Chapter Text
After Matt’s hearing was fully restored and his senses were better, he had hoped that it wouldn’t be a problem again. He should’ve known better. After all, he has never had much in the luck department. But still, a man can hope, right?
Wrong. He should have known that something would happen again.
***
With Fisk put away (hopefully for good this time) Matt had finally decided to expand his circle of people who knew he was alive. He started with Claire, who smacked him in the chest but hugged him right after, and then she told Luke, who told the rest of their rag tag little group that was there the night he died. And since then, they have been occasionally teaming up together (whether it was just two of them or sometimes all of them) and he had to admit he kind of enjoyed it.
So when none other than Jessica Jones showed up at his apartment at 3 in the morning, he finds that he doesn’t hate it.
“I need a favor” she says right as he opens the door
He tilts his head in what he assumes is her direction
“Right now?” He asks
He can practically feel the eye roll.
“Yes, right now, dumbass” She replies, moving to push past him
Matt sighs, he had only gone to bed about an hour ago because of some dick who just wouldn’t stop getting back up no matter how many times he kicked his teeth in. The guy was a pretty good fighter too, for just some petty robber. He had managed to knock Matt in the head a couple of times and the past few sleepless nights have been weighing on him.
But he lets her come in, because for the first time since he’d met her, Jessica was asking for his help. So he will, he owes her that much after letting her believe he was dead for three and a half months.
“A law favor or….?” Matt lets the question hang in the air
“No” she says shortly, she doesn’t sound angry, just……in a hurry “I need you to beat someone up”
Matt raises his eyebrows
“Why don’t you just do it?” He asks
Jessica sighs tiredly and he can smell the whiskey on her breath all the way from across the room. Not that he normally can’t, but this feels more fresh, more recent, like she just came from the bar. She probably did.
“Because I promised my client I wouldn’t”
Matt stares in her direction for a moment.
“Give me the details” he says
He hears her plop down on his sofa and he sits down next to her, waiting patiently for her to say what she needs to.
“This woman came into my office a few days ago, right? And she asks me to find out where her husband goes every night after work”
He nods.
“I accepted, obviously, it was easy cash and a simple job. But the woman told me that no matter what he was doing, even if he was cheating, I wasn’t allowed to get involved” she went on “Which normally isn’t a problem except for the fact that he wasn’t just cheating”
“What was he doing?”
She was silent for a minute or two.
“He was raping kids”
Bile swims in the back of Matt’s throat and he can’t tell if it’s the concussion he probably has, or if it’s what she just told him. Both, he decides.
“Do you know where he is right now?” Matt asks through gritted teeth
He feels Jessica nod and then she pulls out a piece of paper. She grabs his hand and places the paper in his palm
“Can you read that?” She asks
He traces the indents on the paper and nods.
Without a second thought, he grabs the scarf around her neck (ignoring her protest at that) and rushes to the stairs. He didn’t have time to put on his whole outfit and he was already in black sweats and a black shirt. He ties the scarf around his eyes and heads out to the roof.
***
Jessica honestly wasn’t surprised when Matt opened the door at 3 in the morning, and she also wasn’t surprised when he immediately jumped at the chance to beat this sick son of a bitch into the ground. That’s why she came to him. She knew he would be awake and willing to help her with this particular problem.
She quickly follows him outside and watches as he jumps from rooftop to rooftop effortlessly. It was impressive. Especially since he didn’t have her powers. She jumps after him (just to make sure he gets to right place, there’s no other reason) and stops after a few leaps just in time to see him climb down the roof silently and sneak up behind their target.
Matt does a cool spin kick across the guys head before he even has a chance to turn around and then gets into a classic fighting stance as the dude falls to the ground. He gets back up in a few second and throws a punch that Matt easily dodges, grabbing his wrist and twisting hard enough to elicit a scream that Jessica can hear from the rooftop she’s watching from.
Murdock whispers something in the guys ear before stomping hard on his leg, making him collapse with another barely muffled scream. Even from here, Jessica can see the piece of shit reach into his pocket to grab something. She doesn’t even get a chance to shout a warning before he’s swinging blindly behind him towards Matt.
She should’ve known that he’d dodge it with no effort but the butt of knife does manage to catch him in the head, hard enough to knock him off balance. The guys swings again but Matt stumbles away just in time and does another flip kick thing to knock the knife out of his hand and kick him in the head again in one fail swoop. He drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Jessica can’t help but smirk before she realizes that Matt was swaying a bit, breathing hard as he stands over the unconscious man.
“Shit” she whispers “Are you okay?”
She knows that he can hear her from here and she sees his tiny nod. He starts moving towards the ladder again and he makes it up to the roof (albeit a little slower this time) before doing some weird parkour shit to make it to the rooftop that she’s on.
Jessica deems it safe enough to let him make it on his own, so she turns around, ready to head back home, just in time to hear him drop to the ground.
***
She mumbles a string of curse words that he doesn’t have a reaction to and it just worries her more. Kneeling down by him cautiously, she presses her fingers to his neck. His pulse is fairly steady, a little fast, but that makes sense because of the fight he just had. Jessica pokes him in the shoulder.
Matt groans, shifting until he’s on his back.
“What happened?” He asks
“You tell me” she says, grabbing his arm to help him sit up “What’s wrong?”
He place his hand on the ground and stands up slowly, Jessica following suit.
“Nothing” he responds “Must’ve taken too many hits to the head”
She can’t help but roll her eyes at his self-assessment
“Whatever, let’s get back to your apartment”
His eyebrows raise from behind the blindfold
“My apartment?”
“Yes, dipshit, your apartment”
“Why?” He asks
The tone he uses lets her know that behind the blindfold he has the biggest puppy dog eyes ever.
“So I make sure you don’t die, now let’s go, I’m calling Claire”
Matt lets out a sigh that she knows means he’s going to shut up and follow her. Good.
***
Claire was waiting patiently by the front door of Matt Murdock’s apartment for a total of 5 minutes before Jessica Jones opens the door. She was lucky that she knew the PI was already there, or else that would have been quite the surprise.
“Matt?” She calls out, pushing past the leather clad woman to get inside
“Quiet” Jess snaps in a harsh whisper “He’s sleeping on the couch”
Wow. Claire never would’ve guessed that he would go to sleep of his own free will, but then again, maybe he didn’t. She doesn’t know the extent of his injuries just yet.
She walks over to the couch and sure enough, he was curled up there, fast asleep. There were no signs of blood or broken bones so that was good.
“What happened?” She asks Jessica as she kneels down in front of him
“He beat the shit out of a pedophile but when he got back up to the roof, he passed out” she explains, hovering over the two of them nervously “He woke up for long enough to get here but when I called you, he fell asleep on the couch before I could ask him anything”
Claire sighs through her nose
“Jesus, I told him not to go out for a couple of days. He had a concussion”
Jessica snorts
“And you thought he would listen?”
She doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead opening one of Matt’s eyelids carefully and shining the light in it. He still had a concussion, but it was hard to tell how bad it is with the whole blind thing.
“Alright, well, he seems fine. As long as he rests for a couple of days, he should be good” she announces, standing back up
“Where are you going?” Jess asks nervously
“I have a shift in a few hours, and unlike you two, I can’t run on 30 minutes of sleep a night”
The PI laughs a little at that before turning back towards Matt. She seems to think for a moment before sighing, moving to the couch and taking the blanket from the chair to drape across the sleeping man. He was curled up into a ball so Jess still had enough room to sit by his feet.
Claire smiles, staring at the two for a minute.
“You know he’ll be fine on his own, right?”
Jessica glares at her
“You know that’s not true, right?” She mocks
Claire raises her hands in surrender
“Alright, just make sure he eats something when he wakes up”
Jess nods, not looking up from the book she has just magically pulled out of thin air during their conversation. Claire once again smiles, snapping a quick picture of them and sending it to Luke with the caption
Guess who volunteered to babysit.
***
Jessica honestly didn’t know why she stayed, but for some reason she’s sitting on the idiot’s couch, reading the novel she had in her jacket. Ironically it was one Matt had given her. He claimed it was no longer of any use to him and he didn’t know why he kept it around for so long. She knew why. It was from his dad, and Matt was a weirdly sentimental person.
Speak of the devil (ha, literally) she feels him shift slightly from his fetal position. She looks up from the book, watching him cautiously as he stretches his legs out a little further. His hand curled into the material of the blanket she had laid over him 20 minutes ago, his fingers clenching and then unclenching.
Suddenly he was wide awake, sitting up faster then she thought was humanly possible. His blank eyes were blinking fast, and he was tilting his head back and forth like he does when he’s trying to listen for something.
“Murdock” Jessica says
He doesn’t react. Shit.
“Hey, Matt” she tries again, snapping her fingers in front of his face
Apparently that was a bad idea because before she knew what was happening, he had her arm twisted behind her back painfully. Goddamn ninja.
She twists out his grasp with little struggle because of whatever state he seems to be in, and grabs his arms. He freaks out, swinging at her with none of his usual accuracy before pressing his hand to the side of his head.
“I can’t see” he mumbles
Which, duh, he’s blind. But he keeps repeating it to himself hysterically.
He snaps his fingers in front of his ears once, twice, three times, before lowering his hand almost……sadly? Jessica doesn’t know, but those damn puppy dog eyes of his make her want to hit something.
Matt stumbles backwards and the couch hits the back of his knees, making him fall onto it with a thud. He smacks his hand on it loudly, but doesn’t react to the noise. With his hearing that sound should’ve been equivalent to a gun shot.
But he hits it again and again. Before he has a chance to do it a third time she leaps forward and grabs his wrist
“What the hell are you doing!?”
He flinches from her touch but once again has no reaction to her voice. Can he……not hear her?
“Murdock, can you hear me?” She asks
No reaction.
“Shit” she mutters to herself
How does she tell him he’s safe when he can’t see or hear her?
She finally moves her grip from his wrist to his hand, guiding it to her face slowly. Then she grabs his other hand and does the same. He traces her features with his fingers surprisingly gently while she grabs his arm softly. She writes the words it’s okay and you’re safe onto his shoulder and is relieved when he seems to relax a bit.
“Jessica?” He asks quietly, his gaze just to the left of her like it normally is
She nods, hoping he can feel it from where his hands are still framing her face. He seems to get it.
“Where are we?”
She traces home onto his shoulder.
“My house?” He clarifies
She nods again.
Matt takes his hands from her face, shaking his head a bit and bringing his fingers to his ears to snap them together. He recoils.
“Can you hear me now?” She asks
“Y-Ya I can hear again”
“Good” she says “Now you can tell me what the hell just happened”
Matt sighs brokenly, his sad puppy eyes coming back at full force. She wonders if he even knows he does it. He probably doesn’t.
“It was nothing” he mumbles “You can go now”
Jessica rolls her eyes again, but still moves to sit down by him on the couch.
“Matt, just tell me what happened”
“Why does it matter?” He asks
“Because you were temporarily deaf!”
He doesn’t seem to have a response to that. She doesn’t get why he won’t just tell her what’s going on. Leaning back on the couch, she crosses her arms stubbornly.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me”
Matt rubs his hand over his face, and she doesn’t mention how he’s shaking.
“It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just something that happens sometimes”
Jessica blinks
“This has happened before?”
“Ya, a few times” he shrugs “The first time was after I got shot in the head, but it went away and it didn’t happen again until after……you know”
Midland circle. Jesus Christ.
“Okay, I’m gonna ignore the whole you got shot in the head thing if you explain to me why the hell you haven’t told anyone about this”
Matt shrugs again, as if they were just talking about the weather or some shit
“All of my senses were messed up after…what happened……but it went away after a while again, so I didn’t think it was important”
“You didn’t think it was important?” She repeats “Wow you’re even more of an idiot than I thought”
Matt glares at her. Well, in her direction at least.
“Why do you care?”
“Look, I know that you’re tiny brain can’t comprehend that people care about your well being, but news flash, some people like it when you’re alive”
His lips quirk up into a smile
“You going soft on me Jones?”
Jessica snorts
“You wish Murdock” she retorts “But seriously, you need to be more careful”
“I make no promises” he says “And please don’t tell anyone else about this”
Honestly she wasn’t planning on it, but the fact that he doesn’t want her to sets them alarm bells off in her head.
“Why not?”
“It’s not important”
Jessica was about to fight him on that but she can see the tension in his shoulders, and the way his hands are still clenching the blanket so that his fingers don’t shake.
“Fine”
He breathes a sigh of relief
“Thank you”
“Whatever” she shrugs “You got any booze?”
“Ya” Matt laughs “Top cabinet in the kitchen, I think”
Jessica grabs the bottle of cheap whiskey and sits back down on the couch next to him, taking a swig of the drink and ignoring the way it burns down her throat. He makes a grab for it but she smacks his hand
“No way, you have a concussion”
He pouts, honest to god pouts. But Claire would kill her if she let him drink this. And that’s not the way she would prefer to die.
“I’m fine, it’s a mild one anyway” he argues
And those blank eyes are trying their hardest to meet hers. She takes a deep breath, prays that Claire won’t find out, and offers the bottle.
***
After about an hour of passing the whiskey back and forth, Matt falls asleep with his head against the couch. Jessica is about to get up and leave when a mess of brown hair lands on her shoulder. Just her luck. But she doesn’t have the heart to wake him considering she knows this is probably the only sleep he’s gonna get in the next few days.
So instead she settles deeper onto the couch. And if she wraps her arm around him as she’s falling asleep, well, then no one has to know.
***
Claire walks into Matt’s apartment with the spare key that he gave her and freezes dead in her tracks. Apparently Jessica did stay with him, because there they were on the couch. His head was laying on her shoulder and her head was atop his, an arm slung over his shoulders protectively.
She takes another picture and slowly backs out of the apartment.