Matt wakes to the sound of periodic beeping.

Oh.

He knows this place.

He doesn't normally associate it with the faint smell of alcohol, though. He frowns, shifting, turns over and feels no pain, which probably means he's on the good meds. "Should you be drinking in here?" he rasps out, eyes still closed.

"Who says I am?" Jessica retorts, purposefully taking a very loud and very long drink out of her flask.

"I do."

"You can't see if I am."

Little shit, Matt is tempted to say. He sort of misses when they'd just met, before Jessica had felt comfortable making blind jokes with him. But then again, knowing Jessica has been nice, really nice. "I can hear you," Matt mumbles.

"Then you can't be an eyewitness, can you?"

"I can be a...an earwitness. Such a thing exists."

"Uh huh," Jessica says, highly doubtful.

"Yep," Matt says, sinking further into the bed and the pillow. God, he's so tired. "I'm a lawyer. I would know."

Jessica takes another very loud and very long drink, which effectively wraps up the conversation topic.

Matt sighs. "Foggy? Karen?" he asks. "Are they okay?"

"They're okay," Jessica says, voice softer. "Karen has a fractured leg. She's annoyed about the crutches she'll have to use for the next few months. Foggy just got out of surgery. He had some glass and shrapnel embedded in him."

Matt furrows his brows. "Wanna see them."

"That'd be kinda hard, seeing as..."

Matt groans. "Shut up." It's not as fun when someone else is making the blind jokes.

Jessica snorts. After a moment, she repeats, "They're okay."

Matt hums in acknowledgment. "Feel...floaty. What's with me?"

"Concussion, burns, cuts and bruises, some internal bleeding."

"Huh," Matt says.

"At least you're not covered in stitches like last time. Claire would kill you."

Speaking of the last time...

"Was it Fisk?" he asks.

"What?"

"The bomb. Did he send it?"

Jessica does not speak, hesitating. Then, "I don't know for sure."

"What do you think, then?" Matt asks.

She sighs. "I think there's a good chance it was him."

Matt deflates further into the bed. "That's what I was afraid of," he says, especially now that Foggy and Karen have been hurt, too. "I'm scared," he admits.

Jessica says nothing, so he continues on. "Fisk really does own the police, the prison guards, the prisoners, maybe half the city. If he orchestrated this attack, then what else can he do? What can we possibly do against him?"

If he were able to move comfortably, he'd bury his face in his hands, hiding from the world for a little while. "I don't know what to do," he whispers. "I thought it was all over."

For a few seconds, all he can hear is the beeping of his heart monitor and his own quiet breathing. Wait, his breath is hitching a little. He scrubs a hand over his face and feels the trails of wetness on his cheeks. He's been crying this whole time and he hadn't even noticed.

Jessica probably had. She hadn't mentioned it.

(The Man Without Fear isn't here in this bed, not today and not ever. Some may wonder if he even exists at all in the multiverse, if being fearless is just a facade for someone so vulnerable it hurts.)

"You're right. It's not over," Jessica says. "But that doesn't mean you stop fighting."

"Always get back up," Matt mumbles, a little tremulous smile growing on his face.

"Exactly," Jessica says, though she doesn't know the true meaning of the words. "Fisk doesn't own everyone in the city. He doesn't even own the whole police force. In fact, if you were to teleport to Karen's room right now, you'd see Mahoney keeping watch." Brett. Right.

"Fisk is underestimating you, all of you, all of us," Jessica continues. "That'll be his downfall."

"You sound so sure," Matt says. "How are you so sure?"

Jessica sighs. "Scoot," she says. Matt does, shifting to the left and making room on the right for Jessica to sit down. As soon as she's settled, she lays a hand on Matt's shoulder and sighs again. "Shit, this is hard," she mutters.

Matt frowns. "Are you trying to give me a motivational pep talk or something? 'Cause you're not exactly the most motivational."

"Shut up," Jessica says. "Anyways, do you remember the incident from like...six months ago or something?"

Matt deepens his frown into what he hopes is not a pout. "What incident?"

"It happened maybe a month after you recruited me to take down Fisk."

"We've only known each other for a few months? I could've sworn it was much longer. Time with you goes by so slow."

"Fuck you," Jessica says without heat, very lightly slapping his arm. Well, very lightly by her standards. She sighs. "Kilgrave."

"Ah."

"Yeah. You remember how we finally got him?"

"You valiantly came to save the day?"

He can feel Jessica's glare on him. "I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that, Murdock. You don't remember? You tripped on a fucking chair."

Matt groans. "I'm gonna pretend you didn't just say that. I repressed that memory for a reason, Jessica." It's not the finest moment of his life.

"But here's the point: Kilgrave didn't know you were going to do that. He thought he had complete control of the situation, and he thought you, your body, would obey his words completely and without question."

Matt winces. "But his powers..."

"Hush, I'm still trying to make a point here," Jessica snaps. "The point is that he hadn't accounted for all the variables, namely, your blindness. He thought avoiding that chair was implied. He overlooked—"

"Ha."

"—your blindness, what he saw as a weakness. He thought that made you an easy victim, but it didn't. And Fisk did the same, will do the same. But you'll be ready, I'm sure of it."

Matt thinks it over for a few seconds. "I suppose you're right," he says reluctantly. He abruptly and belatedly realizes that he's stopped shaking. He reaches a hand up, the left one, the one not wrapped in bandages, to wipe at his face a final time. He sighs, letting out all his tension.

"You suppose?" Jessica says, scoffing. "I thought you had more faith in me than that."

"Sure," Matt says easily. "I have complete and utter faith in you, the superhero who heard my desperate calls for help—"

"Oh God."

"—who flew in to save the innocent victim in peril and at the mercy of a total supervillain—"

"Please stop."

"—and having stopped the mastermind of evil, the public names her: Power Woman."

Jessica is silent for a few long moments. "That is a worse name than I could've come up with. Good job."

Matt beams at her. He doesn't think he's ever done that before. Maybe the drugs are getting to him. "Thank you."

"Trish tried to call me 'Jewel' once. It didn't stick."

Matt shudders. "Yeah, it's probably good you don't have a superhero name. But you can't deny that you're one. You have literal superpowers. You can fly!"

"Controlled falling, Murdock. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"I wish I had a superpower."

"Supervision," Jessica immediately says.

"Ha ha."

"Maybe super hearing."

"Better, but I don't think I'd want to hear Foggy snoring from across Hell's Kitchen. It was already bad enough in college." Matt pauses. "I think I'd like to hear him breathing right about now, though."

"He's okay," Jessica reassures him. "And you don't need a superpower. You're you. You're an asshole, and you've got your stubbornness and your Catholic guilt. That's good enough."

Matt frowns. "I'm not sure if those are good things."

"They are. Ask your priest."

"I will."

(The Man Without Fear may not exist here, but throughout the multiverse, some things stay the same.)