A/N: I cannot believe this story has gotten anywhere near the love it has, and you guys absolutely make my day every day with your feedback. Some of your comments make me laugh out loud. I'm so enjoying going through this story with all of you. The Daredevil fandom is a class act, you guys.
Y'all had some strong opinions on that chapter! Since I accidentally broke everyone's hearts with the last chapter, this one is significantly lighter. Many of you suggested hugs/soup/cookies for poor Sarah, but I'm hoping that maybe copious amounts of alcohol will suffice...?
Lastly, it has been pointed out in a few reviews (both on here and AO3) that Matt's treatment of Sarah is not very romantic or healthy. And that is totally valid criticism! No real life relationship should begin with one person threatening the other. If someone does that to you in real life, please be sure to quickly cross them off your list of potential suitors.
That being said, fiction is a place to explore controversial concepts in a way that might not be so acceptable in real life, and Matt's dark side is something that I find very interesting. On the show, Matt has done (and kind of enjoyed) some unpleasant things, like jamming a knife into a guy's face to torture him for information. I love him, but he's a dark character with a lot of anger problems. He's not crush-your-head-in-a-car-door violent, but he's not all fun and avocados, either. This story will definitely explore how that moral ambiguity spills over to his (future) love life. I understand if that makes some of you uncomfortable, but just know that fictional scenarios in this story are not an endorsement of real life actions.
Okay, enjoy!
PS: I know I promised one or two of you that Foggy would be in this chapter, but I had to move his scene to later in the story. You do get some Father Latte, though, if that helps.
Chapter Seven: Aftermath
"Matthew. It's been a while since you've been here."
Matt turned his head towards Father Lantom, who was lingering in the aisle of the empty church, calmly observing the blind man sitting alone on one of the long pews.
"I know. I'm sorry, Father. I've…been busy."
"I assumed as much," Father Lantom said lightly. "Did you come for confession today?"
"Yes. Confession and…and counsel," Matt said.
The priest settled himself on the pew, a few feet from Matt. "Where would you like to begin?"
Matt was quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I met a girl."
Father Lantom looked at him in slight surprise, and Matt could hear a touch of amusement in his voice. "I have to say, after all of the…more troublesome sins you've come in here to confess, Matthew, impure thoughts isn't one that I expected you to be particularly concerned about."
"Not—not that kind of girl, Father," he said, laughing faintly before falling somber again. "We're not, um…on the best of terms. She works for some…bad people. The kind of people that I—I dedicate all this time and effort to trying to bring down. She has her reasons, but she's there all the same. And she, uh, she knows. Who I am. What I do. Even who my friends are."
"How did that happen?" Father Lantom asked in a concerned tone.
Matt shook his head. "I wasn't careful enough."
"And what is it about the situation that's weighing on your mind?"
"The things she knows…they could put me in a lot of danger. If she told anyone. She could put the people I love in danger. Get them killed, or tortured. I've…done what I had to do. To keep her from telling those secrets. But I'm…I'm struggling. With how I have to do it."
The priest was quiet, and while he contemplated, Matt listened to the creak of the old wooden pews and inhaled the comforting scent of incense and old missals.
"Have you…harmed this woman?"
Matt swallowed hard and tilted his face up towards the ceiling. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face as it streamed through the stained glass windows high above him. He didn't know whether to lean into it or flinch away from it. Father Lantom was still waiting patiently for his answer.
"Yes. Not—not like I have others. But I've put my hands on her," he admitted guiltily. "I've made her afraid of me. What I've been doing to her…mentally…it's maybe just as harmful as physically hurting her."
The father's heartbeat was steady as always. No matter what sins Matt carried through the church doors and threw at this man's feet, his heart and breathing never changed. It was one of the reasons Matt always came back to him to confess.
"I know that with your…particular line of work, there's little use in debating the moral nuances of violence. But…you don't strike me as the type to hurt people for no reason, Matthew," Father Lantom said. There was a questioning note in his tone.
"I have reasons. This is—it's the only way I can have any control over the situation. The only way I can keep my friends safe."
"Has she given you some reason to believe that she'll tell your secrets?"
"Aside from the fact that she works for the people who would benefit most from finding out? That could destroy my life the quickest? I can't be there every hour of the day to make sure she doesn't break her promise. More than once now, I've thought that she did break it. And the feeling was just…like everything I've worked to protect was going to come crashing down. It's this…constant uncertainty, not knowing what she'll do."
Father Lantom hummed contemplatively. "You're a defense attorney by day, is that correct?"
Matt nodded, unsure where the father was going with the change of subject.
"When you get a client who wishes to have you represent them, I assume you must have to form an opinion of some sort as to whether or not they're innocent. How do you decide if they're lying to you?"
"It's…sort of a gut feeling," Matt said, guiltily sidestepping the full truth. "But determining if someone committed a single specific crime versus if they're someone who can be trusted indefinitely…it's two different things. It's—it's actions versus character. One is much harder to figure out than the other."
"I see. Well, let me ask you this. Did you come here today looking for reasons to trust this woman, or justification to continue keeping her in fear?"
"I don't know. Neither. I guess I'm here about…me. Everything that's happened in the past few months, I worry that it's made me…harder. Less forgiving. Sometimes I think that if this same situation had occurred before Fisk, before we lost Ben and Elena, before…a lot of things, maybe I would have reacted differently. Tried to be more…"
"Christian-like?" the father offered lightly.
"Yeah, that one," Matt said, a brief grin flitting across his face before falling. "The reason I do…everything that I've done is to help my city. To keep the people of Hell's Kitchen safe, so that they don't have to live in fear. But…I've done the opposite with her. It makes me wonder if it's the situation, or if I've changed."
"No one can go through such events and emerge unchanged, Matthew. But…it doesn't mean you've become a worse person for them. You say that you've made her afraid of you. Do you intend to follow through on the things you've threatened to do, if needed?"
"I don't know. I'd like to think that I wouldn't. But I also know that I—I can't risk trusting her right now. I can't stop putting pressure on her. Not when she works right in the center of the lion's den," Matt said bitterly.
"It's interesting that you use that analogy," Father Lantom said. "You are familiar with the story of Daniel and the lion's pit, are you not? King Darius was fooled into throwing his friend Daniel into a den of lions for refusing to pray to him before God. They rolled a stone in front of the entrance and left him there."
"Right," Matt said, nodding as he recalled that particular passage. "But when they came back the next day for his body, Daniel was unharmed."
"Exactly. Daniel went into the lion's den with complete faith that God would save him, and God rewarded that trust. In certain situations, there is no easy solution. We have no way out, we just have to have faith in God to keep us safe."
"I do have faith in God. I do. But…I've had my whole life to learn to trust Him. This girl, I've only just met."
"I understand that. Do what you need to, Matthew. I don't believe that you're as far gone as you think. Next time you have to make decision between trusting this girl or hurting her…try having faith in God. I think you'd be surprised at how much it will help you make your choice."
Matthew nodded, contemplating the older man's words.
"Thank you, Father," he said, standing and grabbing his cane to leave.
"I hope to see you again a bit sooner this time, Matthew," Father Lantom said. "Maybe over lattes."
Matt smiled slightly as he made his way up the aisle towards the large wooden doors. "I'll try my best, Father."
Sarah's Monday at Orion was tense. The forty-eight hours on the box of Yates' belongings had expired, and Sarah kept glancing at the container below her desk throughout the day, anxious to look inside it. She was tempted to just look through the stuff right there at her desk, but they had a plan to follow. First she would have to throw it in the dumpster, and then later, when it was safer, she or Matt would come back and fish it out.
Finally, when Ronan was on his lunch break, she grabbed the box and made her way out to the small back alleyway where the dumpster was. Just as she was about to throw the box in, she spotted the mechanical gears on either side of the container and cursed. It was a compacting machine. She wasn't sure when the company had switched from their regular dumpsters, but this threw a major wrench in her plan. Dumpsters with automatic compactors would crush all of the trash every few hours or so, and by the time she could come back to get the box it would be unrecognizable.
Glancing around her, she quickly grabbed the papers and notepad and stuffed them in her purse, which she had brought outside with her with the intent of going to grab a coffee directly after disposing of the box. With the only promising contents of the box safely in her bag, she tossed the rest of the box in the trash and promptly left the alley.
Unfortunately, she didn't notice the very small, inconspicuous camera placed high on the brick wall, directed squarely at the dumpster.
After work, Sarah tiredly made the walk from the subway station to her apartment, lost deep in thoughts about what she might find in Yates' stuff. She was so zoned out that when someone jumped out at her as she was fishing for her keys, she screamed and automatically held her stun gun out towards them.
"Whoa! Do not taze the pregnant woman, Sarah!"
Sarah immediately threw the stun gun back in her purse as she recognized her best friend, Lauren.
"Lauren! Oh my God. You scared the hell out of me," Sarah said, clutching her chest. "What are you doing here?"
Sarah recovered enough to give her friend a hug as Lauren explained why she was there.
"Well, you cancelled on me again for drinks on Saturday. So I figured if I actually showed up at your place, you'd have no excuse to not come out with me and Greg for a few drinks, and sad, non-alcoholic beverages for me…right?"
"Lauren…" Sarah began, thinking of the important papers in her bag.
Lauren rested her hands on her giant stomach and fixed Sarah with a stern look. "Do you know how much effort it took me to get all the way over here and then wait for you? I had to talk to at least three passing strangers about what gender my baby is. I hate making baby talk with strangers, Sarah. Why do they need to know?"
"I…yeah, okay. Just one or two drinks," Sarah said. After the past week, numbing the constant anxiety with some alcohol didn't sound like an awful idea. "I need to get changed first. Come on, let's see if the three of us can even all fit on the elevator."
When they reached Sarah's apartment, Lauren slowly lowered herself down onto the couch. "Oh, man. I'm not getting back up now. It's done. I mean, at least until I have to pee, which should be every three minutes or so at this stage, apparently."
"How pregnant are you now, anyway?" Sarah said as she slipped into her bedroom and closed the door partially behind her. "Like, thirteen months?"
"Ugh, I think this kid is just planning on growing up in there," Lauren's muffled voice replied. Sarah heard the television flick on, and grinned as the opening music to some trashy reality show floated through the air.
She quickly wiggled out of her work clothes, leaving them in a pile on her floor and grabbing a dress from her closet. It wasn't a very fancy dress—so hopefully they weren't going anywhere too upscale—but she liked how the blue brought out her eyes, and the way it still fit her well even after she'd lost a bit of weight.
As she slipped her shoes on, her gaze lingered on her purse with the papers inside. She glanced at the door. It wasn't like Lauren could easily sneak up on her; Sarah was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to get up from the couch without help. She could take at least a moment to look at what she had just stolen.
Sarah tip-toed over to the bed and took the papers from her purse. Shuffling through them, she saw that for the most part they seemed fairly innocuous. No death ray schematics, no newspaper-letter ransom notes. Disappointed, she picked up the notebook and flipped through it. She raised her eyebrows. Most of the pages were blank, but there were large chunks of perforated paper on the side where someone had clearly ripped out many pages at a time. Yates? Or someone who had gone through his stuff after his death?
Sarah ran her fingers over some of the blank pages, and she could feel small indents from where Yates had written with enough pressure that it left an impression on the next page. She knew that going over the indents with a pencil to see the writing was something that only worked in movies, but maybe a certain blind man could make out the words with his annoying heightened senses.
She opened her desk drawer and threw the papers and notebook in, before grabbing her purse and returning to the living room.
"Do you know how long you were in there?" Lauren asked. "I already had my baby; he grew up and went to college. This baby in here? My seventh child. That is how much time passed while you were getting ready."
"If you have seven children, I'm going to leave you," Sarah said.
"You can't leave me. Only boyfriends and husbands can leave; best friends are stuck with me. Help me up?" she said, and Sarah reached a hand down to haul her up.
"Speaking of boyfriends," Lauren continued. "What's happening with your love life these days? I can't believe I even have to ask that, I should already know. Any guys keeping you busy at night?" she asked, winking.
Not in the good way, Sarah thought, frowning as she thought of the only night time visitor she ever got. She didn't think intimidating masked men were what Lauren meant. "Um…not really."
Lauren jabbed an accusatory finger at her. "You hesitated! There is someone. You always do this, you never let us meet guys until you've been dating them for decades. Secretive Sarah."
"You would scare them off after the first few dates! And also, there is no guy! Just me."
Her friend looked unconvinced. "You remember what I said happens when you lie to a pregnant woman, Sarah."
"I remember, I remember. Hemorrhaging, death, etcetera. Come on, let's get to the bar and find Greg. He never grills me about my love life."
Their usual bar was crowded as always. Sarah remembered that they had especially great drink specials on Mondays, something she had regularly taken advantage of back when she actually went out with friends all the time.
"Where's Greg?" Sarah called over the noise.
"He's saving a table for us near the back," Lauren responded. Sure enough, Sarah spotted her friend's husband near the back, sitting by himself at one of the tall tables. He jumped up as they approached and guided his pregnant wife as she hauled herself up onto the tall bar chair.
"Sarah!" he greeted cheerfully in his clipped British accent. "You are alive! Lauren kept telling me you were dead. Or maybe she said dead to her. I don't know, but it was very dramatic either way, so I'm glad you're here to be the level headed one."
Lauren glared at him. "I have waited my whole life for an excuse to be overly dramatic and demanding, and now that I finally have one, you're going to try and take it from me? What's the point of even having a baby, then?" Their server appeared with food menus and cocktail lists, and Lauren beamed at him. "Hi! I'd love a sad, non-alcoholic lemonade, please."
"I'll take a double whiskey," Greg said, then pointed to Sarah. "And so will she, and we'd like for you to keep them both coming! Thanks!"
"Wait, what?" Sarah said, but the server was already gone. "No, no, no, I have work in the morning!"
"Well, maybe if you had come out on Saturday like we asked, we wouldn't have that problem," Lauren said sweetly. "Besides, it's on us!"
"What? Lauren—" Sarah protested.
"I'm insisting! If I can't drink, you need to drink for both of us, because we all know Greg is a lightweight," Lauren said, and Greg shrugged and nodded. "Plus, I need you to be just a little drunk soon."
"Why?" Sarah asked suspiciously.
Greg leaned over and whispered loudly to her, "Because she's going to ask you to plan her baby shower."
"Greg!" Lauren scolded.
"She gets too agreeable when she's drunk, it wouldn't be fair to ask her then! I would feel bad. It's like tricking a child. No offense," he said to Sarah.
"Well, offense…kind of taken," she mumbled.
"Yeah, Greg," Lauren said. "Sarah is a grown woman who can totally hold her liquor, and she's also pretty and smart and perfect and exactly the kind of friend who will definitely throw my baby shower for me," she finished, smiling widely at Sarah with huge eyes.
Sarah glared at her. "Do you not remember when you asked me to plan your bachelorette party—"
"I do, but this is different—"
"—and I had to call up all your old sorority sisters because you insisted on inviting them—"
"Most of them live out in the suburbs or rehab now anyway, so you don't have to worry about that!"
"—and I had to talk to your mother, who hates me—"
"No! No, she hates Greg, she just resents you because you introduced me to him." Greg raised his glass and winked. Sarah ignored him.
"—and then you made me change the date five times in three months—"
"But I only have a little over two months til I'm going to pop, so how many times can I possibly do that?"
"—and while I was doing all of this, you called me at least five times a day to check and make sure I was planning everything right."
"I will almost definitely probably not do that this time."
Sarah stared at her skeptically. She already knew she'd say yes, but she never passed up an opportunity to remind Lauren of how bad she was at letting people plan anything for her.
The server set the whiskey down on the table and Lauren pushed it closer to Sarah. "Did I mention you look so great tonight?" she said. "That is such a pretty dress."
Sarah looked down. "You gave me this dress."
"And you probably didn't send me a thank you note, so plan my shower?"
Sarah rolled her eyes, then looked down at the whiskey. She brought the glass to her lips and threw the entire drink back in one go. The warm, fuzzy feeling spread through her body immediately. She closed her eyes, relieved to have some sort of relaxation, some reprieve from everything that had been going on. When she opened them again, Greg and Lauren were both looking at her hopefully.
"If I say yes, just how many of these are you planning on buying me?"
Lauren beamed at her, and from that point there was no turning back.
The server kept drinks for both Sarah and Greg in ready supply, and they both steadily became more inebriated, while Lauren laughed so loudly and told her stories with such wild hand movements that several bar-goers gave her dirty looks, obviously believing her to be drunk as well.
Shortly after eleven—hours after they had arrived at the bar—Sarah was well past drunk, and she and Lauren were deep in a heated argument.
"So, you're telling me," Sarah said in disbelief, "that you would actually make a sex tape with Jeff Goldblum?"
"Yes, of course! Are you telling me you wouldn't make a sex tape with Jeff Goldblum?" Lauren said, scandalized.
"No! What is wrong with you?" Sarah said, laughing. "He's like seventy!"
"Oh, he is sixty-two, at the most!"
"That's way too exact!" Sarah accused, pointing her finger at Lauren. "You knew that off the top of your head! Greg, your—your wife doesn't know who our current governor is, but she has Jeff Goldblum's birthday memorized."
Greg's shoulders were shaking hard as he laughed loudly, and Lauren tried to defend herself. In the middle of her argument, Sarah's phone lit up, but she was too busy laughing to notice.
"Your phone is ringing!"
"What?" Sarah said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
"Your phone!" Lauren repeated, grabbing Sarah's cell phone off the table and holding it up. "Ooh, it's an unsaved number! Is this the guy you didn't want to talk about earlier?"
Even in the cloud of alcohol surrounding her brain, Sarah knew that it was undoubtedly Matt, calling because he thought she had disappeared on him again. Which would seem likely after their last unfriendly encounter.
"Funny, funny, give me the phone," Sarah said, reaching for it. But Lauren held it out of reach with a mischievous look in her eye. Sarah's stomach dropped when she saw the same look mirrored on Greg's face.
"Wait, guys, what are you doing—"
Before she could say anything, Lauren hit the answer button on her phone and greeted Matt loudly. "Hey there, hot stuff! Are you Sarah's mystery nighttime friend?"
"Wait, wait, wait, no, don't do that—" Sarah protested, reaching across the table for her phone.
"Listen, Sarah's already told us everything about you, so there's no need to be so secretive!" Greg leaned over and called into the phone. Sarah's eyes grew wide and she hopped down from her chair to circle the table and get her phone.
"Oh, my God. No, no, no, don't tell him that—"
"Hello? Hello? He hung up!" Lauren said indignantly, handing the phone back to Sarah. "Rude. Who calls people these days anyway? It is 2015, send a text."
Sarah stared down at the phone, dumbfounded. Had she been sober, she might have started panicking at the highly misleading conversation that had just happened, but the alcohol pumping through her system made it more of just a minor worry.
"I should probably call him back?"
"No!" said Lauren. "Call him later! Who would get that annoyed by a phone call anyway? You always date the cranky ones, Sarah. And he'll still be cranky when you call him later! We're having fun right now!"
Sarah looked up at her friends, who were both grinning at her. Greg handed her her glass of whiskey, eyebrows raised. She glanced back down at the phone, and then shoved it in her pocket. Lauren was right. She was having fun, for the first time in a long time, and the world of Orion and her father and Matt for once seemed so wonderfully far away.
An hour and a half later, Sarah barely managed to stumble through her front door. She had split a cab with Lauren and Greg, but insisted that she could make it up to her apartment on her own. The journey had been a difficult one.
She dropped her purse on the table and immediately went to the kitchen to look for something to drunkenly snack on. Unfortunately, her fridge and cabinets were less than well-stocked. Groaning in annoyance, she slid down the wall on the far side of her kitchen until she was sitting on the floor.
She jumped when she glanced at the fridge and saw a tiny pair of mouse eyes staring at her from underneath.
"Hey! Mouse. What are you doing under my fridge?" she asked accusatorially, her words slurring together a bit.
The mouse didn't answer, just twitched its tail.
"Are you looking for food?" she whispered. "Because you are out of luck. This is a...a garbage kitchen. No food here."
Sarah leaned forward slightly to get a better look at the small creature, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"You can't live here, little buddy. I'm very sorry," she confided in the small rodent.
"Who are you talking to?"
Sarah jumped with a small shriek and whipped her head around. Matt was leaning against the wall near his usual window, his masked head cocked to the side.
"Oh my God," she said, trying to catch her breath. "You scared the Christ out of me. Why do people keep doing that tonight? How did you get in here?"
"The window was unlocked. I knocked, but I think you were busy talking to…yourself."
"Okay, no," she slurred defensively. "I was talking to this mouse I just met."
He pushed himself off the wall and came into the kitchen, where he lingered on the opposite side from where she sat near the fridge. "Right…and was the mouse the one who intercepted our phone call earlier?"
"O-oh," Sarah said, wincing. Her alcohol-addled short term memory had already forgotten about that part of the night. "Ummm…shit. Okay, wait, just—just stay on that side of the room and listen for like, two seconds. That was an extra misleading conversation. They were just being really drunk—well, just one of them was really drunk, the other one is just kind of a nosy bitch but also a very likeable person, but the point is, um…" Shit, what was I talking about? "But, my point is that I know it sounded really bad, but they don't know anything about you, like at all. They think you're some guy I'm dating that I just don't want them to meet, which is so, so, so ridiculously far from reality. I mean aside from the part about me not ever wanting you to meet them, which is like…way true. But I swear there is a zero percent chance of them finding out the truth, so you can do whatever creepy heartbeat thing you do, and…okay?" Am I rambling? I feel like I've been talking for ten minutes.
They faced each other in silence for a few moments, and Sarah tried to figure out what he was thinking. He didn't look angry, but maybe she just wasn't as good at reading him when she was drunk, because he almost looked amused.
"I know," he said finally, and Sarah squinted at him in confusion.
"You do?"
He laughed darkly, leaning back against her counter and looking down. "People who are familiar with my…alter ego don't generally refer to me as 'hot stuff'. Unless you have some remarkably brave friends."
"Right. That…makes sense," Sarah admitted.
"Besides, if I thought you had told them something, this conversation would not be going as pleasantly for you as it is right now," he said casually.
Sarah rubbed her right arm, where the bruise he had left had finally almost faded. "Yeah, I remember," she said under her breath. He lifted his head back up at her comment and she snapped her mouth shut. Gotta stop saying things under your breath, Sarah.
"Should I bother asking who they were?"
"Um…on a scale of alleyways to semi-friendly kitchen talks, how will you react if I say I can't tell you?"
Sarah watched him warily, waiting to see if he was going to cross the room. She really doubted she could stand up very fast if needed. He tilted his head back and exhaled in frustration, but stayed where he was.
"You know, I've interrogated mob bosses and cold blooded killers who haven't refused to give me information as many times as you have," he said.
"Well, yeah, but they're mobsters and killers," Sarah said, throwing her hands up dramatically. "They probably have shitty, mobster-killer friends who aren't worth protecting."
"That, and they're usually already bleeding on the ground when I ask them."
"Um…" Sarah said nervously.
"That wasn't a threat," he said quietly. "Just an observation. The last three times I've seen you, you've kept secrets from me, and still been able to walk away each time. Most people who refuse to give me information don't have that privilege. You do, because you're useful. Just don't push it."
She squinted her eyes at him, trying to make her vision stop doubling. Right now it looked like there were two Daredevils instead of just one. That would be an actual nightmare.
"Do you know how many years I went without anyone ever wanting to actively kill me?" she asked him suddenly. "Like…like a lot. All them, almost. Just years and years of normal. And now…I spend all of my daytime with coworkers who hate me, and then at night I hang out with a scary vigilante, who also hates me."
"I don't hate you, Sarah," he said. "I just don't know you."
"Well, there's probably a lot of people you don't know, but you don't go around slamming them into the sides of dumpsters. Or—I don't know, maybe you do, actually," she mumbled.
"Most of those people either don't know who I am, or don't work for a company of criminals. You're the only one lucky enough to fall in both camps."
Sarah leaned her head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. "Well…if I could give up either of those camps, I would. Both of them, actually. I hate going to that place every day. I'd do anything to not have to. Obviously," she said, gesturing to him.
"Yeah, I…I know. People do anything for family," he said, and in her inebriated state she missed the implication of those words. "But soon enough, there won't be anything left of Orion. That was the deal."
Sarah turned her head towards the mouse that was still lingering under her fridge, watching her. She pointed a finger at him. "You don't hate me, mouse. You and me…we are good. Right?"
The mouse made a small squeaking noise as though it was responding. Sarah pointed at him again, looking up at the masked man at the other end of the kitchen.
"Is he lying?" she whispered loudly to Matt. "Can you hear his heartbeat, too?"
This time she definitely saw a very small, amused smile ghost across his face briefly. Maybe the first one she had ever seen on him. He changed the subject before she could think about it too much.
"Do you have anything for me tonight, or should I come back when you're…less inebriated?"
She nodded. "No, I do, I do."
Sarah started to stand, but a wave of dizziness hit her and she had nothing close by with which she could drag herself up. She heard Matt sigh and move from his position across the kitchen. When she looked up she was surprised to see him extending a hand to help her up. She took it hesitantly, and he pulled her up easily, like she weighed nothing. He let go as soon as she was fully standing.
"Not that I'm judging, but do you always drink this much on random weekdays?"
"More so since I met you," she replied, making her way unsteadily into her bedroom. Her back was turned, so she didn't notice the slight frown on his face at her comment.
She returned to the room with the papers and the notebook. Handing them to him, she sat down in one of the chairs at her kitchen table, not feeling especially steady on her feet. "Okay, so…I haven't really had a chance to look at these, yet. But they were Yates'."
"How'd you get these out? I thought you were going to throw them out and we'd come back for them later."
"Mmm, but the dumpster had a—a…combat. Comrade. Comptroller?" What is the goddamn word I'm looking for? Matt just tilted his head, confused, and she made a vague crushing gesture with her hands, hoping he could sense it somehow. "A thing that crushes all the trash. The box would've been useless. So I just shoved the papers in my purse."
"Do you think there's anything useful in them?"
"Maybe not the papers," she said, still slurring a bit. "But the notebook has a bunch of pages ripped out, and you can feel the um…you know, little marks…indents! From where he wrote on other pages. I thought maybe you could use your…super…whatever to figure it out."
Matt nodded. "Probably. I'll take them with me. Anything new on the task force?"
She shook her head. "Nope. I think since they think you, um…murdered someone, people maybe aren't super excited to try and find you."
"Good. Maybe they'll stay that way."
Sarah nodded, putting her head down on the table slowly as another wave of dizziness hit her. A compactor! That was the word. She hadn't been this drunk in years. Why had she done this, again?
She didn't even hear Matt move away from her, but then there was a small clinking sound near her head and she looked up to see a glass of water on the table.
"You might want to drink that," he said.
She nodded, then said suddenly, "Did you know that the last time you gave me water, the glass had pictures of dicks all over it?"
There was a confused silence. "What?"
"The glass you picked, that night that you, um...the night that we met. It was from my friend's bachelorette party, and it had these, um…sparkly penises all over it. And it was kind of funny, except that, you know…you were there, so it was mostly just, um, terrifying, I guess. And I remember wondering if that stupid glass was going to be the last thing I saw before you killed me. It was a…weird night," she finished distractedly.
His lips parted, like he was going to say something, but no words came out. She could only see his lower face, but his expression was odd and she couldn't place it. Sarah put her head back down for a few seconds to make the room stop spinning. When she looked up, he was gone.
The next morning, Sarah had the worst hangover she had experienced in many years. Not since college. To make it worse, she couldn't even skip work like she used to skip class on days like these. She slowly rolled out of bed, trying to ignore the pounding in her head as she stumbled towards the shower.
As the water pounded her back, something was hovering on the edge of her mind, bothering her. She only had hazy recollections of most of her conversation with Matt last night, but something about it was nagging at her brain. She mentally went through what she remembered talking about. There had been a mouse, and some paperwork, and some discussion of her friends. It was something he had said, she knew that. Something that hadn't bothered her at the time, but was setting off alarms now. What was it?
"I know. People do anything for family."
Shit.
She slapped her hand down on the faucet handle, abruptly ending her shower. Whipping the curtain open, she grabbed her bathrobe and her phone, wiping her hands off before calling her father. He answered on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Dad? Are you okay?" she asked anxiously.
"Yeah, honey, I'm fine. Why?"
A feeling of relief rushed through her, but the dread didn't leave her chest. "I, um…just had a weird feeling. I'm sorry. Just, um, let me know if anything odd happens, okay? And don't answer your door."
As she ended her conversation with her very confused father, Sarah's stomach was already twisting at the thought of the next phone call she'd have to make.
Scrolling through her recent calls list, Sarah raised her eyebrows when she noticed that, in her drunken state last night, she had finally saved Matt's number in her phone. Where every other contact had a first and last name, for his number there was just a tiny devil Emoji. She shook her head, too distressed to think about her drunken sense of humor, and hit the call button.
"Sarah?" he answered.
"Matt," she said, suddenly aware that she hadn't actually thought out what to say to him. She didn't want to have another hysterical conversation over the phone, where she couldn't see him or read his expression. "Um, I—I need to talk to you. Soon."
"What's wrong?" he said suspiciously.
"Nothing. I just…I need to discuss something. With you. About all this," she said, wincing at how sketchy she sounded even to her own ears. There was a silence on the other end of the line.
"Okay. I'll come by tonight while I'm out."
"Can it be sooner?" She asked desperately. She really didn't want to wait until 11 or 12 at night, and she thought the conversation might be a bit easier if he weren't in costume.
"Alright," he said slowly. "How about earlier in the evening? I'll be in your building to go over some paperwork with Mrs. Benedict, anyway."
"Yes. Yeah, that's perfect. Um, I will…see you then," she said nervously, then hung up.
The day at work would be a long and excruciating one. Her nauseous stomach and splitting headache were a good part of it, but the rest was entirely based on the sinking feeling of dread that Matt knew something he really shouldn't. And if he did, she had no idea what to do about it.
Around six that night, Matt finally extracted himself from Mrs. Benedict's—admittedly amusing—long ramblings, nodding politely as she said goodbye, went on a tangent about something, said goodbye again, gave him some advice on life, and finally said goodbye one more time.
Matt listened at Sarah's door for a few seconds before knocking. It felt odd to be at her door, in normal clothes, during daylight hours. He could sense that she was in the kitchen, sitting on her countertop, and it sounded like she was opening mail. She was anxious already, he could tell, and her nervousness kicked into overdrive when she heard his knock. He also didn't miss the fact that Mrs. Benedict popped her head back out of her door, delightedly watching as Sarah let him into her apartment.
Matt stood by one of the living room chairs while Sarah paced around the room. Her heartbeat was fast, like it usually was when he was around her, but this time it was different. She didn't just seem scared, she seemed agitated. Every few seconds she would fidget with her long hair, running a hand through it or sweeping it from one shoulder to the other. He folded his hands on his cane and waited for her to speak.
"Last night," she said finally. "You said that people will do anything for their family."
Matt frowned, annoyed at himself for the slip. He hadn't been too concerned about watching what he said to someone as drunk as she had been. The girl had been so wasted that she had been talking to a mouse; how had she possibly been lucid enough to have caught that small of a slip?
"I…did say that."
"What did you mean by it?"
Matt didn't respond, debating whether to lie and let her think that she still had some semblance of privacy, or to get it all out in the open. He hadn't been planning to bring up the fact that he knew about her father; he had no plans to involve him in this, after all. But he hadn't expected her to bring it up.
"You know, don't you?" she asked in a small voice when he didn't answer her first question. "About…"
Matt decided not to pretend. "Your father. Yeah. I do."
Sarah sank down onto her couch and put her head in her hands, grasping her hair tightly in frustration. Her heart started beating even faster, and he could hear her breathing become purposefully deep and slow, like she was trying to keep herself from panicking. He winced internally.
"How?" Her voice was muffled from the position of her hanging head.
"You were only about two blocks away when you called him. I…heard you leave him a message. I didn't…didn't know who you were leaving it for. Just that they sent you to the police station. So…I followed you on Friday."
She snapped her head up. "You followed me? I—how? No, no, I went there during the day. In a cab. How could you possibly have followed me there without anyone seeing you?"
Matt shrugged. "Rooftops."
"Rooftops. Jesus. This is so messed up. So, now that you're in my life, I don't get to go anywhere without worrying that you're following me? You don't get to know everything about me, it's not fair—"
"In case you've forgotten, I didn't exactly ask for you to know so much about my life either," he snapped.
"What?" she said in a disbelieving tone. "How—how do you possibly think that's the same thing? I found out about you by accident. I didn't purposefully follow you around to find out your secrets!"
"And yet that doesn't make it any less dangerous for you to know them," he argued. She lapsed into a frustrated silence. "I didn't know…that it was going to be something like that. But I couldn't just not find out. It was too risky. With the position you're in."
Sarah inhaled deeply, clearly trying to calm herself down. "How…much do you know?"
He wet his lips, considering how much he should tell her. "I know that you were at the station to try to deal with his traffic ticket. I assume that's what was in your purse. And I know that he's…not well. Mentally. He's confused...forgetful. I'd guess Alzheimer's, or some sort of dementia. And he got some visitors recently who made you very nervous."
She was quiet, though Matt could hear her heart pounding through the silence. Oddly enough, as scared as she had been during some of their previous encounters, ones with masks and dark alleyways, he hadn't seen her as panicked as she seemed now.
"Please, I don't—I don't have anything else. I can't—there's nothing else—shit."
He cocked his head in confusion. She sounded so distressed that he couldn't even figure out what she was trying to say. "What are you talking about?"
"I don't have anything else to bargain with!" she exclaimed. "I'm—I'm keeping your secret so you don't hurt me. And I'm spying in exchange for you bringing down Orion. That's all I have, I don't…Christ. I don't know what else I can do. He has nothing to do with us, Matt."
The end of her rant, which had begun so vehemently, trailed off in a pleading tone, and Matt's chest tightened guiltily as he realized that he had terrorized her to the point where she thought she had to give him something in exchange for him not hurting her family. He sighed and felt around for the edge of the arm chair facing the couch, sitting down slowly in the hopes that she might calm down a bit if he wasn't standing over her. He could feel her watching his every move nervously.
"I'm not going to hurt your father, Sarah," he said softly.
She didn't respond, and he could tell she was staring at him, probably distrustfully. He didn't blame her.
"This agreement we have? It's between you and me," he said, gesturing between them. "No one else. Don't get me wrong, if you break your end, you'll have to answer to me. That much hasn't changed."
Sarah's hand automatically drifted from its place on her lap up to the faint bruise on her arm. He ignored another twist of guilt and continued. "But that's you. Not your father. I have no reason to hurt him, or your friends from the phone last night. The only way anyone you care about will be involved in this is if you bring them into it by telling them something you shouldn't. Otherwise, they don't exist to me. The only person whose safety you need to be careful of here is your own. Understand?"
"So…that's it? You went to all that work to find out what my secret was, and now that you know…I just have to take your word that you won't use it against me?" she asked defeatedly.
Matt leaned his head back and sighed, thinking of the similar question he had posed to her not too long ago. "It's not fun, is it? Having to trust someone you hardly know with something that could hurt the people you love?"
She didn't answer, and he gave her a minute to get her thoughts together before continuing. "I take it this is why you work for Orion. Your father. He's their leverage."
"Yeah," she said quietly. He heard her breathing falter slightly, like she was debating whether or not to continue. Matt waited. "He…had problems with gambling. He owed some of Fisk's men a lot of money, and they'd show up every so often to collect. Usually he had enough to—to keep them off his back for a while. But then they, um…they showed up at his house about a year ago. After his diagnosis. He—he didn't recognize them, didn't know why they were there. And he didn't have their money. I don't think he even remembered he owed any debts."
"I'm guessing they didn't respond well to that."
"No. They put him in the hospital. He was in there for a week, and—and he was so confused about why. Every time I'd visit, he'd ask me what he did wrong, why people wanted to hurt him." Her voice came close to cracking, and she swallowed before continuing. "I told him it was just someone picking a random target."
Matt nodded slowly. "So, how'd you get involved?"
She took a deep breath. "Um…a few days after my dad got out of the hospital, a man showed up at my door. His name was James Wesley." Matt's fists clenched at the familiar name. "He said a bunch of…fake charming stuff about understanding how difficult it must be, with my dad being so sick. Said that I could take some of that weight off of his shoulders. He offered me a job at one of Fisk's companies. Told me as long I kept my mouth shut about what I do and see, they'd leave him alone. I get half my paycheck, and the other half goes towards paying his debts."
"Doesn't seem like a very quick way to get their money back," Matt said.
"I don't think they care about the money. Not really. It's just an excuse to have one more person under their control."
The news that she was getting by on half a paycheck made several things about her clearer. He had noticed how thin her wrist was when he had grabbed it, how her stomach growled all the time and he could barely smell any food in her kitchen. He wondered how much her weekly cab rides to her father's home ate into her tight budget.
"As long as everything goes like it should on both our sides, they won't be a problem much longer," he said. She didn't respond, and he suddenly felt as though it was time to leave. "Is that...everything you needed to talk about?"
"Yeah," she said so quietly that no one with normal hearing could have heard.
He stood and grabbed his cane, but paused before heading towards the door. "I'm really not trying to ruin your life, Sarah. I'm just trying to make sure you don't ruin mine."
She nodded, and he turned to leave. Just as he reached the door, she called out after him.
"Matt," she said, biting her lip, and he turned. She stood up slowly and walked around the couch until she was in front of him. "You can hear my heartbeat, right? You—you can tell if I mean what I'm saying?"
He furrowed his brow, confused by her question. "Yeah. Why?"
"I don't have a whole lot of power here. I know that," she said in an unsteady voice, before taking a deep breath and speaking more forcefully. "But if you go after my dad…your name and face will be on the cover of every newspaper in this city. It won't matter what you do to me afterwards. There will be nothing you can do to take that back."
Matt's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Sarah's breathing was rapid and nervous, and she was tense, like she was waiting for him to react badly. But her heartbeat was steady; she wasn't bluffing. It made sense, he supposed. She had to know it was dangerous to threaten someone who could so easily hurt her in retaliation; why waste that risk on something you didn't mean?
"You're…threatening me?" he clarified.
"N-no?" she said uncertainly. He could tell she was fighting the urge to back away, but surprisingly she stood her ground. "Well, yes, I—I guess so. I just—you said yourself that people will do anything for family. And I want to make sure that you understand…what I'd do for mine."
Matt was consistently surprised by the apparent dissonance between Sarah's emotional state and her actions. For a girl who literally stuttered in fear for most of her conversations with him, she was remarkably willing to stick her neck out when the situation called for it, and the juxtaposition was confusingly unpredictable for him.
Finally, he nodded slowly. "If it were my father, I'd probably do the same."
Then he turned the handle and stepped out into the stuffy hallway, closing the door behind him. Despite the surprising strength of her parting statement, he could still hear her lean against the closed door and curse shakily to herself as he tapped his cane along the floor, finding his way down the hallway to the elevator.
"Hi. Excuse me. Hello?" Sarah tried to get the attention of the bored clerk behind the counter at the court house. The woman had very long, fake nails and her eyebrows were drawn on just a few centimeters too high. She was studiously ignoring Sarah as she looked at something on her screen.
Sarah had given up on getting the police to give her a recommendation for a reduction on her father's ticket. She figured it was a long shot anyway, and maybe it would just be easier to go to court and try to get it lowered there. The only problem was, she had turned over every inch of her apartment and her desk at work, and she couldn't find the ticket. She knew it she had slipped it back in her purse when she left the police station. The ticket was her only record of when her father's court date was supposed to be. So, she found herself at the courthouse after work on Wednesday, hoping they could help her. Unfortunately, she seemed to have found the most unhelpful employee the courthouse had.
"I have this traffic ticket, and I need to know when the court date is," she said.
"It's printed in the bottom right corner of your ticket," the woman replied without looking up.
"Right, but I don't actually know where I put it," Sarah said embarrassedly.
The receptionist sighed and eyeballed her. Sarah thought that the woman seemed especially put upon for someone who, based on the reflection in the glass cabinet behind her, was currently doing nothing but playing Solitaire. "Name?"
"Um, mine, or the name on the ticket?"
"Now, why would I want your name if it's not your ticket? Are you someone special? The name on the ticket."
"Sorry, sorry. Mitch Corrigan," Sarah said.
The woman clacked away at her keyboard with her long fingernails for a minute, looking up the court date information. Whatever popped up on the screen made her roll her eyes.
"Honey. Please do not waste my time. That ticket has already been lowered to a warning, and you know you can't get it any lower than that. A warning's basically nothing anyway."
Sarah gave the woman a blank look. "I don't…what do you mean, it's already been lowered? I haven't even gone to court to ask them to do that."
"No," the woman said slowly. "But your lawyer did."
"My…who now?"
"Your lawyer. He already took care of it yesterday."
Sarah wrinkled her brow. "Um…does it mention the name of my lawyer, by any chance?"
The woman's heavily arched eyebrows went up again. "Honey, you don't know his name? I already exited out of that screen."
"Well, could you maybe bring it back up?" Sarah asked hopefully.
The woman gave her an exasperated look, but turned her attention back to the screen, tapping away on her keyboard.
"Murdock," she said shortly, looking up at Sarah, who stared at her, dumbfounded.
"Murdock," Sarah repeated. "Um…like, Matthew Murdock?"
The cranky woman glanced down at the screen and nodded. "So you do know your own lawyer's name. Well, that's nice."
"He argued my ticket down for me?"
"That is what lawyers do, yes."
"So…now it's…gone, I don't have to pay anything, or…go to court or anything?" Sarah clarified.
"That's right. I am glad you know how the justice system works. Is that it?"
"Um…yeah. Yeah, that's it. Thank you," Sarah said faintly.
"A bit of advice? You don't know where your ticket is, you didn't know when the court date was, and you can't remember the name of your lawyer. Maybe invest in a day planner or something. Some ginseng."
Sarah nodded vaguely at the advice before swinging her bag over her shoulder and heading for the door. Her brow was still furrowed in confusion as she processed what had just happened, but as she stepped out of the courthouse and into the warm sunshine, a small, hesitant smile formed on her face.
