they reminisce over you

❛  i guess danny hasn’t filled you in on everything that’s happened since you were gone.  ❜    he can feel the eyes of the bodyguards stationed at the door ------ he doesn’t need them and likes them even less,  especially the company of suga,  and he instructs them with a wave to shut the door behind them to leave the two of them alone.  a long, heavy exhale that luke had no idea he’d been holding in escapes,  and he leans against the plush leather of the desk chair when he looks at matt.  he hasn’t seen danny, jessica, or colleen in weeks or more ------ misty, he sees often enough but she has a special chip in her shoulder about harlem’s paradise and he doesn’t blame her,  but he had to take power and protect harlem before someone worse did.  even at the risk of his own soul.  he thinks matt would get it.

he crosses over to the other side where matt stands, guiding him with a hand on his shoulder,  gentle despite the strength that courses through him

matt’s voice is quiet,  not quite soft but a little more over the din.   ❛    survival is heroic.  even if it’s accidental.   saving your friend was heroic.  even if it had horrible consequences.    ❜

he won’t let her think otherwise, even if pain has become a comfort to her, a shroud that keeps her in habit and doesn’t need to let it bleed out into the few chances she lets herself be herself.  jessica jones is a goddamn hero,  she just doesn’t want to be.   he can respect that. 

he shifts up,  blood drips onto the black shirt.     ❛    suit’s gone.  suit maker’s not in business, anymore, so i’m good with the muay thai ropes.  or i’m as good as i can be, for now.    ❜

he licks his lips.   the bitter taste of what dex did still lingers.       ❛    did you think it was me?    ❜

jessica lets out a long exhale,  leaning back on her arm of the couch to put a little distance between them physically too.  she’s not ready for that,  to be open like that,  close like that,  even if it had only taken mere days to become friends before matt got himself fucking killed and up and left.

but he’s here, now.  and she’s tentative about it,  even with the humor in his tone.

“ oh, shit -- ”  registers him bleeding now and feels even worse about punching him,  reaching to grab her first aid kit she keeps under the coffee table.   “ y’know,  next time you die and come back or whatever,  you should call me first so i don’t do this. ”

she pauses, taking the bag of vegetables to press against his nose because he won’t,  and shakes her head.

   “ just so you know ---- you stick out like a sore thumb in any room you’re in. ”  realizes that sounds ---- wrong,  and not at all in the tone that she intended despite her flat effect,  so she shakes her head and waves the bartender over for another cola. “ that being said,  never expected to see you in hell’s kitchen of all places.  thought you were more brooklyn.”  

karen made a blog as soon as she moved to hell’s kitchen.  she ran her school’s newspaper and interned at a local paper in fagan corners before moving, but her blog was the first place she delved into her own work. after the situation with union allied, she worked with ben urich to write his article and her own blog post, which made her blog go viral. 

her work on her blog apart from her work at nelson and murdock grew quickly in popularity as she continued to post small stories about the goings on in hell’s kitchen and eventually in the five boroughs. she appeared a few times on a local radio station as a guest host until she was offered her own show after quitting nelson and murdock and posting her story on frank castle on her blog.

worth noting that she never has worked for the bulletin and ben urich is still alive, because that whole plot of her just up and replacing a 40-year veteran on the paper as a white woman with no fucking qualifications? bad.

she still helps frank with finding micro’s name, but she and frank do not have the same relationship they do in canon. karen cares about frank, but she’s terrified and disgusted by what he does. still, she can’t help but hope for some kind of redemption for him, but doesn’t expect anything from her. her appearance in tps s2 never happened. they’re friends, but she has other priorities in her life besides frank castle and is not in love with him. 

karen and matt are currently... friends. kind of. it’s complicated, but none of the karen/matt/elektra love triangle happened because they realized they would never work as a couple because she’s far too manipulative and controlling and he compartmentalizes so much.  they grew apart when nelson and murdock did but she, foggy, and matt are slowly working on rebuilding their friendship.

  ‘ it has not been my night, bill. that’s all i gotta say about it.  for now. ’  even with the edges of his vision clouding up from drowsiness, curtis holds billy in warm regard. tonight’s overtime leaves him showing up an hour late to their barbecue and beer night they’d decided upon together.  the rain makes the frayed nerve endings of his leg ache,  protest against the sensation of his prosthetic after all day of keeping it on with no breaks,  so he ambles carefully to the seat in the booth beside billy. 

today could’ve been better,  but it won’t stop him from enjoying this time at least.  as if on cue,  their waitress comes to take his order too,  and he takes a long sip at his beer before exhaling in pleasure, closing his eyes to savor the taste before opening them to take billy in,  hair shining from pomade and all the sharp angles of his features pronounced under the fluorescent lights of the pub. 

curt clears his throat,  offering a small smile as he pats billy’s palm,  affectionate and fond as he is whenever they get a chance to meet up these days in the ebb and flow of their civilian lives.  his civilian life,  anyway. 

‘ i appreciate you waiting up for me.  guess i’m a shitty date for showing up so late with only a vague text’s notice, huh ? ’

‘ well,  whoever he is,  that asshole got you pretty deep. ’  claire shakes her head, looking over the cut.  first priority is to get it to stop bleeding so she can clean it properly,  but she knows it’ll need sutures from the look of it.  must hurt how badly it looks, too.  her gaze flicks from the wound to helena as she rubs hand sanitizer into her palms,  stretching rubber gloves over her fingers.

‘ i’m glad you’re okay. ’ unfazed because this is what she does,  apparently,  takes care of people who don’t care about getting maimed as long as they’re protecting other people.  even at the cost of their lives because they’re so bullheaded —- claire arches a brow. 

 ‘ though i’m curious —- is this a case of i don’t want to see the other guy ?  ‘cause i’d actually like to see that. ’

jessica’s anger filled her like a livewire, he had no chance to brace before it was sending him, sprawling, across a hallway.    he’d felt the blood before he could smell it,  which told him enough.  pain sears as someone helps him to his feet. hauls him over a threshold and dumps him to the couch.   he’d barely gotten to hello.  matt reaches for the compress before throwing back the whiskey. 

❛   s’fine.   i’d have the same reaction.  ❜     he thought she might have seen on the news and been prepared but, apparently, not.      ❛   not a lot of people really make it out of an explosion or a car wreck,  you’ve done all that.   ❜

   ‘ you know that’s not the same, ’   jessica says quickly, feeling vulnerable under the scrutiny and because she can’t fathom to compare any of the shit she’s caused on any level to matt dying for them.  almost dying,  anyway.   that’s not heroic.  none of that shit was heroic.  she exhales,  fiddling with the bottle of jack daniels between her palms,  and looks at him and his black eyes.  not a figment of her imagination,  not something her fucked up head thought up to hurt her.  palpable.  real.  

she exhales, heavily.    ‘ i saw the news, about the fake daredevil. i’d thought the masked man was a copy cat or something.  i thought page and nelson were being too optimistic,  naively hopeful,  but i guess people do just come back from the dead all the time in this city, right ? ’ 

a beat as she looks at the fire escape and swigs from the bottle, its contents swishing loudly within as she takes a long gulp.  it burns as it goes down.