There stood Matt at Luke's door, a bag in his hand and heart pounding so loudly in his ears he could barely make out the song being played beyond it.
He hadn't been this nervous when he and Phil had sat down Luke and Alex and told them about their romantic situation. Alex hadn't seemed the least bit surprised, but Matt supposed they probably weren't being as subtle as they thought—especially to a very canny teenager with excellent emotional perception.
Being with someone was a far cry from willingly throwing oneself into real and uncertain danger, however, and keeping that part of his life from Luke felt more and more like he was lying with each passing day. He'd been debating about telling him for ages, since well before Alex and Reggie's arrival. There never seemed to be a good time. That was when Matt realized there never would be one. He took a breath and knocked. "Hey, Luke, it's me. Got a minute?"
Luke paused, fingers over the strings of his acoustic where he'd been quietly following along with the song playing from his phone. He was still eating up the last 30-ish years of music and it was easy to follow along with chord progressions, working out harmonies quietly.
He tilted his head. Conversations rarely started out well with that sort of question, asked from the other side of a door. Especially when Matt felt the need to identify himself. Luke got up and set his guitar on the stand Matt had quietly gotten him, like Matt tended to quietly get him other things. But he didn't verbally allow the man in and instead opened the door. The pause spoke volumes. "What's up?" Luke asked, unable to keep the wary tone out of his voice. But his eyes caught the bag and his brain did what it did best: refocused with laser precision. "Is that what I think it is? Please tell me they weren't out of gummy bears."
"They weren't out of gummy bears." Matt couldn't help but grin at the obvious delight and complete switch in tone. It was more of a reprieve from what was to come, he feared. Still, his smile didn't falter. "Double scoop of mint chip with Oreo crumbles and gummy bears." He didn't mention he was glad he couldn't see the staff's reaction to that request. "I grabbed a pint of pineapple sorbet for Alex. It's in the freezer. You can let him know later. Do you mind if we sit? There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about for a while."
Luke took the offering and quickly looked behind him to make sure nothing was in Matt's path. Like the hoodie that he'd dropped on the floor and had to kick out of the way. And the trash bin he'd at least had the forethought to drag closer to the bed so he could toss the crumpled up pages of his notebook when he wasn't happy with something he was working on. "Yeah, it's clear," Luke said and moved to pause the song that was still playing on his phone.
But he waited to see Matt get settled before settling into place beside him and breaking into the ice cream. "If you're going to tell me you're into guys," Luke started, "we already went over that. I'm fine with Alex, because duh, right? Hypocrite otherwise in the literal sense." The spoon was halfway to his mouth with a gummy bear perched precariously. "You aren't moving out, are you?" Like that was the worst case scenario. "Or--" and dread dropped into the pit of his stomach but he couldn't voice the fear that hit him. Was Matt going to ask him to go? Or say he didn't want to be his legal guardian? Had Luke messed up?
The care with which Luke made sure he could get to the bed made Matt feel so much worse. If he sat gingerly, it was only because he was nursing a wicked bruise to his side where the scumbag du jour had gotten in a lucky hit a couple of days earlier. He should have started in right away, but Luke beat him to the punch. That leading "or" drained any humor from Matt so quickly, he wasn't sure he'd even smiled. The gummy bear fell just then.
Matt caught it easily in the palm of his hand. It sat there, cold and sticky. Luke could have it back if he wanted, but Matt understood why he might not. It was almost like an analogy, if a very silly one. "This isn't about me and Phil, and I'm not going anywhere if I can help it." Speaking of hypocritical, since I fling myself off rooftops on the regular. "This isn't about you. I need to make that abundantly clear, first and foremost. I couldn't have asked for a better kid to look after."
He tried for the most encouraging smile, but it felt weird on his face. Matt fished his phone from his pocket and got it opened to the main screen where he asked his digital assistant to pull up the video sharing app. "Here, play through a couple of the queued videos, and then I'll explain."
Luke jammed the uneaten spoonful back into the rest of his ice cream only because, in the back of his mind, he didn't want to make a worse mess because he'd dropped ice cream onto the foor and lost a spoon in the process. He didn't have words as he stared at the hand that had caught the rogue gummy bear, a green thing of betrayal because it had jumped off the spoon in the first place.
But Luke had gone very still otherwise and very quiet because he didn't understand. What he did get was how Matt was hitting on all of the points that Luke had worried about and this whole discussion was going to be about something entirely different. He set the ice cream aside, wiped his fingers against his jeans, and took the offered phone to play through the videos as Matt said.
Whatever Matt was hoping for him to understand, Luke didn't. He had to admit that the footage was really cool. Like one of the action movies he liked watching. Parkour hadn't yet been a thing in 1995 but Luke was fascinated all the same. He pieced together the similarities of the videos but they were only similar in that the figure was clearly the same, even if he couldn't be identified, and the titles were all mentioning The Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "Isn't Hell's Kitchen a cooking show? The angry British guy who calls people donuts?"
Matt chuckled. While Luke may have been quiet, his anxiety was still pouring off him in waves. The gummy bear still sat in his hand like an offering. "It's a neighborhood in Manhattan where I grew up. It's where I lost my sight. And my Dad. It's also where I learned to fight. Learned how important it was to keep the people I cared for safe." He took in a slow breath, and his fingers twitched with the desire to tug through his hair. "That man in the videos? It's me."
Wait. What? Luke stared at Matt and then looked back at the phone... and back to his guardian. The first word out of his mouth was aborted at the wh sound and Luke sputtered. "How?" he finally settled on. "Wait- can you actually see?" To his credit, Luke didn't sound betrayed by that idea.
A reasonable question. Most people assumed he'd been faking the whole time. Matt pushed out a breath and braced himself for a further interrogation, although this one wasn't starting out nearly as badly as the ones with Foggy and Karen. "Not in the traditional sense. It's more like I rely on my sense of hearing to navigate most spaces. Like the human equivalent of echolocation. My seeing world is all shadows and bright lights, but they look like they're on fire. Details like facial expressions and words on paper or on signs are totally lost on me. I'm still very much blind to a lot of the world."
Luke's face went hot and he didn't know why; it wasn't his fault that he hadn't known Matt had some kind of super-power. "So, like, every time I move things and make sure you aren't going to trip. You see all that," Luke said. He finally reached out and took the gummy bear, popping it in his mouth. "Okay. So you've got this super-power and you go out and do stupid stuff like that," he said and handed Matt's phone back, automatically tapping him on the knee with it. "Are you doing that now?"
His eyes narrowed. "Are you doing that now?" he asked, his tone different on the repeat of the question. Concerned. Surprised. But mostly concerned.
The guilt plunged through Matt's gut, jagged, hard. "I always appreciated the effort. It was very kind, and not surprising, given who you are as a person." Not that his compliments helped current matters. He stowed his phone in his pocket again. It was the moment he needed to steel himself all over again. Here it was. Rip the bandage off, yet again. "I am. I have been. Since before you got here, even. I tried not for for a while, when I first arrived, but I hated just sitting around when I could hear the sirens from blocks away. It eats at you, knowing you can make a change and not doing it."
"Dude," Luke said, the irony not lost on him as to how he addressed his legal guardian. "Is that why you show up with bruises and a broken nose and whatever else? God, I feel like an asshole. I thought you were just really clumsy and I was trying to figure out how to suggest we get you a seeing-eye dog."
Because, with Luke, it really was that simple. "Wait. Okay, so," Luke went on, "what's the deal with Yelena then? You and Yelena. Not like... not you and Yelena, but you know what I mean. I think. Do you know what I mean?"
The roiling in his insides was starting to abate, freeing Matt up to be able to laugh at Luke's conclusions. The Lord Himself knew Matt had used his clumsiness as an excuse more often than not. "Not sure my current lifestyle would have room for a canine companion anyway. No, I came by these cuts and bruises the old fashioned way: by chasing down bad guys."
For a moment, Matt did not know what Luke meant, but he got it in the end. He shook his head, smile wry. "We help each other out sometimes, but that's all. Our lives—let's just say we have an understanding. She told me you'd take this better than I feared. I think I owe her a bottle of the good stuff now."
Luke would have offered to take the dog out when Matt couldn't, but he understood a second later what the man meant by current lifestyle. "Okay," was all he said.
"An understanding sounds like spy stuff. Way cooler than girl stuff," Luke replied. "Not that girl stuff isn't cool. But, like, Julie had this box in her room with stuff in it and she didn't want us touching it but she should have just not said anything, right? Except she did. And then I went in it anyway, which, I know. I know, but she had these poems and we put them to music and-" Luke stopped himself and blew out a breath. He picked up the ice cream that was doing its level best to melt. "Doesn't matter. Are you and Yelena and Phil like spies?" Luke asked before finally shoving a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth.
Matt struggled not to smile. He was constantly in awe of the way Luke's mind worked, and he enjoyed getting glimpses of his life with the Molinas. Or un-life, as was the case. Re-life? Now Matt was doing it too, only inside his own head. "Phil is retired. Yelena is doing her own thing wherever there's a need. I stay more local, but I wouldn't call it spy work, necessarily. We team up when we need to or agree to stay out of each other's way. It's not uncomplicated, but it works. The most important part of this for me is to make sure I never bring that part of my life home with me." This was the real crux of why he never wanted to tell anyone about himself and what he could do. "I won't let anyone hurt anyone in the Station because of anything I've done or anyone I've pissed off."
The idea of Matt bringing that part of his life home with him made Luke frown and his heart gave an anxious lurch. He had watched television and seen the movies. The hero's family tended to be put in danger.
And then he cracked a smile. "I can't really see you pissing someone off except for, like, after you've walloped them in the courtroom. Aunt Yelena?" And then he froze because the aunt title had been a joke and it had slipped out. "Uh. Yelena. She seems the type to enjoy pissing people off, though." He shoved another spoonful in his mouth and then another because eating meant he couldn't keep running at the mouth. Except: "Ah! Brain freeze!"
The two very different kinds of reactions evoked no small amount of sympathy from Matt. He reached out and patted Luke's shoulder. Dealer's choice if it was for the awkward slip of the tongue or the reaction to the cold. Matt wasn't quite sure he knew which himself. "She's definitely raised it to an art form. You all right there?" And wasn't that a loaded question. He cleared his throat. The answer made him nervous, but it was important to hear it, no matter how it shook out. "No, really: are you all right?"
Luke hissed and pressed fingers against the bridge of his nose to ease the feeling of the freeze. But he nodded. When he realized the heavier degree of the question, Luke winced but tried to focus on Matt. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, I'm worried? But as long as you're not kicking me out or, like, you don't want to be my guardian anymore... I can handle pretty much anything. I think." Though...
He hesitated. "Okay, so, like," and there was Luke's normal speech pattern with the frequent stops as he worked his way through his words and thoughts all at once. "Yelena is kind of intense and a lot and I love her but-" He shook his head. "Phil is also kind of a lot but in a different way." Luke licked his lips, anxious. "Would you teach me? How to defend myself? I know you guys said you'd handle it and there's probably like classes and stuff but I trust you and I know you said you wouldn't let it happen but what if it did and someone followed you home? You'd know what to defend against instead of just some vague situation with people in white vans who'd put hoods over our heads or something."
It was right on the tip of his tongue to refuse, to say it wasn't a good idea, but the instant he thought it, Matt knew that wasn't right. Really, it would have been irresponsible not to do it. "Yeah, Luke. I'll teach you. There's a workout area in the basement. It's as good a place as any. Here's rule one, though, right now: if you can, run. If it's safe, you get out of there. This is very much a 'do as I say, not as I do', but honestly? Run fast, run hard, and call me, Yelena, or Phil as soon as you're somewhere you can't be hurt."
Luke nodded. "I'm not dumb enough to think I can take someone on," he said and there was no embarrassment in his tone. Luke's talents were in the arts. He poked his spoon at his ice cream. "Thanks. For telling me and for, you know. Just everything."
He held up his ice cream. "Want some?"
"Trust is important, and I want to have yours. You don't have to thank me. This was the least I could do." Matt sent his charge a smile that went dubious at the offering, and he held up a hand. "That's all for you, man."