#and sometimes Matt Murdock | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pastafossa · 1 year

Text

Preview of Angsty In-Progress TRT What If fic

Right so there won't be a chapter cause I'm still in Covid Brain Fog Town, Population: Me which is affecting my writing (I've gotten a bit written but it's slow going). But I have found time to edit that sad thing I'd been working on BEFORE getting sick and I'm planning to release that because I think it works as a really good illustration of just what the stakes are in TRT if they get this wrong. AKA: a what-if, in which all their preparations fail and Jane is taken (spawned by an ask in my box that's been chewing at my brain for months now).

This will be a really dark and angsty side-fic, and the ending won't be happy per se, although I'm planning to give a little hope at the end since I'm not a COMPLETE monster, but I don't expect everyone to read it regardless and am designing it so there's no need to if you'd prefer to stick to TRT canon. BUT if you DO want to read something like this, here's a preview of the first section.

Warnings for: angst (obviously), blood, reference to shock collars.

Preview wordcount: around 1k

Putting this behind a cut.

Sad Matt gif cause this part's from his POV and it will not be fun.

There should have been a fight.

That had always been the plan, an unspoken agreement the moment you’d decided to stay. You’d all known the Man in the White Coat, Cyrus James, would come to town eventually. It was an inevitability, a reality, and it was one you’d prepared for. Slowly, you’d gathered in your allies, armor composed of S.H.I.E.L.D., of the Ferryman, of the Punisher and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and even Spider-Man, had you asked. There’d been plans and backup plans, alarm systems and fail safes. And just in case that still wasn’t enough, you and Matt had taken to practicing, over and over and over again, all the ways you could signal him should your hunter slip through the cracks.

It was foolproof.

It should have been foolproof. That was what you’d all believed.

You were all wrong. So terribly, terribly wrong.

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

There was no battle.

It’s my fault.

No war along the familiar streets that had become your home.

I should have sensed him.

There’d been no signal given. No warning, no alarm that rang out, not when you were walking home after a late case.

Caught alone in the dark.

Where are you, sweetheart? Please, just give me something, anything—

You didn’t even have time to scream, they said.

Not physically, anyway.

He’d felt your fear before on occasion, when you reached for him psychically. Then, your presence felt like the frantic bite of your nails in his skin, tasted like the sharp tang of cold sweat and burning adrenaline, sounded like the stuttered racing of your heart, a drumbeat in his ears that never failed to set his own heart racing as he cast his senses out, hunting for threat-threat-threat and for those that dared to harm you. He’d felt your fear when you woke in the quiet dark of the apartment, and when you’d been trapped beneath the warehouse in a cruel, dusty cell. He’d felt it, too, that night Frank had chased after you.

He thought he’d known the flavor of your fear.

But those moments were nothing compared to the moment your deepest, darkest fear became… real.

The deafening psychic scream that tore through the thread with all the force of a hurricane was like nothing he’d felt before, or ever would again. That storm was all-consuming, the world around him gone in a heartbeat as the sudden wave brought him to his knees, his mouth shocked open on a silent shout. He could barely breathe through that terrified tide, one cold as bitter ice, your panicked heartbeat less a drumbeat than a constant roar in his ears as your panic rolled through him. This was the tremor of muscle and blind, animalistic instinct, the last, desperate sprint of a doomed hare just before the hawk’s talons cinched shut against the back of its neck.

This wasn’t fear. That was too small a word.

It was sheer, absolute terror.

And in that terror, you managed only a single word.

“Matt, h—”

You never got a chance to finish. Instead, he was struck by a blinding surge of electricity, white-hot coils of lightning snaking around his throat before locking tight. That shock raced outwards from there, traveling along lines of hidden nerves and thick muscle until his whole body locked up in agony. It was impossible to writhe, to thrash, to fight. All he could do was scream, mindless and furious, your terror matched only by his surge of rage, rage that covered his own wave of terror. Because he knew. He knew, distantly, what this was, and what this meant.

The collar.

Just as quickly as it came, the connection was gone, leaving him with nothing but the steady drip of blood from his nose and a ringing in his ears.

He wanted to retch, his stomach roiling, but there was no time.

It can’t end like this.

The directional signal he’d gotten from you was worthless. Even when he found where you’d been snatched off the street, they’d left him nothing but droplets of your blood and a fading snatch of cigarette smoke, a poor cover for the faint chemical scent lingering in the alley. Tranquilizers, he’d learn later, meant to knock you out, make you tame enough to be bound, collared, and forced into the back of a van. From there, your scent vanished into the night.

Caught. Collared.

Taken.

There was supposed to be more time.

More time for him in your arms and you in his.

More quiet touches in the early morning, and laughter in the kitchen, at Fogwell’s, on warm rooftops and cold ones, too.

Time for him to slip a ring on your finger, and for his name to twine with yours, joyful tears in both your eyes as he pressed his lips to yours on the day you finally became his wife, the keeper of his soul, and he the keeper of yours, for all the rest of your days.

Why hadn’t he asked you?

He should have asked you.

Our rocking chairs should be red, you’d said sleepily last night, when we’re old.

He should have been faster.

Stronger.

Smarter.

“All this, all this that we have here, that you love, is at risk. It always is when I stop. He takes this from me every time, Matt."

He should have protected you.

He’d promised you he’d keep you safe.

“No one will take you. I won’t let them, no matter what I have to do to stop them. What happened before—you didn’t have me. I’ll hear him coming from a mile away. We’ll be prepared for him."

“Ciro promised me the same thing. And he was wrong.”

He’d… promised.

“I promise. I’ll find them before they even get close.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, D.”

And he’d failed.

The Devil’s roar of anguish, of grief, and of absolute agony shook the very bones of the city.

By that point, you were too far away to hear it.

It would be seven months before he found you again.

#the red thread #the red thread What If #(so NOT canon)#(just an exploration of what would happen should they fail to keep her safe)#daredevil #matt murdock #fic #fanfic #fic preview #tw: blood #tw: angst #this is pretty much the least dark part of the fic so if you're going to take the full ride use this as a chance to buckle up #this will not be light or humorous or fluffy #99% hurt and very little comfort #we're gonna run face-first into *why* Jane is so terrified of this man #and explore what the failure might look like #because I think sometimes exploring what will happen if it all goes wrong is interesting

75 notes · View notes

farfromstrange · 2 years

Text

Angel On The Roof | Matt Murdock x f!Reader

Pairing: Matt Murdock x female Reader

Masterlist

Summary: Sometimes (or most of the time) suffering is silent, we don't often see or recognize the signs, and suicide can tear a huge hole into the hearts of the people around the affected person.

TW: SELF-HARM AND SUICIDE

Warnings: ANGST, hurt no comfort, self-harm, suicide, catholic guilt, mental illness

A/n: I intentionally wrote the warning seperately because this is... well, this was born from my brain in a matter of thirty minutes because I suddenly felt so fucking sad, and I had to somehow get these feelings out. I'm sorry. BUT I PROMISE IM OKAY THIS JUST HAPPENS SOMETIMES!!

Word count: 2.5k

DO NOT READ IF SUCH TOPICS COULD EASILY TRIGGER YOU! (And if you ever feel helpless, try talking to someone. You're not alone!)

18+ MINORS DNI

Mental illness speaks in silence.

Unlike a broken leg, you can’t see a sickness of the mind. There is no physical proof for the scary truth that something is going not quite right inside of your brain. And because people can’t see it, they have a hard time believing the truth. They have a hard time believing that being sick in the head could even affect you this much, so they try to sell your pain as worth less than it is. How could thoughts possibly turn paralyzing? How could someone’s mind make them feel worthless to the point the affected person sees no other way out but to inflict pain onto themselves? Attention whores, it’s what those people like to call the struggling ones. Lazy, weak, selfish… every mentally ill person has heard one of those words being used to describe them at least once.

Mental illness speaks in silence because if we spoke louder, people would only sneer and turn their backs on us. Mental illness speaks in silence because suffering alone seems better than burdening someone else. And mental illness speaks in silence because those who are mentally ill live in a different world. Their heads work differently.

Mental illness speaks in silence because pain paralyzes, and silent acts are the only way someone so stuck in the claws of the faceless monster knows how to ask for help. By the time people consider questioning certain behavior though, it is often too late, and the person soon enough feels as if they’re being a burden once more because the judging looks are worse than admitting you need help in the first place.

The monster that is mental illness is cruel and it has no regard for you or the people around you. It has set out to destroy you, and you feel helpless as it tears a knife through your soul and picks your heart apart piece by piece. And those who say, ‘just ask for help’ or ‘don’t be scared to speak up’ clearly don’t know how hard it can be to break out of such a circle once you’re already in it.

Self-harm is considered a serious addiction on the roster, but most people see it merely as a symptom of many personality disorders or mood disorders. Those who seemingly know nothing about mental illness even like to call it a call for attention. As if self-mutilation would ever be a conscious choice made by anyone. You try to fight a pain that no one can see and only you can feel, and sometimes, when you feel so much - too much - it gets deafening and you need another pain to balance it out.

Drugs aren’t the only thing hurting you that can result in addiction. There is a long list of things that harm the mind and body, and that is often used as a coping mechanism for the terrible things most people are forced to feel inside.

Matt Murdock has stared down the abyss before. He knelt in front of a God he had long lost all of his faith in and begged him to take him back. He stood at the edge of the cliff, ready to end his misery. He wanted to be taken away to recover from the excruciating hole in his chest. He didn’t want this life anymore. He hated his body and his mind, and he lost who he thought himself to be. He lost all of his faith, friends, and trust in the world. He stared down the abyss and the abyss stared back at him, dark and glooming, and it was ready to dig its claws into his skin and drag him down with it.

Though he pulled away before the darkness could consume him. He escaped death with only a breath on the tip of his tongue. He exorcized most of the demons in his mind after almost succumbing to them completely, and even now he still struggles with what the months of torture in the basement of Clinton Church did to him. The constant self-pity, the shame, the guilt, and the blame. He gave up on God when he needed them most. He found back to the lord because he strongly believed that in his time of need, he would always come back to him.

He met her on a warm summer’s night on the roof of an apartment complex. He returned to his ways as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in the makeshift black get-up inspired by whatever fabric he could find at church, but it had to be long after Wilson Fisk was returned behind bars.

She assured him, “I don’t want to jump, I just want to feel.” And so he stayed by her side until the sun came back up, shoulder to shoulder sitting on the ledge of the roof and staring down at New York City. He could smell and taste the salt lingering in the air from the tears she shed, but as they sat together, she did not once cry and so he stayed silent, listening to her broken heart as the sun came up.

It became a regular occasion. He would find her on numerous high buildings, always the same heartbeat, always stained with the salt of her tears and sometimes the tangy scent of blood on her sleeves. He never asked, he simply sat down next to her and waited until the sun came back up, and then he walked her home to make sure she would be okay. In the moment, she usually was. She smiled and thanked him, and he told her, “If you ever need to talk, well… you know I’ll find you if you call for me.”

He remembers asking her one day after he walked her home in the rain and she offered to let him in, still covered by the black mask but more than willing to learn more about the mystery woman that occupied his every thought, but he didn’t even know the name of. “Who hurt you?” he asked her.

She placed a coffee mug before him, her shoulders shrugging weakly. He could smell a mixture between copper and metal in the bathroom, and her pulse beat heavier than usual under the long sleeves of her shirt - it was summer, no need for a sweater, but she always wore one. He didn’t like to prod. The darkness swallowed him once too, and the last thing he had wanted back then was to talk to anyone. He wouldn’t have known where to start anyway, and she was struggling with something he had no right to judge. Still, the more time they spent together, the more he began to care.

“I hurt myself,” she had given him the simple answer.

His hand caught her wrist accidentally one of those nights and she flinched away, eyes seemingly wide with shock and frustration.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I need to feel something other than this pain that is numbing me to the point I feel like I’m being burned alive.”

“Have you ever asked someone for help?”

“Why would I?”

“Because there are people who can help when you’re hurting. People who have been trained for this. People who aren’t… people who can do much more than to just walk you home safe at night.”

She reacted rather hostile when he said it, and he couldn’t blame her, he still can’t. They were merely acquaintances. He came around when she felt alone and she enjoyed his company, but other than that they knew nothing.

“Perhaps you should go,” he remembers her saying, and then she pushed him away.

Two nights went by without her. He didn’t find her on any rooftops or in dark alleyways looking for ways to get the edge off. When the third day rolled around and he didn’t find her again, not even her heartbeat in the masses of Hell’s Kitchen, he gave into the voice in his head and took the road he memorized to the apartment he often walked her to after a particularly draining night.

He told himself not to cross that border because well, whatever they had, it meant nothing. But she was just human too, after all, and she was left alone hurting with demons in her head ready to tear her down. She was like him while at the same time, she was inherently different. He just knew she was drowning and if it was the catholic in him or just Matt Murdock who felt the need, but he had to protect her, even if it was just from herself.

Sometimes your head can become you worst enemy.

He entered the apartment over the fire escape. She kept her window unlocked, which wasn’t very safe. When he heard the sobs coming from the direction of the suspected bathroom though, he didn’t question why her window was open. Perhaps part of her took his offer to heart and she was searching for help, subconsciously at least. But he wasn’t the help she needed. He couldn’t do much but sit by her side and walk her home. Matt didn’t have much to give to her but even more pain in the form of his friendship. It never ended well for him.

He broke the door down at the scent of blood, and he was glad he did. He didn’t need sight to know that her arms were covered in cuts and the floor dark red with the essence of her heart. Her heartbeat sounded erratic in the small bathroom.

He didn’t panic though. He grabbed a few towels and wrapped them around her wrists, and as soon as she felt his touch, she fell into his arms and cried. He held her as she did, the blood soaking through his clothes, but he didn’t care. He held her until she was too weak to fight back, and then he did the most conscious thing, took her to bed and stitched her up.

She was quiet throughout, and even after. He couldn’t tell where her mind was at. Together, they lay on her soft mattress. He listened to her heartbeat and the tiny sobs passing her lips, all the while he still wore the goddamn black mask he once swore he would never pick up again.

“Why do you keep doing it?” he asked her eventually. His finger ran over the bandage he had applied earlier. “Why do you keep hurting yourself?”

She shivered. “It wouldn’t make sense even if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“No, you wouldn’t understand. You barely even know me and I don’t know you. Why do you keep doing this, D?”

“Matthew,” he told her. “That is my name. And I do understand because I’ve been where you are. Not- not this severe, but I can try to understand.”

“I just can’t help it,” she admitted. “I don’t know why, and I don’t want to talk about it. But I’m glad you’re here, and I promise I will try not to do it again.”

He caved because her heartbeat told the truth. “Okay.”

She didn’t lie because she believed it to be true.

And she never told him her name.

But that night she took his hand in hers and asked him to stay until she fell asleep, and against his better judgment, he did. He stayed until her breathing evened out and the sun came up. Only then did he slip out through the window and back into his everyday role.

She found a note on her table, poorly scribbled but she could decipher what he had meant to bring across.

It’s because I care about you that I do this, Angel.

That night, he found you waiting on a rooftop for him again. He heard the smile in her voice, and for a second he believed she was okay again.

They shared one kiss. It was a Tuesday night. The rain outside pattered against the window, but inside it was warm. He walked her home again, and she asked him if he wanted tea. He accepted her offer.

“Will I ever see your face?” she wondered out loud.

He chuckled. “It wouldn’t be such a good idea.” The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen knowingly never does home visits.

“Can you see mine?”

“No.” He didn’t tell her he was blind. Maybe he should have. Maybe telling her more about himself could have steered off the inevitable. If he had only allowed himself to hold on tighter without letting the fear take over, maybe she would still be there.

That night, she leaned in to kiss the revealed lower have of his face, and he had never felt so much dread yet happiness during a kiss before.

It was short and sweet, an act of kindness, and then she did the one thing she had never done before.

She thanked him. “Thank you,” she told him. “For everything.”

It was the first warning sign, but he missed it. He missed them all.

She kissed him, then thanked him, and then when he turned to leave, she said, “Goodbye, Matthew.”

If he had only known back then that this would be the last time he would get to feel her presence again, he would have stayed even long after the sun had risen.

Three days later, a kiss, the sound of her heartbeat, and a distinctive smell in his clothes and nose are all he has left of her. He held her when she needed it, but even when she tried subtly telling him that something wasn’t right, he didn’t realize what she was trying to tell him.

Mental illness is silent until it isn’t, and now Matt Murdock is standing in the summer rain over the grave of a woman he had only briefly met, her name scribbled on the stone by the only family she had left, and even they had already left by the time he joined her.

He finds himself standing at the grave of a woman so broken, she knew no other way out than this.

“Did you know her well?” His mother stands beside him, hands crossed in front of her body.

He scoffs, the honesty seeping off his lips like acidic honey. “I didn’t even know her name.”

“Then how did you…” the question got lost along the way. She nods, realizing, then paints the crucifix over her chest and heart, kissing the cross necklace he wears the same. “If it’s any consolation,” she says, “I do not believe that people who commit suicide go to hell. I think God has her now. I think he is taking care of her as we speak.”

“How did I not realize?” he whispers. His voice cracks, but he holds on. He knows she wouldn’t have wanted to see him cry. The rain hits his glasses and soaks his clothes, but even after more than one plea from his mother, he doesn’t move an inch.

Mental illness is silent until it isn’t.

“I’m sorry.” The gravestone doesn’t answer. “I wish I could have gotten to know you better. I wish I could have realized… could have seen… I was a coward. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Please, forgive me for this. For all of it.”

He doesn’t want to cry, but it’s getting harder with each passing second of realization. The service was lovely, but without her, reality seems more like a bad dream than something actively happening to him.

He never really knew her, but he realized something crucial as he stands before the filled, wet hole in the ground, and it knocks all the leftover air from his frozen lungs.

He loved her. He does.

But she took her own life to end a suffering no one but him was willing to listen to, and it would make him bitter until the day he, too, would move to the mansion of rest in the lord’s paradise — and he would pray until then that he would be able to meet her again and tell her the truth he realized too late. The stranger, the broken woman, his lost Angel on the roof.

156 notes · View notes