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His katana was dripping blood, the remains of the latest carnage strewn about below, far away from the penthouse bathed in the night. The evening had been fun, the usual, sick business that filled his days. Blackmailing, threats, and yes, murder.
His activities had been going smoothly, his position as Kingpin no longer new, seeping its strenght continuously from the deepest parts of the city. Fools could dream to come and confront him, and a dream it would remain, on a backdrop of gold, its metallic pang still reaching him, cradling him in sweetness of a job well done.
He rarely had nights like these anymore, where he could unleash the Devil, for real, not like the smooth talk that terrified everyone surrounding the world in a spiderweb of false steps.
A drop of blood landed to the floor, the wetness reverberating in his ears, and he smiled towards the window. God he had missed this.
Pain had been the only thing Matt could remember, then the darkness came.
And then, then came the sounds. All at once, all impossible, all too much. He didn't understand, his head felt like it couldn't contain itself anymore, there was everything, everything all at once. Pleople crying, children screaming, beeps, rumbling of machines, cars speeding by, birds, trees, airplanes, his clothes, his covers scratching his arms like knives, the bandages over his head and eyes.
His eyes, his eyes hurt so much, so much.
Someone touched him, and he could only scream.
In the midst of Hell, a voice rose. "Matty, Matty, It's dad, dad is here. Dad is here, shhh shhhh"
He wasn't breathing, he couldn't do anything, the pressure was too much.
When he came to be, dad was still there by his side. He could hear him, louder and steadier than all the other noises. He clung to him with all his senses. He wouldn't let go, he couln't.
Then came the nurses, and doctors, and visit and after visit, back and forth from home, the only place that didn't feel like it had exploded.
Then mean kids that he could constantly hear, even when he did everything not to.
A man walking with a stick came by one day, telling Matt that they were the same, that he could help. The training started, the sounds and the smells and the textures were not a constant exploding mass in his mind anymore. He could sleep at night.
He was doing some things dad didn't approve of, but the man Stick said it was for his own protection, that the world was cruel to them.
Stick wasn't nice, though.
Then a shot took up the whole night, and Matt was alone. Forever.
The training got worse. Stick didn't hold back, no matter how many times he pleaded, no matter how many times he cried his soul raw- he only got hit in return.
The light never came back. The sound of his heart never came back.
Columbia was… everything, in all the bad, the annoying, the gross, and the good ways.
Matt felt like he could breathe, like the parts inside of him, that had been him until then, didn't exist, and maybe never had. Like maybe the training and the abuse and all the things he now had words for were a horrible, horrible dream. And still, just a dream.
He had a dorm room, he had a roommate, he had colleagues, he had a friend.
The Devil that had tore him apart from the inside since the accident was not there, replaced by slippery plasticky glasses, itchy sweaters, chilly nights out and cheap drinks surrounded by laugh and people messing around and Foggy falling all over him, both too drunk to walk in a straight line.
Matt was happy, Matt was normal, Matt was just a kid, he was real.
After he had slaughtered half of the Hand in their fight against Stick, they took him in. To a place that didn’t sound nor smell like home. Unknown, imperscrutable.
He thought he would be done for, that the hell he had lived in until now was finally about to end. He was wrong.
If Stick's training was hellish, this was the deepest parts of the real, cruel thing. He could not resist, he had no power, and he knew it.
The only thing he could do was hide, hide his child body deep inside, with his dreams and his nights awake and his broken hearth. He didn't cry anymore. He did as he was told.
But it wasn't enough, it was never enough, until one day he could finally, finally fall asleep.
The Devil emerged then, just like they wanted, and he was the best of all.
Soon the Hand had no more power over him, soon he was on equal ground.
They proposed he went to college. He accepted. Promised to come back.
The Hand was no more, their perfect soldier coming back just like they wanted, just with a different agenda in mind. Often, people drunk on power don't expect the shields that were made to do the dirty work in their stead would turn out to be the weapons that undid them.
After the Hand there was Wilson Fisk, someone who had no illusion of controlling Matt, letting him stand as a true equal, letting him be a new, free hand of his,
He made a mistake, thinking that keeping Matt close wouldn't end with Fisk down.
You could only smirk at the irony of it all. Regardless of who was around Matt and how they treated him, his destiny was to prevail, and he always will.
In the screams of the carnage, the gunshots, the blade singing in fountains of blood all around him, a scrappy kid's voice, nothing but a college student, rang out:
"Why are you doing this?"
Matt laughed in delight at another man falling. Soon, that Stacy kid would fall his prey.
His blade sang the last verse of his song of the night as he finished cleaning it, hiding it back into the concealed sheath.
He flexed his shoulders, listened to the luxurious cracks of his body as he stretched, fisting his hands.
The city was pulsing and writhing and living all around him, police cars and shouts and people milling about.
A father breathed. He had come home.
Soon, there would be no way to escape Matt's inexorable, ever closing hand.
In the distance, far, far away, a small child was crying.