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Matt paused in the doorway of the church to enjoy the way the sound of his cane reverberated through the building. It bounced off the stained glass windows, the pews, the brick walls, and up, up, into the tall ceiling far above, and finally returned to his ears.
Matt continued into the building, stopping at the holy water font and slipping his fingers into the water. He kept them there longer than necessary, enjoying the singe on his fingertips, before making the sign of the cross. The burn mark that formed on his forehead faded almost as soon as it appeared.
Father Lantom entered the room, so Matt made his way to the confessional and took a seat. He listened as Lantom opened the other door and settled in. The priest shifted his weight a few times, and then waited patiently for Matt to speak.
“Bless me Father,” began Matt. “For I am sin.”
---
The Antichrist or, as he prefers to be called, Matthew Michael Murdock was born on October 21 in a small apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. It was cold, and blustery, and miserable. His mother toiled through 12 hours of labor, cussing out Jack Murdock in several known and unknown languages all the while.
When Matt finally made his screeching, dramatic entrance into this world an earthquake clocking in at 8.5 hit the coast, a few dozen tornadoes were spotted in the plains, and a typhoon wiped out a small village in Taiwan (Matt never learns this, or if he does he pushes it very far back in his mind until it never happened at all).
The things Matt knows about his mom are few and far between. His dad never seemed to want to talk about her much, and Matt hated the empty look that came over Jack’s face when he asked. He learned that pretty early on.
---
It was the first week of 1st grade, and they started show and tell. All of the kids were really excited, Matt included. He decided to ask his dad for an old pair of gloves so he could talk to the class about his dad’s boxing. He went up and did his presentation, and the entire class seemed to think “Battlin’” Jack Murdock was really cool. Matt preened under the attention a bit, and then sat down to watch the next student present.
Her name was Katie and her mom was dead.
All of the other kids, even the teacher, looked kind of uncomfortable but Matt’s attention peaked. He had always assumed that his mom was dead, too. After all, Dad would never talk about her, like the idea of her made him sad and even a little angry. He didn’t know for sure, though. He had never gathered up the courage to ask.
Katie brought in a picture of her mom at her age. She talked about how she never knew her mom, she died in childbirth. She brought the picture, though, because she looked almost exactly like her mom did in the picture. “It makes me feel close to her,” she said.
And then…
Matt couldn’t stop thinking about it. All through lunch, the rest of the day, the bus ride home, it was all he could think about.
Did he look like his mom?
Did his mom die giving birth to him? Is that why Dad wouldn’t tell him anything?
So, when Jack got home from the gym that day the first thing out of Matt’s mouth, before Jack could even set down his bag, was, “Did I kill Mom?”
Jack froze, his bag slipped down his arm and hit the floor with a heavy thud.
“What?” he asked.
“Did I- Did Mom die? When I was born, I mean,” replied Matt.
Jack heaved a gigantic breath in, and then out in a sigh. The air seemed to loosen him back up, because he stepped fully into the room and kicked the door shut behind him.
Matt was sitting at the kitchen table, a very grim expression on his face. Jack took the seat across from him and spread his hands on the surface of the table, his swollen, red knuckles cracking.
“Matty,” Jack began. “Your mom…” He trailed off, and looked away from his son for the first time since he had arrived home. All of the energy seemed to be sucked out of him, collapsing under the weight of the question.
When Jack looked back at Matt, he seemed emptier. Except, there was something Matt saw, hiding in his dad’s eyes. A darkness, an anger that was drowned out by the sorrow.
“Your mom was a… soldier,” Jack told him.
If Matt noticed his hesitation he didn’t react.
“She died in battle. She was protecting her... squad. She died brave; went down fighting. Just like a Murdock,” and there he let out a soft huff that Matt thought was meant to be a laugh.
“Oh,” said Matt. Why hadn’t Dad told him any of this? He knew other kids in class whose parents were in the military. “Um, what- what did she look like?”
A soft smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes crossed Jack’s face as he dug in his pocket for his wallet. “I, uh, only have one picture.” He said as he handed it over.
She was beautiful, Matt thought. The picture was faded from years of handling, but he could still see the rich auburn of her hair, falling in soft waves over her shoulders. She was laughing, her ice blue eyes bright with joy.
“You keep that, kid.” Jack said. His eyes were looking suspiciously wet.
“Oh! Ok. Thanks, Dad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now go play, ok?”
“Ok,” Matt said as he hopped off his chair. He turned down the hallway towards his room, and the soft padding of his feet on the carpet was not enough to cover the sound of the cupboard door opening, the bottles knocking against each other, and his dad taking a large gulp.
Matt never really asked after that.
---
He and his dad went out for lunch, to this new pizza place that had opened, the day it happened. His belly pleasantly full, Matt had relaxed. He had been all smiles and giggles, enjoying this rare moment of stress free time with his dad. And so, when Jack turned to buy him an ice cream cone from the street vendor for dessert, Matt didn’t think it was too strange that he felt drawn to that street. There was something… calling for him, and he was 9, and a kid, and happy, and so he listened.
A few weeks after it happened, with the bandages finally removed, and solid food finally settling like lead weight in his stomach instead of coming right back up, his dad read him the newspaper story. It painted him like a hero, a nine year old boy risking his life to save an elderly man, pushing him out of the way of a truck. And maybe, just maybe, for just a few minutes, Matt believed that it was destiny. He was meant to be a hero, that’s why he went down that street.
It’s a decade later that he realizes there was an alley frequented by prostitutes just around the corner. Nothing attracts the Antichrist like sin.
---
Matt didn’t know what to make of Foggy at first.
He entered the room that first night, and hell if dorm rooms aren’t Sin Central. He could sense every lying, cheating, fornicating heathen who ever called the room home. It only took him a few seconds to adjust, though. It wasn’t much worse than the dorm when he was getting his undergrad degree. Although, with it being a law school, there was an interesting slippery, slightly slimy, texture to the sins clinging to the walls. He absorbed all of that quickly, while his other senses gave him the layout of the room, and the outline of the other man in it.
They made introductions, and when Foggy shook his hand the barrage of images and impressions and emotion hit him a bit stronger than it normally did. Foggy’s life was… bright was the only word Matt could use to describe it. He sinned, of course, but everyone did. Matt was used to that. You didn’t even need to be the spawn of Satan to smell Foggy’s own herbal version of Sloth. What surprised Matt the most, though, was how light he felt as Foggy’s sins transferred to him, almost like a high.
And then, “A really, really good looking guy,” Foggy said. And Matt could put a name to the sin that was making his mouth tingle like a cinnamon mint, Lust. He let Foggy down, gently, he hoped. Not out of any lack of interest, god no. The touch of Foggy’s hand to his was making him feel like he took too many Vicodin, he couldn’t imagine how he would feel with Foggy’s whole body pressed against his. Actually, he could. That was kind of the problem.
But, he forced himself to resist. Dating your roommate, he argued with himself, is not a good idea. So, he lets Foggy play it off as wanting Matt to be his wingman. If Matt slipped his arm into Foggy’s elbow and let Foggy guide him, more than he had let anyone else since his dad, well, they were best friends. He definitely wasn’t seeking out reasons to touch Foggy. That would be a Very Bad Idea.
---
Foggy finds out the very, very, last way Matt wanted him to.
The Fucking Horns.
---
He called them that since the very first time it happened.
He had already figured out what he was, of course. It was hard not to, living in a Catholic orphanage on hallowed ground. Just lying in his room used to cause tiny pinpricks on his skin. Nothing painful, per se, but noticeable. He could never figure out the exact moment he knew, though. It came on slowly. Little things that happened started to finally add up.
His dad was dead by then, shot in an alleyway for Matt’s Pride, and he wished he could go back and figure it out sooner. He could make the man who shot his dad burn for eternity, could rip the guy’s heart out with bare hands, could break every bone in his body.
It never occurred to him until later that his Dad knew the whole time. It never occurred to him that it was the reason Jack never wanted him to fight. To never give into the base violent urges deep in Matt’s gut. To use his brain, instead. “You’re so smart, Matty,” he would always say. “So smart,” and depending on how much alcohol he had consumed sometimes he would continue, “Just like your mom.”
Jack Murdock could never have anticipated Stick, though.
A few months after his dad’s death, Matt was a mess. His blindness had made his other senses super sensitive, including his feeling for the gritty wrong in the world. He could feel each and every person for miles. He felt the small sins, the woman across the street who continued to go to church even though she didn’t believe, they felt like little tingles in his hands and feet like they were recovering from loss of circulation. The big sins, like the couple of mobsters two blocks away who managed to hit all of the Big Seven, as Matt called them, completely overwhelmed him. They felt like he was taking a beating and being force fed at the same time. Vomiting was not a rare occurrence for him then.
The nuns brought in Stick, and Matt could feel guilt on them. They think what they’re doing is wrong, he thought. They did it anyway, and Matt’s training began.
Matt was constantly covered in bruises and cuts and there was always a split in his lips. He staggered his way back to St. Agnes every night, and woke up the next morning to go earn more. Stick pushed hard, expected perfection, demanded it until Matt heard Stick’s voice in his head whenever he made a mistake, even years later.
“You’re a soldier,” he told Matt. Over and over again, until Matt almost believed it.
Until one day, without thinking, he replied, “My mom was a soldier.”
Stick made a noise that could only be described as a snort. “Your mom was no soldier, kid. Hell, she wasn’t even a general. She was…” he began to sound almost wistful. “She was the General-in-Chief. No, no. She was God.” He sounded so… worshipful. Like if Matt’s mother had been here he would have knelt at her feet.
“Wait. You knew my m-mother?”
“Oh yeah, Matty. Knew her very well. Used to serve under her, one her most trusted, if you must know.” He stopped there to smirk in Matt’s direction. “Until she got soft, of course. Centuries upon centuries, for millennia, we fought. Then she falls in love,” he spat the last part out, like if the words stayed in his mouth for too long they would choke him.
Matt froze. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. He knew what he was. He had just never thought about how. He had always thought that maybe he was just evil. Maybe God hated him, and so Matt was cursed to poison everything around him. Look at what he had done to his dad. But, what Stick implied meant…
“Lucifer. That was her name. Or their name really. Can a formless entity of God’s grace have a gender? Well, they chose female because that’s what your dad was attracted to, of course. Took a permanent physical form, became Lucy, and dropped off the grid. She abandoned us, her most loyal, for Battlin’ Jack Murdock and for you,” Stick continued, gesturing at Matt with his cane. “Once the higher-ups found out about you, though. That was a whole ‘nother ball game. You think just anybody can do what you can do, Matt? You’re special. Very, very special. Your mom knew, too. She realized what she had created immediately, tried to hide you from us. But we found you, not too long after you were born. Lucy put up a hell of a fight, of course. Fought to the very end. Your dad wasn’t the only one who could take a punch. She took down the entire team that came after you two, but not before they got a few good hits in. She had enough energy left to cloak you, but that was all she had. It was enough, though, for us to lose you again. Until your dad died and you started broadcasting like a fucking tower. They sent me to come get you. Train you up.”
Matt opened his mouth but all that would come out was a deep guttural sound of pain. Stick had killed his mom or at least been a part of the group who did, and he came here and trained Matt, made Matt feel like there was actually hope. Made him think that maybe, just maybe, he could be Good. That this- this thing he had, these urges, wouldn’t control him forever. These skills that Stick had taught him, Stick wanted him to what? Kill people for him? Be in some mystical holy war?
“I- I can’t,” Matt managed to stutter out.
“Yeah, kid, I realize that. Why the fuck do you think I’m telling you all this? I suddenly felt like spilling my deep, dark feelings to you? No. I’ve decided, and the guys upstairs, well actually downstairs, agree with me. You’re too weak. Whatever your monkey brained father and that ridiculous orphanage have managed to do to you completely ruined you. You’re of no use to us.”
Matt sensed it before he even consciously knew what happened. Something sharp, and humming with energy. A sword, Stick had a sword hidden in his cane, and he was coming at Matt. Matt managed to hit the floor, and roll away. Stick was fast, though, faster than Matt in his shocked state. He managed to slice open Matt’s arm.
And then Matt got angry.
It was like, he didn’t even have a comparison. Like his head was being completely ripped open on top, like his entire body was on fire, like he was fire.
The pain stopped but the fire remained and at that moment all Matt wanted to do was burn. He turned towards Stick, and managed to catch Stick’s sword between his hands when he swung again. The sword was ice to Matt’s fire, spreading blue through his palms. He growled at the sting, and pulled the sword from Stick’s grasp.
“Now, now Matty that’s quite impressive. With the strength, and the horns, and the growling,” said Stick. He managed to keep the fear out of his voice, but Matt could feel it, could hear Stick’s heart pounding away, taste the salt of the nervous sweat rolling down Stick’s face. “But we both know you’re not going to kill me. You can’t do it.”
Matt surged forward, throwing the sword to the ground as he went. Stick tried to escape, but Matt wasn’t the shocked kid anymore, he was truly his mother’s son. He was filled to the brim with Hell’s Kitchen’s sins, drunk on them, and there were so many. He grabbed Stick by the throat, pushed him against the wall and held him there with minimal effort.
“You’re going to leave my city, Stick. And you’re never, ever, going to return. If I ever see your face again, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from tearing you apart. Do you understand?”
Stick was choking, his airway constricted by Matt’s grip, but he managed to get a nod across. “Good,” said Matt as he dropped his hand. He crossed to the other side of the room and stood, shaking, while Stick left.
Matt heaved great gulps of air into his lungs until his head stopped spinning. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, vibrating and hyperventilating, but eventually he slipped to the ground.
His humanity trickled back into him, slowly, and with great effort. Once he felt his limbs stop shaking enough for basic movement, he brought his hands up to his face. The first thing he noticed were the tears streaming down his face. He quickly wiped those away with the end of sleeve. He moved his hands up, hoping with everything he had that Stick had been lying, hallucinating, anything. But, no. They were there, sticking out right above his hairline, sharp and vicious, and, he was sure, looking terrifying.
Fucking Horns.