I Desperately Need A Matt In My Life - Tumblr Posts

Now I feel like I’m wrapped up in that warm blanket with a Matt to scare all my worries away with a forehead kiss🥹

make amends

pairing: matt murdock x reader (gn pronouns)

rating: t+ (mugging, assault, canon-typical injury)

word count: 4,344

one-sentence synopsis: matt isn't there in time to stop you from getting hurt, but he has all the time left in the world to help ease your pain.

author's note: sweet matt....... i will manifest daredevil season 4 with my own fucking bare hands if i have to

read on ao3!

You’re still trembling by the time you arrive home.

You aren’t really entirely sure what to do first. For a while, you just stand inside the front door with it locked firmly behind you, doing nothing at all. It’s not until you hear a scrape in the hallway outside your apartment door that you jump, your heart skyrocketing into your throat in an instinctive, automatic fear response. Your terror is bubbling just under the surface, waiting for the moment of your collapse.

It could have been worse. You keep trying to tell yourself that mentally: it could have been so much worse.

The mugger found you walking home alone— even though you only had to walk two blocks from your bus stop to your building, even though you’ve walked it a million times before. Cornered in the darkness at the mouth of an alley you’d been passing by, you only had a moment to hope that Matt would be nearby, that somebody would hear, that this wasn’t really going to happen right now.

You had real fear, fear that you would actually lose your life at this person’s hands. You’ve been stolen from before, and even mugged twice, but this time was different. You’d watch this mugger brandish a knife, and your heart had galloped up into your throat, all thought and logic leaving you.

When the mugger had demanded you turn over your things, you hadn’t been able to make your body move fast enough. They had grabbed you, yanked you forward, knife held tight against the bones in your collar. The blade scraped your skin, and you’d cried out, and they’d grabbed for the bag you were carrying without hesitation.

You let it go, unthinking, and tried to throw a punch to fight them off, just like Matt taught you. You caught them under the chin, and they’d grabbed you up by the throat, tight under your jaw, before they shoved you back against the nearest wall. You could feel your skin split, scratched up on the brick, and your head hit the stone.

Though you lash out again, the blow you land doesn’t do much. You split your knuckles, and they kick your arm back. Finally, you covered your face, and they’d— sprinted away, taking up your bag and running with it.

For a while, you’d just sat there, shaking, trying to think. The only things left in your coat pocket were your keys and your phone, which, thank fuck, at least you had that much. Your wallet and your umbrella and the groceries you just got and the gift you had for Matt and the book you’re reading and— and all your things, your daily necessities, were in the bag, and that’s fucking gone, but you’re alive and you can get home.

You’d shoved upwards, then, and though you wanted to run, you’d only managed to shamble home. It was like your brain and body weren’t processing it properly.

When you’re home, though, and you’ve been standing stock-still for a while, and you finally hear that noise in the hallway, you jump. You end up snatching the nearest chair and wedging it up under the doorknob, just for the extra layer of protection the furniture affords.

It’s over. It’s over, and done, and it could have been so much worse, and there’s nothing you can do right now.

Your trembling becomes a full-body shaking, a teeth-chattering, constant shiver that feels like it’s leaking down into your bones. Your breath starts coming fast of its own accord, hyperventilation in a delayed panic response. Your heart thunders in your chest, its movement so fast it practically feels still.

Your phone rings. You hear the sound before you understand it, the sharp ringing before you actually think to reach for your pocket. You pull it up and out and see Matt’s face on the screen.

Matt.

He sees so much worse on a daily basis. He gets hurt all the time. He wasn’t there to save you when you needed him. He—

He’s calling again, when you didn’t answer the first one in time. You do manage to make yourself move, this time, reaching to swipe to answer, bringing the phone up to your ear. Your hand is shaking so badly the edge of the plastic keeps connecting with the corner of your jaw.

“Hey, (Y/N),” Matt says in a rush the second you pick up. “What’s happening? I started heading towards your place and I can hear your heart, are you okay? Is something happening?”

You shake your head. You don’t know why you are, or what it’s in answer to. He doesn’t know you’re doing it; he’s not even here, and he couldn’t see you if he was, even though he’d probably tease you anyway, say he could hear your hair or your muscles or something like that—

Matt repeats your name, and you try to focus, your mind bleary and constantly drifting as it tries desperately not to think about what just happened.

“Sorry,” you say softly. Your voice sounds strange, even to your own ears.

There’s a beat, and then Matt’s bewildered, concerned voice asks, “What’re you sorry for?”

“I should’ve—” you start to say, then exhale in a gust. You’re standing in the middle of your living room, and that’s where you sit, kneeling right there on the floor. You curl into yourself, pushing your knees into your chest, wanting to feel the solid gravity, the earth beneath you. Your eyes are finally burning over. Your voice breaks when you tell him, “I should’ve tried harder, I should’ve fought— I didn’t fight, I didn’t, I just gave up—”

“What are you talking about? What happened?” Matt demands again, a frantic edge starting to leak into his voice.

You’re turning yourself over to the rising hysteria in you, unable to fight it back now that Matt’s talking to you and you have no choice to acknowledge what’s happened. Your mind is whirling, struggling to process your terrified emotions. “Someone— Someone stopped me and took my stuff—”

“Where are you?” Matt asks. You can hear his breathing shift, changing into a heavier, steadier pace. He’s running, you realize.

“Home,” you whisper. You press the phone tight against your cheek and your ear, feeling the heat blazing off of it just for something to feel. “Matt, I need— I need—”

You can’t manage to get your plea out, begging cut off as your cries start to take you over in earnest, becoming full panicked sobs. Matt says something on the line, but you can’t hear him over the rush of blood in your ears.

You have this foreboding feeling that you just can’t shake, like you’re still being followed, like it’s somehow not over, and it’s making you feel frenzied, deranged, your body only now responding to a threat that’s long gone. You don’t know when you drop the phone; you only realize that you’re not holding it, that you’re holding onto your own hair instead, head bowed into your arms, trying to keep yourself together in one piece.

When Matt comes, it isn’t through the front door. You don’t know if he tried it and gave up or not, belatedly remembering the chair you’d wedged there— but, either way, he gets in anyway. He eases open the window in your living room, and then he’s kneeling next to you, his hand finding the center of your back.

You exhale all at once in a shuddering punch that bursts out of you. You try to say his name, to say, “Matt, I’m sorry,” but it doesn’t come out as anything more than incoherent sounds in the midst of your tears.

Matt just sits down on the floor and pulls you into his arms. You cling to him with numb fingers hooked in the joints of his Daredevil armor, and he doesn’t stop rubbing your back, clutching you close to his front. He’s taken his cowl off, the helmet abandoned nearby, one of the sharp horns leaving a small scratch on your floor.

You stare at that tiny scratch as you struggle to get a grip on yourself. Matt’s presence is helping in leagues, but you’re so far into your frenzy that it takes a while to come back out of it.

You make yourself focus on the even sweeps of Matt’s soft touch as he strokes your back; on the strong hold of his arms around you, keeping you safe; on the press of his lips to your hairline where he keeps murmuring reassuring echoes of the same thing; on the slowing thud of your own heart as you come back into yourself in fragmented pieces.

His hand moves to grip the back of your head, his cheek dragging along yours when he starts to pull back. Your heart kicks up, panic seizing you again, but Matt shushes you.

“I’m not going anywhere, it’s okay,” Matt tells you. “I can smell blood. Is it yours?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. Matt’s hold tightens, and you tell him, voice breaking once more, “I’m sorry—”

“No, no,” Matt cuts you off. He kisses your hair, says, “No, don’t be sorry. Don’t. Just— What happened?”

“I don’t know, I just— I got mugged, I think,” you tell him, embarrassed and terrified and hurt and upset, starting to fall apart. “I wasn’t— I wasn’t thinking, I— I should— I should’ve fought b—”

“I should’ve been there,” Matt says firmly, his tone inviting no argument. “(Y/N), I am— I am so sorry—”

“Matt,” you start to interrupt him. You want to tell him not to be sorry, that he can’t be everywhere at once, that it was over so quickly he couldn’t have done anything.

You can’t make the words come. You just start to dissolve again, repeating, “Matt,” and he kisses your temple hard, letting his forehead drag along yours. The physical touch of him is grounding you, grounding him. He won’t stop touching you, hard presses to make sure you’re still here and alive and okay.

Matt reaches and lifts your hand. You can see him as he’s taking stock of you, cataloguing your injuries through touch and scent, tasting your blood in the air, hearing the tiny noises you make when his gloved fingertips brush an injury.

He removes one glove, then gently touches the edge of your split knuckles. You wince, and he brings the back of your hand to his mouth, kissing it softly.

“I’ll fix it,” Matt tells you.

You’re not sure what you’re expecting him to do, but it’s not for him to start pulling his glove on and separating himself from you. He’s moving to pick his horns back up; your breathing quickens instinctively, fear gripping your lungs all over again.

He must hear the changes in your body, because he pauses, head tilted to the side a bit before he inclines back towards you.

“What’s wrong?” he asks you. Without waiting for an answer, he’s already saying, “I’ll call Claire, she can come while I’m gone and help you w—”

“No,” you finally get yourself to say. Matt’s brow furrows, frustration and confusion striking across his face. “Matt, n— No—”

“Would you rather I call Foggy?” he asks. “Or Karen? They would—”

“Don’t leave,” you beg him. You can’t stop the shattering of your voice as you speak. “Matt, please— Please don’t leave, I can’t— I can’t—”

The words won’t come out of your mouth before your breath is catching up in your throat again, choking off your next breaths. You fold into yourself again, trembling; Matt reaches for you, pulls you back into his lap. His hands have their gloves back on, the leather rough on your skin. You can’t bring yourself to let him go, clinging to him tightly, chest rattling apart.

Matt readjusts, leaning back against the coffee table behind himself so he can take your weight without tipping, focusing on you. His face comes back down to meet yours, cheek brushing yours, his hair soft against your skin.

“You’re okay,” Matt murmurs, voice soft. “Just breathe with me. I’m not going anywhere, you’re okay. In and out. Come on, in and out.”

You have to focus, and it takes pretty much all of your concentration to do it, but you start to steady and calm and slow again. There’s obvious tension roped through every muscle in his body, coiled and ready to spring into action to take down your attacker the second you give the word, but you can’t get yourself to give the word.

You barely saw them; you don’t know anything useful. All you know is that you were terrified, and hurt, and you needed Matt, and now he’s here. You don’t think you can let him go, not even for him to get revenge for you—

—or for himself, you realize, seeing how terrified he is, how angry he is, churning just beneath his surface as he struggles to keep the reins on himself. He grapples to hold his grip, determined not to make this worse for you than it already is by losing control of his emotions, but it’s— it’s fucking hard. You, you, are the person he loves most on this planet— and he dedicates himself daily to protecting people— and when you needed him, he wasn’t there, and you got hurt.

He can’t stop thinking about everything that could have happened. The things he witnesses on a daily basis are just— atrocities. If you were one of those people, he doesn’t think he could take it. If you had been unlucky enough to be one of those poor nameless, faceless fuckers that he’s not fast enough to save, one of those countless people who weigh on his soul, but more, worse, a million times worse, because none of them were you.

None of them are the reason he comes home at all, some days. None of them are the ones who take care of him when he’s hurt, and doesn’t think he needs help healing. None of them are his home, his heart, the person who consumes his every breath and still he wants to give them more.

None of them are you, and he couldn’t take it if it was. He couldn’t.

Matt’s hold on you is nearly tight enough to bruise, but you want it that way. You’d even ask him to hold you even tighter, if you didn’t know it would start to hurt your blossoming injuries.

“Matt,” comes out of your mouth, broken and harsh, jagged in your throat, catching on your tongue. “Matt—”

“I know,” he replies. You can feel it, goosebumps rising all over your arms. He does know, in his bones, coursing through his blood— he knows, what it feels like to hurt like this. It’s stabbing him in the chest, too, the pain of knowing you’re feeling what he tries so hard to protect you from. “I know. I know.”

When you can breathe again, Matt holding you and stroking your back while you press your face to his hard armor and cry until you’re exhausted and empty, you slump against him, letting him hold you up.

“Let me help,” Matt asks, voice low near your ear. Your hands shake, and he hurries to say, “No, I’m not leaving. Just—” He shifts, says, “Here,” and starts helping you to stand.

You let him guide you, assisting you in rising to your feet before he drops to scoop you up into his arms fully. You protest, about to argue that you’re not hurt so badly you can’t walk, but the look on Matt’s face stops you. It doesn’t matter if you can walk; right now, he wants to protect you, and take care of you— and you want to be protected, and cared for.

“You’re okay,” Matt repeats occasionally, when he hears your heart jump or your breath catch. “I got you. You’re okay.”

He doesn’t put you down until you’re in your bedroom with him. He lays you down in bed, then pauses a moment beside you, stroking your hair back from your face. His eyes settle somewhere near your throat as he listens— you don’t know to what.

After a beat, he straightens up and tells you, “I’ll be right back,” then adds before you can protest or even begin to feel the encroaching spike of panic, “I’m just getting the first aid kit. I’ll be one minute.”

He kisses the center of your palm, then vanishes from the room, moving impossibly quickly in his haste. You gather the covers around you, tugging them up, heedless of the fact that you’re still in the clothes you’d been wearing outside, shoes still on. You just want to be wrapped up, comforted, safe, protected.

When Matt returns, he’s shucked off most of his Daredevil armor, leaving him bare-chested and plain-faced, dark red armor covering only his legs now. He sets the first aid kit and a bowl on the side table before he returns his focus to you.

His hands find your hip, then skate up until he’s able to search out the edge of the covers. As he works, he doesn’t speak, though you can see from his expression that he appears to be seething with rage. You can feel it, working its way through his teeth into yours, metal-scrape-sharp, surging through you in jags.

“Here,” Matt murmurs, his tone with you easy even as his words come out hard. “Let me—”

He tugs the covers back, and his fingers drift down to your ankles. When he finds your boots on, still laced up, he nimbly unknots them, tugging them loose. One is removed, then the next; his bare hands, rough though they are, are soft and gentle as he removes one article of clothing from you at a time. He sets them aside in strips, a neat pile on the floor.

His hands seek out your wounds when he has you lying bare on top of the covers. He tilts his head, listening to the swell of your blood as it pools under your skin. He can taste in the air the places your blood rises and breaks the surface, beading with a heavy metal tang in the back of his throat.

You watch his face while he works, unable to look away. It’s so comforting, the familiar expressions that spread as he thinks. His eyes are so warm; you can see your own injuries and his hands reflected in them in the street lights from outside. You hadn’t even managed to turn a light on when you got here, and Matt hasn’t thought of it. Instead, you take comfort in the near-darkness, letting Matt envelop you in it.

He finds first the wound at the back of your head. A frown works its way onto his face, twisting down the corners of his pretty mouth in such a way that makes him seem both impossibly melancholy and incredibly enraged at the same time.

“Will you turn over for me?” Matt asks, his voice soft, low.

His hand finds your shoulder, and he helps you shift to turn onto your side, letting him see the back of your head. He brings the basin of warm water close; you can feel the heat and steam get nearer to your bare skin.

The corner of a warm, damp washcloth meets the very edge of the mark at the back of your head, and you flinch at the unexpected touch.

“I’m sorry,” Matt murmurs.

You close your eyes, saying, “It’s okay,” so low it’s little more than a whisper.

Matt’s fingers stroke through your hair before he takes hold of your shoulder. His other hand drifts up to start gently cleaning again, his touch even more delicate as he endeavors not to hurt you any further.

“No,” he tells you. “It’s not okay.”

Your eyes open again, and you stare at the darkness of the wall opposite, letting your vision swim in the shadows. The backs of them burn, your nose prickling; you take in a shaky breath, willing the tears not to fall.

They well up and start to spill anyways. Your hand drifts up to swipe at your face, but Matt can feel the pull of your muscles, can smell the salt in the air.

“Does it still hurt?” he asks. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” you whisper back. “I’m sorry, I’m just—” You don’t know what you mean to say. You don’t know what you’re feeling, really. “I’m sorry, I don’t know,” you repeat, your voice breaking.

“Don’t be sorry,” Matt says. He finishes cleaning the small injury at the back of your head, helps ease you into sitting up. His fingers drift up to graze your jaw before continuing up to cup your cheek. He hesitates, frowning, then lets his touch skim back down.

You can feel him exploring the swelling of the place just beneath your chin, below the strike of your jaw, where the mugger had grabbed you and forced you up against the wall.

Matt’s brow furrows and creases, his face crumpling as he tries to keep a hold of his emotions. You can feel your own composure splintering again, too, what you had managed to build back up so quickly falling to shreds.

“I should do— something,” Matt says, hands shaking. He traces down to the thin cut left behind by the blade, at the center of your throat, faint over your jugular. His breathing becomes something careful, measured. He keeps moving, hands skimming down over the scrapes cut into the backs of your arms and your calves, and further, the bruise where your arm was kicked, the bloody split skin of your knuckles where you’d landed the few punches you’d managed to throw at all.

He takes stock of you and your injuries before bringing the washcloth to your skin again. In tiny sweeps, he clears the blood away, removes any infinitesimal trace of dirt or germ or grit. Your arms come next, his face focused down.

As he works, barely keeping himself in check, he tells you again, “I should do something.”

“What would you do?” you ask him, voice shuddering a little. You’re not sure what to expect in response.

“I…” Matt starts, then stops. He has an answer ready, you can tell that much, but he’s considering whether or not it’s true— whether or not he wants to tell you about it. After a beat, he decides on honesty, violent though it is, confessing, “I’ll kill him.”

“Matt,” you breathe.

“He cut your throat,” Matt bites out, his jaw so tight you can see a muscle jumping in it as he’s trying to get a grip. “He could— He could have killed you. He w— One— If he had gone one inch deeper, right here,” he says, his fingertip against your pulse where it rabbits in your throat, “You would be d— You would— You would have died. I would have found you in that fucking alley—”

“Matt,” you repeat, voice breaking again.

“No,” he says quickly, then, “Fuck, no, I’m sorry, I fucking— I shouldn’t have said that, I don’t— Fuck,” he cuts out again. He draws his hands to his lap, tight around the washcloth as he wrings pink water out into the bowl again.

He reaches back out to take your hand in his. Gentle between his calloused fingers, he leads your hand down into the water, guiding it until your knuckles are submerged.

“I’m sorry,” Matt repeats to you. “That— I’m sorry.”

“I was so scared,” you admit to him tearfully. His thumb strokes along the back of your head, his head dropping in so he can press his forehead to yours, letting you breathe his air, letting you ground yourself in him. Your other hand flies up to grip his hair hard, threading at the back of his head, hanging on. A sob comes up and you confess, “Matt, I was so— I was so scared, I didn’t— I should have fought back and I know you’ve taught me better but I couldn’t think and I just let him do that and he could have killed me, you’re right, I don— You’re right, I just— I couldn’t—”

“Hey, shh.” Matt takes the dish of water away, setting it aside on the nightstand so it won’t spill. When he returns to you, he takes your wet hand in his, heedless of the water, guiding you up so he can press his lips to the center of your palm. Buried in your touch, he tells you, “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I should’ve—”

“No,” Matt cuts you off. “This is not your fault.”

You can hear the knife’s edge under his words, and you tell him, “It’s not yours, either,” voice vibrating just under the edge of noise.

Matt’s eyes prick with water, red starting to shoot through the feather-fine veins at the corners. You drag yourself in closer to him, and he wraps both arms around you, holding you tight in his strong grip.

You bury your face in Matt’s throat, and he kisses your temple in a hard press.

“Please don’t go,” you beg him, unable to stop yourself. “Please, d— Don’t.”

Matt reaches up to cup the back of your head in his hand, letting you be enveloped entirely by him, held close, embraced so fully you just fold into him.

“I won’t,” he promises you, and you believe him. He won’t— for now, anyway. He kisses the space beside your eye, your cheek, your jaw. You close your eyes and ignore the sting of pain when he does it; it feels better than it did before, better than when you were still alone. You’d rather have it this way, him here with you, holding you, keeping you safe, a protector who is as prepared to kill for you with his bare hands as he is ready to hold you close in those same hands and never let you go.

-

requests used:

"hello my dear heart I have thoughts and dark machinations that must be released into your inbox: im thinking thoughts of matt murdock and y/n being hurt physically by some random crime and just so down emotionally and matt coming to the house/apartment and having to try look after you and not leave you while wrestling with his need to find who hurt you. help me I need support I need matt cleaning wounds and hugging and his rage just under the surface" (@hellomrreaper)