summary:life isn’t all that bad as a former black widow turned hit woman. that is, until you meet a certain pain in the ass vigilante.
and end up needing his help.
word count:3.3k
warnings: ANGST, injury, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt no comfort, claire cameo my beloved!, matt makes bad decisions because he feels guilty, mentions of black widow traumas (mainly abuse & human trafficking)
author’s note: yes, my update schedule is every other week now, but i’m feeling generous today. also a little more matt pov, because the reader’s feelings are not completely one sided. enjoy this angsty chapter.
Summary: When a new threat turns into something much bigger, Matt Murdock finds help in the form of a woman with a very different moral code, and struggles to choose between himself and the Devil.
Matt Murdock x Reader //Past!Winter Soldier x Reader
Matt had been outside for a longtime. Of course, deep down Foggy knew that Matt was more than capable of withstanding the cold- there was a lot Matt could withstand. His best friend had been through a lot, between being beaten until he could hardly stand, being shot and stabbed, and having a buildingcrumble on top of him. Somehow Matt had always made it out alive; sometimes he came out in pieces, but always alive. It stood to reason that of all things, Matt could handle the bitter wind and snow just fine. But that didn’t stop Foggy from worrying.
He’d been tailing Karen, mostly from a distance, all night. She was charming, so much so that it was very clear that she didn’t need any help. She carried around the same glass of champagne, balancing it between two fingers, as she casually asked about the show and its dancers. From what Foggy could tell, they were eager to share: yes, they had put in a lot of work and yes, they did know Y/n. Some of them had worked with her from the very first show, others had only met her this year, but they all had the same things to say. She was a quiet, private person, and didn’t spend a lot of time at the theater or go out to parties or bars with the rest of the cast. But she was funny and kind and charming, like Karen… and she ran her own studio a few blocks away, teaching dance at a ridiculously discounted rate.
Foggy made sure to note the address, and pulled it up on his phone. The other dancers had never been there before, but apparently she alsolived above the studio in a small flat- which was odd, he thought, because the ABT theater was known for paying rather handsomely.
And, as in most workplaces, there were rumors. Expensive alcohol fed into already swelled egos and gossip, both of which ran rampant in circles of artists. Most of the rumors were typical: that she’d slept with half of the ensemble, that she had earned her role as the princess by sleeping with the director. Foggy wished that he was surprised by how many rumors seemed to revolve around who slept with who, but then again… He’d been to college.
And then there were rumors so dark, they were whispers shared only over the rim of an alcoholic beverage.
“Do you believe it?” Karen ducked her head, her shoulder brushing against Foggy’s.
“We’re gonna have to owe Brett some serious favors to pull this one,” he said, smiling at a group of passing women.
“This wasn’t in the papers at the Bulletin,” Karen sipped idly at her champagne glass, watching over the rim. “Which means they either pulled the story, or it wasn’t… juicy enough.”
“Or someone got bribed… Or threatened.” Foggy sat his half-empty glass on a passing tray, using his free hands to smooth out his jacket. “What about Urich? He definitely would’ve—“
A violin screamed, the sharp, sudden screech of it echoing in the cavernous room. Foggy’s hands shot to cover his ears as Karen turned toward the source of the interruption. The crowd had also taken notice, a wave of craned necks all pointed towards the double doors, which had been abruptly shoved open.
It took a moment, just a few precious seconds, to register what was happening. Foggy couldn’t see over the ocean of people between him and the door, but a moment later, the ocean became a panicked wave as the attendees began to push and shove their way through the crowd. Where they were going was unclear, as they moved in opposing directions, and the only goal Foggy could register was away.Shouting began to fill in the emptiness left by the abrupt halt of music, and Foggy felt Karen grab his arm and start pulling him toward the double doors that led to the balcony.
In the ensuing chaos, Foggy caught only a glimpse of the source of panic- a snow white, flowing cape that dragged along the ground behind a massive figure. The beast of a man had not been moving, but the hood that covered the head of the figure had turned, slowly searching the crowd, and then Foggy was forced to turn and follow Karen toward the doors.
Others had started moving that way, too, most of them probably unaware that the balcony was not a safety net. There was no way down, not without falling five stories to the cold, unforgiving ground. But Karen- Karen was not looking for an exit, for a way to escape the caped intruder. She was headed for Matt and Y/n, and Foggy prayed they had time to find another escape.
***
The doors had burst open, a cacophony of screams and stampeding footsteps following in its wake. The crowd had dispersed like a bomb, the frantic silk and wool clad swarm of partygoers rushing toward one of only two sets of doors leading out of the ballroom.
Matt pushed you backwards behind him, his hand still groping your shoulder as he moved you as far back from the rush of people as he could.
“You have to run,” he was saying, his voice almost lost in the sea of horrified screams.
“Runwhere?” The iced over railing pressed into your back and you looked over it, quickly calculating the likelihood of surviving a vault over the side. It was… not ideal.
“When I say go,” he was saying, suddenly turning to grab your arm and pull you sideways, following the railing back around toward but off to the side of the doors. “You go.”
Pursing your lips, you didn’t take the time to ask what it was he was planning on doing- this lawyer, blind and in way over his head, was no match for an assassin capable of killing not just one, but three—
The crowd pressed close, their bodies huddled together. It was indiscernible as to who was who, and if the attacker decided to pick them off one by one…
But it was advantageous. You stayed behind Matt, letting him and the endless sea of frightened people conceal you as you silently toed off your heels, leaving them dangerously close to the edge of the balcony. You’d have to be unbelievably fast to dart past whoever was coming, lithe enough to slip below his grasp if he got too close, and hoped that he didn’t have a gun.Even you couldn’t outrun a bullet.
“Give me your shoes,” Matt said, holding out a hand. You frowned at him, but carefully knelt down to gather them in your hand.
“Matt!Matt!”A familiar female voice screeched among the timulting choir of cries as she pushed her way through the crowd. She had tried, hard, to reach you, but she and the stout man clinging to her back as he tried to keep up had not made it before the slow, heavy footsteps reached the doorway.
Karen’s eyes locked on yours, and Matt let go of your shoulder as she slid alongside you and gripped your hand.
“Get her out,” Matt said, carefully taking your heels in his hand. “Get out and keep running. Get her to the office.”
Karen didn’t respond, but her hold of your hand tightened as the figure slowly turned their head, scanning the crowd.
He was a mountainous man, visible even over the heads of frightened people. The long white cape draped over his back brustled in the wind, sucked back from his form in a dramatic flourish. Beneath it, a navy blue and orange suit pulled tight over his broad chest and the thick muscles of his arms and legs.
He turned his head, revealing the mask settled firmly against his face beneath the hood: a stark white skull, the eyes glowing amber in the darkness of the balcony.
Your heart rose into your throat, pulsing against your trachea and threatening to strangle you. The fear made it hard to breathe, and your mind rushed to warn you that you were failing, but it was overwhelmbed by a strong, solid voice echoing a sentiment you’d clung to for years.
Fight or fly, pretty bird. No time to feel anything else right now.
The slow, calculated movements of the hooded figure mutated as his head stopped turning, scanning the fearful crowd as the glowing eyes landed squarely on your face.
He reached for the belt tightened at his waist, the slick glide of a blade cutting through the unforgiving air. It twirled gracefully over his fingers, the hilt pressing delicately into his palm.
It happened in a moment. His arm raised, crossing over his body, and then the knife was soaring through the air, slicing through the snow and wind with precision. It was fast, so fast that you’d had little time to grab Karen by the back of her head and force her into a crouch beside you- but the knife didn’t come, didn’t bury its way into your abdomen or the arm you’d slung up to protect your head.
“Karen!”
Matt’s voice was further away now, and you shot to your feet, ready to defend against the mammoth that was inevitably stalking toward you. The rest of the crowd had started moving, rushing like a herd of gazelles back into the ballroom, toward the doors that led to safety on the other side of it.
You followed them, squeezing Karen’s hand, dragging her impossibly fast through the crowd. She nearly tripped, and you glanced down long enough to see the knife buried in the side of one of your stilettos.
Matt was nowhere to be seen, not through the rush of people around you, and you slowed your pace, turning frantically to search the crowd for the gleam of red from his glasses. Somewhere, you could hear the dull thud of impacts, flesh beating flesh, and the muted thump of your heart in your throat quickened as you released Karen’s hand.
“Go,” you shouted, stooping to grab the shoe. The knife twisted in your hand as you pulled on it, tearing the plastic of the shoe as you wiggled the blade free. “Karen, go!”
No one else was going to die because of you.
Karen didn’t run. She grabbed at you, flailing as you tossed the shoe back to the ground. She screamed your name as you pushed against the crowd, like wading through too deep water as you fought to reach the fight some distance behind you.
The stout man, no doubt Matt’s partner, had caught up, and grabbed you by the arm as you slid between the people separating you from your attacker. The crowd was thinning as people reached the ballroom and ran for the safety of the doors.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nelson’s fingers slid off your arm as you shrugged him off. You didn’t wait to see if he ran as you broke through the crowd to find the white-clad attacker standing at the edge of the balcony, his arm outstretched beyond the railing. He was gripping a thin strip of fabric, the tail of which snapped in the wind like a red flag. Matt’s tie.
Matt himself was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, asshole!”
His head turned as the knife left your fingers, the tip aimed for the center of his head, and you didn’t wait to see if it met the sleek bone of his mask before you were running at him, cursing the long skirt of your dress as you aimed your foot for his rib.
The knife bounced off of his forearm as he deflected it. In the same fluid motion, his hand wrapped tightly around your foot. You swung your weight up, using his hand and the momentum as a boost to push yourself onto his shoulders. You wrapped your legs around his head, squeezing your thighs on either side as your elbow drove down into the top of his skull.
His arms wrapped around your legs, his hands gripping tightly to your waist. He pulled, moving forward, and yanked your body up. You went over his head, his hands letting you freefall, and slammed into the concrete ground. Pain shot through your back as he stepped around you, tilting his head curiously. The moment of reprieve was not enough, your teeth grinding against the pain as he dipped down, wrapping his thick fingers around your throat.
Lights danced behind your eyes as you gasped for air. Several of your nails snapped as your fingertips tried to pry underneath his grip. His fingers tightened as he lifted you up, pulling you toward him until your face was level with his. The glowing embers of his eyes bore into yours, reflecting back the brazen image of your face as hues of blue flushed over your cheeks.
Your legs swung up, the left wrapping around his arm to keep your weight from pulling down on your throat. The other foot connected with his ribs, as hard as you could manage, and his grip on your throat flinched- just enough to get a swallow of air.
His free hand reached for his belt, sliding another knife free. It caught the gleam of light from the ballroom and your eyes widened. The flat sides of the knife were textured with a familiar feather pattern, and as you aimed another kick toward his hand, he drew back his arm with the tip aimed at your face.
His head snapped abruptly to the side, the sickening sound of a crunchas something blunt hit his temple echoing across the balcony. His hand released your throat and your back hit the concrete once more as the black batton bounced off his temple.
You rolled as he swung the knife down, the blade scraping against the concrete below him, and flipped yourself up onto your feet. Gritting your teeth, you grabbed the bottom of your dress, ripping away the excess silk.
He was moving toward you again, the knife flipping over in his hand. You wrapped the silk around each hand, holding it up in time for the knife to glide through it instead of your face.
You let the fabric go, barely sidestepping the knife as he brought it down once more. There was something familiar in the way he fought, the precise movements following you as you evaded him across the balcony. He turned on his heel as you dove under him, rolling to your feet on the other side, and would have brought the knife down again, except that something- someone- had come between you.
The figure was broad-shouldered but slim, his shoulders tense as he grabbed the knife aimed for your head. The red leather of his glove squeezed the attacker’s hand, and the two pushed against each other as you rolled back to your feet.
As the large, imposing man swept his foot underneath your savior, he jumped backwards, and you got a good look at him in the light spilling out of the ballroom.
He was clad in red, head to toe, his suit molded to a muscular form. The leather was interrupted only seldomly with sleek, black fabric along his vital areas. He was wearing a mask that covered the entire back of his head, and when he turned his face to follow the caped assailant, you could trace the stubble along his jaw. The mask had two horns, short and rounded, above his forehead.
Pushing off the ground, you rocked to the balls of your feet, ready to rush forward again. His hands flexed, gripping onto the second batton in his left hand.
“Go,” he said, voice deep, aimed at you though his face was still trained on the other man. “Go, now. Don’t look back.”
Your weight shifted, and you turned without sparing a second glance. The man in the cape wasn’t here for the other man- it was likely he would chase you down, and the further you were from innocent bystanders and the man in red, the safer they were.
summary:life isn’t all that bad as a former black widow turned hit woman. that is, until you meet a certain pain in the ass vigilante.
and end up needing his help.
word count:3.3k
warnings: ANGST, injury, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt no comfort, claire cameo my beloved!, matt makes bad decisions because he feels guilty, mentions of black widow traumas (mainly abuse & human trafficking)
author’s note: yes, my update schedule is every other week now, but i’m feeling generous today. also a little more matt pov, because the reader’s feelings are not completely one sided. enjoy this angsty chapter.
Your fingers trembled against the thin slip of paper. Its vague, yet incredibly daunting words had made your head spin— but that could’ve been the blood loss. You pulled your lip with your teeth in a futile effort to keep it from wobbling, and ignored the growing stinging in your eyes as tears threatened to bubble to the surface.
“What is it?” Matt questioned as he closed the door behind you softly as to not disturb the neighbors or draw any suspicion to you.
“Nothing, just… eviction notice.”
“Mhm,” he agreed dryly, navigating the obstacle course of your living room to set you down on your couch. “Read it to me.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” you dismissed despite the shaking of your voice betraying your cavalier words.
“Remember, I can tell when you’re lying.”
“Matt, please…” you trailed off weakly, as you sunk into your couch, groaning aloud quietly in a mixture of exhaustion and pain from your run in with the random hitman, and the growing crushing feeling on your chest from the threat of the note.
For a second, you wondered if the note referred to your more recent work in the city, but the sign-off of a spider told you everything you needed to know. Somehow, you’d prefer the threat of exposing your more recent night job to your time as a Black Widow. Your past would truly never stop haunting you.
Yet, you supposed that it was really only a matter of time. Part of you knew, deep down, that you would eventually have to pay for the crimes that you’d performed under someone else’s order, but that other naive part of you had just a sliver of hope that you had been worried for nothing.
You were becoming more and more light headed by the moment, a mixture of blood loss, the reservoir of adrenaline from the fight finally running dry, and now the final punch of imagining the new life you’d built for yourself crumbling before your eyes. Your vision was obscured by a vignette of darkness, making the design of your ceiling fade in and out of your line of sight until everything went black.
-
Your heart rate was slowing down, and it was slowing down quickly. Matt mentally scolded himself for not calling Claire sooner as he opened his burner phone and clicked the one and only contact, before setting the phone on speaker and placing it on your coffee table.
He kneeled down by your side and pressed two fingers against your pulse point, not that he needed to be any closer to hear your heartbeat, but feeling your pulse against his fingers gave him an odd sense of comfort. You were okay for the moment. Well, maybe not okay, but not dying just yet.
Scolding himself once more for wasting time, Matt went right to work with what he could do while he waited for Claire’s more expert assistance. With the already ripped fabric of your pants, Matt attempted to make a tourniquet to slow down the bleeding as much as possible.
After the third ring, Claire picked up the phone. “What’s wrong?” she slurred sleepily. Clearly, Matt’s ringtone had woken her up from her slumber.
“It’s not me this time. I’m going to send you my location, and I need you to get here as fast as you can.”
“Shit,” she murmured, the phone barely picking up on it. “Okay, give me a bit.”
-
“Did you meet each other at fight club?” Claire asked as she got to work unloading her rather extensive emergency kit.
“Something like that,” Matt murmured as he paced back and forth through your living room. To say he was on edge was an understatement. His ears were flooded with the sound of blood continuously pouring out of your wound, his mouth metallic with the taste of the soaked and hastily made tourniquet, and the scent of copper assaulted his nose. The instruments of Claire’s kit sounded far too canny for his liking, and his clothes were practically clawing at his skin with every second that your rather large wound remained open. Though he knew it was unlikely, the thought of you dying on that couch was making his stomach do acrobatics.
“What happened, Matt? Really,” Claire questioned as she began to clean your wound.
“It’s a long story,” he dismissed, not interested in divulging your complicated history, with the knowledge that he’d be asked to explain some of his more questionable decisions.
“You called me because a random woman was stabbed and bleeding out; instead of, I don’t know, bringing her to an emergency room, or calling 911. I think you can tell me what happened.”
Matt finally stopped his pacing and sat down in a stiff, slightly scratchy chair. “It really is a long story, Claire. I don’t want to distract you,” he offered.
“I’ve dealt with worse distractions than a little story,” she shrugged, threading a suture. “So what’s her deal?”
“She set me up one night to kill me. She’s uh, a contract killer, but I haven’t smelled death on her in a while. We kept having run-ins at night where she would try to kill me, and I would try to stop her, but she started pulling her punches more and more.”
“Jesus, Matt. That’s- why are you helping someone who’s been trying to kill you? Did you stab her?”
“No! And it’s more complex than just that. We accidentally met outside of our nighttime gigs. It was, uh, a mutual friend, which obviously complicated things-“
“Let me guess, things like your feelings?” Claire quipped as she began to work on you.
“Things like not murdering each other,” he grit out. Sure, it wasn’t the complete truth. Matt had only stooped to considering murder when it came to Wilson Fisk. With you, it was much more complicated. He’d grown to enjoy your little game of Cat and Mouse, liking sparring with you like his life depended on it— because it did. Yet, there was a palpable change in you following the exchange where you could’ve killed him, but didn’t. That exchange, mixed with you being the friend that Karen had so much to say about, had begun to create all sorts of problems for Matt. Problems that he didn’t particularly care to think about, let alone get into with a former lover.
“That was maybe a few months ago,” he shrugged. “We’ve seen each other less and less frequently since then, but I was out patrolling tonight and I heard distress. Distress from her, specifically. I came as fast as I could, and there was another hitman trying to get her for not getting me.”
Claire nodded quietly as she cut a stitch. “And she’s a no hospital girl, like you?”
“Yeah,” Matt breathed out. He noticed a spike in the previously steady pattern of your breath as Claire began to work on another suture, and suddenly words were slipping out of his mouth, “be careful.” Heat flooded his face. Of course she would be careful. This was herjob, and she’d patched Matt up more times than he could count. But for some odd reason, Matt was frightened for you.
Claire shot Matt a death glare. He could practically feel the daggers pressing into his skin based on the sharp intake of breath and the shift of muscles within his face.
“Sorry,” he added.
“I understand. You finally get a girl around who’s as crazy as you, and you want to keep her. And keep her safe. I promise she’s in good hands.”
Matt wasn’t a fan of how heat was rushing to his cheeks at her unfairly accurate statement. In a weird way, you both were oddly compatible, but Matt didn’t want to give that train of thought too much power.
-
Claire finished stitching you up not too long later as Matt held an ice pack close to your burning forehead. He could practically feel your skin from all the way in the kitchen, and he was well aware of how uncomfortable you must’ve been feeling from your own radiating heat. He would be concerned for infection due to your fever, but he didn’t smell any of the telltale signs, which made him believe you were in the clear.
You seemed so defenseless laying there as Matt hovered over you. Your breathing was deep, yet strained, sweat had been pouring out of you, and the smell he’d come to know as a stress hormone was ever present on you. It was so odd to perceive you like this, almost intimate. Matt couldn’t deny how his heart ached for you, despite him writing it off as sympathy for a hurt person.
Claire shuffled around as she picked up and disposed of used items, eventually pausing when she picked up a sticky note that was sticking out from under your torso.
“What’s this?” she asked aloud out of pure reflex. Matt’s head snapped up from you to Claire, curious to know what the note truly said.
“I’m not sure. She wouldn’t tell me before she passed out.”
“It just says ‘We know what you really are. And it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world does too,’ and it’s signed off with a drawing of a spider. Whatever that means.”
“Hmm,” Matt grumbled aloud, not really sure what any of it meant. Maybe she’d finally been caught for her various hits. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that either, but he didn’t want to voice his thoughts in an effort to not get Claire involved in anything messy and unnecessary. “Thank you Claire, again. You really don’t know how much I appreciate this.”
Her lips parted in what Matt could only assume was a sweet smile. “I know, Matt,” she gave his shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t need to hear heartbeats to know how you feel. Try not to self-sabotage this one too, okay?”
Matt rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t completely deny it. “Goodbye, Claire.”
“Night, Murdock. I’ll see you next week when you break your ribs in three different places.”
“Ha ha,” he laughed dryly as Claire approached the door, sending off one final farewell as she left.
Matt sat down with a huff on the same seat that he’d waited on while Claire stitched you up, his mind laser-focused on Claire’s words and implications. At first, she’d been teasing about the two of you being together, but by the time she’d left, she was dead serious about whatever it was that was going on between you two.
Matt no longer did relationships. That was a luxury that he’d proved time and time again to himself that he could not afford. Silk sheets, artisan desserts, one night stands, and friends were already pushing it, but real relationships only caused trouble. While it certainly didn’t help that romantic relationships were the most distracting of them all, he somehow always ended up putting himself or his partner in serious danger— Claire was kidnapped, Elektra died… twice, Karen had been kidnapped and had absolutely gone through the ringer, and if tonight was any indicator, you would fall into that same trap. Pursuing anything more with you would only end in tragedy.
Matt ran a stressed hand through his hair. This little thing between you had to end tonight. He was going to find out who sent you the note to see if it would help him figure out who wanted him dead, then leaving.
He’d never been so sure of anything. He needed to extinguish anything that was there with you, and do it as soon as humanly possible.
-
When you woke back up, your brain felt like it was filled with lead. The world around you was foggy and buzzing, and for the life of you, you couldn’t grasp onto a single coherent thought. Slowly, things began to come back to you. Through your windows, you could tell that the sun was high in the sky. It was day, likely the afternoon. You were on your couch, but you weren’t sitting on its typical soft microfiber, rather than a harsh and loud piece of plastic. Your leg was stiff—likely from being stretched out for so long—and throbbing—likely from being stabbed in the thigh not too long ago.
You winced at the pain
“Matt? Why are you… What?”
“You were too injured for me to handle, so I had a friend over,” he passed you a glass of water and a gel Advil pill. “Drink. Your tea is cooling off on the coffee table.”
He sat down on the side of your couch by your extended leg and sighed softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” you asked, genuinely confused.
“What the note said. My friend, she’s sighted. She described the note to me after she was done stitching you up.”
“Oh,” you said plainly. The note. Your heart dropped once again as your memory was jogged by that dreaded piece of paper.
“You didn’t ever stop and think that your actions have consequences? That if your job is to commit felonies-for-hire, you won’t eventually be stopped in your tracks?”
“I really appreciate the lecture after I almost died, like a few hours ago.”
“And you didn’t die thanks to..?”
“Your sighted friend, apparently. Stop being a smartass. The note isn’t about that. It’s about…” you hesitated. You weren’t particularly in the mood for a stroll down memory lane, but it seemed more likely now than ever that Matt was going to need to know the full story in order to represent you in court. “Listen. I lived a very different life once. Not by choice.”
You inhaled deeply, shifted uncomfortably on your crinkling plastic-lined couch, and braced yourself for whatever might fall out of your lips next.
“I was just a girl when they took me to the Red Room. I never had parents, I didn’t know any better, and I fell right into every trap they set for me. I hadn’t even reached double digits before they began training me to be a Black Widow. I guess my body count reached the double digits before I did. It was like I was constantly living through a nightmare. I mean, what kind of eight year old knows the most effective way to slit a man’s throat? Or slip toxins into a mark’s drink?” your hands trembled as you spoke, and you set them on your stomach to attempt to ground yourself. “I should’ve been playing with dolls, or my friends. Instead I was spending every waking hour of the day training, or on missions.”
“But I was raised only to be a killer, nothing more. Not a kid, not a woman; a weapon, to be manipulated and used at anyone’s disposal. I was brainwashed more times than I could count, and it seemed like every time I managed to snap out of it, they’d pull me right back in. But the final time, er- most recent time, Natasha Romanoff, TheBlack Widow, y’know, the one who works with the Avengers, was able to free my mind, and take down the Red Room, where they trained us, in doing so. Her and her sister helped me get set up here, to live a normal life, or whatever,” you sighed, fighting back the stinging feeling behind your eyes and the growing knot in your throat.
“You see how well that worked out. I’m sorry Matt, for what I did to you, for how things played out between us. I guess doing hits was like muscle memory for me, it was almost nostalgic, in the way that people miss all sorts of fucked up things from their childhood. I figured it was fine, I was only getting people who really deserved it. I stopped countless abusers, rapists, and human traffickers, and I was getting paid along the way,” you frowned and fiddled with your fingers. “In fact, the only reason that I stopped myself from getting you too when I had the opportunity was that you were taking out the same people as me. If I killed the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, how many other girls just like me would have the same fate as me? Or worse? How many innocent people would have to suffer because I wanted to make my life easier.”
A tear escaped past your eyelid, and you expertly caught it before it had the chance to roll down your cheek.
“I guess that doesn’t matter right now. Someone knows that I was a Widow, and they’re going to make my life hell for things that I did when I had not one ounce of autonomy over myself. That’s what that letter meant. The DA’s gonna prosecute me, Matt,” the dam seemed to have broken as tears continued to slide down your cheeks. You didn’t bother wiping them, it wasn’t like Matt was going to see. “I can’t do this without you Matt.”
He was silent for a moment, his teeth gritting. You couldn’t believe that you’d bared your soul for him, only for him to meet you with silence.
“I’m sorry,” he began after far too long. Your heart sank like a million pound anchor to the bottom of the ocean. “I’m sorry, but this has already gone too far. You need to find someone else.”
His words felt loaded, as if they weren’t only related to your potential case, but to whatever had been blossoming between you two.
“Please, Matt, you’re the only one who understands,” you pleaded. Feeling hurt and desperate were understatements. Never in your life had you been so vulnerable with anyone— you’d given your body to Matt, and now the pain of your past that you hadn’t shared with anyone before. He knew about your more secret life, and you were more than aware of his. Matt was the only person who really understood you, the good and the bad.
But maybe, that was the problem.
You’d heard murmurs about Matt’s tumultuous dating life, along with his somewhat inconsistent friendship habits. But you weren’t coming to Matt as a romantic interest, or even a friend. You just needed him to save you, one last time.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t. It’s Foggy, he’ll never-“
“Don’t pin this on Foggy, Matt. Just say it. You don’t want to take on this case. That’s fine but.. just claim it yourself.” It only hurt more that Matt would take the coward’s way out on something as important to you as staying out of jail for things that you weren’t even sure you were completely lucid doing.
“I’m sorry, Y/N. I really am.
“Stop it,” you attempted to hiss it out, but you were sure it was far more pathetic sounding than you wanted it to be. “Stop saying that you’re fucking sorry. If you were really sorry, you would help me.”
You wiped the tears off your cheek with your arm in one fluid stroke. “Fuck off, Matthew. I can’t even… I can’t even look at you right now,” you were at war with the lump in your throat. This hurt so much more than a broken promise, or the idea of having a shitty public defender. You’d bared your soul to Matt, and he had no other reaction than empty apologies for deciding that you were a complete lost cause. “You need to leave.”
Matt didn’t protest as he got up from your couch, he didn’t even react when you threw the mug of now lukewarm tea at him. He just quietly walked to your door, as if he was completely unfazed by everything that had gone down between the two of you in your apartment.
“You promised me, Matt,” you quietly murmured out, knowing he would be able to hear. Matt continued past the door, not bothering to acknowledge you, or your parting words at all.
“You promised,” you whimpered out one last time, completely hopeless and dejected just moments after your door had closed.
Matt willed himself to ignore your shaky whimpers and the taste of salt from your tears as he exited your building. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
