Matt knows Hell's Kitchen like the back of his hand.

He knows that the grocery store at the corner sells the best homegrown vegetables. He knows that Mrs. Walker from down the street lost her husband exactly seven years ago. He knows that Mr. Cervantes, who owns the nearby bakery, gives leftover baked goods to the homeless shelter a block away. He knows which doors and gates squeak when you open them, and he knows exactly how many steps it takes to get to his apartment from the sidewalk outside.

Hell's Kitchen is his home. He needs it. It's everything to him.

Not everyone sees it that way, though.

Matt is punched in the stomach, the face, everyone attacking him at once. He doesn't know how many. He can't possibly know, as he's thrown into the ground and kicked some more. He tries to move away, but his fingers are stepped on, and he winces. He's punched in the face yet again, and he's pretty sure his nose is broken. It's certainly bleeding quite a bit. He's going to have a black eye, too, which really does nothing to obscure his vision.

He can't help but think that he'd lost so much for a man of this borough. This is the city he'd lost his sight for.

He stumbles to his feet, but is immediately shoved down again, his legs weak. He falls to his knees surrounded by people he thought he knew but doesn't, people he thought he shared a home with, people he thought cared about that.

A hand roughly pulls his head back by his hair, and he stills as the sound of a gun cocking echoes through the alleyway, cold metal pressing against the side of his head.

"Why?" he asks, voice hushed, though he doesn't know why. "What do you want?"

The gun is pressed more roughly against his head. He winces. "You ruined everything," a man says lowly.

Matt's confusion must show on his face, because another person, a woman this time, says, "Wilson Fisk."

The others chime in as well, all citizens of Hell's Kitchen, all of them living in the same place, the same community.

Matt thought he had known them.

"He doesn't deserve prison!"

"What did he ever do to you?"

"Some hotshot lawyer trying to make it big."

"He was helping us!"

"He was doing good!"

"He was lying to you," Matt spits out. He is immediately punched in the face again, and swiftly falls to the ground, weighed down not just by his injuries but by the overwhelming feeling of inadequacy in his chest.

There will always be people in the world who hate you, Frank had said after the trial, when the media circus had ambushed them and Matt hadn't known what to do. You just gotta take it, believe in yourself enough to move on.

Matt's not sure if he can do that. But he tries.

He stays silent as they rough him up some more, knows nothing will convince them not to, knows his words have failed him, just this once. The fight has bled out of him for now, but it'll be back when he meets a battle he can actually fight. After a few minutes, they leave, footsteps trailing away from Matt's crumpled position in the alleyway. The gun had just been for show, then—Matt doubts it was loaded. They believe in their cause as much as Matt believes in his own, but they don't believe enough to commit murder.

He supposes that's something.

For a while afterwards, Matt just lays there, cold seeping into his bones, blood streaming from his nose. He blinks up at the surely darkening sky from the ground of the alleyway between two buildings he has passed so many times before. Eventually, he musters up the strength to get back up. He finds his cane abandoned on the ground a few feet away and starts walking. He knows exactly how many steps it'll take to get back home.