A/N: Oh Matt. MATT. *holds him close forever*
We wend our way together, Foggy used to say dramatically, with a hitch of a laugh behind the words.
There is no "we." No "together." It's a big city, sirens and car horns and dust and oil and shelled peanuts and breathing, but nobody's breathing for him.
Matt tries to shut off the sounds, the smells. If he's numb in some ways, maybe he'll numb the parts that are really hurting.
But the brown paper bag still crunches between his fingers, and he's played over Karen's possible reactions a thousand times in his mind.
None of them are good.
Matt turns down the corner he knows too well, knows too well for it to matter anymore, and wonders if it's snowing in London.
There's something cinematic about this big reveal, even though he won't see it. He calls it practicality, to its face—can't just carry around the Daredevil helmet in plain sight. But still—he thinks of drawing it forth, casting it down. Like a gauntlet. Like something beheaded.
A broken offering.
Karen doesn't want to see him, and she does, and he doesn't quite know which is worse but he hears both in her heartbeat. It's so wrong, how empty these rooms are. He doesn't have to see them to know. And yet there was a time, months ago, when Foggy was angry at him, too. Matt had thought it was over.
But Foggy forgave him. Foggy tried.
Foggy believes in second chances, and Matt believes in something else.
Karen doesn't know him like Foggy does. It makes her resentment sadder, somehow.
Matt doesn't have much time for small talk. He hopes that Karen finds happiness, and he hopes she doesn't shiver when it rains. He's not doing much for her happiness, reaching inside that paper bag, but Matt thinks that starting with truth is the only way to go forward.
That's what he tells himself, anyway.
He starts with the truth, and then it's all over, just in that one second.
If he could shut out the sound of her heartbeat, he would. Matt may not be one for killing people, but he's killed a lot of things in between.