Karedevil

Glass

Karen strains to listen, but only hears noise. She opens her eyes wide and only sees chaos, but it barely matters. She knows that there's someone in the room with her. She smells blood, mold, and body odor, and Foggy is out of reach. She backs up to her headboard and grabs her bag from the bedside table, ready to pull out her pepper spray or her gun, whichever she finds first. The gun. A hand grabs her wrist, and she tries to throw a punch with her other arm. Even before she misses, she can feel the air pulling away as her target ducks, leans into her, and lifts her over his shoulder in one motion. She shoves her feet hard against the wall as she rises and knocks him back onto her bed, landing on top of him and scrambling over him to get away, shoving a knee in his nose on the way off.

Another hand grabs her and she screams, but two quick taps on her shoulder tell her it's just Foggy. He turns her around gently toward the intruder. The man comes closer and Foggy holds her shoulder a little tighter. He doesn't trust him. She finds that somehow, she does. Everything about him is terrifying, but she's drawn to him like a moth, and it's terrifying how disarming he is. She moves back.

All she sees are hundreds of millions of moving lights. All she hears is a cacophony of sound, which is already turning to a headache. She takes a deep breath to calm herself, and she catches something familiar. She reaches out tentatively, and the man takes her hand in both of his and holds it to his heart. The gesture is unmistakable. She buries her face in his shoulder and wraps him in her arms, feeling the vibration of his chest as he speaks and fighting to hold her composure. She can't see him or tell what he's saying to her, but she has him back in her arms, alive, and she holds him tight.

It's not just Matt she's holding. It's the man in the mask. She can feel it now in the balance of his stance, the tension in his muscles, and the slow, powerful rhythm of his heart. She could smell the he was lethal even before he entered the room. When they met, he was hiding behind a cane, shades, a suit, and a gentle voice, and she felt completely safe. With all that gone, she sees him for who he is. He doesn't just become Daredevil every night. He's Daredevil all the time, and he hides it during the day.

"I couldn't see you," she says. She feels him answering. "I—I should have trusted you to come back," she interrupts. "I should have waited. I tried, but you were gone so long, and I was terrified that I would never see you again. And now..." He's in her arms, and she can't see anything. "I did something reckless." He speaks again, and she can't stand not knowing what he's saying. "I—I can't hear you. I can't hear. I can't see anymore." She motions at Foggy to take over. He can actually hold a conversation.

Foggy is dealing with some mixed emotions. He knows from past experience that Matt can dodge a stapler, but he had to throw something, and it turns out his friend is completely defenseless against tossed salad. It made more of a mess than an impact, though. While Karen was reaching for her gun, Foggy was waving the hospital paperwork and shouting, "YOU NEARLY KILLED HER." Matt moved past him to stop her from drawing a weapon, and Foggy was too late to explain, "You can't just grab her. She can't see y—ouch! That's gotta hurt." He feels Matt earned his bloody nose and more, and that he has a lot to answer for. More importantly, though, Matt, despite looking and smelling a lot worse for wear, is alive to do the answering, and on top of that, Karen recognizes him. She stepped back when he got close, like she could tell he was there. Maybe it's starting to come back a little. This is the first glimmer of hope he's seen for recovery.

Matt always comes back all saintly and pathetic, bruised and broken and sometimes half dead, but Foggy isn't very sympathetic this time. Matt does it to himself. Maybe he can handle it, but this time he took it so far that Karen couldn't, so Foggy doesn't pity him for his bloody knuckles or sunken cheeks. "While you were off saving the world," he explains, "Karen had a very serious stroke. She was in the hospital for two weeks."