Matt is used to this, this feeling of grief so overwhelming it seems to constrict your heart, making it stop beating for just a second before restarting, except there is no relief in this sort of resurrection because the starting is as painful as the stopping, and this torture is neverending. It fades over time, but it will always be there, lurking and waiting for the right moment to strike, waiting for the moment you are too weak, too vulnerable to fight it.
And sometimes, you want your heart to stop beating like it had in your friend, or your family member. You wonder why your heart has decided to continue beating when others deserve it more. You will never get an answer.
That's the fact of life, isn't it? Matt knows that now, has known that since he was 11 and shaking and shaking beside his dad's cooling body, the copper permeating the air, the warmth tainting his hands that he has never been able to wash off, no matter how many times he's tried.
(With Matt Murdock, grief and guilt have always come hand-in-hand.)
Matt knows how it feels for guilt to weigh down his shoulders, and blood to drip from his hands. But that doesn't make the feeling any easier to bear.
Josie's is crowded tonight, random conversations flitting around the warm and bustling atmosphere from the many people surrounding them.
It just makes Matt feel more like a failure.
Foggy gulps down his tequila. Karen orders another drink. Matt sips at his slowly, ever so slowly. He doesn't want to drain the glass too quickly. Tonight is not for forgetting.
"I miss them," Karen says, sniffing a little. "I know we didn't know them for that long, but..."
"I would've liked to get to know them better," Foggy finishes for her, tapping a random rhythm onto the table.
Matt hums in agreement. No, tonight is not for forgetting, not at all. Tonight is for remembering.
Still, the alcohol burns as it goes down his throat.
"I don't know if we can keep doing this," he whispers, but they hear him anyways, of course they do.
"Do what, Matt?" Foggy asks, tired. His words slur just the slightest bit together.
"The case. Fisk." Matt spits out the name like a curse. "We can't keep hurting people like this."
"But it's not exactly us doing the hurting, is it?" Karen asks. "It's him. We have to take him down, somehow."
Their prospects are not looking too good at the moment.
Matt would know; he can't see the prospects at all.
"I know," he says. "I know that this is the right thing to do, that so many people are going to be helped, but what about the people we can't help?"
"You can't save everyone, Matt," Foggy says heavily. "But yeah...they wouldn't have died if we hadn't gone to them."
"So what? We just drop the case?" Karen asks. "We can't do that! We've gone too far now to stop!"
"It's exactly what Fisk would want," Matt admits. "But why does it feel like we're losing either way?"
The three of them are silent, for a few moments. They listen to the sound of raucous shouting from the people around them who have absolutely no idea what is at stake. Matt doesn't even entirely know what is at stake; the more they uncover, the more things seem to be involved, the worse things get.
"We can't give up," Matt says eventually. "Ben and Elena...they wanted to help people, too."
"So we're going to do that," Karen says, voice firm. "We're going to stop Fisk."
"To Ben Urich and Elena Cardenas," Foggy says, nudging Matt's hand up in a toast, "may we never forget their efforts to do what is right."
They clink their glasses together, or at least try to. Matt doesn't quite make it and ends up spilling his drink onto their hands and the table underneath, causing them all to laugh a little.
But it's something. It's something.
