InsaneJournal

As the days started blurring into one long stretch of uncertainty, Matt was finally starting to feel at home in the darkness. Even though he wasn’t actively trying to do anything self-annihilating, he wasn’t overly concerned with self-preservation either. If the circumstances weren’t so dire, he might have taken more time to appreciate his new black world, paid attention to all the details his numbed senses were missing out on.

Fingertips trailed along the wall of the sewer as he trudged through the shallow water. He had been down this sewer to get to the shelter keeping the wall under his right hand, so now he was simply working his way back. Matthew was drawn to the caves, the tunnels and the small rooms - everything echoed and it brought him small comforts where he could hear things coming.

Of course, that didn’t help alleviate the dread setting in when he heard someone joining him at the other end of the sewer. If they both couldn’t see each other, Matt thought he might have the advantage. He stopped walking and lowered his head, trying to keep his breathing calm and even as he raised his calloused fists in anticipation of a fight.

Unfortunately for Matt Murdock, Natasha had a small light that she'd been using. At this particular moment, she had been looking for food, water, anything to keep their rations from dipping into dangerous territories. Even still, Natasha always took less, never letting the younger women know how much less she was taking. They were teenagers and had their entire lives ahead of them. Natasha had lived so much longer than that. They deserved to get out of this.

She wasn't exactly nihilistic. She didn't have a death wish. She wanted out of there — alive — as much as the next person, but the odds were never in their favor, were they? Not with Phasma and others out there. How many were beginning to get desperate? How many had gained a lovely new fear: claustrophobia?

"Matthew," came Natasha's voice. She hadn't seen him since his fight with Helena. His head was still in pretty bad shape from what she could see at this distance. Caked on blood. It wasn't uncommon in her world. "You look like shit."

Her voice echoing down the long tunnel had his eyebrows rising in surprise and he couldn't help but flash her a small, tight-lipped smile. Clearly she could see him if she was passing a comment like that. Instinctively he took two small steps backwards away from her light, reaching out for the wall again. He was fully aware that she was more dangerous than half the people on the list - if there was even half of them still alive - but he trusted both Natashas with his life. And if she wanted to take it to win some idiot's idea of a post-apocalyptic game then at least she'd make it quick.

"I-... fell down some stairs," he lied with a sniffle as he scratched his eyebrow, unaware that she'd been the one who broke up his scuffle with Helena on the first day. He somehow managed to be an even worse liar without his shades.

"You need to turn back. There are sharp things in this water. And leeches."

"No, you didn't. You got hit with a rock." Her reply wasn't completely devoid of emotion, but it didn't give away any feelings on the matter. She took several steps toward him, and because he couldn't see her, couldn't read her heartbeat, she frowned openly. "You need to be stitched up. We have to find some kind of needle and thread, but it might not be pretty."

There wasn't a need to tell him that she'd been the one to send that torch hurling in his direction to keep Helena from straight up murdering him. She hadn't done it for brownie points, and the last thing she wanted was for him to feel like he owed her. That's not how this game was played, and Natasha knew that if it came down to it, she'd stick this utility knife into his neck to bleed him out quickly if it meant getting Daisy and Maria out of here. "Wanna give me a tour of the place? And I'll fix that head of yours?"

How did she know? He didn’t think she was the one to have injured him, but - was she there? A dozen questions rolled on through his mind and he took another small step back, as if he was reconsidering how much he actually trusted her. Even when he could hear her heartbeat and sense all her non-existent tells, he found her difficult to read. With just a voice bouncing off the walls and nothing else really to go on, he didn’t really know what to think.

“Follow my footsteps.” Or don’t and cut herself - completely up to her. He gritted his teeth and turned back to the bunker, always keeping a hand on the wall. Matt probably wouldn’t be able to move as fast as she’d liked, but she just had to trust that it was better than the alternative of rushing ahead blindly.

“I was careless,” he lied - well, sort of lied - but he didn’t want to talk about how blind and helpless he currently felt. No use dwelling on it. “Are you okay?”

"Helena hit you with a rock. Did you think it came from out of nowhere?" This Matt was no better at lying than theirs was. She also knew that he was completely blind down here; Natasha had told her. At least this way, she could make up for ditching him. He was probably better off on his own, to be honest. He knew how to be quiet, no people to share food. If she hadn't promised people, that's what she'd be doing.

She followed his footsteps until she was literally right behind him. It would be easy enough to put him out of his misery, and she debated doing it just to get him out of here. Just to ease her own mind. If only so no one else would make him suffer. But she didn't do it.

"Nothing but minor cuts and bruises." The for now was unspoken because she certainly didn't expect to make it out of this without a few battle wounds. "Self preservation is high on my priority list. It should be yours too. Why did you run into the middle of the Cornucopia when you don't have your extra senses?"

Helena. The name wasn't familiar. So Nat was there then - other Nat, whatever - had she been watching? He didn't expect her to help, but he did feel a bit embarrassed that she got to see him flail when he didn't have his usual senses to guide him.

Matt had basically up until this point been trying to give all his things away to everyone he's come across, so self-preservation had long ago been flung out the window. He might be blind but he wasn't stupid - he knew he had no chance of getting out of this arena alive. Of course since he had only been around long enough to experience the Pokemon scenario, he didn't know whether he would be returned back to the facility or whether this would be it, so he was just working on the assumption that the latter was true.

He stopped moving and turned, not meaning to snap at her but unable to hold back either. Screw the leeches.

"I haven't been this blind in over twenty years - I'm the biggest liability here; self-preservation isn't even on the goddamned list. Especially not when you're around. Do you think I know where I am or where I'm going? I ran - I just ran - I'm sorry that I'm scared and I'm sorry that it wasn't in a direction you approved of. Next time I'll remember to take a hard left."

"Who do you think stopped Helena from slamming that rock a second time into your head? The magic tiki fairy?" The implication that when she was around, self-preservation was not on his list stung (despite her plotting about just that in her head).

The glowworms above her twinkled like starlight. She was bored of them. Their cave had all of that and water. This had stinking sewage, sharp rocks, and apparently leeches. She yanked one off her boot and threw it against the hard wall opposite her. "Your martyr complex is what's going to get you killed, Matthew Murdock. Not your blindness."

"The wha- what are you even talking about?" he retorted, his raised voice carrying down the sewer. What the hell was a tiki fairy? What did she know about his martyr complex? Apparently they weren't even from the same 'universe'. And more importantly, was it so wrong that if someone was going to make it out of this hellhole alive, he wanted it to be her? Or Bail? Or Darcy? Or anyone other than himself?

"Don't use my blindness against me. Don't you dare." If at any point he noticed that he was arguing with her as if both the Natashas were the same, it certainly didn't stop him.

"There's a man here whose daughter is potentially watching him die. There's a civilian who can't fight her way out of a paper bag but is willing to risk her safety for a blind deadweight. You think our lives are worth more than theirs? You and I, we aren't going anywhere nicer than this place when we die. Hurting more people isn't going to change that."

"You're wrong. I've died before. It was pleasant nothingness. It's the being brought back alive that's not so great." Her voice was as calm as a still lake. Natasha moved around him to take the lead. There was, after all, only one way to go. The sound of her voice dimmed as she walked, slowly, delicately, through the shin deep water that smelled of old decay and waste.

Natasha wasn't going to get into a philosophical debate with Matt Murdock. Those ended up terse arguments and then she often left the house for days on end after them. He needn't keep reminding her that she was a murderer with a past she could never atone for. Neither of the Murdocks did. Still quiet, she followed up, "I'm not having an argument about the nature of good and evil with you. Either I stitch up this wound of yours or we're parting ways now."

If it really was pleasant nothingness then they needn't stand around having a shouting match. He heard the water move and the sound of her footsteps grow more distant, and he reached out into the abyss, curling his fingers around- nothing. She was already gone.

"Nat! Wait. It's- there's sharp things in the water," he called out after her. "Stop." He swallowed, panting hard, hoping she hadn't hurt herself yet. "Four steps ahead, two to the left, twenty-six forward, three to the right, and then straight to the stairs."

He dutifully followed his own instructions, not expecting to catch up with her until they got to the bunker. So he just talked, because he knew his voice would carry, and it gave him something to think about while counting his steps and groping the wall. It's not like he's been in a situation with the Nat he was sleeping with yet where he's had the chance to say these things to her.

"You're not good, but you're not bad either. Bad things happened to you. Things that weren't your fault - things you can't change. I don't- I know you don't care and you don't want to think about these things now, but." He paused, half-wondering if she was already long gone. "I don't want to die with you thinking that I think you're a bad person."

She hadn't hurt herself. She'd been in sewers before. There were usually broken bottles and other things that people flushed down toilets and tossed in drains lurking in murky sewer water. Not to mention the leeches. If she stopped too long, there'd be more crawling on her and while she had no problem flicking them off, she would rather not take the chance that they were poisonous.

She waited for him to catch up though before she spun around. With as tall as she was, she was face to face with him. "You don't know me, but you got one thing right: I'm not good. I'm a liar, Matt. I lie for a living so don't trust a single word I say. You got that?"

He didn't realise she'd stopped moving so a look of surprise flashed over his otherwise emotional, almost pained expression when her voice was so close. "I know you," he insisted quietly. "You're like the other Natasha. I'm- probably not very different from the Matthew who loved you. I sit awake at night listening to your heartbeats and sometimes the only way I can tell the two of you apart is because you're in different rooms." How could she say she wasn't a good person when she'd helped him - when she was offering to help him now?

"You're my tiki fairy, aren't you? You saved my life. You can lie to my face, hurt me, leave me here to die. But you can't tell me you're a bad person." Maybe it was the actual blindness or the lack of shades, but either way Matthew looked particularly vulnerable and dejected standing behind her near the stairs just outside the bunker.

The overwhelming urge to grab her knife and jab it into the side of his neck, right into the jugular so he'd bleed out quick threatened to overtake her. The last time she'd seen the Matthew in her world, he'd threatened her. Told her to get out of his town. That she probably believed that she was doing good by killing certain people. Eventually, this one would figure that out and stand on his own two feet.

"I saved your life because the other Natasha asked me to. No other reason." That was a flat out lie, of course, but he didn't have his senses to back him up and she knew it. "We're nothing alike, except in name, and if you keep talking like this, I will drown you with the leeches."

The other Natasha had asked? Did she also tell her he lost the better part of his senses? The surprise soured into bitterness and any words he might have said at that point turned to ashes on his tongue. He went silent and lowered his head, swallowing the lump in his throat before slipping past her and heading up the short flight of stairs into the bunker. He counted his steps silently so he knew when he was at the top and headed straight towards the source of clean water. He wouldn't fault her for thinking that he was sulking - these past few days had been an emotional rollercoaster - but mostly he was just tired, and he didn't want to spend the entirety of his last days on Earth or wherever they were arguing with some other-dimensional woman.

"The water's good." That was all she wanted to talk about, wasn't it? The immediate situation. Nothing existential, nothing about the other Nat, nothing about whatever this wasn't between them. "Bathroom that way. Zombies that way." He casually gestured towards the bathroom and then the window respectively. "Well, that's what Freddie Mercury says they look like. Haven't been attacked by any zombies but you can hear them if you're quiet."

Good. Maybe he would get angry and keep up the fight. The Matt she knew was never a quitter, not even in the face of certain death. Maybe what he needed was someone to verbally kick his ass to make him want to fight to survive. She could be that person, but she couldn't be the soft Natasha that he wished was here in her place.

"It's — a fallout shelter." She looked around, and though it wasn't particularly clean or nice, it would be better than what was outside the sewers. Maybe she ought to bring Maria and Daisy here. It was even lit by some power source. One entrance, except for the creepy windows, and yes, those definitely looked like something otherworldly. Zombies might be accurate. "So why were you leaving it?"

"The dwarf suggested not to come here, and I heard- strange noises coming from the window. Freddie Mercury wanted to go to the hot spring. I just came back to top up our canteens. She was scared so I came alone." Of course he couldn't have known that the 'dwarf' was a talking raccoon or panda or whatever Rocket was. Matt also didn't realise how crazy he sounded, talking about a dwarf and Freddie Mercury like he might be succumbing to his head injury.

"Maybe you should stay. You could probably take those on." Matt had been reluctant to leave as well, but that might have been partly because he couldn't see the creepy shadows the ladies were looking at.

"The dwarf? Do you mean Rocket?" She couldn't recall any other short being in the Games, but then again, those weren't other tributes casting shadows on the walls, were they? The low moans weren't exactly comforting either. Sounds pretty far away for now. "He's a talking raccoon, but don't call him that. He'll shoot you for it."

The tub was pulled open with a slight grunt. She took her flask from her belt and submerged it in the water. When it was full, she downed the entire thing before dipping it below the surface once more. The water would at least clean the blood from his face so she could see how bad the wound was. She didn't have sutures or a bandage, but she could probably use those thin sheets on the cots, tear them up, maybe boil them in some of the water. That would be about the best she could do.

At his side, she grabbed his chin and tilted his head away from her. "This might sting a little, I don't know." Then let the water dribble down the side of his face while she used her fingers to rub away crusted over blood.

"He didn't give me his name." Somehow a dwarf was more believable than a talking raccoon. Maybe it was a raccoon. That's why he didn't want Matthew touching him. Rocket couldn't have been the only one - after all, that hideously loud roar on the first day couldn't have come from something human.

Right now the only raccoon in the room was Matthew. He tensed up the instant all those background noises culminated in her touching him, and before he could voice his displeasure the whole side of his face was hurting. He grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing one of her arms in protest and biting back the whimpers as she cleaned out his cut.

"Did she ask you to babysit too?" he couldn't help but ask once the initial shock to his system wore off.

There was no sense asking about Freddie Mercury. She had to be another one of the tributes. If she was scared, Natasha would put her money on Darcy Lewis. So instead, she weighed the pros and cons of lying. Ultimately, it didn't matter either way.

"You've made quite an impression." Natasha remembered saving Daredevil from drowning. Right place, right time — but then again, that was planned out for them, wasn't it? All a trick to get them to another right place, right time. She had Ivan then. Ivan who hated her and tried to kill her years later. Isn't that what everyone tried to do? "What can I say?"

"Unfortunately." He was used to standing out like a sore thumb everywhere he went. All those whispers behind his back that they thought he couldn't hear. He had hoped it would stop short of pity, but clearly he couldn't tell people what to think.

He reached up and covered the back of her hand with his, curling his fingers around the edge of her palm. Her hand was cold. Blinking slowly with water dripping down his face, he looked at her without looking at her, the all-consuming darkness staring back at him.

"'I forgive you'?" Too much to ask, Murdock. You really should know better.

"That was rhetorical," she answered. He was much more into forgiveness than the Matt she knew. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing to be forgiven for. Except maybe this whole damn conversation. "And I'm certain she didn't ask out of pity."

That was all she was going to give him though. Talking with alternative universe versions of people she knew never went well. There were too many differences, too many things the same. There were too many expectations tagging along with it too, and she already had more than enough of a reputation to uphold. She didn't need one that was built on a false narrative, trying to pin her to the past.

She pulled her hand from his. "It's not that bad. You'll need to get stitched up when you're back in the facility, but it's already trying to heal."

The ghost of her cold hand lingered in his palm and he lowered his hand awkwardly, not realising how unintentionally intimate the gesture had been. He'd been a lot more reliant on his hands since arriving, even the way he stroked the walls could seem unintentionally intimate.

"'Back in the facility'? Wha- How do I get people back there safely?" That was obviously Matt's priority. Did Nat know something the rest of them didn't? Maybe she'd been here longer or who knows - maybe she'd even been here before.

"I'm working to find a way out."

That was all she said when she dumped her flask into the water once more. She'd have to bring Maria here. Make some make-shift containers, drag it back so they wouldn't have to use all the iodine tablets. She had another thought and flicked her utility knife out of its protective casing and began to cut some of the fabric from the sheets. As long a strips as she could get. Then she went to the shelves. They were mostly picked clean, it seemed, but there was a can stuck under a rusted metal tin. A can of peaches. That'd help.

"When I find it, I'm coming back for you. And Freddie. And probably the dwarf too."

This was probably going to play out more like Lord of the Flies than Lord of the Rings, but Matthew wasn't going to try and talk her out of saving the fellowship or persuade her to go with whatever stragglers she had following her at the time. If he was half the man he used to be, he'd have done the same thing. He'd have scoured every inch of the arena looking for everyone, even the crazy lady who attacked him, and made sure she got out too.

"...thank you." Unseeing eyes fell to the space between them and he blinked slowly, breathing a sigh. "I hope you make it." Her more so than anyone else here, selfish though the thought might have been.