Disclaimer: I do not own anything in Arrowverse or Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Comics, Marvel Comics or any characters or elements pertaining to the mentioned franchises or anything else you may recognize.

Starling General

"OK, would you like to tell me why did you need to meet me in the middle of the night?" Claire asked as she drew Matt's blood and put it in the analyzer in the empty ER room.

"Because he believes he had been drugged. Or perhaps he's finally snapped. Like I knew he would." Fisk said as Matt sighed and clenched his fist, trying to suppress the urge to snap Fisk's neck again, if only to shut him up. "What did Castle tell you? 'You're one bad day away from being me.'"

"I think someone dosed me with something." Matt explained as Claire narrowed her eyes.

"You, of all people?" Claire asked, skeptical as the computer was running the analysis. "How did that happen?"

"I guess I was caught off-guard." Matt said.

"It's perfectly understandable, Murdock." Fisk said. "You've lost your father, Elektra, Karen, your mother. And you've already taken life before, despite your believes. I may not have been able to destroy you… but Nobu and Yamura have done the job, right?"

Matt's blood boiled, remembering Nobu murdering Elektra and Matt being forced to kill Yamura in order to save Natasha.

"I tried to turn the city into a better place. Something beautiful. But because you stopped me, everything is falling apart and not even that blood test is going to change that." Fisk taunted as Matt seethed, while Claire looked at the computer.

"Do you take drugs, Matt?" Claire asked as Matt sensed how agitated she was.

"No. Why?" Matt inquired.

"Well, the results are positive on Vertigo." Claire explained. "Must have absorbed it through your wrist, if I'm correct."

Matt considered and then he remembered shaking hand with Ruvé earlier as he sighed.

"Are you going to be OK, Matt?" Claire turned to him, worried as he sighed.

"Thanks for the help, Claire. I'll be fine, don't worry." Matt assured her as he left. "I should've known it was Ruvé."

He was about to reach for his phone as Fisk spoke up again. "I wouldn't call Oliver if I were you. It's not like you're in the right headspace to do so. Or am I wrong? Has it occurred to you that you have spread yourself too thin, Murdock?"

"What are you talking about?" Matt demanded, perplexed.

"You've come a long way. You may have become a better person but has it occurred to you that you have become a worse hero than before?" Fisk taunted and Matt sighed. "You've moved on from the losses you've been through. You have a girlfriend. New friends. New family. But… you've stretched yourself too thin. What did you once say?

There was a time you used to listen to the people's prayer. In the church… on the streets… seeking for God's help or justice… vengeance… and you answered. Has it occurred to you that it was not God's voice, when they called for help? Just people in pain? You don't get to choose who you can be. What was it that you said? 'I'd rather die as the Devil, than live as Matt Murdock.' You may be living both ways now… but can you say that it's any better for those around you?" Fisk said as Matt considered.

"No. That… that is not true." Matt said immediately in denial.

"Vertigo is supposed to show you your greatest fear, is it not?" Fisk pointed out.

"You're not my worst fear, Fisk. Not even close." Matt chuckled, trying to shrug him off as he walked away.

"Right. Your worst fear is yourself. Your worst enemy is yourself. Me. Nobu. The Hand. Yamura. Richard Dragon. Damien Darhk. Ra's al Ghul. Bullseye. All of us come in the second place… when it comes to destroying you… because you're your own worst enemy. The one enemy no one can defeat… is themselves." Fisk said as Matt entered the elevator and took a deep breath, trying to resist the urge to beat Fisk up and snap his neck before his phone went off and he answered the call.

"Oliver?"

"Quentin got a call but he couldn't go because he's in protection custody. The SWAT came to investigate instead and then, and I quote Quentin, 'It's like the big bad wolf huffed and puffed or something.'" Oliver said.

"This wolf being Darhk." Sara said.

"Tying up loose ends. Clever. Just like me." Fisk said as Matt attempted to ignore him.

"Why would Darhk try to make it look like an accident? Assuming Captain Lance was his target." Klein questioned.

"Maybe he didn't want to take the heat from killing the police captain." Diggle said.

"Or maybe another reason. He does everything for a reason." Oliver said before turning to Matt. "Are you OK, Matt? You look a little pale."

Matt shook his head. "No. I think that Ruvé must have drugged me with Vertigo. I'm hallucinating." He said, to everyone's shock.

"Hallucinating?" Sara repeated, all of them worried about Matt.

"Don't worry about me." Matt assured them.

"John, call Lyla, see if she can squeeze out of Andy, if H.I.V.E. has ever used these tactics before." Oliver ordered. "Matt, you should sleep it off until the Vertigo is out of your system. And this is not up to discussion."

Matt tried to argue but gave in, realizing he was not in the right headspace to help in any way.

The following day, Matt's apartment

Matt slept on his couch before his phone went off.

"OLIVER. OLIVER. OLIVER."

Matt answered the call. "Yeah?"

"Cameron took a look and it wasn't from SCPD. The call has the same cipher as the H.I.V.E. satphones the Ghosts use." Oliver explained.

"Which means Darhk tried to have Lance killed by luring him into the hotel." Matt realized.

"The call came from Price and 4th, alongside other calls. Might be their base of operations. If you're up for it…"

"I'll be there." Matt said as he hung up.

He was about to leave before he heard a voice he never thought he would, ever again.

"Matt?"

Matt turned around, realizing it was… "Karen?"

"Mind telling me what's happening between you and Foggy? He's been kind of on edge lately." Karen asked as Matt realized that he was back in Nelson & Murdock.

"How innocent she was. Right before you destroyed her by telling her who you really are. And then she took a bullet for you. Or rather… a baton for you." Fisk said. "Tell her what happens. Tell her about your past with Elektra. Tell her about how I made her life hell as well, with AIDS and then how Lawton kills her."

"I should've told you…" Matt said.

"You should've told her." Fisk said.

"But… you had already been through too much and I didn't know how to be honest with you. With what had already been happening with Frank and the Hand…"

"You've been a phony since the day I met you, Red." Frank said, appearing behind Matt. "Beating up criminals with your little sticks, like standing up to bullies back in kindergarten. A dumb kid with a Halloween Devil costume getting away with a little bad and little dirty. You act like you care about the victims but you always let the scumbags live and make more of the victims you "care" about. I care about victims. Willing to be the monster, to be strong, so they can have luxury of weakness. So, am I right, Red? You done being a phony?"

Matt panted out. "You… you were nothing but a lunatic with guns. Justifying murder, thinking you were above the law—"

"All you do is break the law, yet you enforce it, like a hypocrite. You can't break what you're above." Frank interrupted him. "You dress like the Devil and you operate on a whole different level and you know it. What do laws mean to the Devil, anyway? You gonna tell me that one of those lowlives are gonna be next Tony Stark? Gonna turn their lives around and become a doctor? Or freaking Mother Theresa?"

"People have had bad lives, Frank. Rough childhood, mental health issues, society pushing them away… lives are complicated. That doesn't justify—"

"There are idiots, who'd kill for two grand worth of coke and a stupid jacket. I let them go, they kill again. They are who they are and they kill because people like you let them kill. They go to jail, they get bailed out later and it's a cycle that never ends until you do what you should have the guts to do, Red." Frank goaded. "And what about if I kill them in self-defense? Sounds familiar? Your fucking line is stupid, I'm sure this ain't the first time you would cross it."

Matt shivered, again remembering killing Nobu in self-defense and killing Yamura, when he was about to kill Natasha.

"Do the math, Red. I put down one bad guy, more good guys get to live." Matt's blood boiled at Frank's logic. "When you and I butt heads, I figure you're a good guy but you're a selfish good guy, who just does enough to feel like he's a good guy. Who one day may take me out and leaves more twisted sick fucks like Fisk or Russo or the Hand out there, ruining lives. Do the math. Either stop trying to be a softie or grow some balls and finally do what is necessary.

Or are you afraid you're gonna end up like Elektra? I once told you, no half-measures. Stop trying to act like you're in a playground, Red." Frank urged.

"It's all in my head. This is all in my head!" Matt exploded.

Elsewhere in Star City

Spartan and Green Arrow opened the door and Arsenal slid down, firing at a woman with a nail gun while Spartan engaged a man with a sledgehammer but then another man threw into the room flashbang grenades, stunning Green Arrow, the Canary, Arsenal and Colleen while the woman with the nail gun destroyed the laptop as the entire building trembled and the Demolition Team escaped and the Team Arrow was forced to run as well, not before Arsenal grabbed the destroyed laptop.

Later, the Lair

"The Demolition Team, if your description is correct." Klein said as he pulled out a file. "Former GRU. IRA. Mossad. Experts in specialized demolition."

"And now they work for H.I.V.E." Oliver groaned.

"I took a look at the laptop before it got shot up…" Sara said. "There were blueprints on the screen."

Klein nodded as she handed it to him.

Matt's apartment

"Always stubborn, just like me, huh, Matty?" Jack said, just turning from Frank into Matt's father. "I may not be real but I'm as real as I can get, kiddo. And you need to get your head straight."

"Just like you? You didn't get your head straight!" Matt scoffed. "You didn't go down in that fight like you were supposed to, knowing they'd kill you for it."

"I did that for you, so you'd know what your old man is made of." Jack said.

"My old man chose his ego over a lifetime with his son, that's what I know." Matt drawled.

"It wasn't ego, it was living up to a code." Jack protested. "Being a man. It means loving the feel of my fist in someone else's face. It means waiting for them to hit the ground and knowing that I put them there. And, yeah, OK, maybe I put that at the top of my list and maybe it cost me everything, including you. But you do the same thing."

"No. I don't." Matt denied.

"You have a code too. You beat the shit out of people." Jack said as Matt pulled out a rope. "You tell yourself it's OK because you didn't kill anyone. There is something wrong with us, Matty. It's just who we are."

"That's who you were, Dad. I'm not like you." Matt said as he sat down, wrapping the ropes around his hands. "And I don't let everyone else suffer because of some bullshit code. Not anymore."

Matt got a text from Oliver as the phone "read" it.

"The debate is being targeted."

He opened the closet in which was black shirt and jeans and scarf with Muay Thai ropes, which was just like his old vigilante outfit before he first got the Daredevil suit from Melvin as he remembered what he once told Danny, Luke and Jessica, remembering Elektra dying in his own arms.

"You don't get second chances with these people, all right? If you're not careful, the next thing you know, you're dead. Or worse, you're holding the people you love the most in the world and you get the… you get the privilege of watching them die."

So, what do you guys think?

Please review and let me know if you have been enjoying this and want for me to continue.