Matt Murdock Shorts

If I never Knew You

WARNINGs for this chapter: self-harm, cutting, depression. This was a request, but now I can't find the comment, so I have no idea who requested it. But here it is if you're still out there.
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You've had problems with depression since you were a teenager. Being young, feeling alone, and not knowing another way out, you started cutting. At first, it went by unnoticed. It was on your thighs, so you didn't wear shorts. Then a suicide attempt followed. After the hospital released you, your parents made sure you saw a psychiatrist and got the medication you needed.

Now, you wonder if things would've been different if you had someone like Matt in your life then. You know better than anyone that being with someone doesn't cure depression but still. Matt struggles with the same depression you do- not to mention his anxiety and inferiority complex. It's something that you help each other with, even if it's just holding one another on your bad days, making sure the other doesn't do something they'll regret later. In the two years you've been with Matt, he's learned about the scars on your thighs. When he stumbled across them, he heard your breath hitch, your heart speed up, and carefully asked what they were from. You told him about your past and he simply held you close, placing a tender kiss to your temple. All he said was I'm glad you're here. You started sobbing.

So, that's it. That's your history of depression and your history in relation to your relationship with Matt. That brings us to now. It's a bad day. Your pills are increasing your anxiety, you had a hysterical, pathetic, panic attack at work, complete with gasping, heaving crying which half your coworkers saw. All over some stupid mistake. So, fun. You hate taking pills anyway, so you decide to stop before something like that happens again. You'll talk to your doctor about it at your next appointment. In the meantime, you'll manage. Right?

Wrong. By the next week, you start having suicidal thoughts again. You've always been passé about the topic; joking about wanting to die- even with your history. As you're driving home from work one day, your mind wanders, and you think I wouldn't even care if I died. It takes you back; you haven't felt like that for a while- at least not to this extent. Still, you can't stop your mind from wandering from there. What if you did kill yourself? What is there to live for anyway? Yes, you love Matt, your family, and friends, of course. But it's so hard to feel even that. You're numb; your emotions are only a fading memory. You have the knowledge that you love people, more than the actual feeling. It's not a good way to live. Anxiety isn't better though; just... different.

When you do get home, you get your cat and your laptop and sit on the sofa, trying to get your mind off your self-destructive thoughts. It doesn't seem to work, though. As you sit there, you find yourself missing the rush it gave you when you used to cut. The pain reminded you that you were alive when you were feeling numb. For years now, on your meds, you looked back on those dark moments with relief that you were able to get the help you needed. Now you don't even care. You don't care that you met Matt; you don't care that for a while, you were doing well; you don't care that you love the city and your friends here. Nothing that makes your heart light up, is making you feel anything. So you go to get your box cutter you used at your old job. You go sit on the tile floor and extend the blade, inspecting the silver shine of it. It's as you're pressing it into your thigh, that you hear the front door open. In your haste to cover up your relapse, you drop the box cutter and it clatters to the ground. "Fuck." You breathe out.

You hear Matt call out your name, and rush to you. You know he'll find you, so you curl into yourself and wait for Matt to come in and start chastising you.

"Y/n? What's going on?"

You look up at his furrowed brows and parted lips. "I..." you trail off, not thinking of a convincing lie.