Darcy is only half listening to you. JSYK. (halflistening) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2017-10-10 01:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel: mcu: darcy lewis, marvel: mcu: matt murdock |
Who: Matt and Darcy
When: 10/09/17
Where: Alfa
What: An attempted reconciliation.
Rating: PG-13, language.
Darcy wasn’t someone who held a grudge normally, but these were extenuating circumstances. She kept mostly to herself. If she did talk, it was usually to Phasma. Out of everyone in the completely closed off ward, Phasma had shown herself to be the only person who was completely honest with her about who they were. She might not always be a good person, she might not always make the best decisions, but Phasma had shown that she cared whether or not Darcy lived or died. And that meant a lot to Darcy. Friends were seemingly few and far between. There was only so far she could let hurt feelings go, though. She was a caring person at heart and even though she was still stinging terribly from all the barbs he’d flung her way, she couldn’t stand to watch the way Matt seemed to be punishing himself. Her pride demanded she not spare him a single glance, but her bleeding heart won more often than not. Each glance lingered a moment too long, letting her pick out all the changes since the time they’d spent together in the cavern. He looked sharpened, not like a knife but like the little soldier from this movie she’d seen on a flight, Kubo and the Two Strings, moving but all angles. She didn’t want to worry about him, but she did. Darcy picked at her sandwich when dinner was served on the ward, eying the cup of soup she was given. Something like that would be easier for Matt to digest after so long without. So when she’d finished her sandwich and fruit, she picked up her cup of soup and headed to the ward Matt was staying in. Matt was sitting alone in the corner, head resting against the wall with a small bottle of water dangling between his fingers. He seemed distant since he showed up at Alpha. Alert, but distant. Maybe the overly chatty blind man who'd been robbed of his senses when he was unceremoniously flung into the arena wasn't what he was normally like. It had taken him some time to dull the sensitivity of his reacquired senses, so that clothes didn't chafe and and the lights overhead didn't feel like they were burning holes into his skin. Heartbeats sounded less like offbeat drums and the hospital grade bleach stopped crawling up his nose making his eyes water. It was good, getting it all back. Better than the total darkness before. It did mean that he knew she was coming long before she was even in his vicinity. His vacant eyes with dark rings underneath them were as expressive as they had been when she first met him. Hiding that came entirely from the glasses, and had nothing to do with his red-tinged radar. He lifted his heavy head and blinked slowly, jaw shifting uneasily as he heard her footsteps shuffling closer and closer - left, right, left, right. The way his thumb rubbed the bottle cap stopped mid-motion. They could be in Alpha with less than two dozen people or they could be standing in Central Park waiting for the ball to drop - he could single her out in any crowd. Briefly he contemplated moving, but it required too much effort. And for someone who's been preaching for her to not run away - well, he could try listening to himself for once and lead by example. Frankly, Darcy wasn’t ready for a fight. She wasn’t ready for a fight at all… But with all the fights she’d ever been in, she hadn’t been ready for them either, so at least that part of her life hadn’t changed. The difference was that this was a fight that needed to happen. If Matt didn’t start eating again soon, things would really start to go downhill and honestly? She couldn’t sit back and watch someone who she cared about starve themselves. She just couldn’t. She didn’t have it in her to sit back and let things happen without at least trying to help. Fuck, this was going to be awkward as shit. So she cleared her throat softly when she stopped a few feet away from where he was sitting, the cup of soup steaming softly in her hands. “Hi.” The closer she got, the more tense he became. They were a world away from the far-from-dulcet tones of Freddie Mercury and Janis Joplin. Here was the real world, cold and harsh in its stark presentation of the facts. The facts being that some of the things that transpired in the arena had been a mistake. Matt took a deep breath and forced himself to relax, swallowing the lump in his throat when she stood before him expecting- well, he didn't know what she was expecting. But all the fight had left his system as the sodium in her soup left his tongue feeling dry. "Hey." No yelling. No jumping to his feet. No condescension. No accusations flung wildly between them. Just exhaustion, with a healthy dose of bitterness. "How're you feeling?" What do you care? She bit it back, but damn did she want to ask that question. He’d made it very, very apparent to her that he didn’t really care one way or the other how she felt about anything, so why even bother asking the question? But Darcy already knew the answer to that. It was because such pleasantries were expected in polite society. Politeness wasn’t her specialty, but she could swing it. When she had to. “I’m-” Darcy shook her head slightly, even though she knew he wouldn’t see it. She was tired and hungry and tense and bored. She craved any sort of stimuli that might alleviate the monotony of life in this place,but there was really nothing to be found. “I’m fine.” It was a lie, of course, but it was the answer that polite society expected from her. No one ever really wanted to know how you were when they asked that question. “When was the last time you ate, Matt?” He heard ‘what do you care’ loud and clear. It was in the way her grip tightened around the handle of her cup of soup for half a second. That fleeting expression of her left eyebrow furrowing and the way she half-wrinkled her nose. He had a dictionary full of these little details that told him exactly how people were feeling with every little gesture they let loose on him. His lips flattened into a thin line. He thought this was what she wanted - this whole ‘how are you?’ ‘I’m fine, thanks’ ‘oh good, how was your day’ nonsense. After all wasn’t she expecting him to check in on her and- what, they were both going to pretend everything was fine? If she’d met him outside of the arena, she’d probably find him not worth the effort to try and communicate with. It was always rather one-sided, with him gleaning all the words she was going to say and giving back little in return. Still, he made a concerted effort to give her something she could work with. ’I miss our late night little talks.’ He could just say it. It wasn’t a lie, and maybe this would be easier if it started out with a confession. His lips parted, and the words turned to dust on his tongue. “Whatever you gave me, before I-...” Died. Vanished. Disappeared. Who knows? “How’s the soup?” Darcy’s shoulders sagged when he admitted how long it had been. It was heartbreaking, hearing that, and she had to take a moment to collect herself before she could reply with anything that wasn’t an unintelligible noise that sounded something like a whimper. “I haven’t tried it,” she confessed, releasing her grip on it long enough to wipe at the moisture that was collecting in the lashes of one eye. “I- um, I brought it for you.” She knew she probably wouldn’t get a straight answer, if she got an answer at all, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t at least try. “There’s plenty of of food now. Why aren’t you eating?” Disappointment. Or- well. He wasn’t sure what that was. His intuition tended not to work so well when he was malnourished and tired. Her offer had him raising an eyebrow and tilting his head up towards her. The smell of it made his stomach churn. But it was her kindness, even after everything he’d said, how he treated her, how he belittled instead of validating her experiences that humbled him. He could have told her he wasn’t hungry. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was sure that they’d had this conversation before. Maybe they hadn’t. He wasn’t so sure of anything anymore. “I don’t want to eat,” was what he ended up saying. It betrayed his steadfast silence. Let on the fact that there was a lot on his mind. Things she’d wanted him to talk about that he never said when he stopped talking to her. Not couldn't eat, not wasn't hungry. Matt said he didn't want to eat. After some of the nasty ass mushrooms they'd made meals of, she kind of didn't blame him for that but it had been so many days, a week at least, and their last meal together hadn't been much more than bread that he had barely touched. “You need to eat something,” she said quietly, trying hard to keep the begging tone from her words even if she knew she wouldn't be entirely successful. It should have been easy, cajoling someone to do what she wanted, because it wasn't any different than with Jane. “You're going to get sick if you don't, and you're starting to look… pinched.” “I don’t-” he started, raising his voice a little, but then he bit down on his lip and breathed in a deep, slow sigh. He’s already snapped at her before. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of this. “Sorry,” he muttered softly. “I don’t want to fight.” He had plenty of fight left in him despite his current state, but no real feasible outlet for it. “You… you know you don’t need to take care of me.” Well, clearly she did, but she knew what he meant. She was waiting for the verbal blows. She was ready for them this time. When his voice started to raise, Darcy was even proud of herself for barely flinching before she straightened her shoulders, ready to face off again. But then he stopped, cut himself off before she had a chance to say anything at all, and looked a little like a deflated balloon. “I don’t want to fight either.” She sighed then, looking at anything but him. “I know. But I made a promise. We both did. That we were going to have eachother’s backs until we were out of this situation and we’re still in it, so…” She moved to place the mug on the table/night stand beside him, but didn’t offer any of the familiar touches she might have when they were in the cave, so he knew where she was and that she was there to help at all times. “Just eat the damn soup.” They were still in it. He recognised that they weren’t technically out of the situation, but he hadn’t really thought of being in this strange sort of purgatory to be the same as what they were facing in the arena. Maybe it was. Maybe he was foolish in thinking that this was just a brief little stint in a waiting room before they were going to be transported somewhere else. “...yes ma’am.” There was that half-smile, a fleeting shadow compared to the full array of smiles she knew he was capable of in the bunker and caves. He left his bottle of water on the table and reached for the soup without turning his head, opening his hand and curling it around the cup as if he seemed to know exactly where it was. It was bound to raise some questions - whether he was really blind, whether he was just faking it, how much he was swindling in benefits, what did he get out of lying to people about his disability; he’s heard it all before and didn’t seem to care at this point - but when the callouses on his fingers touched the cup he hissed and pulled his hand away a few inches, curling his fingers into a loose fist. Of course he knew it was going to be hot but he was still re-acquiring his permanent damper that wouldn’t make touching a cup of soup feel like sticking his hand into an open flame. He curled and uncurled his hand, turning it over and flexing it before making a second attempt at picking it up. When the first taste of soup hit his tongue, that expression on Matthew’s face looked suspiciously like a grimace. It really was like pulling teeth, trying to get him to even get liquid food in. Darcy smiled and relaxed even more when Matt didn't yell or fight about the soup. It was a start, that little half-size he gave, but she’d take it. It was better than an argument, way better than radio silence. She would just have to watch jersey carefully, keep those smothering tendencies under careful lock and key. That way there would be nothing more to fight about and maybe things could go back to their version of normal. There was no missing the little grimace on his face when he took that first sip. “Is it too hot?” “Tastes like chemicals.” Yeah, he was a bit of a food snob. He couldn’t help but be a little bit fussy when he could taste the random number generator of artificial flavourings and other synthetic ingredients. He could feel it warm in the pit of his stomach and a part of him felt nauseous after going for days without, but he managed to hold it down. Setting the cup in his lap, tentatively wrapping his other hand beneath it, he licked his lips and lifted his head again, listening out for her. “About what happened. When we were in there…” He lowered his head again and turned away, looking a little despondent. Darcy winced and managed a half-hearted shrug. “Sorry.” She only had so much to work with here, and of course they were being given chemical and preservative filled slop, but he was eating. Sort of. It wasn’t much of a win, but she’d take it. A lot happened when they were in there, and part of her wanted to insist he be a little more specific, but he looked so… Not upset, not depressed. Conflicted, maybe? She’d go with conflicted. And she wanted to reassure him that it was okay, that what happened in the cave stayed in the cave and she knew that he had a girlfriend, so it was a non-issue to her, but that would mean interrupting him and she didn’t want to do that. Catch-22. So she settled on backing away just far enough to lean against one of the hospital beds, hugging herself with her arms for lack of anything better to do with them now that her hands were free. “Yes?” He just shook his head and managed half a shrug, wayward strands of dark hair falling over his eyes. He’d made some poor attempt at grooming himself since coming back, but he clearly hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to be half the man he used to be. A lot of his time since going into the arena had been spent brooding, reflecting - well, in between the short bursts of panic and mayhem - and until some semblance of normalcy (whatever that was supposed to entail now) came back he’d probably continue on his current trajectory, a slow, aimless spiral downwards into the pit of blackness beneath. He seemed even more distracted here than he had been in the cave, taking a quiet sip of the soup, as if he was weighing his words the way the good old lawyer would have before speaking. Maybe there was just a lot going on in the periphery that he was sifting through, or trying to block out. “I’m sorry, about how you died.” There was a certain unusual sort of frankness in his voice, quiet and low enough to crackle hoarsely. “If I could have spared you or- saved you from that, I would have.” This wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say - a blind man should be the last person she would expect around here to be dispensing cheap sentiments - but it was easier to start with something that was personal enough to graze the surface without cutting in too deep. Darcy hadn’t been expecting that… But maybe she should have. Matt had clearly shown the sort of man he was, in all their conversations, in everything they’d done together, and that sort of man was a martyr. He would absolutely sacrifice himself for others. In truth, Darcy admired that about him, quite a bit. She wished she had that sort of drive. “I’m sorry, too,” she said after a moment. “When I was in the fallout shelter, filling our canteens? There was this calendar on the wall. And, um… it had illustrations on it. Of how everyone up to that day had died.” She sniffled, wishing the memory of that awful day didn’t bring her to tears, but it did. “As soon as I saw your face on there, I ran back to try to stop it from happening but I was too late.” She shook her head, letting her hair hide her face for a moment. “I shouldn’t have- We should have gone together.” “There’s a lot of things we should and shouldn’t have done together.” There, he’s said it. Or at least skimmed the surface. Clearly it wouldn’t be too easy finding the other words to say. He sighed and tilted his head back, leaning against the wall. It wasn’t worth thinking about how things would have been different if he’d gone in there with his senses intact. Maybe the end result would have been different, but he doubted that they wouldn’t have just remade a lot of the decisions they’d made in the heat of the moment. “It felt like a dream. It was all… black.” That probably didn’t make sense to her. On the few occasions that Matthew did dream it wasn’t just bumping around in the dark. But he couldn’t remember the last time he slept well enough to actually dream. “Things are different now.” Half-lidded sightless eyes dropped from the ceiling to the floor. “I’d like to think we’d be better at protecting each other here. But it seems like we’ll just be hurting each other all over again.” Darcy wasn’t a super genius, like the people that she typically hung around, but that didn’t mean she was completely oblivious to the things that happened around her. So she’d picked up pretty quickly that Matt wasn’t all that he appeared to be. She didn’t know what else he was, but she knew that there was something. And when they were all taken away from the compound and dumped into that cave system, whatever it was that he had that made him so confident in how he moved and reacted to the world around him, like when he was teaching her to suture… that had been taken away from him. So it kind of made sense that everything wouldn’t have seemed real to him. “What makes you think that?” Because one argument, even if someone was a complete asshole in it (and, to be fair, she had been a whiny brat during it as well) didn’t necessarily signal the end of the whole affair to her. “Because I meant what I said the other day. If it’s the kissing thing, you don’t have to worry. I know you have a girlfriend. What happened in the cave stays in the cave.” "No, I don't-" Talking about what happened in the cave, even though in the grand scheme of things it wasn't much of anything, clearly made him agitated. He set the cup aside before he burnt himself or her with it and rubbed his hands down his thighs. Instead of lashing out at her, he made a pained face and clammed right up again, clenching his teeth and ducking his head, gripping the edge of his makeshift seat. "You don't even mean that when you say it. Nothing happened, okay? It was nothing." He didn't even have a gir- well, he didn't know what she thought of him. Possibly not much, given that she'd probably seen everything. Matthew couldn't hold his own when he was properly blind. He was of no use to anybody. “Ouch.” It might have been only a couple of kisses and some spooning when they got cold, but still. Darcy wouldn’t have called it nothing. "What do you want from me?" he bit back, like a bad little spoon. The fight was coming back to him, settling uneasily in his shoulders. It made his grip tighten until the rough callouses over his knuckles went white. She seemed like a nice person. She didn't deserve everything that had happened to her over the past two weeks. But what did she expect him to say? 'No, actually, our trauma-bonding was a fantastic experience, I think we should continue what we started'? "You're reading into what happened like it was real, like you and I- like there's even a 'you and I'. This is real. This is who I am. I'm not some handicapped little boy who needs your pity or your handouts. I'm not a- some kind of button you press to start conversations with like a goddamned Pez dispenser. What do you want from me? Do you want me on my knees saying I'm sorry? Should I take you out on a date? Or do you just want a one-night stand? Some sort of validation for your misguided feelings?" Matt wasn’t the only one getting his fight back. “Okay, hold on. Let’s back the fuck up for a second here, buddy.” Darcy pushed herself off the bed, her hands immediately going to her hips. She kept her voice a steady volume. Not everyone in the ward needed to know they were fighting. “First of all, the only thing I want from you is for you to get a damned grip. Telling you that I don’t expect a damned thing from you does not mean the exact opposite. Maybe you’re used to people lying to you all the time or something, but that’s not me. I don’t say anything I don’t mean because it’s a waste of time for everyone involved.” She didn’t expect him to believe her, but it was out there and was the absolute truth. It was one of the things that made her a horrible poker player. “And secondly, my feelings are fine. You are the one who doesn’t want to talk about it other than to deny that anything even happened. I am at least trying to be an adult here so we are on the same page. How much more absolution do you want from me? Would you feel better if I slapped you for it? If I called you a monster or something for what happened?” This entire situation was just ridiculous. She sighed heavily and shook her head, looking away. She was already fed up with all of this and it was guaranteed to just get worse. Especially with what she had to say next. “... Maybe I’m not the one who has some feelings about the situation that they need to deal with.” This was partly (or mostly) why he didn't want to talk. They were just going in circles. He could tell when she was lying - to his face, even. She couldn't very well tell him that she didn't expect anything from him and then throw a shitfit about him dismissing the entire episode and all those feelings that at the time had been painfully intense as nothing. And maybe he wasn't being completely honest, either. But he didn't insist on dragging her into his mess. Not like how she kept coming back to play with fire. "'Nothing happened' is how I feel about it. We don't need each other anymore. I don't know what part of that isn't clear." “Oh my god,” she said, staring at him. It finally sunk in that he thought she pitied him. That he wasn’t listening when she told him exactly what she thought because he didn’t believe her. He might as well be calling her a liar right to her face. “You are the most infuriatingly stupid smart person I have ever met. And I work with physicists.” She shook her head and started to back away. “I’m sorry I tried to be your friend. Don’t worry. Message received loud and clear this time. I won’t try again.” Yeah. That sounded about right. He blinked slowly, suddenly letting on how tired he was feeling with all this back and forth that was full of noise but no substance - tired more so than irritated - and didn't appear to take any notice when she was leaving. A wave of anxiety reared its ugly head as he felt a pang of the mixed bag of jumbled emotions that came with when Claire, Foggy, Karen, and even Elektra walked away from him, but he bit his lip and said nothing. He had convinced himself it was better this way, and nothing's really happened since to change his mind. If he said something now he'd only hurt her even more when the time came to cut her loose to keep her safe. Reaching back to pick up the cup of hot chemicals, he ignored the feel of the burn and cradled the cup in his lap quietly, dull eyes staring blankly through the soup. Darcy watched for another moment before she turned away, sniffing softly and wiping at her eyes. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe she wasn’t as unaffected by the time they’d spent together as she claimed. Maybe she did have some feelings that she needed to deal with… She spared him one last glance over her shoulder before she walked away. Whatever the truth was, it was a moot point. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. She might not be a genius, but she did learn eventually. Maybe it wasn’t her intention to guilt him or make him feel like he was a worse person than he already was, but that didn’t stop him from wrapping his senses around her and hesitating with his soup hovering in mid-air. The soup that she’d procured for him, gave to him as a peace offering and - yes, he’d gone and done it again. Setting the mostly unfinished cup aside, he got to his unsteady feet and quietly padded after her. He grabbed her upper arm when he caught up to her and squeezed a little too hard, refusing to let go until she turned around. Darcy tried to yank her arm free, struggling with his grip for a moment before she turned around to face him. She didn’t know what he wanted. She didn’t know what there was left to say, either. He’d been very clear about his feelings, or lack thereof, so she intended to give him exactly what he said he wanted- for her to leave him the hell alone. So she didn’t say a word when she turned, just waited for him to say whatever it was he felt he needed to say. Half a dozen things came to mind. Obvious observations, like ‘you’re upset’. Confessions, apologies, musings - the words swirled around in his head like a half-written closing statement that he was making up as he went along. Letting go of her arm, his hand still hot from the soup left a reddened mark on her skin. One that would fade in a matter of minutes, like the bitterness of this conversation. “Thank you.” It was weak, but it was all Matt Murdock could manage. She was right - he could afford to have a few friends that he wasn’t going to drive away - but she seemed nice and, dare he think it, almost too ordinary to get involved with the Devil from Hell’s Kitchen. ‘Thanks but no thanks’ was what he really meant. But she got the picture. He could almost feel that sinking feeling in her stomach that she was feeling, as if it was a palpable weight pulling down inside her. Darcy had already said everything she was going to say in the conversation, so his half-hearted, half-assed apology- for what she wasn’t even sure- went unacknowledged. What did he expect her to say? ‘It’s fine you’re kind of an asshole’? ‘Thanks for the completely inadequate sentiment’? No, she had more self-respect than that. So she turned back around and headed back to her ward. She’d tried. That’s all a person could do. |