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andr0leda · 4 years

Text

THE CHOICE

What will you choose? Will you live to regret it?

Pre-Sidestep Era, Rangers have a cameo at the end | ~2,400 words CW: violence, guns, blood, strangulation, light stabbing, but no one dies! [READ ON AO3]

You wouldn't be able to say how long you've been standing here. Staring at the desserts through the smudged glass door of the freezer. Could be two minutes, could be twenty. It was around two am on this uncomfortably hot night when you walked in here but you're not sure what time it is now.

The only thing that you are sure of is that the finalists are rainbow and cookies & cream.

The cookies & cream have little cookie pieces that you discovered that you really like a couple weeks ago, but the fun mascot of the rainbow seems to beckon you, the spectrum of colors blending together when your eyes slide out of focus.

The tinny radio in the convenient store is tuned to a station that's playing looping easy listening music. The budget fluorescent lighting buzzes faintly overhead, one flickers occasionally, and you wonder, in a distant sort of way, if you have entered a liminal space. It's possible you need to sort out your sleep schedule.

You open the freezer door and the brisk air whispers over your face, the tubs are cold in your hands, but it doesn't seem to be helping you decide any quicker.

You are staring unblinkingly into the black lifeless eyes of the cartoon mascot on the rainbow ice cream when you hear it.

The intent before the voice. You step back until you're against the aisle behind you, hidden from the front of the store.

“Money. Now,” gun, raised.

Gun held up to the level of your head-

No, not your head. The head on the shoulders of the young teen behind the counter, they’re only a year younger than you are supposed to be. They are terrified.

You are terrified. There’s five-

No, there’s only two thieves and only one gun.

You’ve gone up against worse odds.

You put the ice cream tubs on a shelf and move to the end of the aisle, silent. Your hoodie has been up since you entered the store and you pull the collar of your turtleneck up over the bridge of your nose to cover the lower half of your face.

At the end of the aisle you pause, the door is only a couple feet to your left, you know you’re silent, you could make it. If you chose to make a run for it.

The cashier is trembling trying to put the cash and cigarettes into the backpack, they are clumsy in their terror and the thieves are getting impatient.

You chose no to run.

Red and black at the level of your eyes catch your attention, you take a bottle of cola off the shelf, a glass one. It flips easily over itself in your hands, as you weigh it up, weigh your options. The one with the gun seems fresh to this, plan already forming in your mind.

Your heart-rate picks up, the adrenaline before a fight is reassuring in its familiarity.

Fuck it, you step out from behind the isle and shout “Hey!”

The armed thief turns his whole torso, including the hand with the gun, towards you and away from the cashier, like you knew he would.

You have already thrown the bottle and it explodes on impact, opens up and scatters sugar coated glass, knocks the gun out of his grasp. It hits the floor and spins away and you're already running.

Your knee lands in the second guy's chest, throwing him hard into the aisle behind him, packets and tins tumble off the shelf.

The first, nursing the hand that formerly held the gun, swings at you with his less dominant hand. You kick him in the solar plexus and he crashes into a display to the side of the counter, a tower of sunglasses landing on top of him and he’s down but not out.

The second, still currently has the use of both his hands, and they are closed fist and coming for you. You dodge, spin on reflex, strike him under the ribs, kick him into the shelf opposite the one he was in before.

You know he’s going to take out the knife and lunge at you so you duck, easily, as he slices open packets where your neck was. Contents spilling down onto the linoleum. You tackle him to the floor of the aisle and it only takes one hit to get him to stay down. You stand above him full of some wild, unnamed thing, heartbeat racing.

The first is finally managing to extract himself from the heap, so you move back to the front of the store. He‘s slow, fishes out his own larger knife and you’re grinning behind the black fabric.

You grab his wrist with one hand, put your other into his nose hard enough that it cracks, and he falls boneless back into the mess and everything becomes silent. A wet heat slowly drips down your knuckles. You have won.

The cashier is knees to chest behind the counter, shaking. You don't get too close.

“Are you ok?” because that's what you’re meant to ask.

No, is what you hear.

You try to send them feelings of safety, of relief, but they just break apart against the wall of blinding fear. You’re not sure what those things feel like anyway. So you pull down the mask instead, show them your face, try to wear something reassuring instead.

“You’ll be ok,” because that's what you’re meant to say. They just look up at you with big brown eyes, so scared.

They aren’t ok so instead you tell them, “You’re going to make it out the other side of this.” You flip the knife you took from first so you’re holding the blade, hold it out to them to take, offer them the weapon of those that wanted to hurt them.

You don't know how to say out loud what you want this to mean.

What you want this to mean to them? Or to yourself?

They look at the knife for a long moment before they take it.

Before a noise behind you startles them, and you look over your shoulder to watch a third larger man walk out of the bathroom.

You yank up your mask, how could you be so fucking stupid.

You stand in front of the cashier who gets under the counter to hide.

He is built, muscles just as strong as the walls around his mind.

Fuck.

You shake out your hands, ignore the ache of oncoming swelling, take up a stance, you haven’t had a proper fight since-

You don’t know where the gun is.

He takes in your pulled up turtleneck, his guys out cold on the floor and drawls, “You want to play hero?”

“I just wanted my fucking rainbow ice cream you son of a bitch.”

You see the gun on the ground when he does, and you lunge for it, kick it hard and it slides away and under the shelves.

He strikes faster than you expected but you still turn and duck and kick him in the back of the knees. He buckles, but turns just as quick and you’re too close to avoid his fist and you catch it in the ribs. Punching the air from your lungs and you stagger back. He is up again, too quick.

Or are you just too slow?

No.

You’re gasping under cold fluorescent lights, past a fractured rib, slow is not acceptable, if the unit does not meet directive standards it will be recycled-

No.

You straighten up, through the pain in your ribs and snarl, underneath the fabric so that it reaches your eyes, so that he can see.

He sneers at you, and you run at him, using a freezer box to kick off, you deliver a punch down across his face that sends him reeling and you are alive.

So you punch him again, and again. And you dodge and sidestep and punch him harder.

Feel your knuckles open up, feel adrenaline rush to your head in exhilaration.

And this is where you slip up. Literally, on the spilled guts of the coke bottle.

He has already grabbed you by your jacket front to slam you down onto the freezer boxes hard enough that you hear it crack. He wraps his gold ringed fingers around your neck, and you feel the cold caress of the freezer seeping into you as you struggle. You bring your forearm down to buckle his elbow and slam your forehead into his nose, he doesn't let go. Just straightens his arms and looks down at you, a warped smile on his cruel features, and he squeezes and-

And How Dare HE.

He recoils and you know at once that you couldn’t have spoken that, you couldn't get air past your throat for a noise let alone words.

His smile is gone. He’s afraid now, afraid of what will happen if you get back up.

You always get back up.

You release your death grip on his wrist to pull your knife from your hoodie, flick it open and bury it into his guts.

His hands vanish from your throat and you gasp down a wretched sound.

Gripping the edge of the box you bring your legs up between you and launch him off.

He’s flung backwards, clips the end of an aisle and goes down, spits out a curse, clutches a scarlet hand to his side.

You get up, unhurriedly in a way you know unnerves him. You don't wipe the blood dripping down your forehead and that unnerves him too. His shields decay with the panic. You see yourself in his mind's eye, a dark silhouette looming above him back lit by the flickering fluorescent light above you.

Your breath pants out in half gasps, half growls, past the bruising in your throat. You’re not sure whose blood drips from your knuckles and off the blades drop point.

He manages to stand only to receive your right hook to his jaw and he’s down once more. He doesn’t try standing again. Instead scrambles back towards the bathroom, leaving a fragmented red streak behind.

He’s not fast enough.

The cheap wooden door splinters as you kick him through it. You sink the knife into the door frame and stand over him, sprawled onto the dirty tile floor. You put a heel hard onto the side where you put your knife and he screams.

You feed him back his own fear, the terror of the cashier, feed him your own horror from somewhere dark and deep, until you see it consume him, until it’s up to his eyes. Then with a bloody hand you smash the back of his head into the tile.

And it's over. It’s a mess, it’s-

Five bloodied soldiers dead on the cold tiled floor of a gas station in desert Nevada, painting the walls red-

No. It’s just three unconscious thieves in a convenient store.

You take a deep breath through your aching throat, and pull the knife from the frame. The soft looping music of the radio drifts back into your awareness. Then exhaustion creeps back, you feel more tired than you were holding the ice cream. You can feel a headache forming at the base of your skull and you’d rather spend what little money you have on a smoke, or several.

Stepping over first on your way to the counter you pick one of the almost stolen cigarette packs and drop it by the register.

You’re opening your wallet to get your only twenty dollar note with red and aching hands when the cashier says.

“Just take it,” they’re looking directly at you like you grew a second head, they're standing up now, white knuckling the knife you gave them, like an anchor, a lifeline. It’s the first thing you’ve heard them speak.

You check upstairs to make sure they're going to be ok. You’re startled to see they’re wondering the same of you. They're having a hard time processing the deadbeat mess that stood for half an hour in front of the frozen desserts with the brawler that just took down three guys and possibly saved their life.

Was it really half an hour?

“And don’t choose rainbow, my boss changed the dates. Take the cookies and cream instead” they say, voice no longer shaking. Cookies & cream is their favourite.

“Thanks,” your voice is almost unrecognisable, you’ll have a necklace of bruises for sure.

"No, thank you. I don't know what would've happened but you probably saved my life." A hero , they think, their hero.

And you don't know what to say to that so you just thank them again and tell them they should probably call an ambulance for the guy bleeding over the bathroom floor. Then you take the cigarettes and the ice cream and you leave.

You go home, rest your split and swollen knuckles, hold the frozen tub against your violet throat and eat your dessert.

It was a good choice.

***

Marshal Charge stands in the Rangers Headquarters kitchen, arms crossed and staring at the tv mounted on the wall.

“Chen, have you seen this?” she throws over her shoulder, eyes not leaving the screen.

Steel looks up from cutting fruit to see grainy footage showing a figure in black kicking a larger man into a convenient store shelf. Text rolls across the bottom of the screen that reads, “Citizen hero takes down 3 armed men in attempted robbery.”

He continues with making breakfast, “we already deal with too many vigilantes.”

Anathema walks past him, “but this one’s weird,” she steals a strawberry to which Steel makes a face.

The Marshal turns and looks back for the first time in a while, eyebrow raised.

Anathema just looks pleased that she’s hooked an audience, “I looked into it, the full security footage shows them staring at the frozen desserts for like 35 minutes before they take down 3 guys with what I believe to be a variety of martial arts. Their reflexes seem unnatural too,” she steals another strawberry and Steel frowns harder.

“There's a point where the guy pulls down their mask to calm the cashier, but when the police questioned them all they would say was that they ‘couldn’t remember’ what the masked person looked like,” which is said sarcastically, her disbelief evident. “They just seem… interesting,” she finishes.

Steel throws the strawberries into the blender before she can steal a third, “Los Diablos is interesting enough.”

“Hmm,” comes the reply from the Marshal, a small smile hidden in the corner of her mouth as she watches the footage again. The figure appears to move faster than they should. Her smile grows wider.

#Fallen Hero #fallen hero fanfic #sidestep #or well pre-sidestep #Ramona Chase #fhr #fallen hero: retribution spoilers #i thought i'd begin posting links to my word garbage because it keeps happening #full content warnings are on the site #saraparilla writes #now and no one is as surprised as me

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deniigi · 5 years

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i was reading "it's fine, we're fine" again because i am a big softy and i love jack with my whole damn heart and i was wondering if rudy ever surfaces in matt's life again?

he does!!!

All of the boxers stay in Matt’s life for as long as they can! In another fic which I never published, Rudy explains that he tried to adopt Matt after Jack died, since they were best friends and Matt was already really close to Rudy’s girls, but social services wasn’t down to let that happen.

That said!!

I also wrote a piece a while back that didn’t quite make it into the Sprawl but which shows Matt’s relationships with Jack’s old friends from the gym. I’m putting it here under the cut (sorry mobile users, it’s pretty long)

Written from Jack’s pov

—-

Prelim title: put em up

He hadn’t seen the guys since he died, and honestly he’d avoided heading in the direction of Fogwell’s out of both fear and a strong self-preservation instinct. He only had a year. And Matt was hellbent on getting himself murdered during it, so Jack had to keep himself together to arrange their double funeral.

He finally sucked it up watching Matt mope in multiple different shapes and forms all over the furniture in his living room. The last straw was him cuddling up to Tuesday to inform her of how unfair Jack was being.

Not letting him out face-smashing with two fractured ribs.

Oh, the humanity.

What a shit father he was.

Tuesday sneezed on Matt and then stood up to leave him to suffer and to sniff at Jack’s ankles. Abandoned, Matt moved on to making loud, drawn-out noises about how everyone in his life betrayed him.

“Alright, fine. Get your gloves,” Jack sighed.

Matt was gone from the living room before he’d even finished the sentence.

It was one thing to like, know that your kid was a superhuman. But it was a whole other thing to live with it. He would never get used to the silent sneaking. Or the ‘I can heart your heart beat’ thing. Or the determination to be gutted. That one, even the afterlife wouldn’t help him with.

He’d just barely stood up from giving Tuesday the requisite pets when Matt was back in his face with gloves, rattling. Just a teeny bit little excited.

“Hurry up.”

Wo-ho. Not with that attitude.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.”

Wow, look. Another dish to clean.

“DAD.”

Alright, alright. Take a chill pill, kid.

Fridays were usually slow days at the gym since most guys had dates to be on and family nights to have and so Jack thought that he might escape this interaction mostly unscathed and unnoticed. He was just there to help the blind guy, he’d say if anyone asked. He looked far too young to be Matt’s father at this point, they looked more like brothers. With the exception of Matt looking painfully like his mama to Jack. He’d never not see Grace in this boy. It was all in that slim jaw. He grabbed it and shook it every now and then to piss Matt off and it did the trick on a dime.

Matt was a regular at Fogwell’s. Jack wasn’t surprised. It had always been his second home. He was known by most of the guys there as the blind guy who apparently crammed in his headphones and punched a bag ‘til he couldn’t anymore. Fogwell let him use the place when he wasn’t there. Under the ruse of Matt feeling self-conscious about boxing in front of sighted-people.

Really, he just wanted to throw ridiculous moves at the bag.

This time, there would be no ridiculous moves. There were ribs to consider. Matt practically hung off his elbow in disappointment.

This fuckin’ kid. Ain’t got the sense god gave a goat.

They walked in the door and Jack never stood a chance.

Folks had heard about the incident, it had been on the news, it turned out. Load of highly suspicious graves dug up in cemeteries all over the damn city. Fischer hadn’t exactly been subtle. What wasn’t quite clear to people was who these zombies were until anyone who happened to recognize those particular graves saw them.

Obviously half the gym had remembered Jack’s fucked up, now cracked headstone.

(It was nice. Grace had taken him to see it so that he could have a say in the next one. She waved at it in many different kinds of ways and called him a basic bitch without using either of those words.)

Jack couldn’t help but wonder now if Matt had texted someone to let them know they were coming.

Because he couldn’t breathe.

Rudy smelled like ass.

“Twenty fuckin’ years, man, and you still ain’t seen a shower?” he creaked out against his pal’s sweaty shoulder.

Rudy yanked him back by the shoulders to get a good look at him, blinking tears out of his eyes. He was so bald. He’d never had much hair to begin with, Rudy. But now, he was like one of them fortune-tellers’ glass balls.

“Jackie, we missed you so much,” the guy said like he was garbling glass.

“Good to—”

Well, that was him done. He didn’t need shoulders.

“Bert, you maniac, lay off,” Rudy snarled, as hot-tempered as ever.

Bert? This motherfucker was Bert?

Jack ducked out of the arms and recoiled back to get a good look at the moron and sure enough. Man.

“You finally shaved that thing off your face,” he said.

Bert was huge. Moustache was gone, though. That was literally all the mattered. Bert would never be pretty, but the pornstache had been a lot, even for them.

Bert cackled in delight.

“Look at you, Jack, ain’t a day over—uh. How old’re you again?”

God, who were these old guys? And where the hell did—wait a second.

“Matthew, nice try, you get back here,” he barked. Matt froze from where he was trying to sneak away to go finish the job on his ribs. He squinted and scowled in Jack’s direction and then made a break for it before Jack could get past Bert’s huge mass.

He didn’t get too far. They were on Jack’s turf now.

“Nooooo.”

Rudy covered the bottom of his face, but Jack could see his huge grin under it.

“Sorry fellas,” he said, “We’re having a father-son night out.”

“Get off, old man. Get off.”

The second he let go, Matt would throw himself out a window and vanish into the night. Jack had no fancy degrees but he was not stupid. He’d learned after the first two times.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Rudy said through the deep laugh lines in his cheeks. “Can’t fuckin’ believe it, Jackie. God, you look so good.”

Did he? That scar on his temple wasn’t doing him no favors, that was for sure.

“Matty, you look just like your dad. God, the two of you together. Hold on, just one sec. I want a picture.”

Jack had plenty of pictures of the two of them together. Foggy and Karen were ace at taking secret, sneaky pictures that no one asked them to. He hiked Matt up from his ragdoll and shoved his bag in his arms.

“Pick one and then sit,” he ordered.

Matt glared at him and then made a show of storming away and feeling for an adequate bag.

Jack huffed and then redirected his stare to Bert’s creepy gaze.

“What?” he asked.

“Just amazed you’re here is all, man,” Bert said. Man, had everyone gone bald or what? “Fogwell’s gonna be so happy to see you.”

Ah, right. The person he was most determined to avoid.

“He don’t gotta come out,” Jack said, “Guy’s probably ancient at this point. Don’t want him to—”

“JOHNATHAN MURDOCK.”

No voice would strike fear into his heart like that one.

“Nice of you to finally show up, boy.”

How was this man not dead? How had he not aged? He’d only gotten marginally whiter and slightly more forehead wrinkles since Jack had last seen him.

“He doesn’t let me out of the house,” Matt popped back up to inform the old man. Fogwell saw him and gentle as sin, put a hand on his shoulder and snapped a look Jack’s way that Jack felt in his gut.

“Boy’s not glass, Jackie. You keeping him locked up now?”

Oooooh, kiddo. You’re gonna get it now.

Matt hid behind Fogwell before Jack could take a step forward. Smart fucking boy. Jack would have his own when they got back home. Tattle-telling was worth a whole afternoon of enforced R&R.

“Just ‘cause he’s a bigshot lawyer now, don’t make him smart,” Jack shot at the shoulder Matt was hiding behind.

Fogwell laughed, loud. Like a cracking whip. The sound was always heart-attack inducing and always comforting once you got past it.

“Matty’s doing just fine. He ain’t need brains to punch a bag, and all things considered, he’s still got twice as much fluff in that melon of his than the rest of us combined, don’t you, kiddo?” Matt said nothing because he was already aware of the impending consequences of his actions. Fogwell grinned down at him anyways. “We gotta call Kenny and Raph to come get a load of you two,” he decided. “They’ve been asking all over if you’d come back yet.”

Ugh.

Where exactly was his opinion in this whole thing, huh?

“Ain’t got one, short-stack. Lost all your seniority when you hit the dirt, son,” Fogwell said cheerfully, or what passed as cheerfully for him.

Ugh.

Well, it didn’t matter much anyways. He’d always been the second-youngest in the group.

“Right, well. You call the idiots, I gotta deal with my pride and joy,” Jack said, reaching around the old man to grab Matt by the scruff of the neck and to forcibly guide him towards the back center left bag. The other guys laughed and Rudy slapped his shoulder and said when he was done with that, they should have a go in the ring.

Mm. They’d see. Jack wasn’t trying to do anything to fuck with his head right then. It was kind of fragile.

Matt said that he’d fight in his place and the other guys started laughing and slapping up a storm.

Oh, honey.

No, but it was a sweet thought.

“Why’re they laughin’ at me?” Matt asked him once gloves were on. Jack patted at his side as a reminder to keep them ribs steady.

“’Cause you’re two and half to them, baby. Always will be.”

“I could probably fight the Hulk.”

“I don’t doubt it. Let’s not.”

“Definitely Winter in hand to hand.”

Yes, and that would never not be terrifying. Let’s just be normal for an hour, what do you say, huh?

Matt favored his right, and not just because of the ribs. He was a lefty, always had been. Had come home complaining about how the school scissors hurt his hands. He explained to Jack that his sensei (who Jack was going to maim very quietly and then suffocate when Matt wasn’t paying attention) had taught him to lead with his right so that folks thought he was a righty. From there, he could knock ‘em off guard.

It worked, he said. He did it a lot.

Still, Jack found that his right hits were just a little harder than the lefts and pointed out that scare tactics were fine, but Lefty needed to be at the same firing capacity as Righty as much as possible.

Matt told him to stop fucking moving the bag then.

Adorable. Really.

Until Kenny got there. Man screamed like a girl seeing her long-lost bestie after 20 years. Announced to the whole damn gym that ‘Jackie Murdock was back, looking like the coroner’s worst nightmare.’

Fuck Kenny. He’d always been a dick. And he was an oversized dick now, with stupid big, stupid useless muscles.

“You body-building, man? What’s up with this?” he gasped out under Kenny’s grip next.

“Hell yeah I am, here, get a load of this.”

No, no, he really didn’t—alright, he was doing it anyways, great. Yes. Very impressive. Anyone worth their salt could knock him out in one punch.

“Oh, yeah? You wanna give it a go, then Battlin’ Jack?”

People were fucking looking at him now, thanks pal. You’re doing great.

“I got a head injury,” he said flatly, which made Matty laugh at least.

“No shit. Look at that bad boy,” Kenny said. “We were fuckin’ devastated when we heard man, everyone was. You should have said something, we could have helped you out. Like—”

“How about we don’t go there?” Jack interrupted. He hadn’t come here for pity. He just wanted to wear his kid out so he didn’t go wear himself out on someone less gentle’s fists.

Kenny feel back and dropped his eyes.

“Sure. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I ain’t here for too long anyways. You got plenty of time to go back to missing me and calling me a dumbass.”

“Not really funny, Jack.”

It wasn’t meant to be.

Raph stumbled in about half an hour later for a repeat of this conversation with greater enthusiasm. He’d stopped boxing, actually. To Jack’s surprise. Then to his enormous guilt.

“After what happened to you, big guy, I said to myself, this shit ain’t worth it. My baby girl was on the way, you remember? So I says, nah. We’re gonna do this right. We’re gonna go to college.”

“No shit, you went to college?” Jack asked him.

“Damn skippy—got me a degree and everything. Graphic Design.”

“The hell does that even mean?”

“Means, I’m an artist, dipshit. Here, lookit these things. I been doing websites for ages now.”

Aw, Raph. You did so good! Jack was so proud.

“Me too, man. Didn’t mean to uh, use you like that but.”

“No, no. I’m glad something good came out of it, don’t even trip.”

“Aw, whatchu talkin’ about, Jackie? Look at your baby. Heya, Matty. Haven’t seen you in years, baby boy, how’s it hanging?”

Matt blinked in Raph’s direction a few times and then deferred to Rudy in a whisper.

Raph laughed.

“It’s alright, honey, you don’t remember me, it’s alright,” he laughed.

Raph had been what, twenty-two when Jack had died? He’d joined up right before Matt had gone blind. It only made sense that Matty couldn’t remember him.

“Man, you jumping into the ring?” Raph asked him, with a few gentle pops in the shoulder.

“Nah. Trying not to re-crack this melon,” Jack said, tapping the bullet scar.

“Holy shit, lookit that thing. Hey, be honest. Did it hurt?”

What kind of dumbass question was that?

Yeah, it hurt.

Worse than anything had ever hurt in his life.

That’s kind of why they call it a death blow.

He stopped talking about it though because it was making Matt uncomfortable. Instead, he made a crack about Matt being able to take Raph one-handed and everyone on their side of the gym oh’ed at the challenge.

“Do it, Matty,” Rudy said, “Show ‘im what you got.”

It wouldn’t be a fair fight by a long shot.

And it wasn’t. Matt just tripped the guy right there on the mat and the whole gym went into uproar. Raph gave it a few swings, but they were just plain bad so all Matt had to do was step back out of range.

“You even trying?” he goaded Raph, and then when that worked, he got a good one in the guy’s solar plexus.

Jack winced and hoped it was only at half-strength. Given that Raph recovered and called it a wrap, it probably was.

Matt was much, much happier on the way home, trying to goad Jack into swinging at him.

Nah.

Never.

He didn’t care how strong or big or tall Matt got. He’d never lay his knuckles on him. No, not in a million years. Not even if it was for his own good.

His knuckles were tainted with the blood of the devil. Matt’s devil was younger and more spry and its heat burned bright at the surface of his skin.

Jack’s devil had always been a deep roil, way down in the center of his chest. That bastard was horrible and didn’t know when to stay down. That bastard was the guy who’d left Matty in foster care to begin with. Jack was keeping him well out of the picture. He didn’t want to do anything which might transfer any of his dark, bubbling fury to Matt’s skin.

“C’mere,” he said, catching Matt in a headlock instead.

You, son, get kisses. That’s all you get.

Matt made disgusted noises and ducked out.

“The old guys miss you,” he said, finally evening out and walking next to Jack like a normal person. He didn’t pretend like he needed a guide since it was so late and not many folks were bopping around outdoors. It was kind of.

Kind of wild.

To be walking next to him just like he had before the accident. No hand-holding, shoulder-holding, elbow-holding necessary. No canes or dogs.

If Jack hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have thought there was a damn thing wrong with him, except his apparent need to wear sunglasses in the dark.

“I miss ‘em, too. Glad they’ve been there for you,” he said thickly.

Matt said nothing, then took his elbow in a loose grip.

“I don’t blame you,” he repeated. He said it a lot. He always seemed to know when Jack was thinking about that shit.

“I know, honey. I just wish—I dunno. Raph got out of it. Maybe I shoulda—”

Matt clutched at him and stopped walking. He was stronger than he let on, Matty. In so many ways.

“I don’t blame you,” he said firmly. “And we can’t move forward if all we do is run in circles on the coulda, shoulda, wouldas. Stop thinking about it, Dad.”

Right.

Right, no, that was true.

He just.

He just wished he’d been better. They wouldn’t be stuck on this timeline if he’d just been better.

“You don’t need to be better, you’ve always been enough.”

This kid. This fucking kid. Knew exactly what to say.

“Come here, gimme a kiss.”

“UGH. No.”

“Matty, lemme have one, yeah?”

“UGH.”

He relented and let Jack lay one on the side of his forehead. He snuck another in his hair before he jerked away.

It made him smile.

“I love you, Matt, you know that?”

“Course I know. I always known. I love you, too. Now stop being weird. I want Chinese.”

Jack laughed.

Sure, whatever he wanted. Anything.

—

Hope this gives you some hope, anon!!

#fic #daredevil #jack murdock #I have an even longer fic that I worked on which played with these characters too but it's so off the wall that I kind of decided to leave #it be #just fyi matt's super comfortable moving around the gym and the guys are used to him moving around it more comfortably than usual so they #aren't super tipped off by his apparent lack of cane using #They chock it up to matt having known the place since he was literally an infant #ficlet

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