#matt.

They move furtively, steady footsteps against the asphalt with their destination only metres away but Matt's mind had been anchored elsewhere since they’d left wammy’s house. It wasn’t often he was chosen for a task, graciously over-shadowed by the brilliance of each of his competitors. Which made this imperative━ there would be as much to discuss should they fail as there would be should they succeed. Suddenly Matt’s head snaps around, wide eyes rimmed by the thick bands of his goggles. He was searching Tobias’s expression for something but coming up empty-handed. Ghosts━ he said it with certainty, as if they’d leave this abandoned library with a haunting of their own. It sent a shudder crawling up his spine, settling beneath his skin like writhing insects. The longer he let the silence sit between them the more he was convinced that he was telling the truth. If there were ghosts here, listlessly wandering between the antiquated innards of the chapel, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with them. 

❝No. No.❞

That’s him all moments, every day. The only time he feels anything is when he’s trying to re-break Frank’s nose, when the damage he’s toeing is irreversible, when on the ugly breathless brink of his rage. And when she’s looking at him like he’s some thing to be cradled.

Not like Claire’s analytic pity. And Elektra—

The credit Karen’s giving him is for herself, so she can go on looking at him at all. Yeah? Isn’t that exactly why she left him here?

His head laugh filters through softness. His nasal cartilage is still bloated.

Not much different from rehashing a circular argument with Heather, he bites, ❝Poindexter survived by accident.❞

No intention of God’s. That was the only saving grace that let him sleep the month after: that he’d tried. On the days he’d wake up even mildly rested, he knew he’d dreamed lushly, a reality where the yolk of Poindexter’s brain had drizzled the curb to be washed away the next morning by Fisk’s cleaning crew, the poetry.

Karen’s pulse points throw off tonka bean in the cadence of her bloodflow. It pins him to a snapshot of the past, her and him and Foggy, so real it makes him sick. One of her hundred-per-day loosened hairs lands over his knuckles. His upper lip reacts to the stimulus as to a tickle.

" --- i was starting to think you were avoiding me. "

strange place to meet. far from anywhere the haus owns, further from the usual haunts of their few mutual friends. he's gotten them a booth way at the back of the shitty dive bar, dimly lit, away from prying eyes. if she wasn't hesitant to meet, she should be now.

" --- sorry to drag you so far outta the city, but i wanted'a make sure we could talk. sit -- want a drink? "