sound of Danny’s fist had moved as the other man had the same idea.
Matt listened in bemusement as the Iron Fist surprised the muggers, punching the man’s gun before he had a chance to fire it, and the victim stammered his thanks before running off, belongings intact.
Realizing the other man was fine-- and apparently had taken his intended last words to heart-- he left, heading back to his apartment.
When he finally made it there, he was not surprised to sense that Foggy and Karen had been there since he last left it, catching a days-old whiff of their scents on his couch and in his kitchen. He guessed they’d come while mourning his death, possibly in a wishful attempt to see if he’d survived and returned.
They weren’t exactly wrong, but had checked too early.
Putting aside the problems that were going to come with being brought back to life for the moment, he began pulling off his suit, dropping it to the floor inside his bedroom before falling onto his bed face-down in an exhausted heap.
He breathed in deeply, finally managing to relax somewhat, before he caught another, slightly older, scent, and he froze.
He breathed in again, his face pressing into his pillow.
Elektra.
For a split second, he thought it was proof she’d survived, before realizing the scent was a little fainter than Foggy’s or Karen’s in the rest of the apartment. She must have been there at some point in-between the times he and the others had fought her.
And judging by how her scent lingered, she’d slept there, in his bed.
The thought tore at his heart, just another reminder that he’d been right, his Elektra had still been in there somewhere, with the weapon that the Hand had turned her into.
He finally fell asleep with her scent surrounding him, and dreamed of her.
---
The next night, Matthew Murdock was still dead from unexplained causes, not that anyone was investigating.
When Danny Rand resumed his nightly watch, however, he had the strange sense of being watched.
He stood up, backing away from where he’d been sitting at the edge of a roof, and raised his glowing fist out like a very dangerous flashlight.
“Who’s there?” He asked.
He’d deny it if he were asked about being nervous, but there had always been something strange about night in Hell’s Kitchen to him, since he’d taken over what had once been Daredevil’s patrol.
Like the shadows knew he was just a substitute.
There wasn’t a reply, and he couldn’t sense anyone him, so after a few moments he wondered if he was just jumping at shadows.
Then he saw it--
On the ground beside him, there was a shadow, cast from a dim light on some other rooftop, and he recognized the silhouette.
He whirled around, trying to find where Daredevil was crouching, but by the time he looked, there was nothing to see.
After a moment, Danny exhaled and smiled anyway.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was back.