Was Matt blaming himself? He had been snappy, but Kate had pushed. And even though she could always shield herself behind the fact that she is physically, mentally and also emotionally exhausted...
So is Matt.
She didn't push this time, letting her fingers slip off his arm even though he had not really, fully pulled away.
"If you are planning to go put there, I'm not staying behind," she pointed out as firmly as she could muster. Which wasn't saying much.
"If I go out there I could help a lot of people. If I go out there, I could also fuck us over for tomorrow and going forward. So. No. I'm not planning on going out there." His tone was a touch bitter about it though, feeling guilt over having made that choice. If he tipped anyone off about Josie's, they were goners. If he got stuck in a rescue and missed the meeting tomorrow morning, he'd ruin the chance to establish trust with those who showed up. He saw the value in playing the long game, he knew he couldn't save everyone tonight with his fists. That didn't mean he wasn't also aware that there were some people he could save tonight, and listening to his city right now, it was a weight he'd have to carry the rest of his life.
So, that's it. He's upset, frustrated because even though Kate is surprised Matt is even able to still stand on his own feet, he wants to go and help but is aware of how that could backfire. He is being strategic. Because that's the game they are forced to play with Fisk now. It's all been one big strategy after the other.
And Fisk keeps taking chess pieces from their board.
It's time to renew them.
But what else can she offer? Nothing will comfort him right now, nothing will take his mind of a city he so feels connected with. A city that is blind to its dangers sometimes. One that when it bleeds, she knows Matt feels it in his own veins.
What can she do? Offer to go out there on her own? She can't take it, not like him. It would be childish.
At hearing her voice, Matt turned a little to face her. There was a moment of silence before he said quietly, "Yeah, me too. I shouldn't have blown up like that." He'd already apologized earlier, but it felt right to say it again. It was such a stupid argument, and he shouldn't always have to keep going to win. Especially when the literal city was at stake. His nerves were absolutely scraped raw, but he knew that Kate's were, too.
He leaned against the doorframe and gave a small, tired smile.
"I don't know why I always bother doing that. Turning to face someone when we're talking. It's not like I can see them." He can sense people, but he doesn't need to face them to do that. He gave a small shrug while musing. "I guess it's just polite. Makes people more comfortable to have someone standing like that than with their back to them." For all that Matt didn't care what other people thought about him, he did take their feelings into consideration with not wanting them hurt. Following some social conventions was something he just did then, even if his eyes never quite looked at hers. His head was always tilted towards her though when she spoke, the best he could manage. He didn't know exactly where her eyes were.
He scuffed his foot on the ground. "I don't know why that came to mind just now." A beat. "I don't want you uncomfortable around me." He didn't want to frighten her.
Even though Matt had already apologized before and been quite gracious about the whole deal, Kate still couldn't shake off her system just how mad he still was as Karen drove them to Josie's. This time around? Talking more calmly helped easing the tension she'd been carrying on her chest.
But before Kate could say anything, the conversation took an unexpected twist. Matt brought something up Kate had always almost taken for granted. A gesture that seemed so natural, but that clearly was mostly natural to people who could actually see.
It was such a random thing to say, to realize. And random was good, it meant his mind could still wander towards something else than everything that was worrying them at the moment. That is, until the penny dropped. Until Kate understood why he was thinking about going out of his way to make people feel more at ease around him.
For a moment, Kate said nothing, fidgeting with the covered fingers on her archery glove. Her eyes were finally getting used to the darkness, even when the tiny flames of the candles could barely reach them, the long shadows they casted blending into the darkness of where they both stood.
But Kate could finally see more than his silhouette.
"Matt, I've never felt uncomfortable around you." There was a certain shyness Kate still couldn't quite shake off her voice. Maybe she was simply too drained, that tiredness having taken away that natural loudness she usually carried with her. "Not when I first met you, not even -- I wasn't uncomfortable tonight." Had he been worried about that? "Not with you, anyway. I was -- Ashamed, embarrassed. And I knew you had a point and I hated having disappointed you."
He could tell she was being honest with him. His shoulders relaxed a little hearing that he hadn't caused irreparable damage to their relationship by his arguing. "Good. I'm glad. I didn't have to treat it like a court case. I went too hard. I do that sometimes." He had trouble with pulling his punches. Not that he'd ever hit someone he loved, but he also didn't want to be someone who hurt people in other ways. "I just... really didn't want to bring trouble into your home. You're already going through a lot." Perhaps he was being overly cautious, but where did anyone draw that line right now?
His legs were on fire, a blistering pain radiating through them and up his back. He limped to the room next to the back exit, Josie's office, and collapsed into one of the chairs. There was no way he was making it up the stairs. Outside the darkness was easing away from it's peak. Before too long, it'd be morning. Light would come, whether Fisk wanted it to or not. Matt could sense it not by the visuals, but because of the changes in temperature.
There was so much he could sense, yet somehow, he also missed so much.
"You know, when I was a kid, after the accident..." had he ever even told Kate that he'd lost his sight after an accident, rather than being born this way? Matt couldn't remember. "I thought God had taken my sight. When I grew up, I came to believe that in exchange, he'd given me a special destiny." A wry, slightly self-loathing smile came to his face. "Like a mask and a purpose could save my life. It didn't."
He leaned back in his seat. "It wasn't the mask. It was me needing to believe in it that saved me. My mistake was thinking I was immune to the darkness. And I let it creep inside of me. Someone I knew well once told me that I was born from fire. That if I didn't properly welcome it, it'd burn what was around me, anyway. She wasn't wrong. I did let the dark power me. I threw Poindexter off that rooftop. I wanted to kill him. The truth is, ever since Foggy died, I didn't know who I was anymore. I feel lost without him.
What if I'm not the man he thought I was without him?"
Later they might joke about this. About how this is one of those rare moments when Kate finds herself speechless. They're both too tired, probably too tired to be having this conversation to begin with, one with so much honesty and vulnerability.
It was Kate's heart who seemed to be doing all the talking instead.
Before she could say anything, she watched him groan, limp, finally moving away from the door. Kate took a step back, giving him room as she figured he was heading upstairs to thankfully finally get some rest. But she could also see his struggle, how he chose a closer spot by heading into the office. As Matt finally settled on a chair, Kate closed the door behind them, aware that Daredevil would be granted his privacy. Nobody but Karen would dare to interrupt that.
The place felt cold without any heating and, with only a single candle on top of a desk to guide her, Kate scanned the room in the hopes of finding some blanket, something to cover him up. But Matt spoke up again, leaving her speechless for the second time.
No, she had never heard about his past, about how some accident was to blame for the lost of his sight. Or how he had coped with it. With what he obviously considered his calling. Her heart broke into even more pieces of the fragments the last few hours had left her with. It broke for the scared little boy that he had once been, for the broken and lost man that he was now.
"Matt..." Closing the distance between them, Kate carefully placed her hands on each side of his helmet. She waited for any signs of protest. When he didn't, she gently removed the mask.
Talking to Daredevil wasn't an option. Not to those inexpressive scarlet eyes. Matt might not be able to focus with his own, but he was always attentive. And even if he couldn't see her back, she still always feels that those soulfull eyes somehow connect with her. Because he was the kinda guy who won't be offering you his back. He went out of his way to make people comfortable. Matt seeked that connection in every way he could.
"I'm not - I'm not gonna pretend I know you like Foggy did or like Karen does." Careful and almost with solemnity, Kate left the mask on the desk by their side, pulling a chair closer, until she was able to sit pretty much within his personal space. He had pulled her in first, sharing such intimate thoughts.
"But I know, I swear that I have no doubt, not even the faintest doubt, that Foggy believed in you. Karen believes in you. I believe in you too. Because --" Her fingertips ghosted over his face, just like his did before when he felt Kate's face for the first time back at the hospital. It had been a silent request, permission to let him see through her. Now, she asked of him the same thing as she cupped his face in the hopes that he'd listen, that whatever spark was still left in him would actually listen to what she had to say.
"Because you are all of those things. Yes, you wanted to kill Bullseye. Tonight I almost thought I lost you and trust me, I wanted to kill Fisk myself." Matt himself thought she had been joking, she knew he trusted she was a better person than that. But that was the raw truth. "This is who I believe that you are, Matt. Someone who can be full of rage and pain, but also the kindest person I know. One that can sacrifice himself even for his biggest enemy, because you are a good man. You are human, with flaws, but with such a big heart. Giving your everything for the people you care about. Your loved ones or strangers."
She stroked his cheekbones with her thumbs, aware of how the more she spoke, the more her voice broke. But Kate sounded as firm as ever.
"And if I can see that, I bet you, I bet you that without a doubt Foggy saw much more. He was proud of you, flaws or not. You are so much better than you allow yourself to believe. You deserve to forgive yourself."
For losing Foggy. For letting that darkness overpower him when pain took over. For doubting himself.
Edited (Sorry about the edits, but this wonderful thread doesn't deserve all those typos.) Date: 2025-04-24 12:04 am (UTC)
[OOC: ETA Stick, because I refuse to forget him. But also to say please edit as much as needed! It doesn't bother me, and I love our threads, too. :) I don't mind typos, but I also get wanting to make things perfect. It's all groovy.]
Matt didn't protest as Kate lifted his helmet. His hair curled against his brow, sticky and damp with sweat and grime. His brown eyes, the same color as the coffee he insisted be prepared right, were dark and unfocused but indeed full of emotion. They only closed as Kate explored his face. Felt over the stubble and the age lines. The planes and angles. Perhaps committed it to memory in her way, though her manner of seeing would always be different - something they might learn from one another rather than divide.
He reached up eventually to lightly place his hands over her forearms, running down them until he took her hands in his. His chest squeezed at what she said. He wanted it to be true. Desperately. He wanted to think that Foggy wouldn't have given up on him, and that they people who still believed in him did so without cause for doubt.
He wanted to do right by them.
"It's funny, isn't it?" There was a faint, tired smile on Matt's face. A smile of sorrow and of remembrance. Of threading the past into the present to carry into the future. It hurt to mention Foggy. Early on, Matt hadn't even said his name. Now he offered bits of memories so that they might not be forgotten, to further tie himself to Kate. "Everyone is just one person in the world. Yet to someone, that one person is the world. If we're lucky." Foggy had been Matt's world. He'd also been the world to so many others. Family, friends. Individuals who he'd saved through his legal prowess. The world was worse off for that loss, but it had been better for the time it had while Foggy had lived.
He hoped that Kate had people like that in her life, too.
He hoped she knew that she was that person to even more than she might think.
"I guess the only thing left to do is get up off the mat and try, right?" He didn't quite forgive himself yet. Didn't quite fully believe that he could do this, wage war against Fisk with him at the helm. He was certain though that he had to try. There was no way Foggy would have taken this lying down, either. Nor Jack, nor Elektra. Not Lantom or Stick. Not Hector. Not so many people who were living too, people who were rising up and needed a direction in which to go. Somewhere to look.
Well, while the city was dark, Matt was still able to see. He hoped that was still the case even when the dawn arise.
He squeezed her hands.
"Let's get some rest. In the morning, we're going to war."
Kate had been so worried. Since the car, it had been eating her up. Not just because for the briefest of moments she had convinced of the damange she'd left on their relationship. But also over Matt. She worried for that blow he'd taken to the heart. How many blows. Since Foggy died, he had taken the punishment over and over again. Silently and with that charming smile of his, but a sad note he couldn't quite wipe off his face. Kate had noticed it every time.
Even now she had seen the sadness as he offered a small smile, a little prize for the earnesty of Kate's words, she wondered. Had that worked? Did he believe everything she said? She had no doubt that Matt knew they were true to Kate, but could he believe them himself? Will he ever forgive himself for what was not his fault but had still taken Foggy from him?
Its funny, isn't it?
She didn't know if it was funny, she had been too focused on how he had touched her arms, how his hands had explored her skin until they reached her hands. Kate knew that was a language on itself for Matt and her heart was somehow trying to translate it. Not a romantic hidden meaning, but the connection.
It's time for Kate to smile with a little sadness. For the memories. For the many friends that she has and that came to mind, none matching exactly the description Matt talked about. Neither did her past few romantic relationships. She might have been someone's person for a while, but it was brief. Short-lived as he would see it, given his age. It's nothing like what Matt and Foggy had.
Kate grieved, for a while. But grieving a broken relationship is one thing. Nothing prepares you to the grief of losing a close friend. Losing your parents makes you an orphan. Losing a partner a widow or widower. But there's no word for someone who loses a friend.
"I think it's only been my parents for me," she agrees quietly, not even considering for a second that he might be thinking differently of her and the people that surround Kate. Nowadays, she doesn't even know what to think of her relationship with her mom. But in her mother's heart? Even through the cracks, Kate is sure she still has a place in there. That Eleanor did everything she did to protect her daughter, in her own messed up way.
Matt squeezed her hands and Kate leaned forward, her forehead touching his brow.
"Can you move now? There's a couch here against that wall." Can he make it upstairs?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 09:32 pm (UTC)So is Matt.
She didn't push this time, letting her fingers slip off his arm even though he had not really, fully pulled away.
"If you are planning to go put there, I'm not staying behind," she pointed out as firmly as she could muster. Which wasn't saying much.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 10:04 pm (UTC)And Fisk keeps taking chess pieces from their board.
It's time to renew them.
But what else can she offer? Nothing will comfort him right now, nothing will take his mind of a city he so feels connected with. A city that is blind to its dangers sometimes. One that when it bleeds, she knows Matt feels it in his own veins.
What can she do? Offer to go out there on her own? She can't take it, not like him. It would be childish.
"... I'm sorry about before, Matt."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-22 10:44 pm (UTC)He leaned against the doorframe and gave a small, tired smile.
"I don't know why I always bother doing that. Turning to face someone when we're talking. It's not like I can see them." He can sense people, but he doesn't need to face them to do that. He gave a small shrug while musing. "I guess it's just polite. Makes people more comfortable to have someone standing like that than with their back to them." For all that Matt didn't care what other people thought about him, he did take their feelings into consideration with not wanting them hurt. Following some social conventions was something he just did then, even if his eyes never quite looked at hers. His head was always tilted towards her though when she spoke, the best he could manage. He didn't know exactly where her eyes were.
He scuffed his foot on the ground. "I don't know why that came to mind just now." A beat. "I don't want you uncomfortable around me." He didn't want to frighten her.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 07:31 am (UTC)But before Kate could say anything, the conversation took an unexpected twist. Matt brought something up Kate had always almost taken for granted. A gesture that seemed so natural, but that clearly was mostly natural to people who could actually see.
It was such a random thing to say, to realize. And random was good, it meant his mind could still wander towards something else than everything that was worrying them at the moment. That is, until the penny dropped. Until Kate understood why he was thinking about going out of his way to make people feel more at ease around him.
For a moment, Kate said nothing, fidgeting with the covered fingers on her archery glove. Her eyes were finally getting used to the darkness, even when the tiny flames of the candles could barely reach them, the long shadows they casted blending into the darkness of where they both stood.
But Kate could finally see more than his silhouette.
"Matt, I've never felt uncomfortable around you." There was a certain shyness Kate still couldn't quite shake off her voice. Maybe she was simply too drained, that tiredness having taken away that natural loudness she usually carried with her. "Not when I first met you, not even -- I wasn't uncomfortable tonight." Had he been worried about that? "Not with you, anyway. I was -- Ashamed, embarrassed. And I knew you had a point and I hated having disappointed you."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 11:13 am (UTC)His legs were on fire, a blistering pain radiating through them and up his back. He limped to the room next to the back exit, Josie's office, and collapsed into one of the chairs. There was no way he was making it up the stairs. Outside the darkness was easing away from it's peak. Before too long, it'd be morning. Light would come, whether Fisk wanted it to or not. Matt could sense it not by the visuals, but because of the changes in temperature.
There was so much he could sense, yet somehow, he also missed so much.
"You know, when I was a kid, after the accident..." had he ever even told Kate that he'd lost his sight after an accident, rather than being born this way? Matt couldn't remember. "I thought God had taken my sight. When I grew up, I came to believe that in exchange, he'd given me a special destiny." A wry, slightly self-loathing smile came to his face. "Like a mask and a purpose could save my life. It didn't."
He leaned back in his seat. "It wasn't the mask. It was me needing to believe in it that saved me. My mistake was thinking I was immune to the darkness. And I let it creep inside of me. Someone I knew well once told me that I was born from fire. That if I didn't properly welcome it, it'd burn what was around me, anyway. She wasn't wrong. I did let the dark power me. I threw Poindexter off that rooftop. I wanted to kill him. The truth is, ever since Foggy died, I didn't know who I was anymore. I feel lost without him.
What if I'm not the man he thought I was without him?"
no subject
Date: 2025-04-23 12:08 pm (UTC)It was Kate's heart who seemed to be doing all the talking instead.
Before she could say anything, she watched him groan, limp, finally moving away from the door. Kate took a step back, giving him room as she figured he was heading upstairs to thankfully finally get some rest. But she could also see his struggle, how he chose a closer spot by heading into the office. As Matt finally settled on a chair, Kate closed the door behind them, aware that Daredevil would be granted his privacy. Nobody but Karen would dare to interrupt that.
The place felt cold without any heating and, with only a single candle on top of a desk to guide her, Kate scanned the room in the hopes of finding some blanket, something to cover him up. But Matt spoke up again, leaving her speechless for the second time.
No, she had never heard about his past, about how some accident was to blame for the lost of his sight. Or how he had coped with it. With what he obviously considered his calling. Her heart broke into even more pieces of the fragments the last few hours had left her with. It broke for the scared little boy that he had once been, for the broken and lost man that he was now.
"Matt..." Closing the distance between them, Kate carefully placed her hands on each side of his helmet. She waited for any signs of protest. When he didn't, she gently removed the mask.
Talking to Daredevil wasn't an option. Not to those inexpressive scarlet eyes. Matt might not be able to focus with his own, but he was always attentive. And even if he couldn't see her back, she still always feels that those soulfull eyes somehow connect with her. Because he was the kinda guy who won't be offering you his back. He went out of his way to make people comfortable. Matt seeked that connection in every way he could.
"I'm not - I'm not gonna pretend I know you like Foggy did or like Karen does." Careful and almost with solemnity, Kate left the mask on the desk by their side, pulling a chair closer, until she was able to sit pretty much within his personal space. He had pulled her in first, sharing such intimate thoughts.
"But I know, I swear that I have no doubt, not even the faintest doubt, that Foggy believed in you. Karen believes in you. I believe in you too. Because --" Her fingertips ghosted over his face, just like his did before when he felt Kate's face for the first time back at the hospital. It had been a silent request, permission to let him see through her. Now, she asked of him the same thing as she cupped his face in the hopes that he'd listen, that whatever spark was still left in him would actually listen to what she had to say.
"Because you are all of those things. Yes, you wanted to kill Bullseye. Tonight I almost thought I lost you and trust me, I wanted to kill Fisk myself." Matt himself thought she had been joking, she knew he trusted she was a better person than that. But that was the raw truth. "This is who I believe that you are, Matt. Someone who can be full of rage and pain, but also the kindest person I know. One that can sacrifice himself even for his biggest enemy, because you are a good man. You are human, with flaws, but with such a big heart. Giving your everything for the people you care about. Your loved ones or strangers."
She stroked his cheekbones with her thumbs, aware of how the more she spoke, the more her voice broke. But Kate sounded as firm as ever.
"And if I can see that, I bet you, I bet you that without a doubt Foggy saw much more. He was proud of you, flaws or not. You are so much better than you allow yourself to believe. You deserve to forgive yourself."
For losing Foggy. For letting that darkness overpower him when pain took over. For doubting himself.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-26 02:23 pm (UTC)Matt didn't protest as Kate lifted his helmet. His hair curled against his brow, sticky and damp with sweat and grime. His brown eyes, the same color as the coffee he insisted be prepared right, were dark and unfocused but indeed full of emotion. They only closed as Kate explored his face. Felt over the stubble and the age lines. The planes and angles. Perhaps committed it to memory in her way, though her manner of seeing would always be different - something they might learn from one another rather than divide.
He reached up eventually to lightly place his hands over her forearms, running down them until he took her hands in his. His chest squeezed at what she said. He wanted it to be true. Desperately. He wanted to think that Foggy wouldn't have given up on him, and that they people who still believed in him did so without cause for doubt.
He wanted to do right by them.
"It's funny, isn't it?" There was a faint, tired smile on Matt's face. A smile of sorrow and of remembrance. Of threading the past into the present to carry into the future. It hurt to mention Foggy. Early on, Matt hadn't even said his name. Now he offered bits of memories so that they might not be forgotten, to further tie himself to Kate. "Everyone is just one person in the world. Yet to someone, that one person is the world. If we're lucky." Foggy had been Matt's world. He'd also been the world to so many others. Family, friends. Individuals who he'd saved through his legal prowess. The world was worse off for that loss, but it had been better for the time it had while Foggy had lived.
He hoped that Kate had people like that in her life, too.
He hoped she knew that she was that person to even more than she might think.
"I guess the only thing left to do is get up off the mat and try, right?" He didn't quite forgive himself yet. Didn't quite fully believe that he could do this, wage war against Fisk with him at the helm. He was certain though that he had to try. There was no way Foggy would have taken this lying down, either. Nor Jack, nor Elektra. Not Lantom or Stick. Not Hector. Not so many people who were living too, people who were rising up and needed a direction in which to go. Somewhere to look.
Well, while the city was dark, Matt was still able to see. He hoped that was still the case even when the dawn arise.
He squeezed her hands.
"Let's get some rest. In the morning, we're going to war."
no subject
Date: 2025-04-26 05:41 pm (UTC)Even now she had seen the sadness as he offered a small smile, a little prize for the earnesty of Kate's words, she wondered. Had that worked? Did he believe everything she said? She had no doubt that Matt knew they were true to Kate, but could he believe them himself? Will he ever forgive himself for what was not his fault but had still taken Foggy from him?
Its funny, isn't it?
She didn't know if it was funny, she had been too focused on how he had touched her arms, how his hands had explored her skin until they reached her hands. Kate knew that was a language on itself for Matt and her heart was somehow trying to translate it. Not a romantic hidden meaning, but the connection.
It's time for Kate to smile with a little sadness. For the memories. For the many friends that she has and that came to mind, none matching exactly the description Matt talked about. Neither did her past few romantic relationships. She might have been someone's person for a while, but it was brief. Short-lived as he would see it, given his age. It's nothing like what Matt and Foggy had.
Kate grieved, for a while. But grieving a broken relationship is one thing. Nothing prepares you to the grief of losing a close friend. Losing your parents makes you an orphan. Losing a partner a widow or widower. But there's no word for someone who loses a friend.
"I think it's only been my parents for me," she agrees quietly, not even considering for a second that he might be thinking differently of her and the people that surround Kate. Nowadays, she doesn't even know what to think of her relationship with her mom. But in her mother's heart? Even through the cracks, Kate is sure she still has a place in there. That Eleanor did everything she did to protect her daughter, in her own messed up way.
Matt squeezed her hands and Kate leaned forward, her forehead touching his brow.
"Can you move now? There's a couch here against that wall." Can he make it upstairs?