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pastafossa · 1 year

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“What Was That?” (Haunted House Fic, Matt Murdock x F!Reader)

I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO POST THIS WHOOPS. I had someone send me an ask like a month ago about Matt and Jane dealing with ghosts and the idea was funny so I typed up a little something, meant to drop it on halloween (hrrgh), so I’m a few hours late in my time zone, but not in others! So let’s do this! This Reader is from my long-fic TRT though all you need to know is Reader is psychic and this is set far enough ahead in their timeline that they’re married.

Rating: SFW

Ship: Matt Murdock x f!Reader

Wordcount: 2,488

Warnings: Swearing, references to spiders, ghostly spookiness, though mostly funny. Wanted to see if I could mix a little scary with the haunted house humor.

Matt seen here, questioning what the hell you’ve gotten him into this time.

“—goddamn dumbass, sneaking in here,” you grumbled where you were on your hands and knees, shining your flashlight under the moldering, half-broken bed. “He’s lucky his mom paid me to find his phone even without the thread. Him and his friends probably broke in here to drink.”

“Uh huh,” Matt said slowly. He barely noticed the soft sound of your footsteps behind him, too focused on the corner of the room. “...Right. Drinking.”

“And look, I’m not saying I don’t get the desire to do stupid shit. But at least hold onto your phone.” You rocked back on your knees with a groan, dusting your hands off. “Well, it’s not in here. Next room.”

“Sweetheart?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there… a mannequin in the corner of the room?”

You swung your flashlight around towards the corner he was facing, your brow furrowed as you carefully rose. “No. Why?”

“You don’t see anything?”

“No. Room’s mostly empty other than a bed.”

He’d have agreed with that statement a few minutes ago. While some of the rooms were more furnished than others—all of the furniture being long past its prime, broken and crumbling, faded and coated in dust—most were like this one. As far as he could sense, all that remained in the room was the bed, its covers moth-eaten and ragged, a small end table, cracked down the side and on its last legs… and the ridiculously conspicuous, elongated human shadow standing in the corner, where it had remained for the past five minutes.

He’d been hoping it was a mannequin. A really, really cold mannequin.

The chilled human outline slowly rotated its head clockwise in a half-circle. The movement seemed almost broken, its head moving in staggered intervals, each shift paired with a distant click like the crack of a bone. Only once its mouth reached the twelve o’clock position did it stop.

“I think we should look somewhere else,” he said quickly. “Preferably right now.”

“It’s a spider, isn’t it?” You grimaced, taking a few steps back towards him. “I can handle a lot of them, but not when they get big and hairy.”

He did his best to throw you a casual smile. It would be for the best if you didn’t know what he was sensing. He wasn’t even sure how he’d explain it, in truth. ‘There’s a figure and it’s cold and its face is upside down’ could only result in disbelief. “I just don’t like it here. That’s all. Old houses smell.”

“Fair enough.”

The figure gradually lifted one leg, the motion just as stuttered as the movement of its head had been. Its leg rose further and further until its knee had almost reached its neck, before it took one exaggerated, creeping step towards you both, as if sneaking.

Nope.

Matt grabbed your arm, and you let out a startled grunt as he yanked you back with him, slamming the ancient door shut behind you both.

“What the fuck, Matt?! You could just ask me to leave.”

“Spider,” he said. “It was a really… really big spider.”

Something with long fingernails scratched quietly at the bottom of the door from the other side. Then there was a a faint ‘meow’—not the sound, but the actual word, delivered in the low voice of a large man, the words muffled as if he’d pressed his mouth to the small crack between the top of the door and the frame, all while the nails continued to scratch at the bottom. Which was… fairly unsettling, in about a million different ways, 99% of which Matt didn't feel like considering because even he had sense sometimes. Fortunately, the sounds were also too soft for you to hear.

You raised your brows and glanced at the door, which was still being scratched at.

“It was a spider with hair,” he added quickly. “It hissed. I wouldn’t go back in there.”

“If it was hissing, it was probably a wolf spider. God, those bites hurt.” You shuddered, before turning around. “Alright, maybe I’m glad you yanked me out of there. Let’s keep looking then. Sooner we find the kid’s phone, the sooner we can get out.”

“Sounds good to me.”

'Meow.'

-x-

It was on the ceiling this time.

“I hate places like this,” you mumbled, digging around in the couch cushions of an old sofa that groaned ominously every time you pushed too hard. Matt wasn’t sure whether the noise was actually the furniture or if the couch was instead possessed, but either way, he didn’t tell you about the bloodstain beneath it, or the twisted shape in the basement that sounded like it was licking at the underside of the floor right beneath your feet. “I know I complain about sewer grates, and those are gross, too, but old houses like this? Blergh.”

Matt tilted his head at the shape up on the crumbling ceiling, and it tilted its head back, mirroring him.

“Did you find it?” he asked you, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice.

“Not unless you count some questionably stained quarters, no, but I think maybe—”

The shadow skittered suddenly across the ceiling until it was above you, before slowly extending its head down. It shouldn’t have been able to get all that far, but instead of lurching to a stop, its neck began to elongate like warm taffy, its mouth gaping open like a serpent preparing to swallow its prey.

He only just grabbed your shirt and hauled you back with a grunt as the head swung down where you’d just been standing, thick splatters of ethereal drool dropping to the floorboards with quiet pat-pat noises like rain.

“Matt, Jesus—“

“Another spider,” he said breathlessly, because he loved you and watching a ghost try to swallow you like it was a python and you were an antelope was, to put it mildly, somewhat distressing and adrenaline-inducing. And also disgusting, considering that it had been drooling. “It… fell. Where you were. It was also hissing.”

The eyes on the shadow’s head grew larger, bulging out of its head like overripe grapes, its mouth lolling open until the chin and what he presumed to be a tongue hit the floor with a barely-there splat.

Was it… scowling at him?

“Look, I get that you’re protecting me from spiders, and I’m grateful.” You shot him a look. “But you could just… tell me.”

“The spider had babies on its back. Thousands of them.”

“Right, yup, you’re right, we can hit another room.” This time it was you who dragged him with you, though he was quickly distracted by the stairs in the attic. It sounded like someone was running back and forth, sprinting up and down the steps, though there was no one there that he could sense.

“We should avoid the attic,” he said after a moment. “There’s more wolf spiders on the stairs. They all... they all have babies. I think it might be breeding season.”

“Do I want to know how many spiders there are in this house?”

“Probably not.”

-x-

“It has to be in here somewhere,” you grumbled, picking your way through the kitchen. It didn’t help that dozens of pots and pans had all been arranged in a series of delicately balanced towers, each monument stationed at what seemed like random points around the room. Even the rickety wooden chairs had been gathered and shaped into a pyramid along one side of the room, behind which was a wall oozing a foul smelling substance he didn’t really want to direct his senses towards. “Only room besides the attic we haven’t checked. Can you sense anything? I’m dying here, D. Lend me a hand, as much as I appreciate you listening for spiders.”

The figure that stepped through the far doorway was different than all the others still.

The basic shape of it was human, but that was where the resemblance ended. Its proportions were… wrong, wrong, the hair on the back of Matt’s neck standing on end. It was so tall the top of its broad, wide-brimmed hat scraped against the ceiling, so tall it seemed to have to fold in on itself just to enter the room. Its bony arms hung halfway to its knees, spindly fingers with too many joints curling beneath hands the size of dinner plates. With each step, its legs silently snapped and folded, bent like the limbs of a massive spider, before they shot out again to take another step.

Only once it was fully in the room, a mere ten feet away, did it stop… and watch.

“Matt? You ok?”

‘MaTT? YOu ok? Ok YOU? MaTT?’ It was as if it were trying to mimic you, its voice pitched in an attempt at yours. And yet the shaped syllables were all wrong, the emphasis in the wrong place, discordant as it looped and repeated, all while rotating its head one way and then the other. “You-you-yOU OK? MaTT? SomeWHERE? HeRE someWHERE? Has to bE. Room EMPty, emPTY? roOOm! No-no-nO, M-m-MaTT.’

He let out a low growl, slowly grabbing the back of your shirt and tugging you back with him as the figure snapped its leg up and then stepped closer, swallowing up far too large a gap. “We’re leaving. Now.”

You glanced at him, your eyes darting over the shape of his mouth, reading what little of him you could see with his mask on. He could almost hear the gears in your mind turning, spinning as you glanced around… and then you sighed. “It’s not a spider, is it?”

‘Is iT? Is IT? IS it? SweetHEART MaTT—’

“...No,” he said grimly, his hand still fisted in your shirt.

There was a faint whisper along his skin, one that signaled you’d opened your third eye. Just like that, the figure froze.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you muttered, before reaching for a large pan on the kitchen counter.

“I don’t think hitting it with a skillet will work.” He grit his teeth, spreading his legs wider in preparation, though for what, he wasn’t sure. He’d never actually fought a ghost before, but for you, he’d try. He always would, whether it was robbers in alleys or ghosts or geese.

“It scares more of them than you think.” You grunted and then hurled the pan, the rusted iron flying through the ghost’s torso, momentarily shredding its form. The pan struck the far wall, crashing through the rotted drywall as the ghost let out a haunting wail. You jabbed a finger at it, your tone taking on the note you often used on aggressive raccoons who bothered you in alleys. “Shoo! Beat it!”

The wailing only grew louder. Its jaw unhinged and dropped down against its chest, even its teeth howling.

“Oh, spare me the tears. You’re not a banshee. Fuck off!” Another pot flew through the air, this time sailing through its head. The wailing abruptly ceased, the shape jerking as if you’d startled it. “Go on! Get out of here!”

“Wait, sweetheart—”

There was a low hiss, and then it sprinted, the figure racing towards you. He tried to pull you back but you shook him off, tilting your head up just in time for the figure to lurch to a stop, its face a mere inch from yours.

You didn’t blink, narrowing your eyes.

It leaned closer, your hair stirring as it whispered gibberish at you, its mouth moving too quickly for any mortal, loud jabbering like the buzz of insects in Matt’s ears.

“What’s it saying?” you said mildly. “I can see it but I can’t really hear it. Nothing but whispers.”

“I don’t… think it’s saying anything,” he said warily, resisting the urge to step between you and the ghost as it inched closer, a mere half inch now.

Its head snapped in a ninety-degree angle to the right, gaping mouth yawning wide before it jabbered more noise, this time vaguely understandable, to Matt’s ears at least.

It drew in a breath, the room dropping in temperature in a sudden rush, so sudden frost appeared on the windows, before it shrieked in your face.

“Right, I heard that.” You snorted, before jutting your chin up. “You listen. You all have been bothering us all night, and it’s about to stop. You wanna know why?”

‘No, no, nO, why? WhY?’

“It wants to know why.” Matt’s arm wound around you as the cold shadows in the room deepened, shapes and sounds pressing inwards, listening, whispering, hissing. The walls began to shift minutely, oozing behind the crumbling drywall in a way that almost sounded like the wet rasp of diseased lungs, thick with blood and worse.

“Because my husband,” you bared your teeth in a grin, one gleeful and menacing, “is Catholic.”

The house abruptly went still, the figure in front of you letting out a stuttering gust of air that tasted like mold and decay, like peeling wallpaper and rotted clothes.

“And you know what that means,” you continued confidently. “He fucking rolls with his man, the great lamb Jesus. They are quite close, considering how often he goes to confession. As you can imagine, that also makes him close with his priest. Like brothers, or... or a father I guess.”

“This feels blasphemous,” Matt said, amused despite himself.

“Just trust me and roll with it.”

He thought about it, tipping his head one way and then the other before the corner of his mouth curled up in a smirk. “Have I mentioned my mother’s a nun?”

The house shuddered, windows slamming across the house as if in existential horror, as if it had once gone to Catholic school and dealt with nuns itself, and Matt could relate.

“Basically, we can have Father Lantom and my nun-in-law here in thirty seconds to exorcise all your asses.” You threw your arms up and Matt helpfully dodged your hand where you’d almost smacked him in the face. “You want that?”

The glass chandelier above you—which seemed like a poor choice for a kitchen, Matt was fairly certain, though he’d admittedly gone to law school and not the School for Decorating Future Haunted Houses—began to sway and creak, the whole house groaning. Doors slammed, footsteps rang out up and down the stairs, an old radio two floors up beginning to blare a pulse of static. The ghost in front of you reared back, its form striking against the ceiling like a wave of cool shadow about to come down on you both.

“Should you really be antagonizing them?” Matt asked you curiously.

“Just hang on, it’s a process” you told him, before drawing in a deep breath and letting your voice ring out. “Show me the fucking phone and we’ll leave. No priest needed. Or you can fuck with us, and you all don’t get to scare the shit out of drunken teenagers anymore, which I’m sure you like doing. Take your pick.”

Whispering filled the house, swelling in rapid waves, as if the floors began to discuss with the ceiling, who questioned the attic and the cracked windows that were thoughtfully leaking what Matt suspected was more blood, which dripped down to the arguing shadows in one of the upstairs bedrooms who were debating nuns versus being able to scare teenagers for the next fifty years until the house came down and they had to hitchhike to a new one, which was really a lot of effort, but until Uber hit the Great Beyond, it was the best they could do.

It didn’t take long.

Just like that, every hint of activity… abruptly vanished, including the ghost in front of you.

“Thank you,” you said firmly. “Now show me the phone. I know you assholes took it.”

A sullen silence grew in the house.

“Matt, call up Father Lantom and Sister Maggie.”

A pot in the corner fell with a sheepish clang, revealing the phone that had been hidden beneath it.

“Right,” you said quickly, snatching up the phone and taking Matt’s arm. “We should go.”

“I love you,” he said in amusement, as he let you lead him out. “Have I told you that?”

“Yes, and honestly, I’m just glad you’re Catholic. I know I joke about the guilt but that really came in handy.”

“I’m glad my Catholic guilt complex could save the day instead of ruin it for once.”

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