Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel's "Daredevil", wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Inspired by both a prompt on the Daredevil kink meme which asked for: "Vladimir/Matt: soulmate au." And a post by this-is-not-how-I-die on tumblr who wrote a vague outline for a similar prompt and freed it for the world to use, which included the song that Vladimir sang at the end of episode six. – In this version of the prompt, I am changing things around a bit. Not everyone has a soul mate, it is actually considered quite rare, but those that do have the most important words their soulmate will ever say to them etched on their skin. Meaning, you can be lovers, friends or passing strangers on the street with your soulmate and never know it until they utter that one phrase.

Warnings: Soulmate/soulbond trope, sexual/emotional pull (mild dub-con due to that trope), adult language, sexual content, fingering, blowjobs, violence, blood, guts, gore, injury, angst, drama.

The Dog Days will never be over (so suck it up and deal)

Chapter Two

There was more to the world around them than they could pick apart. Even Stick admitted as much. Talking for hours about things that seemed to have no more substance than mist in the morning, otherworldly and without shape. The soulbond being one of them. And even then it was only to tell him how he should forget about his. How they would hold him back. Make him weak, vulnerable. But still, he knew some things. He'd been born with his mark. With the scratchy cursive script taking up nearly the entire span of his inner arm from the joint of his shoulder to the vein that signaled the taper of his wrist. Meaning that either they'd taken their first breath together, or his bonded was older than him.

He'd always imagined older. He'd never exactly been able to explain why. Just like could he couldn't figure out why, whenever he could afford it, he favored Russian vodka over anything else. Why sometimes, in the dead of winter, he'd smile when the bitter chill hit his skin. Why he sometimes ordered his coffee black and strong when he preferred it laced with cream and sugar.

Or why one day, he woke up in the middle of their dorm room screaming and clutching at his face. Feeling the hot burn of phantom steel slicing through his skin. Slicking his face with blood that he could actually feel rolling down the imaginary bruises. The blade – because he knew it was a blade - barely missing his left eye as Foggy fell out of his bed on the other side of the room with a resounding thud. Grabbing him by the shoulders and murmuring about nightmares as his best friend held him through the aftershocks. Hiccuping long into the night as a pain that was not his own throbbed hot and infected across his skin.

And for the first time in a long time, he wondered.

It was Saturday morning when Vladimir dragged himself back into the waking world by his finger nails. He sensed the change in the air as he rolled out of bed and slipped on a t-shirt. Head cocked as he listened to the subtle grunts and hisses of sucked in air as the Russian seemed to take stock of himself. Filling the quiet with the tart of sweat and escaping crimson as several of the man's stitches pulled tight in warning.

It was stupid, but he found himself almost smiling. Buoyed by a strange sort of excitement as he let his senses drink it in. The man was stubborn. Already pushing himself harder than he should be. He was hungry and in desperate need of a shower. Tinting the air with what he figured was a usual dose of aggression, as far as Vladimir was concerned, as the springs on his third-hand couch pinged sharply.

He gave him a handful of moments before he slipped on his mask and exited the room. Deciding to play it safe and hold off the inevitable for as long as he could. Thinking that a dose of the familiar was probably in order, at the very least.

Or not.

Vladimir ended up pulling three stitches and gave him a bloody nose – apparently for no reason at all - before he sagged back into the couch. Cussing out a blue streak in Russian as he clutched his side and looked about the room wildly. Panting like a wounded animal as the tang of adrenaline and fear coated over the room like an unwelcome balm.

He just sighed and got out the suture kit.

It was going to be a long day.

"What was it?" he asked, tone quiet, almost restful if he hadn't been repairing the stitching on Vladimir's side with careful delicacy. Feeling his way through every pinch, tug and pull as Vladimir remained still and strangely silent above him. Bare feet curling into the shitty wood floor every time the needle snick-snicked through the tight skin just below the man's ribs.

"How did you know?"

"Know what, man in mask?" Vladimir snarled, tired and pissed off after his brief surge of activity effectively winded him. Scenting out the bitter edge of frustration and impotent uncertainty as the man watched him work.

"You know what," he snapped, tying off the repair job and feeling his way to the next one. Double checking. Sensing the man's disapproval, or maybe just confusion at the extra contact.

"You let me leave," he returned, more than a little accusing. Tugging pointedly on the poking threads of one of Claire's stitches. Making the Russian suck in a breath and spit out a muffled curse. "You knew and you let me leave."

He listened to the ragged harsh of the man's breaths before he answered. Remembering the moment in the tunnels when he'd turned. Sensing the change in the air as Vladimir used the butt of the gun to ease his way to his feet. Refusing to let him come near as the sounds of Fisk's men making their way down the tunnel grew louder and louder in his ears.

Maybe I stay.

"Da, I did."

"Why?"

But Vladimir just shook his head, like he figured he was being particularly stupid on purpose. "I was dead. Burnt meat, yes? Thanks to you and your little flare. 'Vas dead weight. Slow you down. But if you made it out, I would to, in sense. You deal with Fisk. Avenge my brother. Live. Seem like not bad deal to dead man," the man shared, wincing as he tried to straighten his back up against the couch.

His hand fell on the man's thigh without thought. Grounding him. "You'll pull your stitches again," he rasped, trying to cover the instinctual reaction with something excusable. But judging by the quickening tempo of the Russian's heartbeat, he knew. Of course he did.

There wasn't much you could hide from your one. Especially after you'd found them. After all, what was the point of hiding anything from the other half of yourself? Having a soulmate was rare enough, but actually finding them? The odds were, well, astronomical. It was because of that that the actual effects of the bond were hard to study or pin down. Even during law school the data required for cases where soulmates were involved were criminally hard to come by. He felt like he was flying by the seat of his pants as far as this whole bond thing was concerned, only that he was only one worrying about it. Vladimir wasn't-

"I got you out of there," he pointed out, fist tightening brutally as one of the splits opened at the seams. "I could have gotten us both out. You didn't have to-"

"Maybe, maybe not. I not want to take chance," Vladimir answered, somehow making the flippant collection of words come out surprisingly firm. Like he meant every word but didn't want him to catch on. "You bled more than enough that night, malen'kiy d'yavol."

The Russian word was unfamiliar, but the cadence wasn't. It sounded almost like-

"Good thing my one is as stupid as he is reckless," Vladimir hummed, posture losing some of its rigidity as he coughed shallowly. "I not admit wrong often, I do now. I think you do both."

"But how did you know?" he repeated, feeling more than a bit like a broken record as he tried to replay everything he'd said in that tunnel. I am not a killer? No. That couldn't be it. Vladimir had just laughed at him when he'd said it. Like an adult chastising a naughty child.

"Why not see for self?" Vladimir shot back, apparently determined to be an unhelpful bag of dicks about it as the tendons in the man's right thigh tightened and released like a half-answer. "Thought man in mask would have looked for self while napping."

Ah.

Well, they'd have to get this part over with sooner or later.

"That would be difficult," he admitted, wiping his hands on his pants before reaching up, deftly untying the knot that held his mask together.

"Difficult?" Vladimir parroted suspiciously, stare hard enough that he knew he was watching him closely. Taking in every moment as he slowly unwound the dark cloth that hid the upper portion on his face. "How difficult is to open eyes and see? Vy ne imeyet smysla dlya menya, amerikanskiy. Do you take me for fool? I am not-"

But Vladimir never finished, he was too busy staring when he pulled the rest of the cloth away. He kept his head bowed for a fraction of a beat before he raised it. Fixing the Russian with a bland, sightless stare. Uncertain of what to do or what it meant when Vladimir sucked in a breath and almost choked on it.

"As you can see…not being able to see is actually part of the problem here," he remarked after a long pause. Deciding to take the initiative and fill the silence as the man's heartbeat started to dip, slowing strangely despite the semi-audible creaking that had started issuing from the armrest, where the Russian was gripping it – hard.

"Blind?" Vladimir demanded, lips twisting. The word was phrased like a question even though he knew the man wasn't actually looking for an answer. "How is this possible? You fight! I have seen it! This is trick. Ty shutish'! Eto nevozmozhno! Posmotri na menya!"

The utter indignance was what made him grin. He thought about saying half a dozen things. Something cheesy and predictable. Something insulting. Something like what he'd told Claire in her apartment after she'd pulled him out of that dumpster. About there being other ways to see. But for some reason, what came out was-

"My name is Matt."

Okay, so, not exactly awe-inspiring.

He'll admit that.

But the man ended up surprising him when he snorted, all the same.

"Mudack," Vladimir growled weakly, raising a hand like he was going to run it through his hair in frustration, only to let it drop at the last second, delivering a sharp, open handed slap across his cheek. Catching him completely off guard as he flinched away, catching the man's wrist in his hand.

"My brother said you'd be prick," the Russian informed him, annoyingly smug as he slurred back into unconsciousness without missing beat. Leaving him with a burning cheek and about a half dozen different points of confusion. The most important one being, namely, that the man's words had translated into something far fonder than a curse.

"Did Anatoly have a soul mate?" he asked a few days later, watching Vladimir wolf down his third helping of hot soup like he hadn't eaten in days – like he was half expecting someone to snatch it from him as he slurped nosily. Cleaning the bowl with his fingers with exaggerated drags that squeaked against the stonewear like nails on a chalkboard.

"Nyet," the man answered, setting his bowl aside. Pulse leaping unpleasantly at the mention as the heatscape that outlined Vladimir's form rippled. Collecting around the sinuses like a storm of unshed tears. "It was only thing my brother and I did not share. He never quite forgave me for that I think."

"First in ten generation," the man remarked offhandedly, taking a pull from his beer bottle as the man's lips sucked a tight seal around the neck of the bottle.

He licked his lips on reflex. More than a bit unnerved at how easily they'd settled into an uneasy truce since that first day. He still couldn't breathe out of his nose, but honestly, he figured that comparatively at least he didn't fall asleep in mid-sentence. Which Vladimir had been doing a lot of as he'd continued to heal. It was kind of pointless to keep a grudge when his life had become absolutely ridiculous. He came home from work to what felt a whole lot like a bad sit-com these days and honestly he didn't see that changing any time soon.

"When younger I told him we would share, yes? We shared everything as boys. As men. I believed 'dis no different. I wanted us to be equal in all things. I 'vase determined not to let it separate us," Vladimir rasped, tone strong, focused. Like it often did when he spoke of his brother as he leaned back, one leg draped over the armrest of the couch, lazed out like a feral cat, freshly fed and soaking up the sunshine.

He cleared his throat, thoughts threatening to run stream-of-consciousness on him before he re-ordered them and put them to voice. "There is a theory a group of scientists in Denmark are trying to prove," he shared, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he set his bowl aside. Eyes going to approximately where he figured the Russian was looking before he continued.

"Something about a tendency for soulbonds to run in family trees. Trying to pin point a gene. A marker. They don't think it is random, I guess. They are facing a lot of opposition. But they have a solid base for the theory. Makes me wonder, though, how you can pin down something that connects with someone who can be half a world away? Disconnected. Someone you don't know exists any more than they do you? It's like limbic resonance or-"

"Mocha i der'mo na nauku, nauka ne znayet der'mo!" Vladimir snapped unhelpfully, shaking his head. "If true then my brother was cheated. Out of us, he was better suited to such things. Anatoly was check and balance. He had mother's patience. Always careful. Mindful of what there was to lose. I knew he would follow me here - to America when I felt pull in Utkin. Selfish! Proklyat'ye! YA dolzhen byl slushat!"

His ears picked up the calloused rasp of a scarred palm running through short hair. Giving him the impression that if he'd could, the Russian would be pacing. Somehow managing to sound enraged and exhausted all at once. Forcing himself not to shiver as the aftershocks of the man's sharp exhales whispered across his skin.

"When in hellhole, from Princes of Moscow to rotting in cell surrounded by dead and sick, I knew we could not look back. It drove me. Gave me strength," Vladimir thrummed, thumping his hand on the couch for emphasis. "Strength to turn back on own country. My mind explained it many ways. New opportunities. Business. Clean slate away from old families and bad blood. But deep down, da, I knew."

"My brother was different. He loved Moscow, even the bad parts he kept close - like worn out pair of favorite shoes. His heart lived there, yes? That was where he belonged. But he came with me because I was selfish. I would not leave without him and he knew 'dat. He wanted me to know peace. To feel whole," Vladimir shared, knuckles brushing down the front of his borrowed shirt as if to press against his living heart. The only place he could visit where his brother still breathed.

The silence stretched out, growing wings but refusing to fly as he struggled through a swallow. Feeling the need to say the words even though part of him knew he'd hate the answer.

"And what did you inherit?" he asked after a long moment, exhuming the previous point from the garble of broken English and staggered Russian. Sensing the cracking strain of the words as Vladimir's heat signature rippled again - tired and fuming in front of him.

"Father's rage," Vladimir replied, dismissive. Eyes fluttering closed as if to signal an end to the discussion as somewhere in the close distance a siren wailed.

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be three more chapters, stay tuned.

Reference:

"Malen'kiy d'yavol" – "little devil."

"Vmeste" – "together."

"Vy ne imeyet smysla dlya menya , amerikanskiy" – "you make no sense to me, American."

"Ty shutish'! Eto nevozmozhno!" – "You have to be kidding! This is impossible!"

"Posmotri na menya!" – "Look at me!"

"Mudak" - "asshole."

"Nyet" – "no."

"Mocha i der'mo na nauku , nauka ne znayet der'mo" - "Piss and shit on science, science doesn't know shit!"

"Proklyat'ye! YA dolzhen byl slushat" - "God damnit! I should have listened."

Utkin: was the prison in Siberia that Anatoly and Vladimir were in for three years before escaping and coming to America.