goddamndumbassâ:
It wasnât an accusation. Or a judgement. It wasnât a plea or an order. It was just⌠something he knew. Something he knew about her, something she let him know, and was glad he knew. âYou canât change the past though,â she replied softly. âBlessing and a curse, I guess.â She shook her head, her hand squeezing his. âMaybe⌠unpredictable can be a good thing. Sometimes,â she added quickly. Because there were some things you just wanted to be solid. The ground beneath your feet. The glass in your hand.Â
The person walking beside you.Â
She let out a laugh at that, small and scoffing. âYeah well, we knew that much,â she said, squeezing his hand again. She took a breath at his words, nodding her head before she remembered to speak. âI know,â she said. âIâve got an occupied uterus thatâs a product of that very thing.â She resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. âSheâs helped me out. A lot, actually. And thatâs after I told her to go screw herself the first time we met, so⌠I guess I owe it to her.âÂ
Another whole walking beside him. âI can understand that,â she whispered.Â
Stirling had used her for her abilities. Kilgrave had dressed her up and traipsed her around like a doll. What she had with Luke had been built on lies, and with Oscar there had been something missing between them. Gelden had used her as a shield and gotten her stabbed in the spleen. Every one of them had taken from her, or asked her to be something she couldnât, treated her like a missing puzzle piece they could slot into their life. Even with Tony, she had been a square peg trying to fit in a round hole, the wrong shape and size for what he really needed.Â
But when she walked next to Matt, she walked as another whole. Exactly as she was. All her sins and mistakes on display, her heartbeat pounding in his ears, the shape of her scars under his fingertips. âCheesy,â she whispered, but she was smiling as his lips brushed against her cheeks. And maybe it was stupid, but she couldnât blame this feeling on alcohol and she doubted it was just hormones. This⌠This was solid. She felt him under her, when she put her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. Kissing him properly.Â
///
Matt never tried to change the past. Godâs will was Godâs will â if heâd picked up anything in Sunday school, it was that everything happened for a reason. His blindness gave him the ability to hear the city in ways no one else ever could. His fatherâs death led him to Stick, which allowed him to become Daredevil. The wounds that heâd sustained on the street meant that he could protect people. Elektraâs death âŚ
For a long time, he didnât know what Elektraâs death allowed. All he knew was that he looked at the world without her being part of it as lesser than. He felt only outlines of people. No one burst forth, no one made him feel something anymore. Music didnât move him the same. The streets werenât as loud, the traffic didnât bustle. There was nothing to look forward to, nothing to care about, and thenâ
Jessica.
She appeared and he laughed. She burst into his life and he brought her into his home, took off the mask, talked about his father in ways he hadnât for years. She refused to let him go without being pushed, she went to his grave every damn day and left him mementos that she had to have been convinced were picked up and thrown out by the caretakers but she did it anyway, because Jessica Jones never knew how to quit. âI donât mind predictable either,â he said, because thatâs what she had become. Predictable. He could walk into her place, could sink into her couch, could lean against her side, listen to her heart beat, and he knew that his own would smooth out beside it.
His feelings for her hadnât been a secret. He never intended them to be. Matt always revealed his heart on his sleeve, letting it get him into trouble, because it was a special kind of self harm to love someone and know theyâd never love you back. But this wasnât love. This wasnât the moment he flung himself in front of a sai, or held her bleeding out on a rooftop.
This was a beginning. A new beginning. Starting over, with the brush of her lips against his, then even more firmly. He hummed against her mouth, hands going to her waist before one moved to tuck her hair behind her ear. He pulled back, just a breath away, his lips ghosting hers as he spoke. âWhat was that for?â he whispered.


















