Trigger warning. Once things start heating up, tread with caution if you get triggered easily, especially by self-hate related topics.
—*—*—*—*—*
Figuring out what to do to try and make my burden on Matt's wallet a bit easier was not all that difficult. After all, performing in the streets was actually acceptable once summer break rolled around, and even the extra fifty-odd dollars every couple of days (give or take, depending on good or bad days) helped a lot. In fact, it helped enough for me to squirrel some away for myself.
"Are you just going to start filling the house with herbs?" Matt asked as he walked in on a particularly big spending spree of mine. Tubs of different herbs were laid out on the counter as I carefully started organizing them into the cabinet space.
Upon hearing his voice I instantly froze, my fingertips just barely touching the edge of the latest airtight container I had been stacking in a cabinet.
"Uh, I made sure to get the super airtight tubs so that the smell won't bother you too much," was the first thing I could say. Sure, we had successfully lived together for over a month. That didn't mean I I wasn't still afraid that I'd wake up one day and my novelty would be worn out, resulting in my blind savior kicking me out and leaving me to the dogs.
Okay, logically I knew by then that Matt was way too illogically nice of a person to actually do that. But irrational fears were irrational for a reason.
Matt's chuckle instantly had me relaxing.
"Calm down, I'm not upset about it. You're the only person who can make me tea without making me secretly disgusted at tasting the soap that was on your hands or the metal of the teapot," Matt's calm voice was becoming more and more of a crutch for me. Usually all I had was my tea to calm me down in the throes of the embarrassingly frequent panic attacks I had, but lately I had found that Matt's gentle assurances tended to tap out those attacks before they could truly take off. Not all of them of course, but I had been able to keep the worse ones at bay until he was too far away to tune into them.
"I was thinking about finally selling tea blends online," I admitted, continuing to stack the containers up.
"You're fifteen," Matt reminded me, one eyebrow raised. It was around our usual dinner time, so he loosened his tie as he made his way to his bedroom to get a more comfortable shirt on for the hour or so that he'd hang out with me before heading out as Daredevil.
"Yeah, but if I do it through Etsy or something then it is totally fine," I squinted down at my container of rose hips, wondering if I should short them under 'r' or 'h', and flicked my eyes over to the containers of rose petals and buds with similar mental debates. "I might wait a couple weeks though, so I can afford containers and shipping stuff."
"You know, you don't have to worry about money. That's my job," Matt said when he came out of his room in a plain blue t-shirt and his work slacks that he hadn't bothered to change out of. "You don't even have to go out busking every day like you insist on—"
"I might try Central Park next week. Maybe switching it up to hip hop will get better tips from the tourists," The competition didn't really bother me, because I could always attract a good crowd if I pushed my abilities a bit without actually doing anything inhuman. Matt just sighed, shaking his head.
"Just be careful. Those guys are still out there and having you going out to Central Park and Times Square to purposely gather a crowd makes me paranoid. Where do you wanna go for dinner?"
The last of my herbs put away, I turned and ran a hand through my short hair. It was getting a bit long, I liked keeping it in an asymmetrical pixie because it looked good with my jet black hair and kept it from easily being caught and used as a hold by anyone I might have had to fight.
"They won't attack me in broad daylight," I knew how light of an argument that was though, and continued; "besides, I'm good at running. I can drag them into an alleyway and beat 'em up before making my escape. The good old 'lure and pick off' tactic always works wonders."
"We've been over this, Hebi," Matt said, just as he always did when that conversation came up. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should have to. You're fifteen, you should enjoy the last few years of childhood you have instead of wondering if you're gonna have to fight for your life today or not."
But Matt just didn't understand. I'd never been fifteen, not really, not where it counted. And I understood what he meant, but I couldn't just go back to being a normal teenager— there was nothing there to go back to. I had never gotten the chance to be a normal teenager, I wouldn't know where to start.
"That Thai place you took us a couple weeks ago sounds good," I decided to hedge, knowing we could argue for hours about the subject if we let it go on that long without a topic change. I saw Matt run a hand through his own hair in frustration, but he let the topic go like he always did when I decided to hedge around something. He grabbed his keys and led the way to the door.
"Okay, then let's go."
—*—*—*—*—*
In hindsight, Matt should have seen it coming. That man was always either present during or the cause of something horribly going wrong whenever he showed up. Dinner with Hebi, while slightly tense, went by as uneventful as it usually did. But when Hebi paused at the entrance to their building, Matt knew something was wrong. It only took a small sniff and an adjustment to how much he was tuning in around them to realize what that was.
"Someone's in our apartment," Hebi whispered, which Matt could only nod to.
"He can hear you. Stay behind me, try not to say anything, and don't let anything he says provoke you."
"Who is he?" Hebi wondered, falling obediently behind Matt as they made their way inside. Matt felt his lips turn down.
"Probably the biggest asshole I've ever met. And I fought Wilson Fisk."
Hebi didn't shiver like most people would have at an implication like that, but she was definitely not pleased in the tensing of her muscles was anything to go by. Then again, she might have just been tuning into the way his own were unpleasantly tensed.
The moment they walked in, the intruder decided to speak up.
"What is this pansy crap? It smells like a damn garden in here," was what they were greeted with as they made their way deeper into the darkened apartment. "You have piss-poor choice in students, by the way."
"Why the hell are you here, Stick?" Matt bit out, hands curling into fists and uncurling again by his sides, over and over again. The old man closed the cabinet he had been looking through, which happened to be the one that held all of Hebi's new herbs. "And Hebi isn't my student. She's my ward."
"Then you're even dumber than I already knew you were," the harsh comeback was instant. "I was coming down here to ask for help with something, but the moment I smelled her all over that gym of yours I changed my mind. Finished my job early so I could come here and tell you to get rid of her before your soft heart gets you killed."
"Hebi is not going to kill me, Stick—"
"Do you even know what Hebi means, idiot? It's Japanese for snake. It's exactly what she is," the old man stepped closer to them, glaring sightlessly in Matt's direction. "Her father chose her mom on purpose, he wanted a kid to be raised as the perfect weapon. Waited 'till the woman finally killed herself so he could take the child and make a weapon," Matt could hear Hebi's breath catch, and a familiar emotion flared to life in him. It burned him, inside out. The Devil in him wanting to come out and beat the life out of anyone who hurt Hebi. But Stick didn't stop.
"That's what she is. She's more animal than human now, and you know why? She can do what you never could," Stick got within strike range, and it took Matt everything he had to not let this shitshow devolve into a fist fight. Hebi didn't need to see more violence. "She can detach herself. Kill her father without a blink, kill the scientists that had tricked her into getting close to them. She only cares about herself, if you think for one second she'll care if you die protecting her because you are still in that little fantasy world where you think you're some hero? You'll just end up watching her back as she abandons you, or as she slides the blade across your neck herself."
Hebi was hyperventilating by then, which was the only tether keeping Matt from trying to break Stick's nose.
"Stop talking, Stick," Matt growled, fists no longer uncurling from fists.
"That church you go to has taught you about demons, right? I thought you'd know better than to let one in your house."
That was the last thing Matt could take, the familiar rage in him boiling over as he stepped forward and swung at his old mentor. The man raised his staff to block the blow, easily swinging to the side and landing a rough smack with the weapon against Matt's ribs. The lawyer barely had time to register Stick's sudden movement before the old man was sliding the staff open to reveal the katana it really was.
"STICK!" Matt's bellow startled Hebi out of the frozen state she had been rendered into, her eyes having been stuck on the metal of the weapon swinging towards her. But his voice seemed to have made Hebi wake up from her fear-induced stillness just in time for the girl to dodge the blow. The blade stuck in the floor long enough to Matt to engage Stick again, keeping the geezer's focus off of Matt's ward.
The primal thud of wood against flesh and flesh against flesh echoed in the apartment as Matt drive himself as hard as he could to keep Stick away from the teenager. A particularly hard kick to the chest sent Matt flying back into his bedroom door, where his gasp of pain alerted him to something new—
He could smell fresh air entering the room from the window.
The window was open.
Hebi. Where was Hebi?
"Took you long enough to notice," Stick's gravelly voice drifted over as Matt pulled himself up. "She took off about a minute ago. Which is good, because it'll be easier to kill her when she's tired from running."
"You're not going to kill her. You aren't even going to go anywhere near her, do you understand me?" Matt stalked towards the old man as he grit each word out in his Daredevil voice, panic mixing with fury to the point that his head was almost overwhelmed. A sensory overload would have been easier on his heart. He didn't even realize he was already on the border of one, everything filtering in in a sharp panic-induced clarity he normally wouldn't have allowed. But Hebi was gone, Hebi was gone and she had people after her and Matt needed to find her before she got herself killed.
Stick was not intimidated, he just stood with his usual calm and scoffed. "Go change into your pajamas, boy. We'll just have to see who can reach her first."
"I told you, you are not going to—"
"You can say whatever you want Matty, but it won't change the fact that she's just your tombstone waiting to be carved. Snakes are opportunists, and she's no different. You offer her food, shelter, safety, she's going to take it. But the second there's trouble, the second something goes wrong, and there will be her hands around your throat and you won't be able to get them off."
Matt took a breath, trying to cool his anger down. Getting worked up wouldn't help the situation, and Hebi was only getting farther away the longer he waited.
So he didn't. He ran into his room and changed as quickly into his costume as he physically could.
—*—*—*—*—*
Hebi panted, the scent of blood thick on her tongue. She hadn't wanted to fight, she hadn't. She just wanted to get out of Matt's apartment, to run. Run from there as fast and far as she could. It wasn't safe for her to stay near Matt. It wasn't safe.
But gunmen had started trickling out of alleyways the farther she got, and it had gotten so hard for her to fight the increasing numbers that she did what she had sworn she wouldn't do.
The blood was thick in the air as she stared at the waist of the man below her, whose torso was unnaturally wrinkled inwards, bulletproof vest and all. Blood trickled from his mouth.
The man would not be getting up. Not with his torso mimicking a crushed soda can.
Five more alive but knocked out bodies littered alleyways behind Hebi, marking her path like the breadcrumbs in a very morbid version of Hansel and Gretel.
The girl's head swung up, her heat pits supplying her with a mental image of five more walls of human heat heading her way. Not about to double back and end up running into Matt, who she was positive was going to come after her, she found she had no way to dodge them. Two came by the rooftops, three more down all of the separate alleyways immediately available for her to take.
Normally she would run down one path and try to engage the men one at a time, like she had been trained, but her panic overrode her teachings. She wasn't even completely lucid, the slit pupils in her eyes advertising to anyone that could see that a human was not currently in charge of her body.
When the men rounded their respective corners, Hebi was crouched behind a dumpster with her teeth bared and muscled tensed Incase they could find her. But their goggles must have been heat vision, because they instantly circled towards her hiding spot.
The first man, not cautious enough, was met with too-fluid limbs instantly twisted around him like fleshy ropes. Inhumanly dense muscle constricted all at once, sending the sound of snapping bones echoing across the brick walls surrounding them. The neck, upper chest, and waist of the man were half as thick as they should have been when Hebi's body slid off of him, crumpled inwards like cheap aluminum. Gunshots rang out, bouncing off brick and concrete and the metal dumpster walls as Hebi darted and crawled from spot to spot, trying to find someplace the men couldn't reach without any luck.
A lucky bullet struck her right below her left rib cage, making a feral hiss erupt from her throat. She landed on the nasty concrete ground in a writhing mass of pained flesh, blood pooling under her as she tried to curl up as tightly as she could, her human mind only further receding into the depths of her brain with the new agony tearing through her.
The dusty darkness of Hell's Kitchen finished gulping Hebi up as one of the four remaining men slid something out of his pocket and jabbed it into the prone girl's back, right along her exposed spine.
When Matt reached the scene ten minutes later, it was as if the pool of Hebi's blood was all he could smell. He could hear his heart speeding in his best far faster than what could have possibly been healthy, but the smell of her blood muffled it. He could sense the unnatural markings on the dead bodies that could not have possibly be done by normal human hands, he could dimly connect that only Hebi could have possibly caused it since her scent coated both bodies over each crumpled area. But her blood filling every hypersensitive scent receptor in his nose seemed to make those discoveries unimportant, made him ache with failure and panic and something tight in his chest that he couldn't identify through the fog that her blood, her blood, her blood erected in his head.
"She's not dead yet," the last voice Matt wanted to hear made Matt's head slowly raise towards Stick's position casually sitting on the lip of one building bordering the alley. "And you're not gonna break her out of where they took her on your own."
A snarl ripped itself from Matt's throat. He didn't even notice how his teeth were bared like a wolf, not able to deal with Stick's shit in his current state.
"So, what, you just decide to go from wanting to kill her to offering me help to rescue her? What the hell do you want, Stick? This doesn't fucking concern you!"
"Sure it does. She's even more dangerous in the hands of those men than she is on her own. I wanted to kill her before they got to her, but obviously that didn't happen."
"Hebi's stronger than that," Matt argued, fists shaking by his sides with how tightly he was clenching them shut. Stick's scoff didn't help.
"You've known her for, what? A month?" The geezer slid from his perch, landing on the ground with a blind glare of contempt towards Matt. "I bet there's a world of time to get to know her when you work all day and play hero all night, isn't there?"
And there, guilt was added to the stew of painful emotions brewing inside Matt's chest. Stick, as much as it pissed him off, actually had a point. Matt only interacted with Hebi or maybe an hour or hour and a half total every day, maybe longer on Sundays if they went to the gym to train together. But he still hadn't pushed her for any information—they just coexisted most of the time. Friendly conversations about nothing, never talking about anything of any real weight. Matt's only knowledge of her past was whatever she mumbled about her mom and the very bare-minimum story about her assassin training that she had mentioned once and never tried to elaborate on. He knew she liked tea and that she liked science, but he had no idea what her favorite color was or her favorite foods. He had no idea what it was like to go blind periodically, the kind of fear she must feel wondering if her shed cycle would come early or late. He didn't know about the hopelessness of knowing that she would open her eyes and have to live with the darkness Matt was all too familiar with every month like unavoidable clockwork.
How could he have just ignored the fact that she was clearly not mentally stable? Nobody who had to go through even the small bit that Matt knew about could walk away without issues. But Matt hadn't done anything to help, content with their comfortable talk of normal things and the fact that she didn't seem bothered about his Daredevil life like his friends were.
And yeah, if he was able to save her then the first thing he was going to do was try his hardest to change the way they had been living. Hebi needed help, not just someone to protect her physically or financially. She didn't need a distant friend. As much as it terrified the shit out of him, Matt realized right then that Hebi needed a parental figure. She needed someone who would listen to her baggage and maybe even meet it equally. She needed Matthew Murdock just as much as she needed Daredevil.
"Well, if you think she's so weak," Matt's voice was lower and calmer after making those silent decisions. "Then let's track her down before she breaks. And maybe, if we're lucky, I'll get to see her prove you wrong for a change."
Stick just snorted, disbelieving, but took off right next to Matt as they tracked Hebi's scent trail.
It took longer than Matt would have liked, but the men had obviously used a van to transport her so the two men on her feet would obviously fall behind in terms of speed. Every minute grated on his nerves like cheap cotton, but all he could do was continue to travel over the rooftops with one of his least favorite people slightly behind him.
"You don't even know what they did to her, do you?" The previously mentioned asshole spoke up. Matt clenched his jaw, desperately wanting the other man to shut up because he was not in the mood for any kind of conversation let alone one that involved Stick of all people.
"I was giving her her space. She'll tell me when she wants to."
Stick scoffed for the third time in the past hour. "You'll be waiting forever if you stick with that. You know there are a couple groups taking in individuals and trying to forcibly get them to mutate? Guys torture people for hours after injecting them with a chemical meant to awaken any hidden X-gene in their DNA after extreme stress so that they can sell the awakened subjects as super-slaves."
Matt felt the previously fought-down panic rise again, his chest tightening. If his pace picked up l, Stick didn't mention it.
"Is that what was done to her?" Matt couldn't help but ask. He'd apologize to Hebi for the prying once he got her back home safely.
"Close. This group are basically copycats, trying to be innovative. Same basic idea, different tactics. They take kids with no family and a mixture of that chemical, animal genes stolen from Oscorp, and radiation to see if they can engineer more specific powers out of the kids. Not much less painful than the other method, and apparently the success rate is abysmal. That brat you decided to take pity on is the only success from this group that I've been able to find."
Matt had to force himself to swallow. "The other kids?"
"What do you think? Dead."
Yeah, Matt had suspected as much. Hebi hadn't been lying about having enough baggage to make the airport jealous, how many of those kids had she befriended before they died? How closed off had she had to become to stave off the pain? And, if Stick's speech from earlier could be trusted (which it usually could, no matter how much Matt Hayes to admit it), then she had been subjected to all of that by her father and strangers pretending to be friends.
And she and Matt's relationship had escalated from strangers to guardian and ward pretty damn quickly. How had she been able to trust him so quickly?
Maybe she didn't.
And that thought hurt almost as much as smelling a puddle of her blood in the middle of an alleyway surrounded by bullet holes and beat up mercenaries.
Two painful hours later, both mentally and physically, Matt was able to sense the building where Hebi's scent trail led.
But apparently the mental stress wasn't at an end, because he could tell she had apparently just woken up.
Her scream echoed, filled with tortured despair and frustration. Like someone who woke up to find that their reality was only a dream, and their nightmare had never ended.
The building was, perhaps stereotypically, a warehouse out in a part of town that was only regularly visited at night by men who wouldn't bat an eye at the torture likely going on behind those bars. Who did things likely similar to it themselves.
Matt was suddenly glad his outfit was much more durable than his black protype from before Fisk's takedown, otherwise his nails would have torn into the skin around his knees and added his blood into the maze of scents to sort through. Stick wasn't nearly as concerned, casually leaning several feet away where he could peek around the side of the warehouse for any possible guards. They had both been running nonstop for longer than even they could go without a rest. As much as Matt hated it, they had to catch their breaths before starting their fight.
The relief Matt felt at Hebi finally being back in range was overshadowed by the despair and horror he felt as he was forced to listen to her voice from inside the warehouse.
"FUCK OFF!" Her voice screeched inside those walls, more desperate and hysterical than he had ever heard from her. He could hear her voice starting to get strained from the amount of screaming she was torturing her throat with. "LET ME GO! BACK OFF! GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY!" Metal clinking rapidly made its way to Matt's ears, along with the vague shape of metal restraints around the smear of heat that he registered as being Hebi.
They had her chained like an animal.
Her panicked heartbeat drilled ice through Matt's chest, and he couldn't wait any longer. Despite Stick's insults following behind him, he jumped down and burst in the building without care. He didn't have time to be careful, his kid needed him!
Matt slammed his fist straight into the nose of the first unlucky asshole he came across, grabbing his back collar to slam his body with as much force as possible into the next idiot to get in his way. Blood sprayed into the air, Daredevil no longer able to hold back his rage as he broke noses and arms and slammed heads into metal doors. Because that's who he was now— the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Matthew Murdock was consumed for the moment.
At one point a scientist tried to stab his with a scalpel. When the object only lodged in Daredevil's reinforced suit without actually hitting skin, the vigilante grabbed the man by the neck and threw him into the wall. After getting rid of the scalpel he realized that the man he had just thrown could have been one of the men to torture, to experiment on Hebi. And that was enough to justify the man punching the scientist until both of his eyes were swollen shut, his lip busted in several places and his nose crooked. Only Hebi's continued whimpers and pleas to be released got him off that guy and back to tracking her scent to the room of portable walls it was hidden behind.
Patience nonexistent, Daredevil kicked the wall down after sending that it wouldn't land on his kid if he did so. Ignoring the men that where squished under the thin slab, he walked over it to the metal table that Hebi was strapped to with thick metal slabs and chains.
Feeling it so closely was even worse than it had been before.
"Why? Why? Why?" Hebi's cries made their way out of a sore throat, coming out more as croaks than anything else. Delivering a ruthless punch right into the throat of the scientist by her side, he made sure nobody else was coming before turning to Hebi.
"Shh. Hebi, it's me. It's Matt, calm down. I'm gonna get you home," he did his best to sound non threatening and kept his voice as soft as he could, but the anger he hadn't quite gotten it of his system still kept a rumble in his voice that seemed to do nothing for the teenager's nerves.
"Why? Why? Why?" She continued to squeak, and Matt could smell the salty trails her tears tracked down her face. The heat around her face suggested that it was heavily flushed with a mixture of her crying, panic, and the effort it had taken for her to scream her throat sore.
Matt continued to try to get to her, but she didn't even open her eyes. She just continued to mutter the word why over and over again in such a tortured voice that Matt thought his teeth would crack with the force he was clenching his jaw shut with. Even worse, it seemed to get progressively more resigned with each why that forced itself from her mouth.
"Oh don't worry, you can let your guard down. I got all the assassins who were planning on resuming her training that you didn't take into account before you stormed in like an idiot."
"Not now, Stick," Matt growled, shoving the keys he had managed to find off one of the scientists he had knocked out into the locks on Hebi's restraints. Once they all popped open, Matt wasted no time gently scooping the girl into his arms. She balled up into a tighter knot than he would have previously thought possible, reminding him of a terrified ball python. Her muttering had changed, but was no less heart breaking.
"No, no, no, please. Don't take me back. No. Kill me, kill me, kill me."
Matt's grip on her tightened as he took a painful breath through his nose in shock at her words.
"Guess you were right, Matty. She proved me wrong," Stick's irritating voice chimed in. "She's just as dumb as you are."
Matt wouldn't know exactly what he meant until he got back to his apartment with Hebi.
—*—*—*—*—*
Every breath felt like an icicle ramming itself down my throat. It was so cold, but I didn't want to lean into the warmth that was carrying me either. It was so comfortable, so tempting, but I couldn't lean into it. Cold was good. I deserved cold. Warmth was more dangerous.
"We're here," that voice was no longer dark and gravelly like it had been before. It was soft and calming again, the same voice that always made my muscles relax.
But it just made me tense up further.
Carefully, Matt removed one arm from where it was supporting the coil I was wound into in order to open the window to his apartment. For a terrifying moment I was pressed tightly against his chest as he tried to balance my weight with one arm as he did the simple action, and it took everything I had not to relax into it. Once it was open he went back to holding me with both arms, stepping inside while cradling me as if he was afraid I was going to shatter if he dropped or bumped me.
"I'm going to set you down on the couch okay? And then I'm going to close the window. You're okay. Stick left. That bastard isn't anywhere near here anymore, you're okay. You're safe."
Sure enough, I felt my altitude change and be replaced with leather as I was placed down onto his sofa. I lifted my head from the center of my coil, opening my mouth to track him by his body heat as he walked softly to close the window just like he said. My eyes absorbed whatever UV they could and were just able to pick up on Matt taking his Daredevil mask off after turning back away from the window. Slowly, I unwound myself from my tight knot and settled for shrinking as deep as I could into the corner of the couch while hugging my knees to my chest. I tracked him by sight and heat as he circled back around the sofa and knelt down on the ground in front of me.
"Hey," he whispered softly, careful to keep his voice just loud enough for me to hear. He didn't have his glasses on, which allowed me my first unobstructed view of his eyes. I found myself staring into their vacant depths, into the slightly bluish hue of the hazy white orbs and the way they rested slightly too far right to actually be on my face. "Come on, Hebi. I need you to say something."
I closed my mouth and my eyes, slipping backwards so my face sunk behind my knees. I heard Matt sigh, and felt the vibrations of his feet even through the couch as he walked to the kitchen. It was easier than it normally would have been, with the rest of the building barely rustling and no other vibrations to muffle his. My concept of time was clearly completely shot even after only a couple hours of Hell, because it seemed like both a few seconds and a few eternities before Matt came back to me with a cup of tea in one hand. He pulled the coffee table over so part of it was pushed up right against the couch in front of me and set the tea down as closely as he could get to me on top of it.
I reluctantly opened my mouth, tasting the air. Peppermint— he must have been listening when I told him about my favorite teas for any bad days I had. A few flakes of my tension peeled away, just enough for me to slowly sit up and grab the cup. I just cradled it in my palms, letting the scalding liquid irritate my skin through the cup. The heat was grounding.
"Hebi," Matt tried speaking to me softly again. "You still have a bullet in your side. I'm going to call a friend, so you need to straighten out or you'll make the wound even worse. She'll help me get the bullet out and stitch you up, but you need to stay conscious."
"I'm not bleeding, am I?" I heard my own scratchy, dead voice offer up. There was a pause before he answered.
"A little bit, but we can clean that up later. It looks like most of it stopped."
I didn't bother nodding, raising the cup to my lips and taking a sip. Maybe if I didn't wait for the tea to cool I could burn off some of my scent receptors and get rid of the scent of blood that seemed to cling desperately to my tongue. Matt stepped away, taking out his phone to make the call. Before I really knew it, my cup was empty of tea and a woman I didn't know was gently stretching me out so she could see the bullet wound. She must not have thought I was lucid, because her gaze wasn't on my face and she started talking to Matt.
"Shit. This is nasty, and she's just a kid! What the hell have you gotten into this time, Matt? Start disinfecting the tweezers, I'll inject the pain meds."
I twitched when the woman reached for my arm, yanking it away before she could touch me.
"No needles," I hissed, hating how my own voice felt like glass shards against the inside of my throat. Her calm eyes moved up to meet mine firmly, leaving no room for argument in her gaze.
"You need this, kid. Trust me when I say you don't want to feel me digging into you to get that bullet out. I'll make it as quick as I can, okay?"
I grit my jaw, raising my hand to her chest. She stiffened, but didn't move away.
"Hebi," Matt's slightly disapproving voice met my ears, but it was followed by a sigh. "Just let her do this Claire, maybe it will calm her down."
Before the woman—Claire, apparently— could ask what he meant, I spoke up again.
"You're not gonna hurt me, right? There's nothing bad in that syringe?"
"Of course not!" Claire denied indignantly, her heart slightly picking up in annoyance.
"Stay calm Claire, you'll confuse her in her current state if you get worked up," Matt warned. The woman took a breath, then lowered her head from where she had raised it to look at Matt in order to meet my gaze again.
"No, I'm not going to hurt you, kid. There are only painkillers in the syringe. Once they kick in I'm gonna use the tweezers Matt's disinfecting to take the bullet out and stitch you up. Okay?"
Steady beating. I lowered my arm with a sigh, nodding finally in consent. I closed my eyes, doing my best to ignore as her fingertips prodded the inside of my elbow before finding a suitable spot and swiftly piercing a vein with the needle of the syringe. Slowly, I felt the throbbing pain I had pushed to the back of my head fade away.
"Keep your metabolism at full speed, Hebs," Matt murmured, suddenly close to my ear. He must have been leaning over the back of the couch to do that. I also didn't recognize that nickname, it was sudden but nice.
Full speed. That was only five percent faster than the average human, but I guess Matt thought it would make a difference. I flicked the mental switch before letting my eyes slide closed as I entered a sort of half-sleep. Maybe I'd get lucky and the medicine would wear off fast enough for me to feel the last stitch or two.
I deserved far worse, but I'd take what was given.
When my full awareness came back, I was laying down with my head on Matt's lap. Claire's scent was slightly stale in the air— she had been gone for about half an hour.
It took a moment before it registered, but when it did I flung myself off of him and onto the opposite side of the couch, where I huddled with my knees to my chest despite the shocks of pain it sent through my side.
"Hey! Hey, calm down or you'll rip your stitches!"
My breaths, which were coming in gasps, slowly slowed down as I got a handle on myself. I didn't lower my legs much though, just enough to stop stressing out the new patchwork on my bulletwound. Matt held his hands out to me, as if welcoming me in for a hug.
"Come on Hebi, you need rest and you're colder than you should be. Lay down again."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head firmly. Matt frowned.
"Come on Hebi," I shook my head again. "Hebs? Why won't you come closer to me?" I felt the vibration of his heart through the sofa cushions briefly stutter. "Is it— how much of the fight back there did you see?" The vulnerability in his voice hurt, but it was misplaced. I shook my head again, gritting my teeth.
"N-no. Didn't you see? Those— those men in the alley.."
Realization seemed to dawn on his face, his eyebrows coming out of their concerned furrow slightly.
"The ones that… I didn't exactly see them, but yes."
His attempt at lightening the mood flew over my head.
"Then you know," I took a slow breath, trying not to strain my wound. I felt so broken. "You know what… what I can do to a human."
"You're a human, too," Matt gently tried to remind me, turning so he was facing me better.
"I'll hurt you," I whispered back, ignoring him. "I— I can't hug you, because I'll crush your spine. A-and I can't stay close to you, because I'll curl around you in my sleep and suffocate you, and I'll—"
"You shook Karen's hand without breaking anything back when you met her," Matt persisted, making frustrated tears rise to the corner of my eyes. Why was he so stubborn? Didn't he see how dangerous I was? Didn't he understand?
"Daredevil can't just beat up only criminals he doesn't like," I changed my angle. "I—I killed them, Matt. Murder. I'm a criminal just like—"
"No," The sudden force in his voice shut me up, and the fierce glare he had on all of a sudden seemed to light his sightless eyes up from the inside. "Don't you dare compare yourselves to them. You're not vile or corrupted, you were threatened and you protected yourself. You kept yourself alive, that's not a crime."
"Yes it is!" I whisper-yelled back, desperate to scream it at him but knowing I couldn't. "I shouldn't even be alive! Nobody—nobody else lived, and they were all better than me! Me surviving everything they did— that was a mistake. I couldn't possibly— someone like me couldn't possibly have been meant to live. I'm cold, I can just shut myself off and, and kill people close to me. I can just stab my best friend without a second thought because it's how I had to survive. I can make myself feel nothing when I wrap my hands around somebody's throat. It— it didn't phase me, it didn't bother me, to feel someone's pulse stop vibrating under my fingertips," I paused to take a breath, my eyes wrenched closed because I couldn't bring myself to watch Matt's expression. "They wanted a demon," I whispered. I couldn't even hear myself anymore, but I could feel my lips moving and air leaving my sensitive throat so I knew I was still speaking.
"They wanted a demon, so they loaded me up with snake DNA. Y'know, because the Devil took the shape of a snake. Because snakes are evil. They wanted to make a demon, because demons scare and demons as assassins sell. They put all their effort into making a demon. And they ended up with me."
The silence closed in on me after that. I didn't even notice I was crying again, as if I hadn't done enough of that already. I was so far in my own head that I didn't even notice heat getting closer to me until I felt arms wrap tight around me, forcing my knees down and pressing me against a hard chest. My bullet wound protested the force of the arms, but I couldn't help but ignore it.
Because I was suddenly surrounded by Matt's warmth, by Matt's scent. And, all at once, I realized I had never felt so safe before.
I couldn't bring myself to return the hug yet, I didn't trust myself in my current mental state, but for the first time that night I let myself give in to the comfort. I leaned into him, letting my tears fall heavier as he just rested his face in my short hair and held me tightly.
"You're not a demon," he whispered into my hair after a long moment. "But you know, someone a long time ago used to say that Murdock boys all had a bit of the Devil in them. And… I can't help but believe it," he admitted and I couldn't help but listen to his soft voice, couldn't help but relish the feeling of his voice vibrating through his chest. "The guy who comes out when I'm out on the streets as Daredevil? The one who sends guys to the hospital maimed or in comas? I always blame that on my inner Devil. I know it's my fault, it's still a part of me after all, but that's how I see it," I couldn't help but bite my lip as the realization sunk in that he probably never shared that with anybody else.
The joy and warmth that I felt at that thought filled me with guilt.
"But maybe we all have one," Matt continued. "Maybe it just has a bit of a stronger hold on some of us than others. That doesn't make us demons, it just makes us human," he pulled away from me so he could look towards my face. I could tell he was trying to meet my eyes, but he was still slightly off. "Snakes aren't evil either, despite what people may think. They're animals just like any other, and having their DNA doesn't make you evil or demonic. The things you've done aren't your fault. They were all in self preservation, Hebi. The result of the horrific situation you were in. And I know that you will probably never forget any of it, but maybe we can help you heal from it a little bit," his hand lifted from my back to brush the longer half of my asymmetrical bangs behind my ear. "But we're gonna have to change up our routine a little. No more distance. If you are having a bad day, I want to hear about it. And I want you to come to the office more often so we can spend some more time together. Maybe we can make the gym a more regular thing on the weekends."
I sniffled, cursing my useless nose for only causing issues. It didn't even smell anymore, it only made snot for me to be forced to disgustingly sniff back up whenever I cried. "Okay," I whispered. "I… I think I can deal with that."
"Good," Matt nodded. He pulled himself away, but not a moment passed before he pulled me down with him. Pretty soon we were laid down next to each other on the tiny couch, which made me lay down on top of his chest in order to fit. I felt like a little kid, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to mind.
"Why did you run away?" By the time Matt asked that, I was almost asleep and my filter was nonexistent. I buried my face deeper into his chest.
"I thought Stick was gonna kill me," I admitted softly. Matt shifted underneath me.
"You know I wouldn't have let him, right?"
"That's… not it," I whispered. "I agreed with everything he said about me. I… I thought he was right. But I knew that you would be the one blamed if I showed up dead in your apartment out of nowhere. So… so I wanted to get as far as I could so that nobody could pin my murder on you. But when it came down to it, I didn't plan on stopping him."
I faded away to sleep before I could hear his response.
—*—*—*—*—*
Oh lookie at that, the rating changed from T to M! I should have expected that, because I can't keep a story from getting super dark and mature for long apparently. So, uh. Depressing chapter yeah? Whump could be my middle name. I'm trying to tone it down, but… yeah no promises.
KH4Evr: Thank you! I'm so glad you like and I really appreciate taking your time to comment! 3 thank you so much for my first review!
See you next chapter~
