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~baptism
he cannot see, cannot breath. he's panicking and everything is too close, too much. he can hear the old man he pushed gasping, safe but shaky.
he cannot see.
(he doesn't remember the touch of holy water to his brow, but he imagines it may have been something like this.)
he is screaming.
then his father is there, calloused hands cradling his head, lifting it from the spilled chemicals, wiping at his face where they had splashed up. he is crying, harder than matt, and matt wants to reach up, to comfort him, but his hands are dirty, covered with chemicals and who knows what else.
so he stays still, watches the darkness, begs for his father, screams for help.
(because he is scared, terrified. alone despite the hands holding him up, holding him close.)
there is an ambulance, a crowd, and an overturned truck and more chemicals splashing to the ground. there is a pebble beneath his shoulder and tears on his cheeks cutting through the chemicals. there is an empty void in front of him, calling for him in god's voice.
(holy water closes over his head, and in its grace, he is made free of humanity's sin.)
~penance
matt dreams of his father often. always in the ring, breathing hard but on his feet, proud and familiar. he always wears his gloves, and matt can always hear their leather creaking. there is always a moment of blooming joy in matt's chest, sharp and bright enough to make him smile wide.
then, there is always a gunshot, then empty darkness. then blood on his hands and his hands on a gunshot wound.
then, there is always his palms shaking against his father's slack face as he begs for him to come back.
(matt, no matter how hard he wishes to forget, wakes up and remembers.)
he always seeks out father lantom afterwards, the closest thing to a father he has left, and sets his jaw, prays for clarity, for relief.
he tells matt that remembering is healthy, that when the hurt fades, it'll bring him hope.
(matt trusts him unequivocally.)
yet, it's a hard concept to reconcile with the phantom itch of blood under his nails and the guilt burrowed in his soul, but matt manages. replaces all those bad memories haunting his dreams with memories of stitching his dad up, of carefully learning braille and strong, warm hugs.
~eucharist
its something like church, its ridged regularity, the strict schedule.
he wakes from a restless sleep, then goes to school. before going back home, or to what passes as it, he searches out stick and learns everything school and the nuns won't teach him, can't teach him.
how to throw a punch. how to map his opponent. how to predict their next move.
stick’s lessons are rough, taxing. matt ends them on the floor more often than not, breathing ragged and aching with bruises. the pain narrows the gaping window of his senses and he welcomes the respite.
(it's all he has.)
and stick becomes a sort of pillar in matt's life, something familiar and true and grounding despite the bruises he leaves on matt's arms, on his soul.
sometimes the nuns ask him if he's ok, when the bruises are too dark or matt's sleeves are too short to hide them.
sometimes, in the afternoons, all matt can taste is his own blood. and its sits there, metallic and cloying as he fights, filling his mouth as the body and blood of christ does every sunday.
(a daily ablution of his weakness, a reaffirmation of something close to faith.)
~confirmation
matthew murdock knows loss better than he knows himself.
but when stick leaves, creased old face drawn with disapproval, fingers trailing over the folded ice cream wrapper bracelet, something in matt shatters for a third time.
(he doesn't deserve this. he knows that. but maybe, since it keeps happening—)
he goes to confession, sits separated from father lantom by an intricately carved wooden screen that gives him a false sense of anonymity. matt tells him between sobs that he doesn't know what he's supposed to repent for, what he has to do to appease god and his relentless desire to take everyone matt loves away.
father lantom tells him it doesn't work like that, that whatever this is, it isn't god's wrath, that matt is innocent, that no sin of matt's could make god hate him.
(seconds later, matt slips into father lantom’s side of the confessional and makes him swear to never leave.)
there, with tears in his eyes and stick shoved into some dark corner of his brain and his pinky curled around father lantom's, matt realizes that where stick had insisted love is forged to weaken you, faith is stitched into your soul to hold you together.
~matrimony
it isn't marriage, but it's close enough that it might as well be.
because foggy's breath smells of alcohol and greasy food and his voice is loud and uninhibited. the bar roars around them and matt is laughing, glowing, hands on foggy as he presses closer to that familiar warmth.
because he knows foggy in the depths of his soul, can find him without thinking about it, can trust him without fear.
music crashes through his chest and thunders from his lips as he fumbles through songs with foggy and they laugh until they cry, arms around each other and ecstatic.
(this is his future.)
there is no kiss or deep, tolling ring of the church bell. there is no family, all the nelson's crowded close and brilliant. there is no spoken vow, echoing off the rooms arched ceiling.
but, there is this, shrouded in shadow and noise of the bar.
the sound of a pen scratching against a napkin. the stench of cheap alcohol and stale sweat and ketchup soaked french fries. the warmth of foggy's hand taking his and pressing something soft into his palm.
there is laughter and softness and letters beneath his fingers pulsing with hope.
~holy orders
matt can hear the city suffering. its pulse thunders under his skin, thrumming through his soul. it is so loud, so insistent, he cannot sleep, drowning in its pleas.
when he turns over, shuffles across smooth sheets and curls further into himself, more noise floods in.
there is a woman begging for help two blocks away. a gun cocking at the edge of his senses. the sobs of a child, echoing in a storage container.
(he finds something to use as a mask and yanks it on, frantic.)
(it isn't the first time, but it does feel different, new, like a revelation.)
when he kneels down in front of the child, peels the mask off with bloody knuckles, something in his soul cracks with sudden clarity.
the kid's racing heart slows incrementally when she takes his hand, and matt lets himself smile, sad and gentle, as he leads her out of the dark, grimy storage container and into the meager light of the moon.
“you're ok,” he promises, and ignores that the words he speaks are what he'd wished for as a child, “you're safe now. i won't let anything happen to you.”
(this, fighting the darkness, is his purpose.)
~last rights
he cannot see, cannot breath. his soul aches and his bones feel brittle under his skin and he is sure that he is dead.
every moment before this one is a dull, aching, pulsing blankness, and every moment to come is intangible, false, a mockery of his mortality.
matt smiles for death and opens his palms in welcoming acceptance.
(this is his fate.)
distantly, he is almost aware of another scent under the acrid stench if blood and a familiar, ringing, noise, but nothing discernible, as if he is stuck underwater.
something warm presses to his forehead, nearly rough beneath the slide of oil. it is the only thing real in the floundering darkness encompassing him.
another stroke across his brow, perpendicular to the last.
(he bears the cross on his forehead like a promise, prays it won't fade and that he will finally be at rest.)
something trails, gentle and warm, down his face, but the oil remains untouched, burning there as a goodbye, laced with stillness and comfort.
matthew murdock had never been afraid to die, and he is still unafraid when that hand leaves his face and takes with it any sliver of life he had left.
+
(matthew murdock, with oil glistening on his face and blood heavy in his lungs, is born again, flooded and glowing with grace and fleeting peace.)