Matt Murdock x reader imagines & one shots

Constants - Matthew Murdock

Trigger warning, mentions depression, please don't read if it reminds of things you worked so hard to forget.

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SECOND PERSON:

It was raining. There was a light steam rising from the hot pavement as it was hit by cold contrast. It had always been your favourite sensation, the delicate yet thundering droplets, the musty yet somehow refreshing scent, the entire concept was an oxymoron in itself. The comfort you felt from the sound was derived simply from the fact that it was a constant. The rain, no matter how you felt or where you were, was always the same. It was nice, to keep something consistent in your life through the tangles of thoughts riddling your mind.

You wondered how it was even possible to feel absolutely nothing and be in pain all at once. Pain didn't seem like the right word, but it was the only one that seemed to exist to you.
It seemed like an understatement, just a collection of letters, and yet, piece by piece, it had precisely removed every part of you that you didn't know you needed until it was gone. This wasn't pain.

It was vivisection.

The dim glow of street lamps, combined with the pinks and blues of vibrant billboards were the only light in the quiet office; turning on the light was too much effort. You didn't have the heart to take in the brightness, didn't have the energy to even adjust your pupils to the harsh artificial yellowed white. Instead, you sat in your chair, alone, between the soft whirring of a plug-in fan and a tall, leafy plant. The quiet sirens sang softly, somewhere in the distance, and the low murmur of conversation was drowned out but the continuous haze shrouding your senses. You could hear perfectly fine, and yet it still felt as though your ears were full of water, the same way you felt as though your eyes couldn't focus, but every time you looked around, you could see perfectly fine, the blur was in your mind, as though there were a distance between the what you could see and your ability to take in the image.

You brought your knees up to your chest, resting your chin on top and gazing unseeingly at the small space where the wall met the floor. You didn't even hear the soft click of the door latch as Matthew stepped into the office. He said your name gently, carefully, caringly, as if he somehow knew you were too tired for anything louder. He had to say it a few times before you finally comprehended that he was speaking to you, your imagination was enslaved by the aches in your heart. You brought your knees back down, trying to muster up the lasts of your energy to act okay.

"Hi, Matty." It came out just above a whisper, exhaustion and tearful tones evident beneath the surface. You slowly went to stand, but he swiftly stepped over, placing one gentle arm around your shoulder and another holding your elbow.

"Hey, hey." He hushed, lovingly. "I thought you were quiet today, sweetheart, are you okay?"

You were new to the office, and you didn't really know Matt too well in terms of personal facts like his family history and general life, but he always seemed to know when you felt like you were drowning, and you had this unspoken connection composed of gentle smiles and lingering touches.

Today, however, he'd heard your heartbeat, and knew that something was instantly wrong. It was so slow beneath your chest it sounded as though it had to force each beat against the pressure of your rib cage. Your breathing too, seemed to take effort, like there was a weight pressing against your lungs and each breath was heavy and tiresome. He'd waited by the door after Karen and Foggy had left, but couldn't bring himself to leave you. The one scent he couldn't erase from his mind was the metallic, copper-like sting of what seemed awfully similar to blood. He knew that it wasn't somewhere visible, as Karen and Foggy would have mentioned it, and you hadn't brought up the topic of acquiring it, which left him one devastating conclusion.

As you tried to answer, you found that words seemed to evade your mouth, and instead you almost collapsed into Matts chest with how weak your legs were. You hadn't noticed how drained you felt until you'd tried to stand.

Matt held you securely into his chest, his large arms enveloped tightly around your body as if afraid to let your shaking figure go. He pressed a ghosting kiss into your hair as your hands fisted the material of his shirt, clinging to his warmth. A lone, cold tear seeped through his clothes to his skin like a singular shock of ice. And another, and another, until you were silently sobbing in his arms. Each pain-stricken whimper caused his grip to tighten and his jaw to grind as he fought to dilute the painful lump in his throat.

"Hey, hey," he whispered, shifting his hold around you. You moved closer, as if afraid he was going to let you go, in more ways than one. He tightened his grip once again in reassurance. "You want to come home with me tonight? I don't think you should be alone."

The gratitude you held for his immediate understanding of things you knew you couldn't say was enough to let you nod softly against his collar, muttering hushed thank you's.

He removed an arm from around you and lifted one side of his blazer for him to wrap around you as you nestled into the security of his side.
He placed his arm back around you and used the other to prop up an umbrella as you stepped slowly out into the cool rain. He muttered sweet comforting nothings like "just one more block, sweetheart." And "you're okay, I've got you."

Finally at the scuffed door to his apartment, he guided you inside and sunk into the sofa, momentarily lifting you to sit sideways in his lap, knees nestled against his chest as if you were trying to make yourself as small as possible. You focused on the soft metronome of his breathing and tried to sync yours with it. Every time your mind drifted to the dull ache in your heart, you brought it back to the constant of his breathing. He slowly traced his thumb over your knuckles as your hand moved to rest on the side of his neck, trying to further feel the rise and fall of his chest. His hand rested heavily above yours, yet somehow not constricting it.

You knew that you weren't going to wake up tomorrow with a brand new heart and a perfect mind, but this was a start.
More than a start.

This was Matthew.

In all his messy, closed off, sarcastic, protective glory. And he'd be damned if he was going to let anything hurt you, even if it happened to be yourself, because he wasn't going to force you to feel better. He was going to hold you, until you knew that no matter how much it hurt, he would always be there to keep you up until you could stand.

Because it was more than love. It was two minds, so deeply intertwined that they were the stars and the moon and every ghosting song in between. And that's was more than enough.