He opens his eyes and the world is blank.
The blurred sounds of police and ambulance sirens become clearer as seconds pass, and the rest of his senses slowly wake up. The traffic, the birds, a customer ordering sandwiches at a bodega downstairs, a child screaming from an unknown distance, it's all too loud, all too loud, just like 20 years ago when-
"Call Maggie," says a woman's voice to his right and his mind snaps back into silence. "He's awake."
Matt lets out a semi-loud ugh and his instincts tell him to move and escape as fast as possible – after all, the space around him isn't yet familiar. But in spite of his mind's command, his body doesn't move. His heart beat is regular and blood circulation is just fine, but it's like his extremities are numb.
Breathe in, Matthew.
Breathe out.
His next attempt to move is once again fruitless, and the one after that, the one that might've succeeded, is stopped by a new female figure entering the room, throwing herself at the side of his bed and pushing his shoulders down, gently. Her heart rate's jumping and her breath hitches.
"Matthew." She says almost inaudibly. Her hand reaches for his cheek, slowly and carefully, but Matt pulls back as much as he can until the numbness stops him.
The feel of her skin against his face almost, just almost seems familiar, but he can't quite put his finger on it. He might've felt it before, a long time ago. She smells faintly of lavender and soap, a combination that he's sure he'd seen many times before, but with an addition of something sweet, and it has his mind occupied for a couple of more minutes. He relaxes under her touch, something he'd hardly let himself do if the circumstances were different.
Quickly enough, he snaps out of it.
There's something else in the air, tangy, almost like iron. It's blood, his blood.
Wait, what?
Then it suddenly comes crashing down. Midland circle. Elektra. The Hand. Foggy and Karen, they were waiting for me. Elektra.
I'm supposed to be dead.
His mind races a hundred miles per hour, all his thoughts and memories leaking back into his consciousness, all he let go of when he braced himself for a well-deserved death surges back.
"Where am I?" He asks, despite already figuring out that the two women with him in the room are nuns (the lavender gave it away) and that he's still somewhere near Hell's Kitchen (he can hear the buzzing of neon lights and drunken customers from local bars he knows around the Kitchen).
He senses the woman next to his bed turn her head towards the other nun and nod, and the other leaves the room without a word.
"Matthew." She says as softly as the previous time, moving her hand from his cheek down to his own hands, fingers intertwining. "You're safe. You're okay. Trust me."
There are no jumps in her heartbeat, so it must be the truth. Although, he probably shouldn't be so quick to trust other people's definition of 'safe'.
"That's not the answer to my question."
The nun sighs and puts her head into her free hand.
"My name is Margaret M- Maggie. You can call me Maggie. You're in a safe place to heal, a hospital room."
Her last name, what stopped her from saying it? Why the hesitation? If he should trust her, she should trust him enough to give him her full name. Matt pushes the thought aside for now.
"But not Metro-General, obviously. Where am I?"
"In the same orphanage you were brought to twenty years ago, Matthew."
It's not anger that rises in his throat and lungs, it's not even fear. It's disgust, bad memories inexplicable noise in his ears. It's like he's nine all over again.
"How did I get here?"
"We- we don't know. A week ago, late at night, one of the nurses heard a noise coming from this room, which was previously locked and empty, and we found your bloody broken body lying in this bed, the same bed you were brought to so many years ago."
She isn't lying.
Wait, a week? He's been asleep for a week?
Where is his suit?
"Wh- What did I look like? When you found me?" He asked hesitantly.
With Karen knowing, and Danny and Jessica and Luke and who else knowing, it's more than enough. Nobody else needs to know.
"You were wrapped in a blanket. One of hours."
Still not lying. Good.
At least his identity is still safe.
He pulls his hand away from hers and pushes himself up in a sitting position.
Shit. It's making his ribs and insides sting real bad.
He's exhausted from making the smallest of moves and dozes off again right after hearing the nun mention tea.
For the next few days he is forced to relive the childhood horror.
Living on soup and vegetables. Listening to therapists telling him to let it go, to forget his tragedy and move on like nothing happened. Being stuck in that god forsaken bed with a shaky brain and attacks of numbness and uncontrollable noise ringing in his ears.
The only light in that tunnel was the nun called Maggie. She felt familiar, different from the others. Her voice was soothing, rising a feeling that he'd never felt before. True, he's known her for a short amount of time, nevertheless. The only thing, though, that puzzled him was how she knows about his accident. She speaks of it like she was there, one of the nuns that took care of him when he was nine, but he's sure he'd remember her.
She's the only person he knows he'll miss once he takes the window of opportunity and escapes through the fire escape and back into the world of the living.