Author's note:
Hej there again!
So, this is me jumping fandom for the first time. Abandoning Young Justice for Daredevil. Good choice? Bad choice? I don't know, we'll see.
This story is not to be taken too seriously, just as a warning.
As usually: I don't own anything and I don't make any money. Although I'd like to be paid in reviews, if you don't mind taking the time to write a word or two. I'd be delighted!
Second thing: For those of you (most) who haven't read anything I published: English is not my mothertongue. So if there are (major) mistakes, tell me about them, I can't get better if nobody corrects me.
That being said: Have fun reading

It was completely silent. Inside the building he currently was in, at least. From outside there came a whole lot of different sounds of course. Nothing unusual though. But inside this abandoned apartment house, there wasn't so much as the hum of electricity, not to mention a living being. Matt wasn't sure whether this was a good or a bad sign. The trail had led him here, unmistakeably, so maybe the gang he currently was after just happened to be out. That would be a first, but who knew...

Not letting his guard down, he took in his surroundings. Behind him the entrance door, to the left a small cabin, probably where the receptionist had once sat, half a lifetime ago. There was a kind of mattress in there, he could smell sweat and nicotine. A smoker had spent quite some time in there. Judging by how faint the odour had become, Matt guessed the habitation had been left a month earlier. In a hurry, if the pile of clothing still lying next to the mattress was anything to go by. He guessed, it had been due to the gang of dealers moving in.

He let his senses drift a little further away. He was standing in a combination of entrance hall and hallway. The room was spaciously and every few meters there was a door leading to an empty flat. Most of them stood ajar or were missing entirely. Only the one in the far right corner seemed to be intact.

He silently walked over there, careful. The building being empty didn't mean there was no potential danger. When he reached the closed door, he stopped, listening even more intensely. Still no sound at all.

He slowly pressed the handle, it gave way with a small clicking noise and the door opened a few millimetres. Nothing happened.

Matt pushed it open a little farther and stepped inside. There was a low hissing noise and suddenly an unknown smell filled the air. He tried to avoid breathing in but it was too late. The too sweet aroma filled his lungs and made him cough.

Matt immediately stepped backwards, out of the room and away from the stench. What had this gas been? He had never smelled anything like it before. It was slightly sickening and he was afraid, he wouldn't be able to get it out of his nose again for days. Not to mention any potential damages it might cause. He knew a lot of poisons but since new ones came up every few days, he was far from knowing all of them.

Deciding to wait a few minutes until the air had cleared and then going back in with a cloth he carried protecting his mouth and nose, Matt turned on the spot. He didn't like standing in the middle of this hall. But suddenly, his vision got blurry. The world on fire got somehow fuzzy on the edges. Matt tried to clear his head by shaking it but it was no use. He could feel himself starting to panic. What was that gas he had just inhaled? Not a serious toxin, please. If there was one thing he didn't need right now, it was being poisoned. In order to calm himself down, he let his hearing wander until he found two teenagers opposite of this buildings entrance. They were discussing a movie they had just seen. He focused on them, blacking everything else out. It was kind of a mini-meditation. If you can't concentrate, pick one thing and don't let your mind drift away from it. Usually, that technique worked fairly well. And it surely would have today, too. If it hadn't been for the fact that it became harder to understand the girls by the moment. After mere seconds he couldn't hear them at all anymore. What was happening? With his hearing limited to an apparently human range, he anxiously tested his other senses. No seeing, of course. Touch... Dull. He couldn't make out the seams on the inside of his costume anymore or feel the fluctuations of the air that usually told him about the smallest movements around him. Olfaction... Nothing. No sign of the sweat from the receptionist's room or even the sweet stench from mere minutes ago which had seemed to be so overwhelming. Taste... Nada. Not even the stale air he knew he was currently breathing. He was surrounded by pure blackness.

He could feel his pulse speeding up and hear the blood rushing through his head which was worrying considering his obviously dampened senses. He was freaking out, there was no denying it. Panic washed over him as he realized what had happened. In a matter of seconds he had lost his sight. Again. Chemicals really seemed to be the death of him.

True, there was hope this one only worked temporarily as most drugs did so it wasn't permanent this time but still. It would at least give him quite a lot of trouble. Currently, he was standing in a foreign building, dressed up as Daredevil and with no way of getting home over the rooftops. He shortly considered actually trying to use his usual ways but rejected the idea after the first three steps. He didn't even sense where the walls around him were anymore. It was frustrating. He made a careful noise, trying to locate his surroundings by the echoes but it didn't work. His voice was instantly lost in nothing and no picture painted itself in his head. Robbed of this last hope to orientate himself, Matt put his arms out in front of him. A careful step in what he assumed was the direction of the nearest wall. The one with the fateful door. Another one. He felt ridiculous, swinging his hands from one side to the other, trying to locate the now truly invisible obstacles. After another two steps, probably the slowest ones he had ever taken, he finally reached the wall. His fingertips touched the concrete it was made of and he stopped. If this was how difficult moving around without no sight really was, he couldn't help but be utterly pessimistic about his way home. He didn't even have his cane with him! For a moment calling Foggy crossed his mind but he instantly rejected the idea. Sure, his friend would help him, but Matt knew how much the other man loathed the fact that he was the Daredevil, so he decided not to bother him with it. Especially not because something had gone wrong and his blindness proved to be a major problem. That was exactly was Foggy was worried about most. So, somehow getting home on his own it was, then.

He cautiously made his way back to the building's entrance, his left hand constantly trailing along the wall. He didn't dare stepping normally, afraid of hitting some of the debris scattering the floor, so he shuffled his feet over the ground without ever lifting them. It felt stupid and worrying at the same time. He wasn't used to being so helpless, so unaware. If someone wanted to do him harm, all he'd need to do was sneak up on Matt and hit him over the head. He wouldn't even notice until it was too late. At that thought, a cold shiver ran down his spine and he shook himself, trying to concentrate again.

If he remembered correctly, there couldn't be left more than a few feet until he was about to hit the wall with the entrance door. When he reached it after another few steps, he walked over to the receptionist's cabin where he had sensed the heap of clothing lying on the floor earlier.

It took what felt like ages to get there, especially because at every step into the room, he had to make a semi-circular movement with his foot in order to find the fabric lying somewhere.

When he had finally found it, he knelt down next to it, grabbing it and carefully trying to find out what it was. It turned out to be a pair of trousers, stiff with dirt, and a hoodie smelling so bad, he could sense it from inches away. The thought of putting them on was disgusting but he had no choice. He had to disguise himself if he wanted to walk home. If he didn't, he would be spotted after mere seconds. After all, this costume wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

He pulled the pants on and removed his mask before storing it away in his waistband. The hoodie's stench almost made him gag when he pulled it over his head but he resisted the urge to instantly get rid of it again. It was necessary.

The clothes were far too baggy, they hung loosely on his slim frame but he guessed that was an advantage rather than a hindrance. Like this, the outlines of his costume would be covered and everybody would just mark him off as a homeless drunk, not spending another glance.

The way back home proved to be even more difficult than Matt had anticipated. He kept close to the walls whenever possible but couldn't avoid crossing three streets in order to reach his apartment. He was just glad it was the middle of the night, so there weren't too many cars to keep track of. Even with his limited hearing, he was able to guess whether they were far enough away for him to safely step off the pavement or not. More than once he stumbled over some unseen obstacle and he hit his toes twice on lantern posts. It felt ridiculous.

When Matt reached his front door, he was exhausted in a way he barely ever was under normal circumstances. Constantly worrying because you had no idea what was going on around you definitely took it's toll.

All Matt wanted to do was drop onto his bed and get at least the remaining three hours of sleep until his alarm clock would go off. But he knew, he would regret it later. A shower was more than necessary if he didn't want to risk keeping the borrowed clothes' smell on him for the next two months.

He slowly walked down the stairs descending to his flat from the roof access. Maybe he should think about taking his keys with him from now on for cases like this. It hadn't exactly been easy to find his way across the unmarked space between the door coming from the hallway and the one leading to his apartment.

He let his left hand slide along the wall and his right one trail on the banister, keeping an even pace. Unfortunately, he miscounted the steps and hit the floor at the end of the stairs harder than intended. He felt the jolt going up his spine and through his whole body. He cursed under his breath.

Carefully making his way to the bathroom, Matt strained his hearing, trying to catch any sound from outside his flat, hoping there was at least the smallest improvement. But he could hear nothing but a siren directly underneath his window. No conversations on the street and no fine humming from the billboard that apparently lit his living space. It was eerily quiet to his usually so well-tuned ears. He felt a wave of hopelessness washing over him. If this proved to be permanent, his life as he knew it would be over. Both lives, in fact. That Daredevil would have no future was obvious but even some of his advantages as a lawyer would be gone. No knowing if someone told the truth, no listening to conversations that weren't meant for his ears and no learning about peoples habits by their smells anymore. For the first time in almost two decades being blind would be a major disadvantage to him.

He had to force the dark thoughts out of his mind. Brooding was no use. He didn't know what was to come, only time would tell and consciously he knew that. Telling his subconscious though was an entirely different matter.

Once there, Matt shed the layers of clothing on the bathroom floor, barely caring enough to kick them in a corner. He would think about them later. He felt his way along the sink and to the towel rail next to it. He picked one of the big cloths and threw it over the edge of his shower's curtain rod. Glad it had worked on the first try, he stepped into the tub, closed the curtain and turned on the water.

It felt infinitely different to what he was used to. Less, in every way. He wasn't able to make out the different jets of water that hit his skin or determine their exact temperature. He couldn't smell the faint remains of the chemicals from the sewage works or taste the copper of his building's pipes. As much as all those stimuli sometimes threatened to overwhelm him when he didn't manage to block the unimportant ones out – right now he missed every single one of them.

After nearly the quarter of an hour under the hot stream he forced himself to turn it off again. He pulled down the towel and slung it around his body but the cold air on his still wet skin made him shiver nonetheless.

Still keeping one hand at the wall next to him, he made his way to his bedroom. Feeling through his wardrobe, he pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

This way dressed, Matt carried the now wet towel back to it's point of origin, leaving it there to dry. Afterwards he picked up the Daredevil costume and stashed it away in the usual chest beneath his father's old belongings.

Every action took him at least three times as long as usual, it was unnerving. Matt shortly debated trying to meditate before he finally went to sleep. It usually sped up his healing process, so maybe it would help with this, too, but he dismissed the idea again. He was just to tired to concentrate enough. Maybe tomorrow.

He fell into his bed, completely exhausted, and pushing away every thought about what perhaps was to come or not. He knew, if he let himself think about what had happened tonight, the worry would prevent him from getting any rest which was the last thing he wanted. If his way back home had been any indication, the next day would be exhausting even with what little sleep he had left and without any extracurricular activities.

A/N: Review? Review. Would be nice, anyway. See you in the next chapter! :-)