Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Marvel's "Daredevil", wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Inspired by a prompt on the Daredevil kink meme which asked for: "Matt/Wesley: Good!Wesley, undercover: When S.H.I.E.L.D. came to Agent Wesley about an undercover job in Hell's City, he thinks it'll be quick and easy. The kind of in and out he's used to. But it's not, because Wilson Fisk is so much worse than anyone ever thought. Now he's stuck as Fisk's right hand and in far too deep to quit. Only, between Daredevil fucking with his plans and Karen Page sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong, Wesley is scrambling to protect innocents and bring Fisk down before Hell's Kitchen becomes a war zone...again. *Extra points for Wesley's meeting with Karen being about trying to scare her off for her own safety but she shoots him (non-fatally this time) anyway.
Warnings: Adult language, au – no character death, mild crossover with Avengers/AOS, spoilers for the entire first season, blood, injury, violence, angst, drama, and maybe a hint of pre-slash in terms of Matt/Wesley.
Bad news (like a suckerpunch)
Chapter Two
The breath she choked on was shattered. A living prism of color and half formed thoughts as he cocked his head idly. Staring off at some point on the wall above her left shoulder, allowing himself the ruptured surrealism of the moment as the world started to pale around the edges.
"You can't be," she whispered, an unstable mixture of shock, repulsion and awe. "S.H.I.E.L.D is-"
"Good?" he offered, wolfish but calm. Finding an odd measure of peace in her turmoil as he tasted the shades of each and every emotion that made it across her face.
"So, it's all just lies?" she hissed. "What they've told us? What everyone talks about? The media? This is what S.H.E.I.D is? What it really is? Are they-are they all like you?" Disbelief coming off her in waves as every bit of her trembled. Struggling to stomach what he was selling before her attention was caught again. Watching him take off his glasses and set them on the table in front of him, before shaking his head.
"No," he answered, the honesty of it leaving him raw as disquiet hushed in. Disliking the feeling of being so open - so exposed - even where he knew full disclosure was necessary. He fought the urge to shift, to cross his arms over his chest and resume that same careful composure he'd had at the beginning. Forcing himself not to give any of it away as the sweat pouring off him slicked his shirt to his skin.
"My skill set – what I do - is rare," he explained, shirt catching wetly, smearing blood and sweat deeper into the threads. "Almost as rare as the situations that call for them. I am a realist. A man who understands that behind every victory, every 'feel-good' story, there are a pair of dirty hands."
"So, yes, I am an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, but neither am I a child who believes in fairy-tales and happy endings. There is a difference, Miss. Page. And I created the bell-curve."
He could see himself reflected in the whites of her eyes.
And what he saw caused him to rock back, holding back a wince – if only just.
Perhaps Romanoff would be proud yet.
"If you aren't a good man, then what are you?" she whispered, chipped nails a mess of flaking polish against the stock. Pretty in a worn down aesthetic sort of way. "How can you claim to work for the same people that helped save most of New York? How can someone like you be a part of all that!?"
The last of it echoed. Embarrassingly loud in all those yards of empty space. Making her color, both aghast and uncaring as the flat of the stock clicked menacingly against the table. Afraid he wouldn't answer. But more afraid that he would. Not yet realizing she was walking into a trap of her own making. Baited with Sunday-school morality and niggling self-doubt that was all too common on those that still had an approximation of a soul.
"I am a horror story," he rasped, ready for it despite the rash of coughing that accompanied the words. "I'm what's needed, Miss. Page. The necessary evil this world has created." Tongue flirting with the blood rising up his throat as she flinched at the liquid tell. Staining across his teeth as he bared them at her.
"Like the scream that comes before the credits. I am the defining work in the genre. The rare movie where you exit the theatre empathizing with the villain," he continued, forcing out the rest as his lids sank low – half-mast and tired. "That is what I am, Miss. Page. I am the reason people like you can go home to their beds and sleep through the night. I am the reason people like you and your employers can breathe free air and laugh while you're pretending to work on a Friday afternoon. I am the reason-"
His thoughts pooled, slipping through the cracks in his mind's eye as her lip caught between her teeth. A single tear rolling down her cheek as long hair wisped across her face in a veil of burnished gold.
"I am the question the movie leaves you with."
He enjoyed the pain that came next. The way her face crumpled. By this point he figured he'd earned it. Distantly sympathetic as he left her to it, eyes fluttering closed. Letting her parse with the realization that she was not only outmatched, but on the wrong side of the table entirely.
Her face was red-stained. Making them a matching pair as she exhaled with a long, shuddering jerk. Something that pulled like discomfort at his rib-cage as he watched the fight drain out of her. She wasn't meant for this. The stress had taken its toll. Struggling to put the pieces of her life back together after the illusion of safety had been taken from her.
He understood the need to regain that control. But not like this. If he had been anyone else she would have been dead long before she'd been stupid enough to ask Daniel Fisher out for that drink.
"And that's the reason why you aren't going to pull that trigger."
Minutes passed. Spanning out into an uncomfortable silence as she watched him sink further into his chair. Giving his thoughts their head as the ceiling spun in loose, non-concentric circles above them.
If this didn't work he would be the architect of his own demise. He understood that. Owned it. In fact, he took complete responsibility. He'd spread himself too thin trying to keep those that didn't deserve an early death out of the line of fire. And he'd failed more times than he'd won. When was the last time he'd slept? Too long. He couldn't remember.
His apartment was cold and streamlined. Full of everything he liked, only he didn't spend any time there. Instead, when his body needed to sleep he rented out the third floor of any given four-star motel. Feeling safe in the silence as he lost himself in the comforters and sheets and wondered what it would be like to live a normal, and exceedingly boring life where he didn't weigh thousands of lives versus what S.H.I.E.L.D might consider the greater good, long before most people had finished their breakfast.
He thought about the people who might have slept in the same bed only hours before. Wondering about their stories, their small, singular enclosed little lives. Staring up at the gilded ceiling, mildly irritated with himself when he found his mind dwelling on the seamlessness in which Vanessa had wound her way into Fisk's life. Their lives. Fitting together effortlessly – elegantly. As if they'd been made for one another. Merely going through life until chance and circumstance brought them together.
Unable to squash the tiresome little weed that was his desire for the same.
It was an unfamiliar craving that had only gotten worse as time had gone on. The want not merely for sex. But for intimacy. For that boring part of normal life that included going to bed and waking up to the same person. That meant coming to love them more for their flaws then for their strengths. And unsurprisingly, he hated the very thought of it with a passion he found almost alarming.
He'd reached out to Nelson and Murdock in the beginning to keep them safe. He knew it appeared the opposite but it had been the only way. Kidnapping Karen Page had been an evolution of the same desire. She was getting too close. She was a child running down the stairs with a pair of adult scissors. Too trusting of a system that had never once worked in her favor to realize the mess she was creating. To know how close she and her friends had come to dying over the past few months. How many Hail Mary's he'd stolen for them again and again as good luck and better connections ran desperately short of both goodwill and patience.
He'd brought her here to make her understand, to show her how easy it would be to-
He wasn't aware he'd been thinking out loud until he realized that Miss. Page was looking down at him in horror. Speckling his face with dew-drop tears as an early spring made tracks across her face.
It's said that spring is the season of change. Renewal. Regrowth. Exhuming what the long winter had rotten through. He wondered if she could see it. See what this city was going to become. Or were her thoughts still stuck in winter? Blind to the good that was spreading like tendrils – slow to grow by present nonetheless – all around her?
When had she moved?
He hadn't seen her get up, had he?
He couldn't remember.
"There is a number on my phone. It is the last contact on the list, under "Ital-Italian Take-out," he started, grimacing as he fumbled wetly, slick hands fighting for purchase before he found the pocket and pulled out the phone in increments. Slow and pointed so that she could see. Thinking of all the ways he could have killed her already when the barrel of the gun dropped and she leaned forward, distracted.
"You should call it."
Her blue eyes flicker-flicked from him to the bloody phone as he pushed it towards her. "This could be a trick," she posed, suspicious but torn in a way that only confirmed what he already knew. That the seed had been planted and now all that had to be done was wait and see what would grow.
The laugh hurt as it rolled out. Jarring and laced with things he'd rather not dwell on as a familiar haze of darkness threatened to cut in from the corners. But he didn't regret it. The expression on her face was too sweet for that. Too pure. An ironic riot of porcelain steel and rusting carbon as his posture lost the last of its professional rigidity and began folding in on itself. Slumping down in his seat as his chin dipped low, flirting with the uneven rise of his chest. Lip quirking upwards in the first genuine smile he could remember making in years.
"Don't blame me for the lies the world has told you, Miss Page."
"Now call that number and let me save your life."
The next thing he was aware of was blinking himself awake, spread-eagled across the filthy concrete as the ceiling tiles swam in and out of focus. His lashes felt long, sticking together in a mess of mucus and salt-tracks. Watching – affably removed - as Miss. Page pressed down on his chest. Thin little hands stained red to the elbows with finger-print smears.
For a long moment it almost didn't make sense. That is until he realized that the fingers of his left hand were fisted vicious-tight in the cuff of her jacket. Giving him leverage as he hissed through his teeth. Fighting the softness that threatened to pull him under as her long hair rippled above him like a banner.
Her chapped lips were making sounds. Meaningless and unimportant into the phone. Nearly overwhelming that of distant helicopters blurring into the dark of a midnight-still that seemed to have caught both of them by surprise.
He choked on a laugh, gargling a sudden sheath of red as it trickled down the point of his chin. Waxing poetic? He must be worse off that he'd thought. Self-indulgence had never been of any particular use to him. He had his vices, like anyone. Good food. Better wine. The satin-touch of a luxuriously high thread-count and a tailored suit that fit comfortably over him like a second skin. But unlike most, he was aware of them. And thus, did not allow them to rule him.
He watched the phone drop, the motion slow and blurred when she caught him looking. Guilt and uncertainty were swirling in the forefront – rising with the strength of an unwilling epiphany. But for some reason, just as soon as he focused on them, those same eyes went dead. Blind. Superimposed with dark circular glasses and two day old stubble that warped along the edges of her face. Becoming something – no - someone else entirely.
Murdock?
Intriguing.
Unsurprisingly that was the last thought he had for a long, long time.
A/N #2: Thank you for reading. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – There will be more to come because I am weak and have no control over my life.