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How about mercy?
Foggy’s voice echoing in his head punctuates every footstep, every drop of blood that hits the ground as Matt drags Poindexter’s half-spent body through the streets of New York, finding solace in the oh-so familiar shadows.
Guilt. For the blood left behind in the church, for every breath that Dex takes to remind Matt that he’s alive, here, alive, while Foggy stays dead.
He tells himself that Foggy would’ve gone back. Tells himself that the feeling of Dex’s hand closing around his own was merely an obligation to his best friend’s memory, nothing more. Matt can’t take Poindexter back to the apartment—Karen won’t understand. How could she, when Matt barely understands it himself?
Second chances, redemption.
So the Devil drags Bullseye to safety because it’s what Foggy would’ve done. Vengeance is not Matt’s to decide.
By some cruel twist of fate, Matt takes them to Josie’s roof. He can hear the wincing laugh-exhale Dex lets out as he realises where they are, slumping back against the wall.
“Is this my penance?” He chokes, spitting blood to the floor. Matt hears the hesitation in his voice before he speaks again. “For Foggy?”
I’m ready for judgement.
It would be so easy. The city is ablaze with revolution, the scent of blood and gunpowder in the air, shouts and gunshots carrying on the wind. What’s one more victim to their futile crusade?
Life, however, is not—has never been—his to take. “I told you I’d save you,” he spits back.
Dex pulls himself up; Matt can hear the agonising ache and tear of his tendons and bones as he does, blood spilling from him like wine.
We are who we are.
Matt can still hear the beat of Dex’s heart at the church, his voice spitting at him, telling him to leave. In some twisted way, it’s almost like Dex was trying to save him. Foggy would’ve given him a second chance, Matt tries to tell himself. A second chance; not a third, or fourth, or fifth. One chance for redemption.
“I used to love this city,” Dex mutters, breathing heavily. He’s dying. Life ebbing away, no doubt ready for another devil to come and drag him away.
There’s nothing to say.
“I never asked for you to save me, Murdock.”
It’s almost funny. Even from outside the church, Matt could still feel Dex inside, the weakening pulse of his heart, while he lingered willing himself to leave him there. He can still feel the warmth of his hand as he pulled him from condemnation. As if Dex knew he couldn’t walk away.
Matt shakes his head. “You’ve still got a lot of judgement to face here, you piece of shit.”
“Your judgement?” Almost taunting, relentless even as he bleeds out above a bar in Hell’s Kitchen. “Foggy, Vanessa, what does it matter? You’re just as condemned as I am, Daredevil.”
It’s nearly enough to break him. Matt forces Dex against the wall, forearm on his throat; their faces barely centimetres apart, Dex’s breath rasping as he tries to force air into his lungs. “I told you,” Matt snarls, warning. “You don’t get to say his name.”
Poindexter laughs, an agonising contraction of muscle, spitting flecks of blood onto Matt’s face. He leans forward, their closeness now stifling. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Foggy, Matt thinks decidedly, wouldn’t have done this.
But if it comes down to killing Dex, or this, well—
He kisses him.
It’s not romantic, or gentle; it’s not a way he’s ever kissed anyone before.
He kisses him because he can’t reach inside of Dex’s chest and tear his heart out with his bare hands. In the same way that Daredevil tore apart Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock tears into Benjamin Poindexter, grief and guilt and sin in the way their lips touch and their teeth clash.
Dex’s skin is damp with sweat, and it takes a moment for Matt to realise that he’s kissing him back. Oh.
There is no warmth pulsing through their veins, only desperation as Matt’s arm finally leaves Dex’s throat, entwining fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. Dex’s body aches and he groans, biting down into Matt’s lip hard enough to draw blood, as if he’s staking a claim on the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
The dichotomy of hatred and love,
born again through blood, desperation and resistance, a grief that cuts to the bone and tastes like the blood of Foggy’s a murderer on his tongue.
It was on this roof, under the darkness, that Bullseye stripped Matt Murdock of everything he was before, and it is under the stars on this rooftop that Matt finds that glimpse of before; before Foggy, before his life was turned upside down, blood mingling in enemies’ mouths and lips bruising under the judgement of God.
Matt pulls away. Silence hangs heavy in the air. He feels Dex’s movement before the fingers touch his face, almost caressing as he wipes blood from Matt’s lips. And then—hesitant, his fingers touch the edge of Matt’s mask.
It’s an unspoken question, marked by fear and trepidation. Let me see you.
Matt acquiesces, pushing the mask off with his own hand, wondering if this has gone too far, if the slight thrill of desire beneath the hatred is something he should be running from, rather than leaning into.
Seeking comfort in.
This time, it’s Dex who kisses him, the gore and pain a now fading afterthought as they further consume one another.
Mercy. It’s a funny thing.
It’s something Matt hasn’t felt since Elektra, baring your soul to someone who understands, whose pain is your own. Passion burning from the throes of hatred, the culmination of a year’s grief and guilt.
Is this Dex’s second chance, or is it his own?
Briefly, Matt wonders if it’ll go any further. If either of them would stop it if it did.
Dex falters against Matt’s lips, his heartbeat weakening.
“Hey,” Matt murmurs, breaking the perfectly-curated silence they’ve been hiding in, “you’re not dying on me.”
“Sure… feels like it,” Dex pants, his breath washing over Matt’s face. “This your idea of saving me, Murdock?”
Matt doesn’t respond and he pulls away, the realisation of what he’s done heavy on his shoulders. Dex feels it, sees his hesitation as he goes to speak and changes his mind, watches him pull his mask back on—a facade, charade, playing the good Catholic, the good vigilante, the martyr.
“This was a mistake.”
Dex can see it—remorse, tangled with feelings that neither of them want to acknowledge. Matt wears the guilt like penance, but it isn’t meant for God; it’s for someone who’s gone.
But Dex doesn’t believe in absolution. He knows how this always ends. Watching Matt’s guard go back up, he’s glad the man can’t see his face—even if it felt like, for a moment, that Matt Murdock was the first person to ever truly see him. The irony isn’t lost on him.
Tension ebbs away, replaced with a modicum of regret on Matt’s face and the distance between them multiplying tenfold every moment their lips spend apart.
The blood in his mouth tastes coppery, Matt’s blood. He wonders if this is the last thing he’ll feel, bruised lips and the aftermath of toeing the thin line between hatred and passion. Here, condemned once again on a rooftop where he deserves to die. The stars watch over them both, Matt’s angled shoulders as he turns away, Dex’s fading consciousness as he gazes up at the sky.
“Do you ever wish you could see the stars?” It’s whispered, broken and gasping for air, but Matt hears him. Of course he does.
Silhouetted against the night sky, faint blue and red lights of police cars below flicker across Matt’s face as he turns back to Dex. “Yeah,” he replies.
Dex is close to the edge now, passing the veil as blood leaks through his fingers. He’s surprised he has any left to bleed, surprised that his body is still desperately trying to hold on to a life he gave up on a long time ago.
“I can… see the- the North Star,” he manages.
Matt doesn’t respond, disinterest stinging in a way that reminds Dex of Julie. And yet, the familiarity makes him feel alive.
Maybe, just maybe, Benjamin Poindexter has found something to live for after all. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of Matt Murdock’s flesh is desire, hatred and vengeance; compounding sins that blur the carefully constructed lines they have always stayed well behind.
When Matt drags him up, he doesn’t protest. Doesn’t ask him to let him die—and maybe it’s because he’s barely conscious, but maybe it’s something else. Something neither of them want to face.
Matt Murdock still believes in mercy. In fighting the good fight, in second chances.
There’s no escaping it. He wonders if Matt understands what he meant, now.
Romans 7:19 – For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.