The forest edge was silent, save for the crunch of your boots in the snow and the sharp bite of winter air in your lungs. You’d been searching for Matt Murdock—Daredevil—for what felt like hours, your breath fogging in the icy dark.

Whatever mission you’d been on, some desperate bid to save someone from Hell’s Kitchen’s underbelly, had gone wrong—terribly wrong. An ambush, a betrayal, it didn’t matter now. All that mattered was finding him, and fast, before the cold claimed what the fight hadn’t.

Your eyes caught a flash of red against the endless white, a stark wound in the snow. There he was, sprawled near a cluster of bare, skeletal trees, his crimson Daredevil suit unmistakable even in the dim moonlight. Blood seeped from a gash on his side, staining the snow beneath him a sickly pink, the red of his suit blending into the mess like a warning.

His cowl was askew, the horn-like protrusions caked with frost, and his chest rose faintly, too faintly, under the battered Kevlar. Matt was out cold, his billy clubs scattered a few feet away, half-buried in the drift.

Your heart lurched, and you broke into a run, snow kicking up around your legs. The cold clawed at your skin, but it was nothing compared to the panic spiking through you. Matt was tough—God, he was tougher than anyone—but lying there, motionless, he looked almost fragile, his reddish-brown hair dusted with snow, his lips pale against the blood streaking his jaw. If you didn’t act fast, the freeze would finish what his enemies started.

You dropped to your knees beside him, your hands hovering over his chest, feeling for the faint rise and fall of his breath. His suit was torn, the reinforced fabric shredded at the ribs, and the snow around him was a canvas of red and white, stark and brutal.

His cross necklace glinted faintly, half-tucked under the cowl, a reminder of the man beneath the mask. Your pulse hammered in your ears as you shook him gently, your voice a desperate whisper. “Matt, come on, wake up. You’re not dying out here, not on my watch.”

He didn’t stir, his head lolling slightly, and the weight of the moment crashed over you. The forest loomed silent, the snow swallowing sound, leaving just you and him in this frozen, bloody tableau You had to move, had to get him warm, get him safe—now.