They're walking down the street from Brian's garage when it happens. He'd shown them how to change a tire and fix spark plugs today, and Jessica is now half-covered in grease. Matt's cleaner, since he wasn't the one who had decided to investigate where Brian kept the engine oil, and now they're walking to meet Dad.
The first sound that catches Matt's attention is the sound of tires screeching.
Matt is sprinting before his mind's even made up, leaping and tackling the old man out of the way, as the driver tries to brake in time. He manages it, but without the old man, the car hits the back of the chemical truck, and Matt lands less than half a metre away from the car. There's the sound of a collision and something going boom, his face is burning, it hurts, it's bleeding, his arm is on fire, there's something getting into his eyes and he wipes at them, but they're still burning–
Brian is there, holding his head, his voice shaking, "Easy, Matt, easy, don't move, buddy, I think your arm's broken, the ambulance is on its way," and Matt can hear Jessica crying, but that's wrong, Jessica never cries–
Dad is there, Dad is there, holding him, saying in a shaking voice, "Close your eyes, Matty. Matty, Matty, close your eyes, it's gonna be okay, close your eyes–" and Matt clings to him, and he's crying now, and when he opens his eyes–
He can't see the sky. Can't see his city. Can't see his Dad.
There's the sound of screaming, and Matt dimly realises that it's coming from himself.
Darkness.
The paramedics get there too late.
They bandage Matty's eyes. He's passed out now, he's screamed himself unconscious, and Jack can't tear his eyes away from the rise and the fall of his chest. Jessica is there in the ambulance with him, having quietly slipped into the back of the truck while they bandaged Matty's eyes.
He doesn't know where Brian is. He's not sure if he cares.
Matty sucks in a deeper breath, twitching a little, his good hand going to his face, and immediately starts crying again.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
He's never heard his son sound so desperate, so afraid.
"I'm right here, Matty," he hears himself saying already. He wishes he sounded strong, but he doesn't. His voice is trembling. "I'm right here, it's okay, it's gonna be okay."
"Dad, Dad, I can't, I can't see," Matt says, his voice trembling. "Daddy, it hurts–"
"You were in an accident," the paramedic tells him, hands fluttering over the cords, adjusting things. Jack doesn't know. He doesn't care, either. He's still terrified by the bandages covering his son's eyes, by the inflamed redness of the skin of his forehead, by the bruise stretching from temple to cheek, by the broken twist of his arm. "You saved a man's life, Matt."
"I can't see," Matt repeats, his voice shaking, and that gets a sob from Jessica. She inches closer to the bed, her hand coming to squeeze Matt's good hand, and Matt squeezes back, his hand white-knuckled and Jessica gasps a little in pain, but grips back. "It burns, it burns–"
"I know," Jack says, smoothing Matt's hair down, the only thing he can do, Jesus, that's his son there, and he's going to be blind, and Jack is useless–
"It's okay, Matty," he says, and if nothing else, at least Matt can't see him crying, but that's not even a consolation. It's about as far from a consolation as you can get. "It's okay, I'm right here. I got you, Matt. I'm right here."
The paramedic is praying under his breath, a Hail Mary, and God, Jack wishes that would do something, would make him feel calmer, but it doesn't, Matty's more observant than he is at this point.
"You're gonna be alright, Matty," he hears himself repeating. It's like viewing the world through glass, like he's locked behind a screen. It's not like when Maggie left, or Ma died, no storm of emotion prompting him to rage, to drink, find a punching bag and beat the shit out of it. That might come. Later. But now it's like he's just very far away.
He can see Jessica crying, and he walks around the other side of the bed to draw her close, settle her on his hip, and he squeezes Matt's good hand.
"I'm right here. Feel my hand. I'm right here. It's Daddy. It's gonna be okay," he says.
He's failing, failing so badly at being strong for him right now, but Matty squeezes back, his grip white-knuckled and strong. An image of him as a baby flashes before Jack's eyes: eyebrows furrowed with concentration, tongue protruding from his mouth, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked, and a grip that had blown Jack away with its strength.
When they get to the hospital, they wheel him into a room. Doctors flit and buzz, it's all a blur, and the only thing Jack can focus on is the rise and fall of Matt's chest, he's alive, he's alive, God damn, how the hell is he gonna live, Jack's not sure he's ever talked with a blind person except to apologise for the one time he ran into one–
Jessica ends up answering some of the doctors' questions – how did it happen? Where were they? What were they doing before that? – and Jack's fairly sure they're trying to keep her grounded, but that's how he learns that his son was trying to be a hero.
The knowledge tastes bitter on his tongue.
He goes to the phone to call Alyssa, and finds Brian there, his hand shaking.
"You called her?" Jack asks.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did," Brian says, looking up. He meets Jack's eyes and swears. "When did you last eat today?"
Jack blinks. "Uh...breakfast?"
Brian's arm is around his shoulder, steering him to a chair. "Wait here, I'll grab you something to eat. Jessica's just gone to the bathroom to get the grease off with one of the nurses, she's going to come back here."
"You don't have to–"
"Yes, I do," Brian says, and there's something in his voice that makes Jack think that fighting him isn't going to do much good.
He crumples into the chair, and puts his head between his knees, and breathes.
Brian's hand lingers on the back of his neck, before he says, "I'll be right back, Jack."
At the sound of a child's footsteps, Jack manages to lift his head.
Jessica's there, in ratty jeans and a fresh T-shirt that the nurse must have scrounged from somewhere, her face clean of engine oil and dirt now, but her nails are bitten and she's shaking a little.
"Jack?" she asks in a soft voice.
He nods at her. Can't bring himself to smile, not when his heart is screaming with terror.
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice tiny, and she's trembling, she's shaking, she's worried he's going to be mad at her. "You always tell us to look after each other, and I didn't, and it's my fault he's– he's–"
He doesn't let her finish the sentence, settling his hands around her ribs and setting her on his knee.
"Hey, listen," he says, leaning his chin on the top of her head. She burrows into his hold, her frame vibrating, and holy shit, she loves him. The fact leaps out at him with a ridiculous clarity. Like he's just noticed that the Sun rises in the east. She loves Matty.
Will she still? The cynical part of him, the part of him that had surfaced after Maggie left, the small little hard part of his heart that lets him survive match after match and conversation after conversation with the Fixer asks.
Shut the fuck up, Jack tells that voice.
"Ain't your fault, Jessie. Shit happens," he tells her. Alyssa and Brian wouldn't like him swearing, part of him notes, but, well, tough shit. "Ain't your fault. I can't tell you like Matty would, you know that, but it ain't your fault."
Jessica's nod is slow, and then she's crying into his shirt.
Five minutes later, Brian is there, and so are Alyssa and Phil, and Ed and Anna, and Jack's more than a little amazed.
"I thought you had a class?" he asks Alyssa.
Alyssa's eyes are red-rimmed, and her jaw is clenched. "My sophomores weren't in hospital," she snaps.
"Mommy?" Jessica asks, lifting her head from Jack's shoulder, and Alyssa's expression instantly softens.
"Oh, sweetheart."
"Mommy!" Jessica wriggles out of Jack's lap, and Alyssa's tote bag thuds to the floor as Jessica scrambles into her arms, never mind being nine years old now. "Mommy, it was so scary, and I'm so scared, and Matt's hurt, and he says he can't see, and there were things exploding, Mommy!"
Alyssa's arms close tight around Jessica, and Brian shoves the pad thai and the chopsticks into Jack's hands. "The Thai is better than hospital food," he says, and Jack nods, getting his grip on the chopsticks.
Ed's shaking his head, and leaning against the wall. "What the hell happened?"
"Pile up on Tenth and West 55th at the intersection," Brian says. "Matt pushed an old man out of the way. Probably saved his life. But the truck was carrying chemicals and spilled 'em, and they got in Matt's eyes."
"Fuck," Ed says. Anna's already walking down the hall, talking to the nurse at one of the desks. Jack watches her, unable to breathe around the fear in his throat.
"Okay," Anna says, walking back to them. "He's going to be in a recovery room, and they say he can go home in a couple of days, but there's going to be a long programme of physiotherapy and trauma recovery, because of the vision loss."
"How are you this calm?" Ed asks her.
"Fake it till you make it," Anna says, no change in the inflections in her voice whatsoever. "The doctors are going to be out to talk to you in a bit, Jack. Do you mind if I sit in?"
"I'd appreciate it," Jack tells her, at about the same time as Alyssa asks, horror in her voice, "Vision loss?"
Anna nods. "Yeah, from what the nurse said…"
"To what extent?"
Anna flinches. "They haven't fully finished the tests yet–"
"To what extent?"
Anna looks Alyssa dead in the eye. "It may be total."
There's a moment where Alyssa looks to the heavens, pain in every line of her body, in the parting of her mouth and the way she blinks, and Brian steers her to the chair before she can fall.
She grabs onto Jack's hand and squeezes hard.
He squeezes back. There's no sound but the rushing of nurses' feet from one place to another for a very long time.
The Doctor's name is Keppler, and he is a slight, wiry man in his fifties with kind eyes and quick, bird-like motions.
"Jack Murdock?" he asks them, and Jack nods, rising. Anna walks beside him, and Keppler raises an eyebrow – probably at the fact that Anna's wearing a ring, and Jack stopped wearing his a long, long time ago – but doesn't say anything.
"Mr Murdock, first things first, Matt's condition is stable and you should be able to have him home with you very soon. He doesn't appear to be immunocompromised, and though we'd like to run through some radioactivity tests, nothing's showed up on the preliminaries," Keppler says.
Jack glances at Anna and mouths, 'Help.'
"It probably didn't fuck with his immune system that we can tell so far, and we don't think he's turning green either," Anna says.
A knot that was tight in Jack's chest loosens just a touch.
"What's the bad news?"
The Doctor grimaces. "The bad news is that we're fairly sure he's going to have total vision loss. The broken arm, we've splinted, and that should heal in about two months, but his sight...Mr Murdock, for all legal and medical purposes, your son is blind now."
He knew the punch was coming.
It made it hurt no less.
"When can I see him?" Jack asks.
"Half an hour," Doctor Keppler says. "If you need coffee, there's a Starbucks across the street. Room 432, fourth door on the right, two corridors away."
"Thank you," Anna says, which is good, because Jack can't say anything, and Jack leans against the wall of the hospital.
Anna squeezes his hand. "I'll grab the coffee. You go see him."
"He said half an hour."
"More like five minutes. Doctors always overestimate, trust me."
Jack nods and walks back to the group and Jessica stirs in Brian's arm. Alyssa and Phil have fallen asleep on each other's shoulders. Must have been up early.
"Is he okay?" Jessica asks him, voice small.
Jack shakes his head, and offers his palm to her. "C'mon, grease monkey," he says. "Let's go see him."
Their walk to the hospital room – two lefts through a couple of corridors, fourth door on the right – and find him.
Jessica wrenches her hand away from him and immediately goes to the bed, kicking off her shoes and ducking under and around the wires, moving carefully to not disturb them, and setting her head down on Matt's good shoulder.
Matt stirs, and immediately starts thrashing. Jack darts in and grabs his wrist.
"Easy, easy, Matty, easy, I'm right here."
"Dad, Dad, I can't see, who's – where –"
"You're in the hospital," Jack says. "You were in an accident. Some stuff got into your eyes, that's why you can't see. I'm here, and Jessica – well, looks like she's using you as a teddy bear."
She huffs. "I was worried."
"I can't see."
Jack closes his eyes, as Matt's fingers scrabble on his face.
"I know, pal," he says softly. "I know. I'm right here."
The first night in hospital is a long one.
Jack doesn't sleep the whole night. Matty wakes up at several points, disoriented and confused, and always, always screaming about his sight. Nothing seems to help, but Jack keeps putting his good hand on his face, closing his eyes as his son's fingers frantically trace his face, as Jess wakes too and wraps her arms around Matt's ribs, humming lullabies into his ear. At around midnight, Alyssa takes Phil home. She tries to rouse Jessica from where she's fallen back to sleep, curled around Matt, but Jessica clings even tighter.
"I'll look after them," Jack says, surprised the words still manage to come off his tongue, as exhausted as he is.
Alyssa gives a defeated nod, kisses Jessica's forehead, and Jack's cheek and scoops Phil up.
There's a look to Alyssa's face that Jack's seen a few times when she leaves. Resolve. To do what, he's not sure. Maybe to leave. Maybe it's one thing when Matty was just a normal kid, but now that he's going to be–
Jesus, he still has trouble thinking the word.
He takes a deep breath and forces himself to face it.
Blind. His boy's going to be blind.
He's still going to be the smartest little boy in Hell's Kitchen, but he'll probably have to quit ballet. Almost certainly won't ever learn to box.
I got my wish, Jack thinks, bitterness crawling in his throat.
He's gonna have to learn Braille. Learn how to walk and move around again. Fuck, how are they going to do school for him now? Would the school pay for equipment like Braille textbooks?
Jesus, God, have mercy on me, he thinks, leaning his head back against the wall.
He doesn't look away from Matt's bed the whole night.
"I'm not goin' anywhere, kid," he tells Matt, when he stirs in Jessica's arms, like he's going to come awake. "You're stuck with me, kiddo."
Matt sighs and rolls over, nuzzling a little into Jessica's shoulder, sleep claiming him once more.
