School really sucker punched me in the face, guys. That's probably why this title is so shitty haha. Oh well. So my brain is already on winter break, which is kinda bad for the state of my grades, considering that it's not yet winter break. Not sure how good this is, but I wanted to do it more than my schoolwork, so...yeah.

Feel free to check out my tumblr if you want (h1myname1sv)! It's where most of my brain power goes to nowadays.


Matt...hasn't exactly gotten the chance to tell everyone else that he's alive yet, and by everyone else he means everyone but Foggy and Karen.

To be fair, he's been really busy, taking down Bullseye and whatnot! He's also been helping people under their newly reestablished law firm: Nelson, Murdock, and Page. He's been trying to be better with them, really.

And so the people he'd only known for about a week had kind of been...swept to the side?

Yeah, he knows he sounds like an asshole.

So when he goes out for the first night in three days (they've been working a really hard case), he thinks it's probably deserved that he runs into a very angry and slightly drunk Jessica Jones.

Unfortunately, he's in the middle of a fight when he does so.

The only warning he gets before she joins in is a whiff of the whisky that perpetually surrounds her and a muttered, "What the hell?" He turns slightly towards her direction like the moron that he is, gets slightly distracted ("Damn it, Matty! Pay attention!" Stick would say), and isn't able to block the knife coming in his direction.

He gasps as it plunges into his stomach.

Despite the stench of blood permeating his nostrils, and the drip drip drip of it pooling around the fingers he has pressed against the wound, he manages to kick the gang member's legs out from under him and knock him out with another kick to the head.

Not very elegant, but still effective.

He breathes heavily, falling to his knees. He should get up, should check on the others, should...should do something, but his brain's not working, maybe hasn't worked in a while, and so he pulls out the knife and lets it clatter to the ground.

He winces as the sound echoes in his ears, and clamps down on the wound some more. He wrinkles his nose; it smells too coppery. He hasn't gone back to the red suit yet, not after the whole stolen identity debacle. He probably should've gone back to the red suit.

With a grunt, Jessica slams the two remaining gang members against the wall, not watching as they crumple to the ground, though Matt knows they're unconscious by the sound of their breaths. She stalks up to him and literally shouts, "What the fuck, Murdock?!"

Matt winces. Again. It seems like his resting expression, lately. "A little quieter, please," he croaks out. "Kinda have a secret identity to uphold."

"Still surprised you even have one," Jessica says, kneeling down beside him with a thud. She takes a familiar scarf off of her neck and starts wrapping it tightly around his stomach.

"What...Jess-"

"Just shut up, Murdock," she mutters, shaking her head, or at least he thinks she did. He's not entirely sure. "Just shut up."

"Your scarf," he says after a few seconds, in lieu of nothing else to say, because the silence is charged and uncomfortable and Matt feels vulnerable. "It's a nice scarf. It'll be ruined."

"Better that than you being dead," Jessica says harshly. He sways a little to the right, and she curses as she moves to support him, to catch him and cradle him gently in her arms in a way Matt thinks is too soft for someone like Jessica Jones.

"Jess?" he asks, a little breathlessly.

"Yeah?" she asks, finishing tying her scarf around his wound.

"It's really nice to see you again." It is, even though he probably hasn't been showing it very well.

Jessica sighs. After a moment, she says, "You can't see shit."

Matt laughs, and then winces because it hurts, damn it.

Sirens sound a block or two away. Matt would normally know which, but right now everything is blurring together, from Jessica's soaked scarf to her long hair to her jacket and her jeans.

"Let's go," she says, picking him up effortlessly. Her boots clack a little as she walks down the alleyway, but then she squats down and pushes up, and then they're...flying? Kind of? Matt's fairly sure he's hallucinating at this point.

"Fucking idiot," Jessica says after she lands on the roof and continues walking as if nothing happened. "You fucking idiot, why didn't you say anything? Why is the first time I see you after I thought you died when you're getting hurt again?"

Too many words for Matt to process. "I didn't...I didn't know what to say. Didn't know if you would care."

"You fucking idiot," Jessica says after a second. She seems to say that a lot. He winces as she jostles him a bit too much, his wound flaring up. She holds him just a bit tighter. "You survived a whole building collapsing on you, so a measly stab wound will probably not do you in," she says nonchalantly. But her heart beats fast, and Matt knows she's worried.

He registers them passing the following blocks in a haze, hanging limply in her arms. He trusts her, is all. He wonders if she'd relived Midland Circle a million times, wonders if she'd imagined saving him just like this, wonders why she cares.

When they get to her apartment, she gets out her first aid kit with a loud bang and a clatter. She curses again, but gets the bandages and removes her scarf so she can press them against his stomach. It's soothing, in a way. It's nice to be cared for. "I'm calling Claire," she says, putting pressure on the wound. She's much stronger than this, he thinks. She could easily crush him if she tried. "Did you happen to tell her you were alive?"

"...No," Matt mumbles, face heating up despite everything.

Jessica probably rolls her eyes. "I'm calling Claire," she repeats, and proceeds to do so. He drifts off a little so he doesn't have to hear her break the news, news he should've broken himself.

Jessica moves around the apartment after that, doing what he doesn't know, all the while muttering things like 'self-sacrificing martyr' and 'he didn't think we'd care' and 'what the hell' and 'fucking idiot'. He sinks into her couch cushions (probably gonna have to clean that later), and she comes to run a hand through his hair in a way that is unfamiliar associated with one Jessica Jones, at least he thinks so. He'd only known her for about a week. And yet...

"We care," she whispers when he's about to let the darkness take him again. "I'm really glad you're alive."

When he wakes up, it's to the sound of Foggy and Karen walking up the stairs to the apartment, and the sound of four other heartbeats surrounding him, safe and sound.