Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At this rate he was going to clear out his savings replacing Claire’s couch, if people didn’t stop bleeding on it. Admittedly, he was usually the one bleeding on it, but it was the principle of the thing. Especially since the current culprit was a leader of the Russian mob.

Matt still wasn’t sure if bringing the man here was a smart decision. Strike that, he knew it wasn’t a smart decision. But between that, abandoning him in an alley, and taking him home, he wasn’t spoiled for choice. He needed a safe, private location, and there weren’t exactly lots of those floating around. Claire was furious, having the Russian in her apartment, but they’d clearly known about the location already. She had to admit that it made sense to keep Matt’s apartment a secret - it was their last safe haven.

Speaking of which - Matt had been zoned out, listening for approaching trouble, but he shook himself out of it when Claire sighed, straightening up and stripping off her rubber gloves.

“I think that’s as good as he’s gonna get,” she shrugged. “He probably won’t bleed to death.” Matt didn’t need enhanced hearing to pick up on the silent unfortunately.

“Thank you, Claire. I owe you one.”

“You owe me lots,” she pointed out, but there wasn’t much heat behind it. “Just, make sure he’s useful, alright?”

“I will. Listen, you should stay at my place for now. I’ll stay here to keep an eye on him.”

“I am still here, you know.” They both ignored the disgruntled mutter.

Claire sighed. “Just when a girl thinks she can move back in…. And you do realize you’re not a doctor, right? What if he crashes?”

“I’ll call you.” If nothing else, Vladimir had shown he could take a beating, which was something he could relate to. Besides, he didn’t fool himself thinking Claire would sleep well with a Russian mobster on the other side of a wall. He didn’t blame her. For all that he seemed to have decided to cooperate, Matt didn’t trust him.

She shrugged in reply - Vladimir certainly wasn’t on her list of favorite people - and vanished into her room to pack a bag. Matt waited silently, listening to the Russian drift in and out of consciousness, until she emerged. She glanced at him with a “Be careful,” and then slipped quietly out the door. He listened until he heard her catch a cab and recite his address, then finally heaved a sigh.

Vladimir answered with a bark of sound that could almost pass as a laugh. “Even heroes get tired, eh?” Matt ignored the heavy sarcasm.

“Tell me everything you know about Fisk.”

The other man shifted fractionally on the couch with a frustrated sound. “I gave you names, what more is there?”

“Where does he meet these people? Where is his base of operations? What’s his endgame? Who-”

“I don’t know,” Vladimir snarled, though it broke off into a pained gasp as he tried to sit up. Collapsing back against the cushions, he spat, “I have told you! He is paranoid. Nearly all our contact was through Wesley. If you are going to keep asking the same questions-” He tried to get up again, but Matt flattened him back down with a hand on his chest.

“Don’t you ever know when to quit?” he snapped.

“What is that phrase?” Vladimir snarked back. “Something about a pot and a kettle?”

Matt clenched his jaw, took a deep breath through his nose, and forced himself to take a step back. “Do you want to take down Fisk, or not?”

“Of course I do!” he snapped. “Anatoly is dead. My brother is dead. But that does not mean I have the answers you are looking for!”

He wasn’t lying, so Matt took another breath. “Fine. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Get some rest.”

Turning, he stalked out of the living room, not pausing when the Russian called after him, “Where are you going?”

“To take a shower.” He let the bathroom door thud shut behind him with finality, though the flimsy piece of wood wouldn’t do much to prevent him from hearing the man, if he decided to keep talking. Or if he decided to try and leave, which is what he was really listening for. He needn’t have worried, though - after muttering to himself in Russian for a few moments, he was quiet, and by the time Matt had cleaned up his injuries and stepped under the spray, his breathing had leveled off into the rasp of sleep.

Chapter Text

The smell of cooking bacon lured Vlad out of a drugged sleep, light-headed and muddled. Based on the absence of the pleasantly fuzzy feeling from last night, leaving his various aches and pains in sharp relief, he was betting the pain meds had run their course. He managed to lift his head off the couch, the siren smell chasing away the remnants of dizziness and alerting him to the fact that he was starving.

Before he even had a chance to finish wondering how he was going to drag his sorry ass over to wherever the bacon was, the masked man appeared over him. Incongruously, said mask was paired with a suit, albeit missing the jacket. Vlad scowled at him on principle. “Are you dressing up now, to go fight crime?”

“Do you want breakfast or not?” he replied, ignoring the question.

Vlad’s stomach was yowling an adamant yes, but he was suspicious of a trick - likely if he said anything along the lines of agreement, he’d get a ‘too bad’ in response. Instead he sneered up at the man. “Depends, do you cook as badly as you fight?”

The man tilted his head a fraction, and Vlad received the distinct impression that he was rolling his eyes under the mask. “Considering that I’m sure they can hear your stomach growling all the way in Brooklyn, I don’t think you’re in a position to complain. Come on.” He got an arm around Vlad’s back and helped him sit up, then unceremoniously hoisted him onto his feet. At which Vlad swore extensively in Russian, the masked man waiting patiently for him to finish before all but carrying him into the kitchen and depositing him in a chair at the table.

Panting from the pain and busy willing it to subside back to a dull throb, Vlad nearly missed the plate of bacon, eggs, and toast that was set in front of him. When his gaze finally zeroed in on it, the pain was forgotten in the face of practically inhaling the food. Part of him wondered if maybe he should be concerned about poison, but from what he’d seen last night, the man really did think himself a hero. Poisoning would be beneath him, and besides, in Vlad’s current state there were plenty of easier ways to kill him.

He finally looked up, distracted from the food, when a glass of water and a small pill were placed in front of him. “Another pain med,” the masked man said, sitting down across from him with his own plate.

Vlad cocked an eyebrow at him, even as he swallowed the pill. “You are going to eat with the mask on?” He assumed the man could see through it to some degree, but it still seemed strange, though he knew it was intended to protect his ‘secret superhero identity.’

The man stilled, but didn’t look up at him. “What are you going to do if you see my face? Give a description to Fisk? Figure out my identity to blackmail me, or worse? Go to the media?”

He snorted. “No. If you did not kill Anatoly, you are not my problem. Fisk is.” As for the media, please. Who did this fool think he was dealing with?

“I was sabotaging your human trafficking operation for weeks,” the man pointed out, food still untouched.

Vlad shrugged. “Business. Old business, at that. Fisk is the one who betrayed us. If you want to continue being a pain in his ass, I will not stop you.”

The man sat motionless for a minute, then shrugged as well, pulled the mask off, and started in on his breakfast. Vlad blinked, because for all of that, he hadn’t expected him to actually take it off. “Are you stupid?” he demanded. “Not so long ago I was trying to kill you, and now you just take what I say as truth?”

He shrugged again. “You weren’t lying.”

Vlad narrowed his eyes, because he hadn’t been, but how could the man be so sure about that? He opened his mouth to push for more info, but was sidetracked. The man’s eyes remained fixed, focused and unseeing, even as he navigated easily around his plate. Vlad straightened up. “You are blind.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yep.”

“You are blind, and yet you run around in a mask, beating up criminals and singlehandedly invading their strongholds.”

“Yep.”

Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingertips.

When the man got up to clear the plates, Vlad eyed him speculatively, mind whirling. It was all speculation, still, but some things were starting to make sense.

“I may be blind, but I can feel you staring at me,” the man pointed out, his back to Vlad as he rinsed the dishes in the sink.

Vlad ignored him in favor of asking, “How do you do it?”

Unfortunately, he was ignored in turn, as the man dried his hands. “I have to get to work. You want to shower, before I go?”

“No,” Vlad lied, partly as a test and partly because he didn’t want to be treated like an invalid, even if that’s exactly what he was.

“Too bad, you reek,” the man informed him. Vlad muttered an oath to himself in Russian, because that hadn’t gone at all like he’d planned, but didn’t protest as the man pulled his arm over his shoulder and hoisted him upright.

If the walk to the bathroom wasn’t precisely fun, undressing was even worse. The other man had, thankfully, left him to suffer that indignity alone. Stepping under the hot water was a whole new level of torture, and he cursed expansively until the searing sting had settled into a consistent burn. Lifting his arms and twisting around to scrub wasn’t really in the cards at the moment, but it was still a relief to rinse away the remnants of blood and grime.

When he finally mustered the energy to step out of the shower, carefully toweling off the water, he eyed his filthy, torn clothes in disgust. He was still deciding whether to put them back on or just walk around buck-ass naked (he wasn’t self-conscious and his host was blind, anyway, so what did it fucking matter?) when a quick knock rapped at the door. A second later and it opened a crack, a bundle of fabric shoved through. “Clean clothes for you,” the man on the other side of the door said.

“Thanks,” he said, grudging, as he took the bundle.

The hand withdrew, but not without a parting, “Leave your shirt off. We should change your bandages before I go.”

Vlad grunted his assent, and began the process of getting the borrowed jeans on. They were a little long, but given he saw a day of dozing on the couch in his near future, it probably wouldn’t matter much.

Exhausted just from this small adventure, Vlad opened the door regretfully considering the walk down the hall, only to find the recently-unmasked man waiting like he’d been summoned with a bell. Wiped as he was, he couldn’t resist making a sarcastic crack about the excellent service, which was duly ignored.

He was parked on the couch while the man played at being a doctor, carefully pulling off and replacing the old bandages, wiping away dried blood and checking the wounds with featherlight fingers that Vlad could barely feel. He was silent until until he reached the bullet wound on Vlad’s side, at which he made a disgruntled sound in his throat. “Pulled a stitch on this one, hang on,” he said, reaching for the suture kit.

“Just wait a fucking minute, the blind man is going to be poking a needle through my skin?” If his voice went up an octave, he didn’t think anyone could blame him.

The man gave him an unimpressed look, and said, “Hold still.”

Vlad watched with suspicion, but the man’s hands were perfectly steady, the stitch neat and quick. He narrowed his eyes, adding another note on his mental list of speculation as the man packed up the first aid kit.

“I’ve gotta get to work,” the man said, picking up his suit jacket from the back of a chair. “Try not to do even more damage to yourself while I’m gone.”

“Me?” Vlad asked indignantly. “Most of this is your fault!”

The man ignored him - Vlad was beginning to see a pattern, here - pulling on his jacket, settling a pair of glasses on his nose. He disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing with a bottle of water and a handful of snacks, which he dumped on the coffee table. “I’ll be back tonight. Then we go after Fisk.”

“As if it will be that simple,” Vlad muttered, but the man was already out the door.

Chapter Text

He spent his day working one of their few normal cases (a young man charged with selling drugs to an undercover cop), researching anything and everything related to Fisk, reassuring Claire that the Russian was under control, and wondering if the Russian was actually under control. Vladimir had been truthful when he said he had nothing personal against him, but that didn’t mean Matt trusted him. At the moment he was too injured to run off, given that he had no where else to go - all the Russians’ safehouses had been compromised when Fisk declared war - but that could change within a couple days. At the moment, Matt was relying on Vladimir’s commitment to taking down Fisk to keep him around and compliant.

As he’d told Claire, he could be useful. If he remembered something, or if further questions arose down the line. Or if they went to trial. Matt was playing that one close to the chest, though. If nothing else, that would be a surefire way to scare the man off.

Finally, sick of worrying the topic like a dog with a bone, Matt firmly told himself to knock it off, shoved the thoughts to the back of his mind, and forced his attention onto their case. He, Foggy, and Karen wrapped up the afternoon with their plan of attack for the DeChristopher case - charging the cop with entrapment - and went their separate ways. Claire was at work, so his apartment was quiet when he swung by to pick up a few more things before heading to check on their resident criminal.

His nerves got progressively worse as he neared Claire’s apartment, the worst possible scenarios playing out in his mind, until he was close enough to pick up a heartbeat. He exhaled in relief, though he made sure his expression was neutral by the time he let himself in. Vladimir was passed out on the couch, though he stirred at the sound of the door.

“The hero returns,” he muttered. It made an effort at derision, but it sounded more muddled and sleepy than anything else. More clearly, he mocked, “How was your day? Did you save any kittens from trees? Or maybe help an old lady with her groceries?”

“Certainly more productive than yours,” Matt shot back, hanging up his jacket. “Did you do anything today besides sleep?” He scoffed the question, but listened carefully to the answer, distractedly pulling off his shoes.

Vladimir snorted, hauling himself painfully into a sitting position. “Not really. Just sleeping and thinking. I tried to watch television, but you Americans watch some weird shit,” he added, disgust evident in his tone. There was something odd in his voice when he mentioned ‘thinking’, but it was all true, so Matt relaxed a fraction.

“I wouldn’t know,” he deadpanned instead. “I don’t exactly watch much TV.” Without giving the other man a chance to reply, he continued, “I hope you like thai,” and dropped the bag of take-out on the coffee table. The Russian huffed, but carefully shifted forward on the couch to start unpacking the bag, while Matt headed into the kitchen to collect plates, plus more water and another pain med.

Settling on the other end of the couch, Matt dumped some pad thai on his plate, picked up a pair of chopsticks, and set about talking around quick mouthfuls. “So there’s Owlsley, Nobu, and Gao. Tell me about them.”

He sighed, but launched into an explanation. Most of what he said was nothing new, but Matt figured that getting a read on how Fisk’s people work, their personalities, couldn’t hurt and might help.

When Vladimir wrapped up, he asked, “What about Nobu? You didn’t say much about him.”

He shook his head. “There is not much to say. He was always quiet, and when he did speak, it was always Japanese.”

Matt tilted his head, considering. “Yakuza, do you think? That’s the obvious choice.”

“I have told you already,” he replied irritably. “How the fuck should I - are you even tasting any of that?”

He blinked at the abrupt change of topic, then realized he’d been shoveling food in his mouth and doing his best to swallow without chewing. “Nope,” he shrugged, and scooped another bite into his mouth.

“If you do not like Thai food, why did you buy Thai food?” Vladimir asked slowly, spelling it out as if speaking to an idiot.

“It was on the way,” Matt answered reasonably. It was the truth, even if just a partial one. The bigger truth was that nearly all take-out tasted pretty gross if he left himself get distracted by it, so he tried not to think about it too much.

Vladimir muttered something in Russian, then continued, “So since I have told you all I know, more than once, now what is your plan?”

“Owlsley first, like you said,” he decided. “Getting ahold of the records is the best bet right now. Hopefully they can shed some light on the entire operation.”

“You mean like I said yesterday?” Valdimir asked testily.

“Why should I trust you? You were trying to have me killed,” Matted pointed out.

“You were sticking your stupid, heroic nose where it does not belong!” he snapped back. They glared at each other for a moment, though in Matt’s case it was more like frowning in the right direction.

Finally Matt turned away to start packing up the leftovers. The Russian was quiet for a minute, then asked, “What about me? If I am supposed to be a prisoner, you have been doing a shit job of it.”

Matt lifted his eyebrows as he stood to carry the dishes to the sink. “I didn’t think I needed to make you a prisoner, given we both know I’m your best bet for getting Fisk.”

“So I am supposed to do what, exactly?” Vladimir asked suspiciously.

Sighing, Matt went to get the first aid kit. “For now? Heal. Take your shirt off so I can change your bandages. And whether you realize it or not, you’re a valuable source of information, both about Fisk and the criminal activity in Hell’s Kitchen in general. Once you’re up for it, I could use your help bringing down Fisk.”

“But?” he pressed, hearing the unspoken condition.

“But we do it my way,” Matt said firmly, tearing off a fresh piece of medical tape. “No charging in half cocked, guns blazing. We do it the right way.”

“Your idea of a right way and my idea of a right way are two very different things,” the Russian muttered. He was quiet for minute, while Matt worked, and then nodded decisively. “Deal. Your way.”

Matt’s hands stilled. “Lie to me again, Vladimir, and I’ll make that gunshot wound seem like a scratch.”

“Now which of us is lying,” he sneered. But he added, grudgingly, “Fine. Your way, if you swear Fisk will pay. Happy?”

“Outstandingly,” he replied dryly. It had been the truth, that time, but he didn’t fool himself - if Vladimir could change his mind once, he could do it again. Still, with the Russian currently effectively bed-ridden, there was little point in worrying about it now. He finished checking on his wounds, then repacked the kit and rose to his feet.

“Looks like you’re in for another round of sleeping. I’m going to go see if I can track down Owlsley…” He trailed off, because as he’d spoken, he’d started stripping off his clothes as he headed toward his duffle. Which was unremarkable in and of itself, but the spike of attraction behind him certainly caught his attention. Vladimir was warm, his pulse quick. Someone was apparently feeling better.

Matt swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, and hoped his pace hadn’t stuttered as he strode over to grab his bag, shirt in hand. Trying not to look like he was hiding, he disappeared into Claire’s room to change into his outfit for the night. When he emerged, mask in place, Vladimir seemed to have gotten himself under control, but as soon as Matt was visible again, his temperature and heart rate spiked. Absolutely refusing to allow himself try to detect the scent of arousal, he muttered a quick, “Be back later,” and all but fled out the door.

He was pretty sure there was something written somewhere about heroes not having sex with criminals for personal gratification, but God damn.

Chapter Text

Unfortunately for them, Owlsley was playing hard to get. According to his office, he was on vacation. According to an increasingly irate vigilante, the ‘slimy bastard was hiding.’ He’d been going out every night for over a week, checking both Owelsey’s publicly known locations and the meeting spots Vlad had given him. The entire city knew the two of them had been seen together, so Vlad frankly wasn’t surprised that Fisk had made the assumption he would direct the masked man toward the accountant. After all, that’s precisely what he’d done.

Vlad, for his part, had spent the first few days shrugging off the vigilante’s - the bastard had yet to give him a name, even a fake one - frustration. He’d been hurting and high on pain meds most of the time, and though he’d admit it to no one, he spent most of the week sleeping. Now, he too was was starting to feel restless. The apartment was small, and now that he could walk without wanting to stab himself for a distraction from the pain, he spent a great deal of time prowling around it. The door was a temptation he resisted, and though he could justify to himself the reasons, none of them felt quite accurate.

The vigilante thought he was subtle, every evening as he walked through the door, finding some way to indirectly ask if Vlad had left the apartment that day. He was always able to answer with a truthful ‘no.’

But he was getting bored, stuck in the apartment and the routine they’d fallen into. The vigilante would stop by for breakfast and dinner, always going out in the mask at night. Usually he’d return to the apartment in the early hours of the morning, but sometimes he went to his own home, and only showed up in time for breakfast. Thankfully, Vlad had gotten good at making the most of his limited time with his primary source of entertainment.

On the top of his list was the project, ‘figure out the vigilante’s super powers.’ It had been glaringly obvious, once he made a point to look, that the man may be blind but he certainly wasn’t hindered by it. As far as Vlad could tell, his other senses seemed to compensate. From simply watching him, it appeared he had a heightened sense of hearing, taste, and smell. The downside was, the vigilante refused to confirm his suspicions one way or the other. He tended to ignore Vlad whenever he fished for information. On the bright side, Vlad took this as permission to test his theory in new and creative ways.

The second night they had dinner - Chinese take-out, this time - Vlad had abruptly chucked a pillow at the man’s head. He caught it without a flinch. And so it began. He rearranged furniture, hid things in weird places, everything he could think of. Nothing seemed to phase the man, and he always circumvented or fixed whatever Vlad had done, but never commented on it.

Vlad was 80% sure the man was reluctantly amused by all this, but it was hard to tell. He was getting better at picking up on his tells, but even then, he tended toward imperturbability. It seemed, however, to have become a game between them - Vlad knows about the senses, the vigilante pretends to be oblivious, and Vlad escalates, trying to get a reaction.

His best attempt to date was when the other man left for work one morning, and Vlad went to the window to watch him appear on the sidewalk, several stories below. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he would have missed the way he nearly tripped over his own feet when Vlad murmured, “You can still hear me, can you not?”

He’d smirked at the man when he came back that night, and been ignored as usual.

In many ways he was acting like a child on the playground pulling pigtails, but he couldn’t really be bothered by it. The vigilante, for all his tall, dark, and handsome facade, was easy to ruffle. Vlad had an epiphany early on, the first time the man started pulling off his shirt, that he was built. Of course, he’d realized this immediately from an objective perspective, but the aesthetic perspective hadn’t really kicked in until they weren’t trying to kill each other. Bottom line, the man was attractive. Even so, Vlad wouldn’t hit on him nearly as much as he did, if not for the way doing so put the vigilante completely off balance.

He only ever responded with his dry humor, but that was plenty of encouragement for Vlad. If nothing ever came of it, fine, it was reward enough to watch the other man go still for a beat, duck his head, make a wry comment back, then blatantly change the subject. If he got laid out of it…. Well, like he said, it was boring, stuck in the apartment.

Besides, it had the added benefit of knocking the vigilante out of his moods. He liked to sulk, and that had always been more of Anatoly’s inclination than Vlad’s. He had a focus, now - take down Fisk. And if that required patience, so be it. He could wait until his bones and muscles healed, and then he would make his move. His temper was familiar, comforting and easy to shrug on as an old coat. His rage could wait - Vlad knew it would resurface when he needed it. Until then, he satisfied himself with thinking about how Fisk’s head would look if he took a car door to it.

The vigilante, who had rebounded from the night of the explosions much more quickly, did not share this sentiment. He grew increasingly agitated as nights slid by without hide or hair of Owlsley, let alone Fisk. He disrupted a few smuggling operations, returning to the apartment mussed and bruised but otherwise sound, but without any new leads.

That changed almost two weeks after the explosions, when he stumbled back in at three in the morning, covered in blood and barely managing to stay upright. Jolted out of a light sleep, Vlad scrambled to his feet, fumbling in the darkness. When he managed to hit the light switch, it revealed the man kneeling beside the coffee table, hand clamped over a sluggishly bleeding wound on his left bicep.

Vlad grabbed the first aid kit and knelt beside him, yanking his hand away to bind a cloth tightly around the wound. “What happened?”

“I think,” he panted, “I found out what Nobu does.”

With a muttered, ‘Of course you did,’ in Russian, Vlad patted down his pockets until he found a phone, which he withdrew and flicked on. There was only one number in the call log, so he selected it and pressed the call button.

“What’re you-” Vlad ignored him, listening to the phone ring, until a woman’s bleary voice answered.

“Matt?”

Aha. “No. He needs you.”

“I do not,” Matt managed to gasp.

“Shut up,” Vlad told him. To Claire, he said, “I think he will live. But I also think you are better at stitches then I am.”

She sighed. “Right. Put him on for a minute, will you?”

He held the phone to Matt’s ear, who listened for a moment, then said, “Yeah, yeah it’s fine. See you soon.”

Vlad patched him up as best he could while waiting for the nurse, but it was made difficult by the fact that he seemed determined to keep his shirt on. “Are you suddenly shy because your girlfriend is coming over, Matt?” he drawled. Provoking him seemed to be the way to go, because he scowled at him, but shoved the mask off his head and began inching his way out of the shirt. When it finally came off, Vlad gave a low whistle at the impressive bruising already blooming across his torso. “If you did this two weeks ago, we could have matched,” he observed. His own bruises were finally faded to yellow and green.

“Better late than never, I guess,” Matt answered tightly.

“Are any of your ribs broken?” he asked, taking an alcohol wipe to a long scrape up his forearm.

“Just one.”

Vlad raised skeptical eyebrows at that. “And you are sure of this? It is not always easy to tell.”

“I’d hear them grinding, if they were.”

Filing away that piece of information for later, Vlad opened a new alcohol wipe and started on another abrasion. Matt had his angry face on, jaw clenched, indicative of how the night had gone. Aiming to distract him from his mood, Vlad offered slyly, “Look on the bright side, da? Even beat up, you are still pretty.”

He was unprepared for the slow, deliberate turn of his head toward him, and completely taken aback by the silky smooth question, “Tell me, do you always find roughed-up men especially attractive, or is it a trend reserved especially for me?”

He was saved from having to find a comeback by Claire letting herself into the apartment and immediately fussing over the vigilante, only a brief glare spared for Vlad. He sat back to let her work, eyeing Matt consideringly. He was willing to play along after all. So be it. In the words of the Americans, game on. He was in for a surprise if he thought he could out-bluff a Ranskahov.

Chapter Text

Okay, so responding to Vladimir’s flirting probably hadn’t been the best plan. Matt was going to blame the entire incident on the fact that he was dizzy from blood loss at the time and pretend it never happened. Which would have worked, except for the fact that the other man had apparently taken it as permission to make him a conquest. He kept finding excuses to touch Matt, to sit close to him. This would have been easy enough to ignore, if it were all just an act. Unfortunately, while Vladimir was clearly playing it up, the attraction was very much real.

Matt had figured he would get accustomed to the Russian’s response, since it occurred like clockwork. He figured that the faint elevation in temperature, in breathing and heart rate, would eventually stop spiking so dramatically on his radar. After all, that’s what usually happened when he had to work around people who found him physically attractive, because paying that much attention to things like that would quickly drive him mad. However, that didn’t appear to be the case, this time. Every time Vladimir’s attraction rose to the forefront, it sent a hot flush running over Matt’s skin.

It was a challenge to keep himself from getting painfully turned on during those times when want was pouring off the other man, but it was manageable. Or it had been, until he started making indications he was more than willing to follow through with his come-ons. Matt nearly fell off his chair the first time featherlight fingertips, rough with callouses, brushed across the back of his neck. He would deny in a court of law doing anything to encourage it, but he forced himself to admit, privately, that he certainly hadn’t put his foot down to end it.

Because damned if he was going to be the first one to crack. Vladimir was deliberately pushing his buttons, and he was determined not to let him know it was working. He thought he was doing pretty well - ignoring the casual touching, using liberal application of witty shut-downs in response to the flirting, pretending not to notice the speculative hunger the other man would watch him with. The latter would probably be more effective if Vladimir wasn’t hellbent on figuring out just what Matt could pick up on. If he nearly tripped over another goddamn pillow on the floor, because they were detectable but not easily so, he was going to take said pillow and beat the man with it.

Matt sighed, slipping silently through Claire’s building. Nearly everyone else in the vicinity was asleep, but it wasn’t that late, by his standards. He’d decided to look into whatever Nobu may have been involved in, but was thinking it might be time to return his focus to Owlsley. Even if the man himself couldn’t be found, it was possible someone in his office could be threatened into sharing the files.

Mulling this over, Matt let himself into the apartment, and promptly stopped dead. Vladimir rolled to his feet, as he always did when Matt returned, except this time he wasn’t wearing any clothes. As Matt struggled to both process this information and ignore the part of his hindbrain that was adamantly telling him to go push him back onto the couch and have his way with him, the man asked, a smirk evident in his tone, “Any luck?”

“Not really,” Matt managed, finally remembering to close the door and using the movement to break out of his frozen stance. “Got a new lead, but I doubt it’s going to play out.”

“A shame,” Vladimir answered, casually wandering closer, silently daring him to say something about it.

“Uh huh,” Matt agreed nonsensically, moving in the opposite direction under the pretense of getting some water, still trying to decide how to handle this new development. On one hand, if he told the man to get dressed, he’d ask how Matt knew. On the other, he was certain Vladimir knew that he knew, so if he didn’t call him on it, it’d be a sign of… something. Cowardice? Matt wasn’t sure of much, except for the fact that he was in a lose-lose situation, which was probably exactly what the Russian intended.

He followed Matt into the kitchen, the silent absence of rustling clothes and the soft pad of bare feet glaringly obvious to Matt’s ears. Trying not to focus on it, he filled a glass of water at the sink, but it was made difficult by the fact that Vladimir crowded close enough behind him that even someone without his senses could feel the heat emanating off his skin. His heart rate was up, but it wasn’t an agitated sound - bastard thought this was hilarious. Matt’s was up for an entirely different reason.

He turned around, raising an eyebrow hidden by the mask as he asked, “Did you need something?”

The other man had refused to back off even an inch when Matt turned, and answered cheekily, “No.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and asked casually, “So you just figured you’d walk around naked for the hell of it?”

Vladimir shrugged. “Why not? You cannot see, so what does it matter,” he pointed out innocently.

“Claire might disagree,” Matt said dryly. “I’m going to have to disinfect her couch.”

He snorted derisively. “As if she will still want it anyway, now that we have both bled all over it.”

Silence fell between them for a moment, Matt keenly aware of the long expanse of warm, bared skin just inches away. Finally he asked, “What are you doing, Vladimir?”

“How did you know I did not have clothes on?” he challenged in reply.

Matt scowled at him. “Because I couldn’t hear any cloth when you moved, and there’s less of a barrier around your body heat. Your turn. What are you doing?”

There was a pause, and then Vladimir asked, ignoring the question, “You are that sensitive, that you feel body heat from across a room?” Before Matt could even think of a response, a deft hand untucked his shirt and slid up under it, palm against his waist. The muscle fluttered under the touch, and Matt exhaled sharply through his nose.

“Vladimir,” he started, but the other man cut him off.

“I guessed you were sensitive to touch,” he continued casually, thumb circling idly against Matt’s ribs. He stood rigid, half refusing to yield and move away, half entranced by the pad of the thumb against his skin. “There was one day, when you looked many times at your shirt like it had offended your mother. I looked at it later. Cheap cotton, where the others are all silk. I thought, maybe you are just a snob, but you flinch when rough materials catch you by surprise.” His free hand came up, and lightly tugged the mask off Matt’s head.

“Vlad,” he tried a second time, but the Russian ignored him.

“I do not think, though, that all touch is immediately painful to you. But heightened, da?” The hand abruptly left Matt’s side and dropped onto the tight muscle of his shoulder, squeezing firmly, and his knees just about gave out, eyes pressing shut. That and the faint sound that escaped the back of his throat were apparently all the encouragement Vlad needed, because he stepped even closer, bodies brushing ever so lightly. “When was the last time you had sex with someone who knows?” he murmured, kneading at the muscle. “Someone who knows just how to make it so good for you?”

That got through to him, and Matt jerked his traitorous body away from the haze of heat and arousal clouding the space between them. “We can’t do this,” he rasped, trying to get his pounding pulse under control, to focus on anything except that fact that they were both outrageously turned on.

“Why not?” Vlad asked reasonably, crossing his arms over his chest. “We both know we want to.” He approached again, backing Matt up against the fridge and reaching out to skate his fingertips down his belly and across the very evident bulge at the front of his jeans. Matt shuddered involuntarily, even as he batted the hand away and slipped past the other man, putting some space between them.

“You worked for Fisk,” he snapped.

Vlad’s tone sharpened. “I did what was necessary. And I am helping take him down, am I not?”

“Yeah, for revenge,” Matt shot back. “It’s not like you care about all the people he’s hurt! Or the people you hurt!” The anger was hot and familiar, far easier to deal with than his body’s dumb ideas of attraction, so he latched onto it.

“You do not know anything about my life, about what I have done or this world that you have gotten yourself into,” Vlad snarled, stalking toward him, game of seduction forgotten. “You think the world is black and white, but it is not! And you are going to get the both of us killed, if you try to take down Fisk while refusing to accept that the entire fucking thing is gray!”

He was shouting and in his face by the end of it, and Matt’s blood was thrumming with adrenaline as he hissed back, “How is more death going to solve anything? There will always be another, and another. The system has to change!”

Vladimir scoffed. “Is that what you are doing? Changing the system? And how is that working so far? You know what I think? You are afraid. You are afraid that you do not have the balls to kill a man. You are afraid of me, because you let me live and now here I am, telling you what you do not want to hear. Because you know I am right, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.” He poked Matt hard in the chest with an index finger. “You are even afraid to fuck me, because if you enjoy sex with a man like me, what does that make you?” he sneered.

Matt’s lip curled up in disdain. “I am not afraid of you.”

A hand curled and fisted in the front of his shirt, voice low in challenge. “Prove it.”

Chapter Text

Vladimir was sick of hiding, sick of pretending. Sick of holing up in some stranger’s apartment, sick of being patient. Most of all, he was sick of pulling his punches, sick of watching the vigilante skirt around him and all the issues he represented, as if he could ignore them all and they’d magically go away.

So he threw down a gauntlet. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping that Matt would kiss him to shut him up, but the right hook across his face was honestly more on brand. Vlad staggered under the blow, ears ringing, but managed to dodge the follow-up punch. He growled, annoyed, and landed a quick two hit to his gut, aiming a kick at his knee to drop him, but Matt twisted out of the way, grabbing him, and they went down in a cursing tangle.

Vlad was a brawler, and a good one at that - he could take hits and just keep coming, he could bull his way through any number of punks, break knees and noses with a well placed blow. But the vigilante was a fucking ninja, and Vlad was rapidly remembering that he didn’t have much hope when it came to whatever kung fu garbage the man could break out. Even with Matt’s recently broken rib, it was only a matter of moments and a handful of scuffling before he got Vlad into some sort of arm-bar and levered him flat against the floor, which, ouch.

“Fucking-! Fine, fine, knock it off!” He slapped the floor with his free hand, and above him, Matt went still, though notably didn’t release the hold.

“Did you just… tap out?” he asked, somewhere between dubious and perplexed.

“Obviously,” Vlad growled into the floorboards. “You know you are supposed to let go when someone taps out, yes?”

“This isn’t a game, Vladimir,” Matt snapped, and Vlad frowned.

“What, did you think I was really trying to hurt you? Do I look stupid? No, do not answer that. First of all, you punched me, you asshole. Second, I saw you take down an entire room of armed men. If I wanted to hurt you, Daredevil, I would have the God given sense to use a gun, not my fists.”

More silence. His shoulder was really starting to burn, but he resisted the urge to try to break the hold, because Matt was thinking so hard you could practically hear the gears turn. Abruptly, the hold released, and there was a thump beside him. Vlad sat up, only to frown at the sight of Matt sitting on the floor next to him, a hand over his face. The beginnings of a spectacular black eye beginning to peek out behind his fingers where Vlad had clocked him with an elbow. Vlad elected to ignore him, picking himself up off the floor, and said ruefully, “You were right, I should have kept my clothes on. I think I have a splinter in my ass.” He twisted around to check, dusting himself off.

On the floor, Matt began to laugh. It started off quiet, but within a matter of moments he was wheezing with it as he clutched his sides. Vlad eyed him as if he had grown a second head. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Did I rattle something loose, in that thick head of yours?” That just seemed to set him off again. Vlad scowled and shook his head, stalking out of the kitchen to go find his pants.

“Vlad.”

He turned, scowl already in place and ready to glower at him - it pissed him off that the bastard could move so quietly, when he wanted to - only to start back half a step, because Matt was closer than he thought. “What-” The word died on his tongue, because Matt’s hand caught his jaw, and abruptly they were kissing, and all at once Vladimir remembered just why he’d been provoking the bastard in the first place. Matt kept the kiss cautious, careful. Vladimir wasn’t having it, and growled, bit him on the lip hard enough to sting, and shoved him back against the wall, pinning him there. The soft sound Matt made on the impact dropped straight down to his navel, and he caught him in another kiss, hungry and demanding. Matt rose to meet him, a hand on his hip, another in his hair. Vlad luxuriated in the kissing as long as he could, but who could blame him for being distracted when getting his teeth on the perfect, biteable arch of his throat made Matt swear, when a rake of nails up his thigh made him arch and gasp.

“Fuck, you are too pretty to be such a pain in my ass, Matthew,” he said, practically purring. “You are going to be good for me, yes?” An answer was not immediately forthcoming, so he sucked a mark onto his throat and took the soft moan as resounding agreement. He dragged Matt out of his clothes and took great satisfaction in finally running calloused hands over him, chasing the little shivers and starts that sensitive spots elicited. At last he dropped a hand between them, and couldn’t help but grin at finding him hard and wanting. The softest brush of his fingers made him gasp, and Vlad made an approving sound, deliberately working his thumb over the head of him. “Do you know, at times I thought actual torture might be worse?” he said conversationally. “Than watching you saunter through the door all mussed and sweaty and angry, and then ignore me. I could have given you an outlet ages ago.”

Matt muttered something - probably rude - and shuddered under his hand, his own leaving bruises on Vlad’s shoulders, then finally managed, “Do you ever stop talking?!”

Vlad sent him a scalding look, then grinned, wide and wicked, and purred, “You want to give me something to do with my mouth?” He sank to his knees, hands pinning his hips back against wall, and eased Matt into his mouth. He took his sweet time about it, starting with just a brush of lips and a tease of tongue, until the man was a wreck, cursing and shuddering, rocking onto his toes. In a terrible move for Vladimir’s ego, Matt actually was being rather good for him, suffering the sweet torture at his hands with a minimum of bitching. When he finally moaned Vlad’s name again, Vlad took pity on him. He took him deeper, picking up a steady rhythm, chasing him relentlessly up and over the edge, ignoring the jump of his quads under his hands and the hand tightening in his hair, only easing up and sitting back when Matt went limp under his hands, gasping. Vlad smirked up at him, smug as anything, and wiped a hand over his mouth. So sue him, he had a weakness for pretty men with bad attitudes.

“You,” Matt said, breathless and haggard, “are a wicked man.” Vladimir just shrugged, ceding the point. But a hand caught him and dragged him to his feet, and then they were kissing again, Matt guiding him backwards, through the hall. His legs bumped a bed, which Matt shoved him onto unceremoniously, following after him. Vladimir moaned, soft and grateful, as warm weight settled over him, a thigh sliding up between his own. Matt made a wonderful distraction, but he was achingly hard, and he arched eagerly against him, hands sliding over his ribs. The lips against his throat curved in what he suspected was a smirk, and Matt murmured, “Good thing I have practice dealing with wicked men.” Warm fingers curled around him in a squeeze that made his mind go pleasantly blank, and for a short while he didn’t have to think of anything other Matt, his enemy turned savior, sweet and stupidly brave, his strength bowing beautifully under Vladimir’s hands and mouth.

Afterward, laying spent and tangled together, Vlad traced idle circles over Matt’s chest in a way that made him realize he was probably in way over his head. He kept the thought to himself, mulling it over, but sometime later a finger under his jaw tilted his head up, toward the other man. Matt’s jaw worked for a moment, then he said slowly, “Taking down Fisk, it’s… bigger, than I thought. There are more people, more deals involved than I ever imagined. Over the past couple weeks I’ve realized that I can’t take him down by myself. I can’t do it alone.” His thumb ran lightly over Vlad’s lower lip, his gaze, intent and unseeing, roving over his face. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I’m going to need every friend I can get. And I know that’s asking a lot, but I have to ask. Will you help me?”

Vladimir knew what he meant. He was asking for more than hiding out in a tiny apartment and answering what few questions he could. He was asking for a partner - not in crime, but nearly - and an ally. Vlad’s first thought was for Anatoly, his kin, killed just because he drew the short straw in a bad deal. Fisk, who was the king of bad deals. And Daredevil, the wannabe vigilante who saved Russian mobsters when he didn’t have to. Matt, who truly believed that deals should be fair, of all the stupid, hopeful, ridiculous things. The problem was, he made Vlad want to believe it too. Besides, what else did he have going for him at this point? He exhaled quietly, catching the hand at his jaw to press a kiss to bruised knuckles, and promised, “I will.”