It is only after his fury has burned itself through down into a familiar angry grief that he finds time to listen to the tapes that that monster made.
They arrive a couple of days after that bastard that the media had dubbed the Bullseye Killer went smirking and gleeful into police custody. Addressed to him in a stuffed A4 envelope, a braille sticker slicked onto the front under where the address scrawled in ballpoint is imprinted.
just a little present, matty-boy, for the curious. seemed the least i could do. till next time. ta-ta for now! , it reads. When Matt had first brushed his fingertips over it, still crackling with nerves worn from the ambient chaos of the hospital, from the justice and vengeance he hasn’t yet been granted , he’d hurled the envelope into a draw and sworn never to give that man the satisfaction.
A week on, tired and frustrated and grieving for things lost because he wasn’t fast enough, and he’s never been as strong as he’s wanted to be.
knew you couldn’t resist, mocks the sticker pressed onto the top flap.
--
The first side of the tape is rambling.
“I want to get inside your head, Matty-boy, ” sighs the giddy voice of Lester Benjamin. I want to know what made you. So many secrets and I know them all but this one. I want to understand you, you see. What made you. I want to be the only one who can understand you, because only I can appreciate how special you are. Blessed by the angels, Devil-man, and I know that I’m the one that’s destined to bring you down. It’ll be beautiful, poetic almost, like a shot fired dead centre. You’ll have heard about all the others in the news I presume, but that was just for practice. Building up to my piece de resistance. I’m going to make you my masterpiece, Matty-boy, and it’s all for you.”
The next side is nothing short of horrific.
--
A hissing whistle, and a dull click.
“… I thought I should make these tapes for you to hear afterwards. At first, I thought it was so I could document my process, have an audio record of how the experiments are progressing chronologically, et-cet-erah, et-cet-erah, but I was mulling it through the ol’ brainpan and thought – Lester, buddy, how will the Devil be able to truly appreciate your work if he doesn’t understand how hard you’ve been pushing yourself to bring him down? How many hours researching the formula that blinded little Matty Murdock, how many times you’ve tried and tried and tried to perfect its effects. How many sleepless nights that devil o’ yours has caused, thinking about all of this, and about him, and the look on his face when he realises what you’ve done.”
The tape jumps, as though it’s been poorly edited.
A dragging sound, catching on the ground. Heavy and being pulled away. Lester comes back up close to the microphone.
“That was Michelle. Bye Michelle! She’s what scientists would call a “failed experiment” but hey-ho, I’m getting there. I’ll figure it out. I just need a few more test subjects, do a little bit of tweaking and then I’ll… well, I won’t spoil it. But you’ll thank me, Matty-boy. You’ll *love* it when you find out, I just know. It’ll be perfect.”
--
Matt listens to the brutal documentation of five failed experiments. Five people all grabbed off the street, from alleyways and parks, dog-walking and coming back from shift work. Five people he didn’t even know were gone until the police found them.
When Matt hears snatches of their voices, the words hard to make out on the snap and crackle wear of the tape, they are terrified. Begging.
Every time, the formula that monster is working on is not quite right, and they all die shrieking, the world drawn dark in front of them, a burning agony on their face before a bullet cuts them off.
“Oh well, back to the drawing board, ey Hornhead?” Lester muses calmly after the third victim gargles blood, the breath rattling in their throat for a moment and then making no sound at all.
Matt pauses the tape, and exhales harshly through his nose. Tugging his headphones out, rubbing his palms over the fabric on his upper legs to ground himself. He feels guilty, and sick, and the swig of cold coffee he just took is bitter and unpleasant on his tongue.
A small haired dog three floors up pads across the floor and laps at a nearly empty water bowl. A phone alarm goes off, the vibrate left on, and someone swears.
In Matt’s room, there is a pained whine forced through gritted teeth, muffled into the pillow. A heartbeat thunders, and then legs kick out restlessly, the body jerking with another broken startled sound as a siren whoops its way past.
Matt makes an effort to stand up as quietly as possible to head towards the noise. He won’t be listening to any more tonight.
--
Three tapes in, and he listens to that bastard’s savage breakthrough.
“Oh god, it’s all dark, ” a new voice cries. Her name is Tamika. Karen had noticed a missing person’s poster stuck in the window of her family’s convenience store a couple of days before the police had connected her to the other four missing people. Foggy had turned the news up as they’d sat at Josie’s one night after work.
“You know anything about this?” he’d asked in a low voice, meaning did Daredevil know anything, and Matt had shook his head and tried not to think of the people he was failing.
“Not a thing,” he’d said, and Foggy had put a hand on his shoulder and murmured, “You can’t save them all buddy”.
“Shhh, sweetie, it’s ok.” Lester is further away from the microphone than usual. “Just tell me, what’s it like?”
“It hurts,” Tamika groans.
“I know, I know. But tell me, help me out here. What do you feel?”
His voice is awed and Matt is disgusted.
“What have you..?,” Tamika sobs. “Oh, it’s… what the fuck have you done to me, I can feel.. there’s just so much....”
“Perfect,” Lester hums content before he puts a bullet in her brain. Matt supposes it’s a blessing, in some ways.
--
“Why are you listening to that sick freak?” Karen whispers to him one day when she catches sight of the tape player on the coffee table. She’s slipped on a pair of slippers that shush over the flooring rather than the clack of her usual heels. Pocketed her thin, jangly bracelet. She’s brought a bag with her that she sets down on the kitchen counter, unpacking rice and oats and pasta, the most flavourless foods she could find, and begins putting them away in Matt’s cupboards.
Matt’s in the kitchen area, stirring a sedative into a glass of purified water and making sure he doesn’t clatter the teaspoon against the sides. Listening to the noises coming from out of his room, the frightened jolting every time a car passes, a stifled sound uttered low in the throat as two blocks across, two siblings start screaming at each other about their late mother’s inheritance money.
There are two men who shouldn’t be able to hear it, but do, and it’s not the blessing either of them wanted it to be.
“I need to know what he did,” he says shortly, and wants her to drop it.
One of the siblings slams the door behind them as they leave. There is a gasp from Matt’s room.
It’s getting worse. Getting stronger.
“Look, I get it, ok?” Karen carries on. “But he’s done this to hurt you. They’ve locked that bastard away and I hope he rots in Rykers, but he’s sent you this because he knows you’ll listen. He wants you to listen, to get some sort of sick pleasure out of it, and you’re doing exactly what he wants…”
“Karen,” Matt says sharply, before he stops, swallows.
She’s right. Of course she is. The tapes, left behind for his ears only. Like some sort of warped validation of the things that man did.
He hates that he’s playing right into his hands.
“I need to know,” he repeats, his voice barely a whisper.
--
“Oh boy oh boy oh boy, have I got a treat today! We’re finally here, you and me bud. Now the fun can really begin. Because you know, I was thinking. We both want the same thing, don’t we Matty-boy. Deep deep down, under all that aggression and pushing people away, we want someone who understands us. Who knows exactly where we’re coming from, why we do what we do. ‘Cept nobody does, do they? Even your friends, they don’t get how special you are, they don’t get it at all, do they Matty? They try, you’ve even let a few of them in on your secrets, but they don’t understand you, not like I do. Because what you need is an opposite. Someone to struggle against, a battle of wills against equals, and that’s what I’ll become. All this, it’s been for you. To learn about you, so that when we eventually meet, it’ll be perfect. But you’ve got all these ties, boyo. You won’t come after me, not properly, you won’t commit to our war until you lose all that. Until I show you how made for each other we can be, until I take something of yours and ruin it and return it, a gift to you, Matty-boy, just for you to show you all I’ve done in your name.”
The microphone being jostled.
“So with that in mind, let’s give our newcomer to the show a rousing welcome. We’ve been spending an awful lot of time together recently, it’s only right I should introduce you.”
There is a cracking whine of feedback and corrupted tape, and Matt flinches as he listens.
“C’mon honey, don’t be shy. We’re all friends here. Tell your name to the microphone.”
A broken cry and quiet sniffling.
“F-F-Franklin.”
“And why don’t you tell your ol’ pal Hornhead for posterity Fuh-fuh-fuh-Franklin, what a gift I’ve given you.”
2nd Fill: out of kilter 1/2
They arrive a couple of days after that bastard that the media had dubbed the Bullseye Killer went smirking and gleeful into police custody. Addressed to him in a stuffed A4 envelope, a braille sticker slicked onto the front under where the address scrawled in ballpoint is imprinted.
just a little present, matty-boy, for the curious. seemed the least i could do. till next time. ta-ta for now! , it reads. When Matt had first brushed his fingertips over it, still crackling with nerves worn from the ambient chaos of the hospital, from the justice and vengeance he hasn’t yet been granted , he’d hurled the envelope into a draw and sworn never to give that man the satisfaction.
A week on, tired and frustrated and grieving for things lost because he wasn’t fast enough, and he’s never been as strong as he’s wanted to be.
knew you couldn’t resist, mocks the sticker pressed onto the top flap.
--
The first side of the tape is rambling.
“I want to get inside your head, Matty-boy, ” sighs the giddy voice of Lester Benjamin. I want to know what made you. So many secrets and I know them all but this one. I want to understand you, you see. What made you. I want to be the only one who can understand you, because only I can appreciate how special you are. Blessed by the angels, Devil-man, and I know that I’m the one that’s destined to bring you down. It’ll be beautiful, poetic almost, like a shot fired dead centre. You’ll have heard about all the others in the news I presume, but that was just for practice. Building up to my piece de resistance. I’m going to make you my masterpiece, Matty-boy, and it’s all for you.”
The next side is nothing short of horrific.
--
A hissing whistle, and a dull click.
“… I thought I should make these tapes for you to hear afterwards. At first, I thought it was so I could document my process, have an audio record of how the experiments are progressing chronologically, et-cet-erah, et-cet-erah, but I was mulling it through the ol’ brainpan and thought – Lester, buddy, how will the Devil be able to truly appreciate your work if he doesn’t understand how hard you’ve been pushing yourself to bring him down? How many hours researching the formula that blinded little Matty Murdock, how many times you’ve tried and tried and tried to perfect its effects. How many sleepless nights that devil o’ yours has caused, thinking about all of this, and about him, and the look on his face when he realises what you’ve done.”
The tape jumps, as though it’s been poorly edited.
A dragging sound, catching on the ground. Heavy and being pulled away. Lester comes back up close to the microphone.
“That was Michelle. Bye Michelle! She’s what scientists would call a “failed experiment” but hey-ho, I’m getting there. I’ll figure it out. I just need a few more test subjects, do a little bit of tweaking and then I’ll… well, I won’t spoil it. But you’ll thank me, Matty-boy. You’ll *love* it when you find out, I just know. It’ll be perfect.”
--
Matt listens to the brutal documentation of five failed experiments. Five people all grabbed off the street, from alleyways and parks, dog-walking and coming back from shift work. Five people he didn’t even know were gone until the police found them.
When Matt hears snatches of their voices, the words hard to make out on the snap and crackle wear of the tape, they are terrified. Begging.
Every time, the formula that monster is working on is not quite right, and they all die shrieking, the world drawn dark in front of them, a burning agony on their face before a bullet cuts them off.
“Oh well, back to the drawing board, ey Hornhead?” Lester muses calmly after the third victim gargles blood, the breath rattling in their throat for a moment and then making no sound at all.
Matt pauses the tape, and exhales harshly through his nose. Tugging his headphones out, rubbing his palms over the fabric on his upper legs to ground himself. He feels guilty, and sick, and the swig of cold coffee he just took is bitter and unpleasant on his tongue.
A small haired dog three floors up pads across the floor and laps at a nearly empty water bowl. A phone alarm goes off, the vibrate left on, and someone swears.
In Matt’s room, there is a pained whine forced through gritted teeth, muffled into the pillow. A heartbeat thunders, and then legs kick out restlessly, the body jerking with another broken startled sound as a siren whoops its way past.
Matt makes an effort to stand up as quietly as possible to head towards the noise. He won’t be listening to any more tonight.
--
Three tapes in, and he listens to that bastard’s savage breakthrough.
“Oh god, it’s all dark, ” a new voice cries. Her name is Tamika. Karen had noticed a missing person’s poster stuck in the window of her family’s convenience store a couple of days before the police had connected her to the other four missing people. Foggy had turned the news up as they’d sat at Josie’s one night after work.
“You know anything about this?” he’d asked in a low voice, meaning did Daredevil know anything, and Matt had shook his head and tried not to think of the people he was failing.
“Not a thing,” he’d said, and Foggy had put a hand on his shoulder and murmured, “You can’t save them all buddy”.
“Shhh, sweetie, it’s ok.” Lester is further away from the microphone than usual. “Just tell me, what’s it like?”
“It hurts,” Tamika groans.
“I know, I know. But tell me, help me out here. What do you feel?”
His voice is awed and Matt is disgusted.
“What have you..?,” Tamika sobs. “Oh, it’s… what the fuck have you done to me, I can feel.. there’s just so much....”
“Perfect,” Lester hums content before he puts a bullet in her brain. Matt supposes it’s a blessing, in some ways.
--
“Why are you listening to that sick freak?” Karen whispers to him one day when she catches sight of the tape player on the coffee table. She’s slipped on a pair of slippers that shush over the flooring rather than the clack of her usual heels. Pocketed her thin, jangly bracelet. She’s brought a bag with her that she sets down on the kitchen counter, unpacking rice and oats and pasta, the most flavourless foods she could find, and begins putting them away in Matt’s cupboards.
Matt’s in the kitchen area, stirring a sedative into a glass of purified water and making sure he doesn’t clatter the teaspoon against the sides. Listening to the noises coming from out of his room, the frightened jolting every time a car passes, a stifled sound uttered low in the throat as two blocks across, two siblings start screaming at each other about their late mother’s inheritance money.
There are two men who shouldn’t be able to hear it, but do, and it’s not the blessing either of them wanted it to be.
“I need to know what he did,” he says shortly, and wants her to drop it.
One of the siblings slams the door behind them as they leave. There is a gasp from Matt’s room.
It’s getting worse. Getting stronger.
“Look, I get it, ok?” Karen carries on. “But he’s done this to hurt you. They’ve locked that bastard away and I hope he rots in Rykers, but he’s sent you this because he knows you’ll listen. He wants you to listen, to get some sort of sick pleasure out of it, and you’re doing exactly what he wants…”
“Karen,” Matt says sharply, before he stops, swallows.
She’s right. Of course she is. The tapes, left behind for his ears only. Like some sort of warped validation of the things that man did.
He hates that he’s playing right into his hands.
“I need to know,” he repeats, his voice barely a whisper.
--
“Oh boy oh boy oh boy, have I got a treat today! We’re finally here, you and me bud. Now the fun can really begin. Because you know, I was thinking. We both want the same thing, don’t we Matty-boy. Deep deep down, under all that aggression and pushing people away, we want someone who understands us. Who knows exactly where we’re coming from, why we do what we do. ‘Cept nobody does, do they? Even your friends, they don’t get how special you are, they don’t get it at all, do they Matty? They try, you’ve even let a few of them in on your secrets, but they don’t understand you, not like I do. Because what you need is an opposite. Someone to struggle against, a battle of wills against equals, and that’s what I’ll become. All this, it’s been for you. To learn about you, so that when we eventually meet, it’ll be perfect. But you’ve got all these ties, boyo. You won’t come after me, not properly, you won’t commit to our war until you lose all that. Until I show you how made for each other we can be, until I take something of yours and ruin it and return it, a gift to you, Matty-boy, just for you to show you all I’ve done in your name.”
The microphone being jostled.
“So with that in mind, let’s give our newcomer to the show a rousing welcome. We’ve been spending an awful lot of time together recently, it’s only right I should introduce you.”
There is a cracking whine of feedback and corrupted tape, and Matt flinches as he listens.
“C’mon honey, don’t be shy. We’re all friends here. Tell your name to the microphone.”
A broken cry and quiet sniffling.
“F-F-Franklin.”
“And why don’t you tell your ol’ pal Hornhead for posterity Fuh-fuh-fuh-Franklin, what a gift I’ve given you.”
The voice cracks into a low sobbing.
--