It had been four days since Matt had last heard Stick's phantom heartbeat echoing nearby, but he was still on high alert. He could admit that hearing it once could have been a fluke; his senses were strong but far from perfect. But he'd heard it for a second time when walking with Sarah: clear as a bell and unmistakably Stick's. It was only there for a second or two, and then it was gone. How was that possible? He was certain Stick knew countless tricks that he'd never gotten around to teaching Matt, and he wouldn't put it past him to be able to cloak his heartbeat somehow. But why would he be hanging around without confronting him?
Matt had to wonder if he was imagining it, if his subconscious was inserting danger and complication where there was none. As a child, when Stick first left, Matt's mind had tricked him more than once into thinking he sensed the older man's presence, imagining the heartbeat that he had so desperately wanted to hear again. Now, of course, the thought that Stick was close by just brought Matt frustration and paranoia—especially given that he'd had Sarah with him when he'd heard it.
He knew that Stick vehemently disapproved of his decision to maintain personal relationships, but he didn't think that the old man would actually hurt someone Matt cared about. Then again, he hadn't thought that Stick would actually murder that child in the shipping container, so how well did he really know his old mentor?
So on the chance that he wasn't imagining it, he'd been trying his hardest over the last few days to limit his contact with Sarah—at least until he could be sure. And it was difficult. He'd carefully sidestepped her questions about his sudden and unexplained exit after the church, providing some vague excuse about having heard a mugging nearby. She clearly hadn't believed him, and his distance the last few days surely hadn't helped. All of their conversations since had been over the phone—a vain attempt on Matt's part to avoid being around her in person, in the hopes that it would make it easier to keep away.
But tonight he'd had a long night, and the night before as well. And before he'd even really thought about it, his feet had begun to follow a familiar path across the rooftops of Hell's Kitchen until they landed on Sarah's fire escape.
On the other side of the window he could hear Sarah moving from her kitchen over to the table, where her laptop was open and streaming a video of what sounded like a news segment. Matt cocked his head when he heard a familiar name being spoken on the video.
"…but for whatever reason we give Daredevil a pass, and for what reason? Because he wears a fun costume? People need to…"
He knocked on the windowpane, and the video immediately paused.
When Sarah opened the window, her body language seemed slightly off, like she'd been caught off guard. It was probably because of whatever video she'd been watching, he assumed.
"Hey. I didn't think you'd be coming over tonight," she said. Her voice sounded slightly odd, like she was speaking around something in her mouth. There was a sharp, sterile scent floating around her, and Matt struggled to place it. It wasn't alcohol, though it smelled similar.
Matt pulled his mask off, cocking his head suspicious. "What's…up with your voice?"
"Hmm? Nothing," she said, her innocent tone betrayed by the way her hand automatically came up to cover her mouth. At his raised eyebrows, she let out an exhale of annoyance. "It's—they're teeth whitening strips. You're not supposed to talk when you have them in."
That explained the strange smell, at least; it was peroxide, not alcohol.
After hours of dealing with the darkest corners of Hell's Kitchen, standing now in Sarah's small apartment and hearing her talk about something as normal and boring as teeth whitening strips was a sharp contrast. It lent him an odd sense of relief, as though he had stumbled into some world completely separate from the dangerous, vicious one on the other side of the glass. He grinned, halfway hoping they would just keep talking about mundane things and never have to stray to topics like Orion.
Sarah, on the other hand, misinterpreted his grin as a mocking one.
"I assumed you weren't coming!" she said defensively. Matt wanted to point out that he hadn't been laughing at her, but now the sound of the slight lisp the teeth strips gave her made him start, so there was really no point. "Ugh. I'll be right back."
She padded barefoot down the hallway to her bathroom, leaving him alone to collect himself.
After a minute, he heard her returning.
"You've been MIA for four days and now you wait until I'm doing embarrassing beauty rituals to show up," she grumbled as she came back into the living room. Her speech had returned to normal, much to Matt's disappointment. Also to his disappointment, she had donned a thin hoodie—one of her own, not his—over her tank top.
"I haven't been MIA," Matt protested. "I've…called."
Sarah hummed low and skeptical, and Matt didn't blame her; even to his own ears it sounded lame. Because he had been avoiding coming here, for days now. Specifically, since the night of Sarah's disastrous date and resulting relapse into drinking.
Matt had become used to the solitude that accompanied his choice to put on the mask—not just the mental isolation of it, but the physical part as well. The only contact he came into on a regular basis since becoming Daredevil was generally the kind that left nasty bruises. So Sarah's tendency towards easy affection was almost overwhelming at times, making it difficult for him to think straight. And never had it been more so than the last time he'd been in Sarah's apartment.
He'd heard her heartbeat speed up that night when he touched her, felt her goosebumps under his fingertips. It would have been so, so easy for him to kiss her right then, and the temptation had been strong enough that he'd had to take a literal step back and remind himself that whatever signals he was picking up were muddled by the alcohol circulating through her bloodstream.
Sarah dropped back down into the kitchen chair in front of her laptop, which she had apparently forgotten was still open.
"What are you watching?" he asked.
"Um…nothing. Just background noise," she said unconvincingly.
Matt tilted his head, raising his eyebrows and giving her a knowing half-smile.
"I heard them say the name 'Daredevil,' Sarah. Whatever it was, it can't be the worst thing someone has said about me."
He heard her sigh in resignation, the catch of her bottom lip as she worried it between her teeth.
"Cecilia's opinion pieces about you in the newspaper have been getting a lot of attention," she said reluctantly. "And some super low-budget local morning show offered to have her on to talk about what she's been writing. Lauren sent me the link."
Cecilia. Of course.
Matt kept his face neutral as he took in the news. When Sarah had first brought up Lauren's cousin and her topic of choice for editorials, he'd mostly dismissed it; it wasn't the first time a reporter had written unfavorably about him, after all. But Cecilia was drawing more and more attention to him, and operating under the radar was a fairly important part of what he did. More public scrutiny was the last thing he needed.
"Can I…?" he nodded his head towards her laptop.
"I thought you ignored what people say about you."
"Usually. But at a certain point it's smarter to pay attention."
Sarah hedged for another moment before relenting. "Alright. If you're sure."
Resting his hand on the back of Sarah's chair, Matt leaned over her to hit the space bar on her laptop. He did his best not to focus on the immediate reaction she had to their proximity: the way she tensed almost imperceptibly with awareness, and her breathing became more carefully regulated. But more than that, he tried to ignore the accompanying rush of satisfaction that came along with the effect he was having on her, and the reckless impulse to make her heartbeat increase just a little bit higher.
That temptation faded into the background as he listened to the conversation playing out on the laptop between Cecilia and a male interviewer with a clipped accent.
"—and obviously you've been making quite a name for yourself locally with these articles in the Bulletin," the interviewer was saying. "Has it been strange having your Twitter and email suddenly blow up with feedback?"
"No, not at all," Cecilia answered. "I've written about a few hot-button topics before, but this one just happens to interest a lot of people in Hell's Kitchen, specifically."
"People around here definitely have some strong opinions on Daredevil. He's saved a lot of people in this neighborhood."
"Yes, he has, and a lot of people who have responded to my articles seem to think I don't understand that, for whatever reason. Of course I know that he's saved people, but they're missing the fact that he's done so outside of the law," she said. "He picks and chooses who he helps and who he hurts, and at some point he's going to hurt an innocent person and we're all going to wonder why we ever gave him so much power."
"Recently on Twitter, you categorized Daredevil as 'violently anti-police'. Do you want to comment on that?"
"Absolutely. I think that if there's anything we can take away from the news for the past couple of years, it's that respecting and complying with the police is incredibly important."
"Well, I think some might argue that there's a different conclusion you could come to," the interviewer interjected diplomatically.
"Of course," Cecilia allowed. Her voice was smooth and practiced, but underneath it Matt could hear a slight unevenness that betrayed her nerves. "People will always try to spin things in whatever way. But right now, especially after so many in the NYPD were arrested in the Wilson Fisk sweep, we need to be rebuilding trust between the community and the police, and Daredevil is doing the opposite of that."
"You don't think it could be said that he's more supplementing the police department? Cutting through some of the red tape they have to deal with so that people who need help don't slip through the cracks?"
"No. I think that's the line most vigilantes want to use: that they're helping people. But just because he's fighting other violent criminals doesn't mean he's not one. And the police don't see him as an ally. He's forcing them to waste resources trying to get this lunatic off the streets when they could be doing so many more important things. And especially after those officers were shot last year—"
"—but he was cleared of that, just to be…I mean, just to not confuse any viewers," the interviewer said.
"Right, of course. It all got very complicated as to who was responsible for what, but just because he didn't do it doesn't mean that he wouldn't, and he's never done anything to make that clear, which I think is important. It's certainly important to the NYPD and I think it should matter to the citizens of Hell's Kitchen as well."
"And if the man in the mask is as reckless and unpredictable as you say, are you at all worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention with these articles? What if you come home one night to find the Devil himself waiting in your living room?" the interviewer asked with a chuckle.
"No, I'm not worried at all," Cecilia said, sounding just a little too confident to be entirely believable. Matt noted this with a twinge of dark satisfaction that he wished wasn't there. "He relies on the goodwill of New Yorkers to keep himself from getting arrested, so he can't afford to slip-up and start taking out journalists. Besides, if he's doing as much good as some of these bleeding-heart fans seem to think, he should really be too busy to be reading about himself in the newspaper."
"Alright, well that's all the time we have for today, but thanks so much for coming on the show, Cecilia. Viewers, as usual you can find all of our guests' Twitter handles on our website, and we'd love to hear what you think! Just tweet us with the hashtag #QuentinInTheMorning and we might feature your feedback on the next episode."
The clip cut off, leaving a tense silence in the room. Matt could feel Sarah's concerned gaze on him, and he forced a unperturbed grin.
"Well, she's right. I probably won't be reading her articles in the newspaper," he said dryly.
"She's an idiot, Matt."
"It's fine. Like I said, that's not the worst thing anyone has said about me by far. Not even the worst thing today, actually." That much was true. It wasn't what she was saying that had him concerned so much as the platform she had and the very manipulative way she was saying it.
"Well, she shouldn't be saying any of it. It's all bullshit."
He automatically began pacing, but his foot bumped against a plastic storage bin after a couple of steps. In fact, now that he paid attention, he could sense several boxes and bins all around her floor.
"Are you stress cleaning your apartment again?" he asked, glad to have something he could change the subject to.
"Hmm? Oh, no. Before I got distracted by that video I was looking for some of my old sheet music. I had packed most of it away somewhere when I stopped playing, and now that I need it I have no idea where it is." She lightly kicked one of the bins. "I think it might be stored at my dad's house, actually. I'll look for it when I help him pack the place up."
"Have you had the chance to go practice yet?"
Sarah nodded. "I went yesterday."
"How did it go?"
"It'll take me a while to get back to where I was, obviously, but…you found me basically the perfect place to do it."
"Really?" he asked skeptically. He was very aware that an old piano in the back room of a church was nowhere close to what she was probably used to having access to.
"Really," she confirmed. "I can go when I have time, and stay as long as I want. No irritable pianists waiting outside the door for their timeslot to start. I'm glad you decided to bring me there."
In truth, he very nearly hadn't. The idea of combining those two parts of his life had made him anxious, and he wasn't sure why he'd decided to go through with it. Maybe to prove that he could be part of her 'normal' life when this was all over, that they could have something connecting them that didn't involve blood or masks or secrets. Or maybe he just liked the idea of her spending time somewhere he knew she was safe. Sitting in that church always made him feel like someone was watching over him, and Lord knew he wanted someone watching over her when he couldn't.
"So am I," he said quietly, before making himself turn businesslike again. He'd come here for a reason, after all. "Uh, you said you had something?"
"Oh, yeah," Sarah said, as though she'd forgotten. "Um, I heard Jason talking about some big meetup that's happening soon. Weapons of some kind, I think. He's not going to be there, but he was giving instructions to someone over the phone and it sounded like there would be a whole group of them."
"Do you know where?"
"No," she said apologetically. "Or when, except that it's soon. This week or next, I think. But I did get the phone number of the guy he was talking to, and the address that's attached to it."
"Good. I can start there."
Sarah gave him the address, which was on the other side of town. Matt figured he'd check it out tomorrow night. Right now it was already late, and he'd had a long, difficult night. So when Sarah asked him if he wanted to stick around for a little while longer, he didn't say no.
At least a few times a month, Jason would tell Sarah with little warning that he would be staying 'a little late' at the office and needed her to stay at her post as well. For most companies, that would mean an hour or two past closing time at five; for Jason, it usually meant until ten or eleven at night. He would often spend those extra hour holed up in his office, descending down some rabbit hole of obsessively reviewing security tapes from Orion's various properties. Sarah always hoped that as long as she was stuck at work, she could use the time to catch up on the backlog of paperwork on her desk, but it seemed like even at night the stream of visitors to Jason's office never slowed down.
It was just going on ten o'clock on one of those nights, and Jason had left the office to go do something, leaving Sarah to do work when all she wanted was to be home. She was sifting through the pile of mail on her desk, sorting the junk out from important papers. One envelope in particular caught her eye, and—thinking it was some filing papers Jason had been impatiently waiting for—she quickly opened it. She was surprised when, instead of paperwork, several large photos slid out onto her desk.
With an uncertain frown, she picked one up and studied it, her heart sinking as she realized what she was looking it. It was a wide shot of the outside of the police precinct, with a woman she now recognized as Mrs. McDermott passing out flyers on the steps. In one of the photos you could clearly see Aaron McDermott's face on the flyers. In another, she was standing outside the courthouse holding a large, hand-painted sign that read: Help me bring my son back home.
"Oh, no," Sarah muttered softly. "Why are you doing this?"
Among the photos was a note:
Jason-
Thought you'd be interested in these photos.
You might want to take care of this before it gets out of hand.
It wasn't signed, and there was no indication who it was from; it could have been sent from any number of eyes that Jason seemingly had everywhere around the city. Sarah's gaze lingered on the phrase 'take care of this'. There was little ambiguity as to what that meant. If Mrs. McDermott didn't stop her public search soon, she was almost guaranteed to meet a similar end as her son.
The quiet ding of the elevator arriving on her floor brought her out of her thoughts, and Sarah snapped her head up to see Jason walking down the hallway, immersed in texting something on his phone.
She quickly gathered the photos up and slid them into the bottom drawer of her desk, closing it just as Jason approached. But she needn't have worried; Jason was so engrossed in whatever conversation he was having that he didn't even spare her a glance before closing his office door behind him.
Letting out an anxious exhale, Sarah gazed down at the closed drawer. What was she supposed to do about McDermott's mother? She couldn't let Jason find out, or he would kill the poor woman for bringing too much attention to them. But she also couldn't think of any way to convince a grieving mother to not seek justice for her son's disappearance.
Sarah snapped out of her thoughts as she heard someone approaching and looked up to see an employee she recognized, but couldn't name. The man always wore a tracksuit in some jewel tone; today it was a deep emerald color. She remembered him as being one of the men who had been present at Orion the first night Matt had broken in, and at the subsequent meeting when Jason had first come to the company. He'd been wearing an ugly mustard yellow tracksuit then, she recalled vaguely.
"Is he in there?" Tracksuit asked. He had a cell phone to his ear and appeared to be half-listening to it.
"Yeah, just hang and I'll tell him y—" she began, but he was already opening the door before she could finish. "—Okay. Your funeral," she muttered.
But when she heard Jason's voice grow loud and agitated on the other side of the door, it didn't sound like it was aimed at Tracksuit. Sure enough, when the two emerged from the office, Jason was shouting into the cell phone the other man had just been holding.
"—well find out why he didn't show up and make sure no one else leaves. I'll come deal with it myself," he snapped before hanging up the phone.
"Pull the car up," he said, holding his keys out to Tracksuit.
"I don't know how to drive stick," he said blankly.
Jason let out a noise of disgust before his eyes snapped to Sarah, whose presence he finally seemed to remember.
"Sarah," he said briskly, tossing her the keys. She fumbled to catch them. "Come with us."
She quickly snatched her bag and followed them to the stairwell. She knew she should probably try to covertly text Matt, but there was no time, and no way to do it without them noticing.
Minutes later they were driving as fast as Sarah could manage with traffic, weaving in and out of cars. Jason was in the passenger seat next to her, and Tracksuit was in the back. She had no idea where they were headed or why, and Jason didn't speak beyond telling her the next turn.
From inside his jacket pocket, he removed something small and gray, the metal glinting as they passed under a streetlight. A jolt of fear shot through Sarah as she realized it was a gun.
"Wh-where are we going?" she asked, trying to keep an eye on both the road and the firearm.
"None of your concern. Drive faster."
Jason was messing with the gun, checking the contents multiple times as though they would change when he wasn't looking, and the constant clicking sound was making Sarah nervous. Tracksuit seemed unbothered, and she suspected he was probably armed as well. Maybe Lauren was right, and she should have bought a gun.
"Go into that parking garage up ahead," Jason said. "Drive to the top."
As they entered the garage, Sarah was met with an unsettling suspicion that they were heading to the weapons trade that she had told Matt about. Nothing else would have Jason this uptight, and they used parking garages all around Hell's Kitchen for meeting just like that.
She cursed at herself internally for not finding a way to text or call Matt when she had the chance. Now the entire thing was going to go down without anyone to stop it, and they'd have to wait until the next time so many Orion employees were in one spot.
But as it turns out, she didn't need to call Matt. Because as they turned the corner into the garage, he was already there, deep in the middle of causing a remarkable amount of chaos, which they were headed straight towards.
Sarah gasped and slammed on the breaks hard. The car screeched to a stop about ten feet from the ongoing fray.
"What are you doing?" Jason barked at her. "Keep going!"
She turned her head to say something—she didn't know what, but something—but she never got the chance. Maybe if she had, Matt would have heard her voice coming from the car and known it was her. But as it was, his focus was trained on the men he was fighting and the car that was very likely about to run him over, and he wasn't listening for familiar heartbeats or scents. Had he known that she was the one driving the car, he probably wouldn't have done what he did next, which was to send one of his opponents flying through the windshield directly at them.
Sarah saw the man's large silhouette come hurtling towards them out of the corner of her eye, and she lurched to the side a millisecond before impact, whipping her hands up to protect her face just as the body smashed through the glass. Jason's reflexes had been slower, and she heard his screech of pain as dozens of tiny glass shards flew at both of them.
The shock of what had just happened made the next few seconds pass by very slowly. Tiny pieces of glass fell from her clothes as Sarah sat up straight again, inhaling jerkily. The first thing she saw was the man who'd been thrown through the glass: he was bloody and bruised, but it looked like he was breathing. She slowly turned her gaze towards Jason, and couldn't bite back a startled gasp as she caught sight of his face.
He had taken far more of the brunt of the impact than she had, and the glass had embedded itself deep into his skin. Shards of glass were still glinting inside long cuts that sent rivulets of blood down his face. He looked like something out of a horror movie, his expression twisted furiously underneath all of the blood.
In the distance, she could hear sirens approaching.
"Cops are coming," Tracksuit informed them unnecessarily, leaning forward between them. His location in the backseat had spared him from getting cut by any of the glass.
"Dammit," Jason snarled. "We need to go."
Sarah fumbled with the clutch and the rusty gearshift, unable to keep herself from glancing up at the fight still roaring in front of them. Her sight was partially concealed by the unconscious man still sprawled on the hood of the car, but behind him she could see Matt perform a complicated backflip, his boots connecting hard with the side of one man's head before he swung his fist around to catch another in the mouth.
"Reverse it!" Jason shouted at her. "Now!"
The car still wasn't cooperating, and Sarah jammed her foot down on the clutch again and wrenched at the gearshift, eliciting a loud grinding from the car as it stubbornly refused to shift into reverse.
"I'm—I'm trying!" she exclaimed. "It's stuck!"
She looked up again just in time to see the realization hit Matt as he heard her voice. His lips parted as his head whipped in their direction, his concentration on the fight faltering just for a second as he recognized who was in the car. Then he was back to it, so quickly that anyone else but her wouldn't have noticed.
At least, that's what she thought. She was looking at Matt, so she didn't see Jason watching both of them, taking in the brief reaction they both had with narrowed eyes.
The sirens still sounded like they were far away but drawing closer as the car finally shifted into reverse, and Sarah slammed on the accelerator. The man on the hood tumbled off, landing on the pavement as the car reversed across the garage. She quickly shifted into drive and sped towards the exit.
"The cops are blocks away!" Tracksuit shouted from the backseat. "We can still get the man in the mask!"
Sarah only drove faster, hoping that Jason wouldn't agree and demand that they turn around. But he wasn't even listening, too busy swearing and pulling glass from his bloody skin. Behind her, Tracksuit fumbled for something on the floor.
She was just about to turn the corner out of the parking garage and away from the action when there was a deafening bang just inches from her ear, wrenching another terrified scream from her throat as she instinctively slammed on the breaks yet again. Everyone in the car pitched forward at the abrupt stop, and then there was a stillness, filled by nothing but a high-pitched ringing in her ears.
Sarah gripped the steering while tightly and squeezed her eyes shut as a steady stream of swearwords tumbled out of her mouth. Still shell-shocked from the sound, it took her brain a few seconds to realize that Tracksuit had fired a gun out the window from inside the small space—and that he had fired it at Daredevil.
She wrenched her eyes open, whipping her head around in panic to try to spot Matt. Her head pounded at the sharp movement, but she didn't care; there was little room left in her mind for anything but relief when she saw Matt still fighting with no apparent bullet holes in his body.
"Shit, I missed," Tracksuit said, his voice muffled as though he was underwater.
"There's no time," Jason snapped at him, before turning his still horrifically bloody features towards Sarah. "Keep driving."
Sarah hit the gas immediately, the tires screeching as they finally sped out of the garage and down the street.
"That was a goddamn disaster," Jason ground out. "Take a right up here."
Sarah did so, followed by a left and then another right. He had her come to a stop outside a row of tall, expensive apartment buildings, where he got out.
"You," Jason spat out, eyeing Tracksuit through the window. "Get back to the office and find out who the police managed to arrest in that parking garage and who got away." Tracksuit nodded, and Jason turned his attention to Sarah. "And you. Take this car to the warehouse to get fixed. Don't let yourself be seen."
Sarah's stomach dropped; the warehouse was clear on the other side of town. How was she not supposed to get spotted with a completely shattered front windshield? Nearly all of it was gone, leaving just a ring of conspicuous jagged glass around the edges. In addition to that, there was a very noticeable dent in the hood where the man had landed.
"But I—" she began, but at the unhinged look Jason gave her she stopped. "O-okay. Got it."
With that, Jason turned and stormed off. Sarah watched him in the mirror, trying to see what building he went into as she pulled away from the curb.
She and Tracksuit didn't speak as she drove down one of the back streets, speeding but trying not to go so fast that she would attract more attention.
"The turn is coming up," he said finally.
Sarah ignored him, focusing instead on making sure there were no cop cars around.
"Hey!" Tracksuit said, apparently under the impression that she couldn't hear him over the gunshot-inflicted hearing loss. "The turn! Is coming up!
Sarah groaned. "Shut up, Tracksuit, I know."
"My name is Kevin," he replied indignantly, but she didn't care.
With a shaking hand she slid her phone out of her pocket to quickly check the screen, but she had no missed calls. Matt must still be dealing with Orion employees, or—worse yet—the cops. A shock of anger went through her as she glanced in her rearview mirror at the other occupant in the car. She was aware that getting shot at probably wasn't uncommon for Matt, given his line of work. But knowing that he might be dead right now if the man in her backseat had had just slightly better aim made her feel lightheaded with anger. All she wanted was him out of her car.
When they came to as stop sign on an empty street she slammed on the breaks one more time.
"Get out," she said shakily.
"What? No. Jason said to take me to the office."
"No, he said for you to go there, not that I had to take you," Sarah argued, her voice sounding much more certain than she felt. "It's in the opposite direction from the warehouse, s-so get out."
"Screw you, I'm not walking there. Take me to the office."
Sarah wanted to scream. Yes, she had to take orders from Jason, and now from Vanessa. And before them it had been Ronan, and before Ronan it was Wesley. But she did not have to take orders from Tracksuit Kevin.
She whipped her head around to glare at him. "Jason is already going to be pissed about not catching Daredevil, and you firing a gun inside this freaking tiny car didn't help, so you need to get out and let me do what he said before he literally. Murders. Us both."
Her voice was taking on that slightly hysterical tone that she hated. Apparently Tracksuit hated it too, because after a few seconds of staring at her he threw his hands up before reaching over to yank hard on the door handle. He muttered something about women and mood swings as he got out of the car. Then the door slammed behind him and Sarah drove away as fast as she could.
Through whatever stroke of luck, Sarah's battered car didn't cross paths with anyone who would care about its condition, and she made its safely to the warehouse. Sarah had calmed down slightly when she arrived at the address, where she could see Rob, the owner, out in the yard, already working on a different car. Luckily his teenage son didn't seem to be around. His face fell as he saw her pulling through the gates with the shattered windshield.
She got out of the car and lingered awkwardly behind the open car door.
"Hi," she said finally. "Um, I don't know if you remember me—"
"Please tell me there ain't a dead person in that trunk."
Clearly he did remember her, then. His voice sounded slightly muffled, thought not as badly as Tracksuit's had earlier. She took that as a good sign that the ringing in her ears wouldn't be permanent.
"Oh, uh, no," she said quickly. "Well—I mean—I guess I haven't looked. But I'm pretty sure there's not. We just need you to fix it up."
Rob glanced at her strangely as he approached the car. "You tryin' to wake up the neighborhood?"
"What?"
"You're talking real loud."
Sarah's face flushed; her hearing was still on the fritz from the gunshot. "Sorry."
"Don't know why you had to bring that car here. Lot of places can fix windshields for cheap," Rob said, warily eyeing the car's busted windshield and dented hood. When he caught sight of the blood on the shattered glass, resigned understanding crossed his face. "Oh."
"I didn't run anyone over," Sarah explained, as though Rob would believe her. "A—a guy just got thrown into my windshield."
Rob didn't reply, instead shaking his head and beginning to inspect the damage to the vehicle.
"Do you know where the closest bus stop is?" she asked him, exhaustion slipping into her voice. She didn't think there was one around for several blocks, but her go-to person for walking her home was probably still dealing with Orion employees.
"You can't walk to the bus stop from here," he said, looking at her like she was crazy. "You know what kind of area this is?"
"Well, I don't have money for a cab, so unless you want me to sleep in your driveway…" Sarah shrugged.
Rob eyed her speculatively, then heaved a deep sigh.
"I'll drive you."
"What?" she said in surprise and a little bit of alarm. "Oh, no, y-you don't have to do that."
"Your bosses come visiting me enough as it is. I don't need them coming around askin' how you got stabbed walking home."
"They wouldn't care," she said honestly.
Rob gestured towards the one car in the yard that looked like it was currently working.
"Just get in," he said tiredly.
Sarah struggled to figure out the likelihood that he was going to murder her. Deciding that it seemed less likely than most other people she had met through Orion, she slowly made her way over to the car. But she kept her hand near the pepper spray in her pocket all the same, leaning against the inside of passenger side door as they pulled out of the gate.
She glanced in the side mirror to check the damage the shattered glass had left on her skin. Luckily, her injuries were nowhere near as bad as Jason's; just a few stray scratches on her face and neck where the blood had already dried. Nothing that shouldn't heal within a week or so.
"Why do you do this?" Rob asked after a few minutes of driving in silence. At her questioning look, he elaborated, "Every time you come around, you look like you're about to throw up. Doesn't seem like you enjoy your job."
Sarah hesitated. If this was a strange test set up by Jason, it was an obscure one.
"This…wasn't really a career path that I chose," she said, leaving it vague.
She could feel Rob watching her for a long moment.
"Me neither."
They didn't say anything else for the rest of the ride, until she had him pull up about a block away from her apartment. Despite him not giving off any particularly murder-y vibes, she still figured it was best that he not know her exact address. She thanked him as she opened the door, and he just nodded.
She felt Matt's presence as soon as she got out of the car, so when he appeared out of the shadows with only a murmured "—it's me—" as a warning, she was proud that she only jumped slightly. He quickly steered her into a construction overhang concealed by tarps where a bodega was redoing their storefront.
"Are you alright?" he asked as soon as they were out of sight of the sidewalk.
The question struck her as oddly ridiculous; out of the two of them, she wasn't the one who had just gotten shot at while fighting a half-dozen people. Her eyes caught on the dark bruise forming along his jaw, then on the blood glittering through a tear in his sleeve.
"Sarah," he repeated sharply, prompting her to answer.
"Yeah, Matt," she said softly. "I'm fine."
Matt nodded, but he was already working one of his gloves off. He brought his hand up to her face, checking for injuries. Her breathing hitched as his thumb brushed against a small, shallow cut just at the corner of her mouth. He paused for just a second, then gently tilted her head to the side to inspect the scratches on her neck as well. Her brain finally began to register that she was no longer in a speeding car with a furious, bleeding Jason next to her, and the spiky adrenaline that had flooded her system began to fade. Sarah closed her eyes, choosing to focus on bringing her breathing back down to normal and not on the tiny sparks of electricity that were dancing across her skin wherever Matt's calloused fingertips touched her.
Once he was satisfied that she was still in one piece, he let his hand fall back to his side, and Sarah felt a twinge of disappointment. It was probably for the best, though, so that her heartbeat wasn't echoing loudly around the tiny enclosure they were occupying.
"I didn't know you were in that car," he said. His tone was softer now that he'd established she hadn't been injured.
Sarah nodded. "I figured, when you, um…tossed a person through the windshield."
"What happened? I thought you and Jason weren't going."
"I didn't think we were. But I guess someone called Jason when you showed up to the swap, or—or maybe when someone else didn't show up? I don't know. It happened really fast. I didn't even realize that's where we were going until we got there."
Matt swore under his breath and turned away, rubbing his jaw. She recognized a familiar tension in his posture; he was on edge, probably feeling guilty about what had happened. Which was ridiculous, of course; Matt couldn't just avoid fighting criminals on the off chance that one of them was Sarah.
"What happened after I left?" she asked him, hoping to redirect the conversation away from their mistakes and towards some sort of accomplishment.
"Managed to subdue the ones who didn't drive off, and left them for the cops to take care of," he said, turning back to her. "Most of them had previous charges that will keep them locked up. A few we'll have to wait and see, but I think what the police found tonight will be enough to get them put away. Assuming that the officers do their jobs correctly."
"What happened to the…windshield guy?" she asked tentatively.
Matt paused. "He'll be healing in a jail cell, but he'll be fine."
Sarah winced, but nodded.
"What happened with you and Jason and…whoever was shooting at me?"
"Tracksuit," she answered absently. Matt tilted his head doubtfully at the name, but didn't question it. "It…went okay. I brought the car to the warehouse, and kicked Tracksuit out of my car on a street corner."
She couldn't see the top half of Matt's face under his mask, but she knew he had his eyebrows raised. "You did?"
"He shot at you."
"Yeah, a lot of people do."
"Well, they're—they're not allowed in my car either," she said indignantly.
Matt shook his head, and for the first time that night an actual smile flashed across his face, albeit an exasperated one.
"Alright. What about Jason?"
"You're definitely back on his radar. He's been distracted by Vanessa, but…I think now you're going to be in his crosshairs."
Below his mask, Matt's smile mouth twisted into a something a little harder. "Good."
Sarah cast her eyes upward at the dark canopy above them. Could he even try to pretend like he wasn't excited by the promise of reckless danger?
"He went into some apartment building on 59th. I don't know if he lives there, or…?" She shrugged. "He might have been going to get his face fixed. It got pretty sliced up; I think it's going to scar a lot and he's going to look, like, really scary."
The smile was completely gone now. "Yeah. We're lucky that wasn't you."
"Hey," she said. "I'm fine. Really."
She spun around with her arms spread, demonstrating how very intact she was.
Matt's mouth pressed into an unhappy line as he reached up and pulled something out of her hair, holding it up for her to see: a jagged piece of glass from the windshield. It made a tiny clinking noise as he tossed it on the ground.
"That was already there," she said, hoping to lighten the mood. It was still early enough that Matt would be going back out to patrol, and she really didn't want him distracting himself with whatever guilty inner monologue she could tell was already looping around in his head.
"It's not funny."
"I know. But…that's kind of one of the complications of all this, isn't it? I work for the bad guys, Matt," she said gently. "Sometimes we're going to be on opposite sides of things, and—and things can get dangerous. I know that. So do you. We knew it going in."
Matt took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and rubbing the back of his head. "I guess we've kind of forgotten about that part lately."
She knew he was right. They'd been messing around too much, caught up in each other instead of focusing on the very real dangers of what they were doing.
"Yeah. I guess we have."
"We need to be more careful."
"We will be," she agreed truthfully. "We'll just—we'll make sure that we know the next time we're going to end up in the same place like that, and we can try to, you know, avoid things like…everything that just happened. It'll be fine."
She could tell he wasn't convinced, but what else could she say? There wasn't much else they could do to make things safer, and she had a horrible sinking feeling he was going to take this as an opportunity to distance himself again.
Matt sighed, leaning against the wall next to her so that their shoulders were touching. She turned her head to watch him in the dark.
"I don't want to be the reason you get hurt, Sarah."
"You won't be," she said firmly.=
Unfortunately, that wasn't true. But for that moment, she really did believe it.
Jason didn't come back to the office that week, instead communicating through emails and phone calls. Sarah wasn't surprised; everything from his hair to his suit was always immaculately tailored and groomed, so he seemed like just the type to not show his face while it was marred by deep cuts. She wished she'd had the same luxury of staying home when her own skin had been littered in bruises and scars from Ronan, but she would settle instead for this small victory of getting a break from Jason.
Without having to rush back and forth between Vanessa and Jason, Sarah was actually able to take a proper lunch break, and she met up in the park with Lauren to grab coffee (or in Sarah's case, green tea, as she had found that caffeine jitteriness didn't mix well with her already nerve-wracking job).
"I can't believe Todd turned out to be such a dickhead," Lauren said as they walked in the shade, away from the runners and bikers on the path.
"I guess maybe we should have seen that coming. His name is Todd, after all."
"Excellent point," Lauren conceded. "But still, I'm sorry he just ditched you like that. We will so not be letting him photograph anything for us again. And Greg has sworn to no longer ask him how his weekend went when he says good morning to him on Mondays, which is about as close to revenge as Greg gets."
Sarah grinned as she idly tapped her fingers on her cup, the tune to one of the songs she was learning stuck in her head.
"I haven't seen you do that in a long time."
Sarah looked over at her. "Do what?"
"That weird imaginary piano thing you do," Lauren said, nodding towards Sarah's hand. "When you're learning a new song."
Sarah stilled her hand sheepishly. "I hadn't noticed I was doing it."
"You never have. You used to do it in class and it would drive me insane."
"Like you paid attention in class anyway."
"Well, regardless. It's kind of nice that you've picked up the annoying habit again," Lauren said. "Even if you are practicing in a dark lair somewhere."
"I'm not playing in a lair," Sarah said with a laugh. Lauren had been surprised to hear that Daredevil had been the one to find Sarah a place to practice, but she'd been mostly understanding when Sarah had said that she couldn't tell her where that place was, much to her relief. "It's just a normal room with a piano."
"I need you to know that I'm imagining you playing somewhere with, like, a very Phantom of the Opera vibe. Maybe in an underground cave, but the kind with oriental rugs and chandeliers. I assume he lives somewhere like that."
"He doesn't live in a cave. I don't think there are even any conveniently located caves near Hell's Kitchen to live in."
"But no where else fits his aesthetic," Lauren countered. "These guys always live in either a cave lair or a mansion. Wait—does he live in a mansion? Is he a billionaire?"
Sarah couldn't help picturing the warm but less than impressive office of Nelson and Murdock, and how utterly mundane Lauren would find Matt's real-life identity compared to the fantastical, ridiculous version of him she'd conjured up in her imagination.
"Definitely not."
"Oh. Good."
"Why is that good?"
"Well, firstly because it would mean he's just an idiot for not wearing a fancier suit if he could afford it…"
"That's fair," Sarah agreed, nodding along. Matt's costume really was useless, if the number of times she'd had to patch him up was any indicator.
"…and secondly because then I would worry that you were only into him for his money."
Sarah was still nodding from Lauren's first point when she registered the second part.
"Sorry, what?" she said.
"You know, how you totally have the hots for our neighborhood vigilante and have been assuming that no one would notice," Lauren said calmly. "If he was rich, I'd never know if you had actually fallen for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen or if you had just secretly turned into a gold digger."
Sarah stared at her for a long, long beat. A denial was already poised on the tip of her tongue—"You're crazy, I just work with him, I would never have feelings for someone like that,"—but instead she let out a loud, surprised laugh. Tilting her head back, she pinched the bridge of her nose tiredly. Really, what was the point in denying it? It was all so ridiculous, and even if Lauren judged her it wouldn't help Sarah get over her feelings.
"Jesus. What is wrong with me?" she asked Lauren.
"Nothing is wrong with you, dummy," Lauren said. "Except that you didn't tell me right away."
"Honestly, I didn't figure it out myself until pretty recently," Sarah admitted.
"That would shock precisely no one. You're not exactly the poster girl for being in tune with your emotions."
"That's because they're silly, useless ones that won't lead to anything good," she insisted. "It's embarrassing enough that you can tell, and I'm positive that he can sense it—"
"—sense it? What, does he have superpowers?" Lauren said jokingly, giving an amused snort. Then, seeing Sarah's face, she added. "Holy shit, does he have superpowers?"
"No, of course not," Sarah said with a forced laugh. "That would be ridiculous."
Lauren turned to give her a heavily skeptical look. For a second it looked like she was going to ask more about the subject, but then she held up a finger.
"Okay, how's this: I will pretend like you didn't say anything about superpowers if instead we can talk about whatever's going on between the two of you without you changing the subject. Because honestly, New York already has a giant green building-smasher and a flying guy with a hammer, so superpowers are kind of old news. You being interested in any guy who's not boring as dirt, on the other hand, is new. So…?"
Sarah sighed in resignation.
"There really isn't anything to talk about."
"Well, you two are a thing?"
"No," Sarah said quickly. "No, no. That would be…way too complicated. This is just—I don't even know what. Adrenaline and—and…confusion. It's not going to turn into anything. Ever."
"But you guys have hooked up, at least," Lauren speculated.
Sarah shook her head, and her friend's eyes widened in surprised.
"Wait, really?"
"No," Sarah said, a little caught off guard that Lauren seemed so shocked. "Why did you think we had?"
"Uh, where do you want me to start? His reaction to you going on a date, for one. Homeboy was jealous as hell."
"He wasn't jealous," Sarah protested. "He's just…protective."
"Mhm. Protective of his chances of getting into your pants."
"Lauren," Sarah groaned. "That's not helpful."
"What? How?"
"Because I'm trying to shut this thing down, and hearing something like that just—just doesn't help."
"By 'this thing' you mean…human emotion?" Lauren speculated. "Good luck."
"No, by 'this thing' I mean…a dumb crush," Sarah said. "That's all it is."
"Right, right. Well that's, you know…" Lauren shrugged. "…bullshit, but okay."
"Excuse me?"
"I've seen you guys together first hand more than once. Three times, in fact, if you count that first time—which I do, because he was shirtless and that's relevant right now—"
"—focus, Lauren—"
"Right. How about the other night, then, when you came back from your date?"
"What about it?"
"Um, you might have forgotten, but I was actually in the room with you guys for a while. Not that either of you would know. I'm pretty sure Greg could have walked in and starting making tea on your stove and neither of you would have noticed."
"Yes, I was paying more attention to the man with the bleeding stomach wound than to you," Sarah admitted dryly. "You got me."
"Hey, for once I'm not complaining about not being the center of attention," Lauren said, holding her hands up innocently. "I'm just saying…people don't act like that with each other when they just want to bang. They act like that when they want to bang and then do something disgusting, like take selfies of themselves feeding each other brunch on the same side of the booth."
Sarah grimaced, trying to imagine Matt partaking in any part of that scenario. She was a little relieved when she couldn't.
"You and Greg do that literally every Sunday morning," she pointed out. "I've seen it on Instagram."
"Because we are a disgustingly cute couple, Sarah, keep up. The point is, whatever is going on there is not crush material. It looked like something…a lot more intense. And way complicated."
Intense and complicated, Sarah thought wryly. The Matt Murdock specialty.
Meanwhile, Lauren was still rambling.
"—and I get it. Objectively, if you weren't my best friend, I'd probably encourage it. The whole saving people thing. It's hot. I get it. And that body is no joke."
"That's not—I mean…that doesn't hurt," Sarah allowed, her mind unwillingly flashing to the image of the shirtless vigilante stretched out on her bed, holding her hair back from her face for her with a wicked grin on his face. She shook her head, pushing her hair behind her ear. "But it's not about that."
"So, what is it about?"
That was too complex of a question for Sarah to start thinking about on her lunch break, so she dodged the question.
"I thought you'd be a lot more disapproving," she told Lauren.
Her friend was quiet for a while, which was unusual. When she finally spoke, it sounded like she was struggling with what she wanted to say.
"When you started working at Orion, you…disappeared. You wouldn't answer my texts or my calls, and when I got to see you every, what, two months? You weren't eating, you wouldn't talk about your life…you were always so sad, except for when you were drunk. It was like I was hanging out with your ghost, and I didn't know why."
"I'm sorry," Sarah replied softly, an automatic reply these days. But Lauren waved her apology away.
"No, I get it. I mean I understand now why you got like that. All quiet and thin and—and jumpy. But…you've been getting better. Since right around the time you started working with him. I missed you so much, and now it's—it's like…you're coming back. And obviously the credit for that goes to you and not to him, but…it seems like the more time you spend with him, the more you've been you again, so…I can be kind of okay with him being in your life."
Sarah smiled at that; it wasn't a declaration that the two of them would ever be friends, but it was good enough. "I'm glad."
"I mean, I won't pretend like I think this is a great thing. But you're an adult, and a smart one. I just need to figure out a way to reconcile going from watching a news segment of this guy breaking someone's legs to us having a rom-com style chat about him in the park, you know?"
"Speaking of him being in the news, what is up with your cousin and how obsessed with Daredevil she is? Can she, like…chill out?"
"Cecilia has never chilled out since the day she was born," Lauren said with an eye roll. "Probably bitching about something right out of the womb."
"Is she going to keep writing articles about him?" Sarah asked.
"Probably. She loves the attention, and she loves people telling her she's right."
"But…you don't think she's right," Sarah pushed hesitantly. "…right?"
"I guess not," Lauren said with a sigh. "I think he's kind of an asshole personality-wise, but not a menace to society or whatever Cecilia calls him. And he wasn't entirely awful the last time we met, but that was probably just because he was bleeding out."
"Probably," Sarah said with a grin.
The teasing tone faded from Lauren's voice as she fixed Sarah with a worried look. "Just…just be careful, okay? Not just in the don't-get-murdered-by-your-boss way. I know you can handle yourself, but…make sure you really know what you're doing before you get invested in someone like that."
Sarah knew it was a little late for that, but it wasn't worth getting into, so she juts nodded.
"Okay."
They kept walking in silence for another minute before Lauren spoke up again.
"But if you do sleep with him, you have to tell me."
"Ugh, Lauren."
"Like…in detail," she said seriously. "I want details."
"I have to go back to work," Sarah said firmly, tossing her empty drink in the trashcan and heading down the path the opposite way. "Goodbye!"
"Don't make me call him and ask for details!" Lauren hollered after her. "I'll do it!"
Sarah just waved goodbye without looking back, uncertain how she felt about the conversation that had just taken place. On the one hand, she was relieved to have been able to talk about how confused she was and not have Lauren judge her too much. But on the other hand, saying it out loud had made it something real and not just something she kept in her own head, and that seemed like a dangerous path to go down.
Sarah had gotten used to a certain pattern with Matt: one step forward, ten steps back. Sometimes twenty. It had gotten to the point where anytime things were going well for too long, she started to expect something to mess things up with them. And after a such a long stretch of things going relatively well—by their standards—she had sort of been waiting for something to go wrong. At first she'd thought it would be the video with Cecilia; then she'd been certain it would be the parking garage incident. She figured something had to get in their way.
So she was relieved when she got to the boxing gym for their training session and it seemed like things were still normal. Maybe they were done moving backwards. Maybe not every obstacle had to send them flying back to the beginning of the game.
That particular thought was what had distracted her long enough for Matt to hook his foot around her ankle, knocking her legs clean out from under her for what felt like the thousandth time.
"Your head is somewhere else," he noted, wiping the sweat away from his brow with his forearm. "What are you thinking about?"
"Um, you know. Just that I'm getting really good at this," she said breathlessly from her position sprawled out on the floor.
Matt laughed, offering her a hand up. "Well, you aren't getting worse."
When their time was up, Matt stood at the bench, undoing the wraps on his hands while Sarah filled up her water bottle at the fountain.
"So, have you thought more about showing me how to use those batons?" she asked as she walked over to him.
"No," he said. "But I'm a little worried you would enjoy using them too much."
Sarah rolled her eyes and flicked her water bottle at him, aiming to irritate him by hitting him with the few drops left on top.
Unfortunately, she hadn't screwed the lid on tightly, and the bottle's poorly-secured top flew off, sending half of its contents flying in Matt's direction. His shoulders arched up like a cat as the icy water hit him, soaking most of his back.
Sarah's mouth fell open and she slapped a hand over it to keep herself from laughing. The task become significantly more difficult when he turned towards her and she caught sight of the indignant look on his face.
"Are you crazy?"
"I—" Sarah dissolved into laughter at the sight. "I didn't think that would happen."
"Give me that," he said threateningly, reaching for the bottle as he approached her.
"No, I'm still drinking it," she retorted, backing away and holding it behind her, out of his reach.
"You can't be trusted with it."
"Of course I can."
A sharp grin spread across his face, a less dangerous version of the one that was often paired with a black mask. Sarah's stomach flipped, and it occurred to her that until now she had almost forgotten that being nervous could be an enjoyable sensation, an excited buzz instead of heavy dread.
Matt lunged forward, quickly catching her around the waist, and made a grab for the water bottle. Laughing, Sarah flicked the bottle again, this time hitting him squarely in the side of the face with the cold water.
"See, I was just going to take it away from you, but—"
He caught the bottle and tipped it, dumping the entirety of what was left inside directly over Sarah's head.
She shrieked as the ice-cold water soaked her hair before traveling down her spine. The sudden coolness was startling against her hot skin, immediately eliciting goosebumps, and her back hit his chest as she tried to avoid getting wet.
"It's cold!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, is it?" he said laughingly, tossing the now empty bottle aside. "I didn't notice."
Matt's own water bottle was sitting on the edge of the ring nearby, still full. She tried to snatch it, but Matt still had a grip on her waist.
"No, no, no," he said, spinning her around easily, out of reach of the bottle. "Nice try."
He deftly maneuvered her backwards, away from the ring, and before she knew it her back was pressed against the lockers.
The hands Sarah had been using to playfully push him away were now knotted slightly in the front of his shirt, wrinkling the fabric a little. She didn't let go, instead digging her fingers into the fabric a little deeper and bringing Matt a few inches closer, so that they were barely touching. He let her tug him forward without complaint, his hands landing on her hips, where he slipped his thumbs just under the hemline of her tank top to brush against her bare skin. The contact sent a spark through her, making her shiver despite the heat.
They remained that way for a moment, both of them slightly out of breath with a ghost of that sharp grin still on Matt's face, close enough that she could see the drops of water still clinging to his hair—
"So this is what your training has become, huh?" came a gruff, unfamiliar voice from behind them. "A chance to do some heavy petting with pretty women?"
The faint trace of a grin that had been lingering on Matt's face dropped away as quickly as his hands did. He whipped around to face the man speaking, but didn't move from his position directly in front of Sarah. Craning slightly to see around Matt's shoulders, Sarah caught a glimpse of him. He was older, with grey hair and dark glasses similar to Matt's. He held a long silver cane in his hand.
She knew who it was even before the name came out of Matt's mouth in a short, hostile greeting:
"Stick."
And in a moment, Sarah had a horrible feeling this was the big step back she had been able to feel coming.