What they wouldn't do

by Lazydaily

matt and OC that works for Fisk. For TTS

28. Chapter 28

In the following days, Sarah was quickly finding that working for both Jason and Vanessa was very time consuming. She hadn't quite managed to get the hang of juggling both sets of tasks yet, and it was taking its toll on her performance. This had not gone unnoticed by Jason, who had been in an increasingly bad mood the more Vanessa became involved in Orion business, especially given that many of the decisions she made were at odds with his own.

Sarah was at her desk around lunchtime, absently tapping her fingers on her desk and staring at her computer screen as she tried to finish up a spreadsheet when Jason emerged from his office. In one hand he was twirling an ornate silver letter opener, which he presumably had just used to open the thick envelope he was holding in his other hand. He was smiling, as usual.

"Sarah. Would you like to know what this letter says?" he asked, then continued before she could answer. "It's from Councilman Granger, saying he regrets that I couldn't make it to our meeting yesterday, and to kindly let him know next time if I'll be unable to make it." His smile grew more fixed. "The thing is, this was an important meeting, and I'm sure I wouldn't have missed it had I know it was happening."

Sarah's heart sank as she realized what had happened. She remembered talking to the councilman's assistant on the phone and writing down the date and time, intending to transfer it to Jason's digital calendar, but she'd gotten distracted by a courier who needed a signature for a stack of paperwork Vanessa had sent over.

"I'm so sorry, I—I must have forgotten to put it on your calendar."

"Yes, I realized that," he said, glancing at her still tapping fingers in annoyance. "Stop fidgeting."

Sarah nodded and stilled her hand.

"I wrote it down, and—and then I just forgot to transfer it over—"

"This was an important meeting."

"I know."

"When I encouraged you to take this promotion, it wasn't with the intention that you would begin neglecting your job here. I was under the impression that you could handle doing tasks for both myself and Vanessa."

Sarah didn't notice that she had started nervously tapping her fingers again, or the way that Jason's eyes locked onto her hand.

"I can," she insisted quickly. "I'll call right now and—"

With startling speed, Jason slammed the ornate letter opener down, embedding the sharp end into the wood of her desk in the small space between her middle and ring fingers. She jumped, letting out a startled scream before clapping her other hand over her mouth.

"I said to stop fidgeting," he told her calmly, his hand still on the letter opener.

Sarah stared in shock at the sharp metal instrument that had come only a fraction of a centimeter away from stabbing her through the hand. Then she looked up at Jason, who for once looked very serious.

"S-sorry," she stammered.

He held her gaze for another moment before the wide smile returned to his face.

"Kindly reschedule the meeting, and actually inform me of when it will be taking place this time. And send a nice note to the Councilman from me, apologizing for the carelessness of my staff."

Sarah nodded wordlessly, her throat tightening and making it difficult to speak. Jason threw the letter in the trash next to her desk and returned to his office.

Her gaze returned to the letter opener that was embedded ominously in her desktop. It wasn't exactly a hammer through the throat, but the violent implications were still there, and his sudden outburst stuck with her for the rest of the day.

Luckily, Sarah now had a new outlet for the increased stress that her job was putting on her: self-defense training with Matt. They'd agreed to meet at the boxing gym several times a week, with Matt insisting that she take a rest day in between meetings to recover. They'd had three sessions so far—including the one from weeks ago, though she'd already forgotten so much of what he'd taught her then. The sessions were intense, despite Matt's patience and his frequent reminders that she got to set the limits of what they did and how fast.

She believed him, but she hadn't yet reached the point of needing to tell him to stop, and their nights usually ended with her lungs burning and her entire body heavy with exhaustion. Yet despite the dull ache in her muscles and the certainty that it would only hurt worse the next morning, she felt good, like all of the anxiety that was always wound so tightly in her chest had been worn straight out of her. Getting a move right after many, many attempts gave her a feeling of accomplishment that she hadn't experienced in a long time. It was one she had usually associated with finally pulling off a particularly difficult piano piece.

By the fourth training session, they were both starting to find their footing—both figuratively, and in Sarah's case, literally. She still ended up getting knocked off balance fairly often, but not as much as before, and luckily for her Matt only took advantage of about half the opportunities he got to knock her on her ass.

They started off that night practicing with blocks and strikes, with her updating him on goings-on at Orion in between hits.

"—coming in sometime next week, but I don't know what dock," she said, aiming for his jaw.

"And you think they'll be bringing in people?" he clarified, dodging the hit.

"That's what Jason's emails—made—it—sound like—" Sarah said haltingly as she tried a few more times.

He blocked all three punches easily.

"You're swinging too wide. Stop telegraphing your moves," he told her for what felt like the millionth time that night.

Sarah bit back a groan. The incident with Jason earlier that day had left her with an itchy restlessness under her skin, and it was frustrating to have to repeat simple moves so many times.

"Yes, sir," she muttered under her breath with a roll of her eyes, despite the fact that she knew he was technically right.

Matt's lips curled into a smirk, letting her know he'd heard the remark. This was affirmed roughly three minutes later when she swung her arm too widely for his liking. His hand came up lightning quick to grab her forearm long before she had a chance to make contact. He swung her around on the spot, twisting her right arm around and against her back, where he held it just tight enough to be uncomfortable but not painful. His other hand locked around her left wrist, anticipating her plan to elbow him in the ribs before she could even try.

"Painful, but not the move you're supposed to be learning," he murmured lowly.

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus on the steps she was supposed to be taking. The way Matt's breath ghosted against her skin when he spoke in to her ear didn't help matters.

Instead of trying to pull away from his grip, she twisted into it like he'd showed her earlier, using her shoulder to help break the leverage he had on her arm. She probably didn't do it as fast as she should in real life, but Matt seemed satisfied that she'd gotten the form right, and he let her go.

She spun around to face him again and saw the smirk that seemed to be perpetually lingering on his face tonight had only grown more pronounced.

"Your face is going to get stuck that way, you know," she told him. Not that it would be the worst expression his face could get stuck in; the smirk suited him, matched the calm, cocky self-assuredness that seemed to automatically come over him when he stepped into the ring.

He shrugged, unconcerned. "Not like I'll ever have to look at it."

They continued this way for a while, alternating between her trying to hit him and attempting to block his own punches, which he threw her way much slower than she knew he usually did. Maybe it was that concerted effort to go easy on her, or maybe it was just dumb luck, but midway through their fight she took them both by surprise by managing to land her first hit on him.

She had been about to take a straight hit when she changed her mind at the last second and swung to the right instead. Before she realized what was happening her fist made contact with his mouth, and she felt the skin of his lip split open upon impact.

Sarah clapped both of her hands over her mouth in surprise. Matt seemed equally caught off guard for a moment, then spat a small amount of blood out onto the floor of the ring and grinned darkly at her.

"Good job."

"I'm sorry," Sarah said, her voice muffled by her hands. "Are you okay?"

Matt laughed, unfazed by the injury. In fact, he seemed to be genuinely pleased, which Sarah found to be a little alarming.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She moved closer, going up on her tip toes to try to get a look at the bleeding area. "Let me see."

"Why? It's a split lip," he said, waving her away. "I do get hit worse than that pretty much every night, you know."

"Yeah, but not by me."

Matt looked oddly amused by her reaction.

"Sarah. This is a good thing," he reminded her, but she just made a doubtful noise. With a sigh he dropped his hands to his sides to allow her to get a better look. She tugged him forward a few steps to bring him more into the overhead lighting and pressed her fingertips to his jaw as she tilted it upwards slightly. The skin at the corner of his mouth was split and bleeding, and the skin around it was an angry red, but it was nothing that wouldn't fade to normal shortly.

"Are you satisfied?" he asked in exasperation as she came down off her tiptoes to rest on her heels again.

"Mhm."

"This is not what you're supposed to do when you land a blow on your opponent."

"Noted."

Matt shook his head and wiped the blood from his mouth onto the cloth boxing tape wound around his hands.

As Sarah watched him, the fact that she had actually managed to hit him—even by accident—set in, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, but the hitch in her breath gave her away anyway.

"Something amusing you?"

"I just can't believe I actually got you. You must be slowing down, Murdock," she said, her mouth curving into a small, teasing smile. "Maybe you're getting old."

They were both fully aware that if Matt was moving slower than usual, it was because he was being overly careful not to actually hit her. But much to her amusement, the insinuation earned her an offended look from him anyway.

"Old? I'm two years older than you," he protested.

"Apparently it's enough," she said with an innocent shrug, leaning back against the corner post as her grin grew wider. "Do vigilantes have a retirement age? Maybe it's time to pass the torch to some other crazy guy with superpowers."

"Uh huh," Matt said, slowly nodding. He stepped forward, closing the space between them, and casually took hold of the ropes on either side of her, loosely bracketing her in the corner of the ring. "Hey, speaking of time…what time is it, again?"

Sarah glanced at the clock on the wall, the smiling faltering when she saw that they actually still had twenty minutes left in their sparring session. "Uh…time to go, actually."

Matt cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "Are you sure?"

"Well, if you round up—"

"Nope," he said, taking her hand and pulling her away from her safe position in the corner of the ring. "Come on."

She groaned, wishing she had thought to look at the clock before deciding to taunt the guy she was stuck in the ring with. He flashed her a sharp grin that would have looked very much at home beneath the black Daredevil mask, a quick trace of the devil showing through, but the hand in hers was solidly Matt, and she found that it didn't make her nervous like it once might have.

"If I land on that mat one more time my whole back is going to be one giant bruise," she complained, but didn't resist as he towed her back towards the center of the ring, where he let her hand go.

"You know we'll stop if you say so."

He waited a beat to see if she would indeed tell him to stop, but she just fixed her ponytail and waited silently.

"Alright," he said. "Let's try the going back to the move you were struggling with earlier."

The move in question involved kneeing your opponent just below the rib cage, which Sarah had initially thought sounded kind of fun, but it turned out to be more difficult to get right than she had anticipated. She had a habit of going up onto the sole of her left foot whenever her right knee came up, which Matt continuously reminded her would sacrifice all of her balance. And when she didn't do it, she had difficulty hitting him as high on his torso as she was supposed to for maximum efficiency.

Despite hoping that her complaint about her back would result in some sort of leniency as far as flooring her went, Matt only let her make the mistake of going up on her heel twice before kicking her legs out from under her.

The second Sarah felt her feet leave the ground she snapped her eyes closed, expecting to feel the painful impact of her back against the mat. Instead, she was stopped by two hands on her upper arms, catching her just short of hitting the ground. She opened her eyes in surprise as she tried to catch her breath.

That sharp smile was back on Matt's face as he tugged her back up into a standing position with a laugh.

"You did that on purpose," she breathed out. "You're such a dick."

"Maybe," he admitted, grabbing onto the ropes and holding them up for her to slip through. "You did call me old."

That was true. Ironically, between his slightly sweaty hair sticking up and the wicked grin on his face, he looked younger than she'd ever seen him.

Once out of the ring, Sarah grabbed her water bottle from her bag and sat down heavily on one of the benches. With a tired groan, she laid back on the bench, stretching out along the length of it as she waited for her heartbeat to settle back to normal. She was already sore in her arms and the tops of her thighs, not to mention her back and her knuckles. Is this what people who work out feel like all the time?

From her position on the bench she watched Matt lean against the outside of the ring and take a drink from his water bottle. It occurred to her that if she openly stared at a sighted person as often as she did Matt, they would probably think she was a serial killer. Somehow it didn't feel as creepy with him, despite the fact that she knew he could probably tell when she was watching. Maybe it was because he was so often analyzing everything about her from her walk down to her heartbeat, so by comparison staring didn't seem as invasive.

"You're actually pretty good at the teaching thing," she noted.

"Well, I just think about the way I was taught, and then do the opposite," he said with a wry laugh. "Saying I wanted to stop or slow down definitely wasn't an option. And I'm pretty sure if I'd ever paused to check on a split lip with Stick he would have knocked me out."

Sarah frowned and slowly sat up. She clearly remembered him stating that he'd been a kid when he started learning to fight, and what he was describing didn't sound like a child's lesson.

"How…how old did you say you were when you started training?" she asked hesitantly.

Matt seemed to realize that he'd said something he didn't intend to.

"Old enough to be a fast learner."

That sounded more like an avoidance of the question to her, but hey—she was the queen of that, so who was she to call him out on it? Her gaze fell on the yellowed Murdock vs. Creel poster on the wall.

"What about your dad? Did he ever teach you any of his boxing moves?"

"Ah…not on purpose," Matt said, his lopsided grin looking a little more melancholy than usual. "I picked up a few things, but he made it pretty clear that he didn't want me to do this kind of stuff."

"What did he want you to do?"

There was a pause as he frowned thoughtfully.

"Become a lawyer. Go to church. Not get into fights." Matt shrugged. "I got two out of three right, at least."

His tone was casual, but there was a stiffness to his posture that made her suspect this wasn't a subject he talked about very often. Her curiosity about his pre-Daredevil childhood days was killing her, but she didn't want to push him into a conversation that made him uncomfortable, so she dropped it.

"When do you want to come back here?" she asked.

"Thursday?"

Sarah almost said yes before remembering that she had plans Thursday night. Specifically, she had a date with Todd, the photographer Lauren had set her up with.

"I can't," she said. "I have to go do something Thursday night."

It wasn't a lie, exactly, which is possibly why it seemed to fly under Matt's radar. She wasn't sure why she didn't tell him, except that she didn't want to hear him voice the many reservations about going that she had already gone over in her head.

"Okay. We'll figure out a different day," he said.

Sarah nodded. She wondered briefly if it was a bad thing that she was looking forward to their next training session more than she was her date, but she quickly banished the thought from her mind.

Lauren came over on Thursday evening, presumably to help Sarah get ready for her date, but Sarah had a sneaking suspicion that it had more to do with wanting to get away from Cecilia for a few hours. Either way, she'd left Noah with Greg and shown up at Sarah's ready to try talking her into wearing various inappropriate outfits.

Of course, as it always did lately, the conversation eventually drifted away from lighthearted topics and towards Sarah's work life and corresponding life choices—specifically the self-defense lessons that had started back up. Lauren was struggling between being pleased that Sarah was learning to protect herself and alarmed by how she was doing it.

"Lauren, you already knew that he was teaching me this stuff," Sarah pointed out. She was sitting sideways on her dresser and using the mirror above it to apply her makeup.

"Yeah, but I thought maybe you changed your mind. You did one lesson and then never mentioned it again."

"Well, I got a concussion right after the first one, and then we were fighting, and then Ronan popped up, and now we can actually get back to it."

"Doesn't it make you nervous?" Lauren asked, her voice slightly muffled from where she was standing in Sarah's closet, rummaging through her clothing. "I got nervous just being in the same hospital room as the guy. I starting doing that anxious talking thing, which just made him more unfriendly, which made me more nervous. It was a vicious cycle, and I feel like it would be even worse in a boxing ring."

"No, I don't feel nervous. It actually…makes me feel less nervous," Sarah said thoughtfully as she screwed the top back on her mascara. "Like I'm actually doing something to keep myself safe instead of just hoping that he'll magically show up to help me next time someone tries to murder me. There are only so many times that can work, probably."

She wasn't quite sure how to explain it, the way she felt more in control in the ring with Matt than she did outside of it with anyone else.

Lauren emerged from the closet holding a silvery slinky dress that Sarah honestly didn't even remember buying. Sarah scrunched up her nose and shook her head.

"I'm glad you're learning this stuff, I just…don't know how I feel about your choice of teacher," Lauren said, tossing the dress into the reject pile on Sarah's bed.

"Okay, I know it's…unconventional."

"Unconv—" Lauren cast her eyes up at the ceiling in exasperation. "Sarah, I swear to God. Did you take a class in high school on being evasive and making ridiculous understatements?"

"Well, did you take one on—on being super dramatic?" she asked defensively.

"Yes, it was called drama class."

"I—okay, that's a real class, I guess," Sarah admitted.

"I just don't like seeing you all sore and bruised all the time."

"I'd be just as sore if I were taking a self-defense class at an expensive gym," Sarah pointed out. "Except I'd also be starving in order to pay the gym membership."

"Right, except gyms hire official, licensed instructors. You're choosing to go with a guy who straight up tortures people in his spare time, Sarah. Bad people, admittedly, but still. Not the most levelheaded choice of teacher."

"Is that your way of saying he's crazy?" Sarah asked. Lauren simply shrugged. "He's not crazy. You've been spending too much time with Cecilia."

"Okay, I'll give you that," she allowed. "Any time with Cecilia is too much time. But I'm just saying, he's out there beating people to a bloody pulp every night and then getting straight into a ring with you the next day. All it would take is for him to get a couple of his wires crossed in his head and the next thing you know he's snapped your neck."

"Of all the people you need to worry about snapping my neck, he's not one of them. But now if someone does try that, I can maybe semi stop them," Sarah said hopefully.

"Well that was…halfway reassuring," Lauren said, still sounding unhappy. "Okay, how about this one?"

Lauren held up the dress for inspection: it was a strappy little black dress that Sarah had bought with Lauren on a Christmas shopping trip a few years back. Unfortunately it was also backless, which didn't work with the bruises that ran down Sarah's spine from practicing. She shook her head.

"Maybe save that one for like…a third date."

"You're killing me Sarah," Lauren said, tossing the dress aside and returning to the closet.

"Sorry."

"Wait, wait, wait," Lauren voice got louder again as she re-emerged. "I didn't even realize you still had this! Wear this one, definitely."

Sarah turned to see which dress she was holding up. It was dark red with two delicate gold metal strands as the straps and a fluttery hemline that was just slightly shorter than what she was normally comfortable wearing. Then again, she was pretty sure she would be uncomfortable all night anyway; she was embarrassed to admit even to herself that she couldn't recall the last time she had gone on a first date totally sober, without having at least one or two drinks beforehand to calm her nerves. So if she was going to be uncomfortable anyway, why not dress to match her mood?

"Alright," Sarah agreed. "That one."

Later as she headed out the door, Sarah grabbed her purse to look for her keys, and as she reached inside the bag her hand brushed against a small card. Pulling it out, she flipped it over and saw that Allison's name and contact information were printed on the front. She frowned in bewilderment, positive that she'd tossed the card away onto the table back in the diner. She started to toss the card in the trash, but hesitated. Running her finger across the print on the front, she considered the card for a moment before placing it on her desk instead. She gave it a long look before leaving her apartment to meet up with Todd.

The date so far was going…fine, she supposed. Todd had chosen a newly opened restaurant she had never heard of in the nearby neighborhood of Lenox Hill. The menu consisted of various trendy fusion dishes that looked good, though the prices listed were a good bit higher than Sarah had budgeted for.

Given that careers were one of the usual small-talk topics on most first dates, the fact that Sarah's was quite different from what he had originally thought came up fairly quickly. Interestingly, Todd didn't seem particularly surprised to hear that she had switched from piano playing to office work.

"Right, right," he said with an understanding nod when she explained her new job. "Well, I mean, that happens to most people at some point, right? It's no big deal. We all grow up with these great ideas about the perfect careers we'll have, and then it turns out the things you're passionate about don't always pay the bills. And I mean, music especially has got to be hard to actually make a career of. I'm sure there are a million people in New York with the same story—and hey, at least you had a career to fall back on."

She was vaguely aware that he intended to come across as encouraging, but part of her still wanted to correct him, to tell him that she hadn't quit music because she wasn't good enough at it. She wanted to tell him that she wasn't one of those million people who had big dreams without the talent or ambition to back them up, that she had actually made a successful career with steady money. But that would lead to questions she couldn't answer, and she couldn't very well discard the perfectly good excuse he'd just provided her for as to why she suddenly stopped playing music and got an office job. So instead, she turned the conversation away from herself altogether.

"Well, you seem to be doing alright while pursuing what you love," she noted. Todd worked in photography at the same advertising agency that Greg wrote copy for, which was how he'd agreed to take their baby photos for them.

"In a way," he acknowledged. "Advertisement wasn't my first choice of career, even though it pays well. When I first got into photography it wasn't with the intention of selling people expensive watches, but…here I am."

"What did you want to get into?"

"Everything," he said. "I wanted to travel all over and take photos for the Times, or National Geographic."

"So, why didn't you?" she asked curiously.

"It turns out that living the adventurous life is hard," he said with a laugh. "In college, I did a semester abroad in France, and I got to shadow a professional photographer. I even went on a few trips around neighboring countries with him. And I found that I'm not cut out for sleeping on trains between cities and running to catch the perfect shot before the moment is over. Working in a studio with set times and lighting is much easier."

Sarah couldn't imagine how taking photos of people posing next to new cars was more exciting than traveling the world, but she supposed she could understand the desire to stay with something safe and comfortable. After all, weren't those the very things she was trying to get back to?

Her phone buzzed with an incoming text message midway through the date, but she waited a fw minutes until Todd was in the restroom to check it. It was from Lauren.

'Sorry to interrupt your date! Especially if everything is going well', the text read, followed by a winky face and several suggestive Emojis. 'I forgot my shopping bag at your place and it has stuff I need for Noah in there. Can I stop by and get it?'

After changing the locks, Sarah had given Lauren a new key to her place under the agreement that she stopped showing up unannounced—for her own safety and for Sarah's sanity. So she appreciated that Lauren actually remembered to text her and ask first.

'Just lock the door when you leave', Sarah replied, quickly slipping her phone back into her purse when she saw Todd returning.

Later, after they'd left the restaurant—and after Todd had insisted on picking up the bill, much to Sarah's secret relief despite her offer to go dutch—they walked through the streets, enjoying the night air. Although Lenox Hill was only a short subway ride away from Hell's Kitchen, it felt like an entirely different city. The area hadn't been effected by The Incident as badly as Hell's Kitchen had, and it showed. Where she was used to seeing pawn shops and bail bond offices, this neighborhood had vintage bike stores and gluten-free artisan cupcake shops. Despite being dressed like she belonged there—and being accompanied by someone who definitely did—Sarah couldn't shake the self-conscious feeling of being out of place.

They ended up stopping at a nice coffee shop and settling into a table in the back corner. Unfortunately this placed them under the air conditioning, with Sarah hoping that her hot coffee would help quell the goosebumps rising along her arms as the air blew down directly on them.

"Are you cold?" Todd asked, noticing the way she crossed her arms tightly in front of her. "We can switch to a different table."

"Hmm? Oh, no. I'm fine," she said with a smile. In reality, she didn't want to move because this was the only table in the coffee shop that didn't position her with her back to the room, and at what point had she become such a paranoid freak that something like that would bother her?

Todd gave her a skeptical look.

"You're shivering. Here," he said, shrugging his suit jacket off and draping it around her shoulders before she could protest.

"I—oh. Okay. Thanks," she said. That was one of those gestures that was supposed to send her heart skipping, wasn't it? But mostly she just appreciated the layer between her shoulders and the cold air above her.

"No, it's fine. Girls are always cold. It's adorable."

Sarah offered him a distant smile, distracted by the small voice of doubt in the back of her mind that was starting to pipe up. Was this just a lackluster date, or had she lost the ability to connect with normal people? Todd was attractive—very attractive, actually—with a good job, a sense of humor, and he genuinely seemed to like her. There was no reason for her to not be more excited to be going out with him. But something was missing, and she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.

She tuned back in to find that Todd was looking at her as though he'd asked her a question.

"Sorry, what?" she said quickly.

"I asked if you hit your hand on something? It's all bruised up."

"Oh. No, just collateral damage from this fitness class I've been taking. It's, um, kind of intense, and I'm not very good at it so far," she said with a laugh. It wasn't completely a lie—the lessons were intense, and she wasn't very good.

"Is it CrossFit?" he asked, perking up a bit.

"Uhh, no, a different one," she said vaguely, hoping he wouldn't ask what the class was called. "But I…take it you do CrossFit?"

"Oh, yeah. I love it," he said. That was enough to set him off on a long speech about the many benefits of CrossFit. When Sarah's phone buzzed again with another text from Lauren, she was a little relieved.

On the other side of Hell's Kitchen, Matthew Murdock was having a bad night.

He'd caught wind of a major arms deal going down in an abandoned building that had once housed a restaurant, and the names involved were ones he already recognized as belonging to people he'd dealt with before.

The brawl itself hadn't been a problem; Matt was outnumbered but not necessarily outmatched. Four of the men went down easy without much of a fight, and two others managed to fire off a couple of missed shots from their guns before going down.

The last two men proved to be a bit more resilient.

One of them managed to catch Matt with a hard kick to the throat, cutting off his breath and momentarily stunning him. The other man took advantage of this to try to tackle him, but Matt dodged to the side and swung around, using the man's own body weight to yank him backwards. The two of them tumbled back against the large decorative window, which quickly gave out, sending them both crashing through the glass and into the small parking lot outside. The impact against the ground was hard enough that, had been able to see, he was certain there would be spots across his vision. His breath was immediately knocked out of his lungs, and drawing in air was made even worse by the previous hit to his windpipe, which made inhaling difficult and painful.

He was so focused on his inability to breathe that it took him a few moments to register the sharp pain spanning from his side to halfway across his stomach. After listening for a second to ensure that his opponent was still unconscious from the fall, he rolled over onto his other side to try to inspect the damage to his side. He'd landed on a particularly large and jagged piece of glass which had sliced clean through his shirt and dragged deeply across his skin, starting from just below the side of his ribcage and extending across his abdomen. The blood was quickly soaking through the fabric.

Matt was glad to hear sirens coming his direction, only two blocks away; it meant he didn't have to stick around until the cops got there. The large number of automatic weapons surrounding the unconscious men would be evidence enough. He stumbled away from the abandoned restaurant, in the direction of Sarah's apartment.

A wave of relief washed over him when he heard movement inside her place: a heartbeat coming from the living room. His landing on the fire escape was less graceful than usual, the impact rattling the rusting bolts that held it up and sending a hard jolt from his feet straight up to his pounding head, but he didn't care. The only thing he cared about at that particular second was what was waiting just on the other side of the glass: warmth and citrus scent and a voice he could listen to instead of the constant berating loop in his own head.

It wasn't until the woman inside took a few hesitant steps towards the window that he realized the footsteps weren't right. Neither was the heartbeat. Everything from her height down to her shampoo was different, though vaguely familiar. Through the glass he heard her swear under her breath as she caught sight of the vigilante leaning heavily on the rickety railing of the fire escape, his shoulders heaving with the effort of getting there.

"Holy shit," she whispered, and it was her voice that finally registered with him. With a start, he realized it was Lauren who was opening the window. She stared at him for a moment before speaking.

"Um…Sarah's not…here right now," she said awkwardly. "Are you—" Matt shifted, and he must have moved into the light because he heard her sharp intake of breath. "Wow, that's a lot of blood."

"Do you know when she's coming back?" Matt asked impatiently, his voice hoarse from the hit he'd taken to the throat earlier.

"Not—not for a while, I think," Lauren replied. He could tell by her distracted tone that her eyes were still glued to his torn and blood-soaked shirt.

Gritting his teeth at the prospect of getting back across the city to his own apartment with a freely bleeding gash in his side, Matt shifted away from the window so he could leave. The movement tugged at the wound, and he couldn't help letting out a low hiss of pain as he felt it open up even more.

"Listen," he ground out. The jagged cut was bleeding more now, and he needed to use something to stem the flow. "Will you—will you just let me in so I can stop the bleeding?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course," she said, quickly stepping back to let him through.

He heaved himself through the window, wincing at the way his skin twisted as he did so.

"Do you know where she keeps her towels?" he asked, not wanting to search around for a linen closet.

Lauren disappeared down the hallway, where he heard her open and close a closet door. The towel she returned with felt cheap as she pressed it into his hands—good, he thought. He wouldn't go broke adding this to the list of Sarah's belongings he needed to replace after ruining.

While he was preoccupied with positioning the towel to best stop the bleeding, Lauren retreated to the other side of the dining table, keeping a wary distance from him in much the same way she had in the hospital room. During their first meeting she had kept her hands wrapped protectively around her stomach, and this time she had adopted a similarly apprehensive stance, her arms crossed in front of her uncomfortably and her shoulders drawn and tense.

"So, do you, like…chill out there a lot when Sarah's not home?" she asked, clearly searching for a way to fill the silence. He kind of wished she wouldn't.

"I didn't know she wouldn't be here," he said as he pressed the towel to his abdomen. "Where is she?"

"She's on a date."

It took a second for her words to register, and when they did he was certain he must have misheard.

"She's on a…what?"

"A date," Lauren repeated. "You know…people get dressed up and talk about how many siblings they have and pretend like they going to art galleries. Is that something you superhero types do?"

Matt didn't answer, too busy processing what she'd just told him. The idea of Sarah going out on a casual date seemed so incongruent with the more dangerous aspects of her life that he was familiar with, and it completely threw him. Of course, that didn't explain why he felt strangely like he'd just been hit in the chest, but he chose to ignore that as much as he could for now.

"You're kind of the silent type," Lauren noted when he gave no response to her question. "That's good, probably. It helps with the whole mysterious persona thing. There probably aren't a lot of chatty crime-fighters. I think that's probably why I couldn't be a vigilante—well, that and because I go to the gym like, once a year, but it's a shame because I think I'd be really good at coming up with one liners to say while defeating bad guys because I used to watch a lot of Buffy."

Whatever Lauren was talking about, Matt wasn't really listening. Instead he was half-focused on the pain coursing through his side and half on wondering how he hadn't known that Sarah was seeing someone.

"—but I guess she probably won't mind being interrupted since you're, like…bleeding out and all."

"What?" he asked as he tuned back in, realizing she had stopped speaking.

"I figure you probably didn't come over here just so you could drip blood all over her floor," Lauren said. "And no offense but I'm really not great with open wounds, so if you need help we should probably tell Sarah you're here."

"Yeah," he agreed with a wince. He reached for the burner phone in his pocket. "I'll call her."

"Wait," Lauren said, shaking her head and pulling her phone out of her pocket. "The last thing she needs is her date asking why a tiny devil Emoji is calling her. I'll just text her."

Matt blinked behind his mask. He knew Sarah had him saved in her phone as something stupid. He wet his lips and shook his head in irritation, mentally filing the new information away as something to discuss when he wasn't bleeding copiously.

Lauren quickly typed out a message on her screen. A tiny 'swoosh' tone let Matt know her text was on its way to Sarah.

"If she doesn't reply in a few minutes I'll call her," Lauren said.

"Who, uh…who is she on a date with?" he asked, the casualness in his voice sounding horribly forced even to his own ears.

"His name is Todd."

"Todd," he repeated under his breath with a frown.

"Yeah. He took her out to this fancy new restaurant that just opened."

"It's…kind of far past dinner hour by now, isn't it?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual way.

However, he didn't need to worry, as Lauren seemed to interpret his question as a sign of annoyance rather than—well, whatever it was.

"I guess she's having a good time," Lauren said, her hair slipping against her jacket as she shrugged. "Good for her. I mean, I know what you guys are doing is important, but it can't be her whole life. She needs a release sometimes."

Matt's stomach did an odd flip as he tried not to think about what kind of release Sarah was possibly finding with her date right now.

Lauren's phone chimed, alerting her to an incoming text.

"Speak of the devil," Lauren said, looking down at her phone. She glanced up at Matt. "Not you."

"What'd she say?"

"She's on her way now. She got a cab."

Matt nodded, leaning his head back against the windowsill. Lauren hovered uncomfortably on the other side of the table, very clearly wanting to leave. He couldn't say he was her caution worked for the purposes of keeping his face hidden, so he didn't comment.

"You don't have to stick around," he told her.

"Even I can't justify leaving someone all alone while they're bleeding out," she said. Her phone chimed and she paused. "Um, on a scale of one to ten, how close would you say you are to kicking the bucket?"

"I'm not dying, I just need some stitches."

"So, like…a five?"

Matt sighed, going along with her. "Sure."

"Okay," she said, and from the sound of her thumbs tapping against her phone's screen she was relaying the arbitrary measurement to Sarah. "Good. Because I'm not trying to give you your last rites, and I'm pretty sure ghosts always haunt whoever was with them when they died."

Her mention of last rites caught his interest.

"Are you Catholic?" he asked curiously.

"Really? That—that's what actually gets an interested response from you?" Lauren asked in disbelief. "Okay. Yeah, technically, I guess. I mean I was raised Catholic, but I'm like, way lapsed. I go to Mass on Christmas and Easter when my mother drags me along. Why?"

"No reason."

Lauren sighed. "You got my hopes up that I might get more than a two word answer for that, Leonard."

The corner of his mouth quirked up into a faint ghost of a smirk. "Maybe next time."

"Next time you're bleeding out in my best friend's apartment, you mean?" Lauren clarified.

Her phone's chime went off again, and Lauren made a confused 'hmm' as she read the text message.

"What's she saying?" Matt asked.

"Um…something weird about knowing the continents."

Matt laughed, though it quickly cut to a sharp inhale as the movement made more blood trickle out of his side.

"Tell her my head's fine. No concussion this time."

"This time," Lauren repeated as she relayed the message. "You guys seem to spend a lot of time piecing each other back together."

Matt didn't think he'd ever heard a better description of his relationship to Sarah.

"Yeah. We do."

"That's great," she muttered, probably unaware that he could hear her. "Seems safe."

He tilted his head.

"You don't like me very much," he said wryly. It was a statement more than a question.

"I don't dislike you. I just…don't know anything about you. Which I guess is the point. You're just a man in a mask. And for the most part I think you do a lot of good for this city. But the only two things I know about you are that you're really good at hurting people, and you spend a lot of time alone with my best friend."

"You think I'm going to hurt Sarah?"

"She says you won't."

"That's not what I asked."

Lauren hesitated, her breath faltering as she chose her words.

"I think…you already have," she said cautiously. "And I don't know if she's trying to protect you or me by pretending like you haven't, but she's not a very good liar either way."

There was a silence between them, broken only by Lauren's slightly nervous heartbeat.

"You're right. I have," he said quietly. There was no point in lying, and even if there was, it felt wrong to sit in Sarah's living room and lie to her best friend about his actions. "For what it's worth, it's you she's trying to protect. She thought she was putting enough on you by telling you about Orion, without trying to explain…how we were. At the beginning."

"But not now," Lauren said questioningly.

"No. Not now. Things…are different now. I wouldn't hurt her. I know you have no reason to believe me, but it's true."

"Of course I have reasons," Lauren said grudgingly. "Mainly that Sarah believes you, and she's not an idiot. She doesn't invest her time in people who treat her badly. And you have saved her life a few times, which is, like, a good thing, I guess."

Matt sensed that wasn't the end of what she wanted to say, so he waited through the ensuing silence between them, during which Lauren seemed to be torn between pushing him more and simply dropping it and leaving. He had often wondered what his penance would be for the things he'd done to Sarah when they first met, but this—bleeding out onto her windowsill while Lauren reminded him of the choices he'd made—seemed especially fitting. He'd thought it would be enough that he couldn't seem to shake whatever feelings he was having for someone he could never possibly be with, but this really drove the point home even better. It dug at a familiar feeling his chest, a dull but addictive pain, like pressing his fingers against a bruise.

"You can't ever touch her like that again," Lauren said, speaking very quickly as though to get her words out before she changed her mind. "You know that, right?"

"I know," he said immediately.

"She trusts you, and she never trusts anyone," Lauren pressed.

"I know," he repeated, softer this time. He wasn't sure what else to add, but as it turned out, he didn't have to.

A familiar set of footsteps coming down the hallway caught his attention, and he closed his eyes in relief. His hands were starting to shake slightly from the blood loss and exhaustion, and he was looking forward to getting stitched up so he could go to sleep.

Once inside, Sarah paused for a second as she picked up on the tension between the two people in the room, but she ignored it in favor of coming over to check on Matt's condition.

As she came closer, Matt picked up on a few things he would have sensed earlier were he not focused on the pain in his side. Of course, he should have expected that she'd be dressed up coming from a date, but he hadn't really thought about it. But here she was, her hair in soft waves around her shoulders, which were bare except for the two thin, metallic straps of her dress. The hemline of the dress swished just above the knee as she crossed the living room, the sound of her heels clicking quietly against the hardwood floor. A light jasmine perfume lingered on her skin, slightly heavier around her wrists and neck where the warmth of her pulse altered the scent.

He cleared his throat and reminded himself that these things hadn't been put on for him. As if to reinforce that thought, he was hit by another scent underneath her perfume: the unmistakable trace of men's cologne—expensive, from what he could tell, and clinging to her skin in a way that made him grip the windowsill a little harder.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice tight with worry. He could feel her gaze traveling over him, from his masked face down to the cut in his sleeve, then over to the towel he clutched to his side, where she sucked in her breath sharply. He hoped Lauren had grabbed him a dark colored one, so that the blood soaking into it would look less alarming.

"Been worse," he said, pushing off of the windowsill he'd been using for support and standing up straight.

The moment he stepped away from the windowsill he'd been using to prop himself up, Matt was hit with a wave of dizziness. He stumbled just slightly, not quite enough to lose his balance. He immediately felt a hand on his waist and another on his chest as Sarah tried to steady him. Matt rested his hand on her shoulder, but he didn't realize he was leaning on her until he felt her sway a bit under his weight.

"Sorry," he mumbled, letting go of her shoulder and standing up straighter as his equilibrium slowly evened itself out.

"Hey," she said softly. "It's alright. You'll get to lie down in a minute." Now that he had regained his balance, Sarah pressed her hand to his cheek as she inspected the side of his mask, which he was just now realizing was sticky with blood from the cut on his hairline. "You're bleeding through your mask."

Matt didn't move, painfully aware of the heat of her fingertips on his skin and how much he was tempted to lean into her touch. But Lauren was in the room, and Sarah was covered in someone else's cologne, and he really did need to lie down soon.

"It's fine. I've just had a long night. I, uh…could use a few stitches," he said, offering her an apologetic grin.

"Yeah, I guess it is your turn, isn't it?" she asked with a tightness in her voice despite the joke.

"Lauren," Sarah said, looking over her shoulder to where her friend was hovering nearby. "Can—can you do me a favor? Lay a couple towels down on my bed and grab the first aid kit out from under the bathroom sink."

"What? Oh, um—yeah, of course," Lauren said, before her footsteps disappeared down the hallway.

Still holding onto his waist, Sarah slipped her heels off and kicked them into the corner, bringing her back down to the height he was used to her being at. She took his hand—the one that wasn't clutching a now well-soaked towel to his side—and brought it back up to her shoulder, curling her fingers through his. Matt tilted his head questioningly, wondering why she was still trying to keep him steady now that he clearly had his balance, but not complaining.

"Come on," she said very quietly, so that only he could hear. "Don't worry about figuring out where things are."

With a rush of gratitude, Matt realized that she wasn't trying to keep him upright at all. Having Sarah to guide him along allowed him a welcome recourse from having to sense out the obstacles between the window and her bed, and kept him from giving away his lack of sight in front of Lauren. He squeezed her shoulder gently in thanks.

They slowly made their way to her room, Sarah taking careful steps backwards as she guided him through the living room and down the hallway. She stayed close to him, never leaving more than a couple inches between them. They reached the bedroom just as Lauren did, and she slipped by them to set the first aid kit on the nightstand and spread two bathroom towels across Sarah's comforter.

"Thanks, Lauren," Sarah said.

"Yeah, it's…no problem," Lauren said distractedly. She stood still, and Matt could feel her gaze on the two of them, though it was difficult to tell what her expression was. She seemed transfixed by the sight of them. "Do you guys…need anything else? Like a…surgeon or something? A mob doctor?"

"I think we're good, Lauren. Thanks for helping."

"Right. Well this has been weird, and I'm going to go away now," she said awkwardly. "Text me tomorrow, okay?" Sarah nodded in confirmation, and Lauren turned her attention back to Matt, giving a hesitant wave. "I hope you, um…stop bleeding soon," she said awkwardly.

Despite the pain in his side, Matt chuckled. "Yeah, me too."

And then she was gone, leaving a bleeding Matt and a dressed up Sarah alone in the room.

As much as Sarah loved Lauren, she was glad at that moment to see her go. Between the blood-soaked towel Matt was clutching to his side and the fact that he would undoubtedly ask her where she had come home from, Sarah had enough things needing her attention without worrying about slipping up in front of her friend. Besides, having the two of them in the same room was strange for her, and now things were back to what she was used to: just her, Matt, and a first aid kit to fix up whichever one of them was injured that night.

Besides, Lauren hadn't been able to stop staring at them with an odd expression on her face, like she was piecing together a difficult puzzle, and Sarah got enough of feeling like she was being x-rayed from Matt without getting it from her best friend, too.

As soon as the front door closed, Matt reached up and pulled his mask off. Sarah couldn't help but notice that his hands were shaking just slightly, and now that his whole face was visible she could see that he was paler than usual. She tried to ignore the nervous twinge in her chest at the sight.

"Okay. Can you get your shirt off without pulling at the cut too much?" she asked.

Matt nodded, then slowly reached up and pulled his shirt over his head. Sarah blinked, suddenly not sure where to look. She would have thought it would get less awkward each time he took off his shirt around her, not more. He draped the bloody shirt over her desk chair before lowering himself onto the towels laid out on the bed., where he looked incredibly out of place, with his heavy combat boots and bloody skin serving as a stark contrast to her pale blue blanket and floral patterned pillows. It would have been almost funny in any other circumstance.

She settled onto the edge of the bed next to him and opened the first aid kit that rested on her nightstand.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Went through a window," he answered, wincing as she pressed a damp cloth to the wound to clean it. "Thought I'd come here to get fixed up. I didn't realize it wasn't you inside until Lauren was already at the window."

"What, uh…what did you guys talk about?" she asked. Neither of them had seemed especially friendly when she had come through the front door.

"It was mostly Lauren who did the talking," he replied. That was unsurprising, but also didn't particularly answer her question.

"Things…seemed kind of tense when I came in," she pushed hesitantly. She couldn't imagine they'd been talking about anything other than her, so she didn't feel like this really counted as being nosy. The mirthless laugh Matt breathed out didn't help her curiosity.

"Yeah, you could say that." He was quiet for a beat. "She doesn't trust me around you."

Sarah pursed her lips, scrutinizing Matt's face. It held that carefully blank expression that always drove her insane, but she knew he must be thinking about whatever Lauren had said to him.

"I know. Lauren can be kind of…standoffish sometimes," Sarah explained, pushing her hair behind her ear. "She takes a while to warm up to people. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but you can take a while to warm up to."

He let out a small huff of amusement, but it was laced with bitterness. "That's a diplomatic way of phrasing it. But I don't think she's going to warm up anytime soon. She's…understandably upset about parts of our history."

The careful way he chose his words gave away exactly which parts he was talking about. Sarah couldn't say she was exactly shocked that Lauren had figured that out, though she wished she hadn't. Lauren was bound to focus in on that one aspect of their relationship, but it wasn't their whole story.

"I'll talk to her," she said. "I can try to explain—"

"No," Matt cut her off, and she blinked at the sharp edge of insistence his tone. "Don't do that."

"What? Why not?" Sarah asked, confused by his reaction. Did he think she was going to tell Lauren too much?

"I don't want…" Matt shook his head and started again, this time speaking slower but more emphatically. "It's not your job to—to play down the things I've done to you. You don't need to try to make anyone feel better about mistakes I made. Not me, not Lauren. That's not ever on you to deal with, alright?" he said with surprising intensity. "It's on me."

Sarah took a breath, casting her eyes up at the ceiling. Of all the—admittedly numerous—aspects of Matt's personality that were difficult to deal with, his inexhaustible reserves of guilt had to be one of the most frustrating. With Matt's obsessive dedication to his convictions—so driven that he spent not just his days searching for justice but his nights as well—it was easy enough to see that he replayed every transgression in his head on a loop, and it seemed as though ones involving her made the rounds often. She didn't know how to walk that line between making it clear she forgave him without sounding like she was excusing him. She could see him constantly struggling to be better, and she wished she could help ease his mind, but God knew where she would even begin to try.

"Okay," she said with a sigh. There was no point in arguing when she had to focus on what she was doing. "Stay still."

They didn't talk for a few minutes as Sarah busied herself with cleaning the wound, which spanned from just under his rib cage down across his abdomen. It was a nasty wound, Sarah could only imagine how painful it had to be. He didn't make much noise as she applied disinfecting alcohol, just wincing occasionally at the sting.

"So…how was your date?" he asked after she had finished cleaning the wound.

Sarah bit her lip, stalling until she was done sterilizing the needle before she answered.

"Lauren really does like to talk, doesn't she?" she asked, waiting for Matt to ask her why she'd avoided telling him about it, and knowing that she didn't really have any logical answer to give him.

"I think I would have put two and two together anyway. You're dressed…differently than normal," he said carefully.

Sarah's was suddenly very aware of how revealing her outfit was.

"I wasn't sure if you would notice that."

His eyebrows went up a fraction, and he gave her a crooked grin. "Difficult not to."

Sarah had no idea what to do with that, so she very purposefully ignored it, focusing instead on gathering the rest of what she needed to start stitching Matt's side back together.

"What else did she tell you while you guys were gossiping about me?"

"Just that you were out on a date with someone. Tim, or…Tony," he hazarded with a shrug.

"Todd," she corrected him. "He works with Lauren's husband."

"Doing what?"

"Photography. I guess he's pretty successful at it."

"I can tell. His cologne smells expensive," he said lightly.

Sarah stilled at that, her eyes flicking up to his face, but his expression was neutral. His tone wasn't accusatory, so she had no idea why she felt oddly caught out by the comment. Her face heated up as she remembered that Todd had draped his suit jacket over her, so of course his scent would be on her, and of course Matt would pick up on it. God, what direction had her life taken that she wasn't surprised by that? She thought by now she had gotten mostly used to Matt's unnerving perceptiveness, but if the way her skin was heating up right now was any indication, that apparently wasn't the case.

She cleared her throat and went back to what she was doing.

Sarah had worn her hair down for her date in order to help hide the fading scar on her neck, and she now wished that she had tied it back to keep the sleek strands out of her face. It was too late now that her hands were covered in blood, and no matter how many times she shook her hair back over her shoulder, it kept falling in front of her face as she tried to focus on stitching up Matt's cut.

"Sorry," she murmured after the fourth time her hair got in the way, brushing against his chest as she leaned over him. Matt reached up and swept her hair out of the way, gathering it in his hand and holding it to the side of her neck while she worked. Her fingers stilled for a second, the needle in her hand hovering over his skin, before she resumed her task. Having the hair out of her face helped with visibility, but his hand in her hair proved to be just as much of a distraction.

"You've gotten better at this," he noted.

"I've been practicing," she said absently.

"On who?" he asked, amusement and slight surprise evident in his voice. "Are people lining up to let you put needles through their skin?"

"Not on people," she clarified. "Mostly on fruit."

"Fruit?"

"Yeah. Like, um, mangos and oranges. Which isn't really the same thing, obviously, but it's helped me get the stitches straighter, and hold my hands steadier. The stuff I read said to practice on raw meat because it's closer to the real thing, but that seems super gross and meat is expensive. And I've been watching some YouTube videos, which are helpful, but also they always seem to have a bunch of anesthetic on hand and I don't think I can get any of that without getting put on some sort of watchlist somewhere." The more she explained it, the weirder it sounded to her own ears. This was confirmed as she felt vibrations in Matt's chest, and glanced up to see that he was laughing softly, his eyes now closed and the corner of his mouth pulled up. "…and you're laughing at me."

"No, no. I'm sorry," he said, still grinning as he adjusted his hand in her hair to catch a few more strands that had come loose. The calloused pad of his thumb brushed against her temple as he brought her hair to the side again, holding it in place. "I just didn't realize you'd been putting in so much effort."

"Well, I can't keep disfiguring you like that every time I have to help you stitch up a cut, so I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"You have a choice," he told her quietly. "A lot of people would choose not to help a guy who keeps showing up injured on their fire escape."

"Well, you're the exception," she told him. "All the other guys who fall through my window get second-rate medical treatment, if anything."

Matt laughed, but the sound hitched in his throat and quickly turned into a coughing fit. He brought his arm up to cover his mouth, and when he brought it away she could see fresh blood on his skin.

"Is that blood?" she said, alarmed by the sight. "What—why are you coughing up blood? Do you have internal bleeding or something?"

"No, it's fine—"

She smacked him on the arm. "Matt, you have to tell me if you have internal bleeding! I don't know how to help with that!"

"I don't have internal bleeding," he said with a dismissive grimace. "Although you hitting me doesn't help," he added resentfully.

"I should call Claire," she said, starting to get up.

Matt caught her wrist as she moved to stand, tugging her back down onto the bed. He didn't let go once she was seated next to him again, his thumb settling into place against her pulse.

"Sarah," he said firmly. "I'm fine."

"But—"

"I got kicked in the throat," he explained calmly, as though that were a normal thing to happen. "It's just a burst blood vessel, I swear."

Sarah chewed her lip as she regarded him, trying to ascertain if he was telling the truth.

"I'm not a doctor, Matt," she said softly.

A familiar look of guilt crossed his face and he let go of her wrist. "I know, I'm sorry. I should ask you to do things like this—"

"No, that's not what I mean," she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "You do the same for me all the time, of course I want to help you. But…I don't have medical training, and I don't have superpowers. I can't tell how bad your injuries are unless you tell me, and all you do is pretend like nothing is wrong with you. I can't help you with something if you're keeping it a secret."

He let out a sharp laugh. "There's a lot of things you can lecture me on, Sarah. Keeping secrets isn't one of them."

Sarah winced. He had a point. She didn't have any rebuttal to that, so instead she remained silent as she finished up the last few stitches and grabbed some gauze from the first aid kit to bandage the wound.

"I wasn't trying to keep it a secret," she said suddenly as she unwound a length of gauze from the roll. "Where I was tonight."

"I didn't say you were," he said.

"I know, but…if you were thinking it. That's not what I was trying to do."

Matt was quiet for a beat. "Okay. Noted."

"I just—I felt kind of stupid for going on a date right now," she continued. "Like I should be focusing on more important things. And I know Ronan is gone and Donovan's not a threat right now but it doesn't mean my life is exactly a safe haven, and who I am to put some poor guy in danger because I want my life to be more normal? And…I figured if I was already thinking all of those things, god knows what you would be thinking. I was so close to talking myself out of going already that if you'd said it was a bad idea I probably wouldn't have gone. So I just didn't mention it."

"You don't need my approval to go on a date," Matt said. "It's none of my business who you go out with."

"I know that," she said defensively. "I'm not saying it is your business, I'm just saying that—you know—if you have…an opinion, I'd…like to hear it."

"And if it's an opinion you don't like?"

"I'll deal," she said. "I just…want to know if you think it's too dangerous. Because he seems like a nice guy. I'd really like to not get him killed just for going out with me."

Matt opened his mouth to respond, and even before he spoke she already knew what his opinion would be. She recognized the familiar signs of disapproval in the set of his mouth. She'd seen it before, though usually when she was doing something he deemed unsafe, like insisting on staying in her own apartment or accepting the job offer from Vanessa.

She bit her lip, already prepared to hear him say that she was being reckless, that normalcy just wasn't in the cards for her right now and she had no business endangering an innocent person in her attempts to achieve it. All things that she had already told herself, but hearing them from Matt would be different. After all, she spent all her time criticizing herself; Matt rarely ever did. Despite his infuriating unpredictability, his opinion mattered to her. She generally tried to conceal that fact, but it became painfully apparent to both of them now as she waited for his response.

Matt paused, noticing the way she deflated slightly in disappointment. After a second he closed his mouth again, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

"No," he said finally. "I—I don't think that. I think that…after everything you've gone through, you deserve something normal and happy. And if he has a chance of giving you that, you should date him."

Sarah smiled. She wasn't entirely sure he was being truthful, but it meant something that he said it.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I mean as long as he's, you know…" Matt fidgeted uncomfortably with the blanket under his fingers. "…nice to you."

Sarah gave him a strange look, then laughed. "Yeah, Matt. He's nice to me."

"But you'll let me know if he's ever not," he said. "Or if he just…gets on your nerves. Takes you to a restaurant you don't like."

"Oh, no," Sarah said with shake of her head. "I don't need to get a reputation as the girl who has an overprotective vigilante beat up all of her disappointing dates."

"Why not? Then no one will take you on any more bad dates. Problem solved."

"No one will take me on any dates," she corrected him laughingly. He didn't look entirely unhappy at the idea. "Besides, it's all hypothetical anyway." She was positive that her quick exit earlier had come off the wrong way. Everyone knew that 'my friend has a medical emergency' was the oldest trick in the book for getting out of a date; it just happened to be her luck that it was true. "I did ditch out on our first date, so…who knows if he'll even be interested in another."

"If he has any sense."

She smoothed the bandage out against his skin; the area was large enough that it took more than one. She must have pressed a little too hard while applying the second bandage, because he inhaled sharply, gritting his teeth.

"Sorry, sorry," she said softly. "Are you alright?"

He offered her a tired grin. "You don't need to worry about me."

There were any number of things she could have pointed out that were wrong with that statement: That he was currently laying on a pile of towels covered in his blood; that his side was being held together by a series of messy amateur stitches; that this wasn't an unusual circumstance for him to find himself in. But she knew those points, like any mention of his inability to remain uninjured, would be quickly and easily discarded.

"Do you let anyone worry about you?" she asked.

Matt gave a vague, uncomfortable shrug and grimaced, though she suspected he might have intended for it to be a disarming smile. His fingers were still worrying the edge of her blanket, picking at the loose threads in what she had long ago learned was a tell of his.

Watching him, Sarah was hit yet again with the realization of just how alone Matt was. He had Foggy and Karen, but they also clearly had each other, and Sarah understood the difference; after all, her two closest friends were also in love. And he had Claire, but the nurse very clearly kept her distance from Matt emotionally. Something Sarah had never quite been able to do. Perhaps that was why they'd managed to get under each other's skin so easily, worked their way into each other's lives without even really meaning to. She knew how much being so alone hurt, and she hated seeing it in him.

Experimentally, she reached out and touched the edge of the scar she'd left when she had stitched him up for the first time, back in his living room months ago. She could feel his muscles tense slightly under her touch, but he didn't move away. Instead, his fingers stopped twisting the cover as he went very still. Not sure what, exactly, she was trying to test, Sarah continued moving her fingers, tracing them along the jagged scar that ran down his chest. She flicked her eyes up to gauge his reaction and saw his jaw tick once, then twice; usually a sign of anger, but this time it was something different.

A loud car alarm blared in the street below her window, breaking the tense silence that had settled over them, and Sarah quickly retracted her hand.

Matt cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice was still rough, which she firmly chose to attribute to him having been recently kicked in the neck. "Do you mind grabbing me a glass of water?"

"Sure," she said a little too quickly, standing up and exiting the room.

Sarah shook her head as she waited for the glass to fill. She was painfully, painfully aware of how her heartbeat had picked up and how Matt could undoubtedly still hear it from the other room. What on earth had compelled her to do that? It's this goddamn dress.

Back in her room, she handed him the glass of water, being careful not to let her fingers brush against his as she did. He was sitting up now on the edge of her bed, and he didn't look quite as pale as before. When he finished the water he set the glass down on her nightstand and reached over for his tattered shirt.

"Thank you," he said. "For stitching me up again."

Sarah frowned as she realized he was preparing to leave. Was he really going to go jumping over rooftops with fresh stitches in his side? Stupid question. Of course he is.

"You can stay a while," she offered. "I can order food."

He gave her a crooked smile, but there was a sadness to it that she didn't quite understand.

"Thanks. But I don't think I should," he said.

"Oh," Sarah said, surprised that she felt a little hurt by the rejection. "Um…okay."

"I just have an early morning tomorrow," he explained, not sounding particularly convincing. He slowly pulled his shirt back on over his head.

"Yeah. Of course," she said quickly, tucking her hair as she watched him. She followed him into the living room, where he donned his mask again and climbed through the window with less grace than usual.

Once out on the fire escape, Matt turned and hesitated as his hands lingered on the latch to pull it down.

"Hey," he said quietly, but there was no real need to get her attention; Sarah was already watching him from where she stood on the other side of the living room. She waited to see what he had paused to say.

"Yeah?"

"…what color is it?" he asked. "Your dress."

She studied him for a long moment, scrutinizing his face for signs of what he was thinking, but the task was difficult enough when she could see his entire face—with his mask on it was impossible.

"Red," she answered finally.

Matt looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he pressed his lips together, gave a slow nod, and slid the window closed.

Even after he was gone, the tension from his presence lingered in the room, and Sarah realized with a start that maybe this—this constant, simmering tension that always hung over even their most relaxed moments— was what had been missing from her date. And that realization opened the door to several other questions that she didn't think she was quite ready to examine yet.

"Oh," she whispered to the empty room.

That complicated things.