Daredevil: origins

Chapter ten: Elektra

A couple of days late, sorry. I had guests staying at my house and one of them was a very tiny baby!

Unconsciousness is a strange sensation.

It isn't quite sleeping for you never see it coming although it is nothing like being awake. Not only that, but, when you are blind, loss of vision plays no part in it. Consequently, as Matt Murdock woke up in a Hell's Kitchen apartment, he didn't realise that he had ever been asleep.

He lay there for a few moments, unsure of where he was. There was a soft surface beneath him and his head was propped on something made of the same material. The smell of fresh coffee was in the air and he could hear the hiss of a kettle. In the distance, police sirens blared. And, he could hear a heartbeat roughly five feet away from him.

Matt had the clues and the facts. Now, all he had to was link them up to create a whole. The police sirens were far away and lower down so he wasn't at ground level. The coffee and kettle made it clear that it was a place where someone ate. But, it couldn't be a restaurant as it was on a second story, at least. Therefore, Matt must have been in an apartment and what he was lying on was probably a couch. Therefore, the heartbeat he heard must have lived there. Case closed.

"Hello?" He said. His voice was dry as his throat was sore. His ribs throbbed with every breath.

"You're awake." Observed the heartbeat. It clearly belonged to a woman and it had a professional bite. She was trying to appear calm and, judging from her heartbeat's frequency, she was.

"Where am I?" Matt demanded, trying to sit up. His body howled in protest.

"You're in my apartment." She replied efficiently, no words wasted.

"How did I get here?" Matt asked, equally efficient.

"I found you on the roof. You were injured, badly. I brought you down here and patched you up."

Matt reached down to his stomach. His blacks had been removed, strewn across the floor, if his senses served him correctly. Plus, there were now bandages where the Owl had scratched him and a blanket preserved his modesty. Thankfully, she had not removed his mask.

"Thank you," he said, "for everything."

"Anyone would have done it, in my position."

"No, they wouldn't have."

The woman smiled. Matt couldn't see it but knew from the tone of her next statement. Gone was the professionalism, replaced by a warmth he was yet to hear from her: "I'm Linda."

"I'm Matt," he replied. There was no point concealing this part of his identity. There were a hundred guys called Matt that fitted his size and build in Hell's Kitchen, let alone New York. He might as well have told her he was white.

"I know." She replied.

"What?" He was shocked to the core. How could she have possibly gleaned this from his appearance? Unless...

"You removed my mask!" He yelled, outraged.

"Better than that, I sent pictures of you to a guy I know. He ran them through a police database. You're Matt Murdock, you've got your own little law firm. No criminal record. But do you want to know the real kicker?"

"**** you!" Matt spat. His usual collectiveness was in tatters, replaced by fury. He just couldn't get his head around this woman! She horrendously violated his privacy but also put a blanket over him to keep him from being embarrassed.