Notes:

The story is set after Season 2 of Daredevil and Season 1 of Punisher, but the Defenders storyline never happened, and Matt is continuing his vigilantism, without suffering more-than-usual levels of Catholic guilt. Karen and, to a lesser degree, Foggy are still estranged from him, while he runs the lawfirm on his own.

One of the 'persistent inconsistencies' of the Daredevil TV series that my mind has a hard time stepping over, is the writer's adjustment of Matt's level of sensitivity. One minute - he can't sleep on anything but a billion-thread-count silk sheets, and the next - he gets himself beaten into colors not present on the spectrum, and barely winces (comparatively). I get it, it's his training, it's mind-over-matter ... and it wouldn't be much of a superhero story otherwise, but, with this little ficlet, I attempted to balance-up the scales a bit. Also, it was a great excuse to turn the dial on my sadistic impulses up to ten, and let them run free in a safe space. I may very well be straying (with both feet) into torture-porn territory. I am a fan of the writings of Stephen King, Clive Barker and Iain Banks, and they (especially Barker and Banks) have definitely taken a dive over that line, a time or two.

When the 1,000 years are finished, the Devil will be free to leave his prison. He will go out and fool the people of this world …

But this Devil was never in the prison. He walked, as he did today, as he did everyday: from his apartment, to the office, in his ill-fitting suit with his obsolete cane tapping along the pavement; and then, later, to that dive of a bar, and back home – now suit rumpled, tie askew, cane a-tapping in the drunkard's staccato… All - a ruse. All - a disguise. The true Devil shed the cheap suit-skin to reveal the leather skin, and then he hunted. He hunted vermin, mostly. But then his appetites grew and so did his cursed luck until he snagged and bit and tore and climbed and cast this city's saviour into the cell…

This is maudlin… but suggestive of the remedy. He does not have the freedom to use his remaining financial resources in light of day, but the loyalties gained at Rikers Island gave him plenty of scope to use them in the shadows. Also – the FBI did not strip him of all his properties. His network of shadow companies and subsidiaries spanned internationally, but the real-estate was mostly local. Here. In his city. And here is one of his own warehouses. Vast empty floor, steel bulkheads, no windows, the remains of an office in one corner – just a metal cube frame, twelve foot a side, doorway jambs and casing, dryboard walls all knocked out. The rodbuster was almost done with his work: an iron ring welded to the top of the frame, halfway between one of the door jambs and the corner of the frame. An inch-and-half chain fed through it, a steel collar at one end. The other end of the chain: lock-padded to a fixture on the opposite wall. Another ring cemented into the floor directly below the hanging collar. Two more rings: one welded into the jamb, one into the corner strut – both about four feet from the floor.

There is an old, big and sturdy office chair and a chipped worktable inside the office. A small carry-on suitcase is on the table. The office space is lit by a photographer's fluoro lamp. Clinical pools of light with scalpel-sharp edges. Spartan, but luxuries were for the time of leisure. And work, too, had its pleasures.

The rodbuster finished putting his tools away. He did not meet Fisk's eyes; instead, he glanced at Blanders, who jerked his head towards the exit, and put his hand inside his jacket. They walked into the darkness pressing on the edges of the pool of light. A flash, a pop, a thud, the scraping of something heavy being dragged on the floor. The money was not in short supply, but the chances on the tradie talking could not be taken.

Now – the waiting. Fisk settled his heavyweight-gone-to-seed bulk into the chair and was still. His men will bring the Devil to him. It took two whole months – a lifetime of hiding in small sparse rooms, moving by night, eating greasy takeaways, while his employees laid a false trail for the NYPD and FBI to follow. All during this time, his men staked out the roofs and upper-storey windows throughout Hell's Kitchen, waiting for the Devil to strike at some mugger or drug-dealer or wife-beater. Then they followed. A dozen times the Devil eluded them, but finally they tracked him to his lair: a blind lawyer's apartment. The straining disbelief surrendered to clarity: Matt Murdock and his charity law firm. The seemingly-negligible thorn in Fisk's side hid a festering cancer that fractured the foundation of his plans: the resulting collapse was inevitable. So will be his eventual restoration, but first - he had to drive the Devil out. Personally.

Oh this was a bad idea. Foggy's blind optimism shone through it, but she agreed nonetheless to meet him and Matt in their old haunt and try to… what? Just have a couple drinks, talk about their days, like decent hardworking people do, and not talk about why they were no longer close friends, co-workers, potential lovers... Sure. The elephant in the room swung its trunk and rendered them all near-mute, choking down the cheap whiskey and watered-down beer. Matt – that classic introvert, who was always uncomfortable with social gatherings at the best of times, excused himself after barely an hour, claiming an early court appearance the next day. She couldn't even blame him for that crystal-clear lie, as she and Foggy watched him – his arm and cane extended, an apologetic smile on his face - work his way through the bar and out of the door. Then her head hit her folded arms on the table.

"Sorry. I thought… it's been nearly a year since …", Foggy drifted off. "I'll get you another beer." He squeezed her shoulder and got up.

Karen nodded and tried to ignore the gnawing sense of relief she felt.

She and Foggy could talk. They had kept in touch, meeting up in bars and cafes uptown. Their time spent working together, and the shared rancour left by Matt's secrets and betrayals, left them with a level of ease that distance and different career trajectories has not yet eliminated.

An hour passed, and another hand fell on her shoulder. This one was gnarled, brown-black with caked dirt, smelling of refuse and cigarette smoke. She flinched, stared upwards and relaxed, reaching for her wallet. Only Curly. A Hell's Kitchen bum, who made Josie's his watering hole when he had a few dollars to rub together, or when he spotted people like Karen in the bar – those who were willing to buy him a drink. She hasn't seen him for months, of course, but she supposed guys like Curly had a good memory for people who were kind to him. She expected his usual toothless grin, as she pulled a fiver out, but his wrinkled splotchy face remained sombre. And scared.

"I won't talk to cops. Nah-uh. Not my life's worth. But you should know. Your blind friend, the lawyer – he was taken… "

They dragged him in, the way the rodbuster's body was dragged out. The tranquilizer, in a dart delivered by an air rifle, was quick-acting, and good for two-three hours. They let him drop at Fisk's feet, then stripped his suit jacket, his tie, his pants, his shirt, his shoes and underclothes. His useless cane was absent – probably lost when they grabbed him, or lay forgotten in the car they brought him in. They pulled him across the floor and knelt him underneath the hanging collar: it took three of them, and still it was no mean feat. The Devil was tall, well-muscled, heavy, and limp as an asphyxiated newborn. One man pulled the collar down, the chain slithering atonally through the welded ring, and fitted it snuggly around the Devil's bowed neck, the chain left slack. They tied his ankles to the ring in the floor, allowing half a foot of slack in the rope. Then they knotted ropes around his wrists, stretching his arms out at his sides and fastening the ends to the jamb and frame. The kneeling Devil crucified.

Fisk remained still, impatience well controlled. He savoured meticulous preparation in all manner of work. When work melded into art, as it did when he cooked, as it was going to do here – then preparation took on the importance of prayer, of meditation, of the last rites. He watched the Devil's back, the muscles barely shifting with the slow breaths of sedation, then nodded for his men to leave. He did not register their footsteps melting out of the light. Their function now was to guard his peace, guarantee no interruption until his work was done.

Fisk got up, walked to the table, unzipped the carry-on, took out black cloth and strode to the naked man. With slowness and deliberation, Fisk sank down to one knee in front him, and wrapped the cloth around the man's eyes in a blindfold, knotting it behind him.

He arose with the same ponderance and returned to the stillness of his throne.

Taken. The innocent word with its connotations of misplacement, like of a piece of furniture, or a mannequin, reverberated inside Karen's head as Foggy got off the phone with Mahoney, for the second time that evening. Mahoney was sending a team to Matt's apartment. He applied for the analysis of any CCTV camera footage in the area, but the wheels of justice turn slowly and he did not expect to have anything to report until morning. He dismissed Karen's barely-voiced but intuitively-believed suggestion that this was Fisk. Why would Fisk return from his South American hideout, or even put a contract out, to bring in some two-bit lawyer?

One more thought. One more number. She did not want to disturb this particular lone wolf, not now that he was supposedly, finally, at peace. Or as close to it as he was likely to ever get in this lifetime. Disturbing his peace was not the only reason for her reluctantly moving fingers that stroked the plastic rectangle of her mobile phone. Blood would inevitably flow in the wake of his assistance. He knew no other method. His hand was not routinely stayed by an ancient doctrine that espoused: thou shalt not kill. The image of Matt - holding the red-leather mask in his hands, dread of her response in his face - flashed in her brain. Usually the image brought a flood of anger and foolishness. Self-indulgent and petty, but satisfying. Now she felt only terror for him, self-loathing for her part in the desert they created between them. Her fingers searched for a name in the mobile's memory and pressed the call button.

"Pete's here."

"It's Karen." She stumbled, "Karen Page. I need your help"

"Yes."

"It's Matt. I think … I know… Fisk has him. Or someone just as bad. They knew what they were doing. He was just coming back from Josie's – it's a bar, where we all used to hang after work… when we worked together… ". She cut herself off. "They took him outside his apartment and it was clean and fast. F… Pete, the police is there, but I am scared… I think he doesn't have much time." She knew she sounded stupid.

Silence stretching out into infinity.

Then, a quiet "I'll call you back."

Awareness returned to Matt fast: his hyperactive senses had two modes – on or off – and now, having returned to the green, they flooded his brain with data and danger. Frozen, naked, needle-fibres chaffing at his wrists and ankles, unyielding concrete under his knees, rough blindfold (but not his!) around his head, and a metal collar around his throat, its bitter stink forcing itself into his nostrils. And a presence. Vast presence behind him. Expensive cologne mixed with the smell of sweat and yesterday's linen. Creak of old wood, heavy tread, clinking of a chain, and his still-bowed head was jerked up as the collar pressed under his chin and into his windpipe. His body was forced upwards, balance clumsily supported by the ropes on his arms. His straightening legs, assaulted by blood rushing into the screaming muscles, took up the slack of the rope that tied his ankles to the floor, and he was stretched up onto his toes. The collar's movement stopped, the chain was locked-off. The man pulled at the arm-ropes, removing all the give, then walked back. The sound of a small suitcase lid being lifted, then a strong smell of leather and oil and lead alloy.

Fisk now stood in front of him. Matt no longer had any doubt of who his kidnapper was. The thing of leather and oil and lead was cradled in Fisk's folded arms as he stood looking at the crucified man. His heartbeat slow and then fast, and then slow again, but his pleasure seeped out of his pores, adding a disgusting sweetness to the sweat-and-cologne scent.

"I understand you are a devout Catholic, Mr Murdock. A doctrine that, I must say, is rather at odds with your hobby. Then again, Catholicism, as any religion, is founded on hypocrisy, and its tenets are no more absolute than rules of a children's game. Still, for the sake of this experience, let us stick to the Catholic doctrine. I am, by no means, one of the cognoscenti, having found no use in my life for an omniscient old man in the sky, but I do understand the concept of sin. You, Mr Murdock, by the laws of your own Church, have sinned. You've taken justice, which belongs to God alone, into your own hands, and used your unique skills to farther your own narrow-minded motives, while ignorant of the fact that you may be thwarting a plan far grander in its goodness. And, as such, since you and I are both here, it may be conceivable that your God Himself tasked me with helping you expiate your sins."

Fisk wrapped his hand around the handle of the leather-metal object in his arms, and unfurled the nine thin braided snakes. With a delicate gentleness he draped the tail of the cat-whip over Matt's right shoulder, the lead alloy claws that tipped each braid scraping thin white lines against his skin, one settling coquettishly on his collarbone.

"This instrument is past vogue in your institution, but is renowned in the Church's history as the most certain means for the fallen to reconcile with their God. If I am not mistaken, the myths have it that even the Son of God tasted of its virtues."

The leather snakes slithered over Matt's shoulder and dragged the white lines onto his chest as Fisk moved around and behind him. Matt concentrated upon Fisk's heartbeat, tracking and predicting his steps, as the whip's metal tips squealed along the concrete floor. The heartbeat jumped. The air was dissected by the nine tails fanning out and Matt surged forward as far as his ligaments permitted, barely swallowing down a scream. He felt five of the claws digging in and parting inches of the skin on his back, the droplets of blood welling and then tickling their way down, releasing their own perfume of salt and iron. Fear battered at his mind, and he bulged his biceps against the ropes, struggling to keep himself balanced on his toes and air flowing down his throat.

The air cracked apart again and Fisk's aim was better. Three of the tails clustered together, punching into the muscle of the shoulder and ripping through it, while the rest gouged more skin. Again: this time down along the spine, leaving burning tracks that wept red tears. Swish – crack: the other shoulder, and then straight below the right shoulder-blade, the torn nerves sending conflicting messages of fire and ice, all blending into the first sound of anguish that Matt failed to contain. The blood trickles formed into rivulets, running down his back and buttocks. Two more strikes aimed at just below his neck. The tails parting near-even to slash near his collarbones, sending spikes into his chest, while the smell of his own blood intensified and his cries came freer. Fisk's breathing was heavier, and his pleasure-scent mixed with the iron in the air, nauseating Matt. He barely registered the crackling-smack of Fisk's sweaty palm on the whip's handle as he adjusted his grip. The next blow came horizontally across his lower back. It was weaker, less controlled, but the metal tips wrapped themselves around his waist, digging evenly-spaced shallow grooves above his right hip. Fisk chuckled and Matt's mind was filled with the image of a homicidal artist painting on a canvas with the blood of his victim and realised that he was all: the victim, the canvas, and Fisk's deranged masterpiece.

For the next two hours Karen and Foggy remained silent, but for talking to the cops who diligently arrived, and then left for the lack of any leads and faith. Curly, true to his word, had disappeared into the depths of Hell's Kitchen by then. Word of a bum, a girl-reporter and a chubby defence lawyer: not much of an incentive to the cops.

Phone rang. Karen's frozen fingers nearly dropped it.

Emotionless voice reported: "Micro found the car that took him. Went to the Bronx by the River Parkway. There's a bunch of old warehouses there, most abandoned."

A pause and the voice attained a note of warmth. "Karen, stay where you are. I'll go…"

"No." It was a command driven by desperation. "We will come. We will meet you…"

The whip's continued cracking blurred to a cacophony, but Matt's unique senses meticulously, sadistically, catalogued the contact of each claw, as they bit and tore the networks of cells into red furrows with ragged edges. Another part of his mind, like a general at the head of the last group of soldiers remaining on the battlefield, tried to desperately find a route of escape, directing his trembling muscles to fight the ropes, to find some give in them. His wrists and ankles seeped blood and serum, and soaked the knots holding him. He screamed with every strike. He could no longer help it. He tasted blood in his throat as his vocal chords frayed.

The claws were now criss-crossing and retracing the torn channels, gouging and flaying their way deeper into his flesh. The blood pooled beneath Matt's feet, and he slipped with every blow, struggling to find purchase with his toes, struggling to draw breath against the metal band at his throat, only for the little oxygen he grabbed to be knocked out of him with the next assault, chocking out his screams.

'He will whip me until I hang', passed through his mind, but the general had no answers, only pointed towards the black clouds that gathered and began to smother his senses in a welcome pall. Matt failed to even notice that the blows have stopped and Fisk's panting and piggish sweat-smell withdrew to the back, where the suitcase lay. He next became aware that Fisk was standing close to him when the refuge of unconsciousness was torn out of his grasp. Matt's heart slammed against his ribs, his chest heaving, gulping cold air and panic, while fire licked up and down his torn back.

Fisk tossed the cylinder he held in his hand to the floor.

"Adrenalin. I need you awake for this."

He moved around the crucified figure and, again, the air was split by leather, and no reprieve was possible.

The neurochemical, forced into him by the needle, turned up Matt's senses. The stir of the air molecules, set in motion by the whip, mapped the criss-crossing wounds as if they were lined with acid. There was nearly no skin left and the whip's tail-tips chewed at the muscles. Matt felt the claws sliding along the trapezius' chords, gouging thin strips which curled and hung and fell like tiny streamers. With the next blow, they moved perpendicular to the muscle, skipping and severing and puncturing. Blood streamed down his legs and the sounds of the droplets as they fell to the floor were now deep and viscous plops. He wondered how soon he will hear the sound of lead hitting the naked bone.

He prayed. He did not pray for deliverance, for the possibility of it was no longer in his mind's grasp. He prayed for an end, for Fisk's aim to slip, for one of the claws to slice across his neck and open a vein. He tried to allow his legs to go limp, deliberately surrendering his breath to the steel noose, but his body was stubborn. The instinct to continue breathing was too strong, and each time he ended up scrambling through the slippery clotting pool to regain his footing.

He no longer screamed.

He was no longer aware of any world outside the chain and the ropes, and the relentless whip peeling him, and the sickening panting sweating monster behind him.

He appeared out of the shadows, just as Karen and Foggy stepped out of the car, after rolling for the last 1000 feet with the headlights off and engine barely above idle. An unnecessary precaution, his relaxed stance seemed to imply. Karen walked up to him with barely a pause, her stride wide and confident, but, seeming to lose all her momentum, she drifted to a stop two feet from him, looking into his hollow-eyed face. Foggy kept his distance. To him – this was a beast, a shark, an apex predator, a killer – one whose unpunished presence was an affront to Foggy, unmitigated by feelings of brotherhood that extended only to Matt. But, when Karen lowered her phone, as she stood shivering on the street in front of Matt's building, he only asked "How sure are you?"

"Sure enough to call him."

And now she stood in front of him, by a grey wall of an old warehouse, in a city of them, waiting for his command.

"Three blocks down. The car is there, and five guards around the building."

"What about the cops?"

He stared over her head. "Your choice, but this is not a place you bring someone for a polite chat, nor to make a deal. It's a slaughterhouse. If it hasn't happened yet …"

Karen's voice remained steady, even as her fingers twisted around each other in a spasm.

"Are you s…?" She looked at the impassive figure. Swallowed. "Can you?"

His eyes came back and struck hers, but she stayed unflinching. Then he was down in a crouch, reaching into the gym bag at the base of the wall behind him. A scope clicked onto the stock, a suppressor was screwed on the end of the muzzle, magazine slid in. He slung the rifle onto his back and checked the clip of a silenced .22 before rising smoothly to his feet.

"Walk one block. Wait. Don't go any closer until I return."

Matt did not hear the rifle-shots, for the scrape of the claws on the bone of his shoulder-blade reverberated inside his head. He did not hear the footsteps of a thin man approaching Fisk, nor the whispering conversation, though the soundwaves were all picked up effortlessly by his eardrums. He was not aware of the cold splash of liquid on his shins and knees, as a heavy object fell at his feet, nor the sound of two people retreating. The pain consumed his being.

The black pall was returning, and a brief burst of gratitude flared in his mind, as his breath was once again closed off. His legs twitched in a quickstep, but there was no strength left in them to support his body. Blood-tinged froth appeared on his lips as the last exhale forced itself past the noose and the pain finally began to fade.

A door, far in the blackness of the vast warehouse space, opened.

Castle slipped into the warehouse, pressing himself into the wall, the rifle butted against his shoulder, sweeping the muzzle, eye at the infrared scope. At the other end of the seemingly-empty space a bright pool of light, and a crucified figure hung in mid-air. The muzzle paused in its direction, then continued on its search.

Noone else. It figured. The car had left minutes after he began the assault on the guards. He killed four of them. He concluded that the last one was now in the car, together with whoever was inside the warehouse, and, for the moment, they were out of reach.

He stepped back through the door and beckoned. Two shapes detached themselves from the shadows across the street and ran towards him, but he blocked the door with his bulk.

"Karen. It's not pretty. You got this?"

She couldn't see his eyes. Didn't matter – she would know soon enough. She drew in a breath, nodded, and felt a bowie knife's handle pressed into her hand, before he melted back through the door, with them following. The scope was again pressed to his eye as he ran, checking and re-checking, ensuring no undetected movement as they made a beeline for the Goya painting made of flesh.

He hung at the end of the chain, naked and grey and dead, raining black liquid into the pool beneath him, held in place by the ropes around his wrists and ankles, which were purple and skinned and bloody. A black blindfold – a sick admirer's homage to his devil-suit, no doubt – was tied across his face, and was soaked with sweat and, most likely, tears. The instrument of his suffering lay in the congealing blood in front of him, the claws dull and blunt with morsels of his meat impaled on them.

Frank had seen torture before. Hell – inflicted his share of it. He'd seen death and bloody disfigurement come courtesy of bullets and knives and IEDs. But this – this was something out of a de Sade aficionado's horror movie script. He heard Karen's quick intakes of breath, heard her stumble. Hoped she could be as stoic now as she was in senator Ori's hotel.

Slinging the rifle onto his back, he stepped into the blood, kicking the whip aside. Bending his knees slightly, he wrapped his arms around Matt's hips and straightened, easing the tension on the chain.

"Karen – the ropes. Nelson – get the chain."

A heartbeat later, she stepped up beside him, tears shining on her cheeks, hands trembling, but when she grasped the rope leading to one of Matt's arms, and brought the bowie's blade to bear on it, the strands parted easily. She crouched down to the ropes around his ankles, before moving around Frank to do the same to the last tether.

He heard a retching sound, the sound of vomit splashing the floor reaching him a beat or two ahead of the smell. The lawyer was bent over, with one hand on the chain where it was attached to the wall, face averted from the sight of Matt's exposed and torn muscles.

"Foggy! Don't you fucking dare! Get the chain!" Karen's shock sublimated into anger, and Frank nearly smiled.

"I can't… it's locked… how…"

Karen's hand was now against his chest, fingers squirming to get at the grip of his .22 in its shoulder holster, which was pinned by his bicep bulging against Matt's weight. He adjusted his stance, supporting Matt with just one arm and hip, and relaxing the other arm, allowing Karen to pull the gun out. She stepped behind Matt, aimed at the lock and fired. The chain slithered through and Matt's body collapsed fully against Frank. He took several steps backwards and out of the blood, before being forced to shift his grip and put his arm around the unnatural slippery-wet hills and valleys of Matt's shoulders, lowering him down to the floor. He pressed his bloody fingers under the collar and against the carotid. Nothing. He didn't expect anything. He tilted Matt's head back and eased his mouth open, and the blindfold slid up, revealing Matt's closed eyes. He realised that he hoped to find those eyes open and soulless.

Karen appeared kneeling on the other side of Matt's head, placing her own hands gently under his chin and over his forehead, and Frank relinquished his hold, moving his hands down below Matt's ribs and straightening his arms.

"One, two, three, four… ". He counted under his breath as he bore down rhythmically. At thirty he paused, and her head bent to cover Matt's mouth with her own.

"One, two, three, four …" Nelson was screaming on his phone to the 911 service. Frank's time was now also short, but it couldn't be helped.

"One, two, three, four..". Pause. "One, two, three, four.."

And then a gasp, as Matt's chest lifted with breath all his own. Another gasp. Another. His unseeing eyes flew open… and then a bloodcurdling shriek full of nightmare-driven madness. Matt's body arched, twisting his flayed back off from the floor. He held the bone-breaking pose for two ageless seconds, before collapsing down on his side and stilling again.

Frank's fingers were at Matt's neck again, and then slowly withdrew, as he sat back on his heels and looked into Karen's frightened, determined, tear-streaked face.

"There's a pulse. He is unconscious. It's best for now." The relief on her face was painful to see, but this was something he had to make her understand.

"Karen. What was done to him here is not something a man comes back from easily, even if he survives the physical damage. This was not the means to get at information. It's a fucking myth that torture can be withstood indefinitely, and he was meant to die from it. That much pain fucks up your wiring. That hanging collar probably looked like rescue to him, in the end, if he could think at all. He may never fully stop feeling what was done to him, and he may never stop seeking that collar. Do you understand?"

She looked into Frank's face for a long time, and, again he nearly smiled with admiration for this soldier, who took nothing lightly, and heard the bitter truths, and still stepped onto the field. Her gaze shifted unflinchingly to the red churned mess of flesh and white bone stretched before her. She gently reached over and took one of Matt's cold hands in hers.