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There's a painting that looks like Matt's world.No. Going back.There's a woman at the side of a dangerous man.No. Going back again. A man killed himself over a name. Yes. That's a good place to start.---A man killed himself over a name, and Matt is curled up on the ground, desesperatly clutching Kikazaru.Matt remember what it was, before, when Father forfade him to say his name, and Matt was too terrified to disobey, and Matt wonders what kind of things this man did, to inspire such fear that a man would kill himself rather than risk having him hear about his disobedience. What kind of monster Matt is up against. (Matt still can't smell cooking meat without remembering Lola's horrified heartbeat, without the mass of scar tissue on his side, the one that hurts when it's cold or raining, throbbing in pain.)(The taste of meat triggers Matt for a reason.)(He hates the smell for another.)---So. Fisk.Fisk works with the Ranshakov brothers. This fact alone would be enough to make him Matt's enemy. The Ranshakov brothers sell people. They sell people, like objects, like toys, like things someone can use and abuse for their sick entertainment. (Matty~, Loly~, Daddy is bored, come play with me~)Matt has feelings about this kind of things. ---Matt is kneeling in a basement with a dying human trafficker, and Hell's Kitchen is burning, and the police force is turning against itself, and Fisks voice is crackling out of a talkie walkie. "You and I have a lot in common. I want to save this city, like you."Matt thinks about women screaming in containers, and himself banging against the bars. About Hell's Kitchen burning, and Nelly dying in the fire. About Mrs Cardenas, fighting to keep her home. "We are nothing alike."And he means it.---Fisk is talking on a TV screen, promising wonders and giving misery, and Matt doesn't care.(Foggy and Karen do, but they think Fisk is lying and gloating, standing on City Hall with his croonies like he's already won. Matt doesn't care, because he knows Fisk isn't really gloating, isn't even really lying, since he believes in his own tales.)What Matt does care about is the woman who stood by his side.(Fisk worked with the Ranshakov, worked with men who sold women, and only turned against them when they outlived their usefulness, and what does it tell about how he sees people, about how he will treat her?)---Her name is Vanessa Marianna, and she owns an art gallery. (A public space, and a familiar one. He approaches her on her own ground so she won't feel threatened.)"Imagine a sea of tonal reds," she says. "The color of anger... of rage... but also the color of the heart... of love... hope."She's talking about a painting, but it sounds like Matt's world. (Matt's red isn't a red color as much as it is a red feeling. Anger and rage and love and hope... It sounds right.)(Vanessa isn't hurt. There's no grinding of bones under her skin, no smell of blood under her clothes, no fear in her heartbeat when Fisk enters the room. She will be okay.)---Matt goes to kill Fisk, to slain the monster, to slaughter the would-be God.Nobu burns, and Nelly screams in Matt's head.---And then Matt wins, both as Murdock and as the Devil, Matt defeats Fisk, vanquishes the monster, triumph over the would-be God.---They talk about Fisk, later, Karen and Foggy and him, about what they think and what they know. Karen tells them about Fisk's mother, about Fisk's abusive father, about how a child became a killer. (Matt thinks about Lola, about Father's death, which was right, about Nelly's, so very wrong and unforgivable, about the fire that burned everything down.)(Matt thinks about Fisk, about the Ranshakovs death, which was right, and Mrs Cardenas's, so very wrong and unforgivable, about bombs setting Hell's Kitchen on fire.)(Matt think about Dad's brain oozing from his skull, about the warden bloody and beaten and alive on the basement floor, about Nobu dying in the fire.)---And they won, they defeated Fisk, vanquished the monster, triumphed over the would-be God. But there's always sirens somewhere in Hell's Kitchen,always screams, always people getting killed, or raped, or mugged, and Fisk's fall isn't enough.At night, Matt puts on a mask and goes to do the Devil work.
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Rabbit in a Snowstorm
A Sea of Tonal Red