log: matt + felicia WHO: Matt Murdock + Felicia Hardy WHEN: Morning, December 10 WHERE: Matt's temporary housing before he moves back in with Foggy WHAT: Matt wakes up with a mind full of new memories and isn't sure what to feel about any of it. Felicia knows what she feels, and that feeling is pissed off. (It opens with a scene taken directly from DD v4 #18, because it's beautiful so I just ... took it word for word, sorry not sorry XD) WARNINGS: N/A. (Spoilers for the end of Daredevil volume 4, but who cares because Marvel just OMD/BND'd it all anyway XD)
_________________
"After you."
Matt waited for Kirsten and Foggy to leave. He took a step to follow, then another, and then he closed the door instead.
Three, two, one…
Kirsten opened the door back up and barged back into the room.
"Matty, what the hell?" Foggy asked.
"Counselor, what's wrong?" Kirsten was teasing him, he knew it. He could hear it in her voice, she was amused. "Don't tell me you've got cold feet all of a sudden. Hey, Matt Murdock is the man without fea—"
Matt rounded on her. "That's crap! Stop saying that!"
His fingertips felt out the nearby chair and he sank down into it, resting his head in his hands. He couldn't. He couldn't do this.
Kirsten's heart skipped a beat with surprise. "Going out in public and telling the truth has been your entire P. R. platform since the day I met you! Spilling secrets! Removing the mask! Writing a book! Now all of a sudden, being honest has you scared? Now?"
Matt sighed and pushed him back up again. "I was never being honest except on my terms. I was being defiant! This is the secret to being 'fearless', okay? You attack a problem before it can attack you. Outing myself that hard and that thoroughly wasn't an act of integrity. It was an act of recklessness. It was an attempt to out-clever everyone, to take my secrets out of the mix before they could be used against me. That's all. And it backfired. That was my ammo. That was our protection. Now what do we have to shield us? Every day standing next to me is a gamble! Who am I to be so arrogant as to believe I can always save you?"
Silence settled. Matt knew that Foggy and Kirsten were exchanging glances.
"Permission to cross-examine," said Foggy.
"No objection," said Kirsten.
Foggy leaned against the back of the chair that Matt had just vacated. "Listen to me. The horse. Is out. Of the barn. It's the twenty-first century. No one gets to hide safely behind a mask anymore. You tried to when you were first exposed. You 'saved' us, your friends, by doubling down and lying point-blank to a group of reporters just like the one outside, swearing you weren't who they knew you were — and I have never felt less safe in my life because you are my best friend and I did not like you when I saw the truth!"
Matt frowned. "Motion to strike —"
"Shut up."
Foggy started to fasten the top buttons of Matt's shirt, his usually clumsy fingers particularly adept for the task. "The truth is that you don't keep secrets to shield anyone but you. You think it's okay because you've convinced yourself that keeping secrets is a brave and noble act. Stop thinking that. It's not true.That's not your ammunition, Matty."
He straightened Matt's tie, tightening the Windsor knot. "When you were a kid, you got blinded just trying to help an old man across the street. That wasn't fair. Ever since then you've devoted your life to balancing those scales. To making the world a fairer place for everyone else despite the fact that it is a vast, random entity of incomprehensible power."
Matt's breath hitched, and Foggy wrapped an arm around his shoulders, squeezed the back of his neck to steady him. "You get up every morning and you fight against an unjust universe because you think you can make a dent. That is exactly the level of arrogance Kirsten and I will always trust to protect us."
He couldn't say anything else. Matt wrapped his arms around Foggy and tugged him close.
My name is Matt Murdock. I'm a fighter, a lawyer, and a friend of inconsistent quality. And boy, am I loved.
Whether I mean to or not, I tend to keep to the shadows. I always have. I also make a lot of bad decisions. Perhaps those two things aren't wholly unrelated. I can see that now. That the light is nothing to be afraid of. Not really.
I mean, I may not have eyes, but for the love of God … I'm not blind.
Matt woke up to warmth, safety. The thrumming of a familiar heartbeat and soft, smooth skin. His fingertips walked up her spine, brushed her hair, and Matt rolled over so he could lazily brush his mouth over her shoulder.
"You're right, so far," he mumbled. "World hasn't ended."
At some point in the night, Felicia had fallen asleep on her stomach, splayed out on the bed (Matt's bed) as if Matt was lucky to get any real estate. She groaned, woken up by his touch but in no way ready to actually be conscious. They'd had sex the night before -- more than once -- and she was still a little stiff in the hips from it.
Matt was still in that place between sleeping and waking, barely focused on any sense other than the nice feeling of his hand on Felicia's back. "Come on," he said, sliding his hand down to Felicia's ass and giving it a light smack. "World keeps turning, which means we still have to get up. Rise and shine, Kirsten."
He clearly wasn't too interested in actually getting up, because instead he rolled over away from her and stole the blanket. He buried his face against his pillow with a soft groan.
Felicia looked up like she'd stuck her hand in a socket. "Who the fuck is Kirsten?"
Matt blinked, rubbing at his eyes before running his hand back through his hair. The hell?
The room came into focus as his senses woke up. Underground. No windows. Sparse decor, an empty kind of echo. It was where he went to bed last night, but it wasn't.
Where was he last night?
He told Felicia he loved her in the heat of the moment, his arms wrapped around her while she rocked in his lap, his face buried against her shoulder and his fingers digging into her skin.
He told Kirsten he loved her and for the first time, had no regrets in doing so. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and told him he did good, that he was doing the right thing.
"I …" Felicia. He was definitely with Felicia. That was her heartbeat, pounding angrily. "Shit. Sorry. Dreaming."
"Who the fuck is Kirsten?" Felicia repeated, sitting up. "Who is Kirsten?" She was glad he was blind; when she was embarrassed, she blushed, and her skin was too light to make her look like anything but an angry tomato.
Matt held up his hands in surrender. "She's my girlfriend!" he exclaimed, before he realized that was, in fact, the worst thing that he could have said. "She … was my girlfriend." Last night, she was his girlfriend. Last night, Felicia was his girlfriend. Where the hell was he last night?
"What is wrong with you?" Felicia reacted like she'd been slapped in the face, scooting her way out of the bed. Matt had told her hours ago that he loved her, and now there was some bitch named Kirsten? (Kirsten sounded like a stupid name. What, did her parents misspell "Kristen" and were just too lazy to fix it?)
Matt ran his fingertips over the bed. Definitely rougher than the sheets he had at home in San Francisco, definitely not the bed he remembered drifting off in. It had all been a dream, but it felt so alarmingly real. The memories were fresh in his mind as if they'd happened hours ago.
"I …" He trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts. Two timelines were competing in his mind. "I was given more memories in my sleep," he said. "I don't know how they do it, but I suddenly have my head flooded with memories of San Francisco that I didn't have yesterday."
"Well, good for you." By then, Felicia was up and out of bed, searching around for the clothes she should have known weren't there. Everything was in the living room, so she stormed out to find her underwear.
"Damn it — Felicia."
Matt fumbled to grab the sheet, tugging it off the bed and wrapping it around his waist as he followed her out of the room. "I have a girlfriend, in San Francisco. Or … I did. I clearly don't now. I woke up thinking I was there, I thought you were her. I didn't know where I was."
Felicia snatched up her underwear and pulled it on, hitching it up with one hand while she grabbed at her bra with the other. "Good for you."
Matt sighed, slumping against the door frame and listening to her move. "Can you stop? I'm sorry."
"I need a shower, I'm going home." If anyone could contemptuously put on clothes, it was definitely Felicia.
"There's a shower in here," said Matt flatly. Please don't leave, please don't leave — "Felicia. Come on."
Part of him wondered if it wouldn't just be easier to let her walk out that door. Safer, even. After all, they'd intended on just keeping this fun, and both of them were getting too serious. They were both in this.
He could hear Foggy's voice in the back of his mind. You're self-sabotaging. You're not used to being this happy for this long, so you're instinctively fighting the unfamiliar. He'd said it about Kirsten the day after Matt told her he loved her and instantly regretted it.
"I want to shower in my actual room, where I'm not second choice to Kirsten," she snapped. It had been different when Matt was single at home, but Felicia was hyperaware now that she was some kind of exception in this pocket universe. If Matt ever disappeared, he'd go home to Kirsten and forget all about her.
Matt frowned. "You're not second choice," he said. "Did I say you were second choice?"
"You don't have to." Felicia pulled her shirt on over her head and went looking for her jacket, which was… somewhere. "I'm not stupid, Matt, you'd drop me the second she showed up here."
"How do you know that?" Matt asked.
"You didn't even recognize me when you woke up. I know my deal. I'm used to being a diversion between girlfriends." When she found her jacket, she tugged it on, missing the arm hole on her first go around and making a frustrated noise. "You can kiss ass all you want because she's not here and I am, but I know the universe sending me a message when I hear one."
Matt had been disoriented from having two competing timelines in his head. He wasn't allowed to be blamed for the confusion when he had two different "last nights" fighting for dominance in his head. "Not recognizing you has nothing to do with you being second choice," he said, just barely hanging on to his patience.
"You said you loved me and then four hours later you have new memories and a different girlfriend." She tried the sleeve again and finally got her arm through it, glad that he hadn't seen her fuck it up. "I'm not getting mixed up with someone who has feelings for someone else. Again. You can wait for Kirsten to show up, I'm going home."
Matt reached out and caught her arm. "Damn it, Felicia, I'm not Peter."
Felicia yanked out of his grip. "Stop it."
"Don't leave. Please."
"I don't want to be in the middle of this kind of thing again, and I'm not going to be the homewrecker who ruins whatever awesome thing you had at home if she shows up here," Felicia said defensively. She felt grungy, all dried sweat and morning breath, her hair sticking up in the back. "How am I supposed to trust that you're not just pining after her when you're with me?"
Matt sighed. "I don't know." A nagging voice was creeping back into his mind. This wasn't going to last. It's better if you let her go. He didn't have a good answer for her. He knew he loved her. He knew he loved Kirsten. The difference was that Kirsten wasn't here. This was his life now.
"Exactly." Felicia pre-emptively wiped at her nose, feeling a sniffle coming on.
It wasn't leaving so much as fleeing.
The sound of the slamming door rattled Matt's senses, and then there was silence.